* * *
—
Provincetown was empty. Commercial Street was lined with Christmas lights and wreaths, but it had rainbow flags flying everywhere too. Icicles dangling from the roofs. The rainbow made me uncomfortable. Was this where I belonged?
There were sex shops everywhere, above convenience stores, even. Vibrators. Strap-ons.
I wished Heather were there so we could make fun of everything and I could pretend sex was just a joke.
Every time I closed my eyes, Susan’s hand was inside me, her hair brushing my chest, her breath on my face. The more distant that night became, the more I felt its realness. I woke in the middle of the night with crazy thoughts of going to Susan’s house, crawling into bed with her like we used to, and kissing her.
I saw a hair salon down the street, next to an ice cream parlor, which was boarded up for the season. The salon was called Rock Paper Scissors.
I went inside and looked from chair to chair, but there were no other customers in the place.
A guy in high heels and makeup asked me if I needed help.
“Yes, actually,” I said. “Can you just . . . Can you make me look gay?”
He smirked. I got the feeling that he’d been asked to do this before.
I felt like I was so far from Hopuonk. This guy would get murdered there. He had fake eyelashes and a wig.
“Sit down, honey,” he said, gesturing to a swivel chair. “What do you mean, you want to look gay?”
“Just . . . make me ugly.” Explaining it was too difficult.
He looked at my reflection in the mirror, and his expression reminded me of the one on Corvis’s face on homecoming night in the secret bathroom.
“You don’t really want to do this, do you?” he said. “Are you sure you’re not just having a Riot Grrrl moment? I promise you’ll regret it.”
“Do it,” I said. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch. Also, his hands felt good on my scalp, and I went into a sort of trance.
The result was this: a half-buzzed head, the other half chin-length and wavy. It took about thirty minutes.
“This is what it’s supposed to look like?” I asked when it was done. My face looked different. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I felt like my skull was too visible, my nose too big, and my eyebrows too thick. I looked like I should be Kristen Duffy’s friend.
The guy sighed and shook his head, placing a dainty hand on his narrow hip.
“You’re more than just beautiful,” he said to my reflection. “You’re Brooke Shields beautiful. You’re Cindy Crawford beautiful. Why’d you have to mess up that great thing you had going on?”
I stared at him in the mirror, at his makeup job. You could tell he was a cute guy, but his face was all covered with crap. I’d never seen a cross-dresser before, but why did he think girls had to wear fishnets?
“Well, why do you?” I asked. “Real girls don’t wear fishnets, except on Halloween.”
“I’m not a girl,” he said, “and I’m not trying to look like one.”
“Well, why are you wearing those clothes, then?”
“Because this is what I wear,” he said. It seemed like he was enjoying this conversation a lot more than I was.
There still weren’t any other customers, and I wondered what this man did all winter, what kinds of things he ate, where he hung out, whether or not he went fishing, or if he was an aspiring artist.
“How much for the haircut?” I asked.
“On the house,” he said. And then, as I was putting on my coat, he said, “There’s more than just one way.”
“One way to what?” I asked.
He spun around, flinging a hand in the air, like I wasn’t worth answering.
“One way to what?” I said again, but he didn’t answer.
The buzzed side of my head was cold.
The Present
Sandra was still pretty beat-up about Susan’s dad. We spent every Christmas alone, but this year, I felt a distance between us.
She was so upset about my haircut when I got home from Provincetown that she’d been ignoring me more than usual. I was hoping she’d yell at me, but she didn’t. She was horrified and she told me it was ugly, but all she did afterward was force hats on me.
On Christmas morning, though, she didn’t mention it. We ate powdered donuts from Bayside Donuts while we opened our presents, which was one of our traditions. We wore our pajamas and started drinking champagne at ten o’clock in the morning. By eleven, we were both pretty sloshed.
The tree was decorated mostly with ornaments I’d made as a little kid—Popsicle sticks covered in glitter, pinecone people, garlands of painted macaroni, and plastic cartoon characters hanging from strings, which came with McDonald’s Happy Meals. We didn’t have elegant glass bulbs like the trees at Heather’s and Susan’s houses.
I gave Sandra some makeup from Macy’s, the expensive kind. Clinique. I only splurged on this once a year, and, as always, she pressured me to wear it, which was the second part of the present. I was trying to compensate for something—my gayness, my haircut—I don’t know. I realized that every year, when I spent part of my savings on expensive makeup, I’d always felt this way—like I was trying to compensate for who I was.
We didn’t mention Susan’s dad.
Sandra gave me a subscription to Cosmo—and a pair of clogs.
I didn’t want them anymore, but I still felt like crying when I opened them. There was so much Sandra didn’t know. What I really wanted for Christmas was for Susan to love me. Even more than that, I wanted a father.
