Lipstick Apology

by Jennifer Jabaley

  We stopped at a light and I nodded absently while trying to decipher if the price tag on the cotton kimono pajamas in the children’s store window really did say $160.

  “Now when you go to school,” Jolie continued, “you’ll continue for another few blocks, then turn left at the pizza place.”

  I knew full well that I could never retrace our path without a map. “Oh, sure.” I faked confidence as we crossed a cobblestone square. We made a few more turns and arrived at the spa.

  “Welcome,” a breathy woman dressed in white purred from behind a glass desk. “Welcome to our center for beauty synergy.” She smiled at Jolie. “Ah. Miss Jane, nice to see you again. I see you’ve scheduled two body harmonies and two signature pedicures. Wonderful selections.” She tapped on the keyboard, then peered over her rhinestone glasses. “With tax that brings your total to seven oh-five.”

  Seven hundred and five . . . DOLLARS?

  Without a note of hesitation, Jolie opened her wallet and slapped a platinum credit card on the desk.

  I remembered a few years ago when Mom decided to throw a surprise birthday party for Dad. She went all out buying thick slabs of filet mignon, imported cheeses, and vintage wines. When the bills came in, Dad bellowed, Six hundred dollars at Costco? What? Did they slaughter and butcher the cows while you waited? You must REALLY love me, he’d joked, his anger passing over as he pulled my mom into a big embrace. And that was six hundred dollars—and it fed a whole party. I wondered what Dad would think about Jolie spending seven hundred and five dollars to primp before school?

  “Thank you, Miss Jane,” the breathy lady said. “You both may proceed to the women’s locker room, where your aestheticians will greet you and discuss your skin care goals.”

  Goals? How about a goal of getting out of here?

  We walked into the locker room and were greeted by two women identically dressed in white button-down smocks. A petite woman took my elbow and steered me toward a bench at the far end of the room. Jolie and a redhead disappeared around a hall lined with trickling fountains, giggling and talking about some guy named Sven.

  My heart started to flutter. Where was Jolie going? I couldn’t do this alone. All this spa stuff was foreign to me. The closest I’d ever come to a spa was when Coach Callihan massaged a charley horse in my calf during tennis semifinals last year.

  “My name is Ming,” the woman said. She reached over, opened a locker, and placed its contents on the bench in front of me. “We provide robes, slippers, and wraps. Please undress and I’ll return momentarily to begin your procedures.”

  Procedures? Why did this sound like I was getting a gallbladder removal or something equally horrific? I stared at the bundle of garments and my head started to spin. Do I wear the robe or the wrap? Or somehow both? What am I doing here? I don’t belong at this fancy place in the middle of this city with its billions of people. I just want to go back to Pennsylvania, curl up on the couch, and watch the E! channel for another three months. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready for anything. Not for school, not for spas—nothing.

  Aside from the drive to New York, I hadn’t been outside. At all. Not since the day after the accident, when I ingested six double-chocolate donuts, propelled myself off the sofa, and decided to confront the paparazzi. I had walked out my front door, my hair sticking up in points like the Statue of Liberty, smears of chocolate icing on my lips. Squinting into the flashing cameras, I told the reporters, “My mother’s last words are a mystery to me.”

  Three days later, Georgia had bounded through the door with a copy of People. I was on the cover clad in my heart-p attern pajamas, with no bra on (who knew an A cup could sag?) and no signs of airbrushing. One look at that sad display and I had buried my head in the pillows and didn’t set foot on the front porch again for three months.

  How was it that Jolie thought my first venture back into society should be at a fancy spa? There was too much exposure, too much vulnerability.

  I was half naked, bent over with my head in my hands when Ming returned to find me in full-on panic mode, taking deep breaths.

  I felt her cool fingers on my shoulder and looked up, dazed. Ming’s angular face softened. She helped me ease out of my top and wrapped the robe around me. Then, as fast as her kindness came, it was gone and she was back to business. She turned and walked toward the door. She paused and said, “Are you coming?”

  After ninety minutes of being poked at, scrubbed, scalded, wrapped, and soaked, Jolie and I were finally reunited in the Pedicure Parlor, where we were seated on an elevated bench.

