True Colors (9 page)

“Maybe it'll look better when it's done,” she said. She sighed and her breath blew her white-blonde bangs up.

It wasn't until I moved to paint my closet that I noticed the room had become ultra bright. The soft peachy-pink shade on the paint chip was now a bright orange sherbet color.

“Well, it's certainly lighter in here,” Mom said. “But it
is
dark outside, so we can't judge the color until tomorrow.”

We were nearly blinded when we checked my room the next day. It was so bright and so
not
what I wanted.

“Did they give us the wrong color?” Mom asked as we stared at the walls. I pointed out the can said “grapefruit,” but maybe the company had put the wrong label on it.

“Or we're stupid,” I said.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Well, it's not what I wanted…”

“I'm not repainting it. I can't go through it all again.”

After we took a break, I called my dad to tell him about the contest.

“Guess what? I got picked to go on to the next round,” I said.

“Great news! So what do you have to do next?” he asked.

I told him I would be going to Detroit to compete and I would be on TV, too, but only in Michigan, not in Illinois.

“You have to promise to record it for me if I can't be there. I have some good news of my own,” he said. “I have some time off from the clinic, and I'm coming to see you guys early this week. Can you put your mom on?”

He used to visit us every weekend when mom and I first moved here. Dad would come over and everything would be fine, but then he and mom would start fighting over who was going to pay for dinner or something equally dumb. Once Dad bought me a CD Mom had said I couldn't have, and she freaked out. I knew they tried going to a marriage counselor because I overheard my mom telling her friend about it on the phone. I guess my dad didn't like the last one they had so they stopped going. Then Dad hadn't been able to get away from work for a while. I got off the phone with him and tried calling Ashanti to tell her about the competition, but her mom said she was sleeping.

“Landry, I need your help,” Mom said after she got off the phone. I went into the hall where she was pulling out the vacuum. “Do you want to vacuum the living room or dust it?”

“Um, neither,” I said. “Can't I do your room instead? It's smaller.”

“I'm not bothering with my room. Just the living room and bathroom,” she said. “Besides, your dad will be staying at a hotel anyway.”

I assumed Dad would stay at our place like he always does, but Mom said it would be “less of a hassle” for her without all of his stuff around. I asked why he wasn't going to stay here and why she was suddenly so worried about his stuff being in the way since our house is never super clean, but she just handed me a dust wipe and told me to get started.

I called Ashanti after dinner. Her dad answered and told me she had been waiting all day to talk to me.

“She has shocking news for you. You might want to put all the sharp objects away,” he said as Ashanti snatched the phone from him.

“I was reading
Soap Opera Hotties
and they asked a bunch of actors how they start their day, and your man said he starts each day with a back massage from his ‘darling Mirabella,'” she said.

“Is Mirabella a back specialist who makes morning house calls?” I asked.

“Well, maybe she's his great-aunt who lives with him because she's a hundred years old and doesn't get around too well,” she said.

“And he's such a sweet guy he takes care of her, and in return, she helps his aching back,” I said. “Or he's a jerk with a live-in girlfriend.”

“
He
can be a jerk because you love his character, Colin, and Colin would never let some chick move into his place and then brag about getting massages to prove his manhood,” she said. “So how was your trip?”

“I almost backed out since the other girls all looked like they were thirty, but then I changed my mind and they picked me! Well, me and a bunch of other girls.”

“So cool. How did Devon do?” she asked.

I told her Devon had changed her mind about trying out at the last minute. “It was scary though. I mean, I know I'm not pretty enough to be a model, but it's nice to know someone out there didn't think I was a hideous freak.”

“Landry, you are beautiful, but looks aren't the most important thing in the world,” she said. “Did I ever show you a picture of the actress who plays Savannah without her makeup on? She looks just like Mrs. Tamar. Looks aren't everything.”

On Monday I had one of those days where nothing went my way. My hair was extra static-y, I broke out above my lip, which looked like a cold sore, and everybody at school seemed surprised I was going to be on the
Ingénue
show. Not just surprised, but shocked. I overheard Yasmin say it was probably because “I was so tall and painfully tiny.” Jerk. Plus, I failed a math quiz and had to play dodge ball in gym, but at least my dad was coming to visit.

****

After school, I got off the bus deep in thought about Colin and
As
the
Days Roll On
.

“Hey Kiddo!”

I looked up and saw my dad standing in the driveway. As he hugged me, I breathed in his cologne, and it was like we were never apart. Dad was surprised my bedroom was so bright, but he said he liked it. He asked why I chose this color when I always bugged him about having a blue room in my old bedroom back in Chicago. I shrugged and said Mom and I painted it, but I wasn't crazy about it.

