Tats (14 page)

My eyes have been glued to Vivian’s crotch for a good five minutes. Her hips moving in little circles have hypnotized me. Finally, she builds her sex act to a giant crescendo and tops her faux climax with a series of ohmygod’s and Jesus’s.

Oh, wait a minute, false alarm. Damn, she’s setting the stakes pretty high if she’s going to top that outburst.

Then I see it! Oh my God, this is too good to be true! There’s a black felt-tip pen on the floor under the chair. This is going to be so good!

I sneak the pen out from under the chair, pop off the cap and inch my way closer to Vivian. She’s so wrapped up in her performance, she doesn’t even notice what I’m up to. I push her knees out even wider to make room for my arm and draw a nice black arrow up the inside of her thigh, pointing straight at her crotch. Now she definitely notices me, but can’t do a damn thing without stopping her performance. Then above the arrow I slowly and carefully write the words:
Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

That’s for whacking me with your shoe.

Vivian thumps me on the head with her fist. I edge back under the desk, suppressing my giggles. The next thing I know, her hand appears under the desk holding out a set of keys. I take the keys from her. What the hell am I supposed to do with these?

She kicks me toward the side like she’s wanting me to get out from under the desk. But I don’t get it because she’s still up there doing her thing and she hasn’t finished yet.

Oh! Now I get it.

I lie down on my belly and inch my way out from under the desk. I army-crawl through the open door behind her, hoping her acting is good enough that Mark won’t notice anything else. Once I’m in the hallway I jump up and run out the back door.

I stop outside and look at the keys. Which car do they belong to? The tag just says Mercedes. I hit the unlock button and hear a beep. There it is. A shiny, new black Mercedes blinks its lights at me.

I sprint to the car and hop in. I squeal the tires all the way up to the back door, fling open the passenger door and seconds later Vivian runs out and dives into the seat. I take off again, aiming for the Pinto on the other side of the lot. I screech up alongside the Pinto, Vivian hops out, grabs the bags of money, jumps back in and I get us the hell out of Dodge, leaving only dust and smoke in the rearview mirror.

Vivian laughs hysterically. “That’ll teach the fucker for dumping me at prom,” she gasps.

She throws her leg up on the dashboard, raises her skirt and looks at my artwork on her thigh. She reads it silently, then raises one eyebrow at me.

“That’s the inscription at the gates of hell,” I explain.

She laughs, “I know Dante, shithead. Masters in English Lit, remember?”

“Well, it was between that and ‘Caution: Slippery When Wet.’”

“You could’ve just written ‘Open All Night.’”

We laugh and Vivian plants both of her feet up on the dash. She stretches out her leg and punches on the radio with her big toe. May God strike me dead if I’m lying—Janis Joplin’s voice rasps through all five speakers, pleading with the Lord to buy her a Mercedes Benz.

Vivian and I grin from ear to ear and sing along.

Chapter Seven

 “I am making it my personal mission to turn you into a girl,” Vivian states, handing me three more dresses.

“Yeah, well, good luck with that.” Especially if being a girl means wearing dresses, shopping for dresses or trying on dresses. The only thing I do like about dresses is their up-and-under easy access.

Vivian shoves me into a dressing room with an armload of lace and taffeta. She may make me try these damn things on; I may even wear one of them to homecoming tonight, but what she doesn’t know is that I’m still going to wear my boxers. What she can’t see won’t hurt her.

I try on a god-awful purple thing with layers over layers over layers of pouf. I step out into the hallway and Vivian purses her lips and gestures for me to turn in circles.

“Lee Anne,” Vivian lectures, “you need to stand up straight. Shoulders back. Tits out. And it would help if you weren’t wearing those boots.”

“I only take my boots off for one thing,” I retort.

“To take a shower?” she asks flatly.

“Okay,
two
things.”

“See how pretty you look?” she asks, pushing me in front of a full-length mirror and spinning me around.

I look at myself and wince out loud. “I look like the blueberry girl in Willie Wonka. Violet, you’re turning violet,” I joke.

Vivian doesn’t laugh. She just shoves me back in the dressing room.

When I come out and stand in front of the mirror, I feel absofuckinglutely ridiculous. This dress is tight and gold and only has one long sleeve. Somebody forgot to sew on the left sleeve. There are several two feet long, white tassle-like things hanging off it from the waist. I hold up a tassle and shake it at Vivian, asking “What the hell’re these?”

