The Girl with the Mermaid Hair Read online

  Like? It had never crossed Sukie’s mind that she was supposed to like something. She was supposed to do well in everything, but like…?

  “Like is for later,” said her dad. “Trust me on that.”

  “Well, it would be nice if she liked the things that she does,” Mrs. Dintenfass said diplomatically. Because she handled the college application process, she had a poor opinion of Cobweb parents. She saw them at their most desperate and calculating. “So, Sukie, what do you like?”

  “Um…”

  “Darling, think,” said her mom. “How hard is that?”

  “Tennis. I love to play tennis.”

  Her mom sighed loudly. “It’s all your fault that she loves tennis,” her mom told her dad. “She just likes it because you like it.”

  “No, I really like it.”

  “What are your friends’ hobbies?” asked her mom.

  “She doesn’t have any friends,” said Mikey.

  “Shut up,” said Sukie.

  “Of course she does. Would you like to work in Appalachia this summer? Or Peru?” said her mom.

  “Peru or Appalachia?” Sukie was feeling faint.

  “She doesn’t have to decide now,” said her dad.

  “Would I have to sweep?”

  “Sweep what?” asked her dad.

  “Floors.”

  “I don’t know,” said her mom.

  “I don’t want to sweep.”

  Mrs. D.

  THE next morning in the middle of first period, Sukie was called to Mrs. Dintenfass’s office. “Oh, Sukie,” she said, as if she were surprised to see her even though she’d sent for her. Mrs. D. indicated that Sukie should sit in the chair in front of her desk and smiled at her for what seemed like an eternity while she dunked her tea bag up and down in a mug. The mug featured a drawing of a cat balancing a book on its head. “Would you like some tea?” asked Mrs. D.

  “No, thanks.” Sukie’s leg started to jiggle nervously. She’d visited Mrs. Dintenfass’s office several times and had never been offered tea before.

  Mrs. D., a thin, awkward person with a narrow face and wispy hair, had, Sukie noted, a sparrow nose. “Sparrow” was bony, slender, with a slight upturn and a tiny point at the end. Sukie’s world was rapidly becoming no more than a collection of noses. On the way to the guidance office she’d passed “bulb,” two “Greeks,” and “fried egg.” The office secretary had “beak.”

  “Cobweb is family,” said Mrs. D.

  Sukie nodded.

  “Families care about one another, and you are an important member of the Cobweb family.”

  This is going to be bad, thought Sukie.

  “What’s going on at your house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mrs. D. opened her hands as if it were self-evident.

  “My mom had a spa accident.”

  “I heard that. What is really going on?”

  Sukie studied the small daisy plant on the desk, realizing for the first time that it was fake.

  “Susannah, I have known you since kindergarten. You’re a wonderful person and a good student, and I’m very concerned. You can trust me. Nothing leaves this room. And neither do you until I hear the truth.”

  “My mom had a facelift,” said Sukie.

  “And your father? What about your father? What happened to him?”

  “A man beat him up.” Sukie burst into tears.

  Mrs. D. opened a desk drawer, removed a small box of tissues, and held it out. Sukie took a tissue and pressed it against her face.

  “Take two.”

  Sukie took another.

  “Do you know why?”

  Sukie honked her nose, wiped her eyes, and wadded the tissues into a ball. Mrs. D. nudged the wastebasket over with her foot, and Sukie, after another loud blow, dropped in the used tissues.

  “Do you know what happened exactly?” Mrs. D. prodded gently.

  Sukie pulled some strands of hair in front of her eyes and examined them.

  “It must have been scary.”

  With the light behind them these hairs look white, thought Sukie. Could I be going white?

  “So you have no idea why this happened?”

  “No.”

  “But you saw it?”

  “Sort of. Yes.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “No.”

  She would never tell what the grim man had said. She would take that to her grave. She wouldn’t tell even if they strung her up by the thumbs, a torture that Sukie had heard about, but she wasn’t sure how it worked.

  “Please don’t tell anyone about my dad. I promised him.” Remembering that promise and that she’d violated it produced another flood of tears.