“You did a nice job,” he said. “But let me know if you want to change it to blue. I'll help.”

He looked at the school pictures I had on my dresser of Tori and Ericka. I had put them in little heart-shaped frames last year. He asked me about “the soccer player,” and I said Tori was fine. He hadn't met Ericka before. Lucky man. I showed him the second place certificate I got from the Michigan Young Pens contest, and he was excited to hear about my trip.

“A ton of girls didn't make it. My friend Devon got cut, and she's beautiful. I almost backed out at the last minute, but then I got chosen,” I said.

“The judges had excellent taste,” he said. “I'm excited for you, kiddo.”

Dad said he wanted to read some of the stuff I had written lately. I ended up letting him read a story I had started in math class. He was still reading when Mom came home from work. Dad gave her a kiss on the cheek, and she said we were going to have an early dinner. Dad offered to help with dinner, but Mom said she had everything under control.

“Dad said he'd help me with my room,” I said.

“We haven't picked a border out yet, and it's a unique color so it may take some time,” she said. “Anyway, we can do it ourselves.”

“Just trying to help,” he said as he picked up my stuffed mouse, who was sitting on my dresser.

While we were eating, I casually mentioned I was thinking about repainting. I glanced at my mother out of the corner of my eye. She had a mouthful of potato salad and couldn't respond. I thought about how to word it. I didn't want to upset my mom by saying it was butt ugly. Instead, I went with saying, “It gives me a headache.”

“I thought you liked how cheerful it is,” she said, tearing into a roll.

Dad wasn't sure which side to take so he kept eating and staring at his plate as if nothing was going on. I started to point out it didn't match any of my stuff, but then my mom gave me her famous “not now” look, which included a raised left eyebrow, pursed lips, and a stare which could turn me to ice. I could live in a neon grapefruit, but I couldn't live on my mother's bad side.

“This potato salad is delicious,” Dad said, finally breaking into the conversation.

“I got it at the deli, so you can thank Leon for it,” Mom said.

Dad went back to studying his plate. I shoved a spoonful of potato salad in my mouth as I matched my mother stare for stare. However, I began choking and started sputtering potato and radish all over the table. Dad leapt up and whacked me on the back, and Mom pushed a plastic cup of apple juice at me.

“You gonna make it?” Dad asked as he removed a piece of spit-up radish from his shirt. I nodded as I forced the juice down my burning throat. Mom asked if we were ready for dessert, and I almost choked for the second time. Dessert? I mean, for us dessert meant passing a bag of fun-sized candy bars back and forth during a TV show, and “preparing dessert” meant pulling the foil off the pudding cup. Mom brought out little bowls of pudding with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on top. I knew she had spooned the pudding out of the prepackaged cups, but my dad didn't.

“Hey, butterscotch, my favorite,” he said, digging in. It had to be a lie because butterscotch was nobody's favorite. Dad wasn't aware we were having butterscotch because we only eat the chocolate pudding out of the variety pack so we had a fridge full of butterscotch, and the chocolate sprinkles were from a package of cookies we never got around to making.

After dinner, Mom asked me to clear the table, and without thinking, I almost threw my plate in the trash. Then I remembered we had used real dishes and silverware. I wasn't even sure what to do with a real dish since I was used to eating off paper plates. Did she want me to wash them, put them in the dishwasher, or hide them in the oven? We always hid the dirty dishes in there, and last summer Grandma Albright came for a visit and we freaked out every time Grandma suggested baking some of her famous brownies.

I put the dishes on the counter and figured if mom insisted I wash them I could say, “What? These aren't paper?” and that would be the end of it.

We went into the living room, and I noticed a gift bag hidden behind the recliner. When was Dad planning on bringing it out? I looked over at Mom, who was sitting so far away from us she was almost in the dining room. Dad handed the bag to me and gave my mom a box of candy.

“I remembered how much you loved chocolate covered cherries from Maxie's,” he said. Maxie's was a store where it cost twenty-five dollars for a big caramel apple.

“Landry, open yours.”

He didn't have to ask me twice. I tore into the first present, which was a big book about young adult authors. There was a smaller aqua box in the bag. I slid the white ribbon off. Inside was a silver link bracelet with a dangling heart. Mom said it looked expensive and helped me put it on.

Dad asked my mother about work, and I had to give him credit for managing to look interested. He must have been listening because he said, “mm-hmm” and “uh-huh” in all the right spots. Mom let me stay up until eleven o'clock, and then I listened through my bedroom door. They seemed to be getting along. I peeked around the corner and saw Mom had opened the chocolate covered cherries. My parents were still where I had left them. Mom on the chair and Dad was still on the couch, but at least they weren't arguing.

