Mare's War (18 page)

We have been working for two weeks when Dovey comes busting in one night with a scarf over her head like some of us wear when we are off duty and it’s cold out at night. She stands in the middle of the room, and she waits until we all look at her.

“Dovey Borland, what are you up to?”

She just grins and pulls off her scarf. Her hair is marceled in perfect, pretty waves on her head, and she struts through barracks like she a movie star. We all jump up and Phillipa start screaming.

“We got a beauty shop!”

Our battalion commander, who is in charge of all the women, got together with our own brass in special services and requisitioned a beauty shop, including marcel irons and straightening combs. Since Dovey knew folks who had been beauticians when they were civilians, she got wind of it first thing and made herself an appointment. I can’t help smiling when I see her looking so happy. Dovey hasn’t hardly smiled twice since we got here.

“Where is it?”

“Can anybody go?”

“They got some hair tint over there?”

Dovey laughs as we just about fall over our feet trying to put on our coats and grab our handbags and gloves and be out the door first. This is what we need for
our
morale. It maybe don’t make much sense to those five-star generals, the commanders, and the rest of the brass, but those English looking at us all the time don’t seem so bad now. When we look this fine? They can stare all they want to.

Mare promises to teach me how to put up my hair in pin curls, but she says it’s too humid, and it would be too much work and way too much hair spray to flat-iron it, then pin it up with hundreds of tiny pins.

“Maybe when we get home,” she tells me. “Right now I need a nap.”

Mare goes in through the bathroom we share to her hotel room, and I point the remote at the TV and flip around for a few channels. Laugh tracks rattle by as I pass stale eighties sitcoms, so I press Mute, then linger for a moment on a channel showing a big sea animal. It’s a killer whale. I flip the channel before the hapless seal it is tracking is caught. We read a poem about this in English last year, something about nature being red teeth and claws. It’s true.

“Octavia.”

“Huh?” I’ve found a documentary on surfing. It always looks so easy in all those old pictures. Just standing up on a board in water. Running on sand in big, loose shorts. Even wiping out looks graceful and fun. I’ve always wished I could surf.

“Do you think you can tell if someone has a new best friend?”

“Huh?” I roll over on my bed and look at my sister. For once, she isn’t plugged in to her music or reading a magazine.

“Suzanne’s been blowing me off for the past two days. She was kind of ticked that I had to go on this trip.” Tali shrugs. “I think maybe either she’s got a new best friend or she’s got a boyfriend.”

“Oh.” I chew the corner of my mouth. “Well, if it’s a guy, do you think it’s anybody you know?” I ask finally.

“Probably,” Tali says, sitting up and staring at the TV screen. “Before I left, I told her this boy, Brent Moore, wanted to know what I was doing this summer, so …” Tali slides down on the pillows and sighs.

“So?”

“So I said she should find out if Brent had a girlfriend. I mean, she knows I like him, and she said she’d find out, but Julie Guiao just texted me and said Suzanne went to WaveWorld with Brent today.”

“Maybe she was asking him if he had a girlfriend,” I say cautiously.

“She wasn’t supposed to
ask
,” Tali mutters. “And anyway, she wouldn’t need to hang out with him all day.”

Oh
. “Well, did you ask her?” I ask.

“She’s not answering her phone.”

“Harsh.”

“Yeah.”

I sit up on the bed, tucking my legs underneath me. I find I am almost holding my breath, waiting for Tali to say something else.

That feels kind of lame, that I’m so desperate, but the truth is, my sister and I haven’t really
talk
talked to each other in a while. Even though at home she lives in the room across the hall, it’s not like we’re connected. She’s always on her way somewhere else, somewhere I’m not. And she gets mad if anyone asks her where she’s going.

Tali is rubbing her bottom lip against her top teeth, a nervous habit from back when she had braces. Now that she’s only wearing her retainer, it isn’t shredding her lip, but it still looks painful.

I try to find something intelligent to say. “Couldn’t you just call Brent?”

My sister’s eyes focus on me. “And say … what? ‘Did you hang out all day today with Suzanne Labrucherie, and what did you talk about?’”

