All Out of Pretty

by Ingrid Palmer

  After school, Chloe says she doesn’t want to ride home with Brick and asks if we can walk to my house instead. I don’t blame her for wanting to avoid Brick and his bossiness, but I certainly can’t have her skipping into my mess of a world.

  “Um, that might not be a good idea,” I say, trying to ignore the hurt that flashes behind her eyes.

  “Why not?” She tugs at her hair.

  “My mom isn’t feeling well. She caught my stomach bug. But we could walk in the woods. Go to the pond?” I suggest, dreading the pain this extra walking may cause.

  “Okay,” she agrees reluctantly, so we set out.

  I’ve been spoiled getting rides home from Brick all semester. Halfway to the woods, my books feel insufferably heavy, their bindings cutting into my arms. Casually, I pull the detested garbage bag from my pocket, shake it open, and dump the books inside. Then I twist the bag up and heft it over my shoulder. Chloe has the grace to keep talking, to pretend like this is a perfectly normal book-toting method. Who cares? I think. By now, Chloe and Brick are well aware of my financial issues since I can never even spring for my own ice cream cone.

  At the pond, we scramble up to the big log where we first spoke that scorching August afternoon. There’s a wide, flat area where we can sit cross-legged comfortably if we face each other. Automatically, this is what we do, not feeling awkward in the silence that descends.

  “We’ve been friends for two months,” Chloe says after a minute, brightening.

  “Yeah, almost.” It’s early October. Thinking about the date doesn’t remind me of time passing idly, however, but of time running out. Judd gave me until December to pay off my debt, which swelled to eight hundred and fifty dollars after I missed that weekend of work. A methodical thumping begins in my right temple, and Chloe catches the stress evident on my face. Suddenly her hand clasps my fingers.

  “What’s wrong, Andrea?” Her wheat-colored eyes are full of concern. “You look so worried. Not just now, but all the time lately.”

  I’m about to brush her off when my throat catches. “It’s just…” I begin. “If I tell you something, promise me you won’t tell Brick. Or anyone?”

  Chloe hesitates, then shakes her head. “I can’t promise. You’d better not tell me.”

  I glare at her, disappointment and anger sizzling on my tongue. “You’re my best friend and you can’t keep a simple promise?”

  “Not from Brick,” she says. “I already did it once and…well, I can’t keep secrets from him anymore.”

  “This isn’t your secret. It’s mine,” I quip, annoyed.

  “It doesn’t matter. If he asked, I’d have to tell. And he does ask about you sometimes.”

  “Unbelievable,” I huff.

  Chloe looks miserable. “I’m sorry. But he was so upset when he found out what was happening to me at school last year. So hurt that I didn’t confide in him,” she explains. “He wouldn’t speak to me for two days, and then out of the blue he caught me in the woods and just started unloading. He said I had to make a decision—we were either going to be polite cousins who made small talk and kept all the important things to ourselves, or we were going to be the closest confidants. Like brother and sister.”

  As she speaks, my eyes fill with tears, and I’m surprised that half the reason for them is simple jealousy. Not just because of the special bond they share, but because it means she can’t be my closest confidant. It means I can’t tell her any secrets. I don’t know what Brick would do with them.

  Still. I’m too close to bursting not to let something out now, so I say what I can. “My mom has issues. She’s sick a lot. It’s…hard sometimes.”

  I lean forward, putting my head all the way down into the space between my knees. I rock there for a minute and let Chloe rub my back just like Gram used to. “I’m so sorry, Andrea,” she says. “Can I help?”

  My nose is too clogged to answer, and there’s nothing she can do anyway. So I keep rocking, back and forth, trying to remember what it feels like to breathe without a weight pressing against my chest. I go on like this until Chloe’s tiny fingers grip my shoulders and she makes me sit up. “I know what you need,” she announces and begins stripping off her clothes. “You need to float. Just float. It’s the best therapy, I promise.”

