Perfect You

by Elizabeth Scott

  "That's enough," Mom said, looking back up at Grandma. Her face was still red but her voice was icy cold. "Keep your damn money. I don't mind work, unlike some people, and I know more about marriage than you ever will."

  "Darling, that's a bit melodramatic, even for you, and I think we both realize I know plenty about marriage. I did survive mine, after all."

  Mom took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then said, "There's no point in you staying here any longer."

  "You want me to leave?" Grandma seemed shocked and, weirdly, hurt. I didn't think that was possible. "Yes, Mother, I do. I want you to leave as soon as possible, and if I'm ever stupid enough to ask you for anything again, just pretend I'm a child. You won't be able to ship me off to boarding school like you did then, but it should still be easy enough for you to ignore me."

  "Darling--"

  "I don't want to hear it, Mother."

  "What do you think life at home would have been like if I hadn't sent you away?"

  Grandma said. "Do you think your father would have decided to give up his little blue pills? Do you think he would have been around more, or noticed either one of us if he was? Do you think I would have somehow become a better person? A better mother?

  Getting you out of that house was the most unselfish thing I've ever done."

  "The only thing," Mom said, but her voice was shaking.

  "You may be right," Grandma said. "But still, I won't support Steve and his ridiculous scheme. However, I do want to help you, darling. I won't mention what I said last night again, but I will give you enough money for this month. I don't want you working two jobs, especially when one of them is selling those hideous cosmetics."

  "What's the catch?"

  "No catch. I just want to see my family. Is that so hard to believe?"

  "Frankly, yes, but I'll live with it. Once the month is over, though--"

  "Yes, darling, I understand. Thank you for the cash, now get out.'" Mom shook her head. "Mother, you trying to do guilt is like . . . well, it's like me trying to sell forty-dollar eyeliner."

  "Oh, I'm not that bad at it, darling," Grandma said, and shut the bathroom door.

  I crept back to bed and wondered what Grandma had said to Mom about Dad and their marriage. It must have been really . . . well, typical Grandma. As far as Dad and his vitamins went, I had to agree with her, though. Dad's dream was a stupid one and I didn't care if it got crushed.

  In fact, I'd love it if he got a real job again. It would mean part of my life would go back to the way it used to be. It would mean no more working at the mall, no more piped-in music or tiny booth or people staring at Dad and his vitamins and then looking away like he embarrassed them.

  No, there was nothing I'd miss about working at the mall.

  Well, one thing. With one person. But it had happened, it was over, and that was that.

  Still, I was relieved to get to first period and find out Will wasn't in school.

  Or at least I wanted to feel relieved. I was actually sort of disappointed when I walked into class and didn't see him, but the disappointment could have come from having to face biology so early in the morning. Or because I had to hear Jennifer M. talk about her new purse, which was just as annoying as it sounds.

  No, I was pretty sure the disappointment I felt had nothing to do with Will.

  Then Jennifer started talking about him. "I heard Will isn't here because Monica is a complete wreck and he can't deal with it,"

  she said. "You know they were sort of together for a while, right? Well, supposedly she went to see him at work last night, and he had a hickey from some other girl. I mean, okay, they weren't actually together anymore, but still. He's always got a girl waiting, you know?"

  I drew a little box on the edge of my open notebook page. I did know. Everyone knew about Will. Unlike Sam, who was so popular that hooking up with him required a level of social standing that almost no one had, Will was attainable. Hell, I'd attained him. I scribbled over the box I'd drawn.

  Jennifer M. leaned in closer, lowering her voice. "I heard the other girl is some random mall skank."

  How flattering. I drew another box and scribbled it in, pretending the paper was Jennifer's face.

  "Well, it is Will," Jennifer T. said. "He's been with at least half the girls in school, so who's left for him, you know? I feel bad for Sam, actually, because people say stuff about him and random girls sometimes, but you know it's just because he hangs out with Will."

