Rose of No Man's Land

by Michelle Tea

  Oh! Kristy bit down on her bottom lip in pure joy, like the sight of me was so intense it pushed her to self-cannibalism. Her front tooth scraped off a bit of fruity lip gloss. She licked it away and smiled. She rubbed her lips together, smearing more gloss over the little crater the tooth had left. She smacked them together with a suction-cup sound and squealed. You look great! Great! I have big feelings, Patricia. Big, lucky feelings. She grabbed my hand and led me in the direction of the side entrance. The many neon bulbs of the sign were no match for the relentless sun above. The sun sucked away all the shine of the lights, blasted everything out with its glare. But I knew they were glowing underneath all the summertime, and when the sun fell down later the lights would rise like a bunch of red moons in the sky above the mall.

  Eight

  Bernice O’Leary ruled Ohmigod! Kristy led me into the store, pointing out the manager like we were in the forest trying to spot deer. There she is! Kristy whispered, like we could startle her and cause her to dash off into the communal dressing room. She was partially obscured by a freestanding jewelry rack holding Ohmigod! jewelry. She had at her feet a cardboard box full of plastic-wrapped fake-pearl necklaces from China, and was tearing into bag after bag with the jagged corner of a box cutter and lifting the necklaces into the air like midwifing a child. She held the necklaces so gently, gazed at the shiny plastic beads, and her breath fluttered the fat sateen ribbons meant to bow around a girl’s neck. One by one, slowly, she hung the necklaces onto the hooks in the rack. She draped them over the prongs and straightened them neatly. Also at her feet was a wire basket she tossed the old, unsold spring jewelry into, carelessly, meanly, like she was pissed at the cheap rhinestone necklaces, the hemp chokers, and faux-bronze crucifixes for being such failures. The chains dashed and twined against each other in the basket, earrings were separated from their partners, plastic disks cracked, paint chipped cheaply from metal. Teensy backings for pairs of iridescent fake-crystal studs were knocked from their posts and rolled out the gaps in the basket’s weave. Bernice was all decked out in Ohmigod! clothes — the capri pants and metallic belt, the sparkly shirt, a pair of fuchsia earrings shaped like stars swinging out from her hair on silver chains. She had the clothes, but somehow, she didn’t have the look. Maybe it was because Ohmigod! caters to seventeen-year-olds and Bernice had to be at least thirty. But I think it was more than that. Bernice O’Leary had put the bright clothes onto her round body the way a worker puts on a unifrom. If she was working at Dark Subject she’d be wrapped in a cobweb with bats flung from her earlobes. She might as well have been wearing a smock. I wondered what Bernice wore on her days off. If all this glitz looked fake on her, I tried to imagine what looked real. All I could come up with were sweatpants.

  I watched Bernice at work. The curves of her cheeks were red, like she’d been in the cold or had recently been slapped. She was totally engrossed, practically hypnotized by the pearlescent sheen of the baubles. I could really understand why Ohmigod! has such a huge shoplifting rate. I felt like I could have grabbed an entire rack of rainbow terry cloth rompers and strolled cooly out of the store, never distracting Bernice from her love affair with the beads. But I was wrong. My hand slunk up to rub the soft terry cloth nubs and tinkle the silver zipper and wham, up shot Bernice’s head, like she had some sort of sick sixth sense reserved for retail managers at busy malls. She arranged her face in an interesting combo of welcoming smile and suspiciously squinting eyeballs. Hel-lo, she said to me, clanking a fistful of necklaces in greeting.

  Bernice O’Leary, Bernice O’Leary, Kristy singsonged, her voice like a Disney princess, dripping flower petals and plump, chirping birds. Bernice swung her focus over to my sweetly smiling sister.

  Oh, Kristy! Oh, I’d been hoping to see you around here, girl! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now that your cosmo shop is all closed up for the summer! Look at this! She brought her fingers up to her bangs, which were fringing into her eyes. I shoulda had you go shorter with these. They’ve been making me crazy!

  Well, you are so lucky I’m here then! Kristy beamed. And, I’ll be working at Jungle Unisex starting next week!

  Oh. Bernice’s smile fell a bit, but then she propped it up with some reinforcements. Well, good for you. I guess that’s what ya went to school for, huh? She layered the beads, now extra shiny with a scrim of Bernice O’Leary palm sweat, onto an empty hook.

  Well, I can’t cut in a shop ’til I take my boards, so I’ll be just doing shampoos and sweeping up over there ’til I pass. But maybe I can bring my shears by the store after you close up or something?