  She’s wearing a T-shirt and her underwear now, completely at ease standing half naked in the woods in the middle of the afternoon. I look around at the deserted forest, shake my head. “I can’t float. I always failed that part of swim lessons.”

  I assume that will be the end of the discussion, but she reaches down, grabs my hands and pulls me to my feet. She is surprisingly strong for one so tiny. “C’mon. The water’s only getting colder. This will be our last swim of the season. Be brave, Andre. Be a warrior.” Then she strikes the warrior pose, totally serious. I snort.

  She straightens up and looks at me, hands on hips.

  “Fine,” I say. If she can do it, I can, too. I yank off my clothing until I’m wearing the same few garments as Chloe. We stand on the edge of the log and count to three. Even before we jump, we are laughing.

  Our bodies splash into the pond and we emerge breathless from the cold, but the shock feels wonderful. We swim out to the deep part and Chloe flips onto her back, floating with ease. I try to imitate her, but my legs immediately sink until I’m vertical in the water.

  “See? I told you,” I gurgle. “I could never pass level four at the Y. I’m a sinker.”

  Chloe rolls her eyes and makes me try again, tells me to puff out my chest this time. I humor her, but the same results ensue. This time her eyes crinkle in concentration. “Hmm,” she says after a moment. “Try raising your arms straight above your head. Don’t hold them out at your sides.”

  “That’s not how you did it.”

  “Everyone’s different,” she responds, treading beside me.

  “You are ridiculously persistent.” But I flip onto my back, kick my legs to the surface, and extend my arms up past my ears. I am sure this is a major waste of time and energy…until I realize I’m not sinking. My legs are bobbing on the surface of the pond, ebbing and flowing with the movement of the water. I’m floating for the first time in my life!

  Chloe lets out a whoop and I can’t help grinning. “I can’t believe it. You were right, Chlo.”

  She laughs. “Don’t act so surprised.”

  I laugh, too. I stare up at the hazy sky, feel the sway of the current moving me any way it pleases, feel my body relax, my tension drift away. I could stay like this forever.

  I am floating. My best friend is floating, too, and giggling, right beside me. I have a best friend. It is mid-October and I’m freezing and exhilarated and filled with energy, and I’ve never felt so alive.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing can bring me down from this high.

  Judd’s black sedan is parked in the driveway, but the house seems deserted when I tiptoe inside. As soon as he hears me pulling pots out of the kitchen drawers, though, Judd is in there and in my face.

  “Cuttin’ it close tonight,” he remarks, smoothing down his wiry hair and eying my damp locks.

  “Yeah,” I respond, because if I don’t say something he’ll accuse me of ignoring him.

  “Make double. I’m having company.”

  I glance around the empty house. “Where’s Ayla?”

  “Out.” He walks through the kitchen and sits down at the table. “Get me a beer.”

  A beer he could have gotten himself while he was passing the fridge two seconds ago, I think bitterly. Outwardly, my face remains a perfect stone mask. I grab a bottle from the fridge and set it on the table in front of him. Before I can get away, his fingers clamp around my wrist. My eyes dart up, startled.

  “I got you something today. It’s on your bed. Once you get dinner started, go put it on.”

  I don’t like the way he’s go
t his fingers wrapped around Gram’s watch. When I try to take my hand back, he lets me, but he smoothly unclasps the watch and slides it over my knuckles, and now it’s in his grimy fingers. I lunge to snag it back, but he’s too quick. He leans back, holding the watch high, teasing me. I reach for it again, and once more am disappointed. Judd’s evil laughter fills my ears, but the blood is rushing to them so fast that all I can think is, No, no, no. With the Buick gone, Gram’s watch is all I have. He can’t take that too!

  But fighting him outright never works in my favor, so I feign subservience. I swallow and ask, “Can I have it back?” My voice is shaking, my eyes frantic.

  Judd frowns and examines the watch up close. While he does so, I hold my breath—and all my instincts—tightly inside.

  “Please, Judd?”

  After a long, agonizing minute, Judd answers, “Nah. Think I’ll keep hold of this little trinket for a while, to make sure you do exactly as you’re told tonight.”

