Dad gives me a stern look whenever he hears these bad reviews about my school behavior, but I do have straight A’s, and all of my teachers after berating me say, “She’s highly intelligent.” Thank you. I know that.
We’re about to go into Mr. Gregory’s class, the only class I share with Peter. I dash into the bathroom to make sure I look spectacular. I wince when I hear Lisa mooning over Peter.
“He’s so handsome tonight—” she begins.
Don’t show any emotion, I think. I’m standing in front of the mirror and I force myself to relax my face, because I’m doing too much scrunching and frowning out of jealousy and heartache.
Lisa talks a while longer, praising Peter’s looks and personality as I reapply some cream blush. She rummages through her purse so that she can redo her makeup as well. She dabs Fierce Pout on her lips.
“Can I have some?” I ask.
“Sure,” Lisa says, handing me the tube.
I slick some of the clear gel onto my lips with the wand applicator. My lips burn on contact with the gooey substance. “Is it supposed to hurt?” I ask.
“At first.”
“It’s, like, really painful.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
I stare at my reflection and I can swear that my lips are inflating like balloons. “At least it’s working,” I say.
“It better,” Lisa says. “It cost a fortune.”
There’s a price to pay for beauty. I see this everyday as Mom exercises and later complains about sore muscles. And now I have these stinging lips to deal with.
“You look really pretty without glasses,” Lisa says. “And your hair looks great straightened.”
“Thanks.” I think so, too. Now to see what Peter thinks.
We strut on our high heels toward Mr. Gregory’s class. I have to walk through an open hallway to get to his room. It’s windy and leaves and twigs are blowing everywhere. Something flies into my eye, and I take a mirror out of my purse to see what’s making me blink. I don’t see anything. Sometimes my contacts bother me for a few seconds or minutes and then the pain goes away. I blink furiously and even close my right eye for a minute just to soothe it, but open it again when I see Mr. Gregory.
He’s talking to a group of ten parents, giving an overview of his lessons and what students do during lab. Peter is in the front with his mom and dad. His dad is hot. He has the same light brown hair, with a wave in the front, and crinkly green eyes.
“His dad is gorgeous,” Lisa whispers to me.
“Hmmm.”
“Peter looks good enough to eat. Wow!”
“Yeth,” I say. Whoa, I’m lisping all of a sudden. The burning sensation in my lips increases. The skin around my lips feels like it’s bubbling. It’s uncomfortable to talk.
“Lisa, is Fierce Pout FDA approved?” I ask.
“I don’t know. What’s FDA approved?” she says.
“Like, when the governmenth says something ith safe.”
“Let me read the label.”
I sigh, because now I’m sure that Fierce Pout was made in some loser’s house and he somehow finagled his way into selling it in stores. In the news, I see many stories about people without medical degrees performing dentistry and collagen injections in their garages, horribly mutilating their patients. I’m sure Fierce Pout is made by one of these phony doctors. I can’t believe Lisa paid fifty dollars for the stuff. The things females do for beauty, and I’m no exception. Fierce Pout, combined with my fresh surgery, does not do wonders for my mouth. I won’t do much talking, I decide. Not only are my lips a problem, but whatever’s in my eye becomes more prickly. My eye is burning.
Mr. Gregory is smiling at Dad. Dad is eyeing his teeth. Mr. Gregory is biting down and Dad is actually looking at his mouth. He’s probably telling my teacher that he can get him a deal on bleaching or veneers. Dad’s a smooth talker and likes to rub elbows to get new customers.
“Stop making my teachers bite down,” I whisper. Dad is always telling me to bite down and now he has to do the same with my teachers! He’s embarrassing me. The evening has been pretty perfect so far.
Lisa turns to me and says, “Oh my God!”
“Wha?” Oh dear, I have no control over my lips anymore.
“Your mouth is, is, oh no, covered in bumps and your eye is really red.”
