Crazy Messy Beautiful

by Carrie Arcos

  “So I figure we can just eat and ask our questions. I think we should have a rule, though,” she says.

  “A rule?” I glance back up at her quickly, afraid if I make eye contact for too long, she’ll be able to read my thoughts. I look a little to the side of her instead, but she turns around to see what I’m looking at. Then she gives me a quizzical look. I smile like a goof.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Like, veto power. If we don’t want to answer a question, we don’t have to. Period.”

  “Okay.” I can agree to that.

  “Let’s get the particulars out of the way first. Like parents, siblings, ethnicity, where you’re originally from, et cetera . . .”

  I take a big bite of sandwich.

  “I can go first if you want,” Callie says.

  I nod my head in agreement. Mouth full.

  “Well, I already told you about Mom and Dad. I’m an only child; though they wanted more kids, it just didn’t work out. My mom’s family is from New England. Dad’s is from Philadelphia. I was born here. You already know Mom went to UCLA and Dad went to USC—that’s why he was all pleased when you said your dad teaches there. During college football season, it gets a little crazy around here with the two of them.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  “Let’s see . . . oh, my dad’s Jewish and my mom is a European mix—Irish, English, and French. She converted to Judaism when she married Dad, but we’re not the observant kind that go to synagogue on a regular basis or anything. We’re more like in-name-only or the high-holiday Jews. I do believe in God, though.”

  She pauses for a breath and looks at me.

  “Are you going to take any of this down?”

  “Oh yeah, sure.” I take out my phone and type some notes about her parents and her Jewish heritage.

  “So, what about you?” she asks.

  “My dad grew up Catholic, and there’s a church down the street we go to sometimes. But we don’t really practice a religion either. Except we do celebrate Easter and Christmas.” I take another bite. “I believe in God too.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of hard not to when there’s so much mystery out there,” she continues. “I’ve been to a Catholic church before. It was really different. Do you go to confession?”

  “No. But my dad grew up going on a regular basis. Actually, when he was a kid, he thought he would become a priest. He was an altar boy and everything. But then he went to college and didn’t want to. I think it had something to do with meeting my mom. We’ve never really talked about it.”

  “It’s kind of a cool idea,” Callie says. “Being able to say what you’ve done in secret to one other person and walk out feeling forgiven.”

  “Do Jews have confession?”

  “Not to a rabbi or anything. It’s more like a personal thing between you and God.”

  “Oh.”

  I wonder what Callie would ask forgiveness for. My confession would be a boring tale of white lies, small jealousies, and one moment of rage. Though my hitting Luis is something I don’t believe I need to ask forgiveness for. He had it coming.

  “My birthday is February twenty-first, and . . . yeah. I guess those are the basics. What about you?” Callie asks.

  “Just a sec.” I finish jotting down a few final notes in my phone. She talks way faster than I type. I should have recorded her instead.

  “Okay, well, I’m an only child too.”

  “That’s weird. Most of my friends have siblings.”

  “Hmm. Weird.”

  “You’re probably independent, responsible, a rule follower,” she says.

  “I guess. For the most part.” I watch her write the words down. Her handwriting is almost as bad as mine. I never really noticed before.

  “My mom says it’s natural for firstborns and only children to be that way. She’s told me all about birth-order dynamics and stuff. It’s crazy how much of our life is determined by something we have no control over.”

  Callie is pretty deep. Much deeper than she lets on in class.

  “Yeah, not just birth order,” she continues, “but parents too. Environment. Social status. Class. Ethnicity. All of it.”

  “We have control over how we handle it, though.” I think of Ezra and how he could have wasted away in prison all those years. Instead he got two degrees, worked on himself, and became the person he wanted to be. “Like, we can choose not to let the external circumstances define us or shape us.”

  Callie stares intently at me, making me feel uncomfortable.

  “Or something . . .” I play with my napkin.

  “No, that’s so true. I’ve never heard it put that way.”

  I smile.

  “Where do you live?” she asks.

  “In Highland Park,” I continue.

  “And when’s your birthday?” she continues.

  “December twenty-sixth.”

  “Ah, tough one. Right after Christmas.”

  “Yeah.” We usually celebrate it on Christmas and it’s overshadowed, or the next day and it feels like an afterthought.

  “That sucks. We do Hanukkah instead,” she says. “Which I like because it’s fun and it lasts for more than one day. But I’d hate to have my birthday right after Christmas. No one’s ever around to hang out during the holidays.”

  “True,” I say. “So no Christmas tree?”

  “Oh, we have a tree. We also have a menorah. Mom likes to cover our bases. She didn’t want me growing up feeling like I missed out on anything, so we celebrate both. She even used to hide eggs and stuff on Easter.”

  Considering that Callie and I have barely spoken, our conversation flows pretty well. It’s weird.

  “Okay!” She taps her notebook on the table. “Now for the serious questions.”

  “Should I be nervous?” I chuckle.

  Callie eyes me but doesn’t return my laugh. I quickly put up my guard and wait for the harder class version of Callie to make her appearance.

