“Oh, very sweet,” Mom says.
“Um, guys, I think we need to tell her,” Claudia says to Mom and Grandma and then looks at me.
“Tell me what?” I ask.
“You know you’re not going to be, like, the makeup artist at the spa?” Claudia says. “Right?”
“Well, I know you’re hiring other people too,” I say.
“OK.” Claudia leans over and gives me a hug. “You’re the cutest, Lucy-Luce.”
People always have to say something like you’re so cute right after they break some bad news. They must think that makes them sound nicer, but it doesn’t.
I have to be allowed to do makeup, especially for my repeat customers like Kristin and Erin and Laura Gregory. That’s how we got the idea to start a spa in the first place! But there’s no point in arguing with them now. I have appointments booked for the next few weeks, so I’m just going to go ahead with them like nothing has changed. They’ll see I’m needed on their own.
“Sarabeth is really great, though,” I add.
Grandma says, “Let’s make sure to tell Anais tomorrow. We want her to know about all appointments, especially the first ones, and we want her input in everything.”
I nod.
“And we need to tell Gary too,” Grandma adds. “Lucy, remember all of this, OK?”
“OK, will do,” I say. “I’m gonna go to bed. I’m really tired.”
“Night, sweetie,” Mom says.
Claudia adds, “Night, Luce.”
When I get upstairs, I check my cell phone.
I missed three text messages since coming home from the fireworks.
Two from Sunny:
U r so weird. Why did u disappear? On your fave night of the year?
Where r u? I am worried.
And then one from Yamir:
Didn’t see u at fireworks. Skee-ball tomorrow?
I feel too tired and overwhelmed right now to respond to them. Sometimes it’s just nice to know you were missed and to relish that feeling for a few minutes before you respond and acknowledge the people who were missing you.
I should be happy that Mom and Claudia and even Grandma were excited about Sarabeth being one of the first spa customers. But even with their excitement, it still didn’t seem right. They just wanted me to make sure I told Anais and Gary. And then that whole thing about doing makeup was weird.
I feel like my emotions are a seesaw, and one minute I’m up and the next I’m down.
It’s like those videos Mrs. Eldridge made us watch in health class about our changing moods. We all laughed about it at the time, but now I’m thinking they had some truth to them.
Claudia told Anais all about the interviews, and they have decided which beauticians they want to call back for a second round and for sample procedures.
Claudia volunteered to be the tester-person, which basically means that these cosmetologists will come in and do sample procedures on her.
She’ll be getting facials, waxing, her hair done, makeup, everything.
“OK, I’ve printed up these checklists so, as the people come in, you guys can be checking off the things that they do well and the things they don’t do as well,” Anais says to Bean and me. “But I need you to be honest, OK?”
“Sure,” I respond. “But you know, I know a lot about makeup. I think I could be a good tester-person. Can I please volunteer for at least one?”
Anais pulls me closer and whispers, “Lucy, if I let you do it, then I have to let Bevin do it, and Bevin’s just not as mature as you are.” She pats me on the back. “Please understand.”
“Fine,” I groan. But I don’t really care about Bevin. Bevin should have a nanny who’s taking her to the beach and the pool every day. She’s bored at the spa. Right now she’s playing some bowling game on Bean’s iPad. She doesn’t care at all about what’s happening.
But I bet it will end up being so busy and hectic and Anais won’t even notice when I hop up in the makeup chair. I’ll find a way.
I walk over to the office to grab a Band-Aid out of the first-aid kit. These new flip-flops are cutting the skin on my toes where the rubber rubs against them.
“Well, when do you want to tell them?” I hear Mom say in the office, and then wait for Grandma’s response. Tell us what? For a family who hates lying, there seem to a million secrets spiraling around here lately.
I wait a few seconds and I still don’t hear Grandma’s voice.
“Claudia might be heading back to school by then,” Mom says. She’s on the phone. Duh. Why don’t I ever pick up on this? Probably because Mom hates talking on the phone. But she hates video-chatting even more because she says she’s never “camera-ready.”
