Hair
dye. It was the fruity, pasty scent of hair dye that I
inhaled as I entered the Fields residence.
“Scarlett, are you dying your
hair?” I heard my best friend’s mom, Julia
Fields, shout from the kitchen. There was no
response.
I decided to investigate for myself.
I followed my nose into the bathroom where I saw Scarlett
leaned over the sink running water through the ends of her
hair. She looked up at me with a pleasant
expression.
“Hey Tessa.” Scarlett
greeted me. Scarlett has been my closest friend ever since
sixth grade when we sat by each other on the first day of
junior high. She knows every detail about me, and I know her
so well I can practically read her mind. Just like I knew
that she was dying her hair just so she could have something
about her that stood out from others. She’s been
talking about dying the tips of her wavy chocolate brown hair
blue, but I never thought she’d actually do
it.
“How long is it going to take
you to finish doing that?” I asked Scarlett. “I
told my mom we’d be at my house in twenty minutes.
She’ll drive us there where we’ll meet my cousin
Joey and his friends, and he’ll drive us home.”
Our town, Fairview, was having its annual Fourth of July
carnival. Even though Fairview is a small Jersey town,
it’s only twenty five minutes from Manhattan, so the
festival was always crowded.
“I’m just washing it
now.” Scarlett informed me. “Then I’ll get
dressed and we’ll be ready to go. Is it okay if Morgan
hangs out with us too? I haven’t seen him in forever
since my mom won’t let us go on dates. I don’t
get why. I’m fifteen, and he’s nineteen. Big
deal.”
Scarlett stood up and wrapped her
hair in a towel. I followed her across the hallway into her
bedroom. I stayed on her bed and waited while she changed out
of her sweats and into her purple floral shirt and
high-waisted jean shorts. Once we were both ready we traveled
down the street to my house. My mom’s Jeep was running
in the driveway, awaiting our return.
It was about a ten minute drive until
we hit the traffic. My mom wasn’t planning on staying
with us, so she just pulled over and we went the rest of the
way by foot. The carnival looked as beautiful and nostalgic
as ever. The first thing you notice upon entering next to the
giant blow up of Uncle Sam was a Ferris Wheel towering over
everything. There were plenty of other rides as well. I
noticed a merry-go-round, a ride that spun and went upside
down, a stage with a band playing cover music, a funhouse,
and plenty of booths selling elephant ears and lemonade.
There was also a dunk tank with a patronizing clown seated
inside of it. Of course, that’s where Joey
was.
Joey was wearing khaki shorts
and a Mets shirt with the sleeves cut off. He had his black
hair gelled into a Mohawk. Once he threw the baseball hard
enough to knock the clown into the water, he turned around
and placed his arm around his girlfriend, Hannah, and began
chatting with his two best friends, Alex and Paul. Alex and
Paul were with their girlfriends. I approached them and
joined their conversation about what colleges they’d be
attending in the fall.
Scarlett, however, didn’t join
us. She stayed where she was, eyes scanning the crowd for her
boyfriend Morgan. Morgan was a good-looking boy. He had short
hair just slightly lighter than Scarlett’s and always
dressed in the best clothes. Today he wore a burgundy and
white striped V-neck and khaki shorts. Scarlett was forbidden
from dating Morgan because of their four year age difference,
but they were together anyways. However, their relationship
consisted of video chatting and phone calls because Julia,
Scarlett’s mom, didn’t allow them to see each
other. It only took her about thirty seconds to spot him. She
called him over, and the two joined us, hand in
hand.