Beauty (31 page)

So I did. Sitting there in Hudson’s mom’s flowerbeds, his arm wrapped around my shoulders, I told him about the whole night. I told him about the lies Hayley had told, and how mean Ashley and Blair had been, and how much Kemper must hate me by now. “I just … I don’t think I have any friends left,” I said. Tears were streaming down my face by now and my nose was getting all stuffy, but I didn’t care. It just felt so good to get it all out. Hudson nodded, his eyes intent as he listened to me.

“Oh, Molly,” he said when I finished. He wrapped his arms tighter around me, holding me close. “It’s going to be okay. Hayley’s lies are just that: lies. They’ll blow over. Believe me, they always do. And until then, you’ve got me, right?”

I sniffled, not saying anything. After what he’d said yesterday, did I?

“Hey.” Hudson tilted my chin up until I was looking him right in the eye. “Listen, as long as you stay
you
, you’ve got me, Molly. Okay?” The way he was looking at me as he said it … no guy had ever looked at me like that before. Like he saw all of me, and he still wanted more.

“Okay,” I whispered.

He bent down, his lips grazing mine. And then we were kissing, his hands in my hair, my arms around his waist, so much heat pouring through my body I felt like I was on fire. I don’t know how long we kissed. It felt like only a minute, but it could have been an hour. When we finally pulled apart, I was breathless.

“Wow,” Hudson murmured, pushing a strand of hair out of my face. “I knew kissing you would be good, but I didn’t know it would be
that
good.” He laughed, running his hands lightly down my arms. “I guess that’s what happens when you kiss the most beautiful girl in Miracle.”

Maybe it was how breathless I felt after that kiss or maybe it was the long night I’d had, but hearing those words—
the most beautiful girl in Miracle
—I felt queasy all of a sudden.

“Is that what I am?” My voice was quivering, but I couldn’t stop it.

“Of course.” Hudson kissed the top of my head. “You’re the most beautiful girl in all of Miracle.”

Something hard and cold closed around my heart. Hudson kept saying he liked the real me, but the truth was, the Molly he knew—Molly the prom queen, Molly the most beautiful girl in Miracle—wasn’t real. Hudson had barely ever spoken to the real me.

I untangled myself from him, standing up abruptly. I knew what I had to do. “I have to go,” I said. Hudson gave me a strange look, reaching for my hand, but I shook him off. “I-I’m sorry. I’ll explain later, but I just, I have something I have to do. I’ll call you after!” Before he could stop me, I took off at a sprint, leaving him and that word—
beautiful
,
beautiful
,
beautiful
—behind.

I flew into my house, on a mission. I had to find that portrait. I had to find that portrait and get to Dharma and make her undo whatever it was she’d done. I was ready to be me again. I turned my room upside down, but the portrait was nowhere to be found. I was starting to grow desperate when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. “Molly?” At the sound of my mom’s voice, my hand flew to my face. If only I knew where that Cinderella mask was. Taking a deep breath, I sprinted into the bathroom.

“Molly?” my mom said again. “What are you doing?”

“I, uh, sorry, Mom. I just
really
had to pee. I had like four iced teas tonight.” I let out a nervous laugh as I turned on the sink to mask my lack of peeing and faced myself in the mirror. There was no
way
I was letting my mom see me now. Not when I was so close to changing back. Hair first, I decided. Pulling it back, I fastened it in a bun, sticking several bobby pins in it until it was as flat as possible. Next, my face. I knelt down, opening up the cabinet beneath the sink. It was a mess, and I tried not to create an avalanche as I rummaged through extra toilet paper rolls and half-empty boxes of tampons and dried up nail polishes. Finally my hand landed on a green plastic tube.
Avocado Face Mask
, it read.
Chase away those pesky zits!
Exactly what I needed.

