Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  My main concern at the moment was paying for this. I was still flat broke. I’d earned a few paychecks, but nearly every dime had gone to late fees on my credit cards and personal loans. The rest had gone to my parents and groceries and my athletic support of Libby.

  I had a feeling my $500 emergency fund was about to be depleted to nearly nothing.

  “Uhh. That looks like a lot of hair,” I observed, watching very large, very long chunks of my brown hair detach from my head. My eyes were still stinging with involuntary facial hair-waxing tears.

  “I’m defining a shape,” Wilma said. “You have no shape. Just blah. Blah is not a shape. When was your last haircut?”

  “A while ago.” I was afraid what she’d do with those scissors if I admitted that it had been close to a year and a half. I’d been busy. Then broke. I wasn’t going to spend money on a mane when there were bills to pay and alcohol to buy to numb my pain. It was thick, brown, and, well, that was it. Even when I worked in an office, I wore it in a tail or a knot. Elastic bands were my only accessories.

  She continued violently snipping, and I tried to tune it out.

  As long as it was long enough to pull back, I’d be fine. I comforted myself with that thought. When the scissors stopped, I breathed a short-lived sigh of relief. Then it was on to color or highlights or God knows what. I’d never had my hair professionally colored. The few times I’d been desperate for a change, I’d grabbed a box off the grocery store shelf and thrown it in my cart. That’s how I ended up with burgundy hair that one Thanksgiving.

  “This isn’t a weird, punk rock color is it?” I asked Wilma. “I kinda have to set an example for students and not get fired by the school board.”

  “Your example will be a much more attractive one,” she said. I noticed she hadn’t bothered answering my question.

  I submitted to the foil, the heat, the rinsing, all the while listening to my girls pick up and comment on every single freaking product in the store. And I vowed that no matter what it took, someday I would be in a position where I didn’t have to freak out over every expense.

  Wilma turned on the hair dryer and drowned out my internal pity party.

  Slowly, the audience around my chair began to grow. The girls were grinning smugly as Wilma worked her long fingers through whatever was left on my head.

  “Are you ready for the reveal?” Wilma asked.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. My chair was spinning, and the mirror was coming into view. Please don’t let it be awful. Please don’t let it be awful.

  I did a double take. And then a triple one. The person in the mirror looked like me. Sort of. Except her hair was now a choppy shoulder-length cut. It was full. There were coppery highlights shimmering in the gentle waves.

  “I gave you face-framing layers so you can have some visual interest when you pull it back,” Wilma said, demonstrating by gathering my hair at the base of my neck in a fist. The layers cut across my forehead and curled gently around my jawline.

  “It makes my forehead look normal-sized,” I observed. Zinnia, in a fit of PMS, had once called my forehead a fivehead. She wasn’t wrong. There was a lot of acreage above my eyebrows. And it had given me something else to be paranoid about for the rest of my life.

  I tilted my head side to side and watched in fascination as those loose waves moved and caught the light. I didn’t want to sound like a shallow girly girl, but this was probably worth my emergency fund.

  “Well?” Phoebe demanded. “Do you love it?”

  “You better love it,” Angela said.

  They all chimed in, demanding my opinion.

  “I do. I do love it,” I admitted. “You guys definitely did not screw me over.”

  “She means ‘thank you,’” Ruby said smugly.

  I laughed and pushed my fingers into this strange hair.

  “Here are three ways to wear your hair. Two of them should take under ten minutes to style. And these are your products,” Wilma said, holding up a paper and a trio of bottles. “For frizzies between washing. For volume at the roots. For style hold.”

  “Oh, I can’t afford—”

  “It’s all been taken care of,” Wilma said. “Including the tip.”

  “By who?” I demanded. Had my dad stormed the store this morning, waving a credit card?

  Wilma pointed to the team. “Them.”

  “You guys!” I stared at the girls, floored.

  They grinned.

  “I can’t accept this. It’s too much. It’s probably illegal,” I pointed out.

  “You believed in us. You’re making us better. We’re just returning the favor.”

  “We took up a collection.”

  “I guilted my parents into a donation.”

  I was humbled. Embarrassed. Deeply touched.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I confessed. Self-consciously, I held up my hands and formed a heart with my fingers. Grinning, my girls repeated the gesture.

  “Now let’s move on to makeup!”

  43

  Marley

  I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. She was tall and lean-ish. Her hair was artfully choppy in a careless “I rolled out of bed looking gorgeous” way that I prayed I could replicate on my own. Her normal, boring brown eyes were two times bigger thanks to a very nice neutral palette and some excellent mascara. Her lips were painted a subtle nude that shimmered a bit. Her eyebrows were waxed and glossed to perfection. And she had a mountain of cosmetics neatly lined up on her childhood dresser.

  She looked like she could handle spending an evening at a bonfire with a bunch of people who would only remember how her revenge plot had ruined an entire Homecoming celebration.

  She was supposed to be me. Only a better version that involved actual effort.

  I couldn’t help myself. I snapped a selfie and sent it to my sister.

