Illuminate (51 page)

Dante was waiting for me, scissors out and ready to go the minute I arrived at his place. I had tied and pinned back my choppy mess of a hairstyle and stuck it all under a hat, and as I let it loose now, he did his best to hide his shock. “This is going to be just fine,” he said, touching my head delicately, as he ushered me into the desk chair he’d positioned before the mirror in his room. “We’ll get her for doing this. Taking souls is one thing, but botching up a haircut is inexcusable.” He tried to be light, but I could hear the quake in his voice. Raking his fingers through, he shook out the hacked-up layers. “I can totally do something with this,” he said. “I promise you.”

“I owe you one.” I was starting to feel better already.

“Um, you kind of helped save my life, so I think we’re good, honey.” He took a comb out of his back pocket and pulled it through my locks. We were silent for a few long minutes as he studied me before he began clipping.

When I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I spoke tentatively. “Dan, I feel like I failed you as a friend. I did, didn’t I? I’m so sorry.” I had wanted to say this for a while now but needed to wait until he was feeling better. But now that he was, I wasn’t sure I was up to hearing the answer. He stopped cutting for a moment and his face turned serious. He spoke to my reflection in the mirror.

“It wasn’t you, Hav.” He shook his head. “I got swept up, you know? He understood me, Etan did.”

“I understand you,” I offered.

“No, sweetie, you’re nice, but do you understand what it’s like to be sixteen and gay and out, like, way out, not figuring it out like most everyone else at school? I mean, are you a gay guy who likes to cook?”

“I guess not,” I said, disappointed in myself.

“This is stupid,” he said, smiling to himself now. “But I just really want to be in love, you know what I mean?” He had a vibrant spark in his eyes that I had missed these past months.

“You’ve always been a romantic. You like chick flicks more than I do.” He gave me a playful smack on the shoulder, then started cutting again.

“There’s just never anyone to be in love
with.
I feel like it’s just me on this island, waiting for hot guys to join me, but no one knows who they are yet or how to get there yet.”

“They will though, and they won’t be like Etan.”

“Yeah, I mean, I know he played me.”

“It’s okay, we all got played.”

“But he had this whole spiritual thing too, saying I could be young and beautiful and successful instantly and, like, forever. It seemed like he, and everyone there, had everything figured out, you know? Like they were leading these perfect lives.”

“I know, believe me. Hey,” I said, ready to move on to more important business, “Aurelia seems to think you might still be able to be converted to their side.”

“Oh, they’re not taking me without a fight. I’ve got plans for them. You can’t keep me away.” He stopped cutting. “Don’t you have something for me? From Lance? I was told there would be a top-secret file for me. I’m ready to go!”

“Are you sure though, about coming back? Because I really don’t want you to feel like you have to. It’s totally okay; you’ve been through enough already—”

He cut me off. “Hand it over.” I hopped off the chair, rifled through my things, and dug out the chocolate box Lance had sent along, which I knew would be completely devoid of any candy. Dante tossed the lid on the floor and found inside a slip of paper with an address, where he was to meet Lance at six o’clock that evening, and his chef’s coat.

“Excellent.” He left the box and its contents on his bed and snapped his fingers, motioning for me to get back in the chair. “I’m going shopping later.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ve got a little list of all the plants and spices and things I’m going to take from that garden. I’m going to mess with their recipes at prom tomorrow night.”

“So you’re officially coming back?”

He plugged in the hair dryer. “If for no other reason than to avenge the slaughter of your hair.”

I had to smile, worried as I was. “That’s very chivalrous,” I said. “But we’ve still got some matters to discuss: do you know about this business of ‘coding’?”

“Hold that thought,” he said, firing up the dryer. He pulled the brush out of his back pocket and went to work styling. When he was finished, he leaned down next to me, put his arm around my shoulders, and admired us both in the mirror. He had turned my ravaged hair into a sleek bob falling just below my chin.

“I love it,” he said, giving me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “You’re lucky your face can pull this off; not everyone can.”