  The first step in “doing as I’m told” requires me slipping into the red tube dress I find laying across my bed. It’s totally inappropriate, something Ayla would wear clubbing. After I pull it on, I keep tugging at the fabric, hoping for some give, but it clings to my bony hips, my breasts, my butt, like a cocoon to a caterpillar. I wish I were inside a cocoon.

  With the image of Gram’s silver watch clear in my mind, I give the dress a final frustrated tug and head downstairs to finish cooking. Judd’s “company” has arrived, and I flinch a little when I see the man who was chatting in the driveway with Judd all those months ago sitting at the table. Even seated, he’s intimidating. His eyes pierce me from beneath the dark hair that is a little longer than before, slicked down to his chin.

  “You remember Bones,” Judd says.

  The man looks me over, smiling appreciatively. “How could I forget?”

  I cross my arms. Then my eyes skip to Judd, who cocks his head slightly in warning. I know what he wants. I drop my hands to my sides and produce a tight smile for the guest, thinking only of Gram’s watch.

  “Ain’t she pretty all dressed up?” Judd asks.

  The man stares and says, “Mmm.”

  I turn to the stove and continue making dinner, acutely aware of Judd’s friend watching my every move in that tight blood-red dress. The tension is so thick, it makes me sweat. As they begin to talk business, I feel my hands trembling. I want to be anywhere but in this kitchen. I wish with all my heart that Ayla were here, too, though I don’t know what difference she could make.

  “How’d the rounds go?” I hear the man ask Judd, and then after Judd’s recap he says, “Good. Call Louis tomorrow and set up the next drop. I’ve gotta go to Dayton on other business…”

  I work quickly so I can serve dinner and get the hell out. No one speaks directly to me again, except when the big man drops his fork and Judd instructs me to pick it up and bring Donovan a new one. My eyes bulge at this. Donovan?! If this is the guy Judd owes money to, I can think of only one reason for him to parade me around in this dress. I push down the bile that threatens to rise in my throat, but welcome the resolve that accompanies it. I will not become Ayla. I will not be someone’s payment.

  While the men eat, I position myself near the countertop where I’ve left a sharp knife within reach. I am ready to grab it the moment Donovan makes a move. But he’s lost interest. He doesn’t look at me during dinner or even after, when I’m cleaning up. He doesn’t speak to me or touch me, lucky for him. Judd also ignores me, chatting instead about delivery schedules and pricing options. To hear them talk, you’d think they were accountants!

  When the meal is over, I serve them after-dinner drinks. Instead of dismissing me, Judd tells me to wait in the kitchen in case they need something else. He’s never had me do this before, and I’m positive he is just trying to give Donovan more time to view my ass.

  After forty-five long minutes, they wrap up their business. Judd snaps more orders at me and I jump, thinking only of my reward. I walk Donovan to the door and hand him his jacket.

  Donovan’s coal-black eyes rake me over from top to bottom before he smiles, slow and lazy, then disappears outside. It’s not until I hear the roar of the Beamer’s engine that my heart starts to slow down. I turn around in the hallway and face Judd. “Good?” I ask in a shaky voice.

  “Good enough,” he grumbles, looking troubled. He pulls Gram’s watch out of his pocket and flings it at me. “Get outta my sight. You look like a whore.”

  I run upstairs and throw off the dress as fast as I can.

  Chapter 30

  “What pose are you going to do?” Chloe turns around in line to ask me.

  “Huh?” I say without looking up from the notes I’m studying.

  “For your portrait,” she says in exasperation. “You know, you could totally pull off some dramatic over-the-shoulder gaze,” she suggests and models it. “Or there’s always the sweet girl-next-door look. Just fold your hands under your chin and try to appear demure.”

  I grunt. Hate Picture Day.

  “Have you thought about it at all? You’re up in, like, two minutes.”

  “I have a history test in ten minutes that I’m more concerned about,” I tell her.

  “Ugh. You and Brick are too much alike,” she mumbles.

