Skin Deep

by Pamela Sparkman

  “Who is that?” Joe asked me.

  I shook my head, feeling the vein in my temple bulging. “I don’t know. That’s Mr. and Mrs. Murphy’s house. They don’t have young children, so he must be visiting.” I turned towards the girls. “What did he say to her?”

  “He called her ugly,” Mandy answered with her eyebrows drawn together. “I told him he wasn’t being nice and then he told me to shut up.”

  The vein in Joe’s temple was beginning to bulge too. Good. At least I wasn’t the only one. He got up and came to stand beside me, both of us leering out the window. “He’s a little old to be picking on a five-year old,” Joe said in a not-so-happy tone. “A five year old girl at that.”

  “Yup.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Joe asked, folding his arms.

  “I don’t know. I’m guessing marching across the street to have a word with him is a bad idea?”

  “Probably.” Joe smirked. “But I meant Annie.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in this position before.”

  “You should tell her how pretty she is,” Lexie offered. “Girls like that.”

  Joe laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “I think you should take her advice. We’re gonna go and let you talk to Annie. Tell her we said bye and we’ll see her later. Lexie, Mandy, you girls ready?”

  “Can we stop and get chocolate shakes on the way home?”

  “If you don’t tell your mom,” Joe said, herding them out the door. On his way out, he murmured, “My sister is gonna kill me.”

  I grinned. “Been nice knowing you,” I said with a wave.

  I peered down the hallway and noticed Dozer sitting outside Annie’s door. He looked at me like…you gonna help me with this or what?

  I walked down the hallway, stopping when I got in front of him. “We’re a team, right, Dozer? Me and you, we got this.” I gently knocked on Annie’s door and turned the knob. “Annie?”

  She abruptly stood, turning her head away from me, wiping tears off her face. I think I heard my heart crack a little.

  “Hey, Kish. I was playing with my dolls.”

  I stepped inside and glanced around the room. After I had introduced her to everyone, I decided to turn the spare bedroom into her own special room at my house. She might not ever know we’re family, but I could at least make her feel like family. I bought another princess bed and a few other pieces of furniture and told her she could decorate it however she liked, because what did I know about fixing up a girl’s room? Standing here, I realized we had yet to go shopping, so I had an idea. “Hey, I was thinking, why don’t we go out and pick out some things for your room?”

  She sniffled, still not looking at me. “Sure.”

  “Well, I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm.” I heard the click, click, click of Dozer’s nails on the hardwood floor as he eased his way inside. He looked up at me like…what else you got?

  I glowered at him. I’m doing the best I can.

  I sat at the foot of the bed. “Annie, honey, come here.”

  She swiped roughly at her face before looking at me. Her eyes were red and shiny when she turned around, and the tip of her nose was red, too. I dropped to my knees and held out my arms. “Come here, punkin.”

  Her chin quivered before she dove into my arms and clutched her hands around my neck. I stroked her hair and held her like she was all that mattered in the world.

  “Shhh…I’m here.” I let her cry and the whole scene reminded me of Beth. Someone had hurt her, too. I pictured her crying alone in her room, no one to console her…tell her she was beautiful…tell her she was everything good in the world. My heart cracked a little more.

  But Annie was in my arms so I could at least console her and tell her all the things Beth never got to hear.

  “You’re beautiful, punkin. Don’t ever let anyone make you believe otherwise, because it simply isn’t true. You’re beautiful and smart and funny and one of these days, I’m going to be fighting boys off you with a stick.” Dozer barked and looked at me like…hello, what am I chopped liver? “Dozer, too. He’ll grab hold of their pant legs while I threaten to do bodily harm if they hurt you.”

  Dozer held up his paw and I gave him a high-five. Yeah, we got this.

  Annie laughed and turned her head so she could see Dozer. “Is he gonna be like my guard dog?”

  I laughed. “I think he already is.”

  “What about you?” Annie asked. “You my guard dog, too?”

  For a brief few seconds I contemplated telling her the truth. I could say the words, serve them to her on a silver platter. I didn’t, though. I brushed the hair out of her face tenderly. “I’m whatever you need me to be.”

  She looked away, her thoughts seemingly far off. “Sometimes I wish…” her voice tapering off as she scratched behind Dozer’s ears.

  “Sometimes you wish…what?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “You won’t ever leave, will you?”

  “No, never. You’re stuck with me, punkin.”

  “Stuck like glue?”

  “Stuck like glue.”

  She nodded, stood, and held her hand out to help me up, “So Dozer is my guard dog, and you’re my glue. And glue sticks to things.” She squeezed my hand. “Can we get a pink lamp and pink pillows?”

  “Yep, if that’s what you want,” I said as we walked down the hallway.

  “Can I get pink curtains, too?”

  “We’ll add it to the list.”

  “Kish?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I like that you’re my glue.”

  I had to look away in that moment because…well… I just had to.

  “Me too, punkin. Me too.”

