Some people had a knack for punctuality, where others, like Eshe Diallo, were always scurrying after life, two steps behind and constantly late. And this time, she'd brushed the razors edge.
I'm here. I'm here. I'm here, thank freaking God.
She'd made it to her gate by the skin of her teeth, with only twenty minutes to spare before boarding call. Sighing heavily, Eshe smiled. God, traffic had been a nightmare and harass her older sister Lana over a ride to the airport for her late evening flight which had resulted in a lot of sisterly bickering and countless threats of 'You Owe Me Big'.
She'd had to practically beg her way through check-in and even flirt with a cute guy in the security line up to let her cut ahead.
Setting down her carry-on on an available seat near the terminal walkway, utterly exhausted, Eshe sat down and stretched her long legs. As a chronic white-knuckle flyer, she'd dressed in skinny jeans cuffed at the ankles, cobalt ballerina flats and an oversized sweater.
The entire ensemble fresh and comfortable for the hellish flight she had ahead of her but still put together enough that if Ian Somerhalder happened to strut by with his gorgeous (and regrettably married self), she wouldn't have to dive behind the row of seating in shame.
Reaching into her purse, Eshe plucked out a small lip gloss sized jar of organic shea butter and scraped out the barest amount of the cream coloured waxen substance with the back of her nail. A little went a long way and she only got her hands on it twice a year when her mom made the trip back to her small village in Somali.
She worked it into her palms, the backs and down her slender fingers. As the butter warmed in her hands it spread, leaving her skin soft and fragrant. Capping the small jar, she tucked it away in her purse. Unlike what she would find in local store shelves in London, this was pure, raw and unrefined. More precious than gold for a woman of colour.
Sliding in her ear buds, Eshe scrolled through her music and settled on a Kings of Leon track while she scrolled through her notification on Twitter when a tickle skimmed the side of her shoulder. Whisper light and fleeting. She'd blown her length of dark hair straight the night before so it skimmed the below the center point of her waist and planned to loosely braid once boarded.
Figuring the sensation was a result of her long dark hair shifting as she'd settled into her seat, she'd only just brushed it aside without much further inference, when it happened again.
No, no she'd felt that this time. Someone was touching her.
Twisting in her seat, Eshe came face to face with the guilty party. A middle-aged black woman with flame red hair and a lot of gold, necklaces, earrings, rings and bracelets—enough to open her own jewelry counter. Contouring brought out the curves of her cheekbones, tapered her nose and the edges of her hairline were slicked in place with professional flare.
Eshe slipped her ear buds out and smiled. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."
"That's alright." Elbow propped on the backrest, she set her chin on her fist. "Are you from London?" she asked, her wide smile full and friendly. But a knot of unease coiled in Eshe's belly all the same. Talking to strangers always had this effect. Talking to strange women especially.
"I am. Just heading out to visit a girl friend that needs a bit of cheering up."
"Brilliant," the woman settled closer, eyes gleaming, "so then you can tell me your secret. I was just admiring your hair, earlier. It's beautiful. Remy? Virgin hair, right?"
Not this again. Her gaze flickered to the boarding gate and though the stewardesses appeared moving and in preparation, the plane had not yet taxied to the gate. Stomach clenching, "No."
Thin brows, penciled and powdered in for fullness, drew in at the middle, creating a deep crack segmenting her features."Brazilian, then? Wet and wavy?" She flicked the back of her hand against Eshe's shoulder. An impatient gesture. "Come on, where'd you get it?"
Eshe swallowed the rise of pressure at the back of her throat. The dread of knowing where this was going. Of what was going to happen next. "No. It's mine."
"Yeah, I know but where did you buy it? Quit acting like it's a state secret. Are you wearing clips or is it a sewn in?"
"I mean it's natural," she said, her voice carrying a little louder, a little firmer and—Christ—a few people were now starting to stare. Fantastic. "Me. Mine. All mine."
Absorbing this, the woman's face fell, incredulous. Jealousy, envy and resentment chief among the range of emotions to sear through her eyes.
And here it comes, Eshe thought, as without word or warning her fingers dove into Eshe's thick, dark tresses to seek and search for something they'd never find.
Tracks. Clips. Glue.
She gave her about twenty seconds, and one vindictive tug before what remained of her patience snapped. "Ease off, yeah? As I said, it's all me."
Those fingers stilled and slipped out of her mane. "What's your background?"
Why does that even matter? Eshe set her teeth. Isn't the colour of my skin plain enough for you?
"You're not real black," she snapped. "Not with hair like that."
"I am mixed, yes. My dad is Filipino."
Her eyes lit up, triumphant, and burned with accusation. As if Eshe had somehow revealed a traitorous truth instead of honest fact. "That explains it."
"I actually get my hair from my mum; she's full Somali."
Laughing, the woman waved it off. "Whatever. Probably think you're better than the rest of us with your natural 'hair'."
"Sorry," Eshe mumbled, though she never understood why she always had to apologize in the first place. Frustration, anger, and hurt burned the back of her eyes, seared her throat and she hated that she wanted to cry.
