The Art of Getting Stared At (32 page)

It's not the Scouts. It's Isaac. I know it. I grab the remote and push the pause button. “If it's the mint kind, buy two boxes. But if it's for me, I am
not
home.” Dad and I are watching Anthony Bourdain eat cobra heart in Vietnam. Kim and Ella have gone for a walk. It could be a million other Sunday nights in my life. Except, it's not.

“Seriously,” I whisper at him as he ambles away. “
Not
here.”

Seconds later when the front door opens, I hear that unmistakable baritone. Voice Man. Heart thrumming, I straighten the cotton scarf on my head. Just in case Dad is stupid enough to let him in. But when Dad says, “She's out for a walk with her sister. Can I help?” I turn limp with relief.
Thank you, God.

A few minutes later, he comes back into the TV room with the camcorder and a small bag. “So that's Isaac.”

“Yeah.” Why is he smiling? “That's Isaac.”

He puts the bag on the couch between us. “Everything you need is in here. He says he took copies for himself and gave you the originals.”

“Thanks.” I pick up the remote.

Dad crosses one leg over the other. “We can watch TV another time if you want to go and get started.”

“No, I want to watch the show.” And another and another and another. Until the nasty Gross Reveal (now on YouTube, thanks to Breanne, I am sure) is erased from memory. I push play. Bourdain's about to eat fried tarantulas.

But Dad is looking at me, not the TV. “I know this is hard for you, Sloane, but you can't hide forever.”

Why not?
“Yeah, I know.”

“Running away won't help.”

It wouldn't hurt
. “I'm not running anywhere.”

“You know what I mean.” He rubs his chin. He seems to be searching for words. “The sooner you come to terms with things, the easier it'll be.”

Blah, blah, psycho blah.
“Right.” I boost the volume.

Dad takes the remote from my hand and stops the show again. “I'm serious.”

Reluctantly, I turn to face him. “I hear you, Dad. I do. But cut me some slack. It
just
happened.” My lower lip starts to tremble. “I need time.” Like a year. Or three. “Tomorrow is Columbus Day so I'm off school, but Tuesday first thing, I need you to call and make arrangements so I can work at home for a while.”

Dad picks up his glass, stares into it like it holds the answer to life's mysteries. Or at the very least, the answer to his messed-up daughter. “I'm not sure, Sloane. I need to think about that.”

“What's to think about?” My anger rises along with my voice. “It's not like things will change by Tuesday.”

He rubs his face again. “The thing is, Sloane, if you want others to accept your hair loss, you need to accept it yourself.”

I groan. “Dad! If I needed a shrink, I'd get one, okay?”

“Sorry.” He grins. “I've been watching too much Dr. Drew on my layovers.” After a minute, his face turns serious. “But it's true, Sloane. The most important relationship we'll ever have is with ourselves.”

I raise a tattooed brow. “So, if I accept myself, can I stay home from school Tuesday?”

He grins again. “I'll sleep on it.”

Monday morning I dawdle: showering, checking my texts (Mom still hasn't replied), and assembling an extra-large plate of nachos and cheese—with olives this time—when I realize I'm alone in the house and Kim isn't around to suggest one junk food pig-out a week is enough. I eat them barefooted, standing on the back deck. I don't even sweep up the crumbs. I let the birds have them instead.

Kim would be horrified. It is my little rebellion.

When I can't put off the inevitable, I take my coffee to the bedroom where I lock the door and retrieve the bag Isaac dropped off. Along with the camcorder, I'm surprised to find two discs—disc one and disc two. Maybe Isaac put the B footage on a separate disc.

I pop disc one into my laptop. Isaac has dubbed everything we shot, right from the beginning. It gives me a chance to immerse myself in the guts of the thing before my guts are turned inside out at the end. By the time the flash mob footage appears onscreen, I am thinking solely of the film.

Or so I tell myself.

