Breaking Beautiful

by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

  “No way,” Caitlyn says brightly. “Give me a second.”

  When she comes back to the dressing room she has a fringy green-blue flapper dress. I’ve already looked at it a couple of times but decided against trying it on. “I can’t wear that.”

  “Why not?” Caitlyn shakes it so the fringe moves. “It’s cute.”

  “It’s sleeveless.” I automatically reach to pull down the sleeves of my sweater.

  “It’s not even cut low.” Caitlyn pushes the dress toward me. “Let’s see what it looks like.”

  Panic rises in my chest. “I can’t wear sleeveless.”

  “Why not?” Caitlyn says.

  “I … I … get too cold.”

  “We’ll be in the gym and you’ll be dancing,” Caitlyn insists. “Just try this one. It’s fabulous. There aren’t very many costumes left to try, and I’m starving.” She shoves the dress around the curtain and into my hands.

  I’m sweating as I slide the flapper dress over my head. When I try to zip it up, the zipper gets stuck in the fringe and then slips out of my damp fingers.

  “Let me see, let me see.” Caitlyn is whining from outside the curtain.

  I tug the zipper up hard. The excuses are already forming in my mind. It didn’t fit. It has a rip in it. I force myself to face the mirror. The glow of the fluorescent light makes my arms and shoulders look pale and sickly, but that’s it. I run my fingers down the delicious bareness of my skin. I haven’t looked at my arms in months, afraid of what I would see. But here they are, bare and gloriously unmarked, except for the scar on my forearm. All this time I stayed covered, hiding the bruises that have disappeared, bruises that are never coming back. I laugh out loud.

  “Allie, I’m coming in.” Caitlyn pulls the curtain and stops with her mouth hanging open. “You look amazing.”

  “Let me see.” Mel steps toward me. “Come out into the light.” In the brighter light of the store, the dress shimmers and the fringe changes from green to blue, depending on how the light hits it, kind of like Blake’s eyes.

  “Totally you.” Caitlyn is beaming as much for me as she was for herself. “Try the headband.” She hands me a green sequined headband with a peacock feather in the back.

  I put it on and smile at my reflection in the mirror. I feel pretty again, sexy even, but most of all, free. I shake my shoulders in a little shimmy, to make the fringe sparkle, just because it feels good.

  Mel looks at me critically. “Fishnet stockings, green heels, a long necklace, and you’re set. I have a cool pinstriped suit with a white-on-black tie and a black fedora that your date could wear.”

  “So you’re good, right?” Caitlyn says.

  “Yeah.” I run my hands down my arms again.

  “Go change.” She gives me a little shove toward the dressing room. “I’m ready for lunch.”

  I’m reluctant to take off the dress. It feels so good. I still haven’t changed when Caitlyn pokes her head in. She hands me a fuzzy blue wrap. “Mel told me if you’re worried about being cold you could wear this, but hurry up.”

  I take the wrap from her and slide it over my shoulders.

  “Let me see the dress without that sweater.” He reaches across the seat and tugs at the sleeve playfully. He’s in a good mood, excited about his surprise.

  “I’m cold.” I pull away. I’m never sure how he’ll react to seeing the evidence of what he does to me. Sometimes it makes him remorseful, but just as often it makes him mad, like it was my fault. “Where are we going?” I concentrate on making sure I have the right level of excitement in my voice and snuggle up against him. “C’mon, tell me.”

  “You’ll just have to be patient.” His eyes sparkle, even in the dim light of the truck. He grips the steering wheel with one hand and puts his arm around me with the other, pressing into the bruise on my shoulder.

  Dread pours into my stomach. He’s been planning my birthday surprise for weeks. Dropping hints and telling everyone. What happens if I don’t come up with the reaction he’s expecting?

  My stomach tightens with the memory of living in the uncertainty of Trip’s emotions. Always feeling like I was walking on the edge of a cliff.

  Cliff.

  In my memory we were driving up the road toward the cliff. But why?

  “Are you still in there?” Caitlyn shakes the curtain.

