True Colors

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  “I’ll call your mother to pick you up,” Mrs. Beckham said. Just then a kid with a real stomachache came in. Now there was a guy who looked like he was going to puke. He needed the bowl way more than me. I decided I had enough of fake-sick land, so I told the nurse I felt better. She was busy with the sick guy, so she waved me off. I thought it was the end of it until I got called down to the office in math class.

  “Landry, I tried calling your mom to pick you up, but she was out of the office all day,” Mrs. Beckham said. “So I called someone from your emergency contact card and Mrs. Robins said she could come pick you up if you still needed to go home.”

  I forgot my mother had put Tori’s mom on my emergency contact card. There was no way I was having Mrs. Robins come pick me up. I told Mrs. Beckham I felt better, and I didn’t need to go home.

  The next day Ericka made gagging and puking noises as I walked past her in the hall. I guess Tori’s mom had told them about my little illness yesterday. Way to keep it to yourself, Mrs. Robins. Meanwhile, my own mother never got the message. The secretary at her office didn’t think it was important enough to write down my mother’s only child was sick and dying. I loved the world. On the plus side, I did get a commercial lined up for Saturday. My first job was for a stain removal product.

  Delilah had sent over a handbook which said models had to be prepared for anything. Most of the time there wouldn’t be hair and makeup people at the shoots, so you were expected to do your own. I also had to put together a “model bag” with hair rollers, makeup, pantyhose, a strapless bra, extra shoes, and anything else I might need while on a job. Plus, I needed to buy a thong, which I thought was super gross. I knew Yasmin wore them because I had seen one sticking out of the back of her pants before in gym.

  I didn’t want to tell my mom I needed to buy a thong, so I just told her about the strapless bra. She was going to help me find one, but I told her I wanted to go in and try it on by myself. We went to the mall, and I grabbed a bunch of bras to try on. I must have tried fifty bras on and only two fit without sliding down. Mom was sitting outside the dressing room waiting, so I asked her if she could pick out some pantyhose for me.

  “Can’t you just get those at the drugstore?” she asked.

  “Mo-om, I’m supposed to be a professional.”

  She sighed and went to pick some out. Meanwhile I went over to the underwear display and picked out a thong. It was in a box, so I hoped mom wouldn’t notice what it was. I went over to the counter and paid for the thong while mom was over in the pantyhose section. I couldn’t believe how much a tiny little string cost, but it was worth it if it kept my mom from freaking out. I tried the thong on when I got home and it was the most uncomfortable thing I had ever experienced. There was no way I was ever wearing it. I was also out fifteen bucks since underwear was non-refundable.

  I showed up at the Averline agency for the shoot on Saturday morning. They had several pairs of white Capri pants waiting for me to wear — a clean pair for each take of the commercial. I sat down, and the hair stylist went to work on my hair. She yanked the comb through my hair and almost took my head off.

  “How do you deal with this tangled mess every morning?” she sighed. She began spraying something all over my hair and then combed through it easier.

  “What is this stuff?” I asked.

  “Leave-in conditioner. You might want to pick up a bottle to use on your days off,” she said. “Your hair is fine, so I’m using the one for babies. It’ll get the tangles out without weighing your hair down like a lot of conditioners do.”

  Once my hair looked shiny and smooth, I had to sit at this picnic table and smile until some loser ran up to me and dumped spaghetti sauce on me. I knew they were going to get the pants dirty, but I didn’t think the guy would dump half a bucket of sauce on me. Who would ever eat so much spaghetti sauce? The director loved the grossed out look on my face, so I only had to do a couple takes of it. He was thrilled, but I was covered in cold sauce — not even real spaghetti sauce. They had put some junk in it to make it thicker and so it would cling better to the material. It was all gooey, too. Gross. I’d never buy their crappy product. They gave me the tiniest little spray bottle of the stain removal spray. I’d be lucky if I got two squirts out of the container. Still, I made some money… which all went to the agency to pay for the photographs in my portfolio. Oh yay.

