I loved the way everyone circled the wagons to take care of Luz. That seemed to be the way they did things on The Hill, I thought, as I observed women coming in and out of the open front door, tag-teaming each other as watchdogs for those kids who had run outside to play. A toddler falls down? The closest pair of arms picks him up and kisses his boo-boo. Someone’s thirsty? Whoever hears the plea grabs the bottle. Everyone does what they can, what they know how to do, to help. It just seems to be who they are. They may not have the resources to keep kids in school, or the wherewithal to push them down a different path, or the courage to tell them to dare to be different, but if someone in the family needs a little help? There’s a whole army of folks out there who will have their backs before they can even send out an SOS. They did what they could.
“Denis,” I shouted above the din of the party, “I want to talk to you about something!”
“Uh-oh.”
“Oh, just be quiet, and hear me out!” I yelled. “I have an idea!”
“Double uh-oh.” He held up his pack of cigarettes and pointed to the door. I followed close behind.
“Okay,” I continued, “tell me. What is it that I do best?”
Denis held his lighter in midair. “Is this a trick question?”
“Seriously, what am I really, really good at?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Doing hair?”
“Exactly! And what is it that upsets me the most?”
“Um, when I watch TV and don’t listen to what you say?”
“Besides that.”
“When I go to Josi’s store in my pajamas?”
“Those aren’t pajamas. They’re underwear! No, I mean what is it that I see around here that makes me crazy, that makes me want to do something but I never know what?”
“I don’t know, the sewage in the street? Too much spandex?”
“It’s the girls! You know, like the flower girls, and the others on the streets. And not just them, it’s a lot of these girls, too.” I pointed back inside the house. “These girls need to know that they can be somebody, anybody, if they try hard enough. And then there are the others—the girls who have no family, or families that don’t care—the kids in orphanages and homes. You know how many of those there are around here. There are fund-raisers just about every night of the week.”
“So you’re going to do everybody’s hair?”
“Don’t be silly. Of course not.”
“You’re going to give everyone a job at Tippy Toes?”
“I’m practically doing that already.” In fact, Martha’s mother’s living room did look a little like a Tippy Toes company picnic that afternoon. It made me feel good that the salon was providing work for so many of my extended family. In my own way, I sort of had their backs. It’s what I could bring to the table. But I knew that I had the capability to do more, and with that came a responsibility to do more. And I had to do it in the way that I knew best.
“You’re not going to start a beauty school, are you?” Poor Denis had been habitually subjected to my tales of woe over the anguish of having to leave behind all I had built in Kabul, and had been a witness to my vows to never do anything like it again.
“Lord no,” I assured him. “But you’re close!” I took a deep breath. “I am going to figure out a way to send some of the girls down here to beauty school.” Denis raised his bushy white eyebrows. “No, really. It makes so much sense. If these girls knew a trade, they’d always have a way to support themselves, and their children when they have them. And everybody, everywhere, needs a hairdresser, right?” Denis nodded. “And even if they don’t stick with hairdressing, at least they’ll gain the confidence that comes with actually accomplishing something; at least they’ll know they have the capability to do more than sell flowers, or worse.”
Hearing my idea spoken out loud was a little scary, but my mind was already swimming with things I had to do to get the ball rolling. Poor Denis, I thought. He probably thought he was getting some chilled-out retiree to kick back with for his golden years, and here I was running a crazy business and starting a whole new project on top of it. But to his credit, and to my delight, his only response was to take my hand in his and say, “Go for it.”
“Pi-ña-ta! Pi-ña-ta! Pi-ña-ta!” The house behind us was suddenly filled with squeals of excitement, with kids leaping over each other for the chance to be first in line to whack the red and blue Spider-Man piñata (which looked about as much like Spider-Man as I did) strung up in effigy from a rope across the ceiling. Of course, the birthday boy went first, and after a few determined swings, the cardboard burst open, sending everyone scrambling on their bellies in a free-for-all. I’d seen full-grown adults, my Tippy Toes girls, in fact, practically kill each other over piñata spillage during a fiesta. They dived into the frenzy in their stilettos, pushed each other out of the way, and actually sat on their claimed treasure to keep anyone else from getting it. All this over a few cheap sweets.
“Those must be really good candies,” I said to Martha as she beamed at her son with pride.
“It is for good luck, Debbie.” She tucked one into my pocket and peered out the door. I followed her gaze to the darkening sky. “You should go now. It will be night soon.”
WHEN RENEE FIRST SHOWED UP at Tippy Toes, she looked like a little drowned pup. Her baby-fine blond hair seemed to have melted in the heat and humidity, and it was sticking to her scalp like skinny wet linguine. Of course, she was a walk-in who had asked only for a mani-pedi, so what could I say? Well, let’s just say that whatever I said, by the time she left I had her booked for a full eight-hour session of hair extensions, and armed with explicit instructions on where and how to buy the hair herself, online, as the tax we’d have to pay on imported hair down here would double her cost, and she was heading back to the States for a while. I gave her a warning: beware of the scams. There are so many hair cowboys ripping people off out there these days it’s ridiculous. Human hair has become so valuable that salons are being robbed for their hair, with the cash left behind in the register. Ukraine, I told Renee. Make sure the hair is Ukrainian. I provided her with my connection in Kiev and wished her luck.
