Goin' to Jackson { Jackson Wang Series }

Chapter 4

"I sent a picture of you to my mom," said Jackson excitedly.

"You did what, now?" questioned Jen, eying him critically.

"I thought since you guys can't meet in person yet, I would send her a pic of this girl I keep talking about," he laughed nervously as he saw her obvious discontent.

"OK, I guess," she conceded, but I wish you would have told me you were going to do it."

"Don't worry. It's all good. She said you are really pretty, and you seem nice," he offered, hoping the clarification would help.

"Alright," said Jen as she took another sip of her chai tea. Jackson sipped his iced Americano as well, peeking at Jen from above the cup.

"She can't wait to meet you. She said you can have a girls' day out and she wants to take you to a hairstylist friend of hers. She's amazing. She really does great work," continued Jackson.

"OK, but I don't really want any work done on my hair. My hair is fine as it is," said Jen, attempting to not sound defensive.

"Of course, it is, baby," he amended. "She was just thinking you could get a Keratin treatment that would smooth it out a little and make it have a little less volume," he said with his hands on either side of his head, demonstrating the volume of her hair.

Jen frowned. "Do you know why Frida never shaved her unibrow?"

"I have no idea," he replied. "I sure would have."

Jen sighed deeply and took a deep inhale and continued. "She was proud of the gene pool that produced her very unique beauty. She didn't feel that she needed to change herself for people."

Jackson fidgeted with the straw wrapper. He felt like the conversation was going down a rabbit hole, one that would soon find him in the doghouse. Even as the words left his mouth, he knew they were a mistake. "But you shave your legs, and you wear make-up. How is that different?"

Jen took another sip of tea to delay her response. She didn't want to get annoyed, but she was starting to feel the weight of generations of black and brown women who had been told that their natural hair was not acceptable. However, she had to balance her frustration with the fact that she knew Jackson's mom meant no harm. He clearly meant none either because his soft brown eyes were looking at her with affection and concern.

"OK, here's the thing. It is up to me to decide how I want to present myself to the world, but I should never be made to feel like I need to look less 'ethnic," she said, as calmly as she could.

"Oh, my God, no," he said as he waved his hands back-and-forth. "I didn't mean that you should make yourself less ethnic. Not at all! I love that you're so...so..." Jackson didn't finish his sentence because he wasn't sure how to do it in a way that wasn't going to get him in more hot water. "I mean, every country has their own beauty standard. Like, here in Asia, girls don't tend to wear a bold lip, but you do because that's pretty standard for Latinas," he ventured, hoping that his information was not incorrect.

Jen smiled slightly thinking of her lipsticks from the Frida Kahlo collection. There was a chocolate brown one, a deep wine one, and a bright purple one. She used one of them almost every day. Her signature look was a bold lip and just a brush of mascara. She wasn't a blush kind of girl since her honey-colored skin had no need of enhancement.

"Look," she said as she took her last sip of chai tea. "All I'm saying is that girls shouldn't have to straighten their hair, or curl it, for that matter," she added. "We should be allowed to live with the hair that God gave us and let it be. Why do women feel the need to chemically process their hair?"

"Yeah, well, speaking of chemically processing, the producers told me I'm going back to blond again. But you know, I don't really have a choice. They tell me the color, the cut, the style. None of it is up to me," Jackson defended.

Jen spoke more softly now, seeing the hurt in his eyes. "I know that, baby. I know that you have no choice in it. I totally get that, but for example, I wouldn't like it if they told you that you should get dreadlocks. It's not the natural texture of your hair, so it would seem a little like cultural appropriation," she explained.

"Ah, yeah, I get what you mean," Jackson said. "I have seen a few K-pop idols with braids or dreads, and it always looks a little out of place."

"Well, 'out of place' is a nice way of saying it. Really, it's just disingenuous," she said.

"Wow, there you go with the big words again," laughed Jackson. "I always feel like I should carry a pocket dictionary with me so that I can understand you."

"Why would you need a pocket dictionary when you have a smartphone?" asked Jen, amused at his old-fashioned notion.

"Touché," he replied with his ever-present fencing lingo.

"But, I guess, I would like you to explain to your mom, gently, that hair is very important to me and composes a part of my identity as a woman of color. And I will decide when, or if, I want to change it in any way. And my decision won't be based on cultural expectations," she added. She exhaled in relief. It felt good to get that off her chest.

Jackson smiled and gave her a mock salute. "Yes, my general," he said. "Your wish is my command."

"Of course, it is," joked Jen.

"I'm going to have to do my Frida research," he vowed. "It seems like she has turned you into a radical feminist revolutionary."

"Well, I was already all of those things," laughed Jen. "Frida just gave a voice to my inner musings. She said the things I already knew deep inside but had never had the right words to express."

"Ah, my little counter-culture crusader," he said, as he mussed her hair with his slender hand.

"Aw, now you made it all poufy," she said, trying to pat it back into place.

"I thought you liked it poufy," he joked.

"Yeah, when it's my decision to make it that way," clarified Jen. "You have so much to learn, Jackson. So, so much," she said, shaking her head in mock disapproval.

"Well, I have no doubt that you will be correcting all of my mistaken beliefs. You're very good at that," he added.

"Yeah, my mom said I used to sit in my highchair and judge her," laughed Jen. "I would scowl at her for anything that didn't meet with my approval."

"I can picture a little baby you learning to express what you wanted even before you could speak," said Jackson.

"Yep, but now I have words. So, I try to use my words, but I still keep the look just in case I need it."

"I guess you've had to be tough," Jackson said, a bit more seriously.

"Yeah," whispered Jen. "It's a constant struggle in a world that wasn't made for me and doesn't want to make room for me."

"Well, we will learn to carve out our space --- together," he said as he fluffed her hair once again.