  "But Will hasn't been with hardly anyone this year," Jennifer S. said, looking at Jennifer M. "I mean, besides Monica, I've only seen him with a few--"

  "Please," Jennifer T. said to Jennifer S., rolling her eyes at me and Jennifer M. "Like you know anything about guys. You can't even get one to look at you."

  Jennifer M. laughed, even though she looked a little uncomfortable, and Jennifer S. crumpled, slouching down in her desk. She looked like she was going to cry.

  "Sorry," she said to Jennifer T., who acted like she hadn't said anything at all and started talking to Jennifer M.

  And there was yet another reminder why I didn't hang out with the Jennifers anymore.

  Anna never made me feel like crap for saying stuff the way the Jennifers sometimes had.

  Of course, Anna had also just stopped talking to me.

  But she'd also spoken to me again, out of the blue, and said she missed me.

  Maybe we could be friends again. I wanted that more than anything, and thought about it all through my first few classes, wondering if there was something I could do to make Anna talk to me again.

  I went to the bathroom after lunch, and passed Diane on my way in. She was leaving, and called out, "That stupid song actually sounds decent when you sing it, Anna,"

  practically yelling in my ear and yet still managing to act like she didn't see me.

  Anna was standing by the sinks. I watched her look at herself in the mirror and then make a face at her reflection as she fiddled with her hair, which was pulled back into a made-to-look-messy knot.

  "It looks great," the girl standing next to Anna said, and I realized it was Tara. The Tara.

  "And you really did make that crap song sound way better. You want to come to lunch?

  I'm so not doing it here today." She looked around, and just like Diane, looked right through me. "Oh, I guess Diane left. Too bad for her. Look, I'm feeling like Chinese, so be in the parking lot in five, okay?" She glided out before Anna could say anything in reply.

  As if anyone ever said no to Tara.

  "Damn," Anna whispered, and frowned at herself in the mirror. "I've got three dollars.

  How am I going to pay for lunch?"

  Was she talking to me? There was another person in the bathroom, but it was just a freshman who skittered past both of us as soon as Anna finished talking, clearly stunned from being in a room with Tara. And Anna.

  "Did we look like that last year?" Anna said, and now I knew she was talking to me.

  "I'm not giving you any money." I was proud of how strong my voice sounded. I did want to talk to Anna again, but not like this.

  "I didn't ask you for any," she said, sounding surprised and a little angry. "I was just saying I only have three dollars. Mom got laid off again. It's like every time she gets a job and starts talking about taking a vacation, I know what's coming."

  I didn't say anything, but there must have been something in my face, an expression Anna knew, because she added, "She still wants to go to Chocolate Village. What is it with that place, and how long has she been promising to take me there?"

  "Free chocolate, and since you actually wanted to go."

  "I told her to try and take college classes again, but she . ."

  "Won't."

  "Yeah. She says she's too old and that--well, you know." The bell rang and she jumped. "Oh, shit, I gotta go. Tara hates waiting. See you later, Kate."

  "Okay," I said, and waited until I knew she was gone before I let myself go and spun around in a c
ircle, grinning and giddy. Anna had talked to me again, and even said she'd see me later.

  Please, oh please, let her mean it.

  Chapter fifteen

  Dad and Todd decided to go to the movies about ten seconds after Dad and I got to the mall.

  "I'm not in a real hurry to go home, you know?" Todd said to Dad, who nodded in weary Grandma-fearing agreement. "Plus, I know someone who works at the movie theater, and when I was getting us coffee this morning she said that if we showed up before three, she could get us in to see anything for free."

  "Any movie?" Dad said, cheering up enough to do a weird half turn, half dance thing I hoped no one saw.

  "Yep."

  "I'll bring you back something to eat," Dad said as he and Todd practically ran out of the booth, like food made up for him sticking me with watching over his precious business.

  Not that there was much to watch over. There weren't any customers, of course, so I did some homework and then tried to rearrange the bulging cabinet below the cash register. Why did Dad keep buying more vitamins?

