There was kindness in the hairstylist’s eyes when she looked into mine in the mirror. “Are you sure?” She gently combed through my long brown hair, so straight and fine that in the bath at night I sat on it, the strands floating like aquatic plants in the sea, tickling my thighs. It was 1976. I’d recently turned ten, and Dorothy Hamill had just won gold. Dorothy wore her hair in a bob. In just five minutes, my long, silky locks lay in piles on the floor of the salon. For a whole year, I’d be mistaken for a boy.
Reyna Marder Gentin lives with her husband in New York, where she writes mostly fiction. reynamardergentin.com