Furious (23 page)

“I still don’t like it,” Alix says.

“Neither do I,” says Stephanie.

Before they walk away, Ambrosia gives me a look that’s a smile and not a smile. The whole encounter leaves me reeling. I have to hold on to the fence to settle myself.

Cue Raymond to appear when I most need him. He looks from my strained expression to the three backs walking away, and then to me again. “Whew. I need a sushi knife to cut the drama in the air. What was that all about?”

I don’t hold back. “Me and Brendon.”

Puzzled expression. The light goes on. “You mean, like, you and Brendon? Brendon and Meg sitting in a tree?”

I nod. “Actually, it was in a cave standing, not sitting. It’s true. I think it’s true. But maybe not.”

“I never would have thought to put the two of you together. But that’s the charming miracle of modern teen romance. I admit I have a soft spot for Brendon.”

“Really?”

“If he were gay, I would be crushing, too. His brooding is so becoming on him. I always suspected that he just fell in with the wrong crowd. So many of our youth do, you know.”

“Exactly! You get it! Brendon doesn’t belong with that bunch anymore—if he ever did.”

“Obviously a deep, meaningful conversation with the lad has won the lady’s heart.”

“You don’t think Brendon might be playing me? He’s so … and I’m not so…”

“Meg, you’re a goddess walking on Earth! What more could a straight guy want? Tell me you have a date lined up.”

“Sort of,” I say. I show him the recent messages on my phone.

“So romantic! Costumes and everything.” That really lightens the mood. I can always count on him to make me feel better. I playfully slap at his arm. “So what’s this about Ambrosia having a Halloween party?”

“She put invitations in lockers.”

An exaggerated hurt look blooms on his face. “Guess I didn’t make the A-list.”

“We’re all A-list. She invited everyone. I bet the invitation fell to the bottom of your locker.”

“She must not like me.” A couple of fake sniffs.

“Such delicate nerve endings, Raymond. Don’t be a fragile flower. I’m sure it was an oversight.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Ambrosia and I have different worldviews.”

“Come anyway. It’s a party. Rumors are flying about the delights she has planned.”

He gives me a goofy slug on the shoulder. “Delights! Oh, I will be there. Don’t worry. Nothing could keep me away.”

*   *   *

All the party rumors are true.

No parents will be here tonight. There’s going to be a real band, not some high school kids who took a few guitar lessons. And alcohol. The invitation said that nobody has to bring a thing. Ambrosia will provide everything that anyone could possibly want, plus stuff that we don’t even
know
that we want. She told Alix, Stephanie, and me to come in the late afternoon without costumes. She has everything we need.

So here we are at her house. Things start out a little tense because of the whole Brendon episode. I assure them again that I’d never betray their trust by revealing our secret. At Ambrosia’s prompting, Stephanie gives me a quick, tentative hug and Alix mutters a sentence with the word
sorry
in it. I’m relieved that Ambrosia, too, has come around.

When we enter the living room, Alix lets out a long whistle of appreciation. This is not only about the decorations, which we all agree are beyond fantastic. There are cobwebs that look and feel real and life-sized mummies and gravestones that also seem real. Alix takes Stephanie by the hand, dragging her from table to table, a kid in a candy store, only instead of Sour Patch Kids and Hershey’s Kisses there’s real champagne from France in buckets of ice, premium vodka sold only in Russia, sake from Japan, tequila from Mexico.

“Plants are not the only thing that my family collects in its travels,” Ambrosia explains. “I want my guests to be happy.”

Alix removes the cap of a bottle of something called
rakia
. “From Albania,” she reads from the label. “Where is Albania again?” She sticks her nose into the opening, but not for long. When she comes up for air, her eyes are watering. “Your guests are going to be
very
happy.”

Stephanie holds a small bottle of clear liquid up to the light.

“Don’t shake that!” Ambrosia warns.

Stephanie puts it down carefully. “Someone’s definitely going to call the police.”

Ambrosia scoffs, flicks her wrist like she’s shooing away a pesky bug. “Oh, the law. As usual, it is completely useless and ineffectual. The police have been taken care of. Not to worry.”

“No popo! Might as well get started, then.” Alix tilts back her head, takes a sip of the rakia. “It’s awful. But addictive.” She offers the bottle to Stephanie, who says, “Why not?”

