Pretty

by Jillian Lauren

  Jesus is in the wind that isn’t here. Jesus is in the meringue peaks of cheap stucco. Jesus is in those shoes in the window shiny red shiny red.

  I reach school and walk down the aisle with empty stations on either side of me, then upstairs to the back bathroom. I pass the lunchroom, where the Armenian women laugh and talk loudly with each other. They always seem to be having fun even though I know their lives must suck, too. They are in this same decrepit school as me, on top of immigrating from some former communist country or whatever the hell is going on in Armenia that they all came over here to wind up forty years old and trying to be hairdressers. But they don’t seem to walk around all day long needing a bucket of pills or a boatload of heroin or the lit end of a cigarette held to their forearm flesh. They do things like cook lunch and share it with their friends. Vera calls after me to come and eat, but I motion to my belly and make a face like I’m not feeling well. I motor past the door.

  The bathroom smells of sulfur from the old pipes and of shit covered up with freesia air freshener from the hundred people in here before me and of perfume from the same. And if I was feeling like retching before, now I actually start to gag.

  The bathroom is wood paneled and strictly seventies, like this whole building. Even the toilet seat is that wood kind. They warn you against cutting boards made of wood so who thought it was a real good and sanitary idea to make toilet seats out of wood, I wonder. The room is so small that when you sit on the microbe farm toilet seat your legs hit the sink. Mrs. Montano would never consider a renovation without a direct order from the Department of Public Health, which I am amazed she doesn’t have already. Tacked to the door is a poster of a cat wearing a nightie, with a silver dryer bonnet on her head as if she is setting her curlers. The caption: “I’m too pretty for mousework!”

  I open the box and unfold the directions, but they basically say to pee on the stick, which is what I assumed. I maneuver in the small space, hold the absorbent tip of the white plastic stick in my pee stream for the allotted three seconds, then put the pink cap neatly back on and leave it facedown on the back of the toilet so I won’t watch it while I wash my hands. A bar equals a negative result; a cross equals a positive result.

  Someone knocks on the door and my surprising reaction is fury. I could open the door and punch her in the face. I could throw her to the ground. I could knock her head into the floor like you see in the movies. Grab her by the hair and bash it again and again. I want a fucking toilet to sit on in my life where no one can knock on the door.

  But what I say is, “Sorry, I’m sick in here. Could you please use the downstairs bathroom?”

  The footsteps fade away. It’s the longest, smelliest three minutes. I crumple the box and cover it with toilet paper so no one will see it in the trash. I don’t bother with dread or hope. A profound tiredness saturates my arms and my legs. I could curl myself into a ball and go to sleep on this filthy floor.

  I watch the second hand go around the Minnie Mouse watch Jake bought me at Disneyland a couple of months ago. The hands of the watch are Minnie’s arms and her big white balloon hands always make me think of bandages.

  I hadn’t wanted to go to Disneyland. I had always thought it was, like, some corporate plot to take over the world by brainwashing kids. I was surprised when Jake contradicted me, because he’s usually eager to jump on any brainwashing conspiracy train that passes his way. I dreaded the eternal lines and the inedible food and the twelve billion kids wiping their boogers on every possible surface. I dreaded interactions with their fat, miserable parents, who probably came in the day before from my hometown. Just kill me.

  But Jake had promised Milla that on our next babysitting day he’d take her to see some fairies. So we went to see the fairies. And the ghosts and pirates and princesses, and in every new land he had a new story for her. And when she got tired he carried her piggyback.

  One of the fairies we saw was so bogus and bitchy that Milla called her on it.

  “You’re not Tinkerbell.”

  Jake took her aside and said, “You’re right. I think that fairy is a fake fairy. But where there are fake fairies, there are usually real fairies, too. You can’t always see them but you can tell because if you listen really close, you can hear them sing. And you can be sure that somewhere there’s a fairy who’s watching you and who thinks you’re the greatest little girl anywhere. And she can’t wait to meet you. She’s just waiting for the right moment.”