  “Your secrets are safe with me. Don’t worry.” Mrs. D. pulled six tissues and held them out. “Here, sweetie, take these in case you need them. You can go back to class.”

  That day Sukie noticed that most kids ignored her more than ever. I don’t care, she told herself. I don’t need friends. Friends are peasants, a Madame Bovary-ish notion that amused her. During lunch period, while she was eating her tuna-fish sandwich, standing by her locker, she saw Frannie watching from down the hall. Sukie smiled a crocodile smile, gay and full of joie de vivre, she imagined. The football game was only three days away, two if you didn’t count today. She didn’t see Frannie raise her hand in a tentative wave, because Sukie took out her phone and snapped a selfie while chewing. Eating might be involved. She’d better know what she looked like eating.

  The Friday Night Before the Saturday

  TO give “Meet me after the game” a romantic aura, Sukie called it a rendezvous.

  “My rendezvous tomorrow with Bobo,” she said to the mirror. She placed her palm on her heart and filled her face with sincerity, an activity that required pushing her breath into her cheeks until saliva bubbled up behind her lips.

  When a bit of drool broke the mood, she gave herself a strict talking-to. “No expectations.”

  She decided to make a “flatman.” Sukie’s mom had taught her this: to select the clothes she planned to wear the following day and lay them on the carpet the night before in the shape of a flatman.

  She tried on dozens of things, and, to avoid bad luck, rehung them all precisely—the collars on blouses and jackets turned down and matching, all shoulders even, jeans clipped so the legs fell to the exact same length. She retied the bow on her scooped-neck blouse six times until it was a vision in symmetry, and reset her shoes side by side neat as bottom teeth.

  Everything even, even, even.

  Once she’d arranged her selections on the floor and admired the look, she stripped to her bikini underpants, pulled on an oversized T-shirt, and crawled into bed.

  Her final task, her karmic task, was to get into the least expecting frame of mind when every cell in her body throbbed with excitement, desire, and hope.

  With the whir of the overhead fan providing an accompanying rhythm, Sukie lay on her back repeating over and over, “Expect nothing, expect nothing, expect nothing.” Eventually the recitation of the impossible-to-achieve mantra put her to sleep.

  Señor

  SUKIE had a clock inside her. When she set her alarm for seven, she knew she would wake up just before it went off, and on Saturday morning she did. At six fifty-eight. Sheets of rain slammed the window, a madman trying to break in. Rain. She shot up in bed, swung her legs over the side, hopped down, and saw Señor lying on her flatman.

  Señor had never lain on her flatman before.

  She rubbed her hands over her face. “Señor,” she moaned.

  He rolled over.

  That turned her bug-eyed. Señor never rolled over. It was a complete 360-degree roll. And furthermore, while on his back, he undulated, a horizontal hula move both sensual and exhibitionistic. When he stood up, he’d left her entire flatman creased, flecked with white hair, and smudged with dirt. Señor might have spent half his life self-grooming, but he was still a dog.

  He’d rol
led over.

  “Roll me over” was Bobo’s first message. Did Señor know that? How? Was this a joke? Was he teasing her? He’d teased her mom by nudging his red ball off the second-floor landing. And what about the mirror? There were several more fissures now, long spidery cracks that had splintered off the first. Was the weakened mirror slowly cracking up? Or had Señor been screaming when no one was home?

  “Sound waves vibrate at a lower frequency inside a glass than outside, and when a person hits a high note, that tension causes a glass to shatter,” Sukie told Señor. “But a mirror isn’t a vessel, so how are you pulling this off?”

  The mirror rattled, reminding her—rain, Bobo, late. She leaped over Señor and jabbed the start button on her computer.

  Hurry up, she begged it. She was ten minutes behind schedule. Eleven. Really an hour, maybe three if she included having to decide what to wear all over again (and having to rehang the rejects in a good-luck way). She clicked on Safari. Why was this taking so long? Finally she was able to Google the Weather Channel website and the information she craved: Rain will stop midmorning. Thank God. She bolted to the bathroom.

