Face (7 page)

             
“Locking gazes. How sweet. I’m coming down there- I want to get a look at him.”

             
“Don’t be stupid, he won’t wait that long.”

             
“Bet he will if he’s a Natural.”

             
“What if he’s...actually as gorgeous as Dollar?”

Seven’s face opens
like she’s laughing at the whole universe.

“It’s your Maverick Update.”

              “What’s that got to do with it?”

             
“It makes him think he’s in with a chance.”

My phone
makes a satisfying snap as I close it. Nobody ever followed her up the street because she looks like all the other not-quite-Merlots.

Besides,
I was always going to go outside and meet him.

Chapter Seven

It’s easy
to leave the toilets, less easy to turn out into reception in full view of the double doors. I hang back, loitering. Elvis bounces spritely from the white corridor, and is promptly delivered onto the pavement. The doors part around him, far too many faces are hurrying past but nobody is standing still, not directly out front, the doors are shut again. Surely he wouldn’t be standing right there, would he, like my date?

So I make a decision.
I march at those ridiculously sized totally transparent doors and they shoot open and present me to the world as I fake-stroll out into the fresh air, take a deep breath, and a fraction more air moves in through my nose. Nobody approaches me. I’ve adopted a casual pose in the centre of the pavement and faces flow past, vivid statement eyes on disinterested shoppers. So I’ve got to do the looking, too. A visual sweep in both directions does not raise any immediate suspects. A wide group of teenagers cross the road towards me, but on brief inspection, they are all girls. Over the road, somebody is concealed within the doorway of a shop front like a proper stalker. I glimpse an elbow. I edge along to line myself up, and it’s only a man pausing to prise the lid off a coffee. Not a teenager. Cliff it seems, has gone.

I spy t
he dog with the sad face tied up outside the Health Centre.

“We meet ag
ain, boy. Hey, don’t I look any better?”

..................................................................................................................

I am walking home along the High Street when my phone rings, it’s Seven again. I answer and she switches her face to sullen.

“Why did you hang up on me? I didn’t mean
anything about your face- I just meant, watch out for Cliff.”

“
Doesn’t matter.”

“
It matters to me! I don’t know what I can say to you anymore, you’re so sensitive.”

Her eyes search out mine, I won’t give them.
I get a sudden flash of straight whites.

             
“So tell me what happened!”

             
“He’s a perfect Rex Rayne. Even better than Dollar.”

             
“No!”

             
“He was stood there in a Bugs Bunny suit.”

Seven shrieks, tosses back her head.
Her edges go soft for a split second.

             
“I marched outside to confront him like you said, and he’d gone.”

             
“Told you he was a Natural.”

             
“You said if he was a Natural he’d wait.”

             
“I messaged him straight back for you, I said you needed to know if he was a Natural.”

             
“What? I don’t
need
to know anything about him!”

Seven does h
er evil laugh: three syllables, emphasis on the last. I glare at her. Glaring never works with Seven, she has some kind of force field that repels them.

“
You want to date a Natural? I’m rescuing you here.”

             
“Who said anything about a date? It’s just a conversation that never happened.”

             
“You don’t know anything about this guy.”             

My dent
comes.

             
“I do know one thing: I know to try a bag of carrots next time.”

I turn into my street and the reflective house on the corner catches my dent
as I pass, reflecting it back to me in multi-colours. Seven is scowling out of my phone, she thinks I’m winding her up with my smile, but I can’t stop - I’m too funny. My stomach rumbles; it’s nearly lunchtime and I can’t remember the last time Mum planned a meal and carried the concept through to warm, comforting reality. Baby is going to come out addicted to a quick sandwich. I imagine her pouting as she stares overwhelmed, into the fridge. Listing forward, front-loaded with those pouty lips and the bump.

             
“I’ve got to go.” I tell Seven. “Pregnant one needs help thinking.”

             
“Wow, I keep forgetting about the baby!”

             
“You wouldn’t if you saw her. Or had to live with her.”

“
How long has she got left?”

             
“Any day now, but I was ten days late. She’s massive. Enhanced her face yesterday, gone all pouty.”

             
“Revenge face.” Seven nods her approval. “Good for her.”

I walk up to the front gate and
give it a nudge with my foot and pause on the ‘welcome’ mat to steel myself and tuck my phone away. (Seven might actually enjoy this confrontation, but I don’t need an audience.) Concentrating hard on misery and not smiling, I ease open the cheerful yellow front door and find Mum behind it.

Chapter Eight

Mum
is in the front hall and has one hand splayed against the wall and it becomes apparent that she is trying to ease herself down to retrieve a pile of clothes. She holds a weight-lifters stance, knees splayed.

             
“Ah, good timing. Could you...?”

Mum sways slightly,
and rests a shoulder on the wall. I dive in and scoop up the clothes and take in her new face, awake. Whatever she says, I must not react with my Smile Blocker.

