Positively Beautiful

by Wendy Mills

  “Look, it’s Va-jay-jay Girl!” someone shouts as I come into the big auditorium. The end open to the sky is eerily lit with candles.

  Right off I see I’m overdressed. I’m wearing too many clothes, anyway. These girls are sleek and tanned in tiny miniskirts and halter tops that bare their stomachs and backs even though it’s not that warm. I want to turn around and leave, but it’s too late.

  I smile, like it’s the funniest thing in the world to be known as Vagina Girl, and walk into the crowd. After a minute, they seem to forget about me, as football captain Sean Mitchell shows up by the fire barrel with a beer bong. I pretend to be super-interested as a girl gets down on her knees and puts the long tube in her mouth while Sean stands over her pouring beer into the funnel.

  Classy.

  I see Trina with her back to me. She looks almost … normal. Her dress is blue and tight and shimmery, with a long fringe swinging around her knees. A flapper. That’s what she was going for. I could totally see Daisy Buchanan wearing it. Trina doesn’t quite look like the other girls (since when did she want to?), but at least she’s in the ballpark. I look like Dorothy in Oz next to her and I wish I could clickety-click my ratty sneakers and be home but it’s too late.

  “Errriiinnn.” Trina’s mom believes in serving wine to kids at dinner to stave off incipient alcoholism (and how’s that working out for you, huh, Ms. Howard?) so I’ve seen Trina buzzed after a glass of wine, but she is officially trashed tonight.

  “She’s got balls, I’ll give her that,” Chaz murmurs as I approach, snapping his fingers in agitation.

  “Errrin,” Trina says again and gets weepy. She throws her arms around me and we both stumble and almost fall. “I’m so sorry about your mom. I think about her all the time, and you too. I know we haven’t been hanging out a lot lately, but I want you to know I really miss you.”

  “Me too.” I gently push her away. She’s swaying like the ground is rocking beneath her.

  “How’s she DOING?” she says in a drunk’s idea of a whisper, which is more like a breathy shout.

  “Let’s not talk about it now, okay?” I say. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  She nods owlishly. “I understand. You don’t want anyone to know. My lips are sealed.” She zips up her mouth and throws away the key. “Faith really did an amazing job, didn’t she?” She pats the red-velvet throw that has transformed a camp chair into steampunk and cool.

  “I’m surprised she’s not worried about getting busted. That’ll throw a wrench in her Stanford dream, wouldn’t it?”

  “Chaz says she does crazy stuff all the time, like she’s daring something bad to happen, but it never does,” Trina says, and her tone is actually admiring.

  “Good for her,” I say, and don’t mean it. Cool, beautiful, and fearless too? I want to smack Faith. Trina too, really. What in the heck is wrong with her? When did she become Faith’s biggest fan?

  “You want a beer? Michael brought a ton,” Trina asks.

  I hesitate, then nod. “Why not?”

  Two beers later I’m feeling warm and buzzed. Chaz and Trina have gone to collect beer cans people keep throwing on the ground but I have a feeling they might be looking for a dark corner somewhere to continue their make-out session. Their groping had gotten semipornographic. I am happy for Trina. Happyhappyhappy.

  I talk a little bit with Carrie Smith, who’s one of those popular girls who are truly nice, but she moves off after a while and I find a seat on a bench near the fire barrel, close to some people so it doesn’t look like I’m by myself.

  “Hey.” Michael sits down next to me. I scooch over and he scooches right along with me. He’s drunk, but he’s wearing it better than Trina.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he says, and I’m very aware of his thigh touching mine.

  “Me either.” And because I’m feeling loose and clever, I say, “But I am!”

  His leg feels warm and solid next to mine. Behind me I hear Faith saying, “Seriously? What is she doing here?”

  “Michael said she’s cool,” someone says. “Chill out.”

  I feel Faith’s gaze on the back of my head as I sit with Michael. “Chaz is really freaking out about people leaving trash everywhere,” he says.

  “I know,” I say. “He’s really big on the ‘Don’t leave anything but footprints’ thing.”

  “It’s all going to fall down anyway; I don’t see how it matters. But, hey, if it matters to him, I guess it matters.”

  I giggle, and immediately regret it. “I’ve been wondering … why do you like these old buildings? I just don’t get it.”

  He’s quiet. Then, “I guess because I’m interested in designing buildings, I want to see how they die.”

  “I—”

  “Hey, Michael,” Faith says, coming up behind us. “Can I talk to you a minute?” Michael looks at me, but gets up. Faith puts her hand on Michael’s arm and draws him toward a group of her friends.

  Michael doesn’t even look back at me. But Faith does.

  And I shiver.

  I get another beer out of the cooler and watch Michael lean against the wall unsmiling as Faith leans close to him. Her expression is serious, his is unreadable. The beer is kicking in and someone even asks me if I want to do a beer bong.

  For some reason I do.

  Evidently, I am pretty good at it, because I remember doing the third one with a bunch of people standing around chanting, “Go, Va-jay-jay Girl, go!”

  Afterward, I pick my way down a dark hallway, clutching my flashlight. Everything is fuzzy and tilted. I want to find Trina, I need to find Trina.

  Light spills from a doorway, and I head there. It’s a bathroom, and someone has put the big teddy bear on one of the toilets. The bear looks forlorn and awkward, its black eyes staring at the floor.

  “Erin!” Chaz says, playing his flashlight over the bear. “Why? Why would they do this?” He looks ready to cry.

