Pretty

by Jillian Lauren

  These memories justify my sitting here on this kitchen floor with this bag of chips in my lap and this life that I have. They justify the fact that I chose a boyfriend who is very likely to respond to our fight by going downtown to start recruiting apostles. I had a tragedy. Stronger people don’t crumble under the weight of regret, but me, it crippled me.

  I think about how it was when I first got on that bus with him and left Toledo behind. I was so sure there were greater things in store for me than I could even imagine, with the California sunshine on the not-so-distant horizon. I was bursting with possibility. Wanting to know the future and not wanting to know. Holding out for the surprise.

  And I was. I was very fucking surprised.

  “Someone’s been eating my porridge.” Buck’s voice startles me from the darkened doorway.

  I look up, busted. I am the food thief. Someone was bound to find me out sooner or later.

  “Can’t sleep?” I ask.

  “Rarely sleep. That is what I miss most about getting loaded. Those dreamless sleeps. Twelve, fourteen hours of nonexistence.”

  Buck sits down beside me, her back against the cabinets. She reaches in the bag, grabs a fistful of crumbs, and funnels them into her mouth.

  “Tonight I even fell asleep, but Mia Farrow woke me up shuffling around the hallways and flipping the light switches. I was, like, Shut the fuck up, creep show. But now I’m awake. So do you want to make out or what?”

  “Not really.”

  “Don’t break my heart, now, kitten,” she says, crunching another handful of greasy shards. “Now, what the hell you doing sitting here munching alone in the dark?”

  “I had a bad date.”

  “A fatter ass ain’t going to cheer you up any.”

  “Thanks for this little chat.”

  “Aw, I’m sorry. You know I love you. You can steal all the food you want, I won’t tell. But seriously now, I want to talk to you about your spooky, sultry, sad roommate up there. Do you think there is a possibility that she might be somewhat bisexually inclined, if given the proper motivation?”

  “Like what motivation?”

  “Me.”

  “You like Violet?”

  “No, ma’am. I think I love Violet.”

  Prison, rehab, halfway house—there are no greater crucibles for the alchemy of love. There is no more combustible fuel than desperation. What else are you going to do while you’re doing time? But Buck, Buck is a rare find. You have to get past the first line of defense to know it, but she’d make a great boyfriend.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I trudge upstairs, sick with myself, and find Violet lying in leopard print jammies on top of her leopard print comforter, staring at a flickering votive candle on her bedside table. Five others burn in different places around the room. Violet carves her intentions onto the surface of the candles with a safety pin and then lights them. Powerful witchcraft, she assures me. And I have tried it a time or two, I admit. Once, shortly after I arrived here, I just wrote “help.” It was the next day when a bunch of us were hanging out on the front porch that Jake handed me a drawing of wild roses.

  “I brought you flowers,” he said.

  They were the prettiest flowers. Jake can do things like draw flowers and make them not cheesy at all.

  Tonight, leaning against one of the votive candles is an index card, across which Violet has written “Help Is Not on the Way.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “I got it from a Buddhist book I was reading earlier. I meant it to be an inspiration.”

  “How’s it working?”

  “About as well as anything. How was Jesus?” Violet asks, without moving.

  “You know. A ray of sunshine in a dark world,” I say, sitting down on the edge of Violet’s bed. She moves her legs to make room for me and rolls over onto her back with one arm behind her head. She nods to show she is listening. They teach us these things in group: (1) nod to demonstrate active listening; (2) take a breath and pause when agitated.

  “Bad?”

  “Bad. But it started out killer. You would have loved it. We broke into the Ambassador.”

  This stirs Violet to a sitting position.

  “Oh, my God! I’m so jealous. He’s a freak, that Jesus, but he truly is so cool.”

  She’s right, I think. He is cool. And I’m an asshole.

  “Did you see ghosts?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  In Violet’s excitement she forgets to conceal her forearm and, where her pajama sleeve has lifted, I see the raw, fresh, cigarette-sized burn marks. Five of them in an angry circle.

