After dating almost exclusively white boys all my life, at age twenty-four I marry Dan in a small ceremony in a mansion on the eastern bank of the Hudson River near West Point, about two hours north of Snedens Landing where I’d lived as a small child. In preparation for the wedding, I go to a Black hair salon for the second time in my life—this time on my own terms. Instead of leaving with the short Afro Angie and my mother had conspired to give me in the sixth grade, I emerge with extensions woven into my hair—dark brown tresses made of real human hair that flow long, thick, and supple, which I can flick and let fall or tuck behind my ear. This time I look like any Black girl who knows how to make her hair look the way it is supposed to. Who knows how to make her hair look beautiful.
White hair. White dress. White life.