Skin (5 page)

I HIT THE ALARM clock and run to the bathroom mirror.

My lips are still white.

Tears come in an instant.

Was it ridiculous to hope that they’d turn back to lip color overnight? They turned white overnight, after all. What’s to say the whole thing couldn’t reverse itself?

But it didn’t. And that’s that. Cover it up and forget about it.

That elephant again. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.

I finish my routine, then get dressed. When I go back to the bathroom
to put on my new lipstick, Dante’s in there.

I have the urge to pound on the door with the side of my fist. He’d do it to me.

But I’m better than him.

I go to my room and look in the full-length mirror inside my closet door. I open the lipstick.

I can hear Slinky in my head. I apply it lightly. This color doesn’t look as good on me as it looked on her, but at least I now have colored lips.

Mamma’s eyes take in my lipstick and quickly go back to the kitchen counter. “Would you like an omelet? Broccoli and Asiago?” She is not the breakfast maker. Dad is. But she’s good at omelets, and she’s offering my favorite. She feels sorry for me.

I can ride the pity train. “Sure, thanks.” I pour a glass of milk, put it on the table, and stand beside Mamma to watch her cook.

“Is that for me?” Dante comes in, sniffs loudly, and drops into a chair.

Mamma slides the omelet onto a plate and hands it to me. I’m always surprised at the speed of omelets. They taste too good to be that fast. “I’ll make you the same, Dante,” she says. “Pour yourself something to drink.”

“Already got that covered.” Dante drinks my milk.

I keep my plate in one hand and with the other I get down another glass and fill it with milk and go to the table, both hands full.

“You didn’t yell at me.” Dante looks at me with a milk mustache I know he made on purpose.

“What’s the use?”

“You’re learning,” says Dante.

“And you never learn, Squirt. So, really truly, what’s the use?”

“Wait!” Dad puts down his coffee. It’s in a glass. I bought him a set of four glasses for his birthday. They’re double-sided, with air between the two layers, so you can see the coffee, but your hands don’t get burned holding the outside. They’re all Dad uses now. So the design isn’t just clever, it’s better. And I can tell from the dopey look Dad has whenever he uses one of those glasses that he feels loved drinking from them—loved by me.

I smile. “Wait for what?”

Dad runs to the living room. Pretty soon I hear a CD. Dad comes back in. “Louis Jordan. Listen to the song ‘What’s the Use of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again)’ It’s great. And wait till you hear ‘Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens.’” He walks around the kitchen twitching
and knocking his elbows around. I think he thinks he’s dancing. And I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be to this song or to the song about chickens.

My father is a tall, gangly mix of Swedish and Norwegian. Mamma calls him
il mio vichingo
, which means “my Viking” in Italian. It is not a pleasant sight to watch him dance. Still, I’m grinning now. He’s Daddy, after all.

I finish breakfast and race to meet Devin outside her house.

Devin looks annoyed. “You didn’t answer my message.”

“You wrote again? I went to bed early.”

“I figured. You probably finished everything fast. Did you understand the Ovid poem?”

“It was just the first twenty lines.”

“Twenty lines too many,” says Devin. “What was it about?”

“The usual invocation of the gods, to help the poet tell the story. Then stuff about what it was like before there was earth and sea and sky. The big chaos.”

“Yeah, I got that. But what was all that at the end? It felt like a bunch of contradictions.”

“It was. Cold and hot, wet and dry, soft and hard. The world was a mess in the beginning. Or that’s what Ovid thought.”

Devin frowns. “Latin III is going to be boring. Maybe I’ll drop it.”

Latin III is the only class we have together. And it’s the first time we’ve had a class together since we started high school.

“Come on, Devin, don’t drop. We can struggle through it together.”

“I read on the Internet that Ovid would be fun. He’s known for his erotic poems. We could use erotic poems. But there goes Mrs. Reynolds, picking his mythology poems, instead. The woman is juiceless.”

