Love in the Time of Cynicism (3 page)

Before I stand to follow her, fear inhibiting my legs from moving, she assures me, “Nothing extreme. Just a bit of a haircut.” When she says
a bit
, though, I know she means cleaving off at least a foot.

“No. Oh my god no.” I shake my head vigorously. “Dyeing it is one thing but…”

There’s no need to finish; Sky’s heard the story. Ever since I was a kid, mom’s been obsessed with long hair. She could never grow hers out long enough, so I was barely ever allowed to cut it. Even now, the cascades of crimpy, fading pink trail to the small of my back. If there’s anything that would kill my mother more than me showing up with an outsider, it would be debuting a chopped off head of hair.

“Come
on
, Del.” Sky has succumbed to the nickname bug that’s overtaken my family the past few years just like everyone else. “It’ll be fun. I won’t even do it myself if you don’t want me to.”

Honestly, and it’s embarrassing to admit this to myself, I can’t help but think about how Rhett’ll react if I change my hair suddenly. He’d probably like it, think it was cute and nerdy and nonconformist. The very thought slaps a smile on my face.

“That looks like a ‘yes’ to me!”

Gleefully and with abandon, Sky yanks me out the front door and we romp across the street and through her lawn and she bangs on the door. This is one of her favorite tactics to see if anyone’s home. Luckily, after a few minutes waiting, nobody answers the door and we charge forward. Through the polished wooden foyer and down the basement steps, where what could only be described as a torture chamber is kept. It’s Sky’s mom’s salon, as she’s one of the few Real Housewives of Lightfoot who actually has a job; my own mother quit her teaching job when she married Michael in favor of daily massages and spending excessive amounts of money on ‘retail therapy’ for ‘all the stress you kids have been causing me.’ Groan.

Sky leads me into the back room – her own personal station – and sits me down in a chair. Across from me is a wall-to-wall mirror and a counter loaded with cosmetics that range from every color hair dye and bottles and jars and tubes of makeup to various hair straighteners and crimpers and curlers, all of which look like medieval torture devices. The space is the antithesis of my bathroom counter, which contains hand soap and ponytail holders and not much else. I’ve only worn makeup when my mom forced me or I was prey to one of my eldest stepsister Mal’s cosmetology practice. She’s at college way up North along with my one step-brother (who I only met at mom and Michael’s wedding), Clay,  so my beautifying enterprises begin and end with fancy parties.

“Shut your eyes.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

After about an hour of only hearing snipping and feeling globs of gel dabbed on my hair, Sky leads me to the front room and washes out my hair, then proceeds to style it before permitting me to see. Hot air steams across my skin and then there’s a scorching curling iron that burns my neck. All in all, she’s done in about two hours. By my calculations, Rhett’ll pick me up for mom’s ‘soiree’ in about an hour. Time enough to look at the probably frilly and too girly dress mom bought for me. Hopefully she used at least one ounce of her dwindling common sense while buying it.

Sky exclaims excitedly, “Viola! You may look.”

She spine my chair around to face one of the salon’s multitudinous mirrors.

When the girl in the mirror opens her eyes, I draw in a half-gasp. The haircut is edgy and extreme and when my hair’s straight it’ll be killer. My newly sheared hair dangles an inch or two above my shoulders and flat-ironed bangs cut diagonally across my forehead. Rows of bouncy curls ring my face and make the angle of my jaw more extreme than I remember it being. I mean, I’ve always had oddly contrasting facial features – near circularly round lips, prominent cheekbones right beneath heavy-lidded brown eyes, all living chaotically atop a nasty scheme of blotchy freckles and a practically triangular jaw – but now that my hair’s so short and so…colorful, my face could almost be attractive. In the right lighting. At the right moment.

And the color.
Damn
, it’s bright. What could easily be categorized as a veritable explosion of electric blue has been released upon my head.