  If you were Susan Schmidt you’d say that I’m with Jake because I’m so fucked up and I think I deserve someone headed on an obvious crash course. She’d say that my own guilt and self-hatred prompts my self-destructive choice in boyfriend. But Susan Schmidt never looked at that little girl’s face when Jake told her about the fairies.

  When Minnie’s hand hits the twelve for the third time, I turn the stick over and face my fate.

  What I see is a cross. A cross equals positive results.

  It’s a mistake. I can’t possibly grow anything. No seed would take root here, in this poison ground.

  I hold on to the stick and slide down the wall, where I sit for a minute with my knees tucked under my chin.

  Jesus is in the cross. Jesus is in the cross. Get it? It’s funny.

  I don’t eat lunch, which is appropriately dramatic but leaves me starving hungry.

  I clock back in, sit at my station, and stare into the mirror, but not at myself, through me to somewhere else.

  Jesus is in the buckets of bleach. Jesus is in my hungry belly. Jesus is in the wide, wide windows.

  “You are feeling unwell?” asks Vera, towering over my station with a concerned look on her impeccably made-up, glamorous face. She puts her hand over mine, which I hadn’t noticed was gripping the edge of the table. There is the line of demarcation at her wrist that you get from a spray-on tan. Vera works evenings at Wet Seal in the Glendale Galleria. She should be a Transylvanian countess who feasts on the blood of virgins, not working at the Galleria with a fake tan.

  “I’m okay. Little stomach thing,” I say, starting to set up my station so I don’t have to look her in the eye.

  “You are needing some cola?” she asks.

  “I’m good, thanks,” I say. She mercifully moves on to her own station and begins meticulously prepping her foils to do Lila’s highlights. Lila and Vera are inseparable. They married two brothers and live in adjoining condos. Each carries a wedding picture around in her purse. Vera was Lila’s maid of honor and vice versa; the pictures are nearly identical with the roles switched around. That’s a different kind of family than I know anything about.

  Javier and Violet saunter back in. Since we have been upstairs learning about Charm Gels and the Meaning of Life all morning, we first set up our stations now. I put my rollers and clips and combs out in front of me, arranging and rearranging them, forcing a fake smile at Javier and Violet. Javier raises his eyebrow at me, then goes on about the elaborate task of his daily decorating.

  With tiny pieces of Scotch tape, Javier attaches pictures of Milla and Paul and their fat, well-dressed Chihuahua, really named Zuzu but nicknamed Butterball, around the perimeter of his mirror. Since it’s nearly spring, Butterball features pastel bonnets and matching capes. I guess Javier couldn’t find a real flower today, so he puts a silk flower studded with rhinestones on the corner of his station. He sings under his breath: “Don’t tell me not to live, just sit and putter . . .”

  “I have a surprise for you,” he says as he fusses, setting his doll head on her stand and preparing to sculpt his latest creation. Lorelei Lee must be the luckiest doll head in the world. Whatever impoverished teenage slave in Burma shaved her head so that we could have real human hair to practice on has had justice of some sort done for her lost locks.

  “No.” I stop, lean back in my chair, and look at his reflection dead in the eye. “I have a surprise for you.”

  He grabs my hand and leads me into the back shampoo room, which is still empty from lunch. We sit
in the shampoo chairs next to each other. I rest my elbows on my knees and hold my head in my hands.

  “Okay,” he says, cheerfully. “You first. Does not look good. Looks decidedly ungood. What are you, pregnant?”

  I stare at him in astonishment.

  “A mother knows, honey. You’ve been a weepy pain in the ass for the last week. Plus, your ta-tas are positively voluminous. I merely observed your look of hopeless devastation and connected the dots.”

  “Shit.” I lean my head over onto his shoulder. “What am I going to do?”

  That’s what you say, right? You say, What am I going to do.

  “Well, honey, that would seem to be the question of the hour, now wouldn’t it? Wait here a sec. I still have my surprise for you.”

  Javier leaves me sitting alone.