When she returned a couple of months later, she proudly plopped her bag of hair down in front of me like a cat presenting a dead mouse at his master’s feet. I nearly gasped. Renee had obviously asked for the lightest blond hair in all of Ukraine. She got it. Hooker bleached-blond hair, so overprocessed that it was going to be a hairdresser’s nightmare. Daniela shot me a look, and I shot one back. Then we politely excused ourselves and headed to the back room to perform a miracle.
I grabbed one ponytail and Daniela grabbed the other, and we frantically began to mix. We needed to darken half the hair so the colors would blend. “Keep trying,” I whispered to Daniela as I headed back to talk to Renee about style and length.
“Debbie!” came a panicky voice from the back room. “Debbie! Come!”
Behind the door, Daniela held up two olive green ponytails. “Verde, Debbie,” she said with a frown. “Green.”
Renee waited patiently, unaware of the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that were being done to turn her very expensive hair not-green. After all, we still had eight long hours of togetherness ahead, and there was no way I was about to get started on the wrong foot. It took every bit of color in my cupboards and every bit of hairdresser knowledge in my head to save that hair that day.
Once Daniela and I actually got started on Renee, it was like three old friends swapping tales at a high school reunion. When you spend eight hours together, committed to a tedious job that can’t be left half done, you’d better pray you’ll find plenty to talk about—never a problem for me. Luckily my two partners in crime were up to the task.
Renee told us she was married to a successful Texas car dealer. But her privileged life came with a large dose of pain—she had lost her son under tragic circumstances six years earlier. A tear came to Daniela’s eye as she picked up the gist of Renee’s story.
In an attempt to change the channel from sad to happy, I shared some video I had on my phone of Daniela’s little girl dancing with Derek at his birthday party, and told Renee a little about life on The Hill. Later I shared my story of Kabul, and all I had left behind. Eventually the conversation came around to my idea about sending girls to beauty school. Renee seemed fascinated.
“Why, Deb,” she said in her sweet Texas drawl, “how on earth did you ever come up with that idea?”
I pointed to the copy of my Kabul Beauty School book that stood on display by the register. “Not such a wild idea. It just took me a while to find that part of me again.”
“Well, I think it’s awesome.”
“You know,” I said, “I just believe in my profession. And in a country like this, where an education is so tough to get, where birth control is so not the norm, at least from what I’m seeing, and where prostitution is legal, knowing how to do nails or hair can be a skill that gives girls a future they’d never have. It’s really pretty simple.”
“It sounds really exciting, Deb.”
“And you know what I decided to call the whole thing? Project Mariposa. As in butterfly.”
“Nice,” said Renee with a little nod.
After another hour of exchanging chitchat about everything and anything, out of the clear blue sky Renee asked me a question.
“How much does it cost?”
“What, your extensions? Didn’t I give you the price before—”
“No, how much does it cost to send a girl to beauty school?”
“Oh. Well, from what I’ve learned, it can come to anywhere from three to five thousand dollars before they’re done, depending on what’s included: equipment, uniform, tuition . . . you know.”
Renee paused for a second. “Put me down for three.”
“Three what?” I asked.
“Three students.”
“But that could be fifteen thousand dollars!” I saw myself frozen in the mirror with my mouth hanging open like an empty coin purse, a strand of Renee’s Ukrainian hair dangling from my motionless hand.
Renee just nodded. “You know, Debbie, I’ve been coming to my house down here for three years now. I love this place, and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to give something back. This, I can do. I can get the money. If there is one thing I know I’m good at, it’s getting my friends to say yes.” She smiled a sweet smile that left me no doubt about that. “It’s time for me to rally the troops.”
It was time for me to find more girls! And it was time for me to put my money (or rather Renee and her friends’ money) where my mouth was. I had been planning on starting up slowly, and small, just to see how things went before I began hitting up my own friends and clients for donations. So far I only had one girl, Rosa, enrolled. I had heard about her from a few of the expat gang who had gotten involved with La Casa Nueva Vida, the home for girls. She was only fifteen years old, and had seen more trouble in her life than most of us do in an entire lifetime. Things got so bad at home that the social services therapist recommended she be removed from the situation. She was getting lots of support at the Casa, and she seemed determined and responsible enough to take beauty school seriously. But I was paying her tuition a week at a time, just in case.
I didn’t want to rush into a decision about who to choose as Renee’s girls. This was a lot of money we were talking about, and I wanted to find girls who would be sure to stick with the program, who would do us proud. I already had one in mind. Lupe had been in an orphanage since she was seven years old. Now she was seventeen. I had heard from several clients who volunteered there that this girl would tell anyone who would listen that she wanted to become a hairdresser. Perfect! But I didn’t want her starting alone. Mexican women, I knew from watching my Tippy Toes staff, worked better in teams. They hated doing things on their own. Everything was always in pairs. I’d send Selena to the beauty supply store for polish, and when I’d turn around Daniela would be gone, too. I needed to find a partner for Lupe. For weeks I kept my eyes and ears open, and asked everyone I knew for suggestions. I felt a lot of pressure to make the right choice.