“You like it?” Sky’s
squealing
with enthusiasm, like a bubbly child who just found out her parents are taking her to Disney World. I try to suppress a laugh, but with my nerves buzzing anticipatorily, it’s nearly impossible. “I know the color’s…intense-”

“To say the least,” I agree.

“But the bottle did say ‘atomic turquoise’ and that’s what you’ve got. I’m quite happy with it, and I suspect your boy toy will love it.”

I grin madly. “And mom will hate it, no doubt.” I stand up and give Sky a brief squeeze before going on, “I’d better get home. See you tonight?”

“No doubt.” She replies with some not so subtly implications in her voice, “Can’t wait to see your new boyfriend, slut.”

“I barely know him,” I argue passively. “Just met this morning.”

She makes one of those ‘I can tell you’re bullshitting me’ faces and sends me on my way with one final blessing. “Give ‘em hell, gorgeous!”

With a slight chuckle, I bound up the steps and out the door. Back across the street and to my own house, where, thankfully, nobody’s home. If anyone – even Trent – saw me right now, there would be explaining to do, and right now I’m so buzzed on the energy of tonight’s many potentials I would probably just lie through my teeth so hard they might actually think something’s wrong with me. Not interested at this juncture, thank you very much. Giddy to the point where it almost scares me, I throw open the front door and leap up to my bedroom.

And then my mood is crushed.

For my rebellious hair and attitude today, I am slapped in the face. By karma, who is a heartless bitch.

There’s a dress perched menacingly on my rumpled gray comforter. It’s everything a four year old girl would want in a dress made for someone with curves. To the dismay of everyone but me, I am built like a gawky eleven year old boy and do not have the assets to pull that off. Actually, I’m not sure anyone could wear this one shoulder, pale pink, ruffled organdy (which basically means stiff, shiny, and much too eighteenth-century-teen-bride for my taste) monstrosity without looking like a wannabe Barbie doll.

I groan even though there’s nobody around to hear my angst. Unfortunately, I
did
promise I would wear the dress, so wear it I must.  But I didn’t promise how I’d wear it.

And thus, half an hour later, I’m standing in the living room waiting for Rhett to arrive in a pair of white high tops with every one of my seven ear piercings in, which I very rarely do. Normally I have in three or four, but tonight feels special. I want to go all out. I’ve picked out a pair of shiny angel wings from my mother’s jewelry box, mostly for the sake of irony at the bottom, and line the rest of my ear with varying shapes of mismatched studs from my own bowl of earrings. I kept my hair in the same neat halo of curls only because of Sky’s painstaking work. Once I shower it out tonight, I’ll just let it hang in waves around my face.

Instead of tugging on pristine skin-toned tights like my mother would’ve wanted, I’ve left my bruised, nicked knees and pale legs open for appreciation. The bruises and scratches are mainly from smacking my legs against metal barstools at work, which is a near daily occurrence in my generally gangly, bumbling, awkward existence. Oh the woes of being five foot nine and shaped the way I am.

The doorbell rings.

A sharp, tinny clang against the soupy silence layered throughout my house. I take a deep breath in preparation for seeing Rhett again after this morning. I’m totally paranoid he’ll regret the decision to pretend to be my boyfriend and skip out, thus leaving me to explain the situation to Amanda and the Bitches. Which would suck. Completely.

If he doesn’t chicken out, maybe we can do something together as, like, real people. It could be cool.

Shut up
, I tell myself and walk toward the front door. My fingers clutch the cool metal handle and I suck another breath into my lungs for safe keeping. Then I whisper
screw it
as quietly as possible and fling the door open.

And there he is.

The night time temperature drop hits me when I open the door and take him in. Almost-black hair combed out of his eyes, toffee skin bathed in the pinkish glow of streetlamps, golden brown eyes already lit up with glee as they look me over; long story short, he’s still as strangely good-looking and eye-catching as at our morning rendezvous. As promised, Rhett’s there on my doorstep in a black suit about a size too large for his lanky frame, and he’s grinning like an idiot.

“You look, ah…” He trails off, trying to find the right compliment.