Quickly, I squirted the thick green goo into my hands, rubbing it all over my face. By the time I was done, every inch of my skin had been covered in a layer of the slimy stuff. I paused, looking at myself in the mirror. For once, I didn’t look beautiful. In fact, I looked a little like a monster. I made a scary face and the goo twisted and cracked, making me look scarier than ever. Perfect.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, sauntering out.

My mom did a double take when she saw me. “What in the world is on your face, Molly?”

“Oh, just one of your face masks,” I explained. “My skin’s been weird the last few days.” I paused, stifling a laugh. That was an understatement if I ever heard one. “So I thought I’d try it out. That okay?”

“Of course.” My mom nodded, looking pleased. “I’m glad you thought of it.”

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “I’m looking for a white poster tube. Have you seen it anywhere?”

My mom thought for a moment. “I think I might have seen it downstairs,” she said. She waved for me to follow her. “Come on, we’ll look.”

My mom kept glancing over her shoulders at me as I followed her downstairs. “You know,” she said slowly. “There’s something different about you today, Molly. And it’s not your outfit this time.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Well, I’m not usually green,” I offered, trying to distract her.

My mom laughed. “True. But it’s not that … I think you just seem more confident.” She nodded a little as she looked at me again. “Yes, that’s exactly what it is. You’re standing a little taller, your shoulders are back … it’s like you woke up one day and finally realized how beautiful you are.”

My eyes widened in surprise.
Did she know?
But as much as I searched her eyes for some sort of knowledge, I couldn’t find any. “Can you imagine if I just
woke up
beautiful one day?” I joked, just to be sure.

My mom furrowed her brow as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “What are you talking about, Molly?” she said as she led the way to the kitchen. “You’re already beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful.”

I thought of my old looks: my frizzy hair and pimples and too-far-apart eyes. “Yeah right,” I said. “If by beauty you mean more like beast.”

My mom paused outside the pantry closet, eying me carefully. “Are you letting Seth get to you again? He’s an eighth grade boy, Molly! He’d call
anyone
a beast if she was his sister.”

I shrugged, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “It’s fine, Mom. I know what I am.” Or what I was. What I might be again, if I ever found this portrait. The thought made me uneasy. Did I really want that? To go back to my old ways, just so Hudson could know the real me?

“Molly,” my mom said, interrupting my thoughts. “You’re beautiful. You always have been.” My mom walked over to me, taking my hand in hers. “Inside
and
out. Don’t you know that?”

An image of the old me flashed through my head again. “It’s not like I’m going to win any more beauty pageants.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it came out sounding sadder than I’d heard it in a long time. I kept my eyes on our hands, unable to look up. “Come on, Mom, don’t you ever wish, even just for a second, that you had a daughter more like you? Someone worthy of crowns and trophies?” I held my breath as I waited for her answer. I didn’t even know what I wanted her to say; all I knew was it mattered.

“You’re my daughter, Molly.” My mom wrapped her arms around me, smearing my face mask a little as she hugged me. “And I’m so, so proud of you. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

I looked up at her. Her eyes were frank, serious. “Really?” I whispered.

“Really.”

“Even if I could wake up tomorrow looking like a young Angelina Jolie?”

“Even then.”

“Even if I could start winning beauty pageants again and get crowned prom queen?”

My mom laughed. “Even then. I just want
you
, Molly. Just you.”

I leaned into her, feeling the weight of her arms on my shoulders. “Frizzy hair and all?”

My mom pulled away. “Of course.” She gave me a worried look. “You know, I give you beauty tips because I want you to appreciate what you have, honey. I want you to feel good about yourself. And things like defrizzer and zit cream … that’s how I help feel good about myself. But I didn’t mean to push them on you. Or to make you think I don’t like how you look …” She trailed off, several tears brimming in her eyes. “You’re perfect just the way you are, Molly. I hope you know that.”