  “Maybe a little,” she says with a smirk. “My first serious question is, how do you like your pizza crust? Thin or thick?”

  “Thin.”

  “Me too. Next, the mountains or the beach?”

  “Mountains.”

  “Two for two. Okay, now this is a big one: coffee or hot chocolate?”

  “Coffee,” I say.

  “Aww. I guess we had to differ eventually.”

  She’s being so nice. So unlike Callie. I don’t get it.

  She looks at her paper and reads another question. “Okay. What’s your thing?”

  “My thing?”

  “Yeah, you know, the thing that makes you you. Everyone has a thing. What makes you unique?”

  “My drawing, I guess. Is yours volleyball?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You’re really good.”

  “I’m okay. Not as good as Imogen. Volleyball is one of my things, but not the thing.”

  “So then what’s your thing?”

  For the first time all evening, Callie hesitates, like she’s still deciding whether or not to tell me. After a few seconds, she puts her pen down. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  We climb the narrow stairs to the top floor of the house. Her bedroom is the third door on the left. There’s a large bed with an orange covering and tons of multicolored pillows. She heads to a desk with a mirror and a stool in front of it. The walls are covered with female models from magazines and old movie posters, mostly horror or monster films like Night of the Living Dead and The Exorcist. There’s also The Wizard of Oz, which seems a little out of place. A Korean flag hangs from a corner.

  “What’s with the flag?”

  “I do tae kwon do.”

  She does martial arts? Figures. “What’re you, some black belt?”

  “Oh no, I’m terrible at it
. My parents just wanted us to do something together. My master keeps passing me on because of my good attitude and work ethic. Tae kwon do is more about discipline than physical strength.”

  “Ah, so you can’t break boards with your bare hands?”

  “Oh, I can break a board, just not more than one. Mom is pretty awesome at it, though. Too bad I didn’t inherit her skills.”

  I scan all the volleyball and swimming trophies on her bookshelf.

  “Didn’t know you were a swimmer.”

  “Not so much anymore, but I used to be.”

  She’s got the broad shoulders of a swimmer.

  A stack of magazines make a pile on the floor, and more cutout pictures of models are pinned up on the mirror and splayed across the bed.

  “So . . . you collect photos from magazines?”

  “They’re more like for research and inspiration.” She removes a clipping off the mirror on her desk. “I’m working on this right now.”

  It’s a Japanese model with blue and purple hair in a wedge cut with long strands hanging down in front. Her cheeks are purple, too, along with her eyelids and lips. She looks a little freaky.

  Callie holds the photo next to her face. “What do you think?”

  I know she’s asking about the picture, but all I can focus on is Callie. I suddenly feel like drawing her. My fingers actually twitch.

  Before I can reply, she says, “I’m going to try this over the weekend.” She studies the photo. “I mean, I know I don’t look anything like the model, and her cheekbones are amazing, but I just love all the color. It’s so bold.”

  She opens her makeup kit, revealing rows and squares of colors and brushes.

  “Wow. Do you design your own, um—faces?”

  In response, Callie pulls out a photo book and shows me a picture where one half of her face is covered in orange and black makeup, like she’s a leopard. I flip over to the next page, where the bottom half of her face and neck are covered in all different shades of aqua, making it look like she’s coming out of water. The next shows a checkered pattern of red, green, and black covering her whole face. Her eyes pop out because she’s wearing green contacts.

  “These are amazing,” I say.

  “Thanks. I was bored one day and just started playing around. I haven’t really showed anyone.”

  “Why not? You’re really good.”

  She shrugs and goes to close up the book, but I take it from her so I can look through the photos more slowly.

  “Why makeup?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I like that you can become anything or anyone you want. Don’t you ever wish sometimes that you were someone else?”

  It’s a good question, one I don’t really want to answer because the answer feels so obvious, it’s embarrassing.

  Callie runs her fingers across the face of the model and says, “I do.”

  Maybe it’s because she’s home and comfortable, or maybe it’s because she’s dressed very casually, but Callie seems so much more open and vulnerable than she ever does at school. It feels like she’s inviting me to ask her more about herself, beyond the assignment, and encouraging me to reveal more about myself too. If I were someone with a little more courage, maybe I would say, Yes, I’d like it if I had a little more luck in the love department. But I’m not going to say that to Callie. I don’t want her to think that I’m this desperate loser who can’t get a girl. Not that it matters what she thinks.

  The one who matters, Autumn, has basically crushed my ego and my heart. Autumn, who I’ll have to add to my list of failed paramours. Just thinking about her makes my chest ache a little. Why is love so cruel?

  I turn my focus back to Callie. “What inspires you? When you’re doing your faces, I mean.”

  “Sometimes it’s a dream or a feeling. That was from a nightmare I had about this monster fish with big teeth.” She points to a photo where her eyes are closed and her face is taken over by a huge mouth of white jagged teeth, outlined in gray.

  “You’re an artist,” I say.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “No—well, yes. I thought you were more of a sports girl.”

  “Can’t someone be both?”

  “Sure.” And I realize I don’t know anything about Callie. Nothing that matters, anyway.

