Wicked Jealous: A Love Story

by Palmer, Robin

  Kimmy looked over at Nicola and raised her eyebrow.

  “Believe me. I feel your pain. I have to deal with this on a daily basis,” Nicola said.

  “It’s just that if you cut it all off, I’m afraid I’m going to get really cold,” I rambled. “And because my blood sugar is on the low side, that’s already an issue for me, so the hair is actually necessary for warmth. Not to, you know, hide behind, like Nicola keeps trying to say, and that’s why—”

  Kimmy put her hand over my mouth. “Enough. Here’s the thing, Amber—”

  “It’s Simone.”

  “Right. Anyways, as I was saying before you interrupted me, the thing is, I’m an artist.”

  “Oh really? What medium?” I asked. “Painting or photography or—” Maybe if I could change the subject, we wouldn’t have to deal with the hair issue anymore.

  “What I mean is that hair is my art,” she replied. “Although I have been told that my Hipstamatic photos are so good that I could probably get a gallery to give me a show. But that’s neither here nor there. What is here is you. Sitting in my chair. When I graduated from cosmetology school in Jersey, I made a solemn oath to myself that I would go to any length to make my clients look as . . . them as possible.”

  I was tempted to tell her I didn’t think that was grammatically correct, but somehow I didn’t think she’d appreciate it. And to get back at me, she’d just start snipping away.

  “And when I look at you, Taylor—”

  “Simone.”

  “Right. What I see is . . . a bob.”

  “I appreciate the fact that you’ve put so much time into thinking about this,” I said, “but what I see is a trim.”

  “And the thing of it is,” she went on, “when I look at a client and I see who they really are and that the Universe has guided them to me to help them get there, like a hair . . . midwife, I just can’t go against that. Not good on the karma front.”

  “But what if I wrote a note saying that it was my decision?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Sorry. Can’t do it. When it comes to hair, I have a gift—on the psychic side—”

  Now the woman was psychic? Sure, this was Venice, where the boardwalk was filled with fortune-tellers willing to read your tarot cards for ten bucks, but still. I looked over at Nicola. Even she was starting to look a little less sure of her brilliant idea.

  “—and what I’m seeing and hearing when I look at you, Ashley—”

  “Simone.”

  “—is that you’re a bob girl. Not a trim girl. So what’s it gonna be?”

  It was one thing to get glasses. Or a dress that showed off my legs. Especially because it meant I was going to have to shave them on a regular basis. But to cut all my hair off? I’d just feel so . . . seen. “Do you know how long it took me to grow it this long?!” I cried. “My entire life!”

  She shrugged. “So if you don’t like it, it’ll grow back.”

  “Yeah—in sixteen years!”

  She looked at her watch. “Listen, I have a drag queen coming in an hour, so if we’re gonna do this, we need to start now.”

  I looked over at Nicola.

  “Haven’t I been right so far?” she asked.

  I sighed. It was true. Plus, I had gone this far, why stop now? Hopefully, I’d be so unrecognizable that no one would know it was me and would think I had moved away or something. I plopped down in the chair and squeezed my eyes tight. “I guess we’re gonna do this.”

  I didn’t open my eyes once the entire time Kimmy was washing and rinsing and combing and snipping and drying. Not even when Nicola oohed and ahhed and said things like, “Wow. I’ve been best friends with the girl for six years, and I never knew she had a neck!” before she went over to the eyeglass place to pick up my glasses, which were now ready.

  I guessed if I looked beyond horrible, I could always get a wig. A wig could be fun. Maybe something in a platinum blonde, like Kimmy. Although I was looking for a low-key approach, and that would probably make me stand out. I could always transfer to another school. That was an option. As I mulled over my future, or the lack thereof, if my hair ended up looking ridiculous, the stench of very strong perfume hit my nostrils.

  “Girl, I am on a schedule here,” snapped a very deep voice, “so you best get her out of that chair and me in it.”

  “I’m assuming that’s the drag queen,” I whispered to Nicola, now back with my glasses. My eyes were still closed.

  “That would be correct,” she said. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t want to make him angry because she’s really large.”

  I opened one eye. Standing in front of me, with his arms crossed and a high royal-blue heel impatiently clicking on the floor, stood a very large African American man who—had he not decided he liked to wear women’s clothes and makeup and fake nails—probably would have made a great football player. Or possibly an entire football team.

  “But that is one fabulous bob, child,” he said as he looked at me. “Kimmy, you did good.”

  The idea that a drag queen liked my new haircut was either really good . . . or really bad. Unfortunately, I was still too chicken to open the other eye and take a look in the mirror.

  “Thanks, Lady GaGantuan,” Kimmy replied. “That means a lot coming from you.”

  “What was the before picture?”

  She put up a hand. “Let’s not go there.”

  He turned to me and smiled. When he did, it made him very pretty. “Child?”

  “Yes?” I said meekly.

  “Out of my chair,” he ordered.

  “Okay,” I said as I scrambled out, still not looking in the mirror.

  Kimmy walked around me, examining her handiwork. “I’m thinking you look very . . . French.”

  At that I perked up. “How so?”