“Okay, maybe not … but, I don’t know, if Brent called
you
, why couldn’t you call him? Ask him what he’s doing. I mean, you’re on a road trip. You could tell him about it.”

Tali shrugs. “I’m sure Suzanne already told him everything. ‘Oh, you know Tali Boylen, yeah, she had to babysit her little sister and her geriatric grandmother, so she’s busy, but I’ve got time to be with you.’”

“
Baby
sit?” I look at my sister disbelievingly. “Mare buying you whatever you want and taking you on a trip is babysitting? You’re not babysitting me, Tali.”

“You know what I mean,” Tali says, waving a hand. “Any way, I can’t call him.”

“So don’t.” I turn away.

Why do I bother? She’s completely mean without even trying.

I flip some more channels, scowling. I hope Suzanne really is trying to move in on Tali’s crush. I hope they totally get together and go to prom next year and rent a limo and a Jet Ski and a helicopter and everything. It would so serve her right.

“Do any of your friends have boyfriends?” Tali asks after a pause. “Your little friend Rye is really cute, and Eremasi could be the next Alek Wek—you know, that African supermodel?”

“Rye’s playing soccer, and Eremasi’s working at the vet’s this summer, cleaning out cages. None of us have boyfriends.”

Tali nods knowingly. “Well, you guys are sophomores next year. Life will get better.”

“Life is fine now.” The channels race by in a blur.

Tali slides off her bed and sighs. “You know, Tave, have you ever thought of doing something with your hair? Maybe something kind of forties, like parting it on the side and wearing it waved like Mare did back in the day? You know, if you tried a little, you could be kind of pretty.”

I keep flipping channels, holding on to the remote control so hard my nails are white. “Kind of pretty.” Tali is the queen of half insults. And Mare already said she’d help with my hair.

“You haven’t done anything new with your hair since
sixth grade, when you stopped wearing barrettes and pigtails. And you should let me do your makeup and cut you some bangs,” Tali adds, standing in front of the TV. “Even Mom says you need to get your hair out of your face.”

“Move,” I complain, leaning around her to see the picture. “I’m watching this.”

“C’mon, Octavia,” my sister wheedles, reaching out to tug on a handful of my hair. “You can keep this mess on your head if you want to, but at least let me cover up your zits—”

“Cut it OUT!” I yell, turning off the TV.

“What?” Tali says hotly. “I just offered to do your face!”

“Well, I don’t want you to do anything to me
or
my face. I’m fine.”

“Octavia, how could you not
want
to look any better? You don’t even try!”

“Tali, you stand there saying, ‘You look craptastic—let me fix you up,’ and I’m supposed to be all happy?”

“Well, I’m just saying if you don’t care what your hair looks like—”

“YOU don’t care what my hair looks like, either. Leave me alone, Tali. I’m serious.”

“Ever since we came on this trip, you’ve been totally sitting around pouting like you hate everything, and I’m trying to hang out with you, and you’re throwing it back in my face.”

“You’re only even talking to me because Brent and your best friend Suzanne are too, um,
busy.”
I use the nastiest voice I can.

I can tell she knows it’s true, even as her eyes get hard
and sharp. “Whatever. I’m trying to help you pull yourself together, but if you want to keep your loser look and your loser life—”

“At least my friends answer their phones when I call them!”

“Shut up, Octavia. Just—” Tali shoves me, hard, then marches into the bathroom and slams the door.

I turn on the TV and crank up the volume, but part of me still wants to throw the remote at the bathroom door. There are some hours of some days when I hate my sister. She just looks at me, and immediately everything’s wrong about me. I swear the only time she notices me is when she can mention a zit I have, or if my hair is a mess, or if I have a spot on my shirt. The rest of the time, she doesn’t even see me.

And when I do let her make me up, I feel like a poodle in a dog show. Tali trowels on way too much, and I look like some runway wannabe with tarantula eyelashes and not like myself. When we go to the mall afterward, I get lots of looks, sure, but probably from people thinking, What did she run into face-first? When I won’t wear makeup, Tali doesn’t want to be seen with me. It’s like she can’t understand that no-body wants to be her project all the time.