I reached into the shoe box and pulled out one of the clogs. It was beautiful white leather, soft and expensive-feeling, with a wooden sole. I ran my fingertip along the stitching and thought about how I would probably break my ankle if I tried to wear them, just like Sandra had said.
“Am I too late?” Sandra asked.
The Hot Topic Kid
The day after Christmas, I begrudgingly went to the mall to buy a new pair of jeans while everything was on post-holiday sale. I went alone so it would be quicker, but I kept looking around for Susan. I didn’t see her anywhere, and I hadn’t heard from her either.
As I passed Hot Topic, I noticed Kristen Duffy, her arms empty, talking to that weird kid from our school who stood behind the register. I kind of lurked outside, then I full-on went into the store, ducking behind the rack of faux-leather jackets, and saw that Corvis wasn’t with her.
“Your hair is, like, perfectly dyed,” I heard Kristen say to the Hot Topic kid, leaning in a little too close. Today his hair was electric pink on one side and orange on the other. “Could you, um, maybe help me dye mine? I want to change it to green.”
“Uh, sure,” he said, his voice distant. “Or you could buy some Manic Panic, and your girlfriend could help you. It’s not that hard.”
I crouched down further so they wouldn’t notice me.
“Cool,” she said, “but, I mean, Corvis doesn’t really know how to dye hair? Could you, like, come over this week and help me? I want it to be perfect.” Her cheeks reddened, which confirmed that she was flirting. I noticed that her fingernails were painted black, and that she had rings on every finger. Her eyelids were heavily made-up with shimmering gray and pink shadow, her lips covered in a thick layer of purple lipstick. From her neck, a metal chain held a giant beetle frozen in amber.
It looked like it had taken her forever to get ready. She’d seemed confident with Corvis, but right now she looked like a terrified child, her posture liquidy, her shoulders slouching.
“Okay,” he said, picking up on the flirting. “It’s just, you guys seem pretty tight.”
Kristen shifted her weight from one foot to the other, running her hand along the countertop. “Does Tuesday work for you? Anytime you’re free would be cool,” she said, ignoring his comment.
&n
bsp; It was winter break, so we didn’t go back to school until after New Year’s.
“I have to check my work schedule,” he said, which meant that he didn’t want to do it. No one works all morning and all night. How did Kristen not pick up on his cues?
All of this seemed wrong, and it grossed me out that Kristen was so needy. I felt a pang for Corvis.
I forgot to buy jeans.
The Morning Shift
I think my dad is losing his mind,” Heather said. “He’s flying right now.”
“On a plane?” I asked.
“No,” she said, rolling her eyes. “On the wings of dawn.”
We were making coffee at Emmylou’s, and it was very early, before the customers were really awake. It was like a blizzard outside. Emmylou’s should have been closed, but they never closed it down. Even in snowstorms, people needed their coffee.
“Oh, fuck you,” I said. I held a handful of perfect little coffee beans. I liked to hold them. Once, when I was four, I got a coffee bean stuck up my nose and had to have it removed at the doctor’s office. I was sad to see it go.
“He’s taking lessons.” Heather said the word lessons like she could smell it.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why.” Heather smiled crookedly and spun around to look at me. “Well, why did you get that busted-up haircut?”
This was the first time anyone had mentioned it besides Sandra. No one from school who I’d seen over break had said anything at all. In fact, the only consequence of my stupid haircut was that a couple of days later, Bridget Murphy got the same one.
“Because,” I said, “I kind of like it. I can feel the wind now. Half of it anyway.”
“Girl, you’re crazy.”
“I know,” I said.
“Susan still isn’t talking to you,” said Heather, hiking her black shorts. “I know she ignored us at lunch the other day, but whatever happened, I thought she’d be over it by now.”
“She isn’t.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“Come on,” she said, placing her hand on my arm. “It’s okay.”
I sighed, and my breath caught on a jag in my throat.
“The other night,” I began, then paused. I really wanted to get this out of me, this secret. “We, um, we did stuff together.”
“What do you mean?”
“We kissed,” I said, looking at my tennis shoes, which were worn in the toe and heel. “We kissed and then we did other stuff.”
“What?”
“You can’t tell anyone,” I said. “It was like . . . she was sad about her dad, and I don’t know. It just kind of happened.”
Heather looked at me for a long time. She didn’t exactly look surprised, and she didn’t look angry either. I couldn’t place the expression on her face. Sadness?
“Why Susan?” she finally asked. “Like, why her over someone else?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Who else?”
“Susan’s just not as cool as you think she is,” Heather said. She hiked up her uniform to show more of her thighs. “Also, why did you kiss Scottie?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know,” I said, which was true. “I mean, he was there, and I needed something to change. Are you mad?”
“No,” Heather said, smoothing down her top. She pursed her lips, checking her lipstick. “It’s not like I have dibs on him or anything. Half the time I don’t even want to have sex with him.”
