The Art of Getting Stared At (15 page)

“Grocery shopping.” He tops up his mug.

“This early?”

“Kim wanted to get it over with.”

Fingers crossed she buys cream. And something that resembles real food. Last night for dinner she cooked a disastrous combo of spelt noodles, tofu, and chard. When Ella complained, Kim responded by saying that a vegetarian entrée was a good thing to have. But after five minutes of Ella's whining, Kim gave up and threw a dozen prefab chicken fingers in the convection oven. When I took two, she stared at me and shook her head.

“Kim left a smoothie for you in the fridge,” Dad says. A red-winged blackbird swoops down to the pond, disturbing a
cluster of starlings. “With raspberries and a bunch of other stuff.”

A bunch of other stuff does not sound promising. Still. She didn't have to do it. “That was nice of her.” I sip my coffee. Scientists have found no connection between alopecia and diet or vitamin therapy. I spent a pile of time googling last night. But anecdotal information seems to suggest cutting out junk and adding healthy food may help. It wouldn't hurt to cut back on my sugar intake.

“She told me what's going on. I've emailed your mother asking for more information.”

I'm not surprised—Kim tells Dad everything—but I'm still angry. And determined. Even Mom's response to my text—
Sorry, babe, Kim needed to know—
hasn't swayed me. “I don't want
anyone
to know. You have to promise me, Dad. Promise me Kim won't say anything to anyone else.”

“I can't make promises for Kim.”

I clutch my coffee. “But you can talk to her. She won't listen to me. I told her this was a secret. And look. She told you.”

Pain flashes in his blue eyes. “I'm your father. I have a right to know.”

Heat hits my cheeks. I didn't mean to hurt him.

“Kim and I parent together. There was no way she'd keep this from me.”

“It's not you specifically. I just—” He wouldn't understand.

“I get it.” He gives me a half smile. His hair is earlymorning messy, sticking up at all angles, making him look like a mad scientist. Mine is picture perfect, sprayed to within
an inch of its life. “It's one of the few things you can control right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Life as you know it has changed and the only thing you can control is who you tell.”

My mouth drops open. “How did you know?”

He winks. “Damned therapy couldn't save my marriage to your mother but it comes in handy sometimes.”

The starlings lift off with a flap of wings. Dad and I watch the blackbird dive for fish.

“So you get it then? That I don't want anyone to know?”

“I get it. And I'll talk to Kim. But you need to cut her some slack. She really does try.”

Tears feather the back of my throat. Kim tries all right. She tries to fix me. She's been doing it since her first date with Dad. Once she put my hair in ringlets and made me up with blush, shadow, and mascara. She even spritzed me with some great-smelling perfume. I felt so pretty, thrilled at the obvious joy she took in my appearance. When Dad dropped me at home a few hours later, I was still floating in a sweet girly-girl haze.

Mom took one look at my face and had a meltdown. She called Dad, screaming that I was not broken, that I did not need to be fixed, that I was perfectly fine the way I was.
You are better than that,
she told me after she hung up.
Better than HER. Smarter. You are MY daughter.

And somehow I felt I had to choose. Kim or Mom. Pretty or smart. I chose Mom. I chose smart. And I've stuck with it ever since.

“I leave tonight on a seventy-three-hour shift,” Dad adds, “and I need to know things are good here at home.”

How can things be good when my hair is falling out? But he's waiting for an answer and I've already disappointed him once this morning. “Yes, Dad,” I say. “Things will be good. I'll make sure of it.”

An hour later I'm not sure I can. I'm sitting at the desk studying Isaac's footage on the camcorder, which I brought home from school Friday, when Ella bursts into my room. After deleting the last visual of my pasty white face from the zoo footage, I turn to her. “There's such a thing as knocking you know.”

“Sorry, sorry.” But she's grinning like a goofy clown and doesn't look sorry at all. She waves a familiar taupe Nordstrom bag in the air. “Mom bought us some new makeup.”

A headache starts at the base of my skull. I have better things to do than play with makeup. Forget makeup. I am obsessed with hair. Even as I played with the footage and tried to focus on content and presentation, I found myself staring at people's heads. Comparing their hair to mine. Wondering what I could do to stop this nightmare. And then mentally beating myself up for being so dumb.

“Come on!” She bounces over to the vanity and digs through the bag, removing a small rectangle that looks like blush. “It's for both of us. Mom said we could try it together.”

Of course she did. Kim has involved Ella on purpose. She knows I have a hell of a time saying no to my half-sister. If I complain, Kim will accuse me of overreacting. Imagining things. Being ungrateful. “I don't wear much makeup. You know that.”

“That's dumb. Makeup is fun.”

If that's all it was, I'd be okay with it. But some women make their appearance their life's work, and I don't want Ella to become one of them. I love her too much for that. “You're too young to wear that stuff.”
Even if your mother doesn't think so.

“No, I'm not.” She opens the blush and removes the brush. “I have a cell phone now.”

Ella logic. My headache intensifies.

She perches on the small vanity stool. I watch her brush a plum-sized circle of dark pink blush on her right cheek. When she starts on the other side, I jump up to help. “It's too heavy.” She looks like a clown. And she's gotten powder on her white sweatshirt too. I brush it away. “You know you don't need this stuff to be pretty, right?” She doesn't. Her cheeks are naturally rosy. Unlike me. I inherited Mom's translucent skin.

“I know.”

“You need to be yourself. I've told you that before.”

She nods.

“You have lots to offer the world, right?” In my pocket, my phone signals a text message; I ignore it.

“Right.” But I've said this to her so many times her “right” sounds automatic.