The truth is the first time I appear, I jerk like someone poked me with a hot stick.

Breathe. Box up your feelings and serve the film.

I watch myself laugh. It's hard to believe that person is me. I look so different with the hat, the perfectly arched brows, the thick concealer, the lined lips. Such a try-hard. Like a member of the Bathroom Brigade.

When the jocks start to play-punch and a few kids throw themselves on the ground, I drop my pen and grip the sides
of my chair.
It's coming.
I stare at the screen. The clown nose goes flying. My heart starts to gallop.

And the hat is pulled from my head.

I don't see who did it, I just see their hand. A guy I think. But it doesn't matter.

There is a sense of otherness as I watch the emotions flash across the face of the person on the screen. Horror. Panic. Fear. My heart slows; I loosen my grip on the chair. I glance at her head and see three round patches of pink scalp where her hair should be.
How sad,
I think.
How very, very sad.

But that is not me. I watch the figure on the screen turn and grab her hat. The chair presses into my shoulder blades as I lean back. The real me is bigger, fuller, wider. The real me cannot be captured on film or frozen in time or diminished.

The real me isn't about hair or makeup or anything else.

Impassively, I hit rewind and watch the flash mob footage again. I look at the crowd this time, or as much of it as Isaac managed to capture.
Think laughter. Serve the film.

I study faces, looking for reactions to my disaster. Some people seem oblivious. Others are clearly shocked. Gaping mouths. Embarrassed laughter. The same reactions I saw yesterday only now I'm viewing it from an outsider's point of view. Through the eyes of the film.

It's laughter at someone else's expense. It's what Isaac and I saw at the zoo when that little girl dropped her ice cream and her brother laughed. It happens all the time. It's common. I can use it.

Miles's footage is also on the first disc. Like we asked him to, he focused mostly on the crowd. Lexi and I are in a few shots but not many. And my unveiling is absent. Instead,
Miles got creative with camera angles and close-ups with eyes and mouths. For a guy who doesn't take film, it's great stuff. It'll give the video the texture and the punch I want.

I don't need to include my reveal. I can insert the flash mob footage and still get something worthwhile.

But there is no escaping the truth. I am losing my hair. I will become bald. I can try to hide it but I cannot escape it. People will, inevitably, find out. Many already know. Many find it funny.

And that says a lot about my subject. Do I have the guts to include myself? How honest do I have the courage to be?

I'm not sure.

Privacy versus art. Humiliation versus honesty. What to do? Wrestling with the dilemma, I eject disc one and insert disc two. When the music swells, I jump. When my face appears onscreen, I freeze. Outtakes?

Blinking, I stare at the screen. When I realize what I'm seeing, I stop breathing. It's not outtakes. It's me. Blood roars in my head. Without my knowledge and in secret, Isaac has filmed me.

Me laughing with Lexi. Me staring into space, a tiny frown tugging at my old brows. Me with my lip puckered writing something on a piece of paper. Caught in a beam of light from the sun. Talking to Fisher. Hugging Jade. Touching Mandee.

It is me set to music: beautiful strings, a quiet flute, the soft swish of hi-hats. The melody rises and falls with the changing images of my face. It is the real me, seen through his eyes. The bigger, fuller, wider me.

Hot, salty tears drip down my face, pooling in the V of my T-shirt. A sob catches at the back of my throat.

And I am beautiful.

Twenty

B
y four o'clock Monday afternoon, I have a rough cut of what the video will look like, so when I start getting a headache from the intense concentration, I stop and play a few rounds of Go Fish with Ella. We're stretched out on her bed, cards scattered on her frilly pink duvet, when Dad calls.

“Sloane, telephone.”

I don't move. “Go fish,” I tell Ella.

She picks up a card. “You have a phone call,” she repeats.

Anybody I want to talk to would call my cell. “Who is it?” I yell.

Dad appears in the doorway. “It's your mother.”