“Because I don’t know what Claudia’s doing,” Mom goes on. “She has her own life to lead. She’s here now, but she could be gone tomorrow, for all I know. You know how it is when you’re that age. She’s free and she’s enjoying her freedom.”
Barf. I hate how it’s always Claudia this and Claudia that. She basically has no rules to follow and they’re all about “giving her space.”
“OK, well, once you finalize everything …” Mom pauses. “And I mean really finalize, then we’ll tell everyone.” Silence again. “OK, right. Very good. Yes, OK. Take care.”
Mom hangs up, and I knock on the office door, then walk in for a Band-Aid. “These flip-flops are killing me,” I say. “How long will it take for me to wear them in?”
“I don’t know, Luce,” Mom says quietly, staring at the computer. “I’m late for a meeting at the Old Mill Observer. They want to talk about the grand opening and how everything’s going. They have a special magazine section for the summer months, and I think we’re going to be the cover story!”
“That’s amazing!” I put on my Band-Aid and then wrap my arms around Mom’s neck. “That is such awesome news. Can I come?”
She swivels around in her chair. “Luce, Anais needs you here.”
I nod. Yeah, right. Everyone says everyone else needs me, but then when I think about it, I’m not sure anyone really needs me.
“Lucille!” Bevin’s running through the pharmacy screaming. “Lucille! Lucille! Where aarrreeee you?”
Fine, maybe I was wrong. One person needs me. That person is Bevin. And I really wish she didn’t.
“In here, in the office,” I call back.
“I’ve been looking all over for you. Do you want to go see that new Princess Confidential movie? My dad said I could go. It’s playing at one P.M.”
My mom’s still typing at her computer. Why can’t she say that “Anais needs me” right now?
“I need to be here, Bevin. Sorry.” I throw away the Band-Aid wrapper and leave the office. “Anais wants me to help evaluate the spa interviewees.”
She follows me. “Oh. OK.”
“Sorry. We can go see it later, maybe.”
“Really? Oh, that’s great! It’s playing tonight too!” She claps. “I’m soooo excited. I’ve seen the first three. Have you?”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that I only saw the first one and that’s because it came out when I was in fifth grade and even then it seemed really babyish.
“So do you want to go to the six o’clock showing?” she asks.
“Um.” I’m about to say yes and then I remember Yamir’s text about Skee-ball. I really, really want to go down to the beach and play Skee-ball with Yamir and maybe get Frostees after. It sounds almost like a real date.
Then I keep imagining it, and instead of getting excited about the plan, I get nervous. I get that seeping-pit-of-lava feeling in my stomach.
I can’t do that with Yamir. I like him. I really do. But being alone with him on the beach, at night, the moon shining over our heads, the sound of the waves hitting the shore …
It’s all the things I love to do, but then rolled together and combined, it’s scary. So scary that I want to run away. So scary that I’d rather go see that stupid princess movie with Bevin.
“Sure. That sounds perfect.” I smile. “The interviews should be over by five, anyway.”
“Yay!” Bevin yells, and then wraps her arms around me. “Movie buddies!”
“Yup,” I say quietly, and pull out of her hug. “I need to find Anais and Claudia now. I think I hear the first candidate coming in.”
“I’ll come too,” she says, and follows me to the spa area.
as a sort of interactive interview,” Anais tells Miranda, our first interviewee.
Miranda keeps shifting her weight from foot to foot and twirling the end of her hair. “OK, but I’m not completely familiar with these products, so would you mind just going over them with me?”
Anais scratches her forehead. “They’re pretty standard. But sure.”
Anais starts giving Miranda a tour of the spa area while explaining the products. Bean’s unpacking boxes of supplies, and it’s good to see him making himself useful. Bevin and I are just standing around because we need to observe this spa treatment that Miranda’s going to do on Claudia. The longer I stand, the more nervous I get. This Miranda girl could have absolutely no idea what she’s doing, and she’s going to start treatments on my sister. If she doesn’t know to shake out the towel, Claudia could have third-degree burns on her face! If she leaves the cold cream on too long, Claudia’s face will completely break out. So many things could go wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing.
