Shortcake Shelby

It had been exactly seventeen years since Shelby had last seen her. And there she was, bent in half to look at carrots on the bottom shelf, her cart full of broccoli and canned corn. Shelby wasn't sure if she should say hi, or just leave the grocery store as quickly as possible. Instead she opted to examine the bright red apples sitting on the end of the produce isle, and suddenly she was back in Jr. High, looking in the mirror.


She was short and stout, but not overly short and stout, at least she thought so. No, she liked her height and weight just fine. It wasn’t that, it was her hair color that bothered her. Whenever she would look in the mirror, she would see a perfectly round button nose set between two deliciously plump cheeks, then two bright, engaging eyes, a perfectly proportioned forehead, then BAM! right in the middle of all that perfection her vision would be assaulted by that mangy mess of dead cells that was approximately the same color as cow dung. But what could she do? Every morning she would note this, and then with a sigh she would reach over to her hairbrush and begin shaping her hair into something society considered respectable.


Next she would go to school. There really wasn’t much to say about school except that every day during fifth hour she would sit behind Rachel. Rachel was one of those annoying preppy types, with her perfectly manicured nails rapping endlessly on other people’s desk, her perfectly glossed lips curling up into a sneer whenever “shortcake Shelby” would walk by, and her so-high-it-makes-my-feet-sore-just-looking-at-them heels clicking down the hallway.

But of course Shelby didn’t really care about that type of stuff. If she cared, she might get her feelings hurt. She understood that according to the Jr. High hierarchy some people must be popular, and some people must be the ones that were not popular. She was even okay with the fact that she was not one of those that were destined to be popular. No, what she really wanted was the fiery mass of bright red gorgeousness that genetics had designed to place right on top of Rachel’s head. Her hair. It was beautiful; there was no other way to describe it. Shelby would spend hours, or at least all of fifth hour, just staring at it. She would go home, and then she would think of it.  It was the perfect red of the apples Shelby’s mom would put out for a snack, or the flawless red of her little brother’s bouncy ball or the precisely sharp red of Shelby’s falling grades.

She tried not to obsess over it, her mom said it wasn’t healthy to worry too much about one’s appearance, especially when one was as young as Shelby, and Shelby agreed. But she also knew that if only she could have hair like Rachel’s, she would be beautiful and popular and her life would be perfect. Finally, on a particularly bad day, when even her cow-dung hair had refused to be molded into a semi-respectable shape and Rachel’s hair was abnormally gorgeous, Shelby leaned forward, “I love the color of your hair.”

“Thanks shortcake,” she breathed between three large chomps of gum, “I guess yours is pretty too. But I dye mine and that is why it is so much prettier.” With that final word, Shelby watched Rachel disappear back into her glimmering crowd.

"Jr. High is mean, just plain mean. I hate it." Shelby glowered at the glass of milk her mother had placed in front of her, and then started jabbing the bottom of the glass with her straw as the images of her classmates flitted through her mind.

"I'm sorry you had a rough day." Her mom half-mindedly mumbled as she swept through the kitchen. "Now honey, would you mind getting your father?"

Shelby sighed as she swung her legs off the stool she had been sitting on. The noise of her mother's metallic whirls and bangs slowly died away and the slightly robotic voice of channel 5's star reporter replaced it as Shelby walked down the stairs. "And that will be all for tonight. This is channel five- today." Shelby rounded the corner to the customary jingle, and then stopped.

There, on the screen, was the most beautiful woman Shelby had ever seen. Her skin was as flawlessly white as paper, her eyes were as black as the ebony coals Shelby's dad used whenever they went camping, and her hair was the exact color of a fire that was ready to roast marshmallows. Shelby glanced over to see if her father had seen this wonderful woman, but he was snoring, having fallen asleep between the sports and the weather. Shaking her head, Shelby turned back to the TV where the woman was dancing. Her movements were fluid and soft, and when she opened her mouth, Shelby was hypnotized.

"Are you tired of the plain-old, plain-old you?" Shelby nodded meekly.

"Do want something new, something exciting" Shelby's jaw dropped. It was almost like this woman knew exactly what she was thinking about. She sank to the carpet, as a vision engulfed her mind. Suddenly she wasn't "plain-old, plain-old," she sauntered down the hall of her Jr. High, her suddenly existent hips swaying to nonexistent music. Everyone stopped what they were doing, and turned. Rachel, the final word in popular, scuttled behind her, trying to get a glimpse at the new beauty who had stolen her crown. Slowly, almost reverently, the student body bent to their knees.

Shelby smiled.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Shelby heard the commercial's jingle and one last line from it's star, "A new hair, and a new you." The mysterious woman gave Shelby one more smile, the type of smile that fills you right up, almost like the smile their preacher gave the congregation before beginning one of his hellfire and brimstone speeches, the type that fills you right to the top and lets you float right through the roof and above the brimstone. It was the smile that said, "Someday, someday you might possibly be as wonderful as I am." Shelby smiled back at the woman, and then she was gone.

"That's what's wrong with me. That's it." Shelby muttered. "That's it!" She practically shouted, forgetting her sleeping dad, forgetting her mother's request, only remembering the beautiful revelation she had just been given.

"Eh?" Her dad's previously drooping head jerked up. "Did you say something?"

"No," Shelby smiled; she was still floating from the memory of that smile. "Mom says its time for dinner."

Something about that commercial changed Shelby, she could feel it. There was something about the way the mysterious woman had smiled at her; she suddenly had a vision of what she could be like.

The next day, Shelby once again found herself glowering at a glass of milk while her mom bustled around the kitchen.  The kids had been mean at school again, not that that was unusual, but what was unusual was how much it hurt.

“Mom, I think I want to dye my hair.”

Shelby’s mom spun around, bits of grease flying off of the flipper she was using for the hamburgers, “You want to do what?!?!”

“I want to dye my hair.”

Her mom’s jaw dropped just a little lower. “Mom. I want .to die. my hair. Now, Today. Everyone at school is doing it.”

“And by everyone do you mean this Rachel Fitzherbert girl you’ve been talking about?”

Shelby was silent. Her mother nodded, then turned back to the hamburgers.

“If you want to, you can. I’m not saying you should. I like your hair the way it is, it is beautiful, but if you want to, you can.” Shelby smiled, but she wasn’t if it was because she was happy or because she was trying to hide the hollow feeling that had suddenly filled her stomach. “It’s time to eat.” Her mother turned around again.

“Its okay, I’m not hungry.”

The hair had been a flop. Of course. Shelby sighed as she looked at the woman in front of her, the memories of that awful moment slipping away.  Her hair was still that bright garish red, and her nails still perfectly manicured, but it wasn’t quite the same girl. Or maybe Shelby wasn’t quite the same girl.

Shelby’s husband walked up to her and put his arm around her shoulder, “Honey, are you okay?”

“Yep, I am.” Shelby turned around, leaving the woman who had once been a girl, but was nothing but an empty shell. She turned around and left her to her carrot hunting. “I really am.”