  “Take off your shoes, please,” the nail technician said to me.

  Jolie plunked her feet into the tiled sink filled with sudsy water.

  “Um.” I panicked. “My feet are a little . . .”

  “We see it all,” the technician snapped, and reached for my slippers. In a flash, my feet were plunged into the water. I let the bubble suds foam up and hide my toes.

  Jolie looked over at me, her face serious. “You know, after almost two hours of meditation, I’ve had an epiphany.”

  Here it comes, I thought. The sermon about life and death, family and moving on, accepting new roles and new directions . . . I inhaled slowly.

  She began. “I think there comes a time in every woman’s life when miniskirts are no longer an option.” She pulled her robe up slightly and observed her thighs. “I like my legs. But still, a woman at a certain age can’t get away with creeping hemlines.”

  I looked at her. “Trent?”

  She nodded, grinning at me and rolling her eyes. It was possibly the first real smile I’d seen on her all summer. “He busted me yesterday for that blue outfit—he told me I was one pin curl away from looking like Blanche from The Golden Girls—you know, not dressing age appropriately.”

  “Blanche is like double your age,” I said.

  “Yeah, but the point is I’m not sixteen anymore.”

  “Sixteen sucks,” I said.

  Jolie smirked. “So, have you picked a color yet for your toes? Because the new night neutral from Chanel is really hot right now.”

  I thought about how Jolie’s life revolved around fashion trends and makeup and how she just assumed I would be comfortable with that too. “Okay,” I said. “That color is fine.”

  The technician came back, dried off my feet, and placed them on a towel. Did she just smirk? I clenched my fists. She pulled out two pink spongy toe dividers and began to wrestle the contraption between my toes. She definitely laughed. I will kill Jolie, I thought. But Jolie was oblivious, reading Vogue.

  After no success, the technician used scissors to cut off one of the dividers and just let my two toes stay curled into each other. My face was flaming for pretty much the entire procedure.

  When our polish was dry, we took a cab uptown. Boutique awnings fluttered along Lexington Avenue. As we pulled up in front of a store with silky nighties hanging on display and I felt the tacky nail polish stick to my socks, I knew this was round two of the day of mortification.

  Jolie opened the glass door and a ding-ding announced our arrival. A silver-haired woman dressed in a peach suit scuffled over.

  “We have an appointment for Emily to be fitted for some bras.” Jolie nodded toward me.

  Appointment? Who ever heard of making an appointment for bras?

  “Well,” the peach suit lady said. “I’m your fit specialist, and,” she pointed to a gold-plated name tag, “my name is Emily too.” She reached up for the tape measure that hung around her neck and ushered me into a fancy dressing room decked out with velvet chairs and a large framed mirror. Jolie went off to browse.

  Emily Too closed the door and turned to me. “So, what did you have in mind, honey?” After a moment of awkward silence, she asked, “Were you looking to . . . enhance?”

  I tugged at the front of my red T-shirt, unable to meet her eyes. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “Um, sure,” I said, panicking, knowing once she put that tape measure
to work, she’d see there wasn’t much to work with, let alone enhance.

  She gently lifted my arms and expertly wrapped the tape measure around my rib cage, then chest.

  “Not much calculation required, ha ha,” I said nervously.

  The lady winked at me kindly and clicked her tongue. “Be right back, hon.”

  Moments later she returned with an armload of bras. She arranged them neatly on a rack and said, “Take your time, dear. Call me if you need help.”

  I selected a bra and against all odds, it did, somehow, defy nature and give me just a smidge of cleavage. I glanced down at the price tag. Not possible. The price of sandblasting your kneecaps was nothing compared to the amazing price of cleavage.

  I sat down on the plush velvet armchair, staring at myself in the mirror. Everything was artificial, like I had literally put on someone else’s life. But as I sat there wearing nothing but a butter-soft, overpriced yellow bra, the realization dawned on me. This was my life now.

