Wax

by Gina Damico

  She may as well have been wearing a light-up sandwich board that said TAKE ME DOWN A PEG, PLEASE.

  The night had started on a promising note. The mayor herself answered the door, for one thing. Looking hopelessly out of place in orthopedic shoes, a clueless smile, and a darling felted hat with an extra-darling felted flower sticking out of it, Miss Bea gave the girls a warm welcome. Big Bob wasn’t far behind; Poppy shook his hand, trying not to recoil as she looked into his leathery face. He was a slimy sort of fellow​—​he looked a lot like that strong-chinned guy who ran for president a few years back whose name everyone had already forgotten​—​and not a word came out of his mouth that sounded genuine. He’d recently launched a crackdown on local teen drug use, though his motto, “Drugs are not rad!” did not exactly resonate with the local teens, and his own son, who spent most of his time drinking or snorting or smoking whatever lay within arms’ reach, was not exactly the poster boy for moderation. Still, Poppy was comforted by his presence. It lent a nice illusion of responsibility to the proceedings.

  But it didn’t take long for her to realize that Big Bob was only doing what he always did, which was to turn a blind eye to Blake’s unending reign of terror.

  Inside the sprawling mansion, the party raged. It was hot. It was crowded. Outside, kids skateboarded in the empty concrete pool. There was alcohol, though Poppy wasn’t drinking any and neither was Jill. They were probably the only sober ones who stumbled into that hazy circle of kids who had gathered in the conservatory (Who has a conservatory? Poppy remembered thinking. Are we in the Clue house? ) and started telling ghost stories.

  “But I saw her!” one boy was insisting. “I swear!”

  The other kids booed him. “Dude, everyone else stopped believing in Bloody Mary when they were ten!” said a girl with a blue streak in her hair, turning her voice smokier as she added, “But the Hollow Ones . . .”

  The circle went quiet.

  “What about them?” someone asked. “Have you seen them?”

  “I haven’t, but this older girl I used to work with at the movie theater said that her roommate was coming home from a bar once late at night, and she pulled over to puke in the woods, and there was one in the trees. Just staring back at her.”

  “So?” said the Bloody Mary boy. “It was probably just some perv in the woods. How could she tell that​—”

  “Because,” said Blue Streak, “when the moon came out from behind a cloud, his skin looked way too smooth, like it was made out of wax. And then”​—​she leaned farther into the circle​—​“he opened his mouth. And when she looked inside his mouth, the back of his throat was glowing. Like, flickering. Like there was a flame burning down in his gut and reflecting up his windpipe.”

  Silence again.

  But then Jill said, “That’s it?” The other kids looked at her with mixed expressions of relief and annoyance. “He didn’t breathe fire like a dragon, or, I don’t know, do something remotely interesting?”

  Blue Streak looked as though she might start breathing fire herself. “I’m just​—”

  “What is this, open mike night?” Jill carried on. “We’ve spent our lives hearing and telling and retelling the story of the Hollow Ones, or the Candle Men, or the Paraffin Demons, or whatever the hell you want to call them. It’s Halloween, kids. Step it up and think of something more original!”

  Just then Poppy got yanked out of the circle​—​by a fed-up Jill, she thought. But because of the way the ham costume impeded her movement and peripheral vision, she was unable to confirm the identity of the person who was dragging her by the hambone out of the conservatory, across the living room, out the door, and into the backyard.

  It was not Jill.

  By the time she realized that it was Blake and that humiliation was imminent, it was too late. Floodlights snapped on. A crowd materialized. She was given a light kick and sent tumbling down a slope. Then off went the hoses, dousing Poppy in water as she hopped and slipped and cavorted across the slippery concrete floor of the empty pool, its steep walls making escape impossible.

  The video was titled “Hogwash.” It got a million more hits than Triple Threat.

  (The irony was not lost on anyone that she’d been hijacked while dressed up as a giant ham, as To Kill a Mockingbird itself had foretold. Mrs. Shelburne even mentioned it in English class the following week. It became part of the lesson plan.)

