Smart Mouth Waitress (21 page)

A
flush
of excitement washed over me as I checked out Marc's Facebook page and saw his serious-looking profile photo, with him wearing those brown tortoiseshell glasses, and his mouth in a straight line. It felt good to dismiss my worries about my brother's secret drug stash. I'd just ignore it, like my father would.

As I was browsing through some of Marc's other photos and interests, a message from within Facebook's chat popped up from Marc:
Hey.

Me:
Saturday night!!! Woot! What big exciting plans have you got going on?

As I waited painful seconds for his response, I hoped he didn't already know about my terrible, disastrous kiss with his friend Cooper. Guys don't typically gossip quite as much as girls, and I hoped that kiss was the type of thing Cooper wouldn't share.

If Marc didn't know, I could take charge of the story and tell him myself, controlling the situation with my own spin. I could probably downgrade it to a scenario in which Cooper and I bumped faces by accident and in my confused state, I'd lingered, so it may have
seemed
to Cooper that I'd kissed him, when really, I hadn't.

Him:
Pickles and I are planning to have a walk and then watch a movie on Netflix.

Me:
You should come over so I can tell you the entire awkward
story about me almost macking on some poor guy yesterday. Or not. I'll just pretend it didn't happen.

Him:
You have Netflix.

I was pretty sure he meant that as a question, not a statement. What's with some guys and their inability to use question marks in text messages? Do they think the curvy question mark is too feminine?

Me:
Yes, we have Netflix. And popcorn. And a stash of movie-grade snacks.

Him:
You're sure you're not going out with your friends.

Me:
It's nice to stay in sometimes. Want to come over at 8? Or come earlier, for dinner?

Him:
Just the movie at 8. I'll bring Pickles.

Me:
Yes, I'd love to see her.

I tried to say goodbye, but he was already gone, logged off. He would be coming over in less than three hours, and I still had to get the dinner started for my family. I squealed with happiness when I remembered Mom had left some money for pizza a few of the nights. Phew! Crisis averted.

Still, that only left me three hours to make myself look like Megan Fox, and for one thing, my hair was the wrong color. I phoned Haylee to follow up on a few things she'd said earlier that day.

After I explained my situation, she said, “You have to make yourself the prize. Guys like to win video games and sports.” In the background, someone laughed.

“Who's that?” I asked.

“My hairdresser, hold on.”

“Hi Sweetie,” said a voice I couldn't identify as male or female. “I'm trying to put color in Haylee's hair, and she can't be on the phone.”

I sighed into the phone from my end. “Fine, I'll just mess it up with my big, smart-talking mouth, like I always do.”

“If your mouth is the problem, just count to five before you say anything.”

“What?”

“Buzz! You just spoke without counting to five. Now try again.”

I counted. One. Two. Three.

“See, I like you more already,” the voice said.

Four. Five.

“That's ridiculous!” I said after I'd gotten to five, but the little red icon was showing on my phone's screen. Haylee's hairdresser had already disconnected.

Forty-five minutes after my consultation with Haylee and her hairdresser, I was preparing to mix chemical compounds together. Hair dye. Specifically, L'Oreal Superior Preference, Brown #4.

My natural hair color is a shade my mother calls
mouse
. She and I share this lovely color, a tone some people call mousey brown, though mine has a little red, from my father.

I still had a couple of hours before Marc arrived, so I ripped open the box and put on the plastic gloves, which felt rubbery and pleasant on my hands. I'd never dyed my own hair before, but I had helped Haylee a few times, before she upgraded to a hair salon, so I knew the basics.

After mixing the two liquids, I took off my clothes so I wouldn't get them stained, and started applying the haircolor. It smelled horrible, like a tiger was peeing directly on my head. I breathed only through my mouth and as little as possible without passing out. I imagined the paramedics arriving to find me, butt-naked and out cold.

I set the timer on my phone for twenty-five minutes and grabbed my laptop to look up Megan Fox photos to make myself feel depressed. I mean, for inspiration.

What's most remarkable about her is how she doesn't really look that unique. If you see her in the rare photo where she's not showing her big, white teeth between seductively-parted lips, she could be the prettiest girl at anyone's school.

My heart soared with sick delight when I found a series of articles talking about her toe-thumbs. Apparently, she has short thumbs and people make a big deal about her imperfection.
People are so twisted
, I thought as I zoomed in on every photo I could find.

The timer went off and I panicked. How was I going to wash it off without getting chemicals in my eyebrow piercing? I wrapped a towel around myself, running down to the big bathroom to look for Band-Aids to cover my piercing. I couldn't find any, so I used some cotton balls and masking tape. It looked ridiculous, but it worked.

After I washed the goopy mess out in my tub, I admired myself. Some of the brown dye had darkened my scalp, which made my hair look even thicker and healthier-looking. I had, however, left the dye on too long while I'd made the eyebrow protection, and it was a lot closer to black than I'd wanted.

I tried to make the best of it and copied Megan's makeup look from a photo. It didn't seem like I was wearing any makeup at all, but I guess that was the
natural
look guys like.

I put on some black jeans and a gray v-neck t-shirt and began deliberating over my wardrobe choices.

The doorbell ring. To my utter shock, it was already eight o'clock, and Marc was there.

I looked down at my schlubby clothes. “Authentic,” I said out loud to myself. “This is fine. I look authentic.”

The front door opened as I was coming down the stairs, and my father and brother came in right behind Marc, who was carrying a big bag of Doritos in one hand and holding the dog, Pickles, up with the other arm.

Marc wore khaki pants, a button-down shirt, and a serious Crossword Guy expression on his face. He definitely came off as aloof or cranky when he wasn't smiling.