  There was a knock on my dressing room door. “Em?” Jolie’s anxious voice asked from the hall. “Do you need help? Am I supposed to come in?” She tried the locked doorknob without success. Two seconds later, Jolie squatted down and crawled under the mahogany door.

  I grabbed my shirt and covered my chest. “Jolie! What are you doing?” I shrieked.

  “I don’t know!” She put her hands up to her face. “I DON’T KNOW! Do I come in and help you with the bras? Do I give you some privacy? I have no freaking clue!” She started running her fingers through her beautiful hair with a manic gesture.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I sat back down on the oversized chair.

  Jolie took out her cell phone and pointed to it. “I just hit my speed dial to ask Jill what to do, then it hits me—SHE’S NOT HERE! I feel like someone just amputated my right arm. Then I think about you, and how she’s your mother. Your mother. And your father—gone.” She climbed up into the velvet chair next to me and I awkwardly put my arm around her.

  “It’ll be okay.” I patted her head as she wept softly and wondered why the world felt fuzzy.

  An arm reached under the door and extended a box of Kleenex without a word. Jolie reached over and took it.

  I’m not sure how long we stayed in that fitting room, but when we finally emerged and made our way to the front desk, the sun was setting, casting long shadows through the front glass windows.

  Jolie extended the yellow bra. “We’ll take this one.” She dabbed at her nose with a crumpled tissue. “Um, you know what? Just give us seven more of the same style in a variety of colors. With matching underwear.”

  After paying, Jolie hailed a cab and we hopped in, each of us staring out the greasy window into the now-darkening sky.

  SUNDAY NIGHT I stared at myself in the mirror. The transformation was amazing. A little concealer under the eyes, Jolie’s favorite berry stain on my cheeks, golden highlights around my face, compliments of Trent, and a tiny bit of cleavage. I looked like a new version of myself. A happier, prettier, more confident version. Maybe I no longer had to be the orphaned girl that everyone pitied, the zombie girl whose face was splashed across the covers of People and the regional papers because her mother left her a mysterious apology. Maybe this was my chance to try on a new life.

  chapter three

  “I CAN’T GO TO SCHOOL TODAY,” I called from the bathroom.

  Jolie popped her head in. “Why? You look great. You did your makeup just like I showed you.”

  I turned my head to the side to give her a view of the festering zit on my chin.

  “Oh,” Jolie said. “Wait a sec.” She returned a moment later with a tube in her hand. She squirted white cream on her finger and started toward my chin.

  I pushed her finger away and grabbed the tube from her. “This is hemorrhoid cream!” I yelled.

  “Just be still,” she said, dabbing it on my enormous zit. “This stuff is amazing. It decreases the swelling and reduces the redness. By the time you get to school, no one will even notice it.” She recapped the tube. “I have a team of scientists working on anti-blemish creams and nothing works as well as good old Preparation H.”

  Jolie smoothed the sleeve of my polo. “What do you need? Pencils? Erasers?”

  “It’s not first grade, Jolie.”

  “Right, okay. I’m going to walk with you to school today so you don’t get lost.”

  I imagined that first impression. “No! I mean, no thanks, Jolie. I can figure it out.”

  “I’m just worried,” Jolie said. “The West Village doesn’t follow the grid system—it can be humbling even to a seasoned New Yorker.”

  Grid system? Whatever—I had to do this alone. “I Map-Quested it. I’ll be okay.” I walked out of the apartment and tried to convince myself of just that. When it came to navigational skills, though, I had none. I almost smiled to myself, recalling the time Georgia and I tried to take the train into Philly to see a movie without telling our parents, and we ended up on the outbound line instead.

  Now as I walked on the narrow, cobblestone street, people whizzed by, staring at me, I was sure. I tried to blend in and look casual, whipping out my cell phone and pretending to text, but when the crowd stopped at the corner of 6th Avenue, I smacked into someone’s back.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, and shoved my phone away. I crossed the street. When I started seeing purple NYU flags blowing in the breeze, I fluffed my newly styled hair. Maybe people would mistake me for a college student.