  Hana asked me at lunch one day how modeling was going. I noticed Devon got weird whenever modeling was brought up. I just shrugged and said it was okay.

  “Yeah, but she can never do anything because she’s always busy working,” Devon said. “You must hate it.”

  I had only done one job, so I wasn’t exactly working my butt off.

  “I can still do stuff,” I said, but she just shrugged.

  Chapter Fifteen

  On Friday, Devon asked me to go ice skating with her and India and Peyton. I was nervous because I had never figure skated before, but I thought it couldn’t be too much harder than roller skating.

  “Are you any good?” I asked.

  “Don’t laugh, but one time I slid across the ice and knocked an old couple over,” she said. “They were super nice about it, but I felt so stupid.”

  I told Mom I was going to the ice rink, and she freaked out.

  “Are you crazy? You’ve never even been on ice skates,” she said.

  “Devon said she’s not good, and I’m sure I’ll be okay,” I said.

  “I could barely stand up my first time. Both my ankles caved in, and I fell three times and once while I was holding onto a tree,” she said.

  “Dad used to play hockey in high school. Maybe I inherited his talent.”

  “Your dad started skating when he was five. Five-year-olds aren’t afraid of falling on their rears. Call her and tell her you can’t go. You’ll break something,” she said. “Or you’ll get bruised or something and you won’t be able to model.”

  I decided to tell Devon I couldn’t go when I got to the bus stop, but she got a ride from her mom. Then I tried telling her at lunch, but she swore I’d be fine. In social studies, I told Peyton and India I had never skated before and was worried about making a fool of myself.

  “We can teach you how. It’ll be fun,” Peyton said.

  “Can you skate?” I asked India.

  “I’m so bad. I spend most of the time on my butt,” India said. So I said I’d go.

  India’s mom picked me up at four o’clock, and I got a bad feeling when I got into the van and saw both Peyton and India had brought their own ice skates. People who never skate don’t own their own ice skates. Devon told me not to worry because she was going to rent skates, too.

  We got to the rink and I realized I had only brought one pair of socks and the other girls had two pairs on. My rental skates had some weird metal thingies on them. I didn’t know what to do with them so Peyton laced them up for me. I went to stand up and my right ankle caved in. I could walk on the carpet, but I slid when I hit a wet area. Being on blades and having the loss of control over my balance was the most horrible feeling in the world… and I hadn’t even made it to the ice yet. I got on the ice and my feet went in different directions. I grabbed the rail with both hands.

  Devon skated out to the middle of the ice while I was desperately trying to get my feet under control. Devon said I could hold onto her arm, and she’d take me around the rink. India skated in front of us, and Miss I’ll-be-on-my-butt-the-whole-time skated backward and did little spins on the ice. I felt myself tipping backward, and Devon told me to lean forward and I almost pulled her arm off. Then my feet shot out from under me, and I landed on my butt. My legs were twisted under me, and I couldn’t get to my feet. Peyton and Devon tried to help me up, but I had to crawl to the side of the rink to pull myself up. How embarrassing.

  “Are you okay?” Peyton asked. My ankles were aching, but I said I was fine. She helped me off the ice and bought me a hot chocolate. I told her she could go back on the ice, but she
waited until India came off the ice. I thought India was going to sit with me, but she went to buy a snack and left me alone.

  After a while, Peyton convinced me to try skating again. She swore she wouldn’t let me fall. Devon had said the same thing and I had landed on my butt, but I went out anyway. I didn’t think Peyton would be able to support me because she was shorter than me, but she put her arm behind my back so I didn’t have to worry about falling backward. My feet glided along, and she showed me how to push off on the ice. Devon said I should try it on my own, but I threatened Peyton not to let go. India came back out, and for someone who was “so bad” at skating, she seemed to be doing pretty well. She hadn’t fallen once. I couldn’t completely let go and skate the way she could. I was too afraid of falling again and having to crawl off the ice.