  Beth

  So many words were in my head screaming to get out and I couldn’t put any of them together to make a complete thought. Emotions swirled under the surface, and together my words and my feelings tumbled, twisted, and twirled around inside of me until I felt like I needed to vomit it all out. I nervously chewed on the end of my pencil, and my trembling hands caused the pencil to vibrate between my teeth. My knees bounced rapidly, blood rushed to my head, my heart pounded in my ears, my stomach dropped with no warning, like it had been perched on a collapsing seat inside a dunk tank, and I instantly felt cold. I shivered while staring at the blank page in front of me.

  I can’t do this.

  “Beth? You okay?” Dr. Daniels asked.

  I put my head between my knees to fight the sudden nausea, and mumbled, “I’m fine.” That word…fine…reminded me of Hayden and I sat up like I had been zapped with electricity.

  “Beth?”

  The concern in Dr. Daniels voice didn’t escape me but I was drowning and it was all I could do not to succumb to it. I stood and darted towards the window looking for something, anything I could focus on, something that wasn’t the spiraling nonsense that was going on inside my head, my heart, my bones, my muscles, and every cell in my body.

  I pressed my face against the cool glass along with my palm. I could see my breath on the window pane so I began to concentrate on that…breathing.

  “Talk to me, Beth. What are you feeling?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

  “You’re scared.”

  Dr. Daniels’ voice sounded far away. I felt like my body decided to take a trip to the amusement park without my permission, and I was trapped inside a spinning barrel at the funhouse. I swayed on my feet, so I pressed my face harder against the glass in order to stay grounded.

  Her voice broke through the haze when she repeated, “You’re scared.”

  “Maybe,” I responded.

  “No, not maybe. Look at you.”

  “I need a minute, okay!” I snapped. I had a million things to worry about and I needed to think, or rather, I needed to not think. “I need to catch my breath.”

  “Beth, you are making five different mistakes right now.”

  “How’s that
?” I asked with annoyance.

  “One – you’re trying to distract yourself. Two – you’re attacking your support system…me. Three – you’re trying to ignore your anxiety. Four – you’re glossing over why you’re anxious. And five – you’re getting caught up in the what-ifs.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture a beach with white sand and tropical smells. Feeling less dizzy, I stood back from the window and tried to regain some perspective. I realized I had been drawing tiny hearts on the fogged up glass with the letter “H” in the center. I turned to face Dr. Daniels. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m ready to leave. Maybe I should stay another week.”

  Dr. Daniels walked towards me and stopped. We stood toe to toe. She placed her hands on my shoulders, and confidently said, “You’re ready, Beth. You are. You’ve come a long way, and I wouldn’t send you home if you weren’t ready. Over this past month I’ve watched you grow into the woman I knew you could be. Believe in yourself.”

  I let my eyes flick around the room until they rested on the journal I’d abandoned moments ago. I tried to wrestle with the words that were still swimming around in my head. If I could pluck them out one by one maybe I could make sense of them somehow.

  Believe in yourself.

  Okay, I was going to talk myself through this, beginning with some facts that I knew. I knew I had more control over my urges. I could prepare healthy meals for myself now, and I could use the techniques they’d taught me to fight the need to binge and purge. Those things were all true, and I felt…pride, mostly because I had come a long way. It’s just… doing it on the inside where I’m in a controlled environment and where I don’t have the outside pressures of life to weigh me down was easier to navigate. However, going back out into the real world where I had to face everyone was the unknown, and that was the part that had me twisted in knots.

  I breathed in deeply and confessed, “You’re right, I’m scared.”

  “That’s normal, hon. Trust me.” She took my hand and walked me back to where I had been sitting. She sat across from me and folded her hands in her lap. “Let’s reframe all those negative thoughts you were having. Pick your journal back up and write down everything that has you so worried about leaving.”

  I wrote everything that was going through my head, having a better idea of what was causing me so much anxiety.

  Once I finished, Dr. Daniels said, “Look at the first thing on your list and read it to me.”

  “Have I pushed Hayden away by not talking to him this past month?” I read.

  “Give me three reasons to argue against that negative thought. Challenge your mind.”

  I wrote three things I knew to be true:

  1. He’s called the Center every day to check on me.

  2. He wrote me a letter telling me he thinks of me every day.

  3. He said he was proud of me.

  “Read the next few.”

  4. Will my friends still be my friends when I go back home?

  5. Will Sal decide that I am no longer needed and let me go?

  6. Will I be able to find a new job?

  On and on it went. These were the words swirling around inside my mind, and I didn’t want to admit that I was scared of losing the people I loved the most. But really, isn’t that what I’ve always been afraid of. Losing the people I loved?

  We treated each negative thought the same way, and by the time we were done, my anxiety had dramatically subsided, and I was able to relax, mostly.

  I was rereading everything I had written when Dr. Daniels said, “Remember this quote… ‘My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which have never happened.’”

  I lifted my head from my journal. She smiled. “Michel de Montaigne.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll remember that,” I said, jotting the quote in my journal.

  “I’m proud of you,” she said with admiration.

  “Thank you. It’s because of you that–”

  She held up her palm. “You did the work, Beth. It’s not because of me. We only gave you the tools.”