Later, she poked her head in my room. “I just wanted to say goodnight.” She shut the door and then came back into the room. “If you want to repaint the room… it's okay with me.”

“For real? It's like a tangerine exploded in here. Can I get the paint roller thing they show on TV? They promise you can paint any room in an hour or your money back,” I said.

“No, I hate the actor in the commercial. I don't have any free time for a while, but I suppose we could hire someone,” she said.

“Ashanti's mom hired a guy after her dad did a crappy job on the living room. Mrs. Russell thinks he did a bad job on purpose so she'd never ask him to paint again,” I said. “I'll call Ashanti tomorrow.” Mom left and I went to bed dreaming of a room which wouldn't hurt my eyes.

My mom had a business dinner the next day, so Dad went out to get groceries so he could make dinner for me.

“I thought I'd make spaghetti with lots of ant poison,” he said.

I used to put tons of Parmesan cheese on my spaghetti when I was little, and Dad used to tease me the cheese looked like ant poison.

He asked me about school as I helped him with dinner. I avoided the fact my best friends hated me and told him about Colin's betrayal with the evil Mirabella.

“I bet she is a back specialist. Is he the guy you have hanging on the back of your door?” he asked. I nodded.

“He's kind of… pretty, and he's wearing more makeup than your mom does,” he said.

“It's not makeup,” I said, even though I suspected he used tinted lip balm, bronzer, and possibly mascara. “Oh guess what? Mom said I could repaint my room. I forgot to ask Ashanti who painted their living room.”

“I'll help you. Do you have a color picked out?” he asked.

He said he'd pick me up from school tomorrow and we could get all the stuff. Dad picked out the movie after dinner. We watched
Field of Dreams
, but then he saw my old
The Truly Mean Queen
movie in the pile and said I was terrified of the Queen in it when I was a little kid.

“We took you to the amusement park and you wanted to go on this ride, and we didn't know it was basically a queen like her chasing you throughout the whole thing. You screamed your head off, and we ended up buying half the gift shop to calm you down,” he said.

“I still have the mouse.”

“I noticed.”

****

The next day, Devon had to skip lunch for tutoring and Hana was absent. I went to the bathroom and wolfed down a peanut butter sandwich in the last stall before going to the library. The school library never carried any books we might actually want to read. I couldn't find my usual copy of
Jane Eyre
, so I read an ancient looking
Nancy Drew
,
which smelled like our attic.

We had a pop quiz in history because we were being “highly disruptive.” I had to correct Tori's quiz, and I made big red check marks next to all of her wrong answers. I knew I had gotten them all wrong too, but it made me feel better knowing Ms. Brainiac failed the quiz. When she got her quiz back, her hand shot up in the air, and she asked Mrs. Hearst if she would also accept Churchill for number five. Mrs. Hearst shook her head, and Tori tried again for half-credit. I heard somebody whisper, “Loser” at the next table.

After school, Dad was over at the house waiting for me.

“How was your day, kiddo?” he asked. “Ready for operation re-paint?”

We went to the home improvement store and I picked out royal blue paint. Dad told me to call Mom on his cell phone and find out what she wanted us to pick up for dinner. Mom said she had another business dinner with Ronald and Alfred from the office. I had met Ronald when he had offered us his daughter's old bedroom furniture when we first moved to Grand Rapids. At the time, he thought my mom was single and he kept flirting with her — big time. It was disgusting, and I've hated him ever since.

“Maybe you guys could order pizza,” she said.

I couldn't believe she'd go out with Ronald while my dad was in town.
S
o
not right.

“Can't you cancel?” I asked.

Mom said Alfred was leaving on a trip tomorrow, so I told Dad she had plans.

“Another meeting? Well, let's get a pizza,” he said.

Dad felt bad she had to work late, and I let it slip I thought Ronald liked Mom. Dad's slice stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Does she work with this Ronald person a lot?” he asked.

I shrugged and reached for a napkin. “I dunno. He's kind of weird.”

“You've met him? What's he like?”

“Kinda boring. And he sweats a lot.”

I told him Ronald dyed his hair a weird shade of blond, was a lot older than Mom, and he was kind of pudgy. Dad nodded and chased a piece of pepperoni around his plate.

After we ate, I spread out the drop cloths while dad stirred and poured the paint. It wasn't hard to cover the grapefruit color, and we decided to finish up instead of wasting a good Saturday afternoon. I was all sweaty when we finished and went to take a shower. I heard my parents arguing when I got out of the shower. I slipped into the den and crawled under the sheets without bothering to dry my hair. I heard the door slam. My mom came into the den, but I pretended to be asleep.