Read Dolls Behaving Badly for Free Online Page B

She pulled a strand of her hair and stared at it with
     fascination.
    “We’re talking about hair?”
    “What did you think we were talking about?”
    I paused. “I thought Junior hated redheads.”
    “Oh, him ,” Laurel said with disinterest. “I need something new, you know? Something bold. Something that shouts, ‘Here’s a woman who’s
     not afraid to take chances.’”
    Laurel was afraid to take chances, but I knew better than to point that out. “Red is bold,” I agreed. “But I’ve heard that it’s hard
     to cover back up.”
    “I know!” Laurel cradled her head in her arms. “It’s such a dilemma, Carly. I can barely sleep thinking about it. I want to
     look as if I’m in charge, but sexy in charge, you know?”
    I was at loss for words. Except for the few days before her period, Laurel doesn’t allow her emotions to get the best of her.
     She’s logical and precise and careful. Yet there she was, sitting in front of me and revealing more moods then she’d had in
     years.
    “The time!” Laurel stood up and pranced her way to the door without bothering to rinse out her dirty coffee cup. “I’ll call
     you,” she yelled over her shoulder. “About the hair, okay?”
    The slam of the door, followed by the purr of her car’s expensive motor as she glided down my driveway. I watched out the
     window and wondered what was going on in my sister’s mind. Women always try to change their hair when they really want to
     change their lives. I did this myself, back before the divorce, before Barry and I dared utter the word, when we were still
     rolling it around on our tongues with an almost frenzied joy, each of us sure all our failures were the other’s fault. Instead
     of bringing up the subject of divorce, I began cutting my hair. It had been long when I married Barry, down past my waist,
     and I often wore it in a fat braid that hit comfortingly against my spine. I loved my hair. It was a shiny, dark blonde that
     picked up yellow highlights in the summer. Sometimes I wove ribbons through it or curled it in a mad array around my face.
    “Getting loose,” Barry yelled when I let my hair down. “My baby’s a’gettin’ loose.”
    I sacrificed my hair to free myself from my marriage. I hacked away, inch by agonizing inch, with Jay-Jay’s toenail scissors,
     ripping and tearing until my hair lay in uneven strips across my back, slowly creeping up toward my shoulders. Barry never
     uttered a word, not even when my hair littered the bathroom floor and stuck to the sides of his socks.
    To retaliate, or maybe to keep up, he started killing things: a few spruce hens here, a rabbit or porcupine there. King salmon
     so fat and heavy the middle of the kitchen table sagged, and then a coyote, a lynx, and—god help us—a sheep and finally a
     caribou. The day I walked in the bathroom and found a moose head floating in a cold bath was the day I knew we had gone far
     enough. Next time, it could only be a person.
    That night I waited up for Barry, who was working an insurance salesman banquet. I waited until he walked in the door, his
     ridiculous chef’s pants dragging on the floor, and then I coughed, cleared my throat.
    “Divorce,” I said, and we both froze, the silence between us thick and dangerous. I said it again. It was as if I had no control
     over my mouth.
    “Divorce, divorce, divorce,” until the very word became strange and blurry, like something you might read about in the newspaper.
    “Shut up!” he screamed, which made me scream even louder: “Divorce, divorce, divorce.”
    He finally had to hit me to shut me up, a gentle tap that didn’t even leave a mark, but still my eyes watered and I stared
     at him, momentarily betrayed. How dare he!
    I kicked him, sly and quick, but he didn’t bother to fight back, just stood there, his shoulders slumped, his chef’s hat sagging
     against his neck. I hated him then, hated him with a passion so extreme that if someone had handed me a