  Poppy never did find out what happened to the ham costume after that. Which was a shame, really​—​it had been her best yet. Even better than the Don Quixote windmill of sophomore year. Glazed to a blinding sheen, it didn’t deserve to be crumpled up and thrown into the garbage, which she assumed is what happened to it after she’d wriggled out and fled the scene.

  But oh ho! It had not been trashed! It had been saved, decrumpled, and restored to its former glory!

  How did Poppy know this? Because the news report blaring into her life that night revealed that for a few brief hours before someone had the good sense to take it down, the costume had been worn by a sculpted statue of Poppy propped up in the gazebo, the video narration stating, “In honor of Paraffin’s own Poppy Palladino, who really knows how to bring home the bacon!”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Back upstairs in her room, Poppy lay on her bed and stared at the bevy of autographed Broadway posters covering her walls. Ordinarily, she found comfort in their familiarity, their art, the cast photos, the loopy signatures. The memories of trips to New York City with her parents, the excitement of waiting at the stage door after the performance for the actors to emerge. The potential for her future, the possibility that one day she could be among them.

  But not tonight. Tonight those same autographs looked like asbestos-coated spikes itching to drop down and impale her.

  Abruptly sitting up, she reached for her pen. Gripping it so hard she heard the plastic crack, she flipped to the end of The List and wrote on the next blank line.

  #19025: KILL BLAKE BURSAW. FOR REAL THIS TIME.

  4

  Devise a strategy

  WHEN POPPY CALLED HER AROUND MIDNIGHT, JILL DIDN’T waste time with pleasantries. “What’s the plan?” she asked, getting down to business.

  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine,” Poppy said. “We’ll head over to Smitty’s for supplies​—”

  “Donuts, right? You mean donuts?”

  “Of course I mean donuts.”

  “Okay. Continue.”

  “Then we begin plans for our counterattack. I think we need to start with . . .” Poppy trailed off, replaying the news segment in her mind.

  With what? A simple reciprocal prank wouldn’t work this time. It would have to be epic. It would have to match what Blake did, then surpass it. It would have to destroy him. Humiliate him. REVENGE WOULD BE HERS.

  You’re only perpetuating the bullying cycle, her internal voice of reason piped up. You’re only going to provoke him further, escalating the war until everyone loses.

  All good points. But on the other hand: REVENGE.

  “This is all blowback from the pantsing fiasco,” Jill was saying. “He thought you were weak. He didn’t expect you to fight back. But you did, and voilà, here’s the fallout.”

  “. . . revenge. . . .”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I mean, you’re right. I’m not weak. And this time I’m going to prove it. We’re gonna get Blake Bursaw so bad, he’s gonna wish he was the one Katy Perry had to console in the ambulance!”

  “That’s a confusing metaphor.”

  “We shall fight fire with fire!”

  “How about you knock off the figurative language and say what it is your depleted brain is trying to say?”

  “We’re gonna do the same thing to him,” Poppy said slowly, “but do it better.”

  “Huh?”

  “Think about it, Jill​—​the statue thing’s not that cruel. For one thing, my cheekbones looked fabulous. Plus, it’s just a replica of a thing that had
already happened. He didn’t break any new ground. He fell back on the pig thing again. Where’s the skill in that? He’s getting lazy!”

  “And you’re getting something that rhymes with ‘lazy.’”

  “We need a sculpture of him,” Poppy continued, her mind churning. “We need to find out how he got one made of me. Remember what he did with the wax in art class last year? He made a butt. And not even a good butt! A lumpy, asymmetrical butt!”

  “Yet still a butt that seems to have landed a cherished place in your long-term memory.”

  “My point is that there’s no way he could have sculpted it on his own. He must have commissioned it or something. And we all know there’s only one place he could have gotten a thing like that.”

  “I don’t know, Poppy. I don’t think they do special orders with intent to disgrace.”

  “Maybe they do! Maybe Blake bribed an employee to do it! I mean, he’s Blake friggin’ Bursaw. Who’s going to say no to him?”