  What if we weren’t going to the cliff? What if he was taking me somewhere else, somewhere beyond the cliff?

  “Allie?”

  I keep thinking about it while I get dressed. Trip hadn’t taken me to the meadow for ages. Why would he take me there the night of the dance?

  “You need to do something about your hair.” Mel’s voice slams into me as soon as I step out of the dressing room.

  “What?” I reach up and adjust the scarf over my head.

  Mel puts her hand on her hip. “Your hair would look better if it weren’t so shaggy.”

  I duck my head and step away. “I’ve been trying to grow it out.”

  “Allie used to have the most beautiful hair,” Caitlyn says. “Down to the middle of her back. Andrew showed me pictures.”

  “Well, right now it just looks bad.” Mel’s words sting, like they were coming from Mom, or even Trip. “You should let me cut it.”

  I try to adjust the scarf so it covers my hair better. I want to cry. When I put on the dress, for the first time in forever, I liked what I saw, and now Mel is telling me how ugly I am.

  “Ooo, let her cut it.” Caitlyn is almost clapping her hands. “Mel is great with hair and makeup. Sometimes she helps Dad out.”

  I have to look up to make sure I heard her right. I can’t imagine sophisticated Mel working on dead people.

  “I have an idea.” Mel pulls off the scarf before I can stop her. She ruffles my hair like she’s evaluating it. “But you’ll have to trust me.”

  “I don’t know.” I try to smooth it over the scar.

  “You need to cut it.” Mel’s voice is almost commanding. “Anything is better than what you have now.” She walks over and puts a BE BACK IN AN HOUR sign over the door. “We can go to my apartment.”

  “Now?” Caitlyn asks. “I’m starving.”

  Mel rolls her eyes, but she gestures to her purse. “We’ll get takeout on the way. I’ll buy.”

  Before I have a chance to back out, I’m sitting in the middle of Mel’s tiny but tastefully decorated kitchen with wet hair, wearing a plastic drape, while Caitlyn texts Andrew and eats Chinese food.

  I cringe at every snip and rub the tigereye under the drape. Mel works fast, not even hesitating when she pulls the comb over the scar on the back of my head. When she’s done with the scissors, she runs some kind of gel through my hair and fluffs it with a cold hair dryer. She pronounces me done and Caitlyn brings over a mirror.

  I gasp at the reflection. My hair is shorter than it’s ever been, even shorter than it was after the accident. It’s so short that the ends turn up in little curls.

  “Wow, you look like Andrew. I love it.” Caitlyn hugs my head.

  I touch the curls to make sure they’re mine. Then I run my fingers through what’s left. I wonder what Blake is going to say.

  “I could help you with makeup.” Mel studies my face. “I have something that would cover your scar, so you’d hardly know it was there.”

  I touch the ridges over my eye. “Okay.”

  Caitlyn and I go into the bathroom while Mel retrieves what looks like a silver tackle box. Inside are jars and tubes and rows of every color makeup possible. Mel mixes a couple of thick foundations on her wrist, holds it up to my forehead, mixes some more, and then starts smoothing the mixture over my eye. She puts foundation over my whole face, and then brushes it with powder. She adds eyeliner, mascara, and a light pink lip gloss before she turns me around to look.

  It looks like someone else staring back at me. But it is me—only I look like a younger, more innocent me. Like the picture Mom has in the living room of me with fluffy blond hai
r and a little blue sundress, or the picture that Blake painted. I touch the place over my eye. I can feel the scar, but in the mirror, it’s gone. It looks natural, not like what Mom tried to do, and my face doesn’t feel like plastic.

  I want to cry with joy or relief, or what, I’m not sure. Caitlyn hugs my head again and beams at me.

  “I could show you how to do that, if you like,” Mel says. When she smiles I realize that she does look like Caitlyn.

  I smile back. “Thanks, that would be great.” For the first time in a long time I feel beautiful.

  Chapter

  34

  My hands tremble as I try to duplicate what Mel did with my hair. I’ve already given up on covering the scar, I’m too nervous I’d make it look worse. Twice I put on a hat, then a scarf, and then took them off again.