No! I look like a mess. I pull my mirror out again and it’s like looking at a monster. The corners of my mouth have tiny bumps, like the taste buds of a tongue. My eye is as red as a tomato. All the preening and primping I did before leaving was for naught, because I’m grotesque. I look like a gargoyle that should be hanging over a medieval castle. I can surely scare away innocent animals and children.
Lisa looks like she’s going to cry for me, her best friend who now resembles a circus freak on one of the most important nights of the year. I panic and don’t know what to do. I want to run out of the door and into the comforting darkness of the impending evening. The sun is starting to set and I can hide in the blackness of the night as if I’m a vampire. Will I sprout fangs next? I won’t doubt it.
“Oooh, Almira, are you okay?” one of my classmates asks me.
“Almira, are you sick?” someone else says.
“Almira! Your mouth!”
I want to cry, but then that would make my eye worse than it already is. And Peter is turning his head. No, I don’t want him to see me like this. He’s the reason I picked my dress and groomed myself so meticulously. My plan for how he’s going to find me irresistibly attractive and whisk me off my feet isn’t working. The mélange of mouth, lips, and eyes is destroying me. What next? Will all the weight I lost magically appear? I can imagine seven pounds ballooning over my figure for no reason at all, since everything else is taking a disastrous turn. Maybe my hair will fall out. Maybe the heel of my shoe will break, so that I have to walk with a limp or be forced to walk barefoot.
Peter’s parents continue to talk to Mr. Gregory, but Peter sees me trying to hide in the corner, surrounded by friends. He walks over and reaches for me. “Almira, are you okay?” he asks, a frown marring his face.
“Yeth,” I lisp.
“Your eyes, your lips—”
“No, I’m not okay.” Why bother lying? My face is obviously falling apart.
“Come with me.” Peter grabs my elbow and takes me into Mr. Gregory’s back room, which is full of microscopes, books, trays, beakers, and such. There’s a small sink with a greasy mirror above it. The room is dimly lit. The moment could be romantic if I wasn’t transmogrified into some crazy lunatic with a bad eye, puffy lips, and ballooning cheeks.
Peter takes a paper towel, runs water over it, and wipes my lips. “What’s the gunk on your lips?” he asks.
“This fancy lip-gwoss I bowwowed from Litha,” I say.
“The things you girls do to be pretty.”
“We can be cwazy.”
Is he calling me pretty, or telling me that I’m trying to be pretty but I’m not quite there yet? My eyes are mesmerized by his beauty. His skin is slightly tanned and the planes of his face are angular and manly. I so wish for this to be a scene in one of those romance novels with a pirate and half-naked wench on the cover, but Peter’s dressed like a businessman in a suit and tie and I’m horrid. If only he could be shirtless, holding me while I’m in a scanty, wind-whipped dress.
“You don’t need this lip-gloss. You already have full lips.”
I look into his eyes, which are darkened into a forest-green shade in the dim room. His eyes bore into mine. He wipes my lips with one hand and his other hand is gently gripping my chin. I always imagined this was the way my first kiss would begin, but who would dare to kiss my diseased lips? I have the lips of a leper.
“Your lips aren’t as bumpy, but you have to do something about your
eye,” he says.
My lips do feel better, and the bumps are less noticeable. I open my purse, put my contacts back in their case, and pull out my glasses.
Peter smiles when I put them on. “There, you look like your old self.”
My eyes feel the cool breeze of air conditioning. I believe that Peter has made everything better again. My lips feel good. The redness of my eye is vanishing. I don’t want this moment to end. Again, I wonder if Shakira has said anything to him. Shakira has no right to tell him that I like him, even if it’s the truth. If that’s ever revealed, then I’m the one who should be telling him to his face how much he means to me. He’s the total package: polite, smart, and handsome. But I can’t say anything to him. Not here and now. Not when Lisa likes him. What the hell! It isn’t like he’s Lisa’s property.
“I have something for you,” I say. I reach into my purse and take out the envelope with the knight and maiden picture. “You said you were looking for something like this.”