It was always the same thing, time and again, even as a little kid. Poking fingers and pointed questions. The constant circling barrage of what are you instead of who are you was maddening.
Always feeling out of place, never quite right. Boys who valued her only for her face, or her hair or her skin, but never for her heart and soul. Girls who loathed her for all of the former and didn't give much thought to the latter. Even now, faced with the woman's inflammatory words, she could hear the chorus of them rising around her with the usual jibs and taunts.
You're so pretty, it's not fair.
Why are your legs so long?
How can you eat so much but your waist stays so thin?
You've got the perfect ass and boobs?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The urge to set her hands over her ears to drown it all out was sudden and sharp, to curl up in a ball and disappear, knee-jerk. But Eshe had worked too long, too hard to be stronger than that, to fall back into old behaviours.
However, before she could muster up her voice, a figure moved in from her right and set a protective hand across Eshe's shoulder, the touch confident and secure.
"Why are you bothering this young girl? Piss off, yeah? Unless you fancy my foot in your face." As the woman grumbled and curses, gathering her things to relocate closer to the gate, her saviour smiled down at Eshe. "Are you alright, luv?"
A shapely plus sized figure—far from conventional standards of beauty but this woman exuded vibrant confidence. She owned every single part of herself, from her wide nose with septum piercing, to the gap in her front teeth and her rioting gold curls, coarse in texture but well-tended, set loose and wild.
Entirely unashamed of her ethnicity and her roots. Completely without apology.
"Yes. I'm..." God, she was staring. And staring was rude. Galled, Eshe pulled her eyes away, struggled to gather her thoughts, her non-existent voice.
"I'm Kendra."
Kendra held out a strong hand which she shook limply. "Eshe."
"Fancy some toffee?" Opening the bag, Kendra plucked out a square of soft caramel and popped it in her mouth, moaned loudly.
"No. Thank you." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, still uncertain where to look. Solving the problem, Kendra sat down across from her and crossed a leg, leaving Eshe with no choice but to make eye contact or appear even ruder.
"You sure? It's better than sex, this stuff."
Eshe's lips pulled into a grin as the edges of tension started to ebb from her shoulders and face. "I'm sure."
"You have family in Toronto?"
God, she was pushing her to talk, to force words around the blockage of emotion in her throat, to swallow it back inside of her to vomit it all at her feet. "Sorta. A girlfriend...more like my sister, really. We're close and she's going through a bit of a rough patch. I'm headed out there to help her sort through it."
Kendra nodded thoughtfully. "Good girl. Us sisters got to stick together, yeah? I'm just on my way back from a business trip. Spent a weekend out in Munich. Dabble in a bit of marketing and am looking to expand my role into freelance, as it were."
Even though the conversation was light and casual, Eshe knew what was going on beneath it. She could hear the concern underscoring every single word. "I want to thank you...for interceding when you didn't have to. I mean...to go through the trouble."
"Course I did. She had no right to speak to you like that. Yeah, I'm speaking about you, miserable old cow," Kendra added, cocking a brow over Eshe's shoulder and pinned her gaze there until satisfied she'd made her point. Reaching between them, she set a comforting hand on Eshe's knee. "Your hair is beautiful and you shouldn't be made to feel ashamed for it. Not by anyone."
Words she'd heard echoed by her own Sisters many times over and yet Eshe still jerked a careless shoulder, like it was no big deal. Like none of it had touched her so deep where thousands of other scars were already buried. A graveyard of lies beneath her skin. "She would've left me alone. Eventually."
Kendra rolled a cube of caramel in her mouth in consideration of her statement. "Being an Albino black woman, I know what's it's like to be the novelty. Or the freak. Pointing fingers and tasteless remarks are both ordinary and common place in my life. But I refuse to apologize for the hang ups of others. Their issues." Scooting forward, she hooked a finger under Eshe's chin, tilting it up a notch so that blue eyes locked to brown. And such fierce pride gleamed in those crystalline eyes, blue as stonewash denim against her milky skin.
"Never apologize for something you are born with, or for being true to who you are."
She held her gaze until Eshe felt the last vestiges of hesitancy and doubt bled out of her leaving her cool, calm and collected. Reassured. Around them, the sound of the boarding call announcement rattled travellers out of their seats.
"Well, that's you then. Safe flight, yeah?" Rolling up her bag of toffee and licking the sticky sugar from her fingers, Kendra tucked the candy back in her purse and left Eshe with a smiling wave.
**Author's Note**
YAY! Finally! We've met all the girls!!!!
This was the first Eshe scene that popped in my head, and I was very excited to get to it, as this is something I've dealt with a lot. Being bi-racial, I used to get a LOT of grief from full black girls who treated me bad because I wasn't true black, or accused me of being stuck up because they believed I thought I was better for being light. (UGH).
And I remember once when I went out to a club with my girl friend Fatima (she's Ethiopian) and how these black girls were all over her about her weave then were DISGUSTED when she revealed - shocker - this was all her natural hair. (And her hair was way better than mine could ever hope to be).
It always blows my mind how people can treat you horribly simply for something you were born with (something they either coveted or found hideous - like pigmentation blotches, birthmarks or other defects.) So I wanted to explore that a bit here.