  Soon Chloe takes her place in front of the fake blue background set up in the library and smiles sweetly for the camera. As I watch, I feel a surge of pride, followed by uneasiness. It’s nice being Chloe’s friend, but sometimes I feel sorry for her. She’s the only bit of cheerful relief between my surliness and Brick’s intensity. It must take its toll. She really should be hanging out with a bunch of giggling freshmen.

  Instead, she’s waiting for me on the other side.

  It’s my turn. I trudge up to the platform, sit on the bench, and face the photographer—an older gentleman with a cheerful expression who prods, “Smile pretty, now” when I give him my serious-portrait pose.

  “I’m all out of pretty,” I say, my voice as flat as my face.

  The photographer frowns but takes the shot. “Nice one, Andre,” my best friend mutters. I clutch Chloe’s arm and we bolt into the hallway.

  We walk side by side down the hall to the place where we have to part for our respective classrooms. “I’ll see you after school,” I tell her.

  Chloe shakes her head. “No. My mom’s picking me up early for a doctor’s appointment today. So you and Brick can go be boring and…oh, let me guess, study.” She grins, sticks her tongue out, and bounces off into the sea of students. My heart swells as I watch her go.

  Chloe is always cheerful, always looking for the good stuff. Just the opposite of me, I think wryly. I realize I don’t really like this about myself. Even my preoccupation with grades and stature in school, which once seemed like an admirable trait, now makes me feel…unbalanced. I glance down at my meticulous history notes and remember Delaney once asking me why I obsessed about my grades so much.

  “I’m not obsessed,” I’d retorted lamely. But she was right— my desire to excel was compulsive. “I just want to go to a good college,” I’d tried to explain. “Anyway, you should understand. You’re the same way with dance.”

  Delaney let it go after that. But later, I thought about her question and searched for a deeper answer. Sure, I wanted a shot at getting into an Ivy League school. And of course I needed a scholarship. But there was more. Acing tests and collecting academic accolades was something I could control, and it put me in a different league than Ayla. If I was an exceptional student with a bright, promising future, then no one could say I was anything like my deadbeat mother. And Gram could never, ever compare us.

  I’m almost at my classroom when I pass the picture windows facing the east side of the quad. Outside, the brilliant rust and ruby leaves catch my eye. Trying to embrace the moment like Chloe would, I pause to admire the scene. Then a sha
dow steals my gaze—it’s a guy, half hidden behind the maple tree talking with one of the regulars in the quad. A guy with scruffy red hair and a scar above his eyebrow. A guy who looks a little too old to be a student, but who seems familiar. I try to place him, but nothing registers, and then after a quick glance at Gram’s watch, I’m sucked back into the wave of students. It doesn’t hit me until twenty minutes later, halfway through my history test. Recognition slams into me so hard I gasp.

  The guy in the quad is that junkie who came to Judd’s house my first day there. The one Judd marched into the woods. But why would he be here? The answer pushes its way past all the history lessons I’ve stored in my brain—the guy with the scar must be supplying the kids who deal at Belmont. And Judd must be the one supplying him.

  I’m not sure why this surprises me. Haydon is a small town—surely there’s not enough room in it for two suppliers. But I never see the kid with the scar on our Saturday deliveries. Maybe he’s an indirect link to Judd. Or maybe Judd makes extra deliveries when I’m at school. To acquaintances I know nothing about. Maybe they know me, though, and they’re watching. Suddenly, my skin feels itchy, my senses heightened. As if I’m realizing for the first time how messed up my life truly is. This distraction almost causes me to flub my test, which absolutely can’t happen, so I force it all from my mind. I build a mental dam and push it away, like I do when dreams of Gram sneak past my defenses. It works for now.

  If only I knew how to keep them all from flooding back.

  “Want to come over and study?” Brick asks as soon as I slide into the front seat of his Explorer after school.

  I burst out laughing.

  He shoots me a quizzical look, so I explain, “That’s what Chloe predicted we would do today. We really are boring, huh?”