  Zinnia: What the hell happened to you, and can you make it happen to me too? If this is a photo filter, I need it.

  Me: My team made me over. I don’t recognize myself.

  Zinnia: You look gorgeous! Tell me you’re not wasting that look on Saturday night leftovers with M&D.

  Me: Actually, Jake’s taking me out.

  Zinnia: You can’t hear me, but I’m squealing right now. Okay. I’m squealing internally because I’m at Edith’s violin concert. Where are you going? Will there be sex?

  Me: Uh. Yeah. Fake relationship. Remember?

  Zinnia: He’s single. You’re single. He’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous. I’m not seeing the problem.

  Me: Sex would complicate EVERYTHING.

  Zinnia: Your willpower is laudable. And annoying. If you loved me at all, you’d have sex with Jake and then write up a detailed report on it for me.

  Me: You’re ridiculous.

  Zinnia: Gotta go. Miss Edith just strode on stage in epic resting bitch face. She’s about to rock this place with the Suzuki rendition of Itsy Bitsy Spider.

  Ahh, precocious child proteges.

  Me: Break a leg, Edith.

  I glanced at the time and realized Jake was picking me up any minute. I gave myself a last once-over, reveling in the fact that “oh well, whatever” didn’t echo in my head like it usually did. I’d kept the jeans, changed into a cute green sweater I’d stolen from my mom’s closet and added a puffy vest for warmth. I looked…good.

  My confidence was further reinforced when I answered the front door.

  “Hi—” Jake’s greeting cut off abruptly as he took in the visual glory of the new me.

  Was there an odder pleasure in this world than having a man bowled over by your attractiveness?

  “What?” I asked innocently, as his gaze traveled from my boot-clad toes to caramelly new hair. Those green eyes paused an additional second in the boobal region.

  “You look…different,” he mused. “Are you taller?”

  “That must be it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Are we ready to go?”

  “Hell yeah, pretty girl.” He gri
nned. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and I reconsidered Zinnia’s demand that I have awesome sex with Jake.

  I followed him down the walkway toward the street and came to a halt. “Where’s your car?”

  He held out a helmet to me and stroked a loving hand over the seat of the motorcycle parked at the curb. It wasn’t the crotch rocket he’d ridden in high school that had mothers warning their daughters to stay away from “that Weston boy.” This was something bigger, beefier. Sexier.

  “You’re not afraid of a little fun, are you?”

  Jake wouldn’t understand that my hesitation wasn’t fear. This moment was straight out of a dorky high school loser’s fantasy. The Jake Weston was picking me up at my house on a motorcycle. I was sure I’d fantasized about this exact scenario. Today I was living out a high school ugly duckling turned swan movie. I’d had the makeover. Bonded with the cool kids. And now the cutest guy in school wanted me to climb on a bike and wrap my arms around him so he could drive us off into the sunset.

  “I figured we could ride to dinner and then grab my SUV before the bonfire,” Jake said, wiggling the helmet.

  I took it, praying that Wilma’s miracle hair spray could withstand helmet head.

  “Let’s do it,” I said. See? I could be cool. I was totally cool.

  “You okay? You sound kind of like you’re going to hyperventilate.”

  I jammed the helmet over my beautiful hair. “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “You ever ride before?” he asked.

  I shook my heavy, helmeted head.

  “I’ll get on first, and then you climb on behind me. Make sure you hold on real tight,” he said with a devilish wink.

  Ugh. I had a crush on my fake boyfriend. This was not good.

  I waited until he swung a long leg over the seat and pulled on his helmet before awkwardly climbing on behind him.

  “Hang on, pretty girl,” he said over the roar of the engine.

  Grown-up Jake wasn’t into the stupid speed that Teenage Jake had been. We cruised out of Culpepper, and I clung gleefully to his back.

  I, Marley Jean Cicero, was on the back of a motorcycle, hugging the hottest boy in town. It probably wasn’t healthy, but I felt that on some level, I had just healed an old wound.

  Who knew having Jake between my thighs could make me feel so good? Oh, right. Everyone.

  I wondered idly how many women he’d charmed the pants off of with a motorcycle ride. Then decided it really didn’t matter. I was here now. And for however long this lasted, I was going to soak it up.

  We drove for another few miles, passing horses and buggies to the outskirts of Lancaster and then into the city itself. Jake took his time maneuvering the streets until—too soon in my opinion—he backed us into a spot on the street. He cut the engine and pulled off his helmet.

  “We’re here.”

  I slid off the back and yanked off my own helmet. I shook my hair out and heard a thunk and a muffled curse.

  An early twenty-something had tripped over an easel sign in front of the frozen yogurt shop. He set it back up and hurried off, casting glances over his shoulder.

  “She’s all mine,” Jake called good-naturedly after him.

  “Jake!” I hissed.

  “What? He saw you do the slow-motion hair toss out of a helmet and walked smack into the sign. It was fucking hilarious.”

  I shoved a hand into my hair. It still felt appropriately poufy, and I hoped it wasn’t standing on end.

  “He did not.”

