The Book of Fred

by Abby Bardi

  So by the time I came back from Paris, all this stuff was swirling around in my brain. I felt sad, and guilty, and angry, and guilty some more, and most of all I felt like just staying in Paris and being an artist or something, or a fashion model— though this would be impossible because of my big thighs— and just never going back to Maryland at all. But then I knew I would miss my mom too much to stay away for long, even though she really got on my nerves, and that made me sad too.

  When my dad dropped me off in front of my house—not even coming in, because it would just upset Mom and he knew it—I went inside feeling weighed down by all these things that I felt I could only really say in French, only I didn't know French well enough, in fact barely at all, really, all I knew was that I should have been born speaking it because it suited me better than English.

  When I see this poster that says “Bienvenue Chez Vous Mademoiselle Heather!!!!!!!” on it, I know right away that Mary Fred has made it, since my mom wouldn't think of doing something like that. She might mean to plan something nice, but it wouldn't occur to her exactly what to do. So for me the sign is like Mary Fred understands the whole thing somehow without my having to tell her.

  * * *

  Next thing that happens, I get sucked into this community service thing with her. By that time I was bored enough to think it was a good idea, plus the Board of Education required it, and I realized I'd have to cough it up some time, so why not now. I figured by next summer I'd be driving, and working at some glamorous job, so I wouldn't have time to stand around dishing out soup to all the crummy people hanging around our town. I used to see them standing outside the church on Maple Avenue, in the parking lot, waiting for the doors to open, and my exact thoughts were, EWWW.

  But Mary Fred just kind of dragged me in there in that perky way she has and before I knew it, I was all emotionally attached to the people, who really weren't all that yucky when you got to know them, and Mary Fred and I were having a great old time dishing out whatever slop Mrs. Katz had concocted for them that day. At first, we tried to cook something that didn't look quite so disgusting, but Mrs. Katz seemed insulted when we actually made a main dish so we just stuck to desserts and salads.

  Also, it was nice having someone to talk to. My mom was always at work or at the grocery store, and Roy just kept to himself most of the time except to make sarcastic remarks regularly, like that was his job, like we should pay him for it or something. So I really began to like the fact that whenever I thought of something funny, or odd, or even just stupid, instead of just thinking it to myself, I could open my mouth and say it to Mary Fred and she would always agree that it was funny or odd, though she never seemed to think anything anyone said was stupid, even when it was. For example, she thought my uncle Roy was hilarious and would always laugh at his jokes even though I told her not to because that only encouraged him.

  So by the end of the summer, M.F. and I were palling aroundlike Siamese twins, and I had totally stopped noticing that what she was wearing was generally pretty horrible and embarrassing. She didn't like to discuss her weird religion all that much. I don't really know what it was, but I guess the deal was they had to wear brown all the time. I tried to get her to explore some other color options because with her light hair, brown was a really bad color for her and made her skin look sallow. I showed her some magazine articles about skin tone and I think they did make an impression on her, but she kept right on wearing brown, though I got her to wear some other stuff with it. I could see she really liked pink, so whenever we went shopping, I would find all these pink shirts and get her to try them on, even though I wasn't crazy about pink myself but at least it was an improvement.

  All this was not a big problem when it was summer. I mean, in summer everyone looks like a slob because it's so hot out, people are just walking down the street melting anyway. Though personally I always make sure I look great before I leave the house because you never know who you might run into, even if you're just dashing into town to grab a video. On days when my hair frizzes, I won't go anywhere at all, though at the soup kitchen we had to put our hair back anyway so even when I'd spent an hour getting it just right, it ended up in a dumb ponytail. M.F. offered to put my hair in what she called French braids one day, maybe thinking I might like them because they were French, but I was able to get out of it without having to actually tell her how dorky they looked. I told her they would hurt my head, and she seemed to buy that.

  Okay, so by the time August rolled around and it was almost time to go back to school, M.F. was not only my best friend, except for Emma, who had been away for the summer with her dad in Colorado, but she was even better than that, sort of like a cross between a friend and a sister. Not a real sister,since Emma had one of those and they really hated each other most of the time, but the kind of sister you see in old movies. But in spite of all that, by the middle of August I started to worry. I hate the middle of August anyway, when you start to be able to count the days till school starts, and just when you think you still have a week or two left, all of a sudden you're back at your locker and it's too soon, since it's still a hundred degrees out and you should be at the beach, and everyone is all sweaty and miserable. You should feel kind of excited because it's a new year, but I never do. I just want to get on with it until I can feel comfortable again and know where my classrooms are and not be wandering around like an idiot trying to find things.

