Between the Sheets (or How I Became Myself)

I have distrusted hairdressers since the age of three when that black, waterproof cape was tied around my neck for the first time, and the revolving chair on which I sat, its seat cushioned with several telephone books, was twirled away from the mirror to face my mother. As the ladies gossiped, I sat petrified. My mother, I felt, was not paying enough attention to what was happening to me; as scissors snipped and clipped my natural tresses and the humming electric razor scraped the back of my cool neck, she continued to laugh and gossip, never seeming to glance my way.
I watched my angelic, wispy blonde curls, darker at the roots, descend to the linoleum floor, and when the chair revolved to face the mirror again, I discovered to my horror that I had disappeared; an older child with straight, black hair had taken my place.
My mother extracted a few bills from her wallet, paid the woman who had stolen me from myself, and led me by the hand, speechless, along the path that crossed the manicured lawn to the car in the immaculately paved driveway.
I sat alone in the back seat as my mother drove, the breeze from the open window brushing newly exposed skin. I was surprised that my mother hadn’t yet noticed that I was gone. Would anyone recognize me inside this stranger?
Early the next morning, my mother announced that my grandmother, Mimee, was coming to visit. Dad would drive to Brockton to pick her up. I waited for her in the backyard all morning, barefoot and anxious.
“Grandma’s here!” Mom shouted through the kitchen window, and my older sister ran to greet her.
Panicking, I hid between the white sheets drying on the clothesline in the warm, sunny space outside the bedroom windows. Clothespins, rows of miniature wooden soldiers, guarded my new haircut and me from prying eyes.
I waited, aware that I couldn’t stand there forever, wondering if I should run into the neighbor’s yard and pretend that I was someone else’s little girl.
“Where’s Ann?” I heard my grandmother ask, and a few minutes later, “Where’s Ann?” I could tell that she was moving through the house, searching. Perhaps she had been looking under beds for me, but somehow she happened to glance out of my parents’ bedroom window. Suddenly I heard a shriek that made me jump. “Why, who is that hiding between the sheets?” she asked.
“It’s Ann!” my mother explained. “She’s had a haircut.”
All was well. I was still me.