“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m just saying that it’s a surefire way to alienate most of my family.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure not to do that, then.” I don’t really know much about religion, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me to say anything about it to Ana’s family. My grandparents on my mom’s side were Pentecostal, I think, because a lot of Black magic users in the South are. But I never met them before they died, and neither of my parents is religious now.

“Um, so how are you going to fix this disaster?” I ask, pointing at my head.

“Well, I have a hair potion that’s good at getting rid of frizz,” she says. “Which should probably help. What product are you using in your hair right now?”

“Um, gel. And Suave?” I say. “It’s, like, their two-in-one shampoo and conditioner?”

She presses her palm to her face and groans softly. “Hearing you say that caused me actual physical pain,” she says, her voice muffled by her hand. “Okay, let’s go wash the gel out of your hair so it doesn’t look so crunchy, and then we’ll go from there.”

Clearly, I’ve been doing everything wrong when it comes to my hair. I follow her into the bathroom, which is strangely tidy considering that eight people share it. The countertop around the sink is clear, and all the surfaces are squeaky clean. Ana opens a small closet and retrieves a towel, which she shakes out and lays carefully around my shoulders.

“I’ll give you salon service,” she says, grinning at me mischievously. “Fancy, huh?”

Once I’m kneeling by the bathtub with my head stuck underneath the running water, I have to laugh. “Oh yeah, this is just like a salon. One hundred percent.” Water dribbles down my forehead and into my mouth. I sputter, glad that Ana can’t see me spitting out water from where she sits on the edge of the tub.

“Shut up,” she says playfully. I sense her doing something above me a moment before I’m hit with an icy blast of water from the tap. I jerk back, narrowly avoiding whacking my head on the wall in the process, and Ana laughs shamelessly.

“Hey!” I yelp, glaring at her through a curtain of my dripping hair. I splash my hand under the faucet, flicking water toward her. Ana raises an eyebrow at me, wholly unrepentant, and calmly wipes the droplets off her face.

“Serves you right.”

“This salon has terrible service.”

She continues washing my hair, her fingertips running along my scalp as she detangles my knotted curls, and a little shiver goes up my spine. This is nice. Soothing. She gives my head one last scrub, then pulls her hands out of my hair. “Okay, that’s done. We can put the hair potion in now.”