  “Mm . . . kind of like . . . as if you should be sitting across from a man telling him that even though he’s your soul mate, you’re not going to be able to be with him because you think it’s better for your art,” she said.

  “Ooh—I like that one.”

  “Wait—before you open both your eyes and check yourself out, you need to put these on first,” Nicola said, placing the glasses on the bridge of my nose. I opened my eyes. After she was done, she smiled. “Okay—now look.”

  “I’m not going to have to end our friendship over this, am I?” I asked anxiously. “Because it would really suck to have to go find a new best friend.”

  “Au contraire, my BFF,” she replied. “If anything, you’re going to spend the next twenty years coming up with creative ways to repay me with gratitude. By the way, they announced this morning that Arcade Fire is coming to town this summer, so you can start with tickets to that.” She turned me toward the mirror. “Okay, now open them.”

  I did. And sucked in my breath so fast I began to choke, until Lady GaGantuan handed me his purple Hello Kitty water bottle.

  “Whoa,” I said as I stared myself. I had a bob, but it wasn’t bowl-like, or all poufy like a TV news anchor. It was on the longish side, with wispy bangs, and it curled under gently with the corners of it pointing it toward my mouth. “I look . . .”

  “Completely babelicious?” Nicola suggested.

  “Like Christina Ricci, but less alien like because she’s too skinny?” Kimmy asked.

  “. . . even more like . . . me,” I finished.

  This being L.A., judging people by how they looked wasn’t only acceptable, but expected. But when you walk around being called That Weird Fat Girl, you tend not to do that. I liked to think of myself as being able to see beyond how people looked. If I hadn’t, my becoming best friends with a girl who had ever-changing hair color and piercings, and who occasionally wore combat boots, probably wouldn’t have happened.

  But that moment, as I loo
ked at myself in the mirror and saw a girl who looked both sophisticated and French, I finally had a sense of what it felt like to be in the world and not want to disappear. Or to have the courage to look people in the eye instead of looking just to the right of them. And to not have your back ache because, instead of slumping, you were standing up straight with your shoulders back because you felt like you had just as much of a right to be on the planet as everyone else.

  Part of it was finally seeing the weight loss, part of it was the dress, the haircut, and the glasses. But I knew it was more than that. It was as if some switch had been flicked and the pane of glass had just shattered, so there wasn’t anything stopping me from joining the world, rather than sitting on the sidelines.

  As corny as it sounded, and as much as I found fairy tales to be really offensive because they portrayed girls as helpless beings who needed to be saved by dumb princes, I felt like a character who was about to go on some big adventure.

  five

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea,” I said as I stumbled on my heels as Nicola dragged me across the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf parking lot.

  “You’d never hear the end of it if these guys found out they weren’t the first ones to gaze upon my handiwork,” she replied. She stopped and turned toward me, taking me in. “Correction—my genius handiwork.” She removed my hand from the back of my neck, which I kept swiping at in hopes of finding my hair.

  “Stop futzing,” she ordered.

  “Is it possible to miss your hair?” I asked.

  “I thought you liked it!”

  “I do,” I replied. “But still, I think I’m having separation anxiety.”

  My hope that the ladies of the Zumba Brigade wouldn’t embarrass me by making a big deal about my look was squashed the minute I walked (okay, tripped) through the door.

  Even with her oversized glasses, it took Cheryl a moment to realize it was me. “OH MY GOD, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” she screamed when it registered.

  As the rest of the crew turned, they shrieked. It was like I was Godzilla, only the five-foot-five version.

  “Okay, maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” Nicola murmured.

  “Sweetie, I hope this doesn’t offend you,” Cookie said a few minutes later as I tried to sip my iced coffee while they pushed and prodded and pulled at me, “but you’re looking like a real Baberaham Washington.”

  “Who’s Baberaham Washington?” Nicola asked, confused.

  “I think she means Baberaham Lincoln,” I replied.

  Cookie thought about it. “You might be right. History was never my strong suit.”

  Cheryl grabbed my hand. “Simone, I think I speak for all of us when I say that while we’re old enough to know that it’s inner beauty that counts, you look like you could be in a magazine.”

  “I don’t know—” I said doubtfully.

  “Hey—we practiced this in the car, remember?” Nicola asked. “When someone gives you a compliment. you say thank you.”

  “Right.” I cringed. “Thank you,” I said, trying to make it sound as honest as possible. But boy, was that hard.

  “What a beautiful dress,” Marcia said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “One Person’s Garbage Is Another One’s Treasure.”

  From the looks on their faces they were not impressed. In fact, it was more like they were frightened.

  “It’s a thrift store in Venice,” I explained.

  “Pre-owned stuff from minor celebrities,” Nicola added.

  “That sounds . . . lovely,” Cookie said.

  “Just do me a favor and make sure you get it dry cleaned,” Cheryl said. “So I’m not up half the night worrying that your house is being infested by bedbugs. Those things are a nightmare to get rid of.”

  “I have an idea—now that you’re open to wearing things that actually fit, we should do a little shopping!” Marcia cried.

  Cookie clapped her hands. “A field trip!”