I had never considered cutting my hair this short, but I looked at it now—so drastic and defiant—and it wasn’t bad at all. I looked like a very different me. Maybe this was the warrior version of me, the persona that would be able to face this most daunting day and the battle that awaited me. Dante had managed, like he always did, to make it all better, and I felt good.

“Thank you, Dan, really.” I turned to him. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Dante is back!” he announced, proud of himself. I was so grateful.

After the haircut, we parked ourselves in the kitchen, snacking on the cookies Dante had baked the day before (he was back, indeed), and discussed strategy for the evening to come.

The plan would be for Ruthie to drive Dante into the city this afternoon to the warehouse of a theater prop rental company, where he’d meet Lance under the guise of choosing a new cow for the prom. They had a ton of fake cows from a citywide art project several years back in which the life-size things were stationed on street corners and outside landmarks. While he was browsing, Dante would climb into the underbelly—they had access panels and were hollow inside—and he would be delivered later that evening to the hotel and swapped for the other cow. There, he would wait until the time came for him to sneak out of the cow, into the kitchen, and disperse his antidotes into the food that had already been prepared for the prom festivities. It was a fine enough plan, but there was one last necessary step.

We were back in Dante’s room, but this time he was the one in the chair and I was wielding the scissors. I cut off the first dreadlock and paused to let him take it in.

“You know you secretly wanted to copy me and get a new look,” I teased, but very gently.

“It’ll grow back,” he said solemnly, like a soldier going into battle. “Time for a change.” I continued on, clipping until they were gone.

“You’re sure you’re okay with this? You know you’re going to be like bait, right?” I asked, before I finished him off with the electric razor. We had decided this might be a way to throw them off his scent, in case someone were to spot him tampering with the food in the kitchen. They would just think he was one of them and declare him nonthreatening. Anyone looking on would simply believe that it was a signal he was ready to sell his soul and had come back to do it.

“It’s okay, it’s for a good cause,” he said, but his skittish eyes told me he was nervous. We were silent for several minutes until, finally, perhaps looking for something to take his mind off it, he blindsided me. “So what’s up with you and Lance?”

“I don’t know.” I tried not to sound surprised, but it came out defensive. “You were like a zombie. I had to hang out with someone.”

“Just wondering.”

“Don’t give me that look,” I scolded.

“I’m just saying, he’s a total Clark Kent,” he whispered. This was our universal name for stealthy cute guys, who didn’t realize they were cute—which is really the best thing.

“I know, I’ve sort of been thinking that lately.”

I brushed the clippings off Dante’s face and shoulders and looked at him in the mirror. Not bad. I had returned the favor after his coifing handiwork.

The time came too soon to say goodbye and I hugged him, told him to be careful, and tried not to think about what lay ahead for him.

I found Lance in our office, sending e-mails to his mom. I owed Joan a call but I hated the idea of it; I wasn’t sure I’d hold it together. He looked up when he heard me walk in.

“Hey,” he said, then pointed. “Dante did that?”

“Yeah, crazy, right?” I felt a little exposed—it was strange not having my hair to hide behind.

“The man is skilled. It looks nice.” He pushed his glasses up.

“Thanks. What’s going on here?”

“Nothing.” He closed out of his screen. “Killing time until we meet with Courtney.”

“Ugh, that’s right.” In all the excitement I had forgotten she was supposed to come with a few other prom committee stalwarts to okay the look of the ballroom.

“You’re not bailing on me.”

“No. I just don’t know which is worse—having to show them around today or figuring out how to cheat death tomorrow.”

When Courtney and two of her identical cohorts arrived that afternoon, we greeted them formally, with handshakes, as though establishing ourselves as more powerful than we had been at school. She looked me up and down in a strange way, as if she couldn’t quite place me. I just smiled. We showed them up to the ballroom, pointing out all the details. A handful of Outfit members were still in there, tending to the lights and making sure everything was in place. They acted like we weren’t there, even when Courtney said, perhaps too loudly, “Wow, everyone is like so superhot here.”