  Rattle, rattle. Bernice’s happy fists shook a new handful of jewelry. Oh, you’re the best, girl! I’m so glad, oh my god, these bangs are about to put my eyes out, you know? And I could come see you at Jungle, I could, but I don’t like that place so much. No offense. The girls are bitches over there. They gave my mother a perm that burnt her scalp, swear to god. I tell her to go to the Voke, but she doesn’t listen. She doesn’t want kids working on her. Bernice shrugged.

  It’s temporary anyway. I’m trying to get on The Real World.

  Yeah? How’s that coming?

  Good, good, real good, Kristy shuffled and flipped her hair. She took a breath and plunged into a vat of lies. So Bernice, I was wondering, how’s Kim doing? And, how are you doing too? It must be wicked hard, being so close with someone who does something like that. And now you got one less girl working here, and school’s out and there must be a ton of shoplifting to worry about…Kristy’s eyes went doe-y, all green mush. They seemed as compelling to Bernice as the baubles she’d been stacking. She stared at my sister, her face went sort of slack and then her blotchy red cheeks rippled with a quiver of sadness. I thought, great, fucking Bernice O’Leary is going to cry. I just didn’t feel like I was close enough with the woman to witness something so intimate. And there’s Kristy, drawing it out of her like a slow poison.

  Oh. Bernice’s “Oh” was a gasp of air, a shaky, verbal shrug. She peered at my sister from behind the thin curtain of bangs. Oh, it’s hard, sure, she nodded. Kim, she’s like my little sister here, you know? Such a hard worker too. You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s true. And she brought in a lot of business. It’s just dead without her. Oh — this “Oh” was a fishy, shamed gasp at having used the word “dead” in conjunction with Kim Porciatti. A fierce flush flooded her round cheeks and a drip of cry spilled over one of the eyes, and was quickly sopped up by her hair. Kristy was nodding a therapist’s nod, melodramatically concerned. She took a deep breath, and then, as if just remembering me, spun around and pushed me toward the weeping manager.

  Bernice, do you know my sister, Patricia?

  Oh, no, girl, I didn’t know you had a sister! Older or younger?

  Younger, Kristy purred, and patted a strand of hair above my ear like I was a little doll.

  Oh, that’s sweet! You’re lucky, Bernice nodded at me. Kristy’s a good kid. What a great big sister she must be, huh? I nodded my head dumbly. My outfit was draining my IQ.

  Patricia was close with Kim. IS close with Kim. This has been wicked hard on her too.

  Oh — Bernice’s neck bent out, giraffelike, toward me. Oh, no. Have you seen her? Will you tell her to please call me — when she can! No rush, no rush. It’s just that, she hasn’t called at all, you know, and I don’t want to replace her. She laughed. Who could replace Kim? Right? But I need to know when she’s coming back. And how she is, just any word from her would be good. Do you know…why? She did it?

  Uh…I stammered. Fucking Kristy did not even tell me the extent of the untruth she had planned. What a total scam the job-getting activity would be. You think she would have briefed me on it. I mean, what if I just turned around and said, Kristy, Why Are You Such A Rotten Lying Liar? Why Are You Lying About A Suicide Victim? Why Are You So Evil? But Kristy was my sister, knew me well, had banked, correctly, on the fact that I would be too frozen in fear to protest the ecosystem of lies springing up around me.
I would be paralyzed and easily maneuvered.

  Oh, that’s tacky, huh? Bernice seemed embarrassed. I’m sorry. Patricia. She looked at me close. Have we met before? Have you come in here with Katie and Yolanda? She meant Katie Adrienzen and Yolanda Peters. Katie was Kim’s best friend, they were like a famous friend-couple, always together, dressing in complementary outfits, sort of looking-glass doubles of each other. Katie was dark where Kim was blond, she was already filled with curves, I mean boobs, while Kim was skinny like a lanky supermodel, her chest concave in a way that looked glamorous, not undeveloped. Yolanda was a couple years younger than Kim and was being groomed by Kim to be, like, the next Kim. She was mini-Kim. It was pathetic. I nodded.

  Yeah, I Think I’ve Been In Here With Them, I mumbled.

  Kristy whapped my arm with her clutch purse. Of course you’ve been in here! It’s only your favorite store! She turned her smile to Bernice. She’s nervous to be meeting you. Ohmigod! means a lot to her, and she’s still freaked out over Kim and all…

  Sure, sure.

