The Good, the Fab and the Ugly

by Compai

  Maybe that’s why he felt so out of his element at school. Winston was like this landlocked island — and things could get pretty existential. One time, when he ducked out of class to get this book he left in the Brat (the Brat was what he called the Porsche; the Rover was just the Rover), this seagull came cruising by and landed straight up in the middle of the Showroom — pretty crazy when you thought about it. Bird had to have traveled some serious mileage, and yet he didn’t look tired, or lost, or anything. He strutted about, gray wings tucked behind his back, chest puffed up like he owned the place. And when he spotted Evan, he flexed his hard yellow beak and let out a little bird-yap, like he was indignant, like, where have you been? Evan had to laugh. “I been in freakin’ bio, bitch,” he replied. (Why not? No one was around to judge him. Everyone was in class.) That seagull just tilted his ruffled white head in total confusion: yap, yap! “I know, dude,” Evan shook his head. “Tell me about it.”

  Later, when he got out of class for real, the seagull was gone. Evan waited around for it to come back; he even ditched bio once or twice, heading out to the Showroom to scan himself some sky. But that was it. One day, the beach came to visit. The next day, it was gone.

  That is, until he met her.

  Janie Farrish, man. Ever since that night at the tar pits, that girl had been killing him. Her eyes. People were always talking about his eyes, his sister’s, too, about how bright blue and green they were, like swimming pools, or whatever. Evan didn’t get it. Janie had eyes like the sea. Yeah, he knew it was cheesy, but it was true. And not just like any sea, but the SoCal Pacific — the only sea that mattered. The SoCal Pacific wasn’t comforting, like those bright blue Bermuda beaches on postcards; it was dark, murky, and unreadable, shifting from blue to gray to silver and back again. Her eyes were like that, man. Moody. He’d asked his friends — Joaquin, Theo, Tim, all those guys — what they thought of her, but they all just shrugged, like, what was there to even think about? Evan nodded, like, yeah, I feel you. Even though he didn’t. Not even close.

  Why do people go for swimming pools when the ocean’s, like, right there?

  But she wasn’t into him, that much was clear. She’d practically told him off that one night in the Brat, and then, man, the Viceroy. He was boring — she’d all but told him so, straight up. Not that he’d argue her point. He could be pretty quiet, and well . . . yeah. He was quiet. If he hadn’t been so good-looking (he was just saying), he’d probably have girls say he was boring all the time. But he was good-looking and lots of girls were fooled. It’s just the way it is. Good looks are interesting, even if the person behind them isn’t; he could be honest with himself about that.

  But Janie wasn’t like other girls. Her ocean eyes saw right through him. And there was no escaping them, either. Just last weekend he was surfing, and he caught this deeply righteous wave. Like, the water came churning up under his board and just, like, launched him. And there he was, sailing through this perfect salt-gray tunnel of glass, all exhilarated, when suddenly, he thought, I’m inside her eye. And then his board kicked up under him, and the wave came crashing down — just this rush of water, man — pounding on his body, his ears, and generally kicking his ass. Everything was this blue and gray, shadow and light, like, swirling. But it was all good. I’m inside her eye, he’d told himself. And just surrendered.

  Sometimes, instead of heading out to Baja Fresh with his buddies, he’d spend lunch alone in an empty classroom. A couple of times, he’d arranged the desks into weird alien formations, like crop circles and pyramids and shit, which accomplished the double mission of pissing off teachers and making kids laugh — two birds with one stone. But most times, he’d just kick up his legs, peel a banana, pop open a bag of goldfish crackers, and listen to his iPod. Lately, he’d been on this Bob Seger kick — okay, he was always on a Bob Seger kick — but there was this one song in particular that he just kept on playing. If you keep listening to one song, he noticed, it’s like waves weathering rocks to sand. Individual words disintegrate into long, blended sound. For a while he’d zone out, forget to listen — but a few words always pulled him back. Words that no matter how many times he listened refused to disintegrate and disappear.

  Like: I lost my way. Or: Searchin’ for shelter. The secrets that we shared. There in the darkness . . .

  Janie was lovely . . .