The three girls walked around the entire perimeter slowly, whispering, like people in a museum. After all this time around the Outfit and braving the likes of Aurelia, people who truly meant us harm, I was so much less impressed with Courtney and her ilk. They really weren’t so powerful at all, were they? There was no reason for them to have any hold over us. I had seen true terror now and she wasn’t it at all. She was nothing. We stood back and let them be alone and after some time they wandered back over to us.

“It’ll all do just fine,” Courtney said.

Lance and I had rehearsed this. “We’re so glad. You know, it’s really important to us to have everything perfect and it occurred to us just today that this is not the kind of cow you had in mind,” I said, as we all gazed at the beige beast.

“Huh?”

“We realized,” Lance explained, “what would really ‘pop’—to use one of the words from your many e-mails to us—would be . . . a spotted cow.”

The trio looked at the cow again, with serious faces. Courtney whispered urgently to her minions as if they we were discussing the threat of nuclear war. And finally, they turned back toward us.

“Yeah, spotted cows are hot,” Courtney said. “Thank god it’s not too late.”

“I know. Phew,” I said. “So, anyway, that will be delivered tonight and all in place for tomorrow.”

“Good,” she said. She dug into her purse and produced a check from Evanston High School. And with that they were gone.

As Lance and I passed the front desk headed back to the gallery, an Outfit member called out, “Ms. Terra?” I stopped, surprised by the formality. Lance gave me a look too.

“Yes, hi.”

“Ms. Brown would like to see you.” I forgot to breathe for a moment. Lance and I traded worried glances.

“Of course,” I said to the girl.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Lance said, trying, I could tell, to sound as normal as possible. “Hey, can I borrow your key? I have to grab my book from your room.” I knew what he was doing: he was going to keep an eye on me from our hiding place within the walls. I handed him the keycard.

Aurelia didn’t say a word about my hair. She simply let her eyes linger on it and didn’t bother suppressing a smirk. She was an entirely different person from the one who had sat across from me at the Parlor, telling me about her life choices. I sat in that familiar chair, my stomach tying itself in knots, wondering if this was going to be it. The real beginning of the end for me. I felt naked somehow, facing her for the first time without my necklace. The only mild comfort was looking to that wall behind her and knowing Lance would be there watching, at the ready if I needed him. That gave me strength.

“Just a little business to tend to,” she started, frosty, as she shuffled papers on her desk. “As we discussed the other day, I am certain that there are tremendous things in your future. I just need something from you—” She reached from her desk drawer to pull something out, but she stopped when I piped up again, for the sake of stalling.

Summoning all my courage, I said, “Yes, but what exactly do you see? In my future?” I wanted to add,
Because if I went along with this it would have to end with me in the fiery pit of hell and that’s not a future I’m interested in,
but I showed some careful restraint.

“Well, I’m glad you asked that. What would
you
like to see in your future? Because whatever it is, it can be yours.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” she affirmed.

“Well, the thing is, I always have dreamed of becoming a doctor,” I said. She nodded like this would be easy, no problem. “And their oath is ‘First do no harm.’ I, um, don’t think that’s the oath here.”

She glared at me, but kept her tone bright. “Perhaps you have questions. Maybe that’s the issue.” In her pursed lips and strained neck, I could see her mounting frustration. I sat up more rigid, and didn’t say a word.

She continued, “To be honest, Haven, I’ve grown tired of this. I won’t beg you. There might have been a time when the idea of becoming the ideal you, that perfect version of you, would thrill you. Silly me, I thought you would warm to the idea of being comfortable in your skin, being happy and successful, enjoying the attention and adoration that could come with something like this rather than spending your life worried about what everyone thinks of you. The taste you’ve gotten of this life should be more than enough to convince you.”

“Well—” I started, but she put up her hand.

“However, if all of that hasn’t cinched it for you, then this should: what happened last night, that was just the mildest glimpse of what lies ahead for you if you don’t join us. This will not end well for you.”

“But I’ve seen what happens to these people, the Outfit,” I spoke up now, firm as I could. “Why would I want to become a perfect shell, this zombie-like creature who seems dead inside? Who seems to have everything anyone would want, but has no desires or feelings or passions or anything?”