The Girl with the Mermaid Hair Page 6

  “I’m sorry,” said the man. “I meant to leave your phone at the club, but I put it in my pocket and forgot all about it until it just now rang. I’ll cruise by your house and drop it off as soon as I get back.”

  She tapped down the paper clips so she could close the box neatly. “Back from where?” she asked.

  “New York City.”

  Her phone was on its way to New York City. “When are you coming back?”

  “Wednesday.”

  Four whole days. She wanted to bang her head against the wall. She really did. She wanted to walk over to the wall and knock herself out.

  “You know what? I’ll drop it at your dad’s office. I’m Glen Harbinder. Your dad knows me.”

  Sukie adjusted the label maker. Now everything on her desk was straight. Later she wrote in her journal, Emotionally I was at the edge of a cliff. Should I leap? I closed my eyes.

  Sukie leaped. “Would you please read me my text message?” She trotted out her most pitiful little-girl voice.

  “How do I do that?” he asked.

  “Touch the little green square at the top.”

  “Got it. You’ve got two.”

  “Two?” Sukie’s eyes snapped open.

  “Two from Bobo.” He enjoyed the name, she could tell. She could hear him thinking, How cute.

  “What’s the capital of North Dakota?”

  “That’s the message?”

  “No, I’m not telling you the message until you answer the question.” He chuckled, or maybe chewed.

  “Bismarck.” God, was he mentally ill? She knew them all. She could recite the presidents backward and forward. Who did he think he was dealing with?

  “‘Meet me after the game.’”

  “That’s the message?”

  “And the other is ‘Danger cation.’”

  “What?”

  “‘Danger cation.’”

  “Is that one word?”

  “No, two.”

  “Would you spell it?”

  “D-A-N-G-E-R C-A-T-I-O-N.”

  She hung up and began jumping. She bounced into the bathroom and back into the bedroom. MEET ME AFTER THE GAME. DANGER CATION. Cation? Cation? Caution. He must mean caution!

  MEET ME AFTER THE GAME. DANGER CAUTION.

  Definitely caution. He must have misspelled it. Everyone makes mistakes texting. Lots of really smart people were bad spellers too. She’d heard that somewhere.

  DANGER CAUTION.

  He is not only a bad speller, he is bad. She’d never known a guy who was bad. There was no one bad at Cobweb. Kids there were sickeningly decent. ROLL ME OVER. Sukie was tingling.

  Thank God she’d straightened everything on her desk. Who cared that he couldn’t spell? She was a good-enough speller for both of them. With luck, their children would take after her.

  Facial Engineering

  SUKIE peeled a strip of tape off the frame. She stuck one end on one side of her nose, pulled the tape taut, crossed it over her nose, and stuck it down on the other side. Holding a magnifying mirror inches from her face, she evaluated the result. Her ramp was softened, maybe even eliminated, although the nose was slightly squashed, the tip now tilted down.

  She stuck the end of a second piece of tape to the tip of her nose and pulled—not too forcibly or it would detach from the tip, not too gently or it wouldn’t correct the squash and the unattractive downward tilt. The procedure took patience and concentration. She might have been performing microsurgery.

  She was excited, which made it hard to focus. How quickly her anxieties about her dad and the grim man had flown from her head at the prospect of seeing Bobo. She’d Googled the Hudson Glen High School calendar of sports events. His game was next Saturday afternoon. She pulled the tape up vertically—the idea was to raise her nose tip and keep it anchored in a slightly elevated position. It was an ingenious piece of facial engineering, and she congratulated herself silently when she pressed the other end of the tape between her eyes and, as she released it and lowered her hands to her sides, it stayed stuck.

  Señor caught Sukie’s eye in the mirror.

  He was right. She couldn’t say, “You are so right, Señor.” She couldn’t risk speaking, but she agreed with him. Her nose did look snub. Almost “Miss Piggy.” And the Scotch tape on her face distracted from her more pleasing features. I’d kill for candlelight, she thought, but she knew that striking a match might send a quiver through her body, causing all the tape to fall off her nose. She dimmed the overhead light to its lowest and softest glow.

