A Little Change of Face

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  Clearly, my mom was a pro at how that little game was played.

  “Uh, not quite,” I said, eyeing my pumpkin friend.

  “So, is he Jewish?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It hasn’t come up.”

  “But Saul’s a Jewish name.”

  “Well, sometimes it is, but I don’t think we have a patent on it or anything.”

  “And will you be seeing him again?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll see.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I know I said I liked the new clothes you’ve been wearing lately and all, but maybe it’s not such a good idea? Saul did seem to like you very much the way you were last night.”

  Saul had liked me very much the way I’d been last night. He’d liked me in a way he hadn’t liked me before. It got me thinking that in a weird way, even though the Lettie part of me was supposed to be the ruse, it hadn’t been me Saul had wanted at all.

  “I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “Mom? Pam’s here, so—”

  “She’s still there? Oh, well. You should have said.”

  We hung up.

  “So you’re going to be seeing him again?” Pam said, drawing her own conclusions from my share of the conversation.

  “I don’t know,” I said, maintaining my party line. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to see Saul again or who I wanted to be when I saw him.

  “You do realize,” she said coyly, “it’s the next day. It’s not Halloween anymore. You have to go back to being the Ugly Stepsister.”

  “Don’t you mean Cinderella?”

  “So? You still have to do it.”

  “Why?”

  She chose to ignore that. “Apparently,” she said, thoughtful, “making you cut your hair and frump yourself out just isn’t enough to scare men off.”

  “Apparently.”

  She mulled over the problem for a long time, toying with her coffee. Then her eyes got that nasty gleam in them again. “I’ve got it!” she said.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I know what you need to scare men off. What you really need is a couple of kids.”

  “Did I ever say that I wanted to scare this particular man off?”

  “Maybe not in so many words. But think about it, Scarlett. Wouldn’t you really like to know, for once, if a man really likes you for you, or if it’s just something to do with the whole package you present? Don’t you think you—oh, I don’t know—owe it to yourself to make it as hard for him to fall in love with you as possible?”

  Maybe it was sick for me to think this, but what she was saying was starting to make a sick kind of sense.

  Her voice wheedled. “How will you ever know if it’s really you that Saul loves, if he does in fact start to love you, unless you make it as hard as possible for him to love you?” Her voice became seductive. “Come on, Scarlett. You know what you need: you need to get a couple of kids. You need to really test him.”

  And I realized something: For once, Pam was absolutely right. Oh, maybe not about the kids. But if I was going to go any further with Saul, I was going to need to know whether he was growing attracted to something he was finally seeing inside of me, or was it really all just cleavage in a good dress?

  I was cleaning up the debris from the night before and wondering what my stomach could tolerate in the way of input when—

  Ding-dong!

  It was Sarah. Behind her I could see her familiar bicycle propped up in my driveway. She had on jeans and a sweatshirt with the name of some rock band I’d never heard the music of and a sad, too-tired expression on her face. In her arms was a brown paper bag.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, letting her in.

  “This is what’s wrong,” she said, opening the bag and removing the shirt we’d so happily bought at the Bethel Underground. The shirt was no longer intact. Instead, there was now a tear, about three inches long, from the neckline downward.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Jeff Polanski happened,” she said.

  “How…? What…?”

  “He said yes to my invitation to the Sadie Hawkins dance. I was so happy about it. He said he was glad I had finally discovered what a razor was for and that my new hair made me stop looking like a dork.”

  Jeff Polanski didn’t exactly sound like Robert Browning, but he probably meant it as a compliment. Twelve-year-olds weren’t exactly known for their verbal finesse. Not to mention that boys in particular felt the need to maintain constant cool. He was probably, at this stage in his life, constitutionally incapable of a simple, “You look pretty.”

  “So we met at the dance,” Sarah went on. “I had my new clothes on. I was so happy. For once, I looked just like all the cool girls.”

  “And?”

  “And we danced a couple of times, mostly really fast songs. But then at the end of the night, they played one old slow song, ‘Last Dance,’ and we danced close and I really liked that, it was nice, even though it made me feel a little funny, and then while we were dancing he worked us over toward one of the corners and I thought that maybe he was going to kiss me, and I was real happy about that, because no one had ever kissed me before and I wanted to know what it was like, but then he put his hand on my shirt and said, ‘Hey, let’s see your breasts,’ and when I tried to pull away, the shirt ripped.”

  “Oh, Sarah…”

  “So then—”

  “But wait a second. Where were the chaperones? Didn’t anyone see this?”

  “No. Two boys had started fighting and they were too busy dealing with that to notice anything else.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told him he was a jerk, that I never wanted to talk to him again. He said it didn’t matter that I wasn’t a monkey anymore, that I was still Jiggles and that was the only reason he said yes to me, but now he was sorry because he could see I was still just a big dork.”

