Gorgeous (14 page)

He was nodding and leaning forward like I was so wise and deep, I couldn’t stop myself from spouting more of my beautiful bullshit philosophy that I wished I believed in.

“People in my town get so hung up on surfaces, what they have, what they look like. I mean, come on. I just don’t care, is the thing. It’s scary, I guess, the whole crazy, like, economy thing, but my family is strong. We’ll just hang together through whatever happens. Like, I can’t go to Tennis Europe this summer, but so what? In the scheme of things. Actually, to tell the truth, I was kind of relieved about that.”

He let out a little sigh-laugh and said, “I hear you. I got sent to California on a Teen Tour back in the day. Let me tell you.”

I nodded. “Exactly. So, I actually count that as a plus. I’m happy to just hang around and swim, veg out.”

He laughed again, then asked, “You swim?”

“Not like on a team. More like, I lie on a raft in our pool.”

“Now there’s a team I could’ve started for—raft lying.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said. “Well, if we still have a pool. I just focus on getting through the day, at this point.”

He chuckled and then asked me about my favorite color (black), my favorite music (anything by bands with colors in their names), favorite food (gummy bears), my hero (Gouverneur Morris), how would I describe my style.

“My style?” I asked.

He winked. “It’s a fashion magazine. Remember?”

“Right,” I said. “Um, neo-post-middle-school?”

He cracked up.

Then he thanked me and turned off the tape recorder just as the door buzzed—and so did my phone.

23

I
T WAS A TEXT FROM
Q
UINN
:

Where the f. r u?

I was just texting her back when my phone rang. It was Mom.

“Where the hell are you?”

I smiled instinctively at the family resemblance, and then felt my stomach clench. “Um,” I said. Six wise-guy answers popped into my head, starting with, “Getting out of an elevator,” but I squelched them. I had at least that much survival sense.

“Are you at school?” Mom asked.

“No. Mom, please don’t freak out….”

“Too late,” she growled.

“I’m in the city, and I—”

“She’s in the city,” Mom said to somebody. “Where?”

I looked for a street sign. The sign on the store beside me offered tattoos or
Any body part “pierced,” $15.
“Um,” I said. “I’m at…the corner of…” I was walking fast away from the tattoo parlor, passing a shop that sold only condoms, apparently, past another selling whips, chains, and T-shirts printed with stuff you’d probably be suspended for thinking about in my school, and then a Duane Reade drugstore and a bank. “MacDougal and West Third?”

“She’s in the Village,” Mom said. “Is there a Starbucks?”

I looked around. Across the street was a store all boarded up and a creepy-looking store that advertised
All VHS discount $9
and also
Live Girls
. I tried to reassure myself that live was better than dead, but that just made me feel very young and very suburban and also a bit like I was about to start crying again.

“Allison?”

“I’m here,” I managed. “Oh, I see a Starbucks. It’s on West Third.”

“We’re coming to get you. South of MacDougal?”

“I don’t know.” Did she think I had brought a compass? I hadn’t intended to go exploring the arctic. In fact, I hadn’t intended even to be exploring MacDougal Street.

“We’ll find you. Keep your phone on. You are in big trouble, little girl.”

“I know,” I said.

She hung up. I crossed the street at the light. A girl crossing next to me was holding hands with a guy, and they were laughing like nothing could ever go wrong. I followed them into Starbucks, but instead of trying to be slick I ordered a water and sat down at a table by the window to wait.

After a very long time, or maybe it was only half an hour, I picked up my phone and texted Roxie:

Hey.

She texted back:
Y r u texting a jealous slut?

Because she is my bff,
I texted back.

Hahahahaha,
was her reply.

I was mad because u hooked up w Ty Sat nite. I don’t even care anymore. I am in a Starbucks in the Village—after the awful callback which I flunked and before my parents come to kill me and I just wanted to say b4 they do that I’m sorry I said that about you, sorry my evil phone sent it to everybody, and that I don’t care who you (or Ty) hook up with.

Send.

I waited, sipping the dregs of my water.

I didn’t,
is all she sent back.

People said you totally did. It’s OK.

People lie,
she texted back.

