The Straightener

‘What is she doing?’ he wondered quietly as a girl sat on the overstuffed chair catty corner to his. His eyes scanned the other empty seats around the room and looked back at her, who seemed to have taken no notice to him. He liked studying in this area of the math building because rarely anyone else ever did nor ever tried to bother him there, but she chose to sit right next to him.

She pulled out a thick book with the title, Fredrick Jackson Turner and the Frontier Theory and a black object that looked like over sized tongs with buttons and a power cord. Nonchalantly she plugged in the mechanism and it started beeping. She pushed a few buttons, put it on the desk beside her and opened her text.

He looked at the large tongs, sitting menacingly on the desk wondering what it was for. Suddenly it started beeping again. She looked at it and with a sigh she pulled another menacing object from her back pack. This one looked like a set of teeth in the shape of fork prongs that she could open and close with two levers in the back. She placed it on her lap on top of her book and started brushing her wet red hair. She swept up a top layer of her hair and left the rest lying flat on her neck. With one hand she held a loose bun on top of her head and with the other picked up the set of teeth. She opened it up and clasped it onto the loose bun. She adjusted it a little and the jaws magically stayed in place on top of her head. Once she had half her hair up, she opened the book again laying it flat across her legs and grabbed the tongs by the end.

His homework lay forgotten in front on him as he watched her grab a chuck of her exposed hair and clap it into the tongs close to her skull. The air crackled with a sound like mourning breakfast on the stove and a huge puff of smoke rose from the black tongs around her head. He watched the smoke in distress, but she paid it no heed and slowly pulled the tongs through her wet hair making more crackling noises and spewing more smoke into the air. Without realizing what he has doing he muttered loudly, “What are you doing?”

She finished pulling her hair through the tongs, looked up a little confused and saw him looking at her. “Excuse me?”

He stuttered, “Oh nothing, just thinking out loud.”

She saw his eyes fixated on the tongs she held aloof and said, “Oh does this bother you. Sorry I ran out of time this mourning to do it so I had a brilliant idea to do it here. I would like to finish if you wouldn’t mind.”

He shook his head a little dazed, “No, no not at all, go ahead.”

She smiled and went back to her book, clasping another piece of hair into the tongs and another puff of smoke filled the air. Before he could stop himself he asked, “What is that?”

She looked up at him still pulling hair through and asked, “What was that?”

He shook his, “Never mind.” Frustrated, he thought to himself, ‘Stupid just stop talking and do your homework.’

But it was to late, “Have you never seen one of these before?” she said as she indicated to the black machine.

Hesitantly he responded, “No.”

She smiled widely again, “It is a straightener.”

He ruffled his eyes brows, “A what?”

Smiling even wider at a joke he obviously didn’t get, she said again, “A straightener, like a curling iron, but for straightening instead of curling.”

She held the straightener in midair and tapped it opened and closed very quickly sounding like a crap pinching for his diner. The crap hissed and sizzled as she pinched onto another piece of her hair in the tongs.

“Why does it make that sound?”

Relaxed she replied, “Well my hair is still wet and the straighter it hot, so it is like putting water on a hot pan.”

“And the smoke?”

She tilted her head slightly, “Smoke?”

He dramatically waved his hands from his head and exasperated, “That spews off every time?”

Laughing, she jerked her head a little, “That’s not smoke.”

He looked at her suspiciously, smelling the air and thought, ‘Then how do you explain that smell of burning hair?’

She went on, “That’s steam,” she watched him a little while; when he still looked confused she explained farther, “since my hair is still wet.”

Cautiously, he nodded his head, “I see.”

Her laughter hung in the air as she said, “What did you think? I was putting my hair on fire?”

Defensively he responded, “Well how was I supposed to know!”

She looked at him side ways and asked, “You don’t have any sisters do you?”

He shrugged his shoulder, “I have one, but I don’t think she even owns a blow dryer no less that thing.”

Bluntly she corrected him, “A straightener.”

A little embarrassed he said, “Any way, sorry to have interrupted you.”

In a little sing song voice she replied, “No problem.” and went on straightening her hair.

Trying to refocus on his homework, his eyes glazed through his text book, reading the same lines twice, trying to let them penetrate his brain, but the words simply wouldn’t stick. He couldn’t help shifting his eyes back at her, still pulling the black thing through her hair and concentrated on reading her book. He shook his head thinking, ‘Multitaskers, I will never get them.’ He pressed his fingers against his eyes and around his temple willing his mind to wake up. Another snarl growled from the angry straighter, puffing smoke like a mid-afternoon cigarette brake. His eyes stared at the blurry words in front of him and after a moments determination they finally started to become clear. He concentrated on the ins and outs of molecular formation of atoms imaging each form explained in great detail in his book, when he noticed more movement form the seat next to him. He didn’t look up at her. But he saw her putting away her book and shoving the smoking dragon tongs back into its den in her back pack. Her previously wet hair had been transformed to flowing soft dry hair, lying delicately around her face.

He kept ignoring the fact the she was making progress to leave and took his own advice, stopped talking and did his homework. He tried to keep to the effort, even as she obviously cleared her throat. But once she started talking again he knew he could no longer ignore her, “Sorry if I disrupted your studying.”

Without looking up, he shook his head, “Not at all.”

“And you got to learn something new.”

He looked up a little confused, “What’s that?”

She titled her head, “About the straightener.”

He nodded his head, “Oh right, thanks.”

She started to walk away a little and smiled, “Who knows maybe next time we bump into each other, you could show me how to shave or how you do that lovely hair due of yours?” and then distinctively walked off, leaving him rubbing pensively at his scruffy face and running his fingers through his floppy mess of hair.

Looking back down at his book his thoughts rebuked him, ‘I told you! I told you just to stop talking and do you homework.’