  “And who might this mysterious employee be?”

  “That’s what we have to find out.”

  “Fine. Tomorrow, nine o’clock.”

  “See you then. And, Jill?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be sure to wear a jacket. Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold.”

  “I’m going to punch you.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Jill did just that when Poppy picked her up the next morning.

  “Ow,” said Poppy, rubbing her arm.

  “Sorry,” Jill said as they drove past the town square. “You forced my hand.”

  It was a screamingly beautiful Saturday morning, the sun high and blinding against the electric blue November sky. The sure-to-be-brutal Vermont winter hadn’t started in earnest yet, but the air was cold and crisp, and Paraffin was cranking up the adorable. Kids rode their bikes, squeezing in a few last days of fun before the snow started to fall. New parents pushed carriages down the sidewalk and cooed at their gurgling spawn. Elderly couples walked hand in hand on the shore of the lake and tossed bread at the geese, who thanked them by pecking at their ankles, the bastards. A large banner strewn across Main Street reminded everyone of the bicentennial celebration on Tuesday, as if anyone could forget. It had been declared a town-wide holiday​—​schools, banks, and the post office would be closed​—​and promised entertainment, fireworks, a raffle, and, of course, the big parade.

  Poppy opened up her mouth to complain about the marching band, but Jill interrupted her with, “Not a word about the marching band.”

  “I . . . wasn’t. I was going to say that I’m . . . glad my wax twin has vacated the gazebo.”

  “Wonder what happened to it.”

  “Oh, the sanitation department destroyed it. They called early this morning to make sure that was all right.”

  “And you didn’t ask to keep it? But your cheekbones!”

  Poppy pulled the car into a parking spot across from Smitty’s. She got out, stretched, and looked across the lake. The equilaterally triangular Mount Cerumen perked up like the ear of a cat, listening to everything going on in town. Beside it, on a smaller hill, sat two tanks the Grosholtz Candle Factory had once used to store its surplus liquid wax. The tanks had been designed to look like two large pillar candles, and flames were sometimes lit atop their roofs to complete the picture​—​but other than that, they were no longer operational. Lightning had struck them both years ago, ripping holes in their exteriors and thereby destroying their ability to retain heat, and so the factory had abandoned them in favor of more modern wax storage technologies.

  Jill had already crossed the street. “You coming?” she asked. “Or is staring slack-jawed at the lake part of your ingenious plan?”

  “Coming! Hang on!” Poppy removed her bag from the back seat and began the laborious process of cramming The List into it.

  “Leave The List,” Jill said, exasperated. “What possible task could you need to fulfill at a donut shop other than stuffing your face?”

  Poppy relented. “Fine,” she said, walking to the back of the car. “But I’m putting it in the trunk for safekeeping! Prying eyes and such!”

  Smitty’s was packed. The gossipy townsfolk had emerged in droves to gab about the prank​—​the same people who had waved at the cameras when Triple Threat came to town to do a puff piece on their hometown hero. Before the bloodletting, of course.

  “She’s our shining star!” Smitty had said on camera of Poppy, the label of “Local Donut Shop Owner” below his name, his forehead glistening with sweat. Smitty always reminded Poppy of a garden gnome​—​short, pudgy, cherry nose, bald on top with a ring of hair around the back of his head, and beloved by a minority for reasons incomprehensible to the majority. “Always knew she’d hit the big league,” he’d crowed. Then something had occurred to him​—​something involving the word “marketing”​—​and his grin grew wider. “Now, how about a maple cruller? Vermont’s finest!”

  And now here he was again, gleefully shilling confections to his hungry clientele, bragging loudly about his new bagel oven. It was allegedly the largest of its kind in New England, so specialized that only he was allowed to use it or even be in the same room as it. “Can bake seven hundred and twenty-four at once!” he boasted. “Stick that in your bagel hole!”

  Jill lingered outside the café’s entrance, staring with disgust at the nattering hordes. “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

  “Nonsense, poopypants,” Poppy said, striding toward the café with all the confidence of a victorious general returning home from the war. “We continue unabated.” She opened the door for Jill, who stopped short to make way for an exiting couple.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jill said, skittering out of their way with more speed once she saw who they were.

