My Life in Pink & Green

by Lisa Greenwald

  People don’t always realize this, but doing makeup is a real art form. It’s just as hard to master and just as satisfying as making art when you do it well. The face is your canvas, and that’s why I figure taking art lessons is important—it can only make my makeup skills stronger.

  There’s a knock on the bathroom door. “Go put together a package for Claudia,” Grandma says.

  “Um, Grams, Claudia’s birthday is today, so it’s obviously not going to get to Chicago on time,” I say, talking back through the closed door, still admiring the Pink Lollipop lip-gloss in the mirror. She doesn’t respond. “And besides, why are we going to send stuff to Claudia for free when it’s actual stuff that we, like, need to sell?”

  I meant to say that politely, but even I think I sounded rude. I’m just annoyed that Claudia’s not here. I know she had to go to college and everything, but Claudia’s the person who taught me to do makeup and who got me into it. I’ve been practicing on her since I was seven. We started doing it mostly because we were bored, and then it became my favorite thing to do.

  “Lucy, please, just do it. We ordered her birthday gift online. This is just some extra stuff,” Grandma says as soon as I leave the bathroom. I slump down the pharmacy aisles, taking random stuff for Claudia and throwing it into a box: hair mousse, wintergreen toothpaste, a beaded hair band, and three bags of Tootsie Pops.

  There, that wasn’t so hard.

  And I know Claudia will appreciate the hair mousse. She goes through that stuff like it’s water. Her hair is pretty much the opposite of mine, except for the color. We both have brown hair, but hers is tight, spirally curly, like Mom’s. And when I look in the mirror and see my boring, brown, straight-as-a-ruler hair, I sort of wish I had hair like Claudia’s. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Grandma says people always want what they can’t have. I think she’s right, especially when it comes to hair.

  My best friend, Sunny, was supposed to come with me to the pharmacy today, but at the last minute she couldn’t. She forgot she had to go to her cousin Asha’s dance recital. Asha doesn’t do just any kind of dance, like ballet or tap—she does Indian dance. She’s really good at it, graceful and calm. She looks like a goddess when she dances.

  Sunny does Indian dancing too, but she’s not as into it as Asha is. I think Sunny just gets nervous, plus Asha’s three years older than we are. And Asha takes that age difference really seriously. She acts like she’s so much older, like we’re really immature. And she calls Sunny by her real name—Sunita. Nobody calls her that, except her parents, sometimes.

  “Lucy, oh, Lucy,” Grandma sings from across the pharmacy. She’s standing next to the counter with Meredith Ganzi. “I’m summoning you.”

  Meredith Ganzi is from Waterside, and she’s probably the pharmacy’s best customer, even though she’s only nine years old and doesn’t have any of her own money to buy things. Her mom works at the movie theater next door, so Meredith usually just hangs around either at the theater or at the pharmacy on the weekends and some days after school. She’s really annoying, but every time I tell Grandma that, she gives me a look. “Meredith isn’t as fortunate as you are, Lucy,” she tells me. “Be nice.”

  I don’t say what I’m thinking. I don’t say to Grandma, “I don’t think I’m really so fortunate.” If I did, she’d kill me. I walk over to them, carrying the brown box filled with stuff for Claudia. “Hi, Meredith,” I say.

  “You look really nice today, Lucy,” Meredith says, looking at my grandmother for agreement. Meredith is one of those girls who think giving people compliments is the only way to get them to like her. I wish she knew that wasn’t true.

  Besides, I don’t really look that nice today. I’m wearing a boring pink pocket T and jeans from two years ago, and they have a tiny hole in the middle of the thigh. And I’m not one of those girls who are into ripped jeans.

  “Yes, she does.” Grandma smiles like she believes it, but also like she needs me to get back to work. “Your job today is to reorganize the hair-product aisle. Everything is out of place. Gel is with dandruff shampoo. It’s a disaster.”

  “Okay, Grams, I’m on it,” I say. When I take a quick glance to the back of the store, I notice that Mom’s still on the computer in the back office. She’s been writing a letter to the editor of the Old Mill Observer all morning. She’s furious that they are planning to get rid of the dog park to make a parking lot. We don’t even have a dog, but she’s still really angry that such a thing would happen.