The truth was, I hadn’t. But maybe I was starting to.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay,” my mom repeated, hugging me again. “Now,” she said, straightening up. “Let’s find you that white tube. I think I might have put it in the pantry when I was cleaning the other day… .” She stuck her head in the closet, digging around for a minute. “Is this what you’re looking for?” She held out the white portrait tube and I quickly grabbed for it, holding it close. “What is it?” she asked. “Did you get a caricature drawn or something?” She laughed, but when she saw me nodding, she stopped. “Really?”

“Well, not a caricature, but a portrait.” I ran my hand along the simple white tube that had started everything. “I got it done at the fair.”

My mom clapped her hands together excitedly. “Well, let me see!” Before I could stop her, she pulled the tube back out of my hands and opened up it, sliding Dharma’s drawing out. “Look at this,” she murmured as she spread it out on the kitchen table. “It’s amazing. But you look so sad in it, Molly.”

I took a hesitant step toward the portrait. With everything that had happened since the fair, I’d never even bothered looking at it. “Wow,” I murmured. My mom was right. It was an amazing portrait, so realistic it took your breath away. But she was also right about something else: I looked sad in it. It was all you could see when you looked at it, really. Not my frizzy hair or my pimple or hunched back, but my pain. Haunting and heavy and awful. Everything else faded to the background beneath it.

My mom put a hand on my shoulder. “What happened that night, Molly?”

“Everything just went wrong,” I said softly. “I thought this boy I liked was giving me the prize he won, but he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. He was giving it to the prettiest girl in my grade. And everyone laughed at me. Even Hayley.” Tears welled in my eyes at the memory. “I ran to the fishpond, just wanting to get away from it all. But when I got there, it was gone, and there was this sketch artist there instead.”

I picked up the portrait, studying it. I’d been so sad that night, thinking I had nothing. But now I knew what it truly felt like to have nothing. And all I wanted was to be that old Molly again, with a best friend to tell everything to and a mom who could see my face. My hands were shaking as I rolled the portrait back up and slid it into its tube. I knew what I had to do. And it wasn’t for Hudson at all. It was for me.

“When’s the last day of the fair?” I asked my mom.

“Tomorrow.” She gave me a strange look. “Why?”

I glanced at the clock. It was around ten thirty. The fair closed at eleven. I had a half hour to try.

“I’ve got to go,” I told my mom hastily. I took off running up the stairs to wash the mask off my face, the portrait tube tucked under my arm.

“Where are you going?” my mom yelled after me. “Do you need a ride?”

“No!” I called back. “This is something I have to do myself.”

That’s
Très
90s

I’D NEVER PEDALED harder than I did on my way to the fairgrounds, the portrait gripped tightly under my arm. I was dripping sweat by the time I got there, but I didn’t care. I had to find Dharma. “One ticket, please,” I told the man at the ticket booth. I reached into my pocket for money, but he waved my attempt away. “It’s fine,” he said, smiling broadly at me. “The fair closes in a few minutes anyway. Go ahead in.”

“Thanks, sir.” I smiled at him, and he beamed back at me. With a wave, I broke into a run. I didn’t want to waste any time. I just wanted to be there, in front of Dharma, saying what I’d come to say. I was scared I’d lose my nerve otherwise. It was strange running through that fair again. Last time, I’d been running away from everything. This time, it felt like I was running toward something.

There was a couple sitting by the fishpond when I reached it, their feet dangling in the water. The single lantern glowed above them. “Excuse me,” I said breathlessly. “Have you seen a woman sketching around here? Wearing a patchwork dress, maybe?”

“You just missed her,” the girl replied. “She was sitting by that tree for a while.” She pointed to the same tree Dharma had been sitting under last time. Its flowers had erupted over the past week, and they now hung full and pink from its branches. “She said something about coming back at nightfall tomorrow, though, in case someone was looking for her? Something like that.” The girl made a face. “She seemed a little off her rocker to me, if you know what I mean.”

I felt myself deflating. I’d been so ready to do this, to face her, and now I’d have to wait until tomorrow night. “Thanks,” I told the girl. Walking over to a nearby bench, I sagged down on it.