  Having done that, she moved slowly backward to the opposite wall, and there in the twilight of twenty watts, she gazed into the mirror at the faraway truth.

  Her face was perfection.

  If only she could stay eight feet away from Bobo, with a taped nose and in near darkness at all times.

  “Bobo.” She tried out his name, but her voice was flat, without allure.

  She needed clothes to find her voice. The wrinkled tennis shorts and white tee she wore were worse than useless. They were an obstacle.

  A party dress in silk charmeuse? Charmeuse. The word, vaguely foreign sounding, conjured up misty, clinging, sheer, something worn by a woman lost in a fog. Although recently in Teen Vogue she’d seen a fashion spread of puffy charmeuse dresses, some with gathered high waists that hid one’s body as successfully as a tent. Those charmeuse dresses were girlish, too skipping-through-daisies.

  Her mother had a black silk jersey tunic, and Sukie loved the cool, slinky feel of it. Once, when her mom was out, she’d tried it on and danced, enjoying that every bounce and tremble of her breasts was revealed and yet remained invisible. Sukie had a vague notion that showing and hiding at the same time was more enticing than just showing or just hiding. This was all because of Bobo. Meeting him had opened her up to a whole new way of thinking: What was hot and what wasn’t? Silk jersey was sophisticated, too.

  Fixing the mirror with a hypnotic stare, she saw herself dressed in a loose white silk jersey top with a V neckline. A deep V, she corrected, increasing the angle enough to reveal cleavage. Nice. Very nice. She needed a bottom—a black skirt as tight as a snake’s skin, slit to her thigh, accessorized with a wide belt slung low on her hips.

  Picturing this, she spoke his name. “Bobo.” Her voice came out satisfyingly sultry.

  Let the games continue.

  “Hi, yes, fine, terrific.” Words all murmured, well, imagined to be murmured as Bobo circled her, nuzzling her neck. She broke away and ran down the field until he tackled her.

  No, start earlier. Much earlier. An unearthly sunset. In the mirror she envisioned it: The sun, an acid orange, scorched the horizon, and Sukie stood alone, framed by a fiery sky the way an angel has a halo or the Statue of Liberty a spiked crown. The heat of the sun burns inside me, she thought, thrilled that her skin might be so hot to the touch that Bobo, stealing a kiss, might have to run his lips under cold water or rub on vitamin E. In spiked heels she traversed the football field, scuffing up white dust from the lines of the touchdown zone. Ahead, swarms of people gathered at the entrance to the locker room. She sauntered up behind a phalanx of silly screaming girls. Over their shoulders Sukie could see one player after another drift out. They were tired, spent, but revved by the fans cheering their victory. Sukie ruffled her hair so the gentle waves framed and flattered. “I am tall enough that a man who aims to find me can find me,” Mirror Sukie assured herself. Mirror Sukie didn’t worry that the tape would fall off her nose. In the mirror, now, her nose appeared corrected, rampless, no tape necessary. The sunset shimmered in intense heat, and for an instant the words DANGER CAUTION blazed. Just then the star quarterback ambled out, his hair still wet from the shower, stuck down in clumps. Even if I hadn’t seen him shake his head as adorably as a wet puppy, spraying drops in every direction, thought Sukie, I would know he was there from the chanting. “Go-bo Bobo, Go-bo Bobo, Go-bo Bobo.” With his confident slouch and lazy smile, he soaked up the adulation. At the sam
e time, he searched. No one could tell. In the football game he dodged, ducked, spun, and sprinted, but off the field Bobo was a study in minimalism.

  His pupils flicked left to right. Giving no indication that the prize had been spotted, he eased forward slowly, and the cheering hordes pressed in. Ignoring them, he kept walking, and the fans, receiving neither encouragement nor resistance, no sense that they even existed, soon fell silent and drew back, providing a pathway straight to Sukie.

  She slipped off her shoes and ran. Thank God for the slit in her skirt. Her running skills were on display. She too was an athlete.

  They streaked down the field. She felt him closing in and slowed to provide the opportunity. He lunged and took her down, the deer slain by the hunter. They fell onto soft earth. “Roll me over,” said Sukie, and he did.

