The Predicteds by Christine Seifert

“Uh-huhs” that indicate she is either intensely interested or intensely appalled by Dizzy’s chatter. I run out of my room to the kitchen in case it’s the latter.
    â€œThere’s our girl,” Dizzy says when I appear. “Tell me you didn’t spend more than five minutes getting ready. Because, don’t get me wrong, you look fine, but that is not the look of someone who took more than five minutes. Seriously, though, with twenty, you’d be a knockout. We can cover that bald spot.” She reaches up and tries to touch my head, but I flinch. “And just a wee bit more makeup would do wonders.” I stare at her caked-on look. Her eyelashes are so heavy with mascara, she looks like she’s going to nod off at any moment.
    Melissa smirks. She’s one of those people who takes about two minutes to get ready in the morning, and she still looks better than most people because of her milky-white complexion and her Mount Everest cheekbones. She says she doesn’t have time to worry about hair and makeup—that’s for people who don’t have anything else to do in a day. It’s an attitude that only someone who is naturally attractive can afford to have. If Melissa had a mustache or hair that naturally grew in the shape of a mullet, she’d be singing a different tune.
    â€œBut seriously, Daphne,” Dizzy continues, as if I haven’t been serious so far, even though I haven’t even spoken, “I was thinking that I could take you to get a haircut. We can do something about that…” She searches for the word “stuff.” She points at my hair. “I know this great place. Well, it’s not great. It’s in Quiet, so don’t expect miracles, you know? But it’s pretty good. The guy who cuts my hair, Lightning Rod—that’s his name, funny, huh?—can do wonders with anything. Any. Thing. Even me. Awesome, huh?” She glances at Melissa for confirmation of the awesomeness of Lightning Rod, then wrinkles her overly made-up nose at me and blows me a kiss.
    I’m about ready to back out of this whole thing, which Melissa can tell, so she grabs her wallet and pulls out some cash that she hands to me. “Don’t bring her back until she has a haircut and some new clothes,” she says to Dizzy.
    â€œI wasn’t planning to bring her back before then,” Dizzy says very seriously.
    Melissa must be losing it, because normally she praises me for being the kind of girl who is not obsessed with being a girl. When I was five, I asked Melissa if I could have a Barbie doll, and she gave me this huge lecture on the dangers of encouraging girls to play with dolls. It causes little girls to romanticize motherhood while preparing them for caretaker roles, she argued. So she bought me a plastic hockey stick instead, which I broke the first time I took it outside and tried to hit a Super Ball. I ended up cracking the hockey stick against the side of the house.
    I take the money anyway.
    ***
    The mall sign says The Mall , as if it is the only mall in existence in the entire world. “Pretty cool, huh?” Dizzy looks from me to the mall. “It’s all new. Before this, we had to drive to Tulsa or Oklahoma City to shop. Then we got our own mall.” She beams at it.
    â€œYeah, pretty cool,” I say, thinking about how many of The Mall could fit into the Mall of America, where I used to shop back home.
    Dizzy parks near the salon where Lightning Rod is waiting for us. He turns out to be this middle-aged guy with the beginning of a beer gut whose real name is Rodney. “Lightning Rod” is a nickname he earned for how fast he can cut hair—which I don’t necessarily think is a positive attribute for someone wielding scissors near my head.
    While he cuts my hair, he keeps making this joke where he says, “Oops, oops, oh, crap, I’m so sorry.” And then he and Dizzy laugh. I