Yes,
I thought,
I know
. But which people? It’s hard to tell which people to believe, and which ones to trust to have your best interests at heart, according to my friend the devil. So how do you know what to think? How do you ever trust anybody?
Maybe the answer is you never should,
I thought, but then immediately another part of me thought,
What kind of life would that be?
Not just bitter but also probably impossible to pull off. At some point you just have to close your eyes and jump. But which way?

True,
I texted back.

I like Emmett, and Ty is crazy about YOU, and even if I liked him (which I don’t, not that way), why would I do that to my (I thought) bff?

IDK,
I said, scrunching down smaller in my chair. A skinny person of uncertain gender asked if he/she could sit in the other chair at my table and I shrugged.

I wdn’t,
Roxie texted back.

Either Jade is lying or Roxie is lying,
I thought,
or else Jade misperceived what was going on. That’s possible.
After all these years of being friends with Jade, after so many projects together and shared secrets and sleepovers, I still wasn’t sure of her.

I believed Roxie.

The new girl with the bangles on her wrists and the loud, barky laugh who hadn’t gotten into any high schools, who I barely knew, who was, yes, physical and flirty, so out there, and who had every reason to be jealous because I had gotten, somehow, the thing she wanted.

I believed her.

Well, then I suck even worse,
I texted.

Yes u do,
she sent back.
U jump to nasty conclusions and hurt people who r good to u and u better stop it bc I am not the most patient person in the world.

Yes u r,
I wrote.
If u forgive me.

Allison, u have a gorgeous soul and maybe u don’t know it but I do. But at some point I am going to get sick of your shit.

I had to smile, reading that.
I’m done,
I texted back, surprised that I really felt like I meant it.

Good,
she texted back.
Where r u?

Starbucks. MacDougal and W 3rd. Got a water (no more double shots 4 me) and waiting for my parents to come rip my head off. Uh-oh, here they r. Wish me luck.

Luck,
she texted back as I slammed out the door and headed toward my father’s waiting car.

They both stared at me without smiling as I slid into the backseat. I mumbled a “thanks for picking me up” and they both turned around. Dad started driving.

I waited for them to start yelling but they didn’t. Once we hit the highway, Mom asked, without turning around, “What happened to your hair?”

“I cut it.”

“Who did?”

“I did it myself,” I said.

“Where?”

“At home,” I answered. “In my bathroom. Do you like it?” “No,” she said.

After that, they said nothing else, just stared out the front window, and I stared at the backs of their heads for the next hour, as we drove home.

When we made the turn into our development and passed the Magnolia Estates sign, Mom turned around and looked at me. “When we get in the house, you will say hello to your sisters, who are worried sick about you, and then go directly to the study, where we will discuss what in the hell is going on with you.”

I nodded, and closed my eyes. I knew we were home when I felt the car turn sharply left and then tilt, going up the driveway. I got out of the car first and heard their footsteps behind me on the walk.

The door flew open. It was Phoebe, with Quinn right behind her, and Gosia a shadow behind them. Phoebe threw her arms around me as she tumbled out onto the steps in her socks, and whispered, “They were more scared than mad. Don’t worry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Quinn hugged me next and whispered, “I tried to get you all day! I said you probably went over to a friend’s but…”

“It’s okay,” I said.

Gosia hugged me, handed me a plate with a cut-up apple and some cheese, and whispered, “Your favorites.”

I didn’t get to thank her because I saw Mom standing with her arms crossed, waiting for me to go to the study. I took the cheese and apple in with me so Gosia’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt, wondering if that’s really why she always made that for me. All this time I thought she just gave Phoebe a cookie because she liked me less. Had I once told her that I liked apple and cheese for a snack? It sounded actually kind of familiar.

Just what I needed to be figuring out, right? I sat down on one of the chairs and set my untouched plate on the table beside me. The antenna of the baby monitor was just visible over the rim of the garbage basket. Mom and Dad sat down on two other chairs, facing me.

I waited for them to start.

“We have two or three questions for you for now,” Dad said. “We want you to answer truthfully, because our trust in you has been severely shaken, and that is the most disappointing part of all this.”

I clenched my jaw tight and reminded myself that even if they both hated me, at least one person, Roxie Green, thought I was worth a third chance.