  She juts out her chin in defiance. “Hopefully I’ll be a makeup artist one day, but not just in a MAC store—for fashion shows or even film.”

  “I didn’t know makeup could be like this,” I say.

  “Like what?”

  “Like a work of art. I thought makeup was, you know, something girls wore to look older and women like my mom wear to look younger.” I stare at the last photo, at the thorny rose vines that wrap around her neck and face and down the side of her left arm. She’s crazy talented.

  “Makeup is art,” she says, “but I can’t do what you do in that book of yours.”

  “You probably could if you studied. I’m mostly good at portraits, but I just started using oils in Fisher’s class. It’s such a different medium. All the bold color.”

  “I love color.”

  “I can tell.”

  She studies me for a moment. “You’re different than I thought,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In class you’re just so quiet. You never really talk to me. You seem kind of mad or indifferent or something. And you hardly move. I’ve watched you. You sit so still—like one of your drawings. Sometimes I want to poke you just to make sure you’re not dead.”

  I’m shocked. It’s true I don’t talk to Callie, but I don’t really talk to anyone. And it’s not like she talks to me either. But it’s the admission that she watches me that comes as a much greater surprise.

  “I hate that class,” I say.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “You should see me in Algebra II,” I say. “I’m all smiles.”

  She laughs. “I bet.”

  “You’re different too,” I say.

  “Yeah? How?”

  I shrug. I don’t want to say that she’s actually nice or that she feels more human, like she’s not going to glare at me and give me the finger. Instead, I glance around the room. “You like old movie posters. And . . .” I point to the poster of some guy with the caption Hey girl . . .

  She laughs. “Oh, come on. Who doesn’t have a crush on Ryan Gosling? Anyway, some of the movie posters were my dad’s and I grabbed them for the vintage factor. But I only took the ones with the best makeup and costuming. I love movies. Have you seen any of these?” She switches gears quickly and directs my attention to the rest of the posters.

  “No.”

  “Not even The Wizard of Oz?” She says it like I’ve missed out on something essential in my childhood.

  “No. I’ve heard of it, I’ve just never seen it.”

  “We have to remedy that right away. How long can you stay?”

  “I don’t have plans.”

  “Cool. Tonight your mind will be blown. I’m taking you to Oz.”

  “What about our questions?”

  “We’ve got the basics covered for now. Some things are more important in life.”

  • • •

  As Callie gets the popcorn ready, I look up Ryan Gosling on my phone. If any two people are physical opposites, it’s Ryan Gosling and me. First of all, he’s a white guy with blondish hair. I’m Latino with brown skin and brown eyes and thick, dark, wavy hair with a close fade on the sides.

  Ryan stands posed with his shirt off, revealing his six-pack abs. I barely have any definition. I make a mental note to begin a routine of sit-ups tomorrow morning. I don’t need Callie to find me attractive, but hopefully someday someone will. And reading the comments under Gosling’s name, I see he’s popular with the ladies.

  We watch the movi
e on the living room couch, a bowl of popcorn between us. After her parents also got over the shock that I’d never seen The Wizard of Oz, they disappeared somewhere upstairs.

  When the movie starts in black and white, I brace myself for a slow, boring story. The sets are all so fake, but after the tornado hits and Dorothy steps into color, I have to admit I’m kind of into it. It’s probably due more to the fact that I’m sitting so close to Callie in the dark than the movie itself. I’ve never watched a movie alone with a girl before.

  Dorothy is skipping down the yellow brick road with the Scarecrow when Callie and I reach into the bowl at the same time.

  “Oops,” I say.

  “Sorry,” she whispers, and pulls away.

  I remain still as a tree the rest of the night with my arms folded across my chest, nervous that we’ll touch again. Nervous because I can’t ignore how oddly good it felt to do so. I tell myself to get a grip. This is Callie. Black-boot-stomping Callie. Scary. Tons-of-makeup Callie. Not my type at all. Then Autumn’s pretty face comes to mind and I relax. Autumn is definitely my type. Even if she doesn’t think she’s interested in me.

  Callie gives commentary throughout. She tells me facts about the movie, like how an actor cast as the Tin Man developed aluminum toxicity from the makeup and was forced to drop out of the film, and the guy they replaced him with, who did star in the movie, got an eye infection as a result of the makeup. She explains how the Wicked Witch’s makeup could not be ingested, so the actress lived on a liquid diet throughout production. She also tells me that you can see the Witch leaving through a trapdoor in one scene and pauses the movie to show me.

  “Wow,” I say. “Cool.”

  Callie is like a movie historian.

  “I know, right? From the first time I saw this movie, all I’ve ever wanted to do is makeup and costuming. I think I was about seven.”

  I try to picture a seven-year-old Callie.

  “This one year, I went as the Wicked Witch for Halloween, and my mom freaked because I used real green paint. It took forever to get off my skin.”

  I laugh.

  At the end of the movie, Dorothy returns home and is surrounded by her loving family, though I’m not sure if we’re supposed to think it was all a dream or not.