“I know the dress is hideous,” I laugh, the struggle not to be sarcastic real. “You don’t have to say it. My mom has-”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” he interrupts with a shake of his dark curls. The movement sends his once perfectly in place hair into a frenzy, the way I saw him this morning. I like it better messy. “I was going to tell you how cool your hair looks and how rockin’ you look in that dress and how I’m really glad you’re letting me pretend to be your boyfriend, but now I’ll just keep my comments to myself.”

He’s joking, obviously, but I still kick myself; it seems I have a gift for saying the wrong thing to Rhett.

“And I would tell you how you clean up nice and all that jazz, but it seems we’ve reached an understanding about our personal appearances.”

“Yeah,” he rolls his eyes, which I’ve noticed is a fairly common state for him, and replies, “we’re both absolutely bammin’ slammin’ bootylicious.”

I nearly double over in laughter at not simply the phrase alone but how he managed to deliver it with a straight face. Before long, he joins in until we’re both convulsing with giggles. A tear slips down my cheek as I reach the point of laughter where it’s been reduced to gasping for air in silent shaking.

We slowly calm down and proceed to shuffle awkwardly for a moment, both inwardly debating how to make the transition to the inside of my house without it being weird, until he busts out laughing.

“I
knew
this was going to be uncomfortable.” He romps past me happily and inside before I can speak. Thank god. Then he pulls out this really cheesy Shakespearean type voice and stares me dead in the eyes while saying, “But I will endure a night of endless difficulty to spend even a moment with thee.”

I grin goofily and ask, “Do you always talk like that?”

He snaps out of it immediately. “Like what?”

“Like…” I struggle for the right words. “
You
. I mean, this morning you called Amanda ‘a waste of two billion years of perfectly good evolution.’ How many people actually say things like that?"

“Probably about the same number of people who know the name of the original Flash

“I take a lot of pride in my nerducation.”

“Oh my
god
, Cordelia Kane, did you really just say that? Seriously?” He rolls his luminous brown eyes and goes on, “You’re giving me some second-hand embarrassment, and we’re the only people here.”

“This is America. I have freedom of speech. It’s my right to say things that bother you.”

He smirks but it slowly widens into a proper smile that crinkles up the corners of his eyes. His joy is infectious and I feel myself smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I playfully shove his arm and ask, “Ready to go?”

He inquires lightly, “May I ask how we’re getting there?”

“Walking?” I suggest automatically, “We’ll have to cut across the golf course, but it’s the fastest way.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

With that, I lead him out the back door and on to my lawn, which is directly adjacent to the open golf course. As we walk away from the illumination of streetlamps, the darkness surrounds us and our feet crunch over the dying grass before sliding across the boundary of the course, where the turf if pristinely manicured and watered. Stars suddenly appear scattered across the inky blue night sky and I stop walking abruptly to get a better look. Even with the twinkling lights of the Twin Rivers party in the distance, the pinpricks of pure silver are more majestic than I’ve ever seen them. No moon to dim their purity, no rush to diminish it.

Unfortunately for my inner stargazer, Rhett hasn’t noticed my pause and is still walking, hands in pockets, toward the country club. His silhouette against the pasty yellow lights is nearly as mesmerizing as the stars themselves. Then, when he spins around to face me, I can only stare.

He chuckles, face obscurely intriguing in the lighting, “Having second thoughts about your fake boyfriend?”

Dashing forward to meet him, I shiver and respond, “The opposite, actually.”

Seeing my chills, Rhett asks, “You cold?”

“Yes, but if you try to pull any of that chivalry bullshit, I might sock you in that chiseled jaw of yours.”

He laughs and bumps into me softly, “I loved everything about that sentence. Besides, it’s not wuite cold enough to justify chivalry.”

We arrive at the front of the building overlooking the golf course, and Rhett and I take simultaneous deep breaths. The professionally cleaned, normally antiseptic white walls are bathed in warm buttery light and, for the first time in my six months of working and living here, the place feels inviting.