I feel the heat from her skin, smell the lemony cinnamon scent of her. My own skin prickles with nerves. What if she sees one of my spots? What will I say? Craving distance, I step back and pretend to assess her face. “It's true. It's not what you look like, it's who you are. You're a total brainiac when it comes to math, remember?” She has my dad's math skills.

“Yeah.” She leans forward and turns the bag upside down. Pots, wands, and tubes scatter across the vanity. I spot two kinds of eyeliner from a high-end natural makeup line, a Dior mascara, several lipsticks, and three “organic” shadows. How can eye shadow be organic? “It's a total pain because everybody wants to sit beside me in math so they can get my answers.” She picks up a pot of plum shadow and shoves it into my hand. “Do my eyes.” She lowers her lids.

“It may be a pain right now, but in a few years, it'll mean you could be a scientist or an engineer or a pilot like Dad.”

Impatiently she jiggles her shoulders. “My eyes, Sloane!”

Clearly she doesn't care. Suppressing a sigh, I unscrew the top and sweep a little colour onto each lid. “There.”

She opens her eyes, leans into the mirror, and frowns. “You can hardly see it.”

“Less is more.” When she opens her mouth to argue, I add, “Unless you're on TV. That's different.” It's something I've heard Kim say. And it seems to satisfy her.

She gets up. “Now you.”

“I don't think so.”

“Oh, come on. Please?”

My cell rings. “I have to answer this.” I dig into my pocket.

Her hands go on her hips; her eyebrows form a straight line across her forehead. I stifle a laugh. She looks just like Dad when she's mad. “Hello?”

“Hey, sunshine.”

My breath catches. “Isaac?” His voice is deeper, edgier, on the phone. Like dark chocolate with a hot chili kick.

“Yeah. You didn't answer my text and I wanted to make sure I had the right number.”

He saved my number from
last year
? As I'm trying to
process that, he says, “I wanted to make sure you're coming to The Ledge tonight.”

Ella is watching me with a curious, sly smile. I turn to the wall, stare at the picture of the olive grove. “I, um, I'm not sure. I've been working on the video. There's lots left to do.”

“It won't kill you to take a break. Besides, we need more footage before you can do anything substantial.” When I don't respond, he adds, “Please come.”

I hesitate. I don't like clubs at the best of times. And this isn't the best of times.

“I'd really like to see you.”

He'd really like to see me.
I could wear the new hat. Use lots of spray. “Okay,” I blurt out. “I'll be there.” I'll round up Lexi and Harper and a few of the others. We'll make a night of it.

“Who's Isaac?” Ella asks when I disconnect.

My stomach is tangled with nerves.
Isaac called me about tonight. I'm going to The Ledge.

“Who is he?” Ella presses.

“Nobody.”

“Riiiight.” She giggles and rolls her eyes. “I have a nobody too. His name is Dylan.”

Ten

T
he lights outside The Ledge cast a bluish tint over Lexi, Harper, and Chloe as we wait in line later that night. “You look great!” Lexi tells me. Uncomfortable with the compliment, I stare over her shoulder at the building across the street. It's covered with an artsy red, yellow, and blue mural, typical for the Mission neighbourhood of San Francisco, which also happens to be Latino Central and sells some of the best burritos on the planet. “I don't know why you were so against wearing the new clothes.” We shuffle a few steps closer to the entrance. “You look hot, Sloane. Hotter than you've looked in ages.”

“You do!” Harper chimes in. Chloe nods in agreement. I'm relieved they could come tonight. Chloe is hilarious; anytime she's involved, we're guaranteed a good time. Plus, Harper has her mother's car and Kim agreed to extend my curfew to midnight.

“Because I
am
hot.” Between the hat and the brown aviator jacket Lexi lent me (my old jacket apparently wasn't good enough to wear over the pink tulip sweater), I am sweltering. I wiggle my thumb under the waistband of the
super skinny jeans. They're so tight I can hardly breathe thanks to the platters of food we shared at a taqueria over on 16th.

And my scalp is prickling. I resist the urge to scratch. My hair is thinning at a stupid fast rate. I'm paranoid that someone will notice. And when I'm not paranoid, I'm panicked. Which panics me more. Because negativity begets stress and stress might be a cause.

“If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were wearing blush.”

I am. It was a last-minute impulse before I left the house, mostly because Ella insisted. Or so I tell myself. “It's just the lighting,” I say as we reach the door. Now I'm a liar
and
a hypocrite.

How sick is that?

After a cursory search and a stamp on our hands, we're inside. The lights are dim, which is a relief. Flaws are more easily hidden in the dark. I shrug out of Lexi's jacket and sling it over my shoulder. Harper and Chloe disappear into a crush of people.

“Come on!” Lexi tugs me forward. “I see Miles!”

Clearly, they are “on again.” As we push through the crowd, I'm careful not to bump into people holding drinks. We're almost at the stage when Lexi stops. “Shit!”

“What's wrong?” I peer around her shoulder.

“I don't
believe
it,” she hisses. “Look!”

Glancing over a second time, I see Isaac and Miles surrounded by a cluster of girls, including Breanne, who is flashing an acre of boobage in a white halter dress. Bouncing in and out of view, along with Breanne's breasts, is Matt. He
looks awkward and nervous, like he'd rather be in the middle of a busy intersection somewhere.

“What is Breanne
doing
hanging off Miles like a total skank? Isn't Matt enough for her? Come on. We're moving in.” Before I can protest, she pulls me into their circle. “Hey, guys!”

Miles whirls around. “Lexi, hi.” Even the dim lighting can't hide the flush that hits his cheeks.

Lexi elbows Breanne aside and slides between them. Stifling a smile, I look at Isaac. He's wearing jeans, red high-tops, a fedora like mine except black, and a pale blue Jagged Five T-shirt. Green letters spell out “The Best New Band on the Planet.”

“You made it!” He smiles.