  But anyway, I was thinking — why doesn’t Patricia here help you out while you’re waiting for Kim to come back? I mean, I’m sure if you had to replace her, temporarily, Kim would want one of her friends to take her place. And I know it would be Patricia’s dream to work here, right Sis? She’s shy! But, she’s a great worker. Loves fashion. And is sooo motivated!

  You look like you love fashion, you do, Bernice mused, nodding her head.

  It took every mental muscle in Kristy’s brain for her to not blurt and take credit for the giant hoax of my outfit. I saw her struggle with it, her mouth tense.

  You really want to work here? Bernice asked. She kept blowing upward gusts of breath to knock her hair from her eyes. She peered at me hopefully from behind her outgrown hairdo. I couldn’t believe it. It was too easy. My sister was a genius, a dark genius.

  Who Doesn’t? I gushed.

  It’s true, Bernice said, This is the most popular shop in the mall. That poor thing Debbie who works over at Dark Subject has been trying to get hired here since Christmas. Those freaks have been making her crazy. Did you know the lady who manages the place got her teeth filed down to look like vampire fangs?

  Oh my god, Kristy said in that deep, gossipy shit-talking voice.

  Honest to god. A dentist did it. Can you imagine? He should get his license revoked. I mean, isn’t that illegal? As a cosmetologist, what would you do if someone came to you and asked you to make them look like a circus freak?

  I’d tell them to go see a psychiatrist! Kristy said.

  Bernice O’Leary sighed then, in the grip of a moral dilemma. Her bangs shagged limply, she allowed them to curtain her vision. She looked down at the mess of jewelry at her feet. I did promise Debbie the next opening…

  But it’s not really an opening, Kristy reminded her.

  It’s not really an opening, Bernice agreed.

  It’s for Kim, Kristy said gently. And you.

  It is, Bernice nodded. She looked at me. I tried to make my eyes go round like Kristy’s when she’s trying to be extra sincere, but they felt only bulgy and I think I alarmed Bernice. Don’t cry! she gasped, reaching out and touching the bare skin of my arm. I shrank back. I know this is hard, Bernice said. Suicide, god! Who commits suicide in this day and age, when there’s so much help available? I mean, we got medicines now…She took a firm breath. Come in on Monday, all right, girl? I really do need the help.

  Nine

  Family time! Ma hollered from the couch in a cartoony-sweet voice. It was the voice that gave birth to Kristy’s saccharine singsong. Family time! There was real glee in Ma’s voice, I heard it as I rounded the kitchen and entered the living room, the room with the shades perpetually drawn so there wasn’t glare on the television, the room with the spotty beige wallpaper and the scuffed-up wooden floor and the couch — the fat and battered and stained and slightly funky-smelling most important piece of furniture in our house. Ma was stretched out on it like always but she was literally stretching, her whole body pulled taut like a cat, her muscles vibrating with the pull, and when she relaxed she did not fall back into her usual fetal curl before the TV. She shook herself out and propped up straight. I remember when I was smaller, when I would see Ma pop out of her ennui like that, a bright smile and a slight gust of energy. I would feel a real swell of hope in my heart. I would think: she’s better. Her face would be rosy, and instead of a brow cramping with the weight of possible illness, instead of the general downward cast her face took beneath the unfathomable heaviness of all that can befall a body, she’d have a simple, innocent smile on her face. Not a big grin, nothing manic, just a sweet openness. It felt like she was waking up from a long, dark dream of illness and mental nuttiness. It seemed possible in those moments to start over again, as a family. Not get our dad back — I wasn’t too interested in having some strung-out stranger joining us. What I wanted was the three of us — me, Ma, and Kristy — starting off on a new foot, a more hopeful spring in our step. But they didn’t last long, these bursts of attention and openness. Eventually I came to identify them as moods, nothing more than a swing in a new direction. Mood swings. It’s weird that these little moments that had led me to believe that Ma was maybe better were ultimately what brought me to the conclusion that she is hopeless. Even her bursts of cheer are symptoms of her mental illness. Nothing about Ma is well, and still I can’t help it. When she snaps out of it for a second I like to be there. It stabs that little place in my heart that wants a real normal Ma so bad, I can’t stop myself from sitting before her like a dumb puppy-daughter sucking up her smiles and her interest. So I did; I wandered into the room and there she was, flushed and beaming. Who knows, maybe her and Donnie got it on while we were at the mall and she’s blissed out on some gross sex wave. Best to avoid the couch just in case. I sat down on the edge of the coffee table, shoving over a small pizza box containing half a congealed pizza, the cheese run onto the cardboard and dried there thick as wax. It still smelled good, though. I hadn’t eaten anything yet. Kristy wouldn’t let me eat at the mall because she was certain I would spill greasy food onto my borrowed finery and, honestly, I’m such a slob I couldn’t really make a convincing case in favor of taking the chance.

