The Last Year of Innocence

Chapter Sixteen

Kara:

“You know, this completely sucks,” Shirelle complained.

            What sucked was the fact that the ball finally arrived and none of the underclassmen were allowed to leave the campus to get their hair and nails done. Only the seniors were allowed to go in to town for a day of pampering.

            “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with my hair,” Shirelle continued. “I wanted to get some extensions so I could have long sleek hair for Clifton.”

            “What are extensions?” Irina asked.

            “Girl, I swear you don’t know anything,” Shirelle laughed. “Did you live in a bubble in Chicago or something?”

            “No,” Irina huffed.

            “Extensions are just like they sound. They make your hair longer,” Shirelle explained.

            “Since that’s out, what are you going to do?” Kara asked.

            “I don’t know,” Shirelle pouted. “I guess I’ll just do a twist or something.”

            “I’m doing a French twist too,” Irina said.

            “I’m going to use my bendable hot rollers and do some really tight curls, almost like a spiral perm,” Kara said.

            “You better get started then. As much hair as you have, that’ll take forever,” Shirelle warned. “And we still need to do each other’s nails and toenails.”

            It was already three, and dinner was at six in the ballroom, followed by the dance at seven. If they were going to be ready in time then they all needed to get started, especially since they were going to have to fight every other girl in the dorm for mirror space in the bathroom.

They started with their hair. Kara went first, wrapping thin sections of her hair one by one around her hot rollers until her head was covered.

            “You look like Medusa,” Irina giggled.

            “Yeah, you kind of do,” Shirelle agreed.

            “You two won’t be laughing when we’re done and my hair looks better than yours,” Kara teased.

            “If my hair looks worse than yours, it’s because you did a bad job on it,” Shirelle said, handing Kara a thick yellow comb and some bobby pins.

On the floor of their room, they sat in a line with Kara doing Shirelle’s hair and Shirelle doing Irina’s hair. After their hair was done, they hopped into the showers for a quick rinse before toweling off and starting on their make up.

Kara applied a thin line of blue eyeliner to match her dress and accented the look with an application of earth tone eye shadows. She used a black mascara to pump up her skinny eyelashes and then dusted on a pale pink blush. Finally, she rounded out the look with a wine red lipstick.

While her friends were slipping into their dresses, Kara pulled the rollers from her hair and carefully arranged it with her pick. Once she was satisfied with the placement of her tangle of curls, she used a generous amount of hairspray to hold them in place. To cover the scent of the hairspray, she sprayed on her favorite perfume.

            “Wow, you’re not even dressed and you look great,” Shirelle said when Kara returned to their room.

            “You look so grown up,” Irina said.