  I finally saw a red brick building with a green sign that read: The Darlington School. I stood around the corner, several yards from the large glass doors, with my heart beating crazily as kids filed through without a second glance in my direction. What if everyone recognizes me from the news coverage? What if they all take pity on the hideous, grief-stricken girl whose mother left her a creepy message? I whipped out a compact mirror to reassure myself that my new looks were still intact. Maybe that would be enough to disguise me.

  I approached the double doors and walked into the lobby. The ceiling soared three stories above. I never considered my old school dull, but everything here seemed to sparkle like someone had squirted Windex over every surface. My heart fluttered in my chest. I walked up to the tall mahogany desk.

  The secretary greeted me with an overzealous smile. “We’ve been expecting you!” She handed me my schedule and said she’d show me around.

  Darlington seemed too posh to be a school, with its mahogany- lined walls, glistening clean lockers, and a fireplace in the cafeteria. As I walked into homeroom, my teacher, Mr. Woods, stood up and announced, “Class, this is Emily Carson; please give her a warm welcome.”

  The students smiled and clapped.

  Did they really just clap? I wondered what exactly Jolie had said to the school administrators. I found an empty seat and everyone resumed their conversations.

  An olive-skinned boy with dark curly hair turned around. “Hey,” he said in a husky voice.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “First day?” he asked.

  “What, you mean they don’t clap like that every day?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Right,” he said, his cheeks reddening. “Obviously.”

  I worried that I sounded like a jerk, so I smiled and asked, “What’s your first class?”

  He leaned over and glanced at my schedule. He smelled oddly sweet. “Oh, hey,” he said. “I have first-period history too. Meyers. He’s boring as hell. I’ll walk you there. You’re in my sixth-period chem class too.”

  “Cool,” I said. The bell rang and we walked together toward the door.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Anthony.”

  “I’m Emily,” I said as we walked through the crowded hallway.

  He nodded. “Right—the clapping.” He smiled.

  I am such an idiot.

  We rounded a corner. “Emily from Pennsylvania,” Anthony said.

  I spun my head around. “How did you know t
hat?” I asked. My heart raced as I recalled the never-ending news broadcasts.

  Anthony looked wide-eyed and caught off guard. He held a door open and ushered me into a seat next to him. “They told us,” he whispered.

  “What?” I said, a little too loudly, and my new history teacher looked up from his desk. He hobbled over and dumped a book and some photocopied papers onto my desk. “Miss Carson, I presume?” He panted.

  I nodded, feeling all eyes turn toward me.

  Anthony scribbled something on a piece of paper, then slid a note onto my desk. I knew you were from PA because they told us about you last week, before you came.

  Who’s they? I scrawled, and handed it back.

  Principal, VP, you know, the admin.

  Why?

  They wanted us to be sensitive to your situation.

  I was boiling. Why couldn’t everyone just leave me alone? What IS my situation????

  I waited to see what he would write. Your parents died . . . Your face was splashed across the news . . . Your mother’s creepy mystery message . . .

  He scribbled and passed me the paper. You have a tremendous body odor situation.

  I giggled.

  Mr. Meyers looked over at me, surprisingly pleased. “Thank you, Miss Carson, at least someone is paying attention to my jokes.”

  Anthony burst out laughing.

  Mr. Meyers smirked. “Don’t be a kiss-up, Mr. Rucelli.”

  My next three classes were uneventful. Then I was forced to face the most crucial element of my new school transition: the lunchroom. One wrong squat toward a seat in a geographically undesirable location could forever land me with an invisible badge of unpopularity. I didn’t want to sit in the corner with the unknowns again.

  I opened the cafeteria door and walked toward the food line near the mantel, which I discovered was not in fact a working fireplace, merely a decorative piece. The choices were overwhelming. No mystery meat and frozen pizza—this was actual food. Fresh wraps, sandwiches on rustic focaccia bread with goat cheese oozing out the sides, fruit bowls, croissants, organic-looking pasta salads. Even the potato chips were kettle-cooked. I decided on some good comfort food and got a bowl of clam chowder. I grabbed a Diet Coke and began my seat search. It was difficult to know where to sit because with everyone in the same uniform green shirts, it was impossible to decipher cliques on first viewing.