  “Totally did,” he argued. He took the helmet from me and lashed it to the bike. “You hungry?”

  Looking at him in his leather jacket, his boots, his well-worn jeans, I was suddenly starving.

  “I could eat.”

  He reached for my hand and pulled me into him. His eyes were more serious than I was used to seeing them. “You look real good, Mars.”

  “Thanks,” I said lamely. “So do you.”

  He grinned and leaned in nice and slow. When his lips landed on mine, it was with a slow, sexy burn that had me insta-melting. Yeah, this Jake Weston wasn’t worried about getting anywhere fast. He was more interested in having fun along the way.

  He pulled back, a cocky grin on his handsome face. “Come on. I’ll feed you.”

  He fed me tacos from a truck parked in a courtyard between a coffee shop and a music store. We laughed and flirted our way through a couple of gourmet tacos and split a cold soda on a park bench. Food gone, we walked a few blocks around the downtown. A lot had changed since I lived in the area. A revitalization had slowly but surely claimed entire city blocks. Now there were co-working spaces and kitschy clothing stores nestled between farm-to-table restaurants and hip small businesses.

  “You’re good at this,” I told him after he negotiated with a guy selling flowers from a sidewalk stand.

  “Here,” Jake said, shoving the fall bouquet at me. “Appreciate these before we get back on the bike. Good at what?”

  “Dating,” I said. “A motorcycle ride, a taco truck, and now flowers? A-plus.”

  “It’s not as hard as I thought it would be,” he admitted, taking my hand. The sun had dipped behind the buildings, and the streetlights were flickering to life. “I just did what you told me. Thought about what you’d like to do and then did it.”

  God, he was so…everything. He walked down the sidewalk with a sexy swagger like he owned the city. He looked like a model out for a casual, sexy bad boy photoshoot. Don’t think I didn’t notice every double take from every woman and several of the men we passed.

  And now he was being thoughtful and sweet?

  I came to a halt on the sidewalk outside of a yarn store when the realization hit me. I was grooming Jake to be the perfect man. For someone else.

  I’d go back to frantically polishing my resume, landing jobs that weren’t quite the right fit, dating guys who also weren’t the right fit. Meanwhile, Jake would meet a nice girl, fall in love with her, and spend the rest of his life making her very happy.

  I wanted to throw up my tacos.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Nope,” I lied. “Everything’s great.”

  “We should probably head back. Bonfire’ll be starting soon,” he said. “You done appreciating those?” He nodded at the flowers.

  I took one more sniff. “Done.”

  He plucked them from me.

  “Excuse me,” he said, dragging me up to a woman in her fifties chattering away on her phone. She was wearing sweatpants and clutching a grocery bag in her free hand.

  She stopped mid-sentence, her jaw working as she took in the gloriousness of Jake Weston.

  “Yes?” she breathed.

  “These are for you,” he said with that damn devastating grin.

  “Oh, my! Oh, thank you!” she gushed.

  “Have a nice night, gorgeous,” he said, shooting her a wink.

  We left her there on the sidewalk staring openmouthed after us. I had a feeling she was feeling what I was. Unbelievably lucky and unreasonably jealous at the same time.

  44

  Jake

  Back in Culpepper, we traded my bike for my SUV and headed south out of town toward Dunkleburger’s farm. Chaz Dunkleburger, who graduated two years ahead of us, took over his parents’ farm when they moved to Boca and, being a nostalgic Barn Owl, preserved an acre or two of the back pasture for good old-fashioned bonfires.

  Of course these were no half-assed teenage bonfires.

  No, we had seating and kegs and snacks. Good snacks. There was still the usual small-town drama to be had when large groups got together and started reminiscing. Overall, a bonfire on a Saturday night in Culpepper was the place to be.

  Marley was quiet, and I found myself wondering what was going on in that pretty head of hers. Where some women would blab your ears off about how they were feeling about every damn thing, Marley Cicero was quieter, more mysterious.

  It made me want to pry her open like an oyster. />
  “You sure you’re up for this?” I asked, easing through the gap in the fence.

  “Sure,” she said.

  She was definitely lying.

  I pulled to a stop between a tractor and a rusted-out pickup truck. When Marley reached for the door handle, I hit the lock button.

  “Jake.”

  “Marley.”

  “Let me out.”

  “I need your guidance first,” I insisted. “Dating question.”

  “Okay.”

  “What should a guy do if his date is acting all weird and not talking? Should he pretend everything’s fine? Should he force her to tell him what’s wrong? Should he give up and go home and watch porn for the rest of his life?”

  She was not amused.

  “Come on, Mars. You’re here to make me good at this. What do I do? One second you were totally fine and eating tacos, and the next you’re like a sexy iceberg.”

  “An iceberg?”

  “A sexy one,” I reminded her.

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Come on. Spill. What’s the problem?”

  She ran a hand through her hair and then stopped herself. “It’s embarrassing and stupid.”

  “You probably shouldn’t discount your feelings like that.”

  “I’m about to spend an evening with a whole bunch of people whose main memory of me is getting suspended over antics that ruined Homecoming.”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?”