“Why did you leave school today and go into the city, despite everything that happened last week, and giving us your word it wouldn’t happen again?” Mom asked quietly, her hands laid lightly on the arms of the chair and her face serious.

I took a breath and tried to decide how far back in the truth to start. “I was never chosen for anything before.”

“I’m asking about your choice to—”

“I know, Mom, and I’m trying to answer honestly.”

She sat back in her seat and they both listened (and, I assumed, my sisters upstairs listened) as I explained slowly and carefully about getting to be friends with Roxie, and selling my cell phone to the devil, and that I was pretty sure but not certain that the devil was just a dream. They seemed convinced about that interpretation. I went through the whole thing, everything that had happened (well, I left out the actual kissing Tyler part) up to and including the text that got sent to my entire contact list.

“Yes, I got that text,” Mom said.

“Me, too,” Dad said. “I wondered what that was about.”

“I figured it was probably for the best,” Mom said. “She didn’t seem like a very good influence. I kept waiting for you to tell me why you sent that to me.”

“If I say the devil made me do it, will you get mad and think I am for once trying to be cute?”

Mom’s lips pursed; Dad’s face regained its seriousness.

“Well, anyway,” I said, “that’s what happened, and I needed to just get away from everybody for a little while, so it seemed like an omen that I should just go to this appointment and see what it was like.”

“And what was it like?” Dad asked.

“Embarrassing.”

The lines on his forehead deepened. “Why?”

“You know how I am, getting my picture taken.”

He smiled a tiny bit. “Did they hurt you in any way?”

“Just my pride,” I said. “Which is kind of overly fragile anyway. As you also know. It was stupid. I admit that. I know I was stupid to go, because you didn’t know where I was and it wasn’t safe and also because it was stupid to think I could be pretty enough to be in a magazine. There’s no reason you should believe me this time, so you can punish me any way you want, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But I swear I won’t be going into the city again; I won’t be taking any more stupid risks. I’m done trying to convince myself I’m somebody. I’ve learned my lesson and I’m ready to crawl back into my hole.”

My parents both sat there and stared at me for so long, I started to sweat. I looked down at my hands, watching my fingers grip one another. When I heard a short sniff I looked up. It was my father, who had a tear running down his face.

“You are so wrong, Allison.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.
What a jerk I am
, I was thinking.
I made my father cry
.
What a colossal screwup disaster disappointment I am.

“You’re not pretty,” he said.

Rub it in,
I was thinking, though also,
He has a right, I suppose.

“Pretty is…pretty is like
nice
. It’s small. It’s pleasant,” he said. “If that’s what you were aiming for, Allison, you were doomed from the start to abject failure. Your looks are the least of you but—Stop, please don’t interrupt to agree with me, Lemon; let me tell you what I can’t believe you don’t know. You are magnificent. Your personality, your smarts, your humor, and your fighting spirit are all so impressive to us—and yes, sometimes humbling for us to handle as parents, but how you look? Allison, your beauty continues to shock me every day of your life, from the moment you were born and I looked at your wide almond eyes that had an ungodly ability to focus on mine, to this instant as you sit there in front of me. Your soul comes through your face like nobody’s I’ve ever known—your vulnerability and cocksure confidence, your independence and fragility—they shine through your eyes, your mouth, your body. You were a child people’s eyes were drawn to, and you are becoming a woman nobody can look away from. Pretty? Allison, you are gorgeous.”

Tears were running down my face by then as well, and Mom’s.

“I am so sorry that you don’t know that.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. “I think that’s the devil letting me know his side of the deal is done now,” I said, and tried to laugh, to show it was a joke. They didn’t laugh, and I didn’t reach for my phone, which, thankfully, shut up.

Mom told me they were going to have to talk about where to go from here, but that for now I should go up to my room. I stood up and said okay and headed for the door.

Dad stepped in my way and gathered me in for a hug. Mom hugged me from the other side and, kissing my head, whispered, “I just love your thick, wavy hair so much, Allison. But this is sharp. I might just take a while to get used to it. But Daddy is right….”

“It’s okay, Mom,” I said, and wiggled away from them. I dashed out and took the stairs two at a time, suddenly desperate for the cool feel of my pillows against my hot face.

I didn’t wake up until morning, having slept for twelve dreamless hours.