by Jody Gehrman
“Ow!” The first couple hairs were brutal. I’d never tweezed anything in my life, so I wasn’t exactly prepared.
Amber turned the blow-dryer off. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just tweezing.” I could feel a little tingle in the tip of my nose and tears were stinging my eyes, but I went on systematically ripping the hairs out anyway. I’d never noticed it before, but I’ve actually got quite bushy brows. As I thinned them out, I started to feel more confident. See? I thought. Being beautiful isn’t rocket science. All you have to do is make an effort.
Five minutes later, Amber turned off the blow-dryer, caught sight of my reflection in the mirror, and gasped. “G! What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m—”
“They’re not symmetrical! Your left eyebrow is higher than the right.”
I studied myself in the mirror. She wasn’t lying. My face looked as lopsided as a Picasso. I felt panic starting to blossom inside my rib cage. “Shit.”
“Here, let me try.” She grabbed the tweezers from my hand and started plucking. Her face scrunched up in concentration and her tongue stuck out just a tiny bit as she worked. Her body was between me and the mirror, so I just closed my eyes and prayed she could fix them.
“There,” she said. “That’s better.”
I looked at her, hope dawning. “Really?”
She took half a step back and surveyed her work. At first she looked pleased, but then, as she took in my whole face, her expression became gradually more disturbed. She still blocked my view of the mirror. I tried to breathe normally and not give in to the dread that threatened to overwhelm me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked in a tiny voice.
“Now they match, at least.”
“What do you mean, ‘at least’?”
“They’re definitely . . . not bushy.”
The girl was grasping at straws now, obviously. I summoned all my courage and stepped around her so I could see for myself.
There, in the mirror, my face stared back at me. Only it wasn’t my face, exactly. I mean, it was me, but my eyebrows were now so sparse, they looked like they’d been drawn on with a ballpoint pen that was running out of ink. Not only that, but they were way up on my forehead, so that I looked even more surprised than I actually was.
I couldn’t help it. I screamed.
Damn! There’s the door. More later.
Sunday, February 15
1:15 P.M.
When Ben picked us up, the first thing I saw was his happy, smiling face, his dark eyes shining in the porch light. Then I noticed Sophie, PJ, and Jeremy standing together in the shadows on the steps behind him. I made myself concentrate just on Ben for a second, though I was dying to check out Sophie’s dress. He looked so cute. More than cute, really—gorgeous. He wore a suede coat, a crisp white shirt with a patterned tie, and pressed chinos. He smelled clean and soapy. Something in his smile seemed a bit wobbly and nervous, which made me feel a little better about the butterflies swooping through my belly.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself.” His eyes scanned my body, but in a sweet way, not skeevy or anything. Then he noticed my eyebrows and he looked a little startled, but he covered it up well. “You look beautiful.”
I shrugged one shoulder, wishing to God I’d never touched those stupid tweezers.
I was counting on Mom staying out with Mungo until late. I pointedly insisted they take their time in St. Helena, go get some dinner after their hike, and had calculated that there was no way our paths would cross before the dance. Ha! Just as I was calling to Amber that it was time to go (she was putting nail polish on a last-minute run in her stockings) what should appear in the driveway? You guessed it: Mungo’s Volvo.
“Hi there,” Mom called, scrambling out of the passenger’s side while Mungo got out from behind the wheel. “I’m so glad we caught you. Let’s take some pictures!”
“No time, Mom,” I protested. “We’ll be late for dinner.”
Ben, ever-charming, smiled as my mother dashed inside for her camera. “We’re okay,” he said. “We’ve got fifteen minutes.”
To my credit, I pasted on a brave face, realizing it was futile to protest. Five minutes of obligatory photos and we’d be out of there. “Okay. Come on in.”
Sophie stepped out of the shadows then and I nearly shielded my eyes, she was so luminous. Her shimmery silver dress was festooned with sequins; it was a bit like the black one she’d worn at Christmas, only this one was even more flattering, if that was possible. Her endless legs looked longer than ever in strappy silver stilettos. I never would have had the guts to try an outfit like that; on her, though, it was pure magic.