  “Your nose,” he said.

  “My nose?”

  She sat up. In the mirror she saw the ramp spread, its edges sharpen. She had a road down her nose.

  Sukie screamed.

  Her mother screamed.

  Señor screamed.

  “Oh my God,” her mom wailed. “You scared me. I came in to say good-night and you made me scream again.”

  Sukie jammed her face smack against the mirror. The taped construction had collapsed and her nose had returned to its normal ramped state. No longer a two-lane highway. No longer a runway for jet planes, or a football field where Bobo could be blitzing or being blitzed. Tape dangled half on, half off.

  “What’s that tape on your nose? Are you making fun of me?”

  “No.”

  Her mother carried on piteously. “I’ve done nothing but scream since I’ve been home, and make faces I am absolutely not supposed to make. You and your father. And you know what? I’m not even allowed to cry.” She pushed Sukie aside to see in the mirror what damage had been done. She felt her neck and around her eyes and then slapped her hand again for misbehaving.

  “Oh my God.” Sukie pointed to a tiny hairline crack. It meandered from one side of the mirror to the other about six inches from the bottom. She felt it. “The mirror just cracked. It cracked. How did it crack?”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing, I swear. I didn’t do anything. How could I do that?” Sukie, who specialized in fake baby voices, didn’t realize that she was squealing like a toddler.

  Her mother raised the dimmer switch. In the unflattering overhead light, her mom’s face, swollen and pulpy, had a startlingly varied color palette. It reminded Sukie of the streaky mess that results when kids mush their finger paints together. “This is why I couldn’t live with my face,” said her mom.

  Sukie wasn’t following. “Because of the mirror?”

  “Decay.”

  “Decay? What are you talking about? You’re only forty-one.”

  Her mother ran her finger along the hairline crack. “Eventually everything goes.”

  “Why did you change your nose?” asked Sukie.

  “I hated it.”

  “You hated it? Hated?” Sukie sat with a thump on the side of the tub.

  “For goodness’ sakes, so what?”

  Sukie stared at her feet. Her pinkie toe on her left foot was longer than her fourth toe. She’d forgotten that. Weren’t toes supposed to get smaller from one to the other? “Did you touch Señor’s feet?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why did he scream? He only screams when people touch his feet.” To trim his claws, the vet had to anesthetize him, because Señor uttered a yelp so shrill it could blow everyone’s eardrums. “You touched his feet,” said Sukie. “You did.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Bitch,” Sukie muttered. It was the first time in her life she’d called her mother a bitch, and she had no idea why she’d said it. It scared her a little.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  After a silence of mutual dislike they turned to Señor. What would he tell them, how might he scold them or provide some perspective? But he was having none of it. His jaw was set, his nostrils quivered, but Sukie and her mom rightly deduced that he had picked up the scent from the pizza delivery truck. They’d seen that look before.

  “We had the same nose,” said Sukie plaintively.

  “Mine was more pointed than yours.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Yes, right at the tip.” Her mom ripped the tape off Sukie’s face and left.

  Sukie slumped. Her arms hung limply, her bare knees knocked together. In this deflated pose, didn’t she look a little like a junkie? Didn’t she? She peeked in the mirror. Maybe. Anyway that wasn’t the point, she reminded herself. The point was, Her nose was awful. Her nose was so awful that her mother had it fixed. The point was, How can I take this nose to meet Bobo?

  “Hey.”

  Sukie jerked up. “Dad?” She craned her head. He was in her bedroom. She got up slowly, exhausted, and joined him. “Are you in pain, Dad?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” He grinned at her in a way that Sukie knew meant he had more to say. She waited while his smile bled off. He rubbed his fist against his lips. “Better not to talk about it,” he said finally. “You know, out there.”

  She knew exactly what he meant, his incident on the tennis court. “Of course. I wouldn’t.”

  He picked up Madame Bovary and examined the front cover, which pictured a woman with a lovely long arched neck, her eyes closed, her face suffused in either emotional pain or thrall. He turned it over and read the back. “An adulteress, huh?”