  On the ride home in the Maverick I enjoyed the way the open window tore at the hairdo. The hairdo had done its job and could now be dismantled. I enjoyed the feeling of it wobbling in the breeze, and I enjoyed the way my life suddenly felt cracked a bit more open. I guess I had something to look forward to, something new, something novel. It was pretty wild that me of all people was now going to work at Ohmigod! I was going to have to somehow continue the enormous lie that got me hired, but I had just started thinking about my life in terms of movies, you know? And this seemed like a real cinematic turn. Kristy was too proud of her bullshitting abilities to do anything human like check in with me and make sure it was okay that she had just scammed me a job atop a hill of deep falsehoods, so we buzzed home in silence, the wind creating a whirl of ash that made the car feel like the inside of a souvenir snowglobe. Once we pulled up to the curb on Lincoln Street I was out of the Maverick and rocketed into my room, the shabby house trembling under my supersized flip-flops. Out came the evil bobby pins. I examined their nubby tips for specks of dried blood because I swear Kristy had secured them to the actual tender skin of my scalp, it had hurt so bad. But the small, crimped pins were bloodless. My hands probed the mysterious updo, digging out pin after pin, all buried beneath the tacky twist of hair. There seemed no end of pins to be found there. They accumulated on my dresser, snagged with dry strands of damaged hair. When I finally had retrieved them all I shook my head like a dog shaking off wet, in hopes that my hair would flutter back down to normal, but no. It stuck out all over the place, bent and sticky. I looked like a madperson on a TV show, with the kind of hair they put on someone to demonstrate insanity. In the bathroom I flushed the makeup off my face with some palmfuls of tap water, and I peeled off the ruf
fly and revealing high-fashion clothing, pulled on some sweats, and dug Ma’s old Weight Watcher’s T-shirt out from the ball of sheets on my bed. Better, normal. My own normal, since Kristy and her kind would insist that it’s not so normal for a fourteen-year-old American female to lounge around in sweats without a friend in sight, no gang of girls dying to slumber party at my crappy house, sticking each others’ bras in the freezer or whatever weird-ass things girls do when they stay up all night together, getting wigged out on sleep deprivation and making out with pillows. No gang of girls, and, if I may be honest, no boys either, as in, I could give a crap. I’m seriously not interested. And I know that is seriously abnormal, but I’m not going to lie. I’m not so good at lying. Which makes me a little anxious in regard to my new employment at Ohmigod!, since it does seem like my primary job requirement is to be an ace number-one bullshitter, so I better get good at it quick. I better learn how to properly sashay in a pair of platform flip-flops. I better learn how to be a girl.

  Ma hollered her Family time! cry from the living room and I put the brain-twister aside and went to spend a bit of bright-time on the couch with her.

  Ma, I Got A Job, I started. Oh yeah? she asked, part happy, part skeptical. The skeptical part is always there — it’s the part trying to sniff out the potential disease or festering bacteria in any individual or location or concept. I’ve learned not to take the skeptical tones personally. Yeah, I’m Working At The Mall Now, At A Clothes Store. Ma squinted her glittery green eyes at me, like shards of beer bottle glass. So you and Kristy, both working at the mall, huh? I nodded my head. The salty-grease stink wafting up from the pizza box was starting to really get to me. I hooked my fingers into the crust of a triangle and wrenched it from the cardboard. Women of the world, my daughters, she said with a smile. She said, You two don’t take after me, that’s for sure. You must take after your father. He didn’t have any problem just going out into the world, did he? Clearly he didn’t. I bit into the tip of my pizza. Extra cheese. My teeth really sunk into the thick mass, yum, it was excellent. I love cold pizza. I love it better cold than hot. I was ignoring Ma because she was being what they call passive-aggressive with that comment. Like me getting a job is the equivalent of abandoning the family and running away to Louisiana to get high in a swamp like our dad did. That’s Ma, though. One hand is petting your head while the other’s giving you a pinch. What’s up with your hair? she asked.