  The thought blindsides me that if I had gotten pregnant when I was with Aaron at least I’d have some piece of him still. It wrenches my already wrenched gut even further. I’d have something more than an old guitar. But I didn’t and now I have nothing. Not nothing exactly, but almost nothing. I can barely imagine a life for myself. I never think further than hoping to pass the State Board and get a good job in a salon. So I should get rid of it, right? Because I’m unfit. In some countries they sterilize people like me. MDD, CD, ADD: potentially genetic and definitely no good for a baby. I had a father like that myself. I was crazy about him. He didn’t last long.

  Javier walks in holding a modified Barbie doll and sits back down next to me. Like Kitty Hawk, the doll has a tiny star painted in nail polish around one eye. Her dyed red hair is styled into perfect Farrah Fawcett feathers. She wears a rainbow tube top and sparkly silver shorts. Her tiny heels are painted silver to match. Around her shoulders are little rubber band straps that hold a pair of pink construction paper wings, covered in iridescent glitter.

  “Milla wanted me to give you this. We were doing makeovers on her Barbie doll collection all day Sunday. She asked me to tell her a story about the dollies at school and I told her about the adventures of Bella Donna and Kitty Hawk and Lorelei Lee. Anyway, she made this for you.” He hands me the doll and I take her gently by the spindly plastic legs, trying not to rip her wings, which sprinkle glitter every time she moves. “She wanted to give it to you herself but she’s with the Cuntessa this week.”

  “Milla made this for me?” I turn it over in my hands and look at her fragile paper wings. This is the most precious thing. “Why?”

  “You’re Milla’s fave babysitter fairy ever. She asks about you all the time.” Javier sighs and leans back in the shampoo chair. I lie back, too.

  Javi goes on as we stare up at the ceiling, “You think you’re the only loser trying to change your life? I’m a fat, broke, thirty-eight-year-old faggot who goes to beauty school and lives in a Woodland Hills cardboard town house with my boyfriend. True, he’s gorgeous and, true, I’m fabulous, but still. Milla’s the one who saves my life.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Could this save me? A baby doesn’t save everyone’s life, does it? Some people it ruins their lives and then they ruin its life right back. And haven’t I learned my lesson yet about trying to get saved?

  “I guess you got to tell Mr. Handsome, is the first thing.” Javier thinks Jake is dreamy handsome in a bad boy kind of way, which he is.

  “Me and Mr. Handsome got into it last night. Want to know the funny thing? Can you believe there’s a funny thing?”

  “There’s always a funny thing,” he answers, sitting up straight now and fluffing his Mohawk.

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  “I hope you said no. He may be handsome but that man is nobody’s husband.”

  “Of course I said no. He can’t keep a job for five minutes and when he gets stressed he tends to talk to spirits and thinks the zombies are coming. Which brings me back to What am I going to do?”

  We hear the creaking of the floorboards over us, followed by the unmistakable labored steps and wheezing of Mrs. Montano coming down the stairs.

  “Quick,” Javier says. “Look miserable.”

  Javier and I stand and pretend to be getting some setting gel down from one of the cupboards. Mrs. Montano walks into the room and stands at the door like a battleship. Her upper lip curls into a sneer and her makeup sits on top of the poreless, crinkled fabric of her skin.

  “Bebe,” she says, “you have a phone call.”

  “I do?”

  “Please come up to the office. And Javier . . .”

  “Jes, Meeses?” Javier says in his Mexican maid accent.

  “Do something useful, please.”

  I hand Javier the Barbie and follow Mrs. Montano up the stairs.

  The beauty school office is decorated with generic, bargain basement office furniture and walls of filing cabinets. On the desks sit ancient phones that actually have cords. There are little souvenir shop plaques around that say things like What part of “NO” didn’t you understand? and A Woman without a Man Is Like a Fish without a Bicycle. A calendar from the Pechanga Resort and Casino hangs on the wall.

  I perch on the edge of a mammoth metal desk and pick up the cradle of the archaic receiver.

  “Hello, Beth. How are you?” asks Susan Schmidt. I can tell she is trying not to sound pissed at me.