“So intemperate,” Ambrosia says. “I like that.”

I have a one-track mind. “My costume?” I ask eagerly.

I don’t think Ambrosia hears me, because she’s pointing with disapproval to a section of cobweb. “Does that look right to you?” She pushes up her sleeves past her elbows and thrusts her bare arms into the mass, stretching it so that the netting thins and expands. It’s like she’s weaving it herself, and when she’s done she steps back to admire her work.

Then a spin to me. “So impatient and self-absorbed! I like that part of you. We don’t get to see it enough. Costumes will come. First some preliminaries.”

We follow her through the corridors and up the stairs, every inch of the house decked out with spiders, lifelike dead rats hanging by their tails, and pumpkins with sinister grins. Even if there weren’t a single decoration, the red walls, dim lighting, and old furniture would be eerie enough. When we enter her bedroom, even with the window closed, I’m hit by the faint odor of rotting meat from that red plant that sits in the center of the all-white garden. It’s still blooming, seems to be getting even bigger. Everything in the room is about the same as on our last visit—the wicker chair and vase of roses, the jack-in-the-box with the broken neck, and yes, the strange snow globe on the bookcase. My eyes go right for it and my feet follow. I pick it up, feeling the heft in both hands.

“You remember my little trinket. I thought you might,” Ambrosia says with obvious pleasure. “Like it any better now?”

I turn it upside down and back again, but this time feel nothing as the ash falls around figures that are posed in exaggerated states of grief and horror. “Sure, it’s interesting.” But my mind is elsewhere. I want to see my costume. “You said something about preliminaries?”

Ambrosia takes a chest-expanding inhale, turns her palms up and raises her arms until they clasp overhead. Then she bends at the waist, keeping her back straight, until her hands are flat on the ground. She pops back up, claps her hands once. “All warmed up now. Ready to go.” She steps to her vanity table and pulls out a drawer that is surprisingly long, like an artist’s drawer. Instead of paints, though, it contains a treasure trove of lipstick, eye makeup, pots of rouge and face powder, plus dozens of metal gadgets designed to pluck, squeeze, snip, shave, twist, and curl.

“No, no, no!” Alix snarls.

Stephanie backs herself into a corner, plants her feet. “No way. I’m not a tool of the cosmetic industry—even for Halloween.”

Ambrosia makes a calming motion like she’s patting down the air. “You two, relax. Save your outrage for a better purpose.”

She swings to me.

“Yes, please,” I say. “The works.”

23

Ambrosia guides me
by both shoulders into a swivel chair with a thick cushion of white brocade. I don’t like what I see in the mirror. I never do. I know that when Brendon was kissing me, I felt beautiful. I want to feel that way again. My eyes make a quick scan of everything that’s wrong: eyes too small, pores too big, lips too thin, nose too thick, cheekbones … what cheekbones? Brendon said he doesn’t want a hot girlfriend, but come on! I think of all the girls he’s dated and know that I don’t measure up. Ambrosia removes the stretchy band tying back my hair, the worst part of me. As she undoes the braid, each section springs into its usual frizzy, wild mass. I can’t help but compare my hair to Ambrosia’s hair, which shines like satin. She’s wearing it in two silly buns like Princess Leia, and still manages to look gorgeous and sophisticated. She flicks on the circle of lights that surrounds the mirror.

“It’s hopeless,” I say.

Lights off. She moves aside the mirror so that I can no longer see myself. “Off limits until I’m done. Your lack of self-esteem causes wrinkles, you know. All that frowning and worrying—it’s as damaging as cigarettes. Beauty is about the right confident attitude. And of course, using the right products.”

She rummages through her drawer of cosmetic goodies until she comes up with the bottle she wants. The glass is deep sapphire-colored and there’s no label on it, so I assume it’s a homemade concoction. She shakes it hard, pours a quarter-sized spot of clear gel into one hand, and rubs her palms together. When she smooths it on my hair, my scalp tingles.

“What
is
that?” I try to grab the bottle, but she whisks it out of reach.

“Old formula dating way back. I swear by it. In fact, I was named after it.”

She pours a dab onto her finger, only this time it comes out thicker and gold-colored. Instead of putting it on my hair, she licks it off her finger with a moan of pleasure. “It’s anything you want it to be, whatever you happen to need at the moment.”

