Marcus.
Medgar.
Malcolm.
Martin.
I text Imani and ask her if I can wear it. I know she’ll say yes, but I always ask first when I borrow something from her. While I wait for her to answer, I do my makeup, put on my oversized gold hoop earrings and bangle bracelets. Now, all I have to do is figure out what to do with my hair. Is there such a thing as the perfect hairstyle to get a guy to like you? I doubt it. I go with the Inspire Harlem style and decide to wear a head wrap. Like Toya’s. I’ve never worn one actually, but it’ll be good to have one on tonight in case I sweat out my hair while showing off my skating moves.
Imani is always tying her hair up in a scarf or wearing a wrap, but it just isn’t my style. I rummage through the wicker basket that sits on her dresser. It’s stuffed with fabric. Every color combination and patterned design you can imagine, she has it. I pull out one that is a mix of blues, yellows, and reds. I go back to my room and begin wrapping my hair. I check my phone to see if she’s responded to my text, then add and one of your head wraps too?
I take the shirt and fabric to my room. I go ahead and put the shirt on and then pull my hair up into a bun so I can do the wrap.
It’s not working.
The fabric is too loose, and the knot at the front keeps coming undone.
I try again.
It’s not working.
I’m going for the Black-girl-natural-chic look, and this is not it. I pick up my phone, google how to tie a head wrap. This makes me wish I had paid more attention when Mom tried to teach me. There are too many videos to choose from. I click on the second one since it has the most views. The woman in the video does three different looks, and all of them look so stylish and cute on her, all of them seem so easy to do. But every time I try, I fail.
I’m going to be late.
“Uh, you need some help?” Imani’s home. I didn’t even hear her come up the stairs. She walks over to me, takes the fabric out of my hands, and folds half of it into a triangle. How did she know to do that? The tutorial didn’t say to do that.
“This is too big to use without folding it. You gotta fold it if you want this look.” She points to herself, because of course she has her hair wrapped and she looks like she could model her whole outfit. “Sit here.” She points to the chair at my desk and starts twisting and wrapping the fabric, pulling it real tight, then twisting it into a knot.
“Your hair is too slippery. You’re going to need some bobby pins.” Imani walks over to her room and comes right back with a few bobby pins hanging out of her mouth like fangs. “This is why I keep telling you that you need to stop straightening your hair. It can’t even keep fabric on . . . no kink to hold on to.” And then she realizes I am wearing her shirt and she says, “Wait, what is all this for anyway? You don’t even wear head wraps.”
“I’m going roller skating tonight. Don’t want to sweat my hair out.”
“It’s definitely going to sweat out under this,” she says. She tucks the extra fabric and steps back so I can look in the mirror.
“It’s okay if I sweat it out and it’s covered. I just want to look the same way at the end of the night as I’ll look when I show up.”
Imani goes back to her room. Then, a whole ten minutes later she yells across the hall, “Oh, sorry. I’m just now seeing your text messages.” And then, “Who are you going with?”
I don’t know why I am hesitant to answer her. I stutter out Tye’s name. And all of a sudden she is back in my room. “You’re going out with Tye? Tye Brown?”
“We’re not eloping. We’re just going to Riverbank.” I laugh, trying to make light of it.
“Who else is going?”
“It’s Teen Skate Night. I don’t know who will be there, but I’ll be there and Tye will be there.”
She looks at me with suspicion and then says, “Well, am I invited or is this a date?”
“It’s not a date,” I answer. Not tonight, but soon. I have a plan. “Tye and I are just getting to know each other,” I tell Imani. “Just two friends hanging out. You can come.”
“Okay,” Imani says. “I’ll let Toya and Lynn know, and I’ll see if Asher, Sadie, and Jackson can come too.”
Wait. What? I should have said this is a date. I definitely should have said this is a date.
“I’m going to text everyone, and we’ll meet you and Tye up there,” Imani says. And just like that, I am going on a group field trip with teens from Inspire Harlem.
Tye is waiting outside for me, looking out at the water. He doesn’t know I am behind him, and I think maybe I should scare him, but then decide to gently touch his back. “Hey,” I say.
“Oh, hi. You look nice. I like this.” He touches my wrap, and I cringe a little because I am afraid the bobby pins will slip out. They don’t, though. Imani gave me extra, extra reinforcement. “This place is amazing,” Tye says.
“You’ve never been here?”
“Never.”
“How is that possible?”
“I feel judged right now,” Tye says.
We laugh and go inside.
It isn’t too long before everyone else shows up. I see Imani and Asher first, then Sadie and Jackson. It feels like we’re on a triple date, and I can’t believe it’s this easy to make my plan happen. We stand in line to get our skates, and that’s when I hear them. Lynn and Toya. Their voices dragging out, “Heeeeey.”
So much for my triple date.
Toya looks different from the last time I saw her because her hair is all out, a big gorgeous mess all over her head. “Hey, Tye, you lookin’ good with the fresh fade,” Toya says. They hug, and when Tye lets go he says, “Yeah, a haircut was well overdue. Your hair looks nice too. It’s beautiful.”
He is right, her hair is beautiful, but I don’t want him to be the one to tell her. That’s ridiculous, I know. How can I be jealous over someone I just met? He’s not my boyfriend. Yet.
Standing next to Toya with her beautiful hair, I am second-guessing everything about myself—what I’m wearing, saying, and if I’m dancing too hard to a problematic song. But then, I think what do I have to prove to any of them? and I take Tye by the hand and pull him out onto the rink. “Whoa, whoa . . . slow down. I haven’t skated since I was ten years old. Give me a minute.” He holds onto the wall and says, “All right, before we start, let’s take a selfie. Gotta capture the Before just in case this ends badly.” Tye laughs.
“Are you scared?”
“Me, scared? Never,” he says, while nodding his head up and down saying yes. “Scared is a strong word. It’s just, like I said, I haven’t skated in a long, long time.”
“You just have to get out there. It’s like swimming and riding a bike, right? Once you learn you always know how.” I don’t know if this is really true, but he buys it. “Smile,” I say, and hold my phone up in the air at an angle to capture both of us. We take a few and skate around the rink.
Tye is holding on to me so tight, so very tight. I keep telling him, you got this, you got this. By the time we go around once, he is steady and sure and now we are dancing and gliding next to each other and he doesn’t need to hold on to me anymore but I want him to.