  I began to worry more and more every day, and when we got up in the morning, I would see M.F. in a whole different way, not as my pal who was fun to be with but as this liability. SAT word. Liability: n. something disadvantageous. It occurred to me that if I'm walking around being best friends with someone who is basically a dork, then that pretty much makes me a dork too. I would look at M.F. when she came downstairs all smiling and fresh, her hair in those freaky braids, and I would think oh HELP. I imagined myself back in the hallways, looking around for a sign of Dylan Magnuson, as I always did, usually spotting his hair first when it was spiky, or his T-shirts that said things like “Meat Is Murder” or “Have You Clubbed a Baby Seal Today?” (His mother worked for Greenpeace.) As I sat in front of the TV watching Jenny Jones, I went into my usual fantasy about Dylan. He would come up to me and say, “Heather, I'd really like you to come with me to the demonstration against the U.S. involvement in [insert foreign country] in front of the Capitol this Saturday—can you make it? We can go to Sonny's Kitchen afterwards and eatsome kimchee.” And I say, “Oh, okay,” like I'm interested but not totally insane about him or anything, in other words I don't fall on the floor and scream, though I'd like to. Instead I am very “poised.” That's a word my mom uses: “1. A state of balance or equilibrium. 2. A dignified, self-confident manner or bearing.” Being poised made me feel like I was ready for anything—poised on the brink of, whatever.

  Suddenly, in the middle of my wonderful Dylan fantasy, a horrible thing happens. Mary Fred walks up to me—right next to me, standing by my side like she really is my Siamese twin— and says, “When are we going?” She is wearing a pink sleeveless top that we made her buy at the mall, and a brown skirt the color of dog doo, and her hair is in pigtails that stick out on both sides. “No, no!” I say out loud.

  “Yeah, she looked better before,” Mary Fred says. She thinks I'm looking at the TV and commenting, as I usually would be. We're watching Jenny Jones make over a bunch of tacky old moms. The moms go into the back room wearing sweatpants and baggy T-shirts. They come back wearing black miniskirts and black lace tops with their bras showing, and when they reach the stage, they prance around like they think they're pretty hot stuff, though they're still fat, and old, and they have eighties hair, the kind that's long in back and short in front.

  Suddenly I have an idea.

  That was the beginning of what I secretly called The Mary Fred Project. “M.F.,” I say, cagey, my eyes still on Jenny Jones, “we should do that to ourselves.”

  “What?” M.F. asks, very innocent.

  �
�Makeovers. We should make ourselves over.”

  M.F. claps her hands. “Great idea! You make me over, and I'll make you over.”

  OhmyGod no, I think. But I say, “No, let's do this. Let's both of us make over both of us.”

  “Can you do a makeover on yourself?” she asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  So we go out to the Cosmetic Center and buy all kinds of crap on sale—eyeliner, mascara, gel with glitter in it, face powder. Then we go to Rave, the sluttiest store in the mall, and I force M.F. to buy a short black skirt. “Just like the moms on Jenny,” M.F. says when she sees it. Yeah right, I say. We find a see-through top to go with it, kind of a lavender, which is close enough to pink for M.F., and we buy her a little metallic flower clip to pull her hair back with. I buy a bunch of the usual stuff I would buy, on sale. Mom has given us a handful of money and said, “Don't get too crazy in there.” She's down the hall at Ward's looking at air conditioners. “We really ought to get one,” she says every year. “It's just so hot.” Then she doesn't buy one because, she says, they're too expensive, and every year it is hot again, hot as hell, I mean just like hell, it just scorches you, and Mom is all surprised like it's never been hot before.

  When we get home, M.F. and I go up to my room and put on all our new clothes. It's awfully hot for black tights, but we put them on anyway. I sit M.F. down at my dressing table and slather eye makeup on her, and powder, and I stick the little flower in her hair, leaving it kind of messy, and before she can protest I slap some gel in it to make sure it stays that way. We go downstairs screaming “Fashion show!” with me leading the way. When we get to the foot of the stairs, Mom and Roy are staring past me. I turn around and look at M.F. Instead of my uncool pal, I see this awesome model girl standing there. Even Roy is gaping at her, and he doesn't usually notice anything but himself. I knew that M.F. had potential, but her skinny body suddenly looks incredibly chic, and her eyes are big withthe black gunk all over them. She looks like she just jumped out of MTV.

  “How do I look?” she says, twirling around.

  “Oh, my goodness, honey,” Mom says. “You look— beautiful. It's almost scary.”

  I'm sizing up M.F. and thinking, well, her nose is a little too long and her teeth stick out (though the purple lipstick helps this a lot), her blond hair is a shade too close to dishwater and kind of stringy, but she has great legs (I'm so jealous. My thighs will never look like that, long and lean like a model's) and best of all, she doesn't look like a dork. At all. Now if I can only get her to dress this way all the time, I think.

  “This is what we're wearing the first day of school,” I tell Mom and Roy. They both look a little shocked, even Roy, but they don't say anything.

  “Is it dress-up day or something?” M.F. asks.

  I tell her yes.

  The night before the first day of school finally comes. I'm sad, because I love summer when it's over, it always seems so magical. In retrospect: n. Contemplation of the past. I think of all the fireflies and wonder where they go, and I think about the ocean and how it's always warmest right about now, which is such a waste. I think when I get old and live on my own, I will always take my vacation at the beach this week, the first week of school, and bob around in the water all by myself, laughing out to sea. I don't contemplate the past much, in general—I think about the future, and I see myself in it, grown-up and business-like, carrying a briefcase and giving out my business card to everyone I meet. Heather Cullison, Attorney. Heather Cullison, Consultant. Heather Cullison, Head Buyer. Heather Cullison, Account Executive.My mom said once that she could get me a job at the library. I DON'T THINK SO.