The sample she puts on my finger tastes like honey, orange blossoms, and ginger. If Ambrosia with her perfect skin and hair swears by it, that’s good enough for me. I hope this truly is a miracle cosmetic, because a miracle is what I need.

I sit back and let her go to work, following her nonstop string of orders. Widen my eyes, close my eyes, relax my mouth, puff out my cheeks, arch an eyebrow, and pucker my lips. Sometimes the miracle cream is gold and flaky to be dabbed on my eyelids; a minute later, it comes out of the bottle rich and white and she spreads it down my neck as a thick moisturizer.

Out of my line of vision, Alix and Stephanie are also busy. I hear them moving around and fiddling with things that crunch and ping. Ambrosia checks over her shoulder and orders, “Tisiphone, more flowers and vines. Weave them into those dreadlocks.”

Then Ambrosia is leaning over me again, her hands moving with her usual skillfulness as she curls, sprays, pats, and smudges. When she’s done, she spins my chair around and takes a critical look at her canvas. I notice that there’s an actual bead of sweat on her forehead. That’s how hard she had to work on me. Ambrosia never, ever sweats.

“The verdict?” I ask.

She pronounces me “magnificent.”

“I want to see!”

“Not yet. We’re almost there.”

She disappears into her closet and emerges with three large shopping bags hooked around her elbows. Alix, her face, arms, all of her skin glimmering with a silvery powder, receives the first bag and we watch enthusiastically as she pulls out a two-piece outfit. There’s a pair of very short shorts, bronze in color, with a matching midriff halter that laces up the front. This is clearly not the fabulous outfit that Alix had in mind. Can’t say I blame her. It reminds me of a jogging suit—if, say, Robin Hood were running a half-marathon.

Alix’s mouth twists. “I’m not the halter type.”

Ambrosia ignores the complaint. “You are going to love the accessories. They totally make the outfit.”

Next she hands Stephanie a bag that’s twice the size of the other two. It takes some manipulating to get her costume out in one piece.

“That’s more like it!” Alix says with envy.

Wings! A full set of them. Not the small, fluffy, frilly white wings that some girls wear with their underwear as part of a Hot Angel costume. These are solid, big, black, and veiny. What fabric is that? Nothing I’ve ever seen before. The wings look dangerous, like if you turn too fast in them you can poke out someone’s eye.

Stephanie is deliriously happy with her costume, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “Bat wings! Most people hate bats, but they’re my favorite animal. Bats are totally misunderstood.” She lifts the wings in front of her and spins them like a dance partner.

My turn. I plunge right into my bag and rummage around. But my enthusiasm withers quickly. It doesn’t look very thrilling in there, just a couple of pieces of fabric of different sizes and shapes. I try to stay positive. Ambrosia does want me to look great. I remind myself that she wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if she didn’t. The material
is
soft and silky, the color of a caramel chew, almost exactly my skin tone. I pull out a piece that looks like an extra-long scarf, and hold it at one end so it dangles limp in front of me. “Um, excuse me, but I don’t have a clue what to do with this.”

Ambrosia grabs it from my hand, but I can tell her annoyance is only put on. “You are helpless without me,” she teases. To Alix and Stephanie: “You two team up to get ready. Tisiphone, give Alecto a hand with her hair. We need to get it all up. Don’t be stingy with the gel.”

Ambrosia hustles me into her giant walk-in closet, where she orders me to strip. I get down to my underwear, but she insists: “No prudishness. All of it.” Good thing I’ve lived in so many group homes, where you quickly get over modesty in front of other girls. I stand in front of Ambrosia naked, goose bumps erupting everywhere. I feel her eyes running over me, and I realize how desperately I want her approval. She has gone to so much trouble just for me. She cares about me and wants me to look incredible. In the confined space of her closet, the perfume on her body and lingering on the dozens of hanging outfits closes in on me, makes it a little hard for me to breathe normally.

She trades my white cotton underpants for the pair of skimpy flesh-colored ones at the bottom of my costume bag. She doubles and twists the scarf-like material and wraps it where my bra used to be. Next she takes out some fabric that’s been folded into a rectangle, holds it at one end, and gives it a hard shake. It’s bigger than I thought, the size of a bedsheet, and it floats like a parachute before settling slowly back to earth.