  Uh-oh. As much as I loved the ZB, with the amount of bedazzlement that could be found on their exercise wear, there was no way I was going to put myself into their hands and let them dress me.

  “We should definitely hit T.J. Maxx,” Marcia said. “I saw this magnificent fuchsia velour tracksuit, which would look just darling on you. Rhinestones all along the collar. To die for.”

  “Um, I don’t think—” I started to say, nervously.

  “And of course there’s always Loehmann’s,” Cheryl added. “I’ll let you use my fifteen-percent-off birthday-month discount that comes with my Insider Club status.”

  I had been in Loehmann’s once, to use the rest room, and the amount of large Russian women wearing way too much perfume was enough to stop me from ever going back. “That’s so sweet of you, but—”

  “It’s a little far, but the Kohl’s over the hill is to die for,” Rona interrupted. “And the sales they have! Last time I was there, they had these Keds with little hearts made out of sequins.”

  Okay, it was time to put a stop to this. “You know, I really appreciate the fact that you guys would take time out of your busy days to help me shop, but I’m sort of tapped out on the finance front at the moment.”

  “Plus, I think Simone wants to stay with the vintage look,” Nicola added. She looked at her Disney Princess watch. (“Irony is the new black.”) “Wow—look at the time! We’ve got to get home and study. Or go admire all her new loot. One or the other.”

  “Okay, but before you go, let me give you a little something,” Marcia said, digging in her wallet and handing me a twenty.

  “What’s this for?”

  “It’s an early birthday gift. Put it toward another dress.”

  “I can’t take this!” I said pushing it back toward her. “Plus, my birthday’s not until September.”

  The others started reaching into their wallets as well. As much as I tried to stop them, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Before I knew it, the Help-Simone-Show-the-World-She’s-Got-Curves fund was 120 dollars richer.

  “You guys, I can’t,” I said as I swiped at my eyes. Over my glasses at first, which I quickly realized didn’t help. I couldn’t believe I was crying. Although now that I wasn’t stuffing myself with sugar, I did find that it happened more than it used to. Back when I was numbing out with Krimpets, I practically never cried.

  “Of course you can, honey,” Cheryl said as she patted my cheek gently. “It’s what mothers do. Even the ones who didn’t give birth to you.”

  “And because you’re family now, that means you can’t say no,” added Cookie.

  After years of being bumped into, whacked in the head, and ignored, suddenly being seen was a lot to get used to. For the first few weeks after Operation Whatever Bird It Was Called, everyone at Castle Heights began to call me the New Girl because they thought I had just transferred there. Once word got around that, actually, I had gone to school with most of them since middle school, the buzz became even louder. How had I done it? Liposuction? Fat camp? Some sort of spell that I had gotten from the in-store witch at the Psychic Eye Bookshop? After being invisible for so long, the stares and whispers kind of freaked me out, especially when Nicola told me that the ones from guys were because they thought I looked good—not stupid. The hardest part was learning to trust it. Every time someone said, “I like your dress” or “Your hair looks good,” I kept waiting for that to be followed by something like, “But really . . . who do you think you’re kidding?” I used to go through my days holding my breath in an attempt to hold my stomach in—now I was holding my breath because I was waiting for the entire school to line up and point and laugh at me. Nicola told me to get used to it, and that the more time that went by, the more normal it would feel. But it was still hard.

  One night, after a pseudo family dinner (takeout from the Whole Food
s because Hillary felt that learning how to cook made her less of a feminist), I holed up in my room to do my homework. Right after I allowed myself a quick glance at Jason Frank’s Facebook page. Even though we weren’t officially friends, he was one of those people who didn’t change his privacy settings, which meant the entire world could see everything on his page. I didn’t look often—just occasionally, in case those find-out-who’s-been-viewing-your-Facebook-page apps really did work, even though Nicola said they didn’t. She better hope they didn’t, because if they did, then Nate Buckner—her ex, who was dating That Skank, aka Madison—would have some serious grounds for having her arrested for stalking.

  I wasn’t sure why I was wasting my time. Sure, Jason grunted hello to me if and when we crossed paths in the hall, but that didn’t mean he liked me—even if Nicola kept insisting she had recently seen him staring at me a few times during lunch from the Ramp post-makeover. And I didn’t like him because . . . well, because that would be a total waste of time and energy. Maybe now the idea of my someday having a boyfriend wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, but someone as popular as Jason? Forget it. If I were going to let myself crush on someone, it would have been someone more appropriate for my social standing. Which I guess meant either (a) someone in one of the unsexy language clubs, like the Ukrainian or Korean, or (b) a total burnout. Seeing that (c) I only had an interest in learning French and (d) I considered drugs really stupid, neither of those was going to happen, which meant that I was going to stay crush-less. And just sneak peeks at Jason’s page every once in a while. In case, you know, he had posted a photo of Cheryl of something.

  I was in the process of trying to figure out where his latest friend Sunshine Ray from Topanga (hippy central) went to school (it was probably Crossroads, but I wasn’t sure) when there was a knock on the door. Before I could say, “Come in,” it opened. “Hello, hello,” Hillary bubbled. She held out a plate of cookies. “You barely touched your food at dinner,” she said. “So I figured you might be hungry.”