“Nice, Rose. I love repeating motifs. Are you interested in textile design?”
I nod, having no idea what textile design is. She turns to help the person at the next table. It’s quiet—no one really talks while they’re working—but I have some things I have to say to Jamie Forta.
“You saved me from getting expelled,” I whisper. “Thanks.”
“So you’re a brawler, huh?” Jamie says.
“I’m not. I’m really not. I was just mad.” I don’t know how much Jamie already knows about what went down, and I wonder if maybe I should just leave well enough alone. But predictably, I can’t. “Tracy and I had a fight. I didn’t tell her that you…that we…um, about those two times, but she figured out that something happened between us. And she wanted to get back at me because I said I thought Matt was sleeping with Lena. So she said something to Regina. Sorry. I hope you didn’t get in trouble.”
He looks at my arms, at the giant scabs that are finally starting to heal after I wiped out on the track that day. “She deserved to get knocked on her ass,” he says.
Relief floods through me. “I’m not really a violent person by nature. At least, I don’t think I am.”
“I heard you passed out and went to the hospital.”
“Mono,” I say. “I’m better now.”
Jamie nods and takes the first book off the stack Ms. Botero gave him. I can smell his clean-laundry smell. Sunlight from the art-room windows falls across his neck and face, and I want to trace its path with my finger. Then I remember that he’s not interested in me. That he said he was sorry for kissing me.
I turn back to my paper.
“You like architecture?” he asks without looking at me.
“I don’t know much about it. You like it?” I say, sounding more surprised than I mean to.
He shrugs. “Ms. Botero wants me to check it out.”
He flips through the book, which is filled with crazy, shiny metal structures that don’t look like buildings and have names like Dancing House. Ms. Botero turns on some jazz to inspire us while we work. She turns it up a little louder than she should, which makes me like her even more.
“Look at that one,” I say, pointing to a building that seems like it could fly off the page. He stares at it for a while and then looks at my paper. I can’t stop myself from covering it with my scabby arm.
“It’s just the same flower, over and over again. It’s not good.”
“I saw it before. It’s good.”
“It’s not.”
“You put yourself down a lot, you know that?”
When he says things like that to me, about me, it makes me feel naked. His ability to see right through everything actually makes me a little mad right now, given our weird circumstances. He doesn’t want to be with me, so he shouldn’t get to say stuff like that. I change the subject. “What are you working on?”
Jamie hesitates, and I wonder if he feels shy about his artwork. But then he opens his sketchpad and starts to show me his houses. They’re not all like the one that I saw that day a million years ago. Some of them are modern, like the stuff we were looking at in the book. They’re beautiful and wild. I feel strange looking at them, until I realize that what I’m feeling is pride. I’m proud that Jamie can do this.
“Jamie, these are all really beautiful.”
He keeps his gaze on the page, not acknowledging that I spoke. But I need him to—I need to make sure he heard me.
“You can create beauty. Not everybody can, you know.”
My words don’t have the desired effect. He looks at me as if I’ve suddenly started speaking in a foreign language and I’m making him uncomfortable. I’m guessing Jamie doesn’t get compliments on a regular basis because he obviously has no idea how to handle them. He puts his pencil down. “What do you want?” he says, sounding almost angry.
“What do I—what do you mean?” I stammer, even though I know exactly what he means.
“From me,” he clarifies, looking hard at me, like he doesn’t trust me.
This is my chance to tell him how much I think about both times we kissed, and how I want to kiss him again. But I’m guessing there’s a right answer to his question, and telling him I want to kiss him again isn’t it. My mouth dries out and I swallow. “Well, I…I’m not sure,” I say, just to be safe.
He watches me for a second more and then picks up his pencil again. I look down at my stupid drawing of the same flower over and over, cursing myself, wishing I could just, for once, say the right thing in the right way.
I wait for him to start drawing, but he stares at his blank page. My brain is in knots and I’m sweating rivers down my back. My shirt is sticking to me.
“I like you,” he says. “You’re smart. Pretty.” My breath catches in my throat. I’ve never been called pretty by anyone except my dad, and that doesn’t really count, as much as I would like it to. “I’m not right for you, Rose” is what finally comes out of Jamie’s mouth. “I’m different. And you’re…young,” he adds.
The way he says it is not mean or condescending, but it embarrasses me. And I’m dangerous when I get embarrassed—I lash out and say things I don’t mean. Which, of course, is exactly what happens.
“Too young for you to do it with, you mean?”
After a second during which we’re both in shock, Jamie stands, leaving his sketchpad and books on the table, and walks out the door before I understand what’s happening. Ms. Botero looks at the door, confused, and then her gaze travels to me. I’m paralyzed for a second, and then my brain untwists and commands me to get off my ass. I run into the hall. He’s already at the other end, heading down the stairs.