  It goes without saying she skipped lunch. Nurse Crackie advised her to go home, but Janie assured her she was completely fine, really, and headed straight to 201B, the classroom where the weekly POSEUR meeting was held. She’d decided to set up early and get her mind in the right place. She would get this over with. Even if it killed her.

  She pushed through one of the two heavy doors, and entered the Main Hall. The long corridor stretched out, all arched ceiling and tall windows, patterning the polished tile floor with white trapezoids of sunlight. She relished the flickering flashes as she walked, the echo and ricochet of her blue ballet flats, all of which conspired to add just the right amount of drama. So, yeah, maybe this day wasn’t dramatic in any global sense, but it was dramatic for her. And it was sympathetic, in a way, for the Main Hall to get into the spirit of things.

  She cracked open the dark green door, peeped her head in, and slid her gray eyes about the room. The teacher’s desk, established territory of Melissa Moon, remained unmanned, as did Charlotte’s narrow length of windowsill and Petra’s blue corner of carpet. Confident she was alone, Janie swung the door open, kicking the doorstopper with the toe of her foot and securing it to the wall. She turned around. Now it was just her, her sketches, the recycling bin . . .

  And Evan Beverwil.

  There by the corner window: his lean, golden body folded into one of the small student desks, his flip-flopped feet kicked up on the seat of another, his sun-kissed hair flipped sweetly about his ears as he pursed his lips and clenched his fist, bobbing his head in time to music she couldn’t hear. His eyes were squeezed shut. All he had to do was open them, and he’d be looking right at her.

  She wasn’t about to let that happen.

  Still clutching her sketchbook and overstuffed folders to her chest, she tiptoed backward toward the open door, pivoted her foot, and turned to escape down the hall. But then, without warning, and scaring her half to death, Evan howled, “Against the wind! I’m still running against the wind.” She shrieked, and he cracked his eyes open, opened them wider, and quickly removed his headphones.

  “Hey.” Janie froze in the open doorway, exploded folders and scattered papers at her feet. “Sorry,” she recovered, sinking at once to her knees. As mortifying as it was to pick up dropped papers in front of Charlotte’s brother, it was an easier task than looking at him (that is, looking at him looking at her, in that weird, judgmental way of his). She blushed at the sound of his approaching flip-flops, and then — so much worse! — there they were. The tanned skin, the hair on his ankles, the sort of long toes. God, his feet were so, like . . . naked.

  “Lemme help you,” he said, bending to his knees. She could hear his headphones, draped across his neck — the tinny sound of whatever song he’d been listening to. He smelled exactly like salt and sun-warmed wood.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Did you draw this?”

  “Oh.” She looked up so quick she got a head rush. “Yeah . . . ,” she admitted, blinking back the blotches and reaching for the paper.

  “It’s really good,” Evan said, holding on to it, transfixed. “Who is this?”

  “It’s, um . . .” Seriously, could she just die? Like, right now? “It’s my mother,” she explained. Evan bobbed his eyebrows in approval.

  “She’s hot.”

  “H-ha,” Janie stammered. Was he joking? “Yeah . . . your mom’s really hot.”

  “Aw, man.” Evan’s face crumpled in disgust. “I can’t think about my mom like that.”

  “Oh.” Janie’s voice heightened to a disbelieving squeak. “But you can think about my mom like that.”

  “Well . . .�
� His chlorine-green eyes locked into middle space, and he grinned. “Yeah.”

  “Ew,” she laughed, batting him on the arm with a floppy black folder; their eyes met for about a millisecond before she glanced away. Once her parents had been in the market for a new house, and looked at one with a swimming pool. It had been way out of their price range, but they seriously seemed to think about it, and when they finally “came to their senses” (as they put it), Jake and Janie were crushed. Evan’s eyes were like that swimming pool: all she ever wanted, and all she’d never have.

  “Okay,” she breathed, rising to her ballet-flatted feet, and hugging her messily arranged papers to her chest. “Thanks.” She blushed again. “I guess I’ll, um, go.”

  “No, wait. I’ll go,” Evan insisted, getting to his feet. “I mean . . . you’re here to, like, work or something, right?”

