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October 24, 2001 ~ Mesmerized
Li is twisting her hair. She's stretched out on the other couch on her back, her feet up over the arm. One hand is holding her book--Orson Scott Card, of course. The fingers of the other hand are twisting and sliding about the small braids that cover her head.
A bead has fallen out. Her fingers slide over and over the thin, short braid, twisting it into a small point, stretching it, twisting, stretching, twisting, twirling it around and around. She lays down the book, trying to thread the bead back onto the braid with both hands, but the hair is not tight enough, strands escape and the bead will not thread. She twists some more, her fingers fluidly sliding down the strand, twisting, twirling, twisting.
Those fingers are mesmerizing me, distracting me from what I'm writing with their twisting. They are a light walnut tone, darker at the knuckles, slightly pink toward the tips. Her complexion is even, unlike mine will ever be. My skin is much too pale for that, so pale it borders on translucent in places. Shadows of what is underneath show through. I never tan; she would never need to. Here are my fingers, pale white against the black keys of the laptop, talking to the keyboard in short, taps and caresses. She, twines those walnut fingers through that darker weave of braids, braids that would never stay woven for long in my slippery blonde hair.
I wonder what it would be like, to have hair like that, naturally so tightly crimped. She hasn't always had it in those small braids. She used to wear it down, washing it every morning, letting it fall into the tiniest ringlets you could imagine. They were very cute, and so are the braids and beads.
The bead is back on the braid now. She pushes it all the way up to the roots of her hair and then pulls it back down again, some, sliding it back and forth until it sticks, slows. She continues to twist the braid with one hand, though, back to reading with the other, laughing at some joke in the text as she twists and turns the braid through her fingers, the tiger's eye bead flashing again and again in the light.
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