“What happened to your hair?” Garnet asked. “You look like a witch.”

“Thanks,” I said.

My father dropped his big ring of keys to the floor, staring open-mouthed at me. At first I thought he was having a bad reaction to the hair, but then, when the yelling started up, I heard the word “piercing” in the noise. Well, good for him, he'd finally noticed.

Pickles, Marc's little cream and brown Shih Tzu, began barking excitedly, punctuating my father's rant.

“Lighten up, it's not a tattoo!” I yelled at my father, which was, apparently, not a valid justification for “putting diseased holes” in my body.

“It's not diseased yet,” I said calmly. “I have a special wash to prevent infection.”

Garnet tried to squeeze past me to sneak up the stairs, but I stopped him with an outstretched arm. “Not so fast,” I said.

“Enjoy your reaming,” he said sarcastically. “Lemme through.”

As I observed the reactions on everyone's faces, from Garnet's sneer to Dad's rage and Marc's extreme discomfort, I started to get angry. I was eighteen, not a child, and how dare my father humiliate me like that in front of the guy I liked?

Dad had slowed down his ranting to get some air, so I grabbed hold of Garnet by the collar of his shirt and announced to my father, “I found two joints in
your son's
bedroom.”

Never before had I sounded more like my mother. Whenever we do anything bad, she tells my father, referring to us as his daughter and his son, as in, “Guess what
your daughter
and
your son
decided to microwave today?”

Garnet, who I was holding on to by his soccer jersey, looked like he might faint.

“Is this true?” Dad asked.

Garnet, who may have been an idiot for hiding illegal items in the most obvious location, did not suffer an attack of the stupids when accused of such on that particular Saturday evening.

Some teen boys would have denied it. Others might cry and beg for mercy.

What my little brother did was squirm out of his jersey, leaving me with a handful of fabric. He then pushed past me while shoving me down, so that I fell on my hands and knees at the foot of the stairs, blocking access. As I tumbled, he scooted his little fifteen-year-old legs up those stairs faster than you would believe.

Dad reacted like the engineer he is and quickly assessed the situation. I was yelling, therefore I was still alive and not needing immediate medical attention.

He chose not to leap over me, flailing around at the foot of the stairs, but took off in the opposite direction, through the kitchen. I heard him thundering up the back stairs, the other way to the upper floor.

Upstairs, Garnet's door slammed and I heard the little click that meant the lock was engaged. They'd put the lock in a year earlier so Mom wouldn't have the shock of walking in on him during his solo time … again.

I moaned and groaned, but I wasn't broken.

Pickles licked my face for a few seconds, possibly contaminating my eyebrow piercing before I could shove her away.

Marc helped me to my feet. “We can do this another time,” he said.

“No, just wait,” I said, pausing to assess.

Upstairs, Dad was threatening to bust down Garnet's door if he didn't open it that instant. For the most part, my father ignores things, but every now and then he takes a different approach and completely overreacts. There is no middle ground with him.

“I'm going to count to three!” he roared. “One!”

“My dad's not really a psychopath,” I said to Marc.

“Oh, no, he's quite nice, as I recall.”

“Two!” my father yelled at the door.

I said to Marc, “Once they get this sorted out, we can watch our movie.”

“Three!” my father yelled, and at the same time he shouldered the door. Hard.

A crunch reverberated through the house. I ran up the stairs, worried about bodily damage. On my watch! How dare they!

Upstairs, I found the door open next to a split wood door frame, my brother in tears, and my father rubbing his shoulder while cursing.

“You can search my room,” Garnet blubbered.

I zipped in and yanked open the top drawer. The baggie was gone. I did a quick search of the surrounding area and all the logical hiding spots while Dad helped.

Garnet stood by, his arms crossed and an inscrutable expression on his face.

We turned up nothing.

“You'll have to strip-search him,” I said to my father.

That was when I noticed my brother was sweating. A lot.

Unlike me, Garnet doesn't have a bathroom attached to his bedroom, so he couldn't have flushed the two joints down the toilet.

What he could have done, though, was dispose of them in another manner.

I searched the area just behind him. “Garnet,” I said as I pulled the empty Ziploc bag out from under his mattress. “Did you eat those two joints?”

“What if I did?” he said.

Marc joined us in the room. “I'm still here,” he said.

My father was frozen, speechless.

“My brother may have ingested two joints.” I took another look at Garnet's face. “I'm quite certain he did.”

“If it was just two joints, he'll probably be fine,” Marc said. “Bugged-out, yes, but he doesn't need to get his stomach pumped.”

“Dad?” I said.

My father flopped back on Garnet's bed and put one of the pillows over his face. His voice muffled, he said, “Maybe we should get his stomach pumped to teach him a lesson.”

“We could take a vote,” I said to Marc.

My brother gagged and spat some shredded paper into his hand.

“You're in big trouble,” I said to Garnet.

Marc said, “I'm not here to make enemies, so I vote we babysit him for the evening, and no stomach pumping.”

“I vote pumping. I am pro-pumping. I hear they put a thick hose down your throat.”

Garnet took a seat on the chair next to his desktop computer, looking more miserable by the minute.

I said, “What about you, Dad? Tie-breaker vote. Stomach pumping, yes or no?”

My father slowly took the pillow off his face and sat up. “I'm going for a drive.” He talked as though he was speaking to himself. “I think I'll treat myself to some Arby's.”

He got up and left Garnet's room. Just like that, he'd swung from overreaction to avoidance.

“Pickles and I should leave,” Marc said, still holding the bag of Doritos. Pickles sat obediently near his feet, tongue out, enjoying herself.

“You sound like you might be a drug expert,” I said. “You should definitely stay and help me babysit my brother.”

“Story of my life,” he said.