The Rules Series

to be able to tame this?” Roughly, she continued to pull and snatch my hair managing to tangle it in her comb. She had the nerve to yank my head again, while grumbling at me to “Hold still.”
It hurt, but I tried to deal with it. I managed to hold back the tears misting up in my eyes from the pain. I was older than Nina by three minutes, so they said, and she watched me like a hawk. She was next. I guess even then I always felt the need to protect her. I had to be strong for her.
The stylist complained underneath her breath. “Real Chinese girls don’t have hair like this.”
What did she mean by that? We were real Chinese girls. I turned my head slightly to ask, but she yanked it back around. This time, I couldn’t fight the tear that trickled out of the corner of my eye, but I was quick. I wiped it away before Nina saw it. This woman was a monster, and I wasn’t going to ask her anything. I’d ask Laurette later. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about what she meant. Were her remarks because Nina and I didn’t have a mother? While it was rare, other girls from our school had lost a parent, so that couldn’t be it. Our hair was just as long as the other girls or longer. True, it wasn’t jet black but more like a cocoa brown. And, yes, it was thick with big natural waves, but it wasn’t wild. My mind was abuzz with questions when Laurette entered the room. She always appeared from nowhere like magic.
It was apparent from the crinkling of her eyes and the firm line of her lips that she had overheard the stylist. Her head lifted a little higher, looking down on the woman—almost regally. “What. Did. You. Say?” Speaking through clenched teeth, Laurette punctuated every word.
The stylist glanced up with a blank expression on her face as if she hadn’t said anything crazy. “Excuse me?”
Laurette stiffened her back, and her eyes glittered. I could see the anger radiating off of her petite frame. It was shocking, because she was always so calm and soft spoken. I’d rarely heard her raise her voice, but this was one of those times that her words began to spew from her mouth like a rapid fire weapon.
“Get out of this house you vile and evil woman! They are children. How dare you?”
“N-no. You misunderstood.”
“I understood you correctly!”
Our private security was never too far, and they came into the room. “Is there a problem?”
“Yes. I want this woman out of this house right now before I snap her scrawny little neck.”
Our security grabbed her roughly by the arm and dragged her out of our house. Moments later the woman was gone.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand what had happened or why. I also didn’t know that I wasn’t really considered one of them or what THEM even was. I was considered black. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know there were differences in races. I thought everyone was the same, but on this day, I learned. Chang protected us from a lot – well mostly himself, but he couldn’t protect us from this.
I never forgot that stylist. She handed me my first experience of being a black woman growing up in China.
After Laurette and I entered the tea room, the maids suddenly became overly focused on dusting and cleaning. There weren’t any more giggles, laughter, or pointing coming from them.
Nina and Laurette started talking about nonsense, and I took a seat opposite them. Nina’s soft voice was always asking about silly things. “Laurette, I love this room. You had it decorated to look almost exactly like my dollhouse.”
“Yes, I did. I know how you hate tea-time and dinner in here, so I figured if we made it look like your dollhouse maybe you could pretend to be somewhere you loved. I’m more than happy that my hope has had its desired effect. What about you Gina? Do you like what I’ve done?”
My mind was pre-occupied. “I guess. It’s nice, but I never had a problem with this room.”
I didn’t have much to offer to the conversation, because my focus was somewhere else entirely. I watched and waited until the idle chatter between Nina and Laurette died down before I asked my question. Even back then I understood timing could be everything. You could almost hear a pin drop in the room.
“Laurette?”
“Oui, little one?” She was focused on and fussed over the ribbon in Nina’s hair.
This time, I spoke in my own language. I wanted those maids to understand every word. “What does xiǎo hēi guǐ mean?”
Her head snapped up to look at me. “Where did you hear such foul language?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know it was foul.”
Not only was the room incredibly quiet, it also seemed the temperature had dropped more than ten degrees. I didn’t know what the word meant, but I knew Laurette hadn’t looked this angry since she kicked that hair stylist out of our home years ago.
Slowly, I turned and pointed towards the maids. “They were laughing. I thought it was some kind of joke when I heard her say it.” I knew better. Whatever they were saying wasn’t a joke, at least not to us.
The maids began talking at the same time. “Gina misunderstood. We would never—”
Laurette straightened her back and narrowed her eyes. She put her hand up to silence them. She had that kind of authority in this