I wanted to ask her more about this. I wanted to know why she did it. I started to say something, but just then PJ burst in, her curly hair dusted with snowflakes. I was grateful not to have to answer Heather’s question about why I kissed Scottie, which still hung in the air.
“Hey!” she said brightly, her voice about seven billion pitches higher than ours.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Please, yes,” said PJ, leaning onto the counter. “I was up so late after the play last night.”
Her face still had stage makeup on it, smeared in places where she didn’t wash it off all the way.
I made her favorite drink—Girl Scout Cookie—and just as I started handing it over, Heather snatched it away.
“Wait,” said Heather. “In exchange for coffee, can you bring us breakfast sandwiches? I’m starving, and if I have to eat another pastry, I think I’ll kill myself.”
She held the steaming cup in the air.
“Oh,” said PJ. “Sure!”
“Not from McDonald’s,” Heather said. “We want them from Bayside. With bacon.”
“Okay!” PJ started to turn around. She was like Heather’s little servant.
“Wait!” I called out to PJ’s back.
She turned around.
“Coffee,” I said, handing it over.
“Oh,” said PJ. “Thanks!”
She disappeared. Soon, she would be back. She brought us anything we asked for.
I turned to Heather.
“Why are you such a bitch to her?” I asked.
“Because,” Heather said, “everyone needs a friend who makes them feel superior.”
“So mean,” I said.
“Like you’re any better,” Heather said. “Isn’t that why you string Susan along like a little puppy?”
“Susan strings me along,” I said, and immediately regretted it.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” said Heather. “You could choose from so many other people.”
Like who? I thought. Brad?
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said quickly. “Susan started it. She touched me first.”
This wasn’t necessarily a lie, but it also was.
She looked like she wanted to say something else, but I started making coffee again. We worked for several minutes in silence, and I thought about all the things you can’t put into words.
“Do you think my dad is having an affair?” Heather asked finally. I was grateful to her for changing the subject.
I thought about it. Heather’s parents actually seemed to love each other. I wasn’t well versed on the topic of parent love, but her parents were the only ones I knew who still held each other’s hands in public.
“No,” I said. “He probably just needs to be in the sky. Or, like, feel something new. Anything. Sandra is starting to get older, and it’s killing her. I wish she would take flying lessons.”
“You think that’s all it is?”
I thought of bridge jumping, of flinging myself off Fourth Cliff, and how almost dying or having the possibility of dying but not dying could make you feel real.
“Is that how your hair makes you feel?” she asked. “Or, like . . . is that how it felt kissing Scottie?” For a second, she looked like she might cry, but yeah, right. Not when she was sober. She reined it in.
I touched the buzzed side of my head. My skull, it turned out, was bumpy.
“Kind of, yeah,” I said, “in a way.”
“That makes sense,” said Heather. She reached up and touched one of the rolls of lottery tickets, which seemed to hold all the possibility in the world.
Sometimes, while I drove to school, I would imagine that I won a million dollars and how I would spend the money—a new house for Sandra, a new wardrobe for Susan, a fleet of horses for me—and the money would be gone by the time I pulled into the high school parking lot. I was always disappointed that I’d spent it so quickly, even though it was only in my imagination.
“Heather?”
“What?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” I said.
“Do what?” She raised her eyebrows. I thought she was about to make fun of me, but instead she said, “Be here?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I need to get out of Hopuonk.”
“Well,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. She held a wad of bills in her hand, and for a second it looked like she was about to hand it to me. “I guess you’d better figure out how to go.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Just go,” Heather said.
Again, she looked like she might cry. Again, she stopped herself. She coughed—a fake cough.
“Don’t worry,” she said, looking down. “We forgive you.”
The Last Letter
I wrote Johnny Moon one last letter.
It had been years since I wrote, so just in case, I inserted my senior photo in the envelope. It showed me sitting on the seawall at Humming Rock Beach, wearing a black dress that wasn’t something anyone would wear to the beach on a regular day.
I explained the photo to him. I told him that maybe I looked nice in it—I was smiling—but that I wasn’t nice. I was an asshole.
I told him how I kissed Scottie in front of Brad. I told him about how I didn’t stop the other kids from egging Corvis’s house. I told him that I had sex with Susan and probably broke myself.
I told him that Sandra was an asshole too. I told him that she had an affair with Susan’s dad and then he died. I told him that I wondered if Sandra killed him.
Heart attacks have reasons. That’s what they taught us in biology. You can ruin someone. You can ruin yourself.
I asked him to help me. I told him I needed him.
I told him I wanted to fly, like Heather’s dad. I didn’t belong in Hopuonk, and I didn’t know how to get out.
I told him that he was robbed of the Oscar for Mad Monk. I told him that when I watched it in the theater, he made me cry.
I didn’t expect a response.
Well, maybe part of me did.
Please, I wrote. I know I’m yours.
The Cold Coming In
We Were Promised Spotlights Page 12