My mind immediately jumps to Courtney Adner and the hair trauma she had on homecoming, and how I felt so awesome the day I helped her fix her hair. I haven’t seen Courtney around lately. I think she works as a counselor at summer camp. She was here toiletry shopping a few weeks ago. She spent forever in the pharmacy picking out what she needed. She said toiletries are her favorite thing to shop for, and I totally understood that.
“OK, we’re ready,” Anais says, a little out of breath, brushing her wispy curls away from her face. “Miranda, you’ll be working on Claudia here.” Anais puts a hand on Claudia’s shoulder and Claudia smiles from ear to ear like she’s some kind of model.
“What should I do?” I whisper in Anais’s ear.
She looks down at her papers. “You’ll be evaluating, Lucy, like I said before.” For the first time, Anais sounds annoyed with me. “Here, Bevin, you take an evaluation sheet too.” Anais rolls over the two office chairs and guides us to sit down.
I’ve never felt so useless in my whole entire life. Bevin doesn’t know anything about these treatments, and so if she and I are filling out the same forms, those forms can’t be important. Anais doesn’t really need us evaluating. I bet my grandma said I need to be included, and so she found something harmless for me to do.
I shouldn’t have insisted on this. Grandma and Mom said I could go to art camp at Connecticut College. They said I’d be busy with that and swimming and everything, but I told them I wanted to be around the spa as much as possible and spend as much time with Claudia as possible.
Yeah, right. It was all a mistake.
I uncap my roller-ball pen; at least Anais isn’t forcing us to use golf pencils or something. That would make the situation way worse. I write Miranda’s name at the top and start checking off the procedures she’ll be doing.
I look up at Claudia on the fancy white table, lying perfectly flat, some kind of cold cream being spread on her face. I should be the one up there. I’m the one who knows all about spas and everything from all the research I did.
“Why do you look so upset, Lucille?” Bevin asks me, and grabs my arm like she’s trying to be supportive.
“I’m fine.” I force a closed-mouth smile.
“You don’t look fine.”
“Bevin. I’m fine.”
“Fine.” She cracks up even though nothing about this conversation has been funny. “I haven’t seen Yamir around here lately. Did you guys break up?”
“Shhh. Miranda’s trying to work.” I point over in their direction and see Miranda struggling to get the cream off Claudia’s face with some kind of washcloth. Doesn’t she realize the washcloth needs to be wet? And it should be warm too. Even I know that.
“Did you guys break up?” Bevin asks again, whispering this time.
“No, we did not break up,” I say through my teeth. “Now, shhh.”
We sit here evaluating, but in almost every category, Miranda gets a “needs improvement” rating. She struggles with everything and when she finally finishes, she’s dripping with sweat. You do not want your aesthetician to be sweaty.
“OK, well, thank you, Miranda,” Anais says, shaking her hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
“When can I expect to hear from you?” Miranda asks.
“Um … within the next few weeks.” Anais consults her clipboard, not making eye contact. “Thanks again.”
Once Miranda’s gone, Anais lets out her breath and plops down on the spa reception-area couch. It’s such a nice couch that it’s hard for me to believe it’s ours. It’s this beautiful brown velvet, kind of antique-looking.
Anais found it while she was antiquing in the Berkshires a few weekends ago, and she e-mailed us a picture and we all immediately approved. She had it shipped right away.
“So how did we all feel about Miranda?” Anais asks.
I look down at my sheet even though I don’t need to. “She wasn’t very good,” I say.
“She didn’t seem to know what she was doing,” Bevin adds.
“Yeah, and um … ,” Claudia starts, getting our attention. We all look up.
“Oh my gosh!” I scream. “Claudia! We need to get you to a hospital.”