  When I got home I limped over to the computer and hoped my mom wouldn’t ask too many questions. I was on my social media page, and I decided to look up Tori’s page. I was shocked when I saw Ericka’s picture in her “friends” section. Her parents finally let her have one. Tori hadn’t unfriended me, but she listed Ericka as “her sister,” in the family members section. I read three of Tori’s blog posts, and they were all about soccer or doing stuff with Ericka. It was like I never existed. Devon didn’t have a page because her mom said, “Social media is the devil,” but I knew Peyton did, so I looked up her page. I decided to send her a friend request.

  ****

  The next morning my right leg felt like it had been wound up. I walked like a doll who had her leg popped in wrong. My mom, with her cat-like alertness, had to make a big deal out of it.

  “I told you you’d hurt yourself,” she said as I limped over to get the cereal.

  “I’ll be fine. It just has to… pop back into its socket,” I said.

  Devon called and asked if I wanted to go to the mall this afternoon. Walking around a big mall wasn’t the smartest thing I could do, but I wanted to go.

  “We’ll pick you up at one. What are you going to wear?” she asked.

  “Probably my new jeans and yellow sweater.”

  “Why don’t you wear your green shirt and the jean skirt you wore on ‘jeans day,’” she said. “It’s kind of like mine.”

  We only have one day a year when everybody is allowed to wear jeans, but this year my only clean pair had a hole in the butt so I wore a jean skirt instead. Thalia told me Ericka said I was trying to get Kyle to notice me by wearing a skirt. I tried to ignore it, but why couldn’t Ericka leave me alone?

  I told Devon I’d put on a skirt, but I felt weird wearing one just to go to the mall. Ashanti wore skirts a lot, but she was shorter and super pretty so she looked good in them. I felt like a toothpick wearing a rubber band when I wore one. Devon had on a short denim skirt with a black fuzzy sweater under her coat. She looked great while I looked like her freakishly tall friend.

  Devon said we should get a locker for our coats. I thought we could just carry them, but I went along with it and dug some quarters out of my purse. She pulled me into a toy store and whispered there were two boys watching us. I started to turn, but she grabbed my arm.

  “Don’t look,” she said. “I wonder if they’re going to come in here.”

  She finally let me turn around, and I saw the guys standing outside of the toy store. They were both short, but it wasn’t like they were interested in me anyway. The two guys walked away, and Devon wondered where they were going. I figured they either went to play video games or eat, but I didn’t want to find them and have to sit there while they flirted with her. We went to a jewelry store, and she went up to the case to look at the more expensive stuff. She pulled back her hair to try on a gold necklace. A piece of her hair got caught in the clasp. I was surprised at how different her curly hair felt from mine when I pulled her hair out.

  “Look, best friend bracelets. My cousin has one of these,” she said.

  I had always wanted to get best friend necklaces, but Tori thought they were stupid and a waste of money, so we bought matching school supplies instead. Yasmin and Arianna had best friend necklaces, but all I had was a stupid binder with fish on it.

  “Do you want to get them? The bracelets are twenty-five dollars, but if we split the price of the charm…” She looked at me. Devon Abrams with the perfect hair, who all the boys liked, and was way more popular than I could ever dream of being, wanted to get best friend bracelets with me? I had enough money to buy the charm, but not enough to get the bracelet. The lady behind the counter said the silver charms and bracelets were cheaper, so Devon picked up a silver one.

  “The silver matches your other bracelet,” the woman said, pointing to the bracelet my dad had given me. We paid for them, and she put the little silver heart charms on the bracelets. Devon took the “best” half and I got the “friend” side. We walked around the mall, and I kept looking at my wrist in every mirror we passed. I couldn’t wait to wear it in front of Ericka, but I wondered what Tori would think when she saw it.

  “Let’s go to the drugstore and look at the makeup,” Devon said.

  We went to the cosmetics aisle, and she started to look at the nail polish. I hadn’t worn nail polish since I was little and my grandma had given me peel-off nail polish. Devon picked up a bottle of bright red polish.