  “Oh, Sarah…”

  “So I got a sweatshirt from my locker and put it on over the ripped shirt so my mom wouldn’t see it when she picked me up. I knew if she saw it, she’d get so mad she’d call the school and make a fuss and that would just make everything worse. But Jeff’ll probably still make up stories to tell people, probably say that I was easy or that I wasn’t worth the time.”

  I knew she was right. He probably would say that to salve his ego, to feel cool. Only he’d probably say she was easy and not worth the time.

  “What am I going to do, Lettie?” she asked.

  I heard my stomach make an unpleasant sound.

  “Well,” I said, trying a smile, “first you’re going to help me figure out what there is to eat around here that won’t kill us. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten yet today and you’re starting to feel hungry right around now.”

  Her blush told me I was right. When in misery, young girls either overeat or starve. Sarah looked like a starver to me.

  Leaving the subject of grabby Jeff Polanski to one side for one moment, we located a few leftover chocolate cheesecake brownies, eating in silence until the sugar was running good and high in our veins.

  “What’s your favorite thing about yourself?” I asked.

  “My favorite thing?” She made a funny face.

  “Yeah, your favorite thing. Everyone’s got one thing they really like about themselves.” I was almost sure of it.

  “Well, this is going to sound really dorky, but…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m nice.” She finally exhaled.

  “Yes,” I said quietly, “you are nice.”

  “I mean really nice,” she said, starting to get enthusiastic about it. “When other kids make fun of the kids who are real dorks—you know, the ones who have it even worse than being Monkey or Jiggles—I never play along.”

  “That’s a good way to be.”

  “I even talk to those kids no one else talks to.”

  “Not only nice,” I said, “but brave, too. Good f
or you. What else?”

  “You mean besides being nice?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “But I thought I only had to name one.”

  “Well, try for two.”

  “I’m good at reading and writing. I love to read books, and I think I’m a pretty good writer.” She looked down at the table, shy. “I may even become one some day.”

  She looked so wistful. I knew I couldn’t guarantee her future dreams would come true, but maybe I could make her feel a little better now.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do,” I said, covering her hand with mine. “Whenever the kids give you a hard time, and they probably will, or when you think they’re talking about you behind your back, and they probably will, you just tell yourself, ‘I’m a nice person, nicer than all of you, braver, too, and someday I’m going to use those things to go after my dreams.’”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “Um, Lettie? That’s kind of lame.”

  I deflated. She was right.

  “But that’s okay,” she said, smiling for the first time since she walked in the door. “I know you mean well. And really, it’s going to be okay.”

  And somehow I knew that Sarah would be okay, that it was going to be hard for her over the next few days and that it wasn’t going to be the last time in her life that things would be hard, but she’d be fine.

  Still, Jeff Polanski had taken something sweet, a night that should have been a little tiny form of magical for her, and turned it into something bitter and ugly.

  I would have liked to kick his butt.

  34

  I was at the Circulation Desk and I still felt awful. Even though three days had passed since Halloween, I still couldn’t shake the bad feelings I’d had the morning after.

  “You’re not yourself,” Jane said.

  It always surprised me somehow, working with nice Jane in the mornings when I knew sour Pat would be with me in the afternoons. Her words surprised me more. After all, it wasn’t like I was known around the library for my perkiness, not me, Lettie Shaw, the serious woman in the quiet clothes.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “You may not always be the biggest talker, but you seem somehow sad today.”

  “I guess I’m just not myself,” I said, agreeing with her.

  “Who are you then?”

  I looked across the desk, surprised at the voice not being Jane’s. It was Steve Holt.

  I swear I blushed.

  “I’m Madonna,” I said. “Or no,” I said, changing my mind, “I’m your worst nightmare—a librarian with attitude. Hey, don’t you usually come in here in the afternoon?”

  “So?” He put his returns in the slot under the counter, put his takeouts on top: a literary novel that both the daily and Sunday Times had anointed, an early Stephen King and a book on art history. “I can’t change?”

  “Only if it’s for the better,” I said, checking his books out of the system.

  “How about we change this.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I keep asking you out—” Jane’s ears perked up when he said this “—but you keep saying no. How about we just go grab lunch together, like two friends. You have to eat sometime and it’s close to twelve.”

  “Go,” said Jane, deciding for me. “If Roland comes by, I’ll tell him I sent you on an errand before your lunch break.”

  “What errand?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She looked exasperated with me. “I’ll tell him I asked you to make a sign.”

  “A sign? For what?”

  “I don’t know.” Her exasperation was growing. “A sign for the winter discussion series.”

  “But the series is still two months away. Besides, I can’t draw anything to save my life.”

  “Lettie. Just. Go.”

  I went.

  We went to Sandwich Submarine, a new place in town, the interior of which was decorated like the yellow submarine in the Beatles song. I sat in a bright blue plastic chair, feeling like the nowhere woman, gazing blankly at the menu, waiting for the waitress to come take my order for who knew what.

  Steve leaned across the table and whispered, “It’s not that bad.”

  “What’s not that bad?” I whispered back, figuring this was a whispering moment.

