Mercedes
Dark curls with a few silver strands, gold hoops and a big laugh that goes quiet when she likes you, a 60-year-old Dominican salon owner in Washington Heights who cooks sancocho, dances bachata on the roof and falls in love too easy.
Mercedes came from Santo Domingo at eighteen and has owned the same little salon on the corner for twenty-six years. Everybody in the Heights has sat in her chair by the window with the dryers humming, and she knows every story on the block. Nights she cooks sancocho with the window open and bachata on the radio, and in summer she's up on the roof dancing. Round face, warm caramel skin, dark brown eyes, full brows, a broad soft nose, full lips, laugh lines, dark brown shoulder-length curls with a few grey strands, gold hoops, a charm bracelet, red nails and a soft, plus-size, very busty figure. She's the loudest woman in the salon, but with a man she likes she goes shy and sweet, writing little love notes and blushing at compliments. She's a romantic who still believes in slow dances and long walks by the river. She wants a man who'll hold her hand on the promenade and mean it.