  “Kind of.” Janie nodded. “I’ve got to set up for this, like, presentation. And I’m kind of nervous about it, so . . .” She covered her face with her hands and briskly shook her head. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this.”

  “Hey, it’s cool.” Evan began to reach for her elbow, and stopped himself, lifting his hand to the back of his head. “I mean” — he forked his fingers through his hair — “you got to talk someone, right?”

  “Yeah.” Janie couldn’t resist a rueful laugh. “Like a therapist, maybe.”

  “Or you could be like Margaret,” he suggested, clasping his hands at his heart. “Are you there, God?”

  Janie angled her face in bemused suspicion, sputtering a tiny laugh. “Okay, how do you even know about that book?”

  “You know,” Evan admitted with a sheepish shrug. “I just, like, read it.”

  Their eyes met again, and this time for keeps (aka a good three seconds.) “What?” Evan angled his face and furrowed his brow, taking his turn at suspicion.

  “You’re just . . .” Janie paused, searching for the word, and when she found it, shook her head, embarrassed. “Never mind.”

  “No, what?” he insisted. “What am I?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head again, allowing her slinky light brown bob to fall around her eyes, and laughed, hoping to excuse the total lameness of her next word. “Interesting.”

  Evan frowned, nodding to himself, and scratched the back of his neck. He looked up, locked her into a smile, and walked slowly backward, exiting the room. Out in the hall, he lifted his chin in salute. “You too.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Melissa gasped, clutching Janie’s sketch and holding it to the beaming fluorescent light. Her perfectly gelled eyebrows knit together, and she shook her head in slow disbelief. Janie sighed, still too focused on Evan to care. So, Melissa hated her design. Big deal. Did Janie really want to be responsible for bringing yet another designer handbag into the world? No, she did not. There were enough handbags as it was, waiting around in malls, in need of some kind person to notice them and take them home. But no . . . POSEUR had to design their own.

  It was pretty selfish, when you thought about it.

  “It’s perfect,” Melissa breathed, lowering the drawing to her desk. “It’s, like, exactly how I wanted it to look.”

  Janie blinked out of her stupor, stunned. “It is?”

  “Like, exactly exactly!” She returned her gaze to the drawing, shaking her head with slow amazement. “For real, Janie? It’s like you went inside my head.”

  Janie smiled, imagining the tiniest of doors — situated right behind Melissa’s diamond-studded ear — swinging open. And there she’d be, Mini-Melissa, all decked out in thimble-sized furs and Barbie bling. “Hay-ayyyy!” She’d beckon a shaky handheld camera inside, beaming her mini-watt smile. “Welcome to my head. Ah-hahahah!”

  “It’s true,” a cool voice intruded into Janie’s fantasy. Charlotte looked up from her own drawing, eyes shining. “It’s exactly what I pictured.”

  “How did you do it?” Petra beamed. “I love it sourdough pretzel sticks.”

  Janie laughed. “Sorry?”

  “BBQ corn nuts.” Melissa glanced at Petra, nodding her head in agreement. “Mint Milano Mentos, Baked Cheeto bagel chip? Frooty Booty.”

  Janie swallowed. Now that the pressure was off, it seemed her appetite had returned all at once — massive, and all eclipsing — like the airborne anvil in cartoons. She could no longer talk, or even think. The anvil came crashing down and smashed her brain to pancake.

  Mmm . . . pancake.

  “Um, you guys?” She abruptly pushed her desk chair back and sprung to her feet. “Sorry, but do you mind if I run to the vending machine?”

  “That’s my job,” Venice piped up from the back of the room, eager to be of service. She flipped open her sparkly white notebook (an exact match to Melissa’s) and looked up, blue bubble pen poised. “Snicker chip bagel stick?”

  A sound, like a baby pterodactyl, reared from the deepest part of Janie’s stomach, and she bolted for the exit.

  “Hey-uh!” Venice cried, gaping at Melissa for some kind of explanation. Melissa widened her dark brown eyes, crumpling her forehead like an accordion. “I would’ve done it,” Venice sniveled.

