Later, we started talking about how we planned to wear our hair for the prom. Tia wanted a Nia Long cut, just like the one she has in Friday. Michelle wanted to rock Moesha micro braids, and Joy isn’t sure what style she wants but says it has to be something that lets her show off her baby hair. I don’t know who she fool’n; she ain’t got no baby hair.

When it came time for me to share my plans, I confessed that I wanted a perm. I asked my girls what getting one was like, and they said it tingles. But they also said that if I could stand the tingling, I would get silky, bone-straight hair, the kind of hair that can swoosh around from side to side like them white girls on the hair commercials. I let my homegirls talk me into it.

We played a bootleg videotape of Bad Boys in the background while Tia scooped out a big white glob of perm and spread it over my head. It was really cold at first, like ice on my scalp. Moments later, I ran screaming into the bathroom to wash it out!

The next morning, when I woke up, I found clumps of hair on my pillow. The perm wasn’t in my hair for long, but it’d had enough time to do major damage. My hair was rebelling against me for trying to tame it. It wanted me to know that it no longer trusted my judgment, and as punishment, it was giving me bald spots. All this, and prom was two weeks away.

The crazy thing is, my mama didn’t get mad or even give me that “I told you so” look. Instead, she took me to a friend of hers who does natural hair, and we talked through the best way to make my hair healthy again. I had to cut all my hair off and start again. She told me what oils to treat it with and the best wigs to get in the meantime.

After my visit to the hair lady, my mom asked to talk to me. I thought, Okay, here we go with the lecture. She sat next to me on the bed and told me about the time she had a date and wanted to straighten her hair. She got some crazy hair mixture from a friend and ended up completely bald. She told me that my hair wasn’t just hair. She said it has history and roots. And since we’ve been displaced and uprooted for generations, anything that holds our history is sacred.