Tali throws open the bathroom door and points her hair-brush at me. “Octavia, just let me fix your eyebrows, okay? I won’t even put any makeup on you. Just let me fix your eye-brows and trim your hair, and I’ll leave you alone. You’ll look a lot better. Octavia, people
pay
to get stuff like this done, all right? Think about that!”

“Just call Brent, okay? That’s what you really want to do anyway. Just call him and leave me alone.”

“I don’t want to!” Tali repeats. “I told you that. I
don’t
want to call him. He’s going to think I’m stupid, some lame girl who’s not even at home calling him to find out what he’s doing.”

“Who cares if you’re not at home?”

“He’ll think I’m thinking about him on vacation!” Tali shakes her head. “You don’t get it, Tave. I’m not calling him, so drop it.” She vanishes back into the bathroom.

“You ARE thinking about him on vacation.” I pick up my sister’s phone from her bed. “I’m sure you’ve even got his number in here. Just call him.”

“Forget it, Octavia. We’re doing your hair now.”

“I’m going to call him.”

“No, you’re not,” Tali says disgustedly.

I turn on her phone, scrolling through the record of incoming calls.

“Octavia?”

I double-check the number, then close my eyes, cross my fingers, and push the button.

“OCTAVIA!” My sister hurtles out of the bathroom. “Don’t touch my phone!”

I leap up, balance on the edge of the bed, and hold the phone out of reach. “Too late,” I say. “It’s ringing.”

“I hate you! Hang up! Hang up!”

“Shhh!” I put the phone to my ear and wave my hand, but Tali leaps toward me. I jump back, banging my arm
against the wall. “Shut up! If I hang up, he’ll see your number. Shut up!”

“I will kill you,” Tali hisses. “Give me my phone.”

“What’s up?” A friendly male voice comes over the line.

Tali lunges and I relinquish the phone. “Octavia, you idiot,” she says in dull fury, putting the phone to her ear, and then stops, her mouth dropping in shock.

“Brent? Oh, hi, sorry, I was talking to my sister. Yeah, it’s me, Tali. I’m good. I’m just, um, doing this road trip with my sister. Yeah? Well, I’m at a hotel in New Mexico.”

Tali drops onto her bed, rubbing her teeth against her top lip and glowering at me.

“Tell him we’re going to Roswell,” I whisper.

“Really? Well, we’re thinking of going to Roswell tomorrow just for fun,” Tali goes on, looking like she’s going to choke. “Oh, you did? Was Suzanne there?”

I edge slowly toward the door, on the far side of the room. I know as soon as my sister gets off the telephone, she’s going to come looking for me, so I make plans to hide in the safest place I can find. I tiptoe into the bathroom and knock gently on the adjoining door.

“Hey, Mare? Can I come in?”

“Good morning.”

I look up from waiting for Annie and smile. That little English girl, with her long socks and big old sweater and all that hair scraped back into two brown plaits, is always standing out in front of our barracks, watching us. Today, she is toting a piece of biscuit with a little smear of jam. Some body had some sugar ration saved up for sure.

The girl has got those skinny, knobby knees like Feen used to. She is like all the kids around here—she stares at us from across the street, stares at our uniforms, our shoes, and I don’t know what all else. This the first time she says anything to me.

I give her a nod. “Good morning.”

“Do you luck gem?”

I frown. What kind of nonsense she talking? “Do I luck
what
, missy?”

“Do you like gem,” she say again, all impatient.

Jim? I just look at her, full of confusion, till I notice what
she got on her bread. “Oh. You mean, do I like jam? Well, sure,” I tell her. “Your mama make you that biscuit?”

“It’s not a biscuit. It’s a scone.”

“It’s not, huh? Looks like a biscuit to me,” I tell her, and the little girl stares at me like I’m crazy. From up the street, I hear a window scrape, and then the little miss is running like somebody already calling for her.