Peter opens the envelope and his mouth slowly stretches open into a big smile when he sees what’s inside. “Almira, this is beautiful,” he says.
“Really?”
He flips the picture over so that I can take a good look at it. I was in such a rush to print it out for him that I didn’t notice how truly beautiful it is. The maiden’s dress has an elaborate curlicue pattern and she’s wearing a heavy ruby necklace. The knight’s armor gleams in the sunlight. His helmet is under one arm and his hair is golden, just like Peter’s. The trees are so detailed that I can imagine them fluttering in the wind. And it isn’t smeared at all from when I shoved it in the envelope seconds after printing it.
“Be careful,” I say. “I didn’t give it enough time to dry.”
Peter slides it back in the envelope. “This is such a huge help, you have no idea. When you’re an artist and have no clue what something is supposed to look like, you don’t know when to begin. I haven’t watched any knight movies or seen armor in person, so this really gives me a good idea of what I should do.”
“And I’m sure Lisa’s book helps, too,” I say.
“She told me she never found it,” he says.
The competitiveness in this unannounced competition flares inside of me. I’m ahead of Lisa, whether she knows it or not. He specifically needed something. She didn’t deliver. I did. It’s something small, a teensy favor, but it’s a gesture of my intense like for him. I’m so proud of myself. I did something, rather than nothing. In my own way, I’m letting him know that I’m pursuing him.
“Are you okay back there?” Lisa asks, walking in, intruding.
“Yeah, Lisa,” Peter says. “Almira will be okay.”
“You’re such a future doctor, Peter,” Lisa jokes.
“Thanks. My dad would love to hear that. He’s a cardiologist.”
“My mom’s a podiatrist,” Lisa says.
“My dad’s a dentist,” I say.
The three of us crack a smile. There’s a sense of intimacy between the three of us, but I want Lisa out of the picture and I’m sure she doesn’t want me to be there either. And what does Peter want? Who does he like? What’s his type of woman? Shakira walks past the door, mini-CZJ that she is. She’s wearing a knockout black dress. Peter looks, of course. Lisa and I both glare at our enemy.
Lisa pulls at Peter’s arm, and his eyes disengage from Shakira’s loveliness. When Lisa links her arm through Peter’s, I feel a stab of jealousy. There’s this whole triangle of jealousy. Lisa and Shakira. Shakira and me. Lisa and me. I don’t think Lisa feels any ill will toward me, because I haven’t expressed my interest in Peter. She probably doesn’t expect me to be treacherous in any way. But I’m trying to betray her by liking the same guy she does. My impulses are raw and unstoppable. I want Peter just as much, if not more, than she does.
We all say goodbye to our parents and go to a pizza parlor. The sun is long gone and I slowly chew on a slice of pizza, the crust a wee bit too hard for my sore mouth. The evening was both a failure and a success. My eye and lips had been problematic for a brief moment. Peter nursed (caressed) my face, but now he’s focusing on Lisa. The two of them sit close together, whispering into each other’s ears. I talk with my friends, but my eyes constantly drift to them. I want that for myself, to sit with a boy and just relax and talk in a corner booth, to be a couple. I put drops in my eyes and slick soothing ChapStick over my lips. Peter doesn’t notice my normalcy since he’s too busy laughing at Lisa’s jokes.
I hate depression. I know when I’m depressed because my whole body feels heavy and sleepy, as if I have to drag it around. My eyes also feel heavy with tears. And deep inside, I know that I shouldn’t be depressed. I’m not ugly. In fact I’m cute, I know it. My facial features are in proportion, although I have to tweeze my eyebrows into arcs or else they’ll look like caterpillars, and I think my nose is too pointy. Still, I get compliments. I’m not stupid, because my grades are excellent. And what takes most people a half an hour to figure out I can solve in minutes. When it comes to writing research papers, I do them the night they’re assigned, rather than waiting until the last minute like everyone else. I have a drawer full of trophies and certificates dating back from elementary school. So I have plenty of things going for me.
