Skin (3 page)

I have no idea what pants she’s talking about—I’ve never been super observant about clothes—but she’s looking at me as though she expects a reaction. “Whales don’t have thighs.”

“You’re supposed to laugh anyway, Sep. It’s called being polite.”

“Sorry. Your thighs are great, by the way.”

“No they’re not. Whatever. I bought white, which is extra stupid, especially since I want to look juicy for this party.”

That’s the way the two of us have always divided the world: everything and everyone is either juicy or juiceless. We tell each other we are definitely juicy, even if no one else has noticed yet. Devin goes on and on, speed talking as though she doesn’t want to give me the chance to interrupt. Right now, though, it’s just fine with me to listen. My lips need time off.

They feel weird. Not because they’re white. They are weird because they’re white. But they feel weird because this lipstick is like a coat of car wax. Gummy. I don’t remember lipstick feeling like this in middle school. Maybe old lipstick rots? What a dumb idea it was to put it on. Now everyone will react like Devin. That’s the last thing I need.

Unless they act like Mamma—the worry in her eyes. That would be worse.

WE GET TO SCHOOL and Devin goes her way and I go mine. I put my backpack away in my locker and watch the girl beside me check her teeth in her iPod mirror. We’re not supposed to bring iPods to school, but she’s packing. I’m not. So I duck into the bathroom for a quick peek at the mirror—yup, ugly pink goop still there—and go to my first class, trying to act natural and disappear at the same time, which I guess sort of works, except maybe nine hundred people say hi to me, so I have to at least nod.

I don’t see Dante anywhere. Probably he’s already lost. I almost feel sorry for him.

Faces parade past. Some have lipstick—but not many.
And no one has pink. I bet everyone who passes is thinking,
Pink lipstick, what’s up with her?
I bend my neck and look at the floor, which is clean—I bet that won’t last a day. It’s a pattern of dark gray diamonds with light gray diamonds in the spaces between. Ugly. I feel sorry for it.

My first class is AP Biology. I have been fascinated by animals for as long as I can remember, so I walk in hopeful, ready to get lost in the whirl of information that’s sure to come.

Mr. Dupris says that swifts stop flying just long enough to nest—but that’s all—the rest of the time, they are in the air.

Swifts sleep in the air.

Could that be true?

Mr. Dupris is an odd duck. According to his own outline of the semester, he’s supposed to be talking about basic chemistry—water and carbon and all that. Instead, he’s jumped ahead to metabolism. His eyes shine and he bounces on his metatarsals, clicking his heels each time, like a metronome. It’s like he can’t stop himself. Like he’s the one with a metabolism problem. But I like teachers who get off the topic. They tend to talk about what they love, and that means they know details that aren’t in the book.

Next is English, and it’s pretty much what I expected it to be. We read a poem—that’s the part of English I’ve
always loved, the reading. And sometimes the writing. It’s the discussion that bores me. Today’s discussion feels aimless, like always, and my thoughts keep going back to my lips. I can’t wait for this class to end.

I rush to the bathroom after English and check my lipstick. I rushed here after Bio, too. If anyone’s noticed, they must think I have a urinary tract infection. Or a weak bladder. Or irritable bladder syndrome. Or I’m pregnant. And high school is a rumor mill. This is not cool. On the other hand, I can’t imagine who would notice. Devin says no one notices her. But really I’m the one no one notices.

Just to be sure, though, I lock my eyes on the floor as I exit the bathroom, then race to the lunchroom that way. Today’s lunch is a thick slice of spinach pie. The Italian kind. Mamma made it. It has the flakiest crust in the world, like a little miracle—it’s actually worth reeking of parmigiano afterward.

“Sep? Right?”

I look up.

“I’m Rachel. We’re in Bio together.” She sits beside me on the bench. She’s little and neat, almost prim.

“Nice to meet you.”

“That has a great aroma.”

I laugh. “You could smell my mother’s spinach pie just walking past me?”

“I’m trying to develop a nose. Like they say in wine tasting.” She looks at the pie. And not in a casual way.

It is a particularly big slice. Why not? “Want a bite?”

“Oh, could I? Thanks.” She pulls a fork out of her pocket.

“You come prepared.”

“You never know what you’ll find.” She takes a bite. “That’s insanely good. Simple, but right. Spinach, onions, eggs, parmigiano, ricotta, and nothing but salt and pepper.”

“Exactly. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks so much. Give your mother my compliments. See you in Bio,” she says as she leaves.

I finish the pie with even more appreciation than before, if that’s possible. Simple, but right. You bet. Then I eat a peach from our tree, which is sweeter and juicier than anything store-bought. I finish it off slowly with a thermos of milk.

Oh no. Lipstick came off on the thermos lip. Okay. I’ll go to the bathroom and touch up. No biggie. But my head goes hot anyway. I hold the thermos in front of my mouth and keep my head down and make a dash for it.

And I crash into someone.

“Sep? How you doing?”

I tip my head up. It’s Joshua Winer. Oh my God. With all that curly hair. He’s big. He looks like a football player, which is a stupid thought because he is a football player. I feel suddenly small. I swallow. “Fine.”

“You know, I was wondering about you just the other day.”

He was? I don’t think we’ve spoken since fifth grade. But we have a history, actually. We were friends that year, fifth grade. The very first week of school Mrs. Sutton taught us all about adventure novels and put us in pairs to write survival stories. Joshua and I were paired together. We hit it off, and after that we chose each other for anything that required a partner. He was my best friend in fifth grade, except for Devin, of course—but Devin wasn’t in my class that year. Then middle school came, and boys and girls couldn’t be just friends anymore. If you talked to a guy, you were going with him. I couldn’t even walk home with Owen, it got so bad. And Joshua got popular and I didn’t. So we stopped talking. For a while I thought about him as Mr. Cool. Then I just stopped thinking about him altogether.