There are bright red splotches all over Claudia’s face, kind of like she fell face-first into a forest of poison ivy. Some parts are even a dark burgundy-looking color, and one eye is starting to swell up. Miranda left the exfoliant on too long, and she probably didn’t know to use one for sensitive skin!
“Claudia, come here please.” Anais grabs her by the hand and leads her into the spa bathroom. She sits her down and starts blotting her face with witch hazel and dipping cloths into a cup of chamomile tea. “This will help.”
It’s not just that Anais is a spa consultant; she really knows what she’s doing. That makes me feel a little bit better.
After Claudia’s skin emergency, Mom, Grandma, Gary, and Anais go into a closed-door meeting in the pharmacy office.
Claudia’s resting in the Relaxation Room with cold cloths all over her face and Bean is waiting on her like she’s the Queen of England. He brings her drinks and candy and even goes down to the deli to get her favorite sandwich—Brie and apple slices.
“Bean is soooo cool,” Bevin whispers to me as we’re working in the pharmacy, fixing up the aisle with the pain relievers and cough medicine and stuff like that.
“Really?” I ask.
“Oh, totally,” she says. “He’s so good to your sister. And he’s the kind of guy who can wear a necklace and not look dorky.”
I peek around the corner and notice Bean’s necklace. It’s made of rope with beads on it. It looks dirty.
“Whatever,” I mumble. I don’t want to get into this with Bevin. What does she know about boys anyway?
We finish our work on the shelves and Mom, Grandma, Gary, and Anais come out of their closed-door meeting. It’s already after five and Bevin and I should probably be heading to the movies soon.
I walk over and tap Claudia on the shoulder. “How’s your face?”
“Fine. I was just falling asleep,” she mumbles, and I know that’s my cue to walk away. Claudia’s very serious about her sleep.
“Let’s go tell the adults that we’re leaving for the movies,” I say. “Otherwise they’ll worry.”
Bevin nods and skips over to the spa reception area. Everyone’s sitting on the couch talking and sipping tea. It doesn’t seem like they’re working that hard, but since Grandma seems so happy, I decide not to worry about it.
I gauge my mood based on Grandma’s a lot of the time. If she seems happy, then I feel
happy.
“Bevin and I are going to the movies,” I tell them. “Can we have twenty dollars for snacks?”
“Luce, just take candy from here, OK?” Mom says. “The movie theater is so overpriced.”
“But we want popcorn,” I whine.
“Fine, here’s twenty dollars.” Gary opens his wallet and hands Bevin the money.
I’m not proud of my whining, but if I’m not going to get treated like a grownup, I may as well get treated like a spoiled kid.
“Luce-Juice!” I hear someone yelling as we’re leaving the spa area. Only one person in the whole world calls me that, so I obviously know who it is.
What is he doing here?
“Luce-Juice!” he yells again, and I see Anais stand up and look around, not seeming happy about someone running through the store yelling.
Grandma goes back to the prescription counter to help some new customers. “Yamir, please, keep it down, OK?” She smiles, but I can tell she’s a little annoyed.
“Lucy in the spa with Be-eh-vin,” he sings when he sees us, creating a new twist on the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
“Very funny, Yamir.”
“I thought so.” He raises his arms for a double high five, so I oblige him and then Bevin high-fives him too and cracks up.
“You ready?” he asks me.
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you get my texts? Skee-ball competition at the beach tonight? I entered us. You’re the best Skee-baller I know.”
Suddenly it feels like there are clumps of cauliflower in my throat. I look over at Bevin, who has her eyebrows twisty, and she’s still clutching the twenty dollars from her dad.
“We need to be there in twenty minutes, come on,” he says. “I mean, I’m a speedy walker, but you can get slow sometimes.” He laughs. “Kidding, kidding.”
“Um, I didn’t know that was officially confirmed,” I say, and then realize I sound like some kind of businesswoman. “So I, uh, made plans to see a movie with Bevin.”
“Yup!” Bevin grabs my hand. “And we’re gonna be late. Come on! We need to get popcorn and slushies and get good seats.”
My Summer of Pink & Green Page 7