“It’ll get better.”

“Spanish is easier.”

I think of Joshua Winer. Juicy Mr. Cool. “We could do Spanish next semester.”

“All the popular kids are in Spanish now.”

“I hate to break it to you, Devin: Spanish won’t make us popular.”

“It could. If the popular guys liked us. If they recognized how hot we really are.”

I laugh. “Sure, Devin.”

“Are you saying I’m not hot?” She pretends to be insulted.

Devin has long strawberry blond hair, thick and wavy. She’s fleshy, but in a good way, and, no matter what she
says, she knows how to dress to make the best of it. Her skin is clear—I don’t think she ever breaks out, even when she gets her period. She has great teeth, icy blue eyes, a nice nose. I’ve always known it, but never quite so clearly; I’m stunned. “You’re beautiful, Devin.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I mean it. Any guy could like you. But no one would notice me.”

“What do you mean? You’re totally juicy. And it really could happen, ’cause lots of couples split up over the summer.”

That’s been on my mind. Last year Joshua Winer was a couple with Sharon Parker. “Like who?”

“Luke and Corina. Jed and Suzanne. Lots.”

“Anyone else?”

“Are you fishing?”

“Why would I be fishing?”

“You just sound like you’re fishing. You’re not supposed to fish with friends. You’re supposed to tell me.”

I can’t tell her about Joshua Winer. No one in their right mind would believe Joshua Winer was interested in me. Not in that way. Maybe he isn’t. Probably he isn’t. “Do you think I jump to conclusions?”

“Never.”

“Really?”

“You’re the last person in the world to jump to conclusions.” She looks me over. “If I ask you a question are you going to bite off my head?”

I stare at her.

“Why are you wearing lipstick again?”

I’ve been waiting for the chance to tell Devin. I decided this morning, in the shower, that I need to tell her. ’Cause I really am worried now. But all at once I panic. “Did you write yes for sex?”

“The whole eleventh grade did, I think. I never saw a message pass that fast.” Devin lowers her head and talks out of the side of her mouth, like we did when we were little and pretended to be detectives. “You’re avoiding my question.”

“Which question?”

Devin laughs. “Are you trying to get someone with that lipstick? Who?”

“I’m trying to have color in my lips.”

“I noticed. Purple.” Her tone is not appreciative.

“It’s burgundy.”

“Next thing I know, you’ll be wearing all black.”

“Hey, Devin. Hey, Sep.” It’s Becca.

And my chance to talk seriously with Devin is gone. I half want to scream. But only half.

“So,” Becca says to Devin, “have you figured out what you’re wearing Friday night?”

It’s Wednesday. Two more days till Becca’s party.

A lot can happen in two days.

Mamma made an appointment for me with Dr. Ratner for after school tomorrow. There’s still time for things to turn right again.

“Huh, Sep?” Becca elbows me.

“What?”

“I asked what you’re wearing to my party?”

“Lipstick.”

Becca smiles. “Lipstick and nothing else? You’re changing your image. It’s about time.”

My image is changing on its own. But I just smile.

“And you’re hardly talking. That’s cool. Guys don’t like girls that talk all the time like you.”

I rush off to my locker. Then rush to homeroom. Turn in the cards and forms with yes for sex. Then fight off the urge to check my lipstick in the girls’ bathroom and rush to AP Bio.

Mr. Dupris says tunas must swim constantly and fast, or they will die.

Like swifts. But it’s worse for tunas—swifts stop to nest—but tunas don’t nest—they never stop, not for anything.

Do I detect a theme in Mr. Dupris’s lectures? This is only the second class of the semester, but I’m pretty good at sniffing out obsessions. And this could be another little morality tale. After all, what could be more unfair than never being able to kick back and rest? My breath catches. I don’t need morality tales… or I hope I don’t. I hope my lips are nothing awful after all. And I hope all Mr. Dupris really cares about is oddities. If he does, I am almost entirely sure Bio will be my favorite class.