  Dad loves my haircut. Mom thinks it’s “nice, but weren’t you trying to grow it out?” Andrew says we finally look like twins.

  Blake hasn’t seen me yet. I’m almost as worried about his response to my hair as I am about my meeting with Detective Weeks later today.

  I’m ready when he comes to get me for school, but I linger in my bedroom, listening to him talk car stuff with Dad. The El Camino is running okay, but Dad says there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. He’s helping Blake through the repairs, not charging him for them.

  “Allie, you’re going to make Blake late,” Dad yells through my door.

  I come out holding my breath. Blake takes my backpack and says, “Hey, ready to go?”

  “Sure.” I study his face, looking for a reaction, but he walks away.

  He doesn’t say anything the whole way to school. Hardly looks at me, even. As we wait to turn into the parking lot I’m thinking he hates it, he hates it, he hates it with every ding of his turn signal. Suddenly I don’t feel beautiful anymore. My head feels too bare without my hat. My scar feels too exposed. If only I’d been able to do the makeup the way Mel did.

  I stay in the car when Blake gets out, trying not to cry. I’m waiting for him to yell at me for cutting my hair, to tell me how much he hates it, to tell me that I look like a freak, to tell me how ugly I am.

  He opens the door for me and I turn my legs around and step down, but I can’t make myself stand up. I stare at the gravel that covers the parking lot and rub the stone in my pocket. “I’m sorry,” I finally say.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry for what?”

  “It’s just hair.” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. “It will grow back.”

  He squats down in the gravel in front of me. “Allie, what are you talking about?”

  “My hair.” Tears burn behind my eyelids. “I’m sorry I cut it. Caitlyn’s sister just—”

  He laughs, which makes me feel worse. Then he stops. “You think I don’t like your hair?”

  I look up, but instead of facing him, I look over his shoulder to a group of freshman girls, including Kasey. They’re watching us. Don’t make a scene. “It’s okay if you hate it,” I whisper.

  “Hate it?” Now he looks worried. He rubs his neck. “Allie, I … actually … I mean I’m sorry. I didn’t even notice you cut it until just now.”

  I stare back at him, shocked. “You didn’t even notice?”

  He clears his throat. “I was thinking about my car and the dance meeting today. I’m sorry, I just—”

  “So you don’t hate it?”

  He takes both my hands and pulls me to my feet. “You’re beautiful with short hair and beautiful with long hair. You’d be beautiful bald.” Someone behind us snickers. “In fact …” He slides his fingers through my hair and cups the scar on the back of my head. I look in his eyes and they go tender. “You are the most beautiful, incredible, amazing girl I’ve ever met.”

  He pulls me toward him and our lips touch for the first time since the day in the cave. The freshmen snicker again. A few seconds into his kiss, I stop caring who’s watching.

  He pulls away. “Better?”

  I can’t speak so I nod.

  He presses his forehead against mine. “Anytime you need that, you know—”

  Someone behind Blake catches my eye. James is leaning against his car watching us. I stare back at him hard. I’m tired of being afraid. I turn my lips toward Blake’s ear. “I’ll probably need a lot of those.” For a second, even my interview with Detective Weeks doesn’t seem so bad.

  Chapter

  35

  My dad picks me up after school and goes with me to Detective Weeks’s office a second time. They exchange pleasantries.

  “Just looking for some basic information and clarification. You can certainly wait until she has a lawyer present if that would make you more comfortable, but she isn’t being accused of anything.” This from Detective Weeks.

  Dad glances over at me, maybe a little longer than he should. Is he wondering if I’ll need a lawyer? Finally he says, “No. It’s fine. We intend to cooperate fully. We want you to find out who’s harassing Allie with those notes.” He looks at Detective Weeks hard, like he’s giving him an order. They shake hands again. He turns to me and touches my shoulder. “I’m going to walk back to the shop. You can pick me up there at six.”

