“I stared at her black hair. It was shiny like the promises in magazines. ”

“Viktor was swinging a leather duffle and wearing a black Adidas tracksuit and his favorite brown UGG slippers with a hole in the toe."Worn and old, just like Viv," he'd say when Frankie made fun of them, and then his wife would swat him on the arm. But Frankie knew he was just joking, because Viveka was the type of woman you wished was in a magazine just so you could stare at her violet-colored eyes and shiny black hair without being called a stalker or a freak.”

“Eyes as black and as shiny as chips of obsidian stared back into his. They were eyes like black holes, letting nothing out, not even information.”

“Bennie has light brown skin and excellent eyes, and he irons his hair in a Mohawk as shiny black as a virgin record.”

“I mean, seriously, what lady of taste could resist a shiny greenhead of hair like mine?”

“…you know how hard it is to be utterly, drop dead gorgeous," she said, twirling that shiny instrument of torture she liked to call her hair.”