I believe that there’s happiness in the future—so many things to do and explore—but something is blocking me from it. One of my teachers long ago mentioned how many third world countries have slums, and not too far from the dirt and grime are beautiful beaches and sprawling hotels for tourists. She showed us a book with pictures of South American ghettoes a few blocks from luscious water views. There were photos of buildings falling apart, and on the other side of these cities were hotels bustling with room service attendants and rich people. I want to leave the slum. I want to be in the paradise that’s a stone’s throw from me.
Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I need to make things happen. I feel my spirits lift up at the idea of that. I know I can get things for myself. I’ve done it before. A few years ago, Dad pleaded that he was too busy to go to the store to get me science supplies and that he’d have to take me another day, but I couldn’t wait. Our house is deep in the suburbs away from most stores, in a driving town, but I walked in the hot sun until I found a drugstore. I used my allowance money to buy different colors of wax paper, construction paper, and paper plates (I was making large models of cells) and when I came home, I did my project. The next day I won the sixth grade science fair. I made it happen, even though Mom and Dad both told me that I wouldn’t know what to buy. There was also the time that I had a paper due but my computer was infected with a virus. I spent all night deleting things from the registry and running my virus scan over and over until the computer was free of viruses and I could finish my paper. Of course I got an A. My parents both told me on that occasion to wait until they took the computer to a repairman, to tell my teacher about my problem, and to get a lesser grade. But I didn’t want a lesser grade. I didn’t want a lesser anything.
In the past I was able to get tickets to sold-out concerts, soothe over hurt feelings between my friends, talk other people into and out of things … so there were countless times when I had the burst of energy to save myself from a situation and ensure that only the best happens to me. I deserve the best, just like everyone else believes they should get what’s right. Why should I be unhappy and boyfriendless?
I want to know exactly what’s in Peter’s sketchpad. Curiosity hits me hard. I really need to see what’s on those pages. Maybe I’m on them. Maybe he’s secretly longing for me and deep in that sketchpad is a picture of me, his secret crush.
It’s early in the morning, with ten minutes left until the first bell rings. Buses and cars are still pulling up. People are busily talking about Parent Night. Who wore what? Who pulled off their look and who didn’t? Lisa simpers, as she imagines that Peter is infatuated with her.
“Could you believe how he couldn’t keep his eyes off of me?” she says.
Our friend Jillian sits there, nodding. Jillian is emo and wears a lot of black—dyed hair, clothes, shoes, nail polish, bookbag. She keeps nodding as Lisa speaks. I see a white tendril of a headphone running from her left ear—the ear away from Lisa—which means she isn’t paying an iota of attention to any of us. I feel like doing the same, nodding off as Lisa speaks, but she’s my best friend. She’s so happy about having Peter in her life, even though they’re not boyfriend-girlfriend. I want to be happy, too. But I don’t want to live a lie like Lisa is, imagining things between me and Peter. I want the real thing.
Peter darts into my line of vision.
“Peter is the darlingest boy I have ever known,” Lisa continues.
“Yeah,” Jillian says.
“Hmmm,” I say.
My eyes follow Peter. Lisa hasn’t spotted him yet, which means I have strong radar for him and she doesn’t. I see him head toward the west wing of the school. I decide to follow. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I say.
Lisa doesn’t even notice that I’ve said anything. Her eyes are rolled to the sky as she rhapsodizes about Peter. “He’s the only man for me,” she says.
“Yeah,” Jillian repeats, bopping her head to AFI, or maybe it’s My Chemical Romance. Her heavily lined eyes are glazed over and Lisa doesn’t stop talking, happy to have something of an audience listening to her ramblings. I know that Peter is a great guy, but even I think Lisa is being a bit extreme. There are other things to talk about, other things in life, other great concerns. And he isn’t her boyfriend! There’s nothing for her to discuss. She should keep her feelings inside, like me, but then that would be dishonest. At least she’s heartfelt by being out in the open. I love him, too, but if I revealed that I would hurt Lisa tremendously.
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Page 10