“Hi, Sophie.” I tried to unclench my jaw. “You look great.”
She gave me the quickest, most dismissive once-over in the history of once-overs, not even bothering to hide her disdain when she saw my botched plucking job. “You too.”
PJ nodded to me in greeting. He looked smooth in a dark leather jacket, a red silk shirt, and black slacks. “Hey, chica. What happened to your eyebrows?”
Instinctively, I covered them with one hand. “Long story.”
“Sorry about that.”
I could feel my cheeks going hot. Well, I’d better get used to it.
Behind PJ stood Jeremy, all nervous and cute as usual. He wore tight, straight-legged pants, a colorful, retro print shirt, and a blue blazer that matched the streak in his bangs.
Amber came busting out of my room. “Damn these stockings! I knew I shouldn’t have gotten the drug store kind. Whatever, they’ll have to do. Hi, you guys.”
Everyone said hello. I saw Jeremy’s eyes light up as he took in Amber in her funky yellow dress. She looked good. They were unmistakably perfect side by side—sort of offbeat and rebellious and not matching at all but somehow matched. I couldn’t help thinking that Sophie and Ben looked like they belonged together more than Ben and me. She’d just stepped out of Elle, he was all GQ, and I looked sort of, well, Wicked Witchy. Who didn’t belong in this picture?
“Okay, here we go, one couple at a time!” Mom came running into the living room with her camera.
Sophie and PJ posed first, then Amber and Jeremy, then Ben and me. Mom went on about how cute we all were, tactfully not mentioning the fact that I’d totally mutilated the eyebrows God gave me. She took what seemed like five thousand shots. We were halfway to the door when she called out, “Oh, wait, let’s get a group shot!”
“Mother,” I groaned. “Enough!”
“Please? Indulge your old mom, will you?”
I sighed and we all squeezed together in front of the fire-place, arranging our faces into careful smiles. That’s when the bomb dropped.
“It’s so nice of you to let Geena stay over at our place tonight,” Sophie cooed, her eyes still fixed on the camera.
My stomach did like five back flips in a row. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak.
Slowly, Mom’s face emerged from behind the lens. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
The room filled with the most deafening silence ever. I knew I should say something, but I had no idea what that something might be. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Sophie brushed her hair back from her face. “I said I’m glad you’re letting Geena stay over. With the rest of us. At our house on the coast?”
Mom’s smile went twitchy. “The coast?”
“Uh . . .” Ben stepped in, glancing at me. “After the dance? We’re all going out to Sophie’s family’s house in Bodega. That’s okay, right?”
Shit!
“Oh my God.” I slapped my forehead. “Mom, didn’t I tell you that? I could have sworn I mentioned it.”
No luck. Mom’s face just got twitchier. “No. I’m quite sure you didn’t.”
Amber said, “Well, we better get going.”
“Yeah, we probably should,” Jeremy agreed.
I shot them a grateful look.
Mom addressed Ben in a grave, no-nonsense tone. “I don’t think I’m prepared to let my sixteen-year-old daughter stay out all night. Amber, while you’re living here you’ll have the same curfew. Have them home by one?”
“Mom . . . ” It was useless, though. Normally, she’d let me stay out later than that for a special occasion, but she was pissed about the subterfuge, I could tell. I didn’t even bother to protest beyond that single syllable.
“Sure, Mrs. Sloane,” he told her. “No problem.”
As we made our way to Sophie’s Mercedes, I knew I’d rather fling myself under the wheels of the next passing car than endure another second of my misery. Sophie whispered something to PJ before she allowed herself a catty little giggle. Ben wouldn’t look at me. I just shuffled along, me and my ridiculous eyebrows, the girl who couldn’t stay out past one, the biggest loser on the planet.
The night had barely begun, and already I wanted to die.
We drove to Cafe La Haye with Sophie’s music blaring. That was just as well. I found myself missing the suntan oil and damp dog scent of Ben’s rusty old Volvo. The Mercedes smelled like new leather overlain with all the gels, lotions, and deodorants we’d plied ourselves with, and the potent combination gave me a headache. I cracked the window slightly, feeling claustrophobic. A heaviness started to gather force inside me.