  Anita and Preston Chandler, CEO and president of the Grosholtz Candle Factory, respectively, looked at Jill with expressions of . . . nothing. Her presence barely registered as a blip on their worldview​—​nothing but a faint gust of wind between them and the next sip of their vanilla lattes.

  The Chandlers had swooped into Paraffin years ago, and though the story went that they had inherited the Grosholtz Candle Factory through some nebulous family connections, it sometimes seemed as though they had taken control solely through brute force charm. Anita and Preston were beautiful, beautiful people. Their skin was flawless, their smiles achingly wide. They were a wedding cake topper come to life​—​plastic, eyes straight ahead, solidly standing on top of the world.

  “Gutbag,” Anita muttered dismissively at Jill, putting a French-tip manicured finger on the door. “Are you coming?” she asked Preston.

  “My tie got coffee on it​—”

  “You have one hundred and eighty-three ties, Preston. Surely one of them will be a suitable replacement.”

  He followed her out the door, muttering, “Hundred and eighty-two now.”

  Jill watched them go. “Did she call me a gutbag?” she asked Poppy.

  “We continue unabated!”

  They continued, unabated, into the café.

  Everyone stared, as Poppy knew they would. Everyone stopped eating, as she knew they would. Everyone looked confused, as she knew they would, when she waved and smiled and marched right up to the counter to order half a dozen chocolate glazed donuts. As she hoped they would.

  She refused to cower. She refused to be embarrassed for the myriad misfortunes that had befallen her. They weren’t remotely her fault. Embarrassment was the most useless of emotions in this situation, and Poppy was sick of letting it wash over her without her permission.

  She was in charge now.

  She would have her donuts.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “That was bitchin’,” Jill said as they left, stuffing several hundred calories’ worth of chocolate into her face. “Did you see Mrs. Debenport? I think she choked on her bagel.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I couldn’t tell for sure. A glob of cream cheese wa
s spat into her coffee, at least.”

  Mrs. Debenport’s ruined coffee did brighten Poppy’s spirits, but it was time to focus​—​and to ignore the many eyes watching her pull out of the parking space. Though Poppy had lost many things during her time on Triple Threat—​dignity, confidence, a pint of blood​—​she did win a car, having received the most (pity) votes for Audience Favorite. Clementine was bright orange, somehow simultaneously boxy and bulbous, and made Poppy immediately identifiable wherever she drove​—​but humiliation perks, humiliating as they were, were still perks.

  As she steered Clementine around the lake, the Grosholtz Candle Factory loomed ahead of them like a mullet: jolly commercialized store out front, creepy Gothic dungeon out back. Its spires seemed taller today, their emaciated fingers stretching imploringly toward the sky while its storefront welcomed them with open arms, a sunny hello, and a color-coded map.

  “Here’s your map!” the greeter bubbled, handing Poppy and Jill one copy each. She wore a red vest and a customized pin that said BARBARA’S FAVORITE GROSHOLTZ CANDLE SCENT IS: NEW-FALLEN SNOW! “If you have questions, ask any of our Waxperts in the red vests. Enjoy your day at the Grosholtz Candle Factory!”

  Poppy and Jill nodded their thanks, because for the next thirty seconds, they could not speak. They made it a few feet into the foyer of the store, until they couldn’t hold their breath any longer. Jill was the first to blow, followed a few seconds later by Poppy.

  The first inhalation was the worst.

  “Bluuugh,” Poppy moaned, sticking out her tongue.

  “Gaargh,” Jill gagged, crinkling her nose.

  Hazelnut-melon Christmas. Buttercream-pumpkin seaweed. Herbal-sandcastle coffee. Berry-rubber holiday. Autumn-hamburger landfill. Patchouli-patchouli patchouli.

  Poppy fanned her hand across her nose and exchanged a foul glance with Jill. “Instead of maps, they should hand out gas masks.”