In English we discuss the first chapters of Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God
. I love the opening of this book. I’ve never been very happy with dialogue written in dialect. But this author makes her characters speak so I hear them.

I sit at a table near a wall in the lunchroom and open that novel and read as I eat and wait for Devin.

“No more candy?”

My stomach flips. I know who it is before I look up, of course.

Joshua Winer sits beside me. “Mind if I take a seat?”

My mind has only one thought:
Is he still with Sharon?

I put down my thermos and sit on my right hand. Today nothing will cover my mouth; I will talk no matter what.

His knee touches mine, then moves away quickly.

It wasn’t intended, I’m sure. But my heart thrums like
some trapped bird and saliva gathers in the back of my throat. I think maybe I’ll gag. And my nipples stiffen. I can feel them inside my bra. No one can possibly see that. Please, let no one see that.

“Hrr…” I clear my throat. Come on words, you’re inside there. I clear my throat again. “How did the physics go?”

“Not so bad. How did the Latin go?”

“Almost good. I don’t like invocations. But I like chaos.”

He nods. “There’s got to be something I can understand about what you just said.”

I smile. “Homework was a poem about the chaos before the beginning of time—or maybe not time—maybe before the beginning of everything. Although there was cold and hot and soft and hard and things like that, which I suppose means it couldn’t have been before everything. You know how creation stories are, so mixed up, because the thought of nothingness is beyond us. Like black holes and big bangs.” I’m running off at the mouth and his face says so. I should just stay quiet, like Becca said. I’m not such a great talker, after all. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Making your eyes glaze over.”

“What’s that, lilac?” He’s looking at my lips.

“You don’t know a lot about the color of flowers, do you?”

“Do you? Come on, you were never the girly-girl type with flowers in her hair.”

So he remembers me—at least a little. He’s sweet. “I know lilac is light. This is burgundy.”

“Like the wine. Yesterday lips like candy. Today like wine. You’re getting better and better.”

“Are you flirting with me?” The words came out on their own.

He shrugs and stands. “See you at Becca’s.” He walks away at an ordinary pace, not fast like a tuna afraid to die. His shoulders don’t look afraid of anything.

I swallow. My cheeks are heavy. There’s a frozen lump of pain between my eyes.

I asked him if he was flirting with me. Mr. Cool. He must think I’m a total loser.

But he said that stuff about candy and wine. What was I supposed to think?

Only I shouldn’t have asked, no matter what. Please someone, shoot me.

I go the library and Google again.

Most animals are heavier than the water they displace. That means if they stop swimming, they’ll drift to the bottom. So they need something to keep them buoyant. For people that’s lungs. For most fish that’s a swim bladder.
But bonito tunas don’t have swim bladders. So they have to keep swimming. And fast, or their gills won’t be able to filter enough oxygen out of the water and they’ll drown. Mr. Dupris scores again.

Tunas race along even in their sleep.

Images of sleeping tunas zipping toward killer whales make me woozy. Oh my God, how lucky bears and foxes and chipmunks are. They can just curl up in a lair to sleep. And I can curl up in my bed. We’re all so stupidly lucky compared to tunas and swifts.

Please, let that be true. Don’t let me have a tuna’s luck.

JAZZ DANCE CLUB MEETS Wednesday after school, and I’m looking down at the soft bulge of my belly under these spandex shorts and wondering how I could have ever thought I wasn’t fat. I’m disgusting. A bloated blob.

Cramps came during calculus and my period during Latin, while we were translating a poem by Ovid.

So I wrote my own poem:

So much depends

upon

a white tam-

pon.

tucked in a

zipper pocket

beside the burgundy

lipstick

No wonder I’m not in AP English. In all my years of school, no teacher has ever praised a poem of mine. Poor William Carlos Williams. There should be a law protecting poets against idiots who mimic them.