  “I bought this last week. You should get this color,” she said. I took the bottle from her, and she led me over to a display. “I love their gloss. This one’s my favorite,” she said handing me a purple tube.

  We went to the music department and decided to split the cost of a Crazytones CD. I didn’t know much about the band, but I gave her some money. I wanted to get a slice of pizza for lunch, but I only had enough money left for a hamburger and then I had to ask for a cup of water because I couldn’t afford a drink. Devon got extra ketchup so we could share her fries. I started to head toward a booth in the back when she said she wanted to sit in the middle of the food court. She sat down near three guys who had been checking her out in line. One of them tossed a straw wrapper on our table, and she rolled her eyes. Then one of the guys leaned over and started talking to her.

  A lump formed in my throat and I could barely swallow the piece of fry in my mouth, but she was relaxed and joked around with them. The red-haired guy said his name was Doug, and the other two were Jeremy and Cristian. Cristian was the cutest. He had big brown eyes and seemed sweet. I wanted to take a drink of water to push the fry down my throat, but I was afraid I’d start choking and spit water all over him.

  “What school do you go to?” Cristian asked.

  “Hillcrest Academy,” she said.

  “Pretty good school,” he said.

  “Yeah, but your football team sucks,” Doug said. “All private schools have crappy teams.”

  Devon laughed like this was the funniest thing she had ever heard. We found out the guys went to Gregory Baker High School and were in the tenth grade.

  “Hey, do you talk at all?” Jeremy asked looking at me. My face got warm, and Devon told him not to be a jerk. Cristian elbowed him and said he wasn’t interesting enough for me to talk to, so Doug changed the subject.

  “Do you guys ever go to the basketball games at the public high school?” Doug asked. His brother was on the varsity team, and he said we should meet up at a game. Devon and Doug exchanged phone numbers before the guys left.

  “We’ve gotta go to a game,” she said.

  “When are they?” I asked.

  “I have no idea, but I bet it’s listed in the stupid community schools calendar,” she said.

  Oh yes, the dreaded school calendar which came in the middle of August to remind you the summer was ending and school was about to begin. It always ruined the rest of August for me

  I showed my mom the bracelet when I got home. I put my new gloss on, but it was kind of dark on me since my skin was lighter than Devon’s. I thought it looked okay, but Mom said the color wasn’t quite right for me so I put a little lip balm over it. I started to worry about what T
ori would say when she saw my bracelet, but I figured she wouldn’t notice it if I wore it under my sleeve. I painted my nails with the red polish, but the color made my hands look pale. Red looked a lot better on Devon than it did on me. Before I went to bed I checked my social media page to see if Peyton had added me to her page, but there were no new messages or adds.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was running late on Monday morning and forgot to put on my bracelet. Of course, Devon noticed at the bus stop.

  “Where’s your bracelet?” she asked. She said she had slept with hers on, and I told her I woke up late and barely made it to the bus stop. Tori looked surprised when Devon mentioned it. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because I was still hoping Tori and I could be friends again.

  “Landry, I like your headband,” Peyton said as I got on the bus.

  “At least you remembered to put it on,” Devon said.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll wear it tomorrow — promise. I wore the lip gloss and polish though,” I said. India didn’t look up from her book.

  I was at my locker after first hour when Ericka called my name from across the hall. I thought it was a trick and I ignored her, but after the third time, I had to look up.

  “Did you read the stuff for English class?” she asked. I nodded. “Kharrazi was mad nobody in our class read, and she gave us a pop quiz.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks,” I said. What was going on? Was she trying to be nice to me now? She even walked out with me when class ended. Um, what’s going on? Suddenly everything’s all happy between us? She never stayed mad at Tori for as long as she had been mad at me. Of course, no one ever got mad at Ericka. Well, Tori and I had been, but we never did anything about it. I walked to my locker, and Tori came over and asked me to sit with her at lunch.