by Tyra Banks
“Ooh,” Dylan said beside her.
“Ahh,” Kamalini said, and they all giggled.
The yellow Mannecant gave the girls what looked like green strapless terry-cloth minidresses with asymmetrical hems. The little towel frocks read Oooo on the front and Ahhh on the back. “Put these on, please. We will care for your Bella uniforms and return them to you cleaned and pressed.”
The girls put on the towel dresses, and then the Mannecant led them on a tour of the OoAh.
The place was a labyrinth of narrow hallways decorated with silks, fine chenilles, and more cashmere walls. Lanterns glowed from every alcove, incandescent butterflies providing the light. The scent of blood oranges hung heavily in the air, and the girls felt soft sand underfoot. Down some hallways, they saw elaborate makeup stations and steaming baths. In one, an upperclassBella sat in a pedicure chair and commanded, “Environment: tropical island with pink sand and turquoise waves!” Suddenly, the fabric on the walls melted away, revealing an idyllic island setting, complete with a shining sun, warm breezes, rose-colored sand, and an ocean so blue it looked a swimming pool.
Tookie, Dylan, and Kamalini gasped. “That is a special feature of the OoAh,” the Mannecant told them. “One can change her surroundings to whatever she likes. Try it.”
“Please, Madame. Environment: home,” Kamalini asked politely.
The walls started to reflect an immense room.
“Oops, never mind, Madame,” Kamalini said hurriedly. The room immediately turned back to its spa atmosphere.
Tookie bravely stepped forward next. “Environment: inside a whipped cream factory! With beach waves crashing outside the window!”
In an instant, the room transformed into an enormous space with walls and floors made of cream. Machines surrounding the area churned out endless types and flavors—light and heavy, caramel and coffee. There was a five-stories-tall picture window with a perfect view of the sea’s surf-worthy waves.
Tookie smiled shakily. She wished Lizzie could see this. “Exodus,” she whispered. “Exodus …”
“All right now,” the yellow Mannecant said, grabbing Tookie’s arm and moving down another hall. “We must keep going.”
They walked down a long corridor full of treatment rooms. Bellas murmured with pleasure, but when Tookie looked in one room, a Bella was lying on her stomach with an enormous boulder crushing her spine. “The latest in hot stone treatments, years before civilians will hear about it,” the Mannecant explained.
In another treatment room, a Mannecant was peeling a layer of skin off a Bella’s face. The skin came off in a perfect mask, pigment, pores, and all, and when the Mannecant pressed it up against a plastic-molded head, the mask opened its eyes and smiled. “Facial slough,” the yellow Mannecant guiding the girls said. And in yet another room, a Bella stepped inside a giant clamshell. The clam’s valves snapped shut rapidly, trapping the Bella inside.
“Let me guess,” Dylan said. “Body wrap?”
“Body snap,” the Mannecant said. “But close enough.”
They walked into the next room, a giant space that had a large circle painted in the middle of the floor. Three women dressed in ornately patterned flowing muumuus sat very close together in the corner. Their hair was fused into one huge beehive.
Dylan whispered, “I wonder if their actual heads are connected.”
Their eyes were closed, and their beehive hairdo turned in slow, meditative circles. They seemed unaware of anything around them.
“Flashback Females,” the Mannecant whispered reverently. “They have the ability to take a person to a time in her life that has already happened. You cannot change the past—only witness it. Most Bellas find it very therapeutic. You can take your friends with you into your flashback, and they will see and hear everything that happened also. But if one of you wants to do it, your whole group must follow. The doors seal once someone has stepped into the circle, trapping everyone inside. No exceptions.”
Dylan looked excitedly at the others. “Should we do it?”
Tookie shifted from one foot to the other. She couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted to relive.
“I’m not lettin’ you chicken out, girl!” Dylan exclaimed, looking at Tookie. “If you don’t go, Kamalini and I can’t do it. You wanna do it too, right, Kamalini?”
Kamalini pulled in her bottom lip.
“C’mon, Kamalini. You in?” Dylan pressed.
“Well, okay,” Kamalini said hesitantly. “But … but … if you can see the flashback I want to see, I have to prepare you. I am … ashamed of my house. Please understand.”