One morning, as I entered Tippy Toes I saw Martha and Teresa deep in conversation. Teresa was clucking her tongue and shaking her head, clearly concerned by something, or someone. “What?” I asked Martha. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s Gaby. Our niece. You know, Luz’s little sister.”
“What’s the matter with her now?” I’d heard some rumblings about Gaby before.
“We are worried, Debbie. She is sick, she does not leave the house. She won’t eat. She does nothing all day. Her mother is very upset.”
“Is she sick-sick? Has she been to the doctor?”
“Yes, but it’s not like that, Debbie. She is unhappy; she is shy. She doesn’t go to school anymore. We don’t know why she is so sad.”
I pictured tall, beautiful Gaby lying around day after day, with nothing to get out of bed for, no reason to venture out of her house. It broke my heart that she was joining the ranks of so many other kids on The Hill, dropping out just a few years after they’d gone through the mandatory six grades, and then what? How could they possibly figure out a future for themselves? Then it occurred to me. Here I’d been searching high and low for my next beauty school candidate, and there had been one right under my nose all along. I had no idea if Gaby had any interest in hairdressing or not, but I knew it was just the ticket for her low self-esteem and lack of confidence. I told Martha my idea and sent her off to talk to her niece.
I filled in Renee on my plans. We were on our way to the orphanage to meet with Lupe and the nuns.
“Don’t worry, Deb,” she said when I expressed my worry that Gaby might already be too deep into her depression to latch on to a dream, and my frustration at not being able to communicate directly with her. “I’ve got a team of prayer warriors who will start praying for Gaby this very day. We’ll get her off that hill and into school in no time.”
“Well, I haven’t heard a word from her yet. I’m going to leave the door open for one more week, and that’s it. We’ve got to get things moving!”
The orphanage gate was halfway open when we arrived. They must be expecting us, I thought. The shaded courtyard was filled with picnic tables, climbing bars, swings, a slide, and in the middle a huge statue of a saint, or maybe a priest. Inside, boys were playing video games, older girls were comforting littler ones, and a bevy of nuns who looked like they had been inside those walls for a hundred years kept a watchful eye. “Lupe?” we asked of everyone we passed. Finally we were pointed to a picnic table out back, where a pretty young girl with long dark hair and perfect makeup sat quietly next to a tiny nun in a crisp blue dress and a gray pixie cut. The nun’s eyes were glued to a laptop. She barely looked up as I made our introductions.
“What is this beauty school?” she snarled. “What kind of school is this with a surfboard in the front?” She turned the screen around to face us. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. The nun’s research had led her to my Trip Advisor page for Tippy Toes, which shows an image of the Margaritaville Adirondack chairs and surfboard we have out front for “atmosphere.” It did sort of look more like a bar than anything else.
“No,” I quickly assured her. “That’s not the school.” I pulled a brochure from my purse. “This is it. Instituto de Belleza. This is the school I’m thinking of for Lupe.”
Now all we needed was Gaby. I had promised the nun that Lupe would be attending school with another girl. At first Martha had told me that Gaby had said no to the idea, she was too afraid. Working at Tippy Toes might be okay, being among family and all, but going to a place filled with strangers, that was just too scary. Now I was even more worried, not so much about the project, but about Gaby. She was too young to give up. Because it’s acceptable down here for children to stay in their parents’ homes for life, too many of them don’t feel any pressure to make anything of themselves. A lot of the girls just figure if anythi
ng’s going to get them out of the house, it’s going to be a man. There is no need to become independent. Even Martha, who was always a hard worker, didn’t move out until Noah came along. Maybe Gaby didn’t want to be a hairdresser, but I knew that just doing this would be a life-changing experience for her, no matter what. I dug in my heels and sent Luz to talk some sense into her sister. Luz was thriving at Tippy Toes. She never missed a day of work, and was never late. And by now she even had earned enough money, and gained enough confidence, to go to tattoo school at night. Judging from what I saw in Luz, I knew that if we could get Gaby to commit, she would take beauty school seriously. Her mother, Alicia, would make sure of that, as would just about everyone else on The Hill.
The next Monday Renee and I enrolled the girls at Instituto de Belleza. Gaby, with two days left to make up her mind, had finally said yes. I was more than relieved. The two girls sat silently in the back of the Mini as we wound our way through the crowded downtown streets. Though I had asked my friend Lisa to come along to translate, she bowed out at the last minute with a stomach bug, so I was going to have to rely on Google Translate to make this happen. And it almost didn’t. The guy who sashayed up to the door of the school greeted us with an attitude befitting a Hollywood diva. He rolled his eyes when he saw it was me again. We had met before, when I dropped by to check out the school and get the tuition rates. The first time I was there, someone had taken me into the office and rattled off the list of rates, then immediately slashed everything on the list and gave me a new set of prices. It felt like a time-share presentation. I was confused, so they waved the diva guy over, assuring me that he spoke English. I offered my best smile and said, “Usted habla inglés?”
“No,” he said with the wag of a finger. “No English.” Then he turned and left the room.