“If you have to ask...” she sighs, obviously exasperated with my beauty pageant naivete.

“I bet I know what they are,” I state. “They’re Shetland pony tails.”

She shakes her head in disgust.

I continue, “You know how many Shetland ponies had to die to make this dress?”

Vivian is so not amused. She shoves me back toward the dressing room.

When I come out of the dressing room this time, I don’t even bother to look in the mirror. “It’s pink,” I say.

“And tangerine,” she adds.

“With pink flowers,” I say.

“And orange crème highlights,” Vivian adds again.

“With pink ribbons,” I say.

“Okay, you win,” she says with a definite edge to her voice. She throws her hands dramatically into the air above her head. “What the hell
do
you want?”

Wow. What
do
I want? Accepting the fact that I have to wear a dress...then what do I want to see when I look in the mirror?

“I want...” I begin, “I want a dress that will...make my boobs look bigger, make my hips smaller, make my ass higher, and will coordinate with my tats.”

Vivian bites her upper lip and closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath and studies me for a long moment before asking, “What color?”

“Black.”

“No,” she says, “I’m wearing black.”

“So?”

“We both can’t wear black,” she says.

“Why?”

“I don’t have time to explain to you everything about beauty in the few precious moments we have left before homecoming. Choose another color,” she says in my mother’s voice.

“You don’t have to explain
everything
,” I say, “Just the part about why we both can’t wear black.”

“Take my fucking word for it!” she yells. “Choose another fucking color!”

“Okay, okay... Red, I guess,” I whimper.

Vivian stalks over to a nearby rack, rips the first red dress she sees off a hanger and throws it at me. “Here’s your fucking dress,” she says and walks away.

I trail after her, rustling taffeta as I go. “Vivian!”

She turns to me and puts her hands on her hips. The hands on the hips thing is not a good sign. I have to think of something fast that will calm her down.

“I need your help,” I pout. “Hair. Makeup. I can’t do this myself.” I add a whine into the mix just for good measure, “Pleeeease. I really need you.”

She squints one eye at me. “Okay,” she says, “but you have to do what I say. No arguing.”

“I promise,” I lie through my teeth. I clasp my hands together in front of me. “Just help me, please.”

“All I need is running water,” Vivian says. “And I don’t even have to have that.”

Vivian has us locked into the bathroom at a Kum & Go with piles of makeup and hair stuff.  She has me sitting on the floor on top of the bags of money while she bends down over me and liberally applies another coat of paint to my face. The only reason I’m not complaining is because...well, because she’s bending down over me.

“This may not be the best idea you’ve ever had,” I say.

“Don’t worry,” she says and licks the tip of the eyeliner pencil. “When I’m done with you, you’ll look fabulous.”

I catch her by the wrist and say seriously, “I didn’t mean that, Vivian. I meant going to homecoming while on the run from the Mafia may not be such a good idea.”

“It’s a great idea. Look up, quit blinking.” She leans in close, drawing on my fake eyes. Her lips are only a mere couple of inches from mine. If she didn’t have a sharp pointy stick aimed at my eyeball I could just—

She interrupts my fantasy. “Number one, he has no idea where we are or where we’re going. Number two, we’ll be in the middle of a crowd and what’s he going to do in front of that many people? And number three...” She stops drawing on my face and steps back to examine her artwork.

“Number three?” I ask.

“Number three,” she continues, “by this time tomorrow we’ll be far away with two bags of money.”

“Back to number one: How do you know he doesn’t know where we’re going?”

“Because I don’t know where we’re going, silly. And, as long as I don’t know, he can’t know.”

There’s knock on the door that makes us both jump. We look at each other wide-eyed.

“Is somebody in there?” a woman’s voice asks from the other side.

We both let out a shaky breath at the same time. “Occupied,” I say to the locked door.  Vivian reaches into her red bag and shakes a blue pill out of the aspirin bottle with nervous hands.

“Me, too,” I say, holding out my palm. “Or I’ll never be able to get through this night sane.”

She hands me a blue pill and we pop them into our mouths and dry swallow. Next, she pulls a small tube out of her bag and takes off the cap. It’s bright red, blood red, lipstick. “The
coup de grâce
,” she says.