As we got out of the car and everyone started toward the restaurant, I touched Ben’s arm. “Hey, don’t be mad.”
“Why should I be?”
Amber laughed at something Jeremy said. Sophie bent her head toward PJ and whispered something again. We let the four of them walk a little ways ahead of us.
“I meant to ask—I just wanted to find the right—” I started.
“You told me it was okay.”
“I know. I didn’t want to disappoint you, so I just . . .” My sentence trailed off lamely.
“Lied.”
The flat, hard sound of his voice caught me off guard. “Well, not exactly.”
“Yes, exactly.”
I looked at him, and his face suddenly seemed foreign. A hard, opaque black replaced the luminous warmth his eyes usually radiated. A little muscle in his jaw pulsed. I suddenly felt small, exposed, and defenseless there in my pitiful made-in-China dress and painful patent-leather shoes. A breeze washed over us. I shivered. We stared at each other in silence.
“Whatever.” He looked away. “It’s no big deal.”
For some reason my mood somersaulted right then from apologetic to pissed off. Maybe it was the tiny, sarcastic curve of his lips—I don’t know—but a switch flipped inside me and all at once we went from couple-having-a-tiff to enemies.
“Fine,” I sniffed, matching his terse, cold tone. “Let’s go inside.”
Dinner was torture. Amber and Jeremy got along great. They debated the merits of various high-profile tattoo artists and gossiped about Floating World. They discovered a mutual love of several obscure British punk bands, and they were off on that for at least an hour, quoting lyrics, trying to one-up each other with little-known trivia. Sophie flirted with Ben and PJ both, soaking up their attention, flashing me a tiny, triumphant smile every now and then when nobody else was looking. I sat like a carved statue and gazed at the ever-fascinating bread basket.
When our food came, I could barely pick at my pan-roasted chicken breast with goat cheese stuffing. I sliced into it with my knife very carefully, peeling back the flesh as if performing an autopsy. I moved it around on my plate, trying to make it look like I’d eaten some. I cut it into tiny pieces and concealed it inside my mashed potatoes.
I told myself that if Ben said something to me—anything—I’d apologize for real the second I could get him alone. If he said so much as “pass the salt” I’d take it as a sign. I’d admit everything in gory detail: my stupid, misguided crush on Mr. Sands, my fear that he’s in love with Sophie and only stays with me out of pity, my babyish inability to ask Mom about staying at the coast. He didn’t speak to me, though. He barely even looked at me. He concentrated entirely on PJ and Sophie. It was as if I’d become invisible somewhere between the car and Cafe La Haye. I sat there, a ghost of a girl, able to hear and see but unable to speak or be seen.
By the time we got to the dance I felt so depressed I could barely drag myself from the car. It was held at the Vintage House, this senior center that rents out its shadowy, cavernous main hall for dances and stuff. The sophomores had gone with this rather confusing futuristic Valentine’s Day motif. Evidently the wild profusion of tinfoil hearts and black lights were supposed to convince us we’d been transported to some exotic futurescape. Couples posed before a cold silver and white backdrop, pointing plastic laser guns at the camera with manic smiles.
Amber and Jeremy headed straight for the dance floor, where black lights turned everyone’s teeth into searing, glow-in-the-dark grins. Seizure-inducing strobes kicked into gear every few seconds, making me feel sort of sick. Sophie and PJ went to get Cokes from the bar. Ben and I leaned against the wall, draped in shadow. I wondered if he felt as bewildered and alone as I did.
“I guess you don’t want to dance,” was all he said.
“Not really, no.”
“Me neither.”
There we were: ranked top in our class, with combined test scores higher than the national debt, and our vocabularies had been reduced to these paltry syllables. Soon we’d be grunting and pounding our chests.