Dylan chuckled. “Who are we to judge if your family’s hittin’ a rough patch? I live in a store! Now, what about you, Tookie?”
“Okay,” she said, instantly regretting it.
“Which of you would like to go first?” the Mannecant asked.
“I guess I will,” Kamalini volunteered. “So I can get it over with quickly.”
She walked farther into the room. One of the Flashback Females stood, approached Kamalini, and led her to the circle. As soon as Kamalini crossed its yellow boundaries, the iron and concrete doors in the room banged shut, making Tookie flinch.
Kamalini stood very still. She nodded as if answering questions, though the Flashback Female hadn’t said a word. “It is so,” the Female said.
It felt like Tookie’s feet were melting into the ground. The sinking feeling crept up to her knees, her hips, her waist, her torso, her shoulders, then her neck. For a moment, all of her senses were muffled, but then they snapped into precise clarity. She blinked slowly and opened her eyes.
Tookie, Dylan, and Kamalini now stood at a window overlooking an immense patchwork of dilapidated shacks. Smoke rose from many of the shanties. Beautiful cocoa-, maple-, and copper-skinned children dressed in bright fabrics ran about. A younger Kamalini, sans Headbangor, climbed out the very window at which the girls were standing and dropped to the ground. She ran toward the middle of the shantytown and stopped at a group of about two dozen people of varying ages. Their clothes might have been tattered and drab, but as soon as they saw Kamalini, their smiles were brighter than the most luxurious silks.
“Kamalini, where are we?” Tookie whispered.
“We are standing in my bedroom. But before you look, brace yourselves.”
Everyone turned and gasped. A gigantic four-poster bed stood in the corner, surrounded by jeweled chandeliers and ornate crystal lamps. Plush velvet and bright leather furniture filled the rest of the space. The ceiling was adorned with intricately carved wood and white marble. Cashmere covered the walls.
“You lived here?” Dylan’s eyes goggled. “What in the heck is there to be ashamed of? Are you cuh-ray-zee?”
“I enjoyed and appreciated living here, but I felt tormented too.” Kamalini pointed to the window. “Right outside are so many people with so much less! And that big group of people the young me is greeting right now? They are the Pande family.”
Dylan stared at all the people young Kamalini was with. “Whoa, I thought me havin’ four sisses and bros was a big fam, but people in Chakra got bigger ones than mine.”
“They are extended family as well,” Kamalini explained. “Aunts … cousins … great-grandparents. But their living conditions were so unfortunate. I used to sneak them unused items. Clothes, schoolbooks, healthy food, and vitamins. I secretly convinced one of the grips on my mother’s films to run plumbing and electricity lines from our house to their tiny home too. My family has so much; it felt like a sin to not share.”
The young Kamalini in the flashback approached the Pande family and grabbed the hands of a sweet-faced child. “That is Maya, my favorite,” Kamalini said to Tookie. “She is eight years old.”
“Guess what!” young Kamalini cried to the family. “I actually secured parts for all of you in my mother’s next film! And I do not mean a few rupees’ worth of background work, I mean bona fide speaking parts—real paychecks!”
; The family looked gratefully at one another. Some began to sob, but it was happy sobbing, their eyes alight with joy.
“But the scene does not shoot here in Chakra,” Kamalini went on. “It is the scene that leads up to the grand dance number, and it shoots in Cappuccina and Très Jolie!”
Their surroundings abruptly shifted to the famous main canal in Cappuccina. Movie cameras focused on the Pande family, who recited their lines with the greatest of ease and grace. Then the scene whooshed again, this time to a film location in Très Jolie, in the shadow of the metropolis’s famous sculptural tower. Young Kamalini burst onto set.
“Bonjour, Ma!” she called out. “I will be your assistant director today. Where should the Pande family stand in this scene?”
Kamalini’s mother, a tall, striking Chakra woman with huge soulful eyes, a curvy body, and vermillion in her hair, turned and smiled. “Beti, did I tell you how proud of you I am?” her mother said to young Kamalini, rubbing her daughter’s head. “We are shooting the big thunderstorm scene today. Make sure they have the appropriate props.”