  As I’m reorganizing the hair section, I overhear Grandma doing what she’s almost always doing: giving advice.

  “But how can I prove to her that I’m old enough?” Meredith whines. They’ve been having this same conversation for a week now.

  “Merry, listen, I’m telling you. The best way to prove to your mom that you’re old enough to get your ears pierced is to show some responsibility,” I hear Grandma say, and when I look up, she has her finger up in the air, waving it for emphasis.

  “Okay, so what can you do? Well, set the table. Walk the dog. Make sure your room is clean.”

  Meredith sighs. “My mom’s not as nice as you are, though.”

  “Nonsense.” Grandma shakes her head. “Tell your mom to come to the store after her shift. I have her prescriptions ready, and the moisturizer I special-ordered for her.”

  At two thirty, I feel my cell phone vibrating in my pocket.

  I flip it open and Claudia groans, “Thanks for the billion texts, Lucy,” before I even get to say hello. “Mom’s gonna be thrilled when she sees that bill. And you know we’re an hour behind you, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. I wanted to make you feel loved on your birthday, being so far away from home,” I say. “Sorry if love costs money.” She laughs. “Where have you been? It’s Saturday. I know you don’t have class on Saturday.”

  “Actually, you know how Amanda and I have the same birthday?” she asks. I’d forgotten that, but I pretend to remember. I wonder if everyone at Northwestern is paired with a roommate who has the same birthday.

  “Well, her mom flew in from Atlanta, and she took us to a spa this morning! How amazing is that?”

  “Amazing,” I grumble. It’s hard not to be jealous of Claudia. She’s living this awesome life in Chicago, going to spas and everything, while I worry back in Connecticut.

  I can hear her slurping her drink over the phone. “Get this: It was an eco-spa!”

  “An eco-spa?” I ask.

  “Yeah, all the products were earth-friendly. They used special machines for some of the treatments so they didn’t waste energy. They used special lighting, had recycled paper to cover the tables. And a billion other things.”

  “That sounds cool, I guess.” Hearing Claudia so excited about this eco-spa makes me depressed. I feel like I don’t have anything to be that excited about.

  “I know,” she says. “Anyway, thanks for all the birthday wishes. I gotta go. These guys down the hall are throwing a party for us, and they want us to check out the decorations.”

  I roll my eyes, which thankfully Claudia can’t see through the phone. I hate when she rushes me off the phone, but I guess she has an excuse today, since it’s her birthday. “Have fun,” I say.

  College sounds like the best place in the world. Too bad I have six years until I can get there.

  Beauty tip: When it comes to

  hair, sometimes simpler is better.

  I’m still organizing the hair-products aisle. My day has been the complete opposite of Claudia’s, but I guess she deserves some fun on her birthday.

  I’m arranging the hair gels by color (a new change I’m implementing in the pharmacy, though Mom and Grandma don’t know it yet) when I start to hear screaming coming from the parking lot. And it’s getting louder.

  “Mom! I’m not going to say it again. That woman ruined my hair! I don’t care about a refund. Homecoming is tonight. Tonight! Do you even know what that means?”

  The screaming is really
loud now, since the girl is in the store. I wonder what could have possibly happened to her hair.

  I stand up on my tiptoes so I can peek over the top shelf in the hair section and see who is making such a commotion. And in a million, billion years I never could have guessed who was inside Old Mill Pharmacy right this very minute. Never in a million, billion, trillion years.

  Courtney Adner.

  Homecoming queen at Old Mill High School for two years in a row.

  “Mom, seriously, I’m hanging up on you. You sent me to your stupid salon when I could have gone with Brooke and Taylor, and now look.” Courtney pauses, holding the phone a few feet away from her face and rolling her eyes at it. I scrunch down a little to make sure she can’t see me. “Hanging up, Mom. Hanging up.” She slams her flip phone closed with way too much force for a cell phone to handle, and then she walks over to the hair-product aisle, right where I am.