  Mom called the booth after I'd given up fiddling with the cabinet and had gone back to trying to decipher geometry problems. She wanted to talk to Dad, and she sounded tense.

  "He's not here."

  She sighed. "Where is he?"

  "With Todd." It's not that I wanted to protect Dad, who was making me work by myself, but I knew that him skipping out on his "dream job" to go to the movies was the sort of thing Grandma was thinking about when she'd called Dad a child. And even though I'd thought that before myself, it had sounded so mean when Grandma said it.

  "So he's left the mall?"

  "No! He's just at the movies."

  "The movies," Mom said, echoing the words like she didn't quite believe them. "All right, you tell him . ." She sighed again. "Just tell him I called to say hello."

  "Do you want him to call you?"

  "No. I mean, it's not necessary. Oh, and Kate--when he does get back, tell him I said you deserve an extra-long break for working so hard."

  It was nice that someone noticed. "Thanks, Mom. I will."

  Dad came back well after any movie he could have seen would have ended, eating ice cream and offering me a half-empty box of mushed gummy things, oblivious to my growling stomach and glares.

  "Mom called," I said, throwing the candy in the trash.

  "Okay," Dad said, and didn't move toward the phone or even ask me what she'd said.

  "You know, the neatest thing happened when I was watching the movie--which, by the way wasn't very good. The special effects were terrible and--"

  "Dad."

  "Okay, sorry, got a little off track there. Anyway, I started thinking about how business is kind of slow and then it hit me. An ad!"

  "An ad?" Dad on television? I'd never be able to leave the house again.

  "A movie ad. Most of the mall restaurants have them. I could say something like,

  'Mention this ad and get thirty percent off your next purchase.' What do you think?"

  "Mom said you should let me take a long break."

  "Sure, of course. But what about the ad? Should I make it twenty percent off instead of thirty? I'd better call the theater manager and ask about rates."

  I didn't feel like sticking around while Dad ignored the fact that Mom had called and went ahead spending money on a business he'd cheerfully abandoned to go to the movies, so I left. He was so caught up in sketching out ad ideas I'm not even sure he noticed me walking away.

  At the food court, my warm juice box and sandwich looked pathetic among the mall food. I wished I had something fun to do, or even a magazine to look at, but all I had was homework. I was now a girl who brought her own food to the mall. And worked on her homework. I might as well just have loser tattooed on my forehead.

  An hour and several false starts on an English paper later, I gave up pretending my so-called break was better than work and decided to head back. I was throwing my trash away when I saw Will. My heart kicked into overdrive, clanging up into my throat, and my juice box missed the trash can and landed on the floor, the cartoon character side of the box facing up.

  "My next door neighbor loves those," Will said. "He's six."

  "Is that supposed to be an insult? Because you're the one discussing juice boxes with a six-year-old."

  "We talk about cereal too." Will grinned at me, and I remembered kissing him in a way that was amazing and scary. Amazing because, well, kissing! Scary because I didn't like how happy I was to see him.

  I bent down and picked up the juice box, not realizing I'd end up crouching right next to him, so close that if I reached out I could rest my hand on his leg and then--well.

  I know I'm supposed to not be thinking about that kind of stuff, his body, I mean, but the fact is, I was. I did. I do.

  I backed up a little, trying to clear my head and suddenly afraid everyone in the mall could read my thoughts, and smacked into a table as I stood up.

  "Hey, watch it," the guy sitting there said. "You almost knocked over my food."

  I stared at the man, who had a pathetic scrub of a mustache sprinkled with crumbs from an open bag of potato chips.

  "Don't worry, I'm fine," I said. "I'm sorry your chips wobbled. It must have been very traumatic for you."

  "Don't give me any crap, kid," the guy said. "I've had a long day, and I have to go to my second job soon. Maybe when you grow up you'll realize life isn't all about you."

  "Oh, but I already know that, because clearly it's all about you." It was a great exit line.

  Too bad I spoiled it by forgetting the juice box I was holding until the little bit that always lurks on the bottom spurted onto my hand. I tossed it into the next trash can I passed, hoping stupid mustache guy wasn't watching, then wiped my hand on my jeans and crossed out of the narrow food court hallway.