  “It’s really good. It was shocking when it was written.”

  “Good for you.”

  She didn’t quite know what he meant by that.

  He placed the book back on the desk, taking extra care to center it exactly the way Sukie had placed it originally. “I got a call from the hotel, the one where she stayed after her surgery. She took a duvet.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. She just took it. Packed it up.”

  “Wow. How’d she squish it in? I mean into her suitcase?”

  He pointed his finger at Sukie as if he had the answer and then let his hand slap down by his side. “Three hundred sixty dollars. I told them to put it on the credit card.”

  “Why did she take it?”

  “When you figure that out, let me know.” Sukie and her dad laughed. “Don’t tell her I told you.”

  “I won’t.” Whatever her dad wanted, she would honor.

  After a moment he said, “Promise?”

  “I promise.” She spoke up louder because he seemed lost in thought. “Did you like Mom’s nose before she changed it?”

  He shrugged.

  Sukie pressed. “Did you hate her nose before? Did you think it was ugly?”

  “Crazy, really.” He might have been talking to himself, the way he said it, ever so quietly. Sukie waited for more, but he just rubbed his hand over his face. He walked over to her penguins and picked up Daphne, who had eyelashes and plaid wings. “Hey, I won this, didn’t I? At Magic Mountain.”

  “Mom’s going to that school meeting about college. I don’t know what to tell kids.”

  “About what?” He turned around. “Her face?”

  Sukie nodded.

  “You’ll think of something.”

  The Lie

  SHE settled on a story and planted it in the locker room, the most fertile soil.

  “What?” Fleur erupted. Fleur’s “what” was more squawk than question. It rattled metal lockers, bounced off the cement walls, pierced the isolation of iPods, and spread the word: Something had happened.

  “Thank God she’s all right,” said Sukie. She laced up her sneakers, keeping her head down, listening to the chorus of questions from the rest of third-period gym, and letting Fleur answer them.

  “Her mom broke her nose.”

  “How did it happen?” asked Jenna.

  “At the spa. She dove into the shallow end.”

  Denicia
felt her own nose. It was still there in one piece. It was impossible to hear about Sukie’s mom and not recall her own carefree race to a pool on a summer’s day and a headfirst plunge. She’d done it many times, hadn’t they all? A headfirst plunge and a surprising smack. That part hadn’t happened, but it could have.

  “She could be paralyzed,” said Autumn.

  Autumn, who dreamed of becoming an actress, was admired for her bones. Her hips poked out like sticks. You could shelve books on her collarbones. No one had ever seen her throw up or even diet. Her metabolism appeared to be one of those truly unfair things in life. When she spoke the line “She could be paralyzed,” her eyes widened as if she beheld her own mother bandaged like a mummy in a hospital bed. She was unbuttoning her blouse to change into the navy Cobweb gym shirt, and her hands fumbled, unable to complete the task. “Paralyzed.” Once she said it, the word was picked up and repeated. What hadn’t happened was more exciting than what had.

  “She’s not paralyzed,” said Fleur. “Is she?”

  “No, just her nose. It got…” Sukie flat-handed her own nose, indicating it was smashed.

  “How frightening,” said Frannie gravely.

  Sukie, startled by the genuine concern and wishing with all her heart that she hadn’t lied, dug herself in deeper. “It was scary when we got the call. I saw in my dad’s face that something horrible had happened.”

  Sukie did see her dad’s face at that instant, his face on the tennis court, slack and dull, all the expression socked out of him.

  Frannie shivered watching Sukie as that wretched memory surfaced. It took Frannie back to when her father had died. Back to that moment last spring when she’d come to her dad’s from school, opened the bathroom door, and found him crumpled on the floor.

  Could Sukie have been traumatized? Could Frannie and the goddess, straight-A Sukie Jamieson, who lived with her golden hair and perfect parents in a Barbie dream house, be sisters under the skin? They had nothing in common. Frannie was an artist to the marrow of her bones. She could be fascinated with the interplay of light and shadow on something as ordinary as toast. Frannie was sure that Sukie would watch the light and shadow only under one condition: if she got class credit for doing it.