He smiles. “What’s with the thermos?”

Good grief, I’m still holding it in front of my mouth. How much lipstick is gone? It can’t be that much, right? I lower the thermos. “Nothing.”

He nods affably. “So how’re your classes?”

“I only had Bio and English so far.” God, can he smell the parmigiano? I shut my mouth tight.

“AP, huh? Both of them?”

“Just Bio. I’ve never been that good at English.”

“But you’re good at everything else. So, did you have a good summer?”

I nod.

“I heard there’s something going on at Becca’s on Friday.”

I nod.

“You going?”

I nod.

“So maybe I’ll see you there.” He smiles and waves and walks on.

I’m staring after him. No, I’m not allowed to do that—that is totally unacceptable behavior, loser behavior—no, bad girl! I look down.

Joshua Winer talked to me. Mr. Cool. And all I could do was gape. There are nine hundred things I could have said. I mean, I know the guy. He’s just Joshua. How much could he have changed since fifth grade, after all? Well, a lot. But some things don’t change. I could have asked how his big sisters are. We could have complained about our siblings, like we used to do.

I am not a person who counts on luck. But, hey, I deserve better luck than this. I am a great talker. Usually. Please let him remember that.

I go to the bathroom. Only a few hints of white show
near the corners of my mouth. I reapply this sticky pink.

Then I stop in the library and check Google. Mr. Dupris is not a big fat liar: swifts eat and mate and sleep in the air.

Life on the wing.

It sounds hard. And dangerous. If you’re asleep, you could fly right into a cat or an owl, mouths open wide. You could fly into the trunk of a tree and brain yourself and fall dead on the ground. And with all the windmills that are going up now, ugh, you could be sliced to smithereens. If I were a swift, I’d probably become an insomniac.

Life shouldn’t be like that. Everyone should have a chance to act smart and avoid dangers—so then if you don’t, well, it’s your own fault.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe Mr. Dupris is telling us life is like that—it isn’t a matter of should or shouldn’t. We can’t count on fair. Some of us wind up with white lips, after all.

I SUPPOSE DRUGSTORE LIPSTICK is cheaper. And I’m usually thrifty. So I don’t really know why I’m in this department store. Maybe I’m pampering myself. I feel the blues coming on.

That’s dumb. I can’t really be worried. Dr. Ratner isn’t a moron. If this was serious, he would have made me come in right away instead of waiting till Thursday.

But just to be sure, I stopped back in the library after school and Googled “white lips.” Sites came up about little white bumps on your lips. Herpes. My lips are smooth. Besides, there’s no way I could have herpes. You get herpes from kissing someone who has it. I haven’t kissed anyone
since Raul last spring—and that hardly counted, and, anyway, I would have shown symptoms long before now if he’d been infected.

I think.

Another site was in Chinese. So much for that. Another site was about musical taste, and suggestions for what to listen to. Nope. Then there were sites about CO2 training. I don’t know what that is, but it can’t be relevant.

So I gave up. If white lips are a symptom of something, it’s probably not anything dangerous, or those things would have come up at the very head of the list. Right?

My job is to cover up and forget about it till Thursday. Easy. Sure. Like not thinking of an elephant when people say, “Don’t think of an elephant.”

Whatever. I’m anxious. But maybe the real reason I’m pampering myself, the real source of my impending gloom, is Joshua Winer. I want him to like me. That is a terrible realization. Our friendship in elementary school was sort of like a crush. We never kissed, of course, or even held hands. But it was special in that preteen boy-girl way. Maybe I never got over it.

I swallow. Could I be that dumb? I’m a realistic person. When groups formed in middle school, the social hierarchy quickly became clear. I’m not popular or pretty—so I’m not on Mr. Cool’s tier. People from different tiers don’t mix.

And that means I don’t like the fact that I can’t get him out of my head now.

I need a picker-upper, all right.

I have set my sights on lipstick. After all, lipstick saved the day today. Lipstick is the best short-term solution. And shiny pink, while it seemed pretty to me when I was ten, is totally ridiculous now. So here I stand, at the cosmetics counter in this fancy department store, looking at shades.

“Can I help you?” The clerk has very black, very dyed hair. Her lips are purple. She’s young, and both hair and lips look good on her. Slinky, that’s a name to fit her.

“Do you have lip color?”

“This is a cosmetics counter; we have lots of lipstick.”

“I mean lipstick in lip color—the color of lips.”

“Oh, you mean clear? You want lip gloss, then.”

“No, not clear. I mean the natural color of lips.”

“Everybody’s got different colored lips.”

“I want my color.”

“What’s your color?”

I was hoping she could tell from the rest of me. Oh, dear. I’m trying to remember. It isn’t actually that easy. It’s not like you list it on forms all the time, after color of hair and color of eyes. I know it’s darker than my cheeks. “Brown.”

“You want brown lipstick?” She makes it sound as though I’m demented.

“I just want to look natural.”

“Then don’t wear lipstick.”

“Do you want to sell me lipstick or not?”

“I don’t care. I get paid by the hour. What, did you think this was a commission job?”

Attitude. Everyone has attitude. I’m used to it. High school is the definition of
attitude
. But right now it makes me feel defeated. “I need help,” I say, and my voice sounds pathetic even to me.