  Of course, it's not like I'm doing great in school. But my friend Emma says it doesn't matter, that high school is totally bogus and just a waste of time, and that we'd all be better off staying home. I copy Emma's math homework a lot and feel like I'm getting away with something. I'm hoping we'll be in the same math class again this year. I find myself wondering if M.F. will be good at Algebra II.

  I just feel so sad. School just seems like a big locker door about to shut on me. I can hear it clanking, locking me away for the whole year, ringing bells every so often to get me to move on to the next period. When is something exciting going to happen? I ask myself in the mirror as I practice putting on my makeup for tomorrow. My hair is up in a ponytail, ready for bed. I can only hope tomorrow will be a good hair day. Otherwise, I may have to pretend to be sick. I have stuck my finger down my throat on many mornings just because of some frizzing.

  “Let's lay out our clothes for morning,” I say to M.F. She thinks this is a great idea, since she's very organized and neat, so I go to her closet in what used to be the guest room and take out the see-through lavender shirt, the black skirt, and a pair of black sandals I made her buy at Payless. I promise to do her hair in the morning and she doesn't even protest.

  The first week of school is tough. Not only are we lost in the halls most of the time, but I only have two classes with M.F., and one with Emma, and the rest of the time I'm stuck with a bunch of people I don't like. I have to sit behind Danny Fox in Chemistry and he smells so bad I almost puke every day before class is over. I've known Danny since I was little, and the truly embarrassing thing is that we used to play togetherbecause his mom and my mom used to be friends, before the Jemma business. (Danny's mom Libby sided with Jemma.) I always pretend I don't know him, in fact that I've never seen him before in my life, but he always says things to me like, “Hey Puffin, how's Stinky?” Stinky was my cat that got run over by a car. Danny knows that Stinky's accident was years ago, but he still says things like this just to prove that he knows me, and sometimes other people hear him. Emma always says things to him like, “Who's Stinky, Danny? Your imaginary friend?” Though Emma knew my cat too, in fact she used to put doll clothes on him.

  One time we were in the food co-op and my mom and I ran smack into Libby and Danny in the bulk aisle. Usually when my mom sees Libby she has time to run the other way, but this time we were pushing a cartload of disgusting frozen vegetarian entrees along when we nearly crashed right into them. “Hello, Danny,” Mom said carefully, like she was picking glass out of a flesh wound. “Libby. How nice to see you both.” She smiled like someone was poking her with a hat pin.

  “Hello, Alice,” Libby said in a tired voice, like she was already sick of the sight of us. “Is this little Puffin?”

  I wanted to smack her face and tell her that I was Big Fucking Heather, thank you, but I didn't say a word, just nodded. Normally Mom tells me afterwards that I should have been more polite and answered back instead of just standing there like a lump, but this time as we walked away, she only coughed like she was choking on something, and she never mentioned it again.

  Every so often, I run into M.F. in the hall. The first day, she looks totally great, and I can tell that a lot of the boys are asking who she is. I tell a couple of people that she is my cousinMary from California and that she's living with me now. I figure if I tell enough people this, the Fred will disappear from her name, and that would be best for everyone concerned. The second day, M.F. wears a pink sleeveless top with the black skirt, and on the third day I make her borrow a top from me, a purple and black tank with spaghetti straps. “My brassiere is showing!” she says in horror when she sees it, but I loan her a black bra, even though her chest is a size bigger than mine and she's kind of bulgy in it. On the fourth day, though, she's back in a brown skirt and another pink top, and she's not wearing any eye makeup because I overslept and didn't have time to put it on her. But I do clip her hair messily in the flower clip so she still looks kind of cool and casual. Still, signs of dorkiness are starting to pop back up, and I'm worried that she can't keep coolness up indefinitely. Luckily it's a three-day weekend, and I drag her back to Rave to buy another top and a skirt, but I'm a little worried about when the seasons change.

  “How was school?” Mom asks us every night when she comes home. I always say it was fine and don't ela
borate much, but M.F. sits there and tells her every little thing that happened all day. She spends a lot of time talking about her classes, which are Regular and not Honors, even though she is clearly smarter than I am but didn't have time to be tested for placement last year. She talks to Mom about the three branches of government, and about isosceles triangles, which they are reviewing (she's only in Geometry, unfortunately), and about oxygen. Mom acts fascinated, though I'm pretty sure she already knows all that stuff.

  On the weekend, we go back to the soup kitchen, though we have earned nearly enough community service hours. M.F. and I decide that we will still work there one day a week just because otherwise we would miss everyone, and the dessertsmight get bad again if we weren't around to help out. Nothing has changed at the soup kitchen while we were away. Mrs. Katz still can't cook and is a bitch. Mr. Williams still doesn't like tomatoes on his salad. Monica is still there with her three kids, and they're still living at the shelter, and her youngest kid still has a runny nose and no Kleenex.