             
“So?” Mum says forcefully into my silence. “What do you think?”

Her brows are softe
r now; I have to observe carefully to see them jump up, the challenge. New faces are harder work. She is actually pouting at me but I don’t think she means to, it’s just how that type of lips sit.

             
“Sexy.”

“You don’t like it.”

              “I didn’t say that.”             

She rolls her fat-lashed eyes to the ceiling.
We are two Updates face to face. Mine is the real surprise.

             
“It was just a bit of a boost. Look, your father left me. That hurt. Everything revolves around this now,” she gestures at the bump. “I needed some fun.”

             
“You look fun.”

“I don’t know why I feel the need to justify my face to you.”

Mum pushes off the wall and lurches towards me, seizing the pile of clothes. They rest across the bump, a shelf wide enough for the lot. “It’s not like you were going to react with a lovely supportive smile, is it? That would have been too much to ask.”

My features
freeze.
Has she guessed?
Something registers on Mum’s face. We watch each other like predators and she sniffs the air.

“You smell of Health Centre.”

“I’m ill, I’ve
just been.”

Mum’s aura switches
from attack to defence; caught in the act of negligent single-parenting. “What’s wrong with you?”

             
“It’s a cold.”

             
“Why didn’t you get the car to take you? Or I’d have driven you. I’m taking this lot to the Recycling Point anyway.”

             
“What about the baby?”

             
“Just don’t sneeze on the bump, I’ll be fine. Do you need to go upstairs for a lie down?”

I reach out to carry the clothes for her
.

             
“I can manage,” she says. “You should rest. You got anything else for the pile?”

             
“I’m not sorting clothes now.”

“There’s a parcel for you from Radiance. If you
urgently need to recycle, I can take this lot tomorrow instead?”

“Up to you.”

I grab my Radiance parcel from the bottom of the stairs and run up to my bedroom. I must be getting some control over this face at last!

T
en minutes later there’s a hesitant tapping on my bedroom door. It’s the pauses in between that particularly wind me up. She’s going to come in, so why pretend otherwise? I keep my head down, as her massive bulk eases into my field of vision.

             
“Only me...”

She
is using the doorframe as support, her substantial bosom heaving. I wait for the usual complaint to arrive.

             
“Stairs getting steeper?” I prompt, to get it over with.

“You said it
. And how are your nasal passages holding up?”

             
“That’s gross, Mum.”

Mum tries a connecting smile. I hold my face in neutral.

“Shouldn’t you be resting downstairs?” I suggest.

             
“I’ve been sat down all day! I’m supposed to be walking around. Doctor says it can get things moving.”

We both look at the bump. My first thought: is there any mum left behind that monstrosity? Kid’s going to come out starting-s
chool size. Mum wraps both arms around the fatherless kid.

             
“My, what a spacious room you have.” Mum says

             
“Not funny.”

I’m not get
ting into that argument again, the changing dimensions of my room- it’s not why she’s followed me upstairs.

             
“You look different.” Mum says.

Here we go: I make brazen eye contact. E
ncouraged, she moves towards me; her eyes are a warm olive, part of the package to make men feel at ease. She raises a hand, it extends towards me, and for one horrible moment I think she is going to try and stroke my cheek. But the hand withdraws to settle on her own face, where her fingers press at the skin around her new mouth. She starts to lower herself down next to me on the bed, a task in itself. Slowly, slowly, until the thigh muscles surrender and her rear end hits the duvet.

             
“Oooph”

I
wait for the aftershocks in the mattress to subside. She turns to me.

             
“Tell me that wasn’t a Smile Blocker.”

I give her the full effect.

              “Did you notice it when you first came in?”

             
“Hard to say, exactly. It’s not the first time you’ve tightened your mouth at me, is it?” Mum peers suspiciously at each feature in turn. “Tell me you can still smile. Please.”

I shut my eyes, shut out Mum and think of Dollar. It’s hard, the dimple flickers but Mum is close enough to catch it.

“Oh God, there’s more!” she says. “Where on earth did you get that face from?

“It’s Maverick.”

“Not by Ultiface then, I take it?”

“
Nanoperfect.”

“
Nano
perfect
!” she spits the word. “How ironic! When you’ve gone and messed up your happy and your angry faces in one fell swoop. What an Update. What a product.”

“You used to experiment at my age. You told me.”

“Not like this! Oh True, I loved your last face! You and Seven were such a nice, neat pair. Did something happen?”

I turn away to look out the window.

“Maybe I got bored of nice.”

Mum heaves a
huge sigh, I’m hoping it’s of resignation. I look back to search her new features, and notice the dark circles beneath her fluttery eyes. Maybe, just maybe, I am going to win. Mum’s chin draws inwards, like there’s something else she wants to say. She can’t resist reaching out to straighten the nearest cushion. (That grates; my mess is mine, it helps me to relax.)