“Jamie, wait!” He doesn’t. I sprint, finally catching up with him at his locker. I struggle for air. “I’m sorry,” I manage to say.
His eyes are dark as he looks down at me. “You think that’s what I meant? You think I’m like that?”
“I don’t. I don’t think that. I’m just… I don’t get any of this.”
He turns from me and opens his locker. There’s nothing on the inside of the door—no pictures, no notes, nothing. He grabs his army jacket.
I lower my voice. “You kissed me at homecoming,” I start. Then I stop. Then I start again. “Then I kissed you on Valentine’s Day, but you told me that I shouldn’t have—”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It is.”
“No. I said I shouldn’ta kissed you.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s on me—it’s my fault.”
“Why, Jamie?”
“I told you—a lotta reasons. I was with somebody. I got problems. And you’re fourteen—”
“Fifteen,” says a voice behind us. I look over his shoulder and see Regina in her uniform. I wonder how long she’s been there, how much she heard, and how the heck she knows it was my birthday. “She just turned fifteen.”
Jamie turns around and stands in front of me. I step to the side so I can see her—as far as I’m concerned, I don’t need protection from Regina Deladdo anymore—but she doesn’t even look at me. Her eyes are glued to him.
“I’ve been waiting for you at Cavallo’s,” she says.
“I told you I wouldn’t be there.”
“I didn’t believe you.”
“I bet you do now,” he says. I’m surprised by how harsh he sounds—I’ve never heard him talk like that before. Her eyes flicker over me, taking me in. I wait fo
r a bitchy comment, but she just looks back at Jamie.
“I’m sorry,” she says. It seems like it costs her a lot.
“Tell Rose that, not me,” Jamie responds.
I know there’s no way she can do what he’s asking—it’s probably physically impossible for her.
“What about prom?” Her voice shakes.
“What about it?”
She clenches her jaw. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was about to cry.
“Are we going?” she asks, emphasizing each word through gritted teeth, trying to keep it together.
“What do you think?”
Her breath escapes in a giant exhale as if she’s been punched in the stomach. “Are you going with her?”
“I don’t know. You wanna go to prom with me, Rose?” he says without taking his angry eyes off Regina.
This is it—this is the payback I’ve been dreaming of for months now, for everything Regina has done to me. But I can’t enjoy it, no matter how much I wish I could. First of all, he’s just asking me to piss her off—it probably never would have occurred to him to do it if she hadn’t brought it up. But also, Jamie is crushing Regina, breaking her twisted little heart right in front of me, the person she hates more than anyone in the world these days. It’s got to suck. As Regina turns away and starts up the stairs without waiting to hear my answer, I realize that I feel sorry for her.
I practically kick myself. How dumb can I be? I’m never going to survive high school if I can’t even be happy when my enemies get what they deserve.
Regina stops at the top of the landing and looks down on us, hatred blazing in her eyes again, and the pity vanishes as if I’d never felt it in the first place. So does the rush of courage I had when I first saw her standing there.
“After everything my family and me did for you, Forta, you’re gonna regret this,” she says.
Regina disappears into the dark of the stairwell as a little chill creeps up my spine—I know firsthand what kind of revenge she’s capable of when she puts her mind to it. Jamie slams his locker shut with a bang so loud that it reverberates through the empty halls. He stalks away without so much as another word to me.
I have no idea what just happened, but I think it’s very possible that a) Jamie and Regina are officially broken up and b) I might be going to the prom.
retribution (adjective): payback
(see also: Regina’s revenge)
21
“HIYA, ROSE, I'M Sherri. Are we wearin’ it up or down for tonight?” asks my stylist as she plays with sections of my hair, probably wondering how the heck she’s going to do anything with all the limp, lame stuff on my head.
I’ve never been one of those girls who fantasize about the prom—I think those are the same girls who dream about their weddings—but I’ll admit that I’m excited for tonight. I got a beautiful dress, and I’m having my hair and makeup done at a salon. Basically, I’m not making any of the dumb grooming mistakes I made with homecoming.
“I think I’d like to wear it up in a twist or something. Will my hair do that?”
“Of course it will! We can get your gorgeous hair to do whatever we want. That’s the beauty of product.” She grabs a spray bottle. “This is just water. I’m gonna wet your hair down so we can put some serious gunk in it, okay?”
I nod and she sprays, making me look like a drowned rat.
“You a senior?”
“Freshman.”
“Wow! A freshman and you’re goin’ to prom with all the juniors and seniors? That’s huge! Congratulations! Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Um, he’s a friend…I think,” I say.
“Ooh, I love that. I love when you don’t exactly know. It’s so exciting, isn’t it?”
I like Sherri’s positive spin on things. But the truth is, I have no idea what I am to Jamie other than a great way to piss off Regina.