“Isn’t that what you say right before you kill somebody?”

“Really? I thought it meant icing on the cake.”

“No lipstick,” I protest. “Especially if I’m going to eat cake.”

She starts smearing it on my lips anyway. “You really have a pretty face, Lee.”

“I feel a but coming on...”

“But...it’s like you do everything possible to be unattractive— Now smack your lips together a couple of times—If I had your cheekbones and your full lips, there’d be no stopping me.”

She likes my lips? She’s obviously been paying more attention to me than I thought. “I don’t like men looking at me,” I say.

“Well, they’re gonna look tonight,” she says, turning me toward the grimy mirror. “Tell me what you think.”

Wow. The only way I recognize myself is because I’m looking back at me. Vivian is a miracle worker. I actually look...kind of... good. She’s piled all my dreads up on my head like I have a little octopus perched up there. It doesn’t look half bad. But what’s that smear on my cheek? I reach up to brush it away and Vivian grabs my hand.

“Don’t touch your face, you’ll fuck up all my hard work,” she reprimands.

“There’s a smear,” I say.

Vivian uses her Kleenex to swipe at the mirror. Oh. It was a smear on the filthy mirror, not on me.

“And, how do I look?” Vivian asks, striking a pose in her slinky black dress.

She looks gorgeous. Good enough to eat. “You’re...” I begin, leaning in close to her and summoning all my courage.

She places a finger in the middle of my chest and pushes me back. “Your lip liner is crooked,” she says.

Damn.

“Quit chewing your lipstick off,” she scolds and hands me the tube. “Here. Tuck it into your cleavage. That way you can freshen it up later.”

“Yeah. Thanks, I’ll be sure to do that,” I say, trying not to sound too dejected and tossing the lipstick into her bag when she turns away.

She reaches over and pops the top off an economy size can of Alberto Vo5 hairspray, saying, “Close your eyes.” I scrunch my eyes closed and listen to the hiss of aerosol for a long time. When I open them again, we’re both smothered in a fog of sticky hairspray stink.

“Oh my God,” I cough. “That shit burns all the way down my windpipe. Isn’t that stuff highly flammable?”

“You’ll be fine,” she says. “Just don’t smoke anywhere near your hair.”

“How come when my nipples are hard I just look cold or scared, but when yours are hard you just look hot?” I ask.

“Because you’re cold and scared,” Vivian explains. “And because I’m hot.”

“And you’re humble, too,” I add under my breath.

She guides the Mercedes into the high school parking lot and finds a slot right near the main entrance. She probably used to park here in the cool section all the time with the cheerleaders and jocks while I had to ride the bus with the rest of the losers.

I adjust the damn straps on my damn red dress while Vivian checks her makeup in the rearview mirror. I use the word “dress” lightly because it’s hardly a dress at all. It has spaghetti straps and the flimsy fabric hangs just right above my nipples. It only comes to mid-thigh and has no back. At least it covers my boxers.

Vivian looks super hot in her black dress. Now I’m glad I didn’t wear black because I’d just end up looking like her ugly shadow. The dress is way too tight on her, which is a good thing, and I don’t think she’s wearing any underwear whatsoever. Which is another good thing.

I’ve come up with about a million different reasons why I can’t go to this homecoming shindig, but Vivian isn’t buying any of it. “You know what would be fun?” I say, trying a different tack. “We could hire a couple of drag queens to pose as us and just spy on what happens.”

“I don’t like men who look better in heels than me,” she replies without a trace of humor.

I try again, “Or we could just sit in the car and get high and eat cupcakes. Make fun of everyone going in.”

She throws me an exasperated look and says, “I’m going in. You’re going in. End of story.”

“Are you sure we’re allowed? Isn’t it just for the students?”

“It’s called homecoming, stupid,” she says. “Alumni come home to visit during homecoming.”

“Okay,” I say, giving up and opening my door, “let’s go get this over with.”

“Good idea. You go first. I’ll wait a couple of minutes then make my grand entrance.”

I cannot believe my ears. All this makeover fantasy hoopla shit she’s put me through and now she pulls this. “You’re afraid to be seen with me. Why don’t you just say that? Instead of this grand entrance shit?”