Kamalini guided the Pande family to the base of a backdrop depicting a brilliant blue sky. As everyone took their places, Kamalini’s mother yelled, “Action!”
The rain machine sprayed the set with water. The cameras began to roll. The thunder sound effect boomed. The Pandes performed well even with faux rain drenching them. Young Kamalini grinned with pride.
“Beti, get ready to cue the dancers,” Kamalini’s mother shouted to her. Just as Maya, the youngest Pande, was about to say the last line of the scene, another earsplitting sound thundered above. The heavy sky-blue backdrop tipped and plummeted to the ground.
Everyone screamed and scattered, but for some it was too late. Thick white dust poured all around like smoke. Tookie waved her hand in front of her face, trying to see. Suddenly, a keening cry rang out. Maya crawled out from under the rubble, blood streaming down her forehead. “Maaa! Pappaa! Nani!”
Tookie’s heart stopped. She had a sinking feeling about what had just happened. Next to her, present-day Kamalini let out a tortured whimper. “No,” she cried. “No!” She ran to the rubble and tried to move the bricks away to rescue the other family members, but her fingers just swished through the scene, useless.
Suddenly, the Flashback Female’s calm voice rang out through the room. “It’s time to go now.”
The film set receded, and the girls were in the OoAh again. Kamalini crumpled to the floor in tears. “They all perished that day, because of me. This”—she pointed to her Headbangor—“helps me block it out, but I will never forgive myself. Maya became an orphan. She moved in with us, but a week later, she ran away. We searched all of Chakra but could not find her. I do not know if she is dead or alive. I should have never tried to help them.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tookie said gently. “You tried to give them a better life!”
Before Kamalini could respond, the Flashback Females approached a shell-shocked Dylan and took her to the center of the circle. Dylan also nodded as if answering questions that weren’t spoken. In a flash, they were all in an immense park within the Bou-Big-Tique Nation. Instead of endless posters and signs advertising sales, there were inspirational messages like SMILES ARE THE BEST CURRENCY and KEEP BOU-BIG-TIQUE BEAUTIFUL: SAVE OUR PARK!
A man and a sweet-looking girl about six years old stood next to a jungle gym. The little blond girl had Dylan’s sweet, feisty face.
“My God, there’s my daddy,” Dylan murmured, staring at him. She stepped up to her dad and tried to touch his hair. Her hand swirled through his head, like it was paint being smeared in the air. But that didn’t deter her; she leaned in close, her head partly glopping into his.
Dylan’s dad picked up six-year-old Dylan and placed her on a slide. He pushed her on the swing set and helped her up onto the monkey bars. But it all seemed too much for him; winded, he kneeled down to his daughter. “Dylan, my baby, Daddy’s little girl … Daddy’s gonna have to go somewhere far away very, very soon.”
“On a trip?” young Dylan asked. “Can I come?”
“ ’Fraid not.” There were tears in her father’s eyes. “And before I go, I just wanna make sure I say somethin’ to you that I want you to remember always.…” He cleared his throat. “Dylan, baby, Daddy wants you to know that you are beautiful. These other little skinny thangs in the Nation, don’t ever let ’em get you down. Don’t change nothin’ ’bout you, boo. Not one thang. Cuz everythang about you’s perfect.”
Suddenly, Dylan’s father started to cough. He seemed unable to catch his breath. His face became bright red and then he dropped to the ground. “Daddy?” little Dylan cried, hovering over him. “Daddy? What’s wrong?”
Her father looked at her with glassy eyes. His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t speak. In seconds, a Bou-Big-Tique ambulance roared up, and EMTs jumped out and loaded Dylan’s father onto a stretcher. “Daddy!” young Dylan cried again and again.
A few moments later, the girls returned to the OoAh. Dylan lay on the floor, sobbing.
The yellow Mannecant turned to Tookie expectantly. “Are you ready?”
Tookie shook her head and started toward Dylan. Without seeing her move her mouth or emit a sound, Tookie heard one of the Flashback Females say, “Let her be, Tookie. The pain is part of the healing.”
Tookie licked her lips, suddenly feeling terrified. She wasn’t ready to face the past if it was going to hurt her as much as it had her friends. “Um, I want to skip my turn.”