Finally.
I jump up so suddenly the cards go flying. “Hey!” Ella hollers.

“Thanks.” I grab the receiver from Dad, hurry to my bedroom, and shut the door. “Mom!”

“Sloane, darling.” Her voice is clear and strong; she sounds like she's down the block. “Your dad told me everything. I'm so sorry you had to go through that.”

Her sympathy makes me feel little-girl weepy. I pull a
chair over to the open window and prop my feet on the ledge. The afternoon air flutters the curtain and skims my cheeks. “It was
the worst
experience of my life. I can't show my face at school ever again!” The confidence I felt after seeing Isaac's video has somehow left me, trickling away like air slowly leaking from a balloon. Now I feel as off-kilter and ugly as I did last week. Will this constant flip-flopping ever stop? Will I ever stop worrying?

“Dad and I talked about that, and we've agreed you can take a week off.”

“A
week
? Seriously? That's not enough.”

“It'll have to be,” Mom says firmly. “A week is enough time for the whole issue to die down and for you to come to some sort of resolution.”

I almost snort. “Mom! Everybody
saw.
They're not going to forget about it in a week.”
Resolution
. This isn't a cold I need to get over.

Her voice softens. “I know, darling. I understand.”

No, she doesn't.

“Honestly, Sloane, you're strong. You can do this. Appearances don't matter; I've always told you that.”

“You were wrong, Mom. They do matter.”

But she has turned her attention elsewhere. I hear her talking to someone. When she returns, she says, “Your father told me you had your brows tattooed.”

“Yeah, and they were a hellish mess for the first day but ice helped and then Kim—” I stop. Kim's always been a hot button for Mom.

“But then Kim?” she prompts.

“Put some concealer on and covered up the scabs and they looked okay.”

“I saw them. Ella took a picture of the flash mob with her phone and sent it to me.”

I close my eyes as if that will help push the vision away. “So you saw my hat fly off.”

“No, she took a picture of you and Lexi at the beginning so I didn't see it. Hold on.” I hear her murmuring to a third party. After a minute, she says, “I wish you hadn't done that.”

At first I think she's talking to the other person, but then I realize she's talking to me. “Done what? The flash mob?”

“No, silly. That was a wonderful idea. The brow tattoos. I hardly think they were necessary.”

“But—”

“And all that makeup?” Her laugh is strained. “I barely recognized you.”

I take a deep breath before saying, “It's just makeup, Mom. What does it matter?”

“It's not you, Sloane. It gives people the wrong idea of who you are.”

Suddenly needing air, I jerk my feet off the window ledge and stick my head out the window. “Who am I, Mom?
Really
?”

“You're a smart, bright, caring, creative woman who will go far in life.”

“And how does makeup change that?”

She pauses. I picture her, hunched over the phone, chin on her hand, and frowning. “Makeup is fine. I'm not opposed.”

Right.

“In moderation. But too much gives people the wrong idea.”

“And what do I care about what other people think? Haven't you always told me that's a waste of energy?”

She sighs. “I didn't phone to argue with you, Sloane. I'm just saying I don't like to see you covering up who you are.”

Mom's message is one I've taken to heart since that disastrous makeup session with Kim when I was a little girl
. Will I spend my time being who I am or pretending to be someone I'm not?
But maybe it's not an either-or scenario. “Maybe I can do both.”

Her laugh is genuine this time. “That's not possible.”

“Why not? Wearing makeup doesn't make me any less smart or creative or caring. I'm still me. With eye shadow or not.” With hair or without. I have to believe that. I
need
to believe that.

“I suppose you can always get them removed.”

At first I don't get it, but when I realize what she's suggesting, my stomach sinks. I jump up and start pacing. “I'm keeping the brows, Mom. I might even get a tattoo on my arm. A dragonfly,” I add recklessly, remembering those crazy, meddling moms at the coffee shop. The ones who didn't care if their daughters were tattooed.