  I’m not really sure what to do, since Courtney’s wearing a baseball cap, and I can’t see her hair. If I knew what the problem was, maybe I could make a suggestion.

  Courtney starts going through the hair-product shelves bottle by bottle, tube by tube, carefully reading the descriptions on each one. To my surprise, she seems kind of calm now, and I begin to think everything’s going to be okay.

  But that only lasts for a second. Soon Courtney starts dialing numbers furiously, one after another. When her friends’ voice mails pick up, she says, “E-mer-gen-cy,” and then hangs up. None of her friends answer, and she gets angrier and angrier, stamping her black boots on the linoleum floor and making those weird black marks that look terrible but actually come off with just a rub of your sock.

  I’ll have to text Claudia later and tell her about this.

  I’m just going about my business, still color-coding the shelves, when Courtney starts weeping right in front of me. I didn’t think a girl like Courtney Adner wept like this, all pathetic and splotchy. She’s wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her maroon cardigan. I don’t know what to do. Next, she falls to the floor, holding her head in her hands and rocking back and forth.

  That’s when Grandma comes over.

  “Doll, what’s the trouble here?” Grandma asks.

  Courtney looks up at Grandma, and for some reason that makes her cry even more.

  “If you tell me the problem, maybe I’ll be able to find a way to fix it,” Grandma says.

  “No offense, but you can’t fix it.” She sniffs. “Unless you can cut off all my hair and then make it grow back by tonight.” She looks down at the floor and doesn’t wait for an answer. “See what I mean? Can’t fix it.”

  “Okay, take off the hat,” Grandma insists. “Take it off so I can see what they’ve done to you.”

  “Seriously. I just told you. You can’t fix this.” Then she mumbles, “And don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Take off the hat,” Grandma says again, firmly. “I’ll be the judge of this situation.”

  Courtney finally listens to Grandma. Even Courtney Adner listens to my grandma.

  Under Courtney’s baseball cap is a mop of frizzed-out, thick, tangled strawberry-blonde hair. Well, the top is strawberry blonde; the bottom is green. “If you can fix this, then you’re a miracle worker,” Courtney says.

  Grandma stands back a few feet, her hands over her mouth, nodding like she’s assessing the situation. I look around, wondering where Mom is, and I see her sitting in the office, on the phone. She’s in her own world right now; she probably doesn’t even realize this Courtney Adner hair trauma is even happening.

  “Okay, doll, here’s the thing,” Grandma says softly, touching Courtney’s shoulder. “You’re not going to be able to wear your hair down for this event. But—”

  Grandma stops talking and walks over to the hair-accessory aisle. Courtney and I just stand there staring at each other. Claudia was right about one thing—Courtney Adner really is pretty. All of her features just go together: the perfect nose; big, green eyes; lips that aren’t too big and aren’t too small. Courtney Adner’s too pretty for her hair to look like this.

  When Grandma comes back, she has a handful of hair accessories. Some I know Courtney will definitely not want to wear. They’re made of pearls and satin ribbons, and I’m kind of embarrassed that Grandma even brought them over. But some of the others are okay. Maybe.

  “Um, I don’t think so,” Courtney says, a little rudely.

  “You don’t think so?” Grandma asks. “You didn’t even look.”

  Courtney looks through the pile, but I can tell she’s not happy. Grandma leaves to help some women looking at the aromatherapy candles at the front of the store.

  While Grandma and Courtney were talking, though, I thought of a solution—I think. Maybe it won’t help the problem permanently. But it’ll help the problem for today, and that’s something. But I don’t know if I should even bother. It’s not like Courtney Adner, homecoming queen for two years running, is really going to listen to a seventh grader.

  “Maybe I can just wear a hat?” Courtney asks, not talking to anyone in particular. “Maybe it’ll be a new trend or something.” She takes her phone out of her pocket and starts dialing. Again, no one picks up, but she gets a few voice mails and says, “We’re wearing hats tonight,” to each one.

  Her cell phone rings a second later. I don’t think the person on the other end even utters two words before Courtney starts screaming: “I said we’re wearing hats. Don’t argue with me, Petra.” Courtney starts stamping her feet again. “Petra, it will not look stupid.”