  In the shower she clocked her conditioner at five minutes (using a kitchen timer), the exact recommended time for fortifying and softening, and after rinsing, she toweled herself with her fluffiest bath sheet, which she then wrapped and tucked above her breasts, and began the arduous task of preparing head and hair for Bobo.

  She felt damp under her arms and sniffed. She’d left the shower not two minutes ago and was already sweating. Using a washcloth, she sponged her armpits and applied enough deodorant to wax a floor.

  BEDHEAD MERMAID. Last night she’d taped those words next to the mirror below the near-poem.

  She bent over, let her wet hair hang like a mop, and began blow-drying.

  This was grueling work. Patience was crucial because Bedhead Mermaid could be achieved only by drying on the gentlest setting. Her head throbbed as the blood rushed in. Her wrist ached from holding the salon-quality dryer upside down. Gladly she sacrificed. To keep her spirits up, from time to time she whispered, “I am chill.” Her head began to feel as heavy as cement.

  Whap. Señor tapped his paw into the back of her knee. Sukie’s leg buckled. She crashed onto the bathmat, the front of the dryer smacked her forehead. She sat upright and thrust her face at the mirror. She had a semicircular dent, a C curving from her left eyebrow up to her hairline.

  Quickly, she squirted ultralite moisturizer into her hand and massaged the dent. “Señor.” She couldn’t keep the reproach out of her voice. “Señor,” she sniffed in despair. But wait. She whirled back to the mirror. Yes, her forehead was creased, it did seem as if someone might have used it for a sofa but…but…she couldn’t help noticing her hair.

  It was magnificently messed. That shove of Señor’s had been helpful. A smile stole across her face. “My hair is a thicket, wild and thorny.” She fixed the mirror with a bold stare. “Toss me that.” She threw out her arm and caught a sword somersaulting through the glass into her grip. Was it real? At that moment, her reflection was her creation. “Hold it.” With her unoccupied hand she signaled time out and took a second to retuck her towel more securely and wedge her feet into four-inch high heels. These were her favorite shoes. The leather, the color of pink grapefruit, was perforated all over like a doily. She’d always known she would wear these shoes today. No others had been in the running.

  She raised her sword. “En garde.”

  Sukie’s entire knowledge of fencing came from watching Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3. “En garde,” “thrust,” and “parry” were her entire fencing vocabulary. But when she lunged, her form stunned. She could feel the tension in her spine, her free arm arced elegantly. Faint shadowy reflections in the tile walls morphed into a dense woods. There were thick trees, ancient and gnarled, branches with fat tufts of green hanging as thick as curtains, which Bobo parted, bursting forth to fight the duel. He spun, he leaped, he struck wildly, all in his football gear, which evened the match: him fencing in the bulk and weight of padding, she advancing and retreating in heels and a towel. She nicked him. He froze. He lifted his injured wrist to his mouth, all the while his flashing black eyes pinned her as helpless as a full-frontal tackle. Then with a kick he sprang forward and Sukie, jumping back, rammed into a tree. She raised a high-heeled shoe, stuck it in Bobo’s ribs, and pushed. Sliding around the trunk, she escaped to the other side.

  “En garde!” she shouted.

  Their blades clashed, sending sparks of light floating up and into the night like lost stars. Sukie halted, struck by their magic, and Bobo, with an upward thrust, knocked the rapier from her hand. With the point of his sword at her heart, she sank to her knees.

  Still she felt the prick of his blade. “More surrender,” he demanded. He flicked his sword at the tuck in her towel, loosening it.

  “Are you in there, Sukie?” Her mom rapped at the door.

  Sukie, wedged into a corner of the shower, deep in a place ever so much more entrancing and erotic than her own life, scrambled up. “Just a second, Mom.” She kicked off her shoes, scooped them up, and stepped out of the dry shower. “I’m coming.” She peeked out the door.

  She’d forgotten her mother’s face.

