Good Hair, Bad Hair

By Carmen L. Montañez

Good hair, bad hair registers the author in the genealogical tree of the great Caribbean writers such as Olive Senior, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mayra Santos-Febres. The speakers of this novel, shown through fragmented monologues, become archetypical voices that intertwine in the main character as if all of them were only one. The changes of narrative perspective create metaphors of the inherent ambiguity in the Caribbean amalgam. But beyond the tension that the title could imply, this novel is the story of a woman who, in spite of her restlessness or her fears, takes control over her life.
Elidio La Torre Lagares Professor, Universidad de Puerto Rico

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469163611

Carmen L. Montañez

CARMEN L. MONTAÑEZ nació en Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. Estudió Jurisprudencia en la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico. Posee una maestría en Literatura Hispanoamericna de la Universidad de Louisville en Kentucky. Además, posee un doctorado en Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Kentucky. Es Profesora Emérita de Indiana State University. En la actualidad enseña Literatura Hispanoamericana en la Universidad de Louisville. En 1998, publicó un estudio sobre el cuento puertorriqueño, Subversión y creatividad. Su colección de cuentos, De El Fanguito a la loza, se publicó en el 2001 en Puerto Rico. Su primera novela, Pelo bueno, pelo malo, se publicó en 2006 con Terranova Editores en Puerto Rico, con una Segunda Edición en el 2008, y la traducción al inglés, Good Hair, Bad Hair vio la luz en el 2012, publicada por XLibris en los Estados Unidos. Es co-autora de la antología, Mar y Cielo: Literatura Caribeña, publicada en 2010 con Linus Publishers en los Estados Unidos. Su última colección de cuentos, Las divas de mi barrio, se publicó en 2012 en Bloomington con Palibrio. En el 2015 publicó su segunda novela, El baúl de las tres llaves con Lúdika en San Juan, Puerto Rico. También, en el 2015 publicó su primer libro para niños, The Bilingüe Bird Goes Home, con Green Ivy Publishing en Chicago. Algunos de sus artículos de crítica literaria han sido publicados en varias revistas prestigiosas de Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Carmen L. Montañez

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012902262

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-6360-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-6359-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-6361-1

Picture by Cindy Couling, Big Hair Day, -Ceramic Platter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

First Day, First Step

Essential Thursday

Social Friday

Saturday of Relaxation

Sunday of Warnings

Monday of Possibilities

Tuesday of Dreams

Fantastic Wednesday

Fatal Saturday

A Day of Confession

A New Day

Glossary

For my sister Paulita,

all my girl friends from Santurce,

and all those women who daily have

to comb their curly hair…

Pelo malo es el se cae…

—Luis Rafael Sánchez,

El pelo malo

A good friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

—Willian Penn

To my amiguita, Alejandra Alvarado-Brizuela, thank you.

First Day, First Step

For Amarilis, time had passed, but for her mother, time was deadlocked.

It was decided. She would move tomorrow.

"I was a virgin when I got married, do you hear me? How do you want me to say this? In jeringonza, chiI-chigot-chima-chirried-chivir-chigen."

The daughter and the mother laughed at this clever word play, but Amarilis already knew her mother’s intentions. It was always that way; when her mother started to talk, no one could stop her—her tongue was going a hundred miles per hour. Today her mother had already started on her favorite theme, her virginity, and would always begin with the same affirmation: If you want to believe it, believe it, but I’m telling you the truth.

A virgin, do you hear me? said the mother, her mood changing to an irritable one. When I was married, I wore a white dress with a crown of orange blossoms without any sense of guilt.

As always, every time that her mother told about this part of her wedding, she crowned herself with an invisible crown that Amarilis didn’t want to bother looking at.

Yes, I heard you perfectly, answered Amarilis, laughing, and in a nonchalant voice she added, I feel no shame when I wear a white dress, turning her back to her mother indifferently.

Don’t mock me, you know very well what I mean. The girls today don’t have sense of guilt even if they kill their own mothers. They go to bed with the whole town, and then they marry the one with the biggest thing or the first one that proposed to them. These sure are different times.

It was decided.

A few months ago when Amarilis first got the idea of moving out, she hadn’t thought about how difficult it would be for her to leave the home where she spent her childhood, her teen years, and now the beginning of her adult life. This bedroom where she had lived all her life and where the walls had changed color and wallpaper design according to her age and stage of life. She knew every imperfection on the walls created by the passing of time and the tropical weather and all the decorative touches that her mother alone had done with her own hands. She would miss the window that overlooked the backyard with its view of the mango tree where she had swung in her hammock summer after summer, a window that opened its slated panes with a little handle that she had broken on several occasions and her father patiently repaired without a word. With curtain rods, her mother had sewn a few pairs of curtains consistent with the development of her growing body: from little bears with sparkling eyes to beautiful little dolls surrounded by spring flowers or other colorful and cheerful flowers. By that window, she had waited to see the Three Kings laden with gifts just for her. One year, Amarilis received the most beautiful doll that she ever had seen. She was wearing a pink organdy dress, a matching miniature hat with white lace covering smooth blond curls, snug tiny shoes, and white tights. Her rosy face had a tiny pair of joyful eyes, and for her button-size mouth, little red lips framed a perpetual smile.

Where was this doll now? Why didn’t she know her whereabouts? Where was her Peter Pan with his green felt tunic?

No other child in her barrio had had a Peter Pan, dressed as a European hero with his little hat decorated with a red feather. Only she owned one. Peter Pan wrapped in magic that didn’t allow him to get old and enabled him to live forever and ever in Neverland. Sometimes Amarilis was in Neverland flying with Peter Pan, most often when the dogs from her barrio were howling to warn the neighborhood that somebody was going to die, flying to defeat many Captain Hooks. All you need is faith and trust… a little bit of pixie dust. Where was that pixie dust that Amarilis never found? Surely with Peter Pan. Somewhere. In Neverland. That was the destiny of a lot of other gifts that the Three Kings brought to her over the years. When she was a little girl, she was intrigued by how men were able to enter her room between the small spaces of her slated window, such robust bearded men loaded with toys. Sure, they were magic, her parents explained to her, even though she found out the truth about the Three Kings the night that she saw her father walking on tiptoe with the bicycle that she yearned for that year. That night she kept quiet, pretending she was asleep, and when she woke up, she feigned happiness because she knew that she had lost her innocence. But she really enjoyed her father teaching her how to ride her bike. Those were wonderful days.

Mom, don’t exaggerate. Just because I want to be independent doesn’t mean that you have to do an analysis on women today. It’s not a big deal.

It’s not that I want to analyze anything or anybody. What I want to say is that now that you feel like a woman, you want to be by yourself to able to do whatever you want. But because this a decent home, you can’t bring your friends, or your boooyfriend, the way that you guys call your lovers now on, so the house is too small for you. Of course, you can’t follow my example, I married well. When I left my parents’ home, I left with pride on the long arm of your father, rest his soul, said her mother like she was in a public debate.

Mamita, you know that I am not like that. You can count all my romantic relationships on one hand without your memory. You could say that this aspect of my life has been very boring. I haven’t had a boyfriend that was worth the trouble. In other words, I’m unlucky in love. You were lucky that you found the man of your dreams, living together and enjoying years of happiness with him, said Amarilis as she tapped her