Sherri sprays a huge amount of mousse into her hand and starts rubbing it in my hair. Now I look like a drowned water rat with shaving cream on its head. “You know, my baby sister is a senior at Union now. Michelle Vicenza. You know her?” Sherri asks.
“Michelle’s your sister?”
She nods, smiling. “Yup. I can’t believe she’s graduating.”
If Sherri is Michelle’s sister, Michelle is getting her hair done here. And if Michelle is getting her hair done here, the rest of the squad probably is, too. Low-grade panic sets in as I scan the salon for emergency exits, replaying Regina’s threat in my head. I remind myself that I can handle her—I did knock her down with the intention of punching her, after all.
“So you know Michelle?” Sherri asks again.
“She was friends with my brother before he graduated, and my best friend—well, the girl who used to be my best friend—is on the cheerleading team with her,” I say, noticing that Sherri actually looks a lot like Michelle, just with big, blond hair.
“Sounds like there’s a story there,” Sherri says, turning on the blow-dryer and saving me from having to say anything else. She combs my hair straight up while she dries it. I watch my flat hair get impossibly huge in the mirror and wonder if I’m going to end up with a giant bird’s nest on my head. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to have the head cheerleader’s sister doing my hair for prom.
The salon door opens, and the inevitable happens. My palms get all sweaty as Michelle, Regina and Susan come in. Michelle comes over and kisses her sister on the cheek. She waves at me in the mirror, but she doesn’t look like her usual cheerful self. She stands there, looking back and forth between me and Sherri, like she’s waiting for Sherri to turn the dryer off so she can say something, but Susan pulls her away. I keep an eye on Regina in case she decides to come after me, but she doesn’t even look my way. The cheerleaders sit down in the reception area and start flipping through hairstyle magazines, looking for up-dos they like.
I heard Regina is going with Anthony Parrina tonight. He’s the hockey player from West Union who Jamie high-sticked in the neck, which got him kicked off the team. I guess she’s trying to make Jamie jealous. Or maybe she’s hoping Anthony will try and beat the crap out of Jamie.
Sherri turns the dryer off, takes a pick and starts teasing my hair into a giant mass. I have no idea why she’s doing this. A stylist comes and leads Susan and Michelle to the back to get their hair washed, but not Regina. She continues to flip through her magazine.
“I’m gonna put a little spray on now, okay?” Apparently “a little spray” does not mean the same thing to Sherri that it means to most other people. She practically uses an entire can on my head.
Then, miraculously, she takes the giant mass of sticky, matted hair and transforms it into a beautiful French twist in about thirty seconds. Suddenly I’m a totally different person. She opens a drawer in the little table next to me and pulls out a piece of white cardboard with tiny rhinestones on it. “Let’s put some bling in your hair. I love these,” she says as she applies them. I turn my head and the light catches the glass at various points. It’s pretty. I’m pretty. I barely recognize myself.
Regina’s phone rings, and I look at her before I can stop myself. She meets my eyes for a second before she takes her phone out of her bag and goes outside to answer it.
“What do you think, Rose?” Sherri asks, turning me around in the chair and handing me a mirror so I can check out the twist on the back of my head.
“It looks beautiful. I really didn’t think my hair would do
that,” I say. “Thank you so much.”
“You are so welcome! You have a great time tonight, okay?” She smiles the famous Vicenza smile and goes to check in with Michelle and Susan. Regina comes back inside and sits down near reception, a strange expression on her face that I can’t read but which makes me nervous anyway.
I dig into my pockets and pull out my money, leaving a tip on Sherri’s table. The next thing I have to do is pay, which means going to reception. I glue my eyes to the desk and head straight there, not looking at anything else. I see Regina look up out of the corner of my eye, but I turn my back on her. I’m hoping that she’ll get called into the salon before I have to turn around, but it doesn’t happen.
“Nice hair,” she says.
She’s being sarcastic, of course. I hand the receptionist my cash, turn and walk past her to the door.
“It’s a waste, though.”
Michelle suddenly appears at the desk with one of those black plastic salon drapes on, her hair wet and long. I have no idea what Regina means or why Michelle is standing here.
“Regina. Don’t.”
Regina turns to Michelle with that strange look on her face. It’s like she’s sort of freaked out but really happy about it.
“Leave Rose alone,” Michelle says.
“I was just going to tell her—”
“Just stop!”
“Tell me what?” I ask, a creeping sensation of panic starting across my skull.
“Call Jamie, okay, Rose?”
“What happened?” I ask. “Is he okay?”
“Just call him,” Michelle says as she takes Regina by the arm.
“You won’t get him,” says Regina, “but don’t worry. You can always sell your dress on eBay. Although, if it’s as ugly as the one you wore to homecoming…” Regina spits the words out with a harsh laugh as Michelle yanks her backward into the salon.
Confessions of an Angry Girl Page 23