Confessions of a Serial Kisser (6 page)

17

Cheap Trick

I
LISTENED ATTENTIVELY
to what Mom thought she wanted done, which boiled down to "A trim and
very
subtle highlights." Then I zipped off to the store and bought supplies for what
I
wanted done--a rich chestnut dye and ravishing red highlights.

When I returned, I found her reading
Welcome to a Better Life.
"Exactly!" I told her. "You need to live your fantasy!"

"You've read this, too?"

I nodded. "Speak your fantasy, see your fantasy,
live your fantasy.
"

She sighed. "My problem is I don't know what my fantasy should be."

I smiled at her. "Well, get ready. This makeover will change all that!"

I started by applying the chestnut dye. And when that process was done, I wrapped her shoulders with a towel, combed out her wet hair, and asked, "So what do you want to hear?"

She knew I was talking about music. "Cheap Trick," she said after a short consideration.

I decided not to comment on the irony of the band's name where my dad (or her haircut) was concerned. I just cranked up the CD and got busy snipping, not letting on that "subtle" was not part of my master plan.

"I Want You to Want Me" shook the walls. We had a little shout-along as I snipped and clipped and shaped up the back of her hair. Mom seemed to forget about what I was doing as the band powered through "Ain't That a Shame," "Surrender," and "If You Want My Love." By the time we'd made it through "I Can't Take It" and "Walk Away," she had sexy-long bangs and some razor-cut layers.

"You are looking amazing!" I said, very pleased with my handiwork.

She wanted a mirror.

"Forget it!" I told her, then blew out her hair. And when it was dry and I could see where streaks of ravishing red would look the best, I got busy on the final phase of my evil plan.

Cheap Trick was done playing and I was mixing up highlights, contemplating what CD I should put on next, when the phone rang.

"Hello?" I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder.

"Evangeline? This is your dad. Please don't hang up. I--"

"We're sorry, you've reached a number that has been disconnected. Please hang up and
don't
try again."

My mom sighed after I clicked off. "That's getting pretty old, sweetheart."

"His
calling
here's getting old! What's up with that? Why can't he just leave us alone?"

Very quietly, she said, "He and Janelle have split up."

"What?" I moved around to face her. "So she got tired of him and now he wants to be 'dad' again?"

"
He
broke it off. Quite a while ago."

My whole body felt flushed. The tops of my hands, my cheeks, my rib cage...everything suddenly felt hot. "Well, lucky Janelle." I cocked my head. "And how do you know all this?"

She was quiet a moment, then said, "We've met for coffee a few times."

"What?"
But then I shook my head. "Never mind. I don't want to know." I wagged a finger at her. "When I'm done with you, you won't have time to have coffee with that two-timer! Men are going to be pounding down the door!"

I dug up The Who's greatest hits CD.

"Won't Get Fooled Again" seemed very appropriate.

18

Ravishing Red

I
WAS IN THE MIDDLE
of giving my mom's hair a final rinse at the sink when the phone rang again. Fortunately, it was Adrienne, not my dad.

"Hey," I said, holding the phone with one dripping hand while I sprayed my mom's head down with the other, "can I call you back? I'm rinsing out my mom. I gave her a radical cut and color."

"Radical?" my mom asked, banging her head on the faucet as she tried to pop up.

I pushed her back down, and into the phone I said, "Uh, I mean hot. She's gonna look hot."

My mother was not convinced. She bobbed up again, saying, "Is that why you won't let me see a mirror? What have you done? I trusted you!"

Before I could answer, Adrienne asked, "Did you really kiss a guy at Starbucks this morning?"

I pushed my mom down again and said, "Quit it, Mom! You're going to love it. Now let me finish rinsing!" And then into the phone I gasped, "Where'd you hear that?"

"Penelope Rozzwell, of all people. She heard it from Mary Blythe, who heard it from who-knows-who. So you're saying it's true?"

Mom was bobbing up again. "Just let
me
do it!"

"I'll call you back!" I said to Adrienne, and clicked off.

It was a real challenge keeping my mother away from a mirror. But I managed to blow her dry, style her, and apply a little makeup without letting her have a peek.

Finally I dug a pair of chandelier earrings out of her jewelry box, and after she'd slipped them in, I handed over a mirror.

She gasped when she saw herself.

She covered her mouth.

She turned side to side, touching the red highlights.

"Oh!" she said, sweeping aside the bangs, fluffing the layers. "Oh, wow!"

"Exactly," I said, feeling very proud of the transformation. "Everywhere you go, that's exactly what people are going to say. Oh, wow!"

She looked at me with glistening eyes and that all too familiar I'm-about-to-cry wrinkle pattern on her face.

So much for the makeup--it was about to get washed away.

But then something strange happened.

She blinked back the tears and
giggled.

"It doesn't even look like me!" she gasped.

"Yes, it does. It looks like a refreshed you. A new you. But still you."

She gave me a hug, then looked at herself in the mirror again. "Oh, thank you, angel. Thank you!"

Then she turned to me, and there it was.

Her glorious, glowing smile.

19

Visitors

I
GUESS
I
TOOK TOO LONG TO CALL
A
DRIENNE BACK
, because around three o'clock the doorbell rang, and there she was.