  This whole therapist thing really involves being a studied, manipulative phony, if you think about it. And that’s who’s supposed to help people get better?

  “I’m fine. Is everything okay?”

  “Beth, I’m going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer me honestly because it concerns the safety of one of our residents here with whom you are close. I want to express to you that you will in no way be penalized for anything you reveal to me right now. Do you understand?”

  “Susan, you’re freaking me out.”

  “Jacob Hill is missing. I stress to you that we’re concerned for his safety and for the safety of those he may come into contact with. This is very important. If you have any ideas as to where he might be headed, please tell me now, Beth.”

  I have some ideas where he’s going. I almost consider telling her, but she’ll sic the cops on him for being a danger to himself and others. He’ll get arrested and then slapped back in the hospital so fast, and who knows when he’ll get out.

  “I have no idea where he is,” I say. “I haven’t seen him in days.”

  My cell phone vibrates in my smock pocket. I check it and the screen lights up: BUCK. Calling to warn me. Too late.

  “Beth,” Susan goes on in that reasonable voice, “we all care about Jacob. He’s a unique and fascinating man, but he’s deeply troubled. We have access to the resources that may be able to help him. If Jacob winds up hurt and there’s something you haven’t told us, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” she asks in a loaded way. Bitch.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I truly am. Please call us immediately if anything comes to you.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  As I hang up the phone, one thing is as clear to me as a rare L.A. day when the smog blanket lifts and if you stand on top of a tall hill you can see the whole city glitter all the way out to the ocean. I’ve got to go find him. Before he does something reckless and they lock him up until forever.

  I look at the intrepid hulk of Mrs. Montano at the desk across the room, thumbing through a stack of papers. I immediately revert to the fake crying face, which never loses its effectiveness on most normal people; but this is not your average foe. Mrs. Montano is a perfect example of what Jake calls a zombie.

  She looks up at me with one drawn-on eyebrow arching sharply, like a stretched rubber band that could snap and shoot straight off her face. At least three pictures of the same mean, yellow-eyed cat stare out at me from ornate frames on her desk. A ray of light breaks through the water-stained ceiling—the perfect excuse.

  “My cat is sick and she needs to go to
the vet really badly. May I be excused for the day?”

  Mrs. Montano casts a sidelong glance at her nice secretary sidekick. They’re Tweedledee and Tweedledum, if Tweedledee and Tweedledum had been huffing bleach fumes for twenty years. The secretary is a little dippy and, I suspect, a little tipsy most of the time. She likes to gamble on the weekends and the Pechanga calendar is hers. She looks to Mrs. Montano and then to me, her fleshy face creasing with concern.

  Mrs. Montano looks back down at her work and moves a few pieces of paper from one pile to another. I watch as a drop of sweat trails from behind her ear down the side of her neck. I stand there, conscious of my hands hanging awkwardly at my sides. The tight skin itches around the scars on my palms.

  “You’ll have to come at night,” she says finally. “Miss any more hours and you won’t graduate with your class. You’ll have to wait another month until the next group graduates.”

  She sizes me up, as if looking at a spider on the floor and deciding if she is going to step on it. But I have already seen the flicker of weakness behind her eyes. I found the key to the zombie heart. She spares me the sole of her shoe and instead she says, “Go, then. I hope your kitty’s okay. Don’t forget to clock out.”

  “Thank you,” I say, nearly trotting out the door and down the stairs, thinking that she’s not so bad; she loves something.

  I stride to my station, maniacally wrap all my equipment in a towel, throw it over my shoulder like a sack, and lug it toward the back bays of lockers. Javier and Violet look up at me, surprised, and then follow me. They stand there as I attempt to force the unwieldy mound into my locker.

  “Slow down, crazy,” Javier says.

  “I’ve got to get out of here. Drama. Big. Bad,” I say, shoving on the locker door until it is mostly closed then kicking it and fastening the lock.

  “That was the uptight socialite social worker.”

  “And?”

  “And Jake’s gone missing.”