  Detective Weeks’s office is still pretty bare. A couple of books and maybe a new box or two are on the shelf. It still doesn’t look like he expects to make Pacific Cliffs a permanent home.

  He re-explains what he told Dad about information and clarification, and lawyer, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m about to be interrogated, especially when he turns on a little recorder and says the date and has me say and spell my name.

  Then he gets down to business. It’s almost a relief. “I want you to tell me anything you remember about the night Trip Phillips died.”

  “I don’t remember anything.” I touch the tigereye, then squeeze my hands together in my lap.

  “Nothing before the dance or getting ready?”

  “Get out of the way, Andrew. I have to get my purse. I have to go.”

  “Don’t go. Stay with me. It’s our birthday.”

  “You don’t understand. I want to. I just can’t, okay. Trip would be furious. He’s been planning tonight forever.”

  I clench my hands, remembering how hard Andrew tried to get me to stay home that night. It feels like something I shouldn’t tell Detective Weeks so I say, “No, sir.”

  He leans toward the tape recorder. “It should be noted that Miss Davis is suffering from memory loss due to injuries sustained in the accident that killed Trip Phillips.” He riffles through some notes. I brace myself for something bad. “The cotillion fell on the night of your eighteenth birthday, correct?”

  I nod. He gestures to the tape recorder, so I say, “Yes,” in a voice more mechanical than Andrew’s communicator.

  “You attended the dance with Trip Phillips, who died in a car accident later that night.”

  It’s not a question but I answer, “Yes.”

  “What were you and the deceased Mr. Phillips’s plans after the dance?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “According to the report, your mother said you were supposed to come straight home after the dance, that you had been grounded?”

  “Mom said you have to come home right after the dance. No exceptions.”

  “I will, if I can.”

  “Promise me. Straight home.”

  “I guess so.” I shake my head to clear the voices that are flooding my brain. He raises his eyebrows. “Yes,” I say into the recorder.

  “Do you remember why you were grounded?”

  “You’re lucky I’m letting you go to the dance. Your dad said absolutely not.”

  “I snuck out of the house.”

  “To do what?”

  I take a breath. I have to remember something or he’ll get suspicious. “To pull Trip out of the mud. He and his friends went four-wheeling and got stuck. You can ask James and Randall. They were there.” If he did ask James and Randall, I wo
nder what they would tell him.

  “Where were you and Trip Phillips heading after cotillion that took you up the cliff road?”

  “Just a short drive. So we can be alone. So I can give you your birthday present. Your mom will never know. It’s not like the spaz is going to tell on us.”

  Trip’s face floods the space behind my eyes, and his voice, not coaxing, just sure, so sure, that I would go wherever he told me to go. Do whatever he asked me to do. Why was he taking me to the meadow?

  “He wanted to be alone so he could give me my birthday present,” I answer.

  Detective Weeks looks surprised that I actually answered. “Do you remember what that present was?”

  Something else works its way forward.

  “I want you to wear it. Forever.”

  “No!” I realize I answered the voice in my memory, not his question. Detective Weeks pauses like he’s analyzing my outburst. I push back against the voices, sweat sliding down my back. “I mean, no, sir, I don’t remember.”

  He shakes his head and continues. “Was Trip Phillips drinking the night of cotillion?”

  I breathe in. Here’s my chance to make it all go away, to tell him that Trip was drunk, but I answer, “I don’t remember.”

  He leans back. The scar above my eye pulses with every heartbeat, but I don’t dare move my hand to rub my head. “So you maintain that you remember nothing about the accident that killed Trip Phillips?”

  “No … I mean”—scrape the tigereye for little flecks of courage—“yes. I don’t remember anything.” Nothing that doesn’t incriminate me.

  “Let’s try something else. What can you tell me about Blake Evans?”

  I force the swirls in my head to stop. “Blake?”

  “Yes, Blake Evans. You were with him the night I pulled him over for a speeding infraction on November fifth of this year, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what is your relationship with Mr. Evans now?”

  I pause, but this isn’t something I can lie about. “Blake is my boyfriend.”

  “So you two are romantically involved?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long has that been going on?”