  “Right,” I smiled. “Well…” I let my eyes slide to the clock on the wall, “time’s up and I’ve got some packing to do, so…” I stood, and hugged my journal close to my chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right? Before I go?”

  Dr. Daniels moved towards me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Absolutely.”

  We stood like that for a few seconds, her kind eyes letting me know all the valuable things she wanted me to know without having to say them.

  Eventually, I said, “Okay, then.” I was on the verge of tears, knowing I would miss not seeing her every day. I made my way across the room and when I got to the door, I paused and looked behind me thinking I needed to thank her one last time, and when I did I saw Dr. Daniels wiping a tear away. She appeared somewhat rattled that she had been caught. She held out her arms as if to say, I’m only human.

  Again I smiled, feeling like I had gained a friend, and let my tears fall as well. “Good night, Nancy.”

  After packing my clothes and other belongings, I surveyed the nearly empty room. There wasn’t much to speak of; a bed, a dresser, and a small bedside table. It was my last night at the Center and I was both happy and sad, and that was normal, I suppose.

  Directly above the table was the board that still held Annie’s picture and Hayden’s letter. Thirty whole days had passed since I’d seen his face. I’d missed him so much that I felt like an important part of me was missing. How had I gone that long without seeing him, without hearing his voice? I closed my eyes, picturing his stubbly jaw, his clear blue eyes and how they lit up when he smiled, like twinkling stars. I laughed at myself…twinkling stars?

  I walked to the board and carefully removed the picture and letter, tucking them both neatly inside my suitcase for safekeeping, but not before I kissed each one, like a kiss goodnight.

  Tomorrow I would see Hayden. I let myself feel the elation that thought gave me. Then I picked up my book and read another passage from it before turning out the lights.

  I’m not saying it was love at first sight, because it most certainly wasn’t, at least for me. His version of the story was he loved me before he knew me. But since this is my version of the story, I’m going to tell it as I know it.

  Anyway, back to my point. It wasn’t love at first sight. It was, however “something” at first sight. Perhaps there were cosmic forces with a sense of humor that decided on a whim that human A would crash into human B. Literally. Because that’s how we met. And that’s a story in itself, and for another time. Although, I suspect our crashing into each other was intended to be amusing. I picture bowls of popcorn being passed around right before a celestial being pushed “play” on the disaster in the making. I don’t think our hearts were ever supposed to recognize each other, but when they did, I can only imagine the eye-rolling going on from the powers overhead… and maybe a disgusted...“Oh for crying out loud!”

  By the way, to you cosmic beings in the sky, if I forgot to thank you before now, I’m sorry. Thank you for having a sense of humor, and for your shenanigans, because a long time ago my mother said to me (and perhaps you overheard)… “If you don’t start paying attention to where you’re going someone is going to knock you flat on your ass.” She was right. Someone did knock me on my ass, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  So no, it wasn’t love at first sight. But it was “something” that grew into something more.

  I guess the joke’s on you, cosmic suckers. Pass the popcorn.

  Hayden

  “How’s it going?” I asked Joe, taking at seat at the bar.

  He added a lime garnish to the drink he was mixing and handed it to the woman a few seats down before walking back to me. He wore a guilty grin, like a little kid who had stolen his sister’s diary. “It’s going. How’s it going with you?”

  I absentmindedly picked at a napkin. “The same.”

  Without having to ask he poppe
d a cap and set a bottle in front of me. “I didn’t see your face on the six o’clock news the other day so I’m assuming you didn’t have words with the boy across the street?”

  A rumbling inside my chest grew and it felt strangely like laughter, something I haven’t done much of over the course of the past month. “No, I didn’t. I took the advice of a wise little girl and told Annie she was beautiful.” I shrugged. “I also took her shopping.”

  Cooper had walked in and slapped his hand on my shoulder. “Wise man,” he said, taking the seat next to me.

  “I thought so, too, until I got to the cash register and realized that we had bought every pink furry thing in the store.” I shook my head, laughing to myself thinking about it. “I swear it looks like one of her stuffed animals threw up cotton candy all over her room.” And just like that, I felt the air leaving my lungs. An ordinary innocent thing to say, yet the thought of cotton candy drew my mind automatically to Beth because she always smelled so sweet, like cotton candy. I swallowed the ache that accompanied the thought with a swig from my bottle and decided to redirect my thoughts. “What about you, Joe? The girls wanted chocolate shakes,” I said, gesturing in an up and down sweep with my finger indicating he was still in one piece. “I take it your sister let you live when they came home with chocolate on their faces.”

  “Well, I never got out of the car. I slowed down when we got to their house, told the girls to jump out, and I took off.”

  Cooper and I laughed. “Sure you did,” we said at the same time.

  “I did,” Joe said, looking like he took a peek inside the diary I imagined him with. “I taught the girls to tuck-n-roll a long time ago. They’ve got it mastered.”

  I shook my head, still laughing. “You’re insane, you know that?”

  Cooper chuckled beside me while Joe continued being...Joe. “Yeah, Maggie reminds me several times a day.”

  “I bet,” Cooper said, gesturing towards the stage. “I’m gonna go get set up.”

  “Set up?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m playing tonight. You stickin’ around?”