  “Oh, Vi.” I grab her wrist and pull her arm toward me, assessing the damage. “Bad?”

  “Bad.”

  I go down the hall to the bathroom and return with hydrogen peroxide, a cotton square, gauze, and tape. She doesn’t protest when I wipe down the wounds and they fizz up white. I tape a clean square of gauze over the area and pull back the comforter. She slumps down again and wedges herself under the blanket. I crawl behind her on the bed and lie down, shaping myself around her rigid bends and putting my arm around her.

  “It’s okay. Just go to sleep now.”

  “We’re getting out of here, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “You swear?”

  I link my pinkie with hers.

  “I swear.”

  I lie there until she sleeps, exhausted by her own misery. Then I go back to my own bed, where mine keeps me awake and staring at the ceiling until the curtain is seamed with the electric blue of the dawn and I finally drop off to sleep.

  Thirteen

  I 544 hours down. 56 hours left to go.

  We have a guest lecture on Charm Gels today and everybody is upstairs in the lecture room—maybe fifty or so people crowded around the long tables. Javier and Violet arrived late, so they perch on the high stools in front of the mirrors that span the perimeter of the room. Candy sits next to me, too close for comfort. She thinks that because we live in the same house we are meant to be BFFs at school. I try to avoid eye contact. She likes to start fistfights, ask everyone out on dates, and give people her accessories. On any given day she’ll either accuse you of stealing her box of hairpins or give you a cheap bracelet off her wrist that she says was her grandmother’s. Candy offers at least once a week to take me to Italy or Ireland or Israel when her disability check comes in.

  For my breakfast this morning, I gingerly drink black coffee out of my busted travel mug and eat plain cereal out of a ziplock bag.

  “Diet?” Candy asks, pointing to my bag of cereal.

  “Always,” I answer, not looking at her.

  “I can help you. I have fen-phen hidden at the house. I got a boatload of it before it was illegal, but it doesn’t agree with me. Bad for my skin. I can give it to you,” she says, scratching the back of her neck and loosening some white flakes that float down to the shoulders of her black Moda Beauty Academy T-shirt.

  Shit. She hooks me. I turn toward her.

  “Really?”

  I suspect that Candy really does have the pills, and that I’ll have to pay for them in hours of conversation. I know it’s a mistake as I say it, but I can’t resist the idea of getting some help on my quest to not keep growing and growing like one of those tiny capsules you put in a bowl of water and it turns into a spongy dinosaur, which seems to be the way things are going. I am a tall, big-boned girl to begin with. Doesn’t take much before I start looking like a pro wrestler instead of the hairdresser I am aspiring to be.

  “Do they make you speedy?” I ask. “Are they, like, speed?”

  Would I be sacrificing my hard-won sober time by taking the fen-phen? Or is it a free pass to the land of thin people? Fen-phen is shaky ground, and until now I have been a perfect sober angel. Really, I have. Except for my meds, but they’re legal says Susan Schmidt. And I agreed to keep taking them if I want to stay at Serenity.

  “No, no. They’re no
t speed. Mostly they just make you not hungry, is all.”

  I wonder if there truly is the miracle product in this world that could make me not hungry. I am hungry all the fucking time. All I ever am is hungry.

  “I’ll get them for you,” Candy offers. “I’ll bring them tomorrow. You’ll love them. You’ll see.”

  If I know anything, I know there isn’t a pill for what ails me. Plus, I hate that diet pill feeling—not butterflies in your stomach but rather wasps in your blood vessels. Unbearable without a drink to take the edge off.

  “Thanks anyway. I hate diet pills. I’d rather be big and beautiful.”

  “Okay, okay. Tell me if you change your mind. Hey, what are you doing later?” Candy asks.

  “I have to go meet my sponsor,” I lie.

  “What about tomorrow? Or any night this week? I know this really great Italian restaurant near school. We could go on our way home. Maybe you heard of it. It’s called the Olive Garden. I just got my check. I could treat.”

