The Wisdom of Hair
“In Kim Boykin’s novel, hair is not only wise, it’s witty and eloquent. As we’ve long suspected, our hair can define us. It can also teach us things about ourselves that will surprise and change us.
The Wisdom of Hair
is a lovely, engaging novel. Zora Adams is a heroine to root for!”
—Wendy Wax, author of
Ocean Beach
“
The Wisdom of Hair
has a big, beating heart, and I couldn’t put it down. What I loved best about the book was the pervasive kindness; page after page, good people try their best, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. It’s hard to write an engaging novel about (mostly) nice people, but Kim Boykin has pulled it off.”
—Ann Napolitano, author of
A Good Hard Look
Welcome to Beauty School
According to the brochure, beauty school was supposed to be “The Beginning of an Exciting Career That Will Last a Lifetime.” But the first thing that caught my eye when I walked through the front door of the Davenport School of Beauty was a sign on slick white poster board beside the cash register. A bubble over a pair of legs said,
NO MORE THAN THREE ABOVE THE KNEE
. Looking down at my uniform, I didn’t need a ruler to tell me that I was out of line.
I pulled at the sides of my uniform, trying to lengthen the hem like a lot of the other students. I could just picture us all after school let out, sitting around our respective homes with scissors, big red tomato pincushions, and spools of white thread scattered about, undoing our hemlines.
Nobody looked anything like the proud, confident blonde on the cover of the brochure, except for one girl. She was the only one
not worrying her dress. Hers was an inch or two below the knee and had a sassy little slit up the back. From the neck up, she looked like a movie star, and the way she carried herself made you forget that she could probably afford to lose fifty or sixty pounds.
As attendance was called, we were supposed to introduce ourselves. Some of the girls stammered or giggled. My own voice came out just above a whisper, but the big girl spoke in a deep, sexy drawl with a proud confidence that every single girl in the room coveted. We looked at Sara Jane Farquhar in awe, and there wasn’t a single soul in that room, even our instructor, who didn’t want to be her…
THE
WISDOM
OF HAIR
Kim Boykin
BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
Copyright © 2013 by Kim Boykin.
“Readers Guide” copyright © 2013 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Boykin, Kim, 1957–
The wisdom of hair / Kim Boykin.—Berkley trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
1. Beauty shops—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Hair—Fiction.
4. South Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.O95W57 2013
813’.6—dc23 2012035919
ISBN: 978-1-101-61957-5
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / March 2013
Cover photograph of woman © Glow Images, Inc. / Getty Images;
photograph of leather upholstery © iStockphoto / Thinkstock.
Cover design by Judith Lagerman.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
| ALWAYS LEARNING | PEARSON |
For my grandfather, Bryan Standridge,
the greatest storyteller I have ever known,
and to my parents for their never-ending love story
Attempting to publish is a lot like golf; it’s an awful endeavor and just when you’re ready to give up, one small good thing will happen that gives you hope and makes you believe. I had a lot of years like that until my agent, Kevan Lyon, picked me. Thank you, Kevan, for being an extraordinary agent and friend. Heartfelt thanks to Berkley Publishing and to my amazing editor, Leis Pederson, a Southern girl like me. Thanks, Leis, for loving this story to publication and nailing the title.
Thank you to Miranda Fuller, my first reader, who made me believe this was possible. To my critique partners, Wendy Oglesby, Mary Ann Thomas, Vera LaFleur, Claire Iannini, Susan Martin, Kim Blum-Hyclak, and Jes Young, all wonderful writers, thank you for your good judgment and honesty.
For Crickett Pfirman and hair stylists everywhere who really have answered one of life’s highest callings, thank you for making those of us in your charge feel valuable and beautiful.
Finally, love and thanks to my family. To Kaley and Austin, thank you for sharing your childhood with me, I’m so proud of who you are. And to Mike, my husband of thirty years and counting, you are my heart. Thank you for believing in me.
Readers Guide to: The Wisdom of Hair
The problem with
cutting your own hair is that once you start, you just keep cutting, trying to fix it, and the truth is, some things can never be fixed. The day of my daddy’s funeral, I cut my bangs until they were the length of those little paintbrushes that come with dime-store watercolor sets. I was nine years old. People asked me why I did it, but I was too young then to know I was changing my hair because I wanted to change my life.
Ten years later, I stared into my mother’s dressing-table mirror, ready to shave my head. It was my birthday, and Mama was going out to celebrate. She stood in front of me for her ta-dah moment, decked out like Judy Garland, her pretty blond hair covered up with cheap chestnut color, and put up under a black fedora. The oversized men’s tuxedo jacket she wore had been taken in at all the right places and didn’t come close to mid-thigh. Unlike her alter ego, she’d skipped the dress shirt altogether. Regulation black
pumps clicked across our bare floor like tap shoes, long legs moving in short steps to mimic Judy’s four-foot-ten-inch stride. Mama wasn’t going to a costume party. She always dressed like her favorite star, who died on a toilet seat the year Mama was born. Right down to the fake eyelashes.