  “Whatever’s got you down,” he whispered again. “I’m sure it can be fixed.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I whispered. “And how would you go about fixing it?”

  “Because nobody died—I know this because otherwise you wouldn’t be at work. As for fixing it, I’d fall back on my profession—I’d throw a little paint at the problem.”

  “Oh,” I practically sniffed. “Well. If nobody dying is going to be the sole criteria for things not being that bad in a person’s life…”

  I went back to my menu, only to hear a startling sound: he was laughing!

  “What’s so—” I started. But then I couldn’t help it. I heard myself, how I’d sounded, how utterly young and childish I’d sounded, and I found myself laughing at myself right along with him.

  I was feeling so good in that moment that when the waitress came to take our order, interrupting us mid-laugh, I ordered a turkey, melted Swiss and red pepper grinder and a strawberry-kiwi Snapple without remembering that I wasn’t supposed to be eating because I was too busy nursing my depression.

  Steve ordered something called the Budapest Bulge—I didn’t even want to know what was in that—and a large iced tea, despite the cold outside, handing our menus back.

  “You have an amazing laugh.” He smiled after the waitress had gone.

  “What’s so amazing about it?” I snarked, feeling a little self-conscious.

  “It’s loud, for starters. It’s unselfconscious, like you don’t care who hears you being happy. And it’s, um, well, loud.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling completely self-conscious now. “So how was your Halloween with your brother’s kids?”

  “Great, great,” he said. “I love kids, hope to have my own some day.”

  “Do you have other brothers and sisters?”

  “Nope, just Tim. He’s two years older. You?”

  “It’s just me.”

  “There’s nothing just you about you,” he said.

  He was making me uncomfortable again. So…

  “What’s your brother like?” I asked.

  “Tim? He’s like an older brother—born with a sense of entitlement, and there’s no talking him out of it. Still, we get on.”

  Our sandwiches came. I picked up mine, looked at his.

  “Is that a moose sticking out the side of yours?” I asked.

  He looked at the thing in his hand. “I think it’s a walrus.” He smiled, taking a bite. “Mmm, a good walrus.”

  I realized how hungry I was and we ate in companionable silence for a moment.

  “I guess you could say my relationship with Tim is complicated,” he finally said, still stuck on his brother.

  “How so?”

  “It’s like, on the one hand, I want to dislike him, because he’s so superior about everything.”

  “And on the other?”

  “I idolize him,” he said, as though it should be simply obvious. “Because he is good at things, always manages to be the star.”

  “That could get annoying,” I said.

  “Not always. Sometimes it’s fun just to watch someone else do the things you’d never do.”

  “For instance?”

  “When he was in college, Tim and a few of his friends went to Bermuda for spring break. There was a bar there they went to every night where they did an open mike thing, inviting people to come out of the audience and tell jokes between the musical acts. Anyway, Tim was always good at jokes. He’s got this unbelievable memory where if he hears a thing once, he can remember every single detail later. Tim was pretty drunk, though, and couldn’t remember any of his own jokes, so one of his friends gave him a
dirty limerick to recite.”

  Steve stopped talking, obviously embarrassed.

  “And the limerick?” I prompted.

  “Well,” he said, reddening a little, “if you insist. There once was a girl named Alice/who used a dynamite stick for a phallus/they found her vagina in North Carolina/and the rest of her ass in Dallas.”

  I laughed, even though I’d heard that one before. What can I say? I like dirty jokes.

  Steve took my laughter as a license to continue.

  “So Tim goes up on stage, gets in line to tell his joke, but he’s really drunk, see? There’s a guy ahead of him who tells some stupid joke involving a doughnut and there’s Tim, reciting his own limerick in his head while half listening to this other guy. Then it’s Tim’s turn. He gets up to the mike and says, ‘There once was a girl named Alice,’ but then he stares out at the crowd, all those people waiting for him to go on, and all he can remember is the guy talking about doughnuts, and all he can think to say is, ‘so I ate her.’”

  I laughed so hard, I felt the strawberry-kiwi drink work its way dangerously up my nose.

  “See what I mean?” he said. “Tim does these bizarre things and people just laugh.”

  “I can see why,” I said, still smiling. “Imagine a guy wanting to eat a girl just because she was named Alice.”

  “But that’s not the end of the story,” Steve said, really getting into it now that he knew he had a good audience.

  “No?”

  “No. The next day Tim’s on the beach, recovering from his hangover with all of his hungover friends. He gets up to get a beer and walks into the middle of a limbo contest. All of a sudden, all around him, people start murmuring, ‘That’s the guy…’ ‘From last night…’ ‘So I ate her!’ Before you know it, all these people are laughing and clapping and someone’s handing Tim an award for second place in the limbo contest. He ranked that high on the applause meter without even having to slither under the bar once.”

  “Tim does sound like a fun character,” I conceded, “but I don’t know that I’d want to make a steady diet of it.”

  The waitress took our plates. “Dessert?”

  “No, I have to—”