  Since her mom’s return, Sukie had aimed her eyes above her mother’s shoulder, or into her bangs, or below her neck, or at her ear to avoid the creepy feeling, This is not my mother. The gauzy nose bandage was now replaced by two strips of tape, but her mom’s face was still engorged as if several creatures small and swampy had taken up residence under her skin.

  “Where are you going?” her mom asked, immediately understanding that Sukie was preparing for something.

  “Oh, I have a…a bunch of us are meeting at the Hudson Glen football game.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, you know….” Sukie couldn’t think of anyone to suggest. Whom did she ever hang out with? “Bobo Deeb, the quarterback. We’re…we’re friends. I’m meeting him after.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “I’m hoping Dad can drop me.”

  “I’m sure he can. I can’t. I’m not allowed to drive.”

  Sukie knew that. Her mom had already mentioned several times that she wasn’t allowed to drive for three weeks. Sukie had no idea why her mother couldn’t drive. What did steering and pressing the gas pedal and brake have to do with her face? Perhaps simply the sight of her mother behind the wheel might cause an accident.

  “He’s the quarterback?”

  “Yes,” said Sukie, pride sneaking in. She shifted her glance to the mirror and noticed a puncture. The mirror had a hole in it. She pivoted, blocking the mirror with her back.

  “Don’t make that face,” said her mom.

  “What face?” said Sukie.

  “Where your lips go down. If you do that, you’ll get deep grooves from here to here.” With the edge of her thumbnail she traced a line from one end of Sukie’s lips down to her chin, and then did the same on the other side.

  Sukie forced her lips slightly upward.

  “I regret every frown,” said her mom. “You can’t cut out smiles, that’s not practical, but it’s better to smile only when you mean it. I regret how polite I am, really I do.”

  “Mom, I have to get ready. I have to do myself up.”

  “Of course,” said her mom, and mercifully left.

  Ramp

  SUKIE examined the hole in the mirror. Had it been there yesterday? This morning? How could she not have noticed it? Had she poked the mirror? With what?

  “My beautiful mirror.” Sukie, distressed, saw her reflected face full of awful creases her mother had warned against. She tried not to show her upset, to will her features into indifference, but expression (and creases) kept creeping in. “Did you do this, Señor? Somehow, did you?”

  Señor rolled on his side and closed his eyes. Conversation was useless. Besides, she was late.

  She assembled various liquid bases
and experimented. On the first try, she glopped it on her nose as thick as peanut butter. She scraped it off and began again…and again…and again—patting it lightly, wiping with minisponges, lighter on the sides, heavier on the ramp, striping not blending, blending not striping. Her eyes strayed to the hole in the mirror.

  She pressed her body flat against the glass. Such an odd thing to do, she didn’t know why the urge came upon her or why she acted on it. The hole in the mirror was approximately at the location of her heart. She stepped back and touched it lightly with her fingers. It was small and perfectly round. For a second she lost herself in fantasy. This puncture was proof—she’d dueled with Bobo in an enchanted forest. The tip of his sword had pierced her heart. Or perhaps it was an omen—the surrender was yet to come.

  Stop, she scolded herself, get real, and she returned to the serious problem, her nose. Remixing the makeup, lightening “sand” with a bit of “bisque,” she sponged on a few dabs. After viewing her nose in various lights, natural and artificial, she was finally satisfied. She’d neutralized “ramp.” She’d successfully doctored her most exotic feature. It was now innocuous. Bland. Finally she was ready to take her nose to meet Bobo.

  As for the rest of her face, she kept it simple: six coats of mascara (letting each dry before the next), lip pencil brightened with a coral gloss selected from a minicompact of four corals mysteriously named Pink Devil. “The devil is in me,” she told the mirror before diving into her closet and the problem of what to wear. She made a radical choice: a short red suede jacket with a fringe, something she’d almost forgotten she owned. “Hello, what is this?” she said upon spying it. Solving her nose made her brave, even jocular, and she completed the rest of her choices quickly—skinny jeans, her pink grapefruit heels of course, and snug-fitting layered T-shirts (tawny over tangerine). She blew kisses to Señor as she left. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” She was so grateful to him for wrecking her flatman and knocking her to the floor.