We sat down on a couple of folding chairs festooned with limp streamers. As Amber and Jeremy got down to some vintage funk, I saw past the fog of my own wretchedness long enough to notice how perfect they were together. They had distinct styles—Jeremy was sort of understated-ironic, whereas Amber had an exuberant, disco-inferno flamboyancy—yet they complemented each other perfectly. Their bodies took on a mutual grace no one around them could match, as if the music held inside it a secret language only they understood.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Benedict!” Sophie came back with two Cokes in plastic cups and handed one to Ben. With a quick glance around, she pulled a silver flask from her purse and tipped a generous splash into Ben’s drink.
“Whoa,” Ben protested. “I thought you wanted me to drive.”
“You still can,” Sophie assured him. “I only gave you like half a shot.”
PJ handed me a Coke too. He met my eye, the first person to really look at me all night, and I could see he felt sorry for me. “How you doing, Skater Girl?”
I almost burst into tears. His basic human kindness made me want to fall at his feet in a heap. Instead I bit my lip and said, “Okay. You?”
“Not bad.”
Sophie turned to me, her huge white smile gleaming. “Geena, you don’t mind if I borrow Benedict for a teensy-weensy dance, do you?”
“Why not?”
Ben shot me a quick look, though in the wonky, strobe-effect lighting I couldn’t be sure of his expression. Then he followed Sophie out to the dance floor like an obedient dog. Just as they reached the thicket of bodies pumping and writhing to the heavy bass beat, the DJ did a slow cross fade from Fergie to the timeless sap of the Honeydrippers’ “Sea of Love.”
Watching Sophie eagerly fold herself into his arms, a dark sense of foreboding washed over me. I saw Ben hesitate slightly, then obligingly wrap his perfectly sculpted arms around her waist.
Suddenly I craved my skateboard intensely. I wanted to trade this stupid dress for my cut-off Dickies and a T-shirt. I needed to fly through the dark streets, the damp air streaming over me. I could almost feel my board vibrating under my Pumas, the instinctive tightening in my calves and quads as I crouched low on the descent, dancing with gravity, daring it to mess with me. I knew the rotting leaves and wet cement would mix together inside my head, and the steady, white-noise sound of my wheels would soothe this terrible churning in my gut.
“You sure you’re okay, Geena?” PJ asked.
“I’m fine.”
Out on the dance floor, Sophie did a twirl and then a
dip, hamming it up, and I could see Ben smiling. Then she nestled even more snugly into his arms.
PJ chuckled. “Sophie’s really something.”
“She sure is,” I said.
“Bummer about the coast.”
I watched as Sophie nuzzled Ben’s neck, and the sick feeling in my stomach intensified. “Yeah. Total bummer.”
“You want to dance?” PJ asked.
I could feel tears stinging at my eyes. I needed to get out of there. “No, thanks. I’m going to get some air.”
As soon as I stepped outside, I felt a little better. Sometime during our internment inside the Vintage House it had started to rain, and as I stood there under the fluorescent-lit overhang it came down in sheets. I still had my coat on; at the edge of the dance floor it made me feel bulky and awkward, but out here I was glad for it.
I reached into my inside pocket and pulled out Ben’s valentine. Last night Amber helped me make the coolest collage, a mix of photographs we cut out and pictures she drew. It was all stuff Ben loved: cyclists racing in the Tour de France; Frankenstein’s monster; the canals of Venice; a pale brown Chihuahua that looked just like his dog, Mr. Peabody. The whole time we were working on it, I kept imagining his face when he opened it, picturing the way his expression would soften as his eyes scanned the images. I could imagine so perfectly the way his lips would move ever so slightly as he read what I’d written inside. Now I couldn’t picture any of that.
“Hey.” I turned to see Amber at my elbow, her face a question mark. “You okay?”
I quickly stuffed Ben’s card back into my pocket. “I guess.”
“Why is Ben dancing with Sophie? What’s up with you two? You’re acting like you hate each other.”
“We’re having a really off night.”
“Seriously!” Amber wiped her damp forehead with her arm. “Jesus, I’m sweating like a pig.”
“You and Jeremy sure are hitting it off.”
“Yeah, he’s cool.” She used a dismissive, no-big-deal tone and immediately boomeranged the subject back to me. “What are you guys fighting about, anyway?”