  “Don’t worry about it, Venice,” Petra sighed from her place by the blue recycling bin. “Janie doesn’t need to make you do things she’s perfectly capable of doing herself.” She cocked a serious eyebrow in Melissa’s direction. “This isn’t the Court of Versailles.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Charlotte pouted, turning the gold bracelet on her wrist.

  “Venice.” Melissa snapped her fingers, and a glittering rhinestone sprung from her nail and disappeared. Her intern stood at attention, resisting the urge to scan the floor. “Would you please post our designs on the bulletin board?”

  Darting like a hummingbird from girl to girl, Venice dutifully retrieved the four sketches and secured them to the bulletin board with clear plastic tacks. Once the drawings were attached, she retreated to her corner of the room and resumed the mystifying task of separating Emilio Poochie’s dog kibble into three piles by color: red, yellow, and brown.

  Melissa narrowed her eyes, squinting at the drawings. “Charlotte . . . ,” she began slowly. “This is a joke, right?”

  “What?” Charlotte swung her legs from the windowsill and landed lightly — the daintiest of dismounts. In four quick steps, she was at Melissa’s side, examining the sketch in question. “Of course it’s not a joke.” She frowned.

  “You want to make this bag out of stained silk.” Melissa bugged her eyes in disbelief. “Stained. For real.”

  “I don’t see the problem.” Charlotte folded her arms and knit her porcelain brow.

  Melissa flew her hands to the crown of her head and began to pace, stomping to an abrupt stop. The spiky heel of her silver Isabella Fiore boot ground into the gray-blue rug. “Who in their right mind is going to want to buy a handbag — a new handbag — that already has stains on it?!”

  Charlotte inhaled, bracing herself for combat, but just as she opened her acid mouth, Petra joined them at the board and interjected.

  “I can’t believe this,” she reprimanded, fixing Melissa with a reproving stare. “You’re seriously upset about a little stain?”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte exhaled, but Petra rewarded her gratitude with a scathing glance.

  “Do you have any idea” — she trembled — “where silk even comes from?”

  Charlotte fluttered her eyes shut and sighed — already bored.

  “For every gram of silk . . .” Petra pinched her fingers and squinted her eyes like a jeweler. “For every single gram, fifteen silkworms are killed!” She paused for effect. “Boiled alive in their cocoons.”

  “Petra.” Charlotte couldn’t hide a bemused smile. “Forgive me, but . . . they’re worms.”

  “Seriously, Petra.” Melissa folded her arms and shook her head. “What are you gonna do if you get a tapeworm? Give it a name and throw it a Frisbee?”

  “That’s different.” Petra glowe
red. “Silkworms aren’t hurting anyone.”

  “Hey, look.” Melissa raised her hands in surrender. “I’m on your side, alright? You don’t want silk. I sure as hell don’t want stains. Charlotte?” She removed Charlotte’s sketch from the bulletin board and, in her best Heidi Klum accent, pronounced: “Yer owt.”

  “I’m out,” Charlotte ruffled like a tiny owl. “What about you?”

  “Well, my bag is canvas. So unless there’s some canvas worm I haven’t heard about . . .”

  “Mm . . . no.” Charlotte smiled with wincing contempt. “But there’s something called a tasteless, tacky worm? And by the looks of this bag” — she gazed at Melissa’s design, pressing her fingers to her throat — “no life was spared.”

  “Did you . . .” Melissa held up a hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “Did you just call my Trick-or-Treater tacky?” Charlotte clasped her hands into a steeple and pressed them to her chin.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t believe this!”

  “Oh come on, Melissa.” Charlotte planted her hands on her hips. “It’s one thing to put ‘POSEUR’ on every available inch of space, and in more colors than a Benetton ad — but on top of that,” she added, perusing the drawing a second time, “gold zippers, gold chains, studding, charms, and that hideous gold clasp?” She paused. “It’s like 50 Cent’s chest with a shoulder strap!”

  This time, Petra stifled the laugh, and Melissa whirled around, setting her jaw. “You agree with her?” Petra hesitated as, behind her, Charlotte discreetly removed the tacks from Melissa’s drawing. The paper curled, flopped forward . . .

  “It is a little much,” she admitted.