The Predicteds by Christine Seifert Page A

can’t see what he’s doing, since Dizzy insists that they surprise me with a haircut she picked out of a magazine. Still, I can see long chunks of hair raining down around me. Instead of making me feel sad, it makes me feel powerful, like each hunk of hair is one less thing I have to carry around. Lightning Rod has to work much slower than he’d like, he tells me. He has to carefully cut and comb around my stitches, which are still sore and tender. I grit my teeth every time he gives my hair even the slightest tug.
    I’m also a little nervous, because even though Dizzy is what I imagine guys think of when they think of sexy, her hair is kind of a disaster. She’s playing with it now, pulling it out of a braid and putting it up into two curly pigtails that look cute but are not exactly my style. I grew out of pigtails at birth.
    When Lightning Rod is done with what he calls his masterpiece , I finally get to have a look. When I turn around, all three of us examine it in utter silence. “Well, say something!” I finally plead.
    Lightning Rod places his hand over his mouth. “Oh! Oh, oh!” he says. “I’m going to tear up. I’m going to, right now.” He shakes his hands in front of his face.
    â€œMe too,” Dizzy chimes in. “I can’t believe it!”
    â€œIt’s unbelievable,” Lightning Rod agrees.
    At this point, I’m contemplating a wig. I mean, it looks fine to me, but if this is the kind of reaction I’m going to get, I might as well forget about showing it to anyone else. “That bad?” I ask, thinking that my taste must be seriously off. The longer I look at it. the more I think it’s kind of cute.
    â€œBad?” Dizzy yells. “It’s awesome!”
    â€œYou look like Louise Brooks,” Lightning Rod says.
    â€œWho?” I ask, wondering if I even want to know.
    â€œShe was a silent movie star, a pinup girl. She was…something else.” Lightning Rod blows a kiss into the distance. “Hot. Sexy. Out of this world. That kind of girl.”
    Dizzy pulls out her BlackBerry and quickly finds an image. I stare at the black and white photo of Louise’s sleek, shiny crown of hair. I do kind of her look like her, I guess. My hair is longer than hers, falling just below my chin, but I can see that we have the same dark eyes, pale skin, and bow-shaped lips.
    I smile at the mirror and then at Lightning Rod. “You think I can pull this off?”
    â€œHoney, if you were ten years older, or I were ten years younger, you would be my dream girl. I love it!”
    Dizzy squeals and hugs me for about the hundredth time today.
    The only word I can think to describe it is cool . That’s how I feel. I don’t even feel bad about the hunks of my long hair lying dead on the tiled floor.
    â€œThis is exactly what you needed,” Dizzy tells me. “Now you are finally you!”
    After the haircut, we buy two pairs of jeans, some makeup, and a pair of dangerously high heels with silver studs for me. I blow through Melissa’s money quickly, and I have to reach into my purse for the few dollars I’ve saved from Christmas and birthday money that my grandmother sends to me. Lightning Rod doesn’t come cheap. And buying stuff at the mall, I realize, is seductive and addictive. I’m enjoying the idea of being a different version of me, someone who has clothes from the mall, rather than just the hippie-esque things that Melissa gives to me—undoubtedly, someone’s thrift store castoffs.
    We end the shopping marathon by picking out Dizzy’s swimsuit, a daring two-piece in chocolate brown with gold rings on both the top and bottom. She looks incredible in it. Dizzy is one of those people whose good looks sneak up on you. One minute, she looks like a little girl playing dress-up—someone who packed on her mother’s makeup—but if you look at her for a few minutes, you