  “Okay, Candy. That sounds great. I’ll check my schedule.”

  I am rescued from Candy’s advances by the huffy entrance of a sunburned queen in a silk shirt, pleated trousers, and shiny shoes. He has perfectly frosted blond hair and carries a cardboard box, which he slams down on the table in front of him. He tapes onto the blackboard an unwieldy chart that lists the names of the Charm Gels semipermanent color gels and the corresponding hair color results. When he is done taping, he turns around to face us.

  “Hey, kids,” he says ironically to the room of mostly over-thirty women.

  Javier is the only one who replies with a “heee-ey” and a little wave as if he just spotted a friend across the dance floor. The guy shoots him a brief, peeved look.

  “I’m Ray,” he says so slowly that I almost expect him to start doing sign language. “Before I talk to you about Charm Gels,” he begins, making a game show gesture toward the chart, “we are going to do a little personal motivational exercise. But first, let me ask you . . . how are you all doing today?”

  Violet dabs at a coffee stain on her white smock. Someone blows her nose. The room stares at him blankly. Candy and one or two other people give him a disunified “Good” or “Fine”; Javier chimes in, “Peachy.” This doesn’t satisfy Ray.

  “Let’s try that again.” He is the gayest, most annoyed counselor at Camp Cosmetology, and that’s saying something. “How are you all doing today?”

  Ray hurts Javier’s feelings by ignoring him. I can tell, because Javi pouts silently with his arms crossed over his chest. Three or four more people answer this time, with an unenthusiastic “Fine.”

  Our lack of bubbliness personally affronts Ray.

  “This is your life, people. Right now. So participate in it. Is that how you want to live?” He mocks us with a lethargic tone: “Fiiiiine.”

  Ray raises his hands to the sky, like a preacher, I think.

  But not a very good one. The best preachers don’t bully you into participating. They make you feel like you can’t hold yourself back.

  “One more time. How are you today?”

  This time even I answer to stop him from asking a fourth time. “Great.”

  “That’s better.”

  Ray reaches into his box and pulls out stacks of Post-its, which he tosses onto the tables in front of us. They land with purposeful little thuds.

  “Now. I’d like to play a little game with you. I want you to pick a favorite mantra,” he says, opening his mouth wide to enunciate each syllable as he writes “mantra” on the second blackboard, the one that isn’t covered with the Charm Gels chart.

  “A mantra is a saying that you find inspirational. You can also pick a little theme song if you want to. Like, the theme song of your life!”

  Native English speakers and English language learners alike look at him baffled. He puts his hands on his hips and sighs, as if he has just made total sense but we’re all mentally challenged so he’ll charitably explain it again. Poor, long-suffering Ray. I can imagine the self-help books on his nightstand, next to the seashell from Miami Beach and the scented candle.

  “I’ll give you an example,” he says. “For instance, when I watch TV, I like the Nike ad that tells me to ‘just do it.’ When I’m going through my day, if I get worried or afraid,

  I think of that commercial and say to myself, Just Do It, and it gives me the strength to conquer the obstacle in my path. Just Do It. That’s my mantra. Now, an inspiring example of a personal theme song is the classic Whitney Houston ballad, ‘The Greatest Love.’ I’ve found the greatest love of all inside of me. Get it? Good! Moving on! Now, for the first part of the game, I want you to choose either a mantra or a theme song and write it on a Post-it.”

  This stumps us.

  “Now. Write. Go ahead. Write,” he prompts, while making a pantomime of writing on one of the Post-it stacks. I grab a square and scribble the mantra Another Day in Paradise , but I change my mind and crumple it up. I go instead for the theme song and choose Freddie Mercury’s “Fat Bottomed Girls (You Make the Rockin’ World Go Round).” Javier covers his and won’t show it to us. Javi and Violet come over and perch at the end of our table. They’re on about Carrie and Big again. Javi argues for moving on and living in the now and Vi argues for true love conquering all. I cast no vote.