  "Kate. Hey, Kate, hold up for a second."

  Will. I stopped and turned around, giddy because he'd come after me. (Me!)

  "Sorry about that guy," he said.

  "Yeah, well, if I had that kind of mustache, I'd be in a bad mood too." Wait, had I just implied that I had a mustache of my own? Why did I do stuff like that? Why?

  Will laughed, and I relaxed. A little.

  "Good point. But then, he is what life is all about. Which is kind of frightening." He shoved his hands into his pockets and fell silent.

  I didn't want to look like I was waiting for him to say something else, even though I was, so I forced myself to smile in what I hoped was a polite and not oh-please-kiss-me way and turned to go. "Can you meet me later?"

  "What?" I was mid-turn, and stopped so fast that I barely managed not to trip over myself.

  "I have to break down boxes over where we--over by the trash. I'll be there around nine, and well . . . you know."

  "You want me to meet you? Around nine?" I knew I sounded stupid, but Will had just asked me to meet him. Guys did not ask me to meet them.

  "Yeah," he said, and then blushed. Will BLUSHED. I didn't know he could do that. I know I should say he suddenly seemed vulnerable and I felt a connection to his soul or whatever, but the truth is I just wanted to tackle him and then make out for the next three thousand years. "It's just . . . today has really sucked, and when you're around stuff doesn't seem so crappy."

  "Oh. Okay." I didn't say anything else. I couldn't say anything else.

  "Okay," he said, "later," and that was that.

  I watched him walk off, sure I was in a dream because there was Will, walking. There was Will, who wanted to meet me. There was Will, who said I made his day better. Well, made it less crappy. But still!

  So I made up some excuse, which Dad totally bought because he's Dad and also because he was distracted by the sketches he was still making for his ad, and met Will at nine. I think we were making out before the mall door clicked all the way closed behind me.

  At one point I bit his lower lip, and then he did this thing where he sucked on mine and when I touched h
is face, a quick, careful brushing of my hands along his jaw as I slid them down onto his shoulders, I could feel a little bit of stubble. Just that difference, the slight roughness of his skin, made me feel like I was boneless. Breathless.

  Stupid.

  I'd been so happy that Will asked me to meet him that I'd overlooked the fact that he asked me to meet him so we could make out. So he could hook up.

  Yeah, he'd said being with me made his bad day better. Sort of. If I didn't think about it too much.

  But I was thinking about it.

  I pulled away. He had his eyes closed, and I watched as they opened. If he'd looked annoyed, I would have known for sure that he just wanted me to stand there and make out with him. I would have known I was as stupid as I was afraid I was.

  But he didn't look annoyed. He just looked surprised.

  "I don't get this," I said.

  "Get what?"

  "You know . . . this. I don't even like you."

  "You don't like me?" He sounded amused, sort of. Really more like upset and trying to sound amused, like how Dad sounded when he talked to Grandma.

  "It's not--I mean, you're just so . . ."

  "What?"

  "Well, you. Like the first time we met, you made fun of me."

  "I don't remember . . ."He trailed off. "I hate it when you look at me like that, like I've proven you right on some theory you have about me." "Is that your way of saying you do remember?"

  He shrugged. "All I did was ask for a pen."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Fine. I'm sorry. But it was my first week at JHS too, and it wasn't like I was in a place where I could say, 'Hey leave that cute girl alone.' I couldn't even find the cafeteria."

  "But it's not like you were nice to me afterward, either." I wasn't going to say anything about him thinking I was cute. I wasn't. (But he thought I was cute! Me! Cute!)

  "Hey, I tried. You're the one who called me an illiterate jackass and then practically spit on me if I so much as looked at you after that. And if you don't like me, how come we're here?"

  "I--well, everything's just sort of . . . happened. And anyway, it's not like you like me, either." At least I hadn't made it a question. At least I wasn't asking him if he liked me.