"You can't avoid me," she said, pushing past me. "Best friends are not to be avoided."

"I wasn't avoiding you! I've been really busy with--"

Then she saw my mom. "Lorena?"

My mom had always asked Adrienne to call her Lorena, but this was the first time it didn't seem weird.

Maybe because it was the first time in a long time my mom didn't look like a mom. She'd put on some flattering jeans and a flowing olive green cami and she looked
hot.

Adrienne gaped at me. "Wow, you
have
been busy!" She made my mother turn around. "That hairstyle is outstanding!"

"You're next," I said. "I'm on a roll!"

"I don't know...." She shook her head and focused on my mom. "Wow! Wow, wow, wow!"

My mom seemed stoked. And after a dose of Day Quil, she didn't even sound sick. "You girls want to go to a movie? Out to an early dinner? Shopping?"

I laughed. "How about all three?"

But then the doorbell rang again, and when I answered it, I found myself face to face with my dad.

I hadn't seen him in months, but he looked exactly the same. His hair was stylishly scruffy; his mustache was trimmed neatly off his lip, swooping around into little "boots" beneath the corners of his mouth. He looked relaxed, but more dressed up than usual in fitted jeans and a sports coat.

"What about 'we don't want to talk to you' don't you understand?" I asked.

"Evangeline, please. I was a jackass and I know it. But I don't really want to discuss it on the stoop. Can I please come in?"

"I think you've summed it up nicely," I said back. "And there's really nothing to discuss, so please go away!"

I started to close the door, but he stuck a boot in and called, "Lorena?" into the condo.

Suddenly my mother appeared, a purse on her shoulder, her keys in hand. "I'm sorry, Jon. Whatever it is will have to wait. The girls and I were going out."

Before he could fully process her hot new look, she'd locked the door and breezed out to the sidewalk, pulling Adrienne and me along with her.

"Lorena, wait!" he called after her.

For once, she didn't listen.

20

Biology Experiment

A
DRIENNE WAS FASCINATED
by my Starbucks encounter. Not that I mentioned it in front of my mom--I had to slip it in piecemeal as we tooled around town eating and shopping. But by the time we were at The Bargain Boutique, waiting as my mother tried on yet another outfit, Adrienne was fully informed and liked the idea of trying to land Justin Rodriguez. "He's a much better choice than some random guy at a Starbucks!" she whispered. "And a romantic setting is a great idea. Delilah and Grayson were by the lake with swans and weeping willows and twittering birds."

"You read it!" I said.

"Well, most of it." She gave me a mild version of her trademark squint. "And I get it about the kissing, but Evangeline, really, it's not that great a book."

"It is too!"

She shook her head. "You're projecting something into it." Then she
really
squinted. "And I hate that Elise dies! Why does Elise have to die? No eight-year-old should have to die, fictional or otherwise!"

"But that's what drew Grayson and Delilah together."

"It's so manipulative. I hate books like that."

I crossed my arms. "So you hate my favorite book."

"No, I don't
hate
it. And the romance scenes
are
really great. I'll finish it and get it back to you on Monday, okay?" She grinned. "You're probably going through withdrawal, huh?"

It was kind of true.

She gave a knowing nod and said, "But back to the real world. I think Justin Rodriguez is a good prospect. He's actually sorta dashing-looking, and you're right--he seems like a romantic. He might actually be worthy of you!"

So with Adrienne's blessing I started mulling over ways and places to meet up with Justin Rodriguez, and by Monday I'd come up with the perfect setting.

The Prager Park gazebo.

It was a lovely gazebo--white, with elaborate scrollwork near the roof and trumpet vines climbing the latticework--and it was nestled among flowering magnolias and honeysuckle shrubs on a little grassy knoll.

Unfortunately, it was also near the basketball courts and a parking lot, but being there in the moonlight would be as close to a lake with swans and weeping willows as I'd be able to find.

The trouble was getting Justin there. Or, actually, finding him at all. I looked everywhere for him Monday morning, scoured the campus at break, kept an eagle eye out for him between classes...he was nowhere.

How was I supposed have a romantic rendezvous with a guy I couldn't find?

Once again Adrienne came to my rescue. She ran up to me in the quad during lunch and panted, "I tailed him to Room Five Twelve. He's eating lunch in there with Blaine York and Travis Ung!"

"In Mr. Webber's room?"

She shifted her backpack and nodded.

No wonder I couldn't find him. Mr. Webber might be nice, but nobody in their right mind would eat lunch in the bio lab. The walls ooze death and dissection, the air stinks, and after finishing biology last year, I swore I'd never set foot in that classroom again.

But I was in hot pursuit of a crimson kiss, so I grabbed my book bag and said, "Let's go!"

We entered Room 512 to curious looks from Justin and his friends. They were obviously thinking,
What are
they
doing here?
and Travis Ung actually volunteered, "Mr. Webber's not here."

"Good," I laughed, and pulled up a seat next to Justin.

"Wassup?" he asked.

I took his hand and wrote my phone number on his palm.

"It's vanishing ink," I whispered in his ear. "Use it tonight, or it disappears."

Then I grabbed Adrienne and left.