Natural Beauty Read Online Free PDF

stupid and stubborn sometimes."
    "Um,
Marin, you're a woman, too."
    "Which
is why I know? Duh?" She stood up and grabbed her
purse which she had left by the door. "We need to change the energy in
this room. The negativity is downright stifling." She lit an incense
candle and started waving it around the room. Was that her nice way of saying
my house stunk?
    "Wait
a minute, Marin. Don't try to change the subject. What did you see in Vinny the first time you met him?"
    Marin
sat back down on the couch and said, "The first time I met him, I noticed
his eyes when you hugged John. He was jealous. He was jealous of how close you
two were. What kind of a man gets jealous of his girlfriend's brother? Jealousy ain't cute. I just knew I didn't like him."
    "Huh,
I didn't know you felt that way. Why didn't you ever tell me?"
    "I
could have been wrong. I know, I know. It doesn't happen often. I think the
last time I was wrong it was around 1998."
    I
pushed her in the shoulder.
    "Anyway,"
she said after we laughed a little. "Add that jealous streak to the fact that
you've never met his family in seven years, well, I knew it wasn't going to
work."
    "Yeah,
that was a red flag I refused to salute."
    "I
mean, his sister is in Canada. That's not that far. One quick two hour flight
would have fixed it. And haven't either of you heard of Skype? I'm sure they
have computers in India. I know every time I try to get mine fixed I'm talking
to someone from there."
    "Marin,
that's not nice."
    She
shrugged and went back to spreading her incense smoke all over my house.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked.
    "What
do you mean? What am I supposed to do? It's over. I wanted a husband not a
roommate. There's nothing for me to do."
    "Oh,
no, I know it's over. I mean what is your catharsis?"
    "Catharsis?"
    "Yes, catharsis. You have to do something big
that symbolically represents the end of your relationship. Usually, I have a
system. Each month I was with a guy represents the level of catharsis I need.
For example, I dated this guy Mikhail for almost two years and when we broke
up, I went sky diving."
    I
shivered at the thought. I was afraid of heights.
    "But
given that you were with Vinny for almost seven
years, you'd need to jump out of a space shuttle to make up for that."
    I
rubbed my hand over the scarf hiding my short hair. "I think I already had
my catharsis," I said as I slowly pulled it off.
    Marin
screamed and jumped on the couch. Not quite the reaction I was expecting.
    "This
is so exciting," she said clapping her hands and squealing like a child.
"I love it. I love it. I love it!"
    "Marin,
calm down. What's to love about it? It's short, nappy and ugly."
    Suddenly
solemn, she stopped jumping and sat down again. "Mahogany, don't you ever
let me hear you say something like that about our hair again."
    " Our hair? Our hair doesn't look like this. Your
hair is long and beautiful. It's just mine that sucks."
    "You
see this is what is wrong with our society. People associate beauty with long
hair. I don't understand why those are so often correlated." She stood up
and started pacing my living room as if she was going to give a sermon.
"I'll tell you where the problem starts. It starts when we're little girls
and we are constantly told through the images we see in the media that long,
straight, blond hair is what is pretty. Kinky or curly hair is ugly. Do they
sell Barbie dolls with afros? And when was the last time a black woman was the
leading lady of a romance movie."
    "Halle
Berry," I volunteered.
    "She
doesn't count. She's half black and full horrible actress."
    "What
does her acting ability have to do with it?"
    "Basically,
what society says is that white skin and straight hair is attractive. Black
women are only attractive if they are as close to white as possible."
    "Marin,
calm down."
    "I'm
sorry. I will not calm down. This is a pet peeve of mine. Do you know that
black women are the least often married." She froze and looked at