  For twenty minutes the rest of the class confers with each other about the assignment or about what to make for dinner or maybe about Carrie and Big, until finally Ray is overcome with annoyance. “This is not rocket science, people. Let’s move on.”

  For the next part of the game, Ray instructs us to stick the yellow Post-its to the pockets of our smocks. Then we are supposed to walk around and look at what mantras or theme songs our classmates have chosen and remember our favorite to share with the class afterward. Not much of a game, but there it is.

  These are some of the cryptic choices I read stuck to the smock pockets of my classmates:

  Rocky Theme Song

  Carpe Diem

  Be All You Can Be

  You Can Rest When You Dead

  Beat It

  Survivor

  If I am not work out people will think am old and fat

  A puzzling, even disturbing, drawing of an elephant from behind.

  We Will Rock You

  About ten Just Do Its from the people who didn’t understand or couldn’t come up with one of their own.

  And Javier’s choice: Don’t Rain on My Parade.

  It’s unclear to me what the connection is between mantras and Charm Gels, but Ray makes the transition seamlessly and without explanation.

  Javier interrupts, “Oh, Ray? May I make a suggestion that we each do a performance of our personal theme song?”

  I think it’s an entertaining idea, but, of course, Ray ignores Javier. Instead, he does a semipermanent maroon gloss on Lila’s hair, making her olive skin look startlingly chartreuse under the fluorescents.

  A wave of exhaustion overwhelms me and I lay my head down on the table along my outstretched arm. Violet has forgotten to remove her Post-it, and I read sideways that it says Here Comes the Sun.

  “Here Comes the Sun?”

  “So what?”

  “Nothing. Just unexpected.”

  My meds must be messed up; I must have wicked PMS; I must be sleep deprived, because, thinking about that song, my eyes well up with tears, and one or two even drop onto the plastic red-and-white-checked tablecloth before I can reel them back in.

  And that’s when the thought hits me. It would knock me down if I wasn’t down already. Then the thought starts a chain reaction, like a hundred dominoes followed by a hundred others and on into eternity, so that I have to shake my head to stop it but it doesn’t stop. It isn’t possible. But it is. It is possible.

  Fourteen

  It’s a short walk to the Rite Aid from school and I head in that direction as soon as I clock out for lunch, with no explanation to Violet or Javier as to why I’m not going with them for San
Sai sucky sushi. They’re used to my fluctuating moods. It’s not unusual for me to wander off once in a while.

  I enter the drugstore and circle around and around the labyrinth of aisles, which contain only a handful of customers and the possibility of a troll popping out and posing a riddle that you have to answer or live with him forever next to the scented candles. Didn’t there used to be employees in stores who wore little vests with name tags, carried price guns, rolled carts stacked with canned peas, and pointed you toward the aisle with the Scotch tape or the nasal spray? No one.

  I pass the candy aisle without even a thought, which never happens, but right now I’m on a mission. I have tunnel vision, literal, not metaphorical, which may or may not be caused by my medication. At the end of the tunnel are stacks of tampon boxes and I follow their blue beacon. Next to the tampons loom the pregnancy tests—cheery-colored, shiny boxes ranging from $9.99 to $21.99. I settle for one that costs $16.99. I glance at the ovulation kit nearby, with the fleshy baby crawling right at me on the front of it, caught in a moment of impossible cuteness. It is natural selection’s way of giving babies a chance, this cuteness. So we don’t leave them out in the middle of the woods somewhere when things get tough. But I’m not fooled.

  I buy the test, my tunnel vision shifting in and out, making me seasick. On the walk back to the school, I’m completely devoid of past or future, totally unable to contemplate either. My breasts bulge in swollen crescents over the top of my bra. I thought I was just getting fat. I put shoe to pavement, right shoe, left shoe, head down as if I am leaning into the wind but I’m not because it’s an L.A. sunny seventy-two-degree day with clouds like spun sugar and I fucking hate weather like this sometimes. Like God designed L.A. weather for the very beautiful and very successful and very rich. If you’re not all of those things or at least two out of three this weather is like God laughing in your face.