  After Courtney hangs up, she looks through the pile of hair accessories again, whimpering. “Ugh, these are all so ugly!” she says under her breath. When I look up, she says, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your products.”

  Now’s the time. I have to say something.

  “Um, Courtney,” I say. My mouth feels dry, since it’s the first thing I’ve said in a while. “I have two products that will help. One to fix the frizz, and the other to fix the green color issue.”

  “Luce, let’s not start mixing more products,” Grandma says. I have no idea how she overheard me from the front of the store. But now she’s walking over to us. “You don’t know what the combination will do.”

  “Trust me, Grams. These products are meant to fix mishaps.” I go over to the shelves to find the purple bottle of Fix-a-Frizz and the green tube (how appropriate) of Natural Color.

  See, I’ve had a lot of time to read the descriptions on all of these products over the past few years. I know what they all do and how they work. I’ve even watched the infomercials, just to get some extra information.

  “Put the Fix-a-Frizz on first, let it sit for twenty minutes, and then brush it through your hair. You don’t need to wash it out,” I tell Courtney. “And then you only put the Natural Color on the sections that have color damage. Make sure you don’t put it on your whole head.”

  I hand Courtney the bottles and she stares at me. “These will really work?”

  I nod. “Yeah, they’ll fix your hair for tonight. Then use this.” I hand her the bottle of the Earth Beauty rinse. “It’s meant to naturally restore your hair to its original state.”

  Courtney still doesn’t seem convinced. “And what’ll I do if my hair looks even worse after I use this stuff? Then what?”

  “Then you’ll wear a hat.” I shrug and guide her over to the cash register, where Mom’s putting all of Mr. Becker’s diaper-rash products for his newborn son into a bag. At least Mom’s finally out of the office. When she’s done, Mom takes Courtney’s products, and Courtney hands her a credit card.

  “Well, if this doesn’t work, then I want my money back,” Courtney says to Mom, not even looking at me.

  “Actually, the Fix-a-Frizz can be used right here,” I add. I really want her to believe me. I feel a little like my mother right now, fighting for a good cause. “You don’t even need water.”

  “Yeah, so?” she grumbles.

  “Let me show you.
Sit down, and I’ll put it in your hair,” I say. “Then you’ll feel a little better. I promise.” I have no idea where this surge of confidence is coming from, but I’ve tried the Fix-a-Frizz on Claudia’s hair a billion times. I know it works.

  “Whatever—it can’t get any worse,” Courtney mutters. She sits down on the chair next to the prescription counter and hands me the bottle. I pour a few drops out into my palm and then rub my hands together. Then I very gently comb it through her hair with my fingers.

  After I brush it through, I hand her a mirror. “It’s not perfect.” I shrug. “But it’s a start. If you go home and use the Natural Color and the Earth Beauty rinse, you’ll be fine. You don’t need to wash your hair with shampoo if you use the rinse.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Courtney says, admiring herself in the mirror. “I actually have almost normal-looking hair again.” She turns around and looks at me in disbelief. “Thank you. What’s your name again?”

  “It’s Lucy.” I smile.

  I’m not surprised that the Fix-a-Frizz worked, but I am a little surprised that Courtney Adner trusted me and believed me and let me use it on her hair, right here. Maybe I’m more like my mom than I realize. Maybe I have that same passion for making bad situations a little better and fixing injustices. It was only a hair trauma situation, but for Courtney it seemed like the end of the world. And I helped her.

  “Thank you so much,” Courtney says, handing me the mirror.

  “Have fun tonight! I’m sure you’re going to look great.”

  Courtney Adner would look great anyway. Even with that hair.

  Beauty tip: Lip-gloss is the perfect finishing

  touch to any clothing ensemble.

  usually take the bus to school, but Mrs. Ramal’s driving us today. She has to drive Yamir anyway, because he’s bringing in a huge sculpture of the earth showing the effects of global warming, and there’s no way he could take that on the bus. It’s probably some extra-credit thing for Science. Yamir always does everything extra that he possibly can. He’s one of those kids who make everyone else look bad.