Miss Layla Gets a Big Wheel

Girls will be boys...

I remember wanting to do little boy things even though I was a full grown woman at the tender age of seven. I begged and pleaded for a big wheel that year. Oh, I wanted that big wheel more than anything! You know the one, the plastic tricycle with the hand brake – the Godzilla Slider 3000 or something like that. 

Moments before disaster…

I kept my grades up, I even did better in gym class, girl. I actually threw the ball back at people that year. Wild times. And every weekend during the Saturday morning cartoons, there were commercials for that big wheel. Kids zooming down the street on it and then pulling the brake – whoosh! It would slide to the side like a racecar, kicking up dirt and rocks behind the wheel. It was a bad-ass little bike. 

The morning of my birthday I remember seeing it wrapped up in white wrapping paper with a red bow. I remember taking it outside and zooming down the street. My legs pumping on the pedals and my hand on that brake. I pulled the brake! I skidded, just like in the commercial, and I flipped over three times, which was not in the commercial, and finally landed upside down, crushed under the weight of the bike, pinned against my neighbor’s garage.

I couldn’t cry. I knew my mother would take it away from me. I gritted my teeth and I would not let myself cry for anything. My knees and arms were scraped up and my pinky finger was swollen. I couldn’t go upstairs to my parents’ apartment. 

So I went downstairs.

When Auntie opened the door, she took one look at me and provided the appropriate amount of gasping and pity I was hoping for. She cleaned me up as I dramatically recounted the crash to her in between sobs. 

She said, “I know just what you need, honey.”

She sat me at her little beige desk in front of her vanity mirror. You are so beautiful, she said, turning my head from left to right with her fingers. “Thank you,” I said, pointing to the blue eyeshadow. She applied it to my eyelids as I sniffled and wiped my nose. Then she put on the lipstick. A little blush. The brushes were so soft. It did not feel like she was painting my face, instead it felt like she was removing a piece of heavy clothing, unveiling me.