The Mannecant frowned. “But it’s a rewarding bonding experience, and it will help you grow as a Bella. And if you refuse, I’ll have to mark your time in OoAh as incomplete. OoAh is a class as well, you see.”
Tookie let out a huge sigh. Failing something as simple and supposedly relaxing as OoAh wasn’t an option. Setting aside all her anxieties, she stepped into the circle.
The Flashback Females walked toward her, mouths shut, but Tookie could hear them speaking, loud and clear. “Breathe deeply,” they said. “Stand very still in the circle to come face to face with your demons. It is from here that we can lead you back to a time that has already happened.”
Tookie glanced over her shoulder at Kamalini and Dylan. Their eyes seemed to silently speak to her too. It’s okay, Tookie. It’s okay.
She turned back to the Females. She didn’t even have to speak her request, just think it. Please just show me something good from my life. Anything. Even if it’s something I can’t remember.
“It is so,” one the Females answered, shutting her eyes.
There was a whoosh of light. Tookie felt like her brain was being turned upside down and inside out. But it wasn’t painful at all—instead, it felt like her head was being relieved of pressure, like a teakettle whistling out steam.
When she opened her eyes, she was in her house in Peppertown. Only, it looked … newer. Not as ramshackle. And her bedroom was spotless. Sheer curtains embroidered with yellow ducks flanked the sparkling windows. A stuffed giraffe stood proudly in the corner. A small bed was in the middle of the room, covered with a thick yellow comforter with white tassels along the edge. Plush barriers ran down the sides of the bed, a protective measure to prevent a sleeper from rolling onto the floor.
Mrs. De La Crème entered the bedroom. A man who certainly must have been Mr. De La Crème was holding her hand, though Tookie couldn’t see his face. Tookie’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t recall ever seeing her parents display physical affection. This was before her father’s accident, so his body was cut and toned. Creamy was still as wrinkled as she was today, but she looked softer, happier. She carried an adorable toddler dressed in bright yellow onesie pajamas. The Myrracle? But then she heard her mother murmuring, “There there, Tookie. There there.”
Tookie was transfixed. She’d never seen baby photos of herself. But where’s Bellissima? she wondered. Then she realized … the doll didn’t exist yet.
Tookie stared at her two-year-old self. S
he was actually … strangely … cute. Not yet the hideously disproportionate, frustratingly awkward teenager she’d grown to be.
Mr. De La Crème gently touched his baby daughter’s head, her hair a mix of textures that seemed deliberate, not random and haphazard. “Six teeth already, dumplin’? You’re jumping the gun! You’re gonna need one of these soon.” He handed her a toddler-sized toothbrush. Young Tookie grabbed the toothbrush and bit on it. Mr. De La Crème turned to his wife and smiled. “Look at her. She’s strong, just like her daddy. And she looks just like me, doesn’t she?”
“You wish.” Mrs. De La Crème playfully smacked him on his muscular arm. “My Tookie is the spitting image of her mommy.”
Tookie couldn’t believe it. “My Tookie”? “Mommy”? When did Creamy allow herself to be called Mommy? And when did she stop?
Mrs. De La Crème laid little Tookie down on her bed. “Time to give that up now, dumplin’,” Mr. De La Crème said, taking away the toothbrush. “There’ll be plenty of days ahead when I’ll have to force you to brush your teeth. Right now, just enjoy being the beautiful baby girl that you are.” Her toothbrush. In her father’s hand again. But he was holding it with love, not as a weapon.
Then both parents gave baby Tookie a gentle kiss on her forehead.
Tears fell from Tookie’s eyes onto her green terry-cloth OoAh dress. Dylan and Kamalini looked at her curiously. “I never knew they loved me,” she said, her heart banging fast. “They were going to send me away. They didn’t want me anymore.” What changed between then and now? Was it Myrracle? His eye accident? Or … something else?
The memory rolled on. “Sleepy, huh, dumplin’? I know.… I see you fighting it,” Mr. De La Crème said as he kissed little Tookie’s toes. “Just close those eyes and dream those dreams that will all come true one day. Go on now. Go to sleep, dumplin’. Just dream.… Just go, for all of us.”
Present-day Tookie squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s time to leave now,” the Flashback Females said.