  “It’s okay, we’ll just put him back where he was.” My words feel swirly and distant.

  “But it’s not the same, don’t you see? He’s been in that classroom for, like, years. You can put him back, but it won’t be the same.”

  I’m feeling dizzy. I go closer to the teddy bear and trip and Chaz puts out his arms.

  “Whoa, watch it,” he says. He’s holding me up, and I look up at him, and his face is so kind, and no one loves me, and everything is bad, and I reach up and bring his face down to mine with two hands and kiss him.

  He stiffens, but he doesn’t pull away. I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him harder, pressing myself against him.

  A light flashes and I turn, my eyes startled with splashed light. Chaz says, “Oh crap,” under his breath and shines the flashlight on Faith, who is standing at the door, grinning broadly.

  She holds her phone, and while Chaz and I gape at her, she snaps another picture.

  “What a cute couple you make!” she says, and disappears before we can say anything.

  “Erin … ,” Chaz says, and his voice is full of accusation.

  “Oh God.” I feel like I need to throw up. “Trina …”

  Just then we hear running feet and shouts of “Cops! Come on, get out of here, it’s the police!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wake up feeling like crap. I’m in my own bed, but I don’t know how I got there. I don’t remember coming home. Did I drive?

  I stumble to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I’m still wearing the same dress from last night, but orange vomit stains dribble down the front of it. My hair is bird’s-nest tangled and my eyes look hollow and dead. I pull off the dress and throw it on the floor. After a moment, I pick it up and throw it in the trash.

  I don’t remember anything. Then I do, a little. Flashes. Doing a beer bong. Talking to … oh no, no, kissing Chaz. What did I do?

  I start crying, big heaving sobs, because now it’s all coming back to me and I’m such a loser. LoserloserloserLOSER.


  Once the police showed up, we scattered for our cars like fleeing cockroaches. Chaz took me home, because I was too messed up to drive. He barely said a word the whole ride home. Trina, all unknowing what a terrible friend I am, chattered on about the excitement. She seemed bubbly, happy. What kind of person am I?

  Chaz had to pull over so I could throw up on the side of the road. Then at home, stumbling in, trying to be quiet. Mom was retching and she didn’t hear me, and we were puking in chorus. Like mother, like daughter. Like mother, like daughter, in everything.

  I want to curl up and die.

  I lie back down on my bed and go to sleep instead.

  I sleep most of the way through Sunday. Sunday night I call Lynn Mitchell, a friend from the yogurt shop I’ve known since elementary school, and ask her to give me a ride to my car. She’s happy to do it and grills me the entire way about the party, envious that I was there and she wasn’t.

  If you only knew.

  Monday morning, I don’t want to go to school. I haven’t heard from Trina, so I don’t know if Faith did anything with the picture. Has Chaz told her I kissed him? I don’t know if I’m going to tell her. I know I should, but it’s so much easier not to.

  I don’t want to go to school. I really, really don’t want to go to school.

  I check on Mom, and she’s sleeping. That’s what she’s been doing most of the time, anyway. That and throwing up. I fill up her glass of water and leave some cantaloupe beside her bed. That’s all she seems able to keep down. She looks so white and still that I panic and lean down close to her mouth so I can feel the faint brush of her breath on my cheek. She’s alive. I kiss her cheek and go downstairs and call the school to tell them I will be absent today. Because they think I’m my mom, they say that’s A-OK.

  I leave through the garage, running my fingers over my dad’s Mustang as I pass. I sit in my car for a few minutes, and then I just drive. I don’t know where I’m going. That seems to be the story of my life lately.

  Ashley: u ok?

  She texted a couple of times yesterday but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. A couple weeks ago, I tried to find her on Facebook, but she doesn’t have a page. We’ve been e-mailing a lot about the BRCA gene, but not about our private lives. I know she lives in Florida, on the coast, because she’s always talking about the water and fishing. For all I know she could be like Faith. Or maybe she is as much of a dorkster as I am. No, not that either. She’s something else completely, I think, but I don’t know what.

  Without thinking too much about it, I pull into a grocery store parking lot. I open an e-mail and pour it all out to her. The party. Beer bong. Kissing best friend’s boyfriend. Michael. Mom throwing up. That I am alone.

  I hit Send and turn up the music, watching people come in and out of the store. They are busy, harried, and none of them notice me. They push carts, fuss at children, juggle bags, and not a single one knows I’m alive.

  Fifteen minutes later, I get an e-mail from Ashley:

  I’ve got this place, a place I go to when things get too insane. I went there a lot when my mom was doing chemo. It’s an island, my island, though I’m guessing the state would disagree. The water smells of mud and green and things living and dead, and the air is happy-bright, the way it gets when it touches the sea. When I’m there, it’s not so much that I forget all the bad stuff, it’s more like I remember all the good stuff. I wish you could see it. Not everybody feels the magic, but I think you would.

  You need to find your good place. In your head, or an actual place. It’s there.

  You just have to find it.

  I sit and think about that. Can we go to the airport and see the planes fly, Daddy?

  So I go to the airport and sit in the parking lot and watch the planes take off and fly. It’s Monday morning, and because it’s a small airport, there aren’t a whole lot of planes. Still, it makes me happy to watch.

  After a while, someone taps on my window and I look up, startled, to see Stew standing impatiently beside my car.

  I roll down the window.

  “Did we have a lesson today?” He smoothes his shirt over his big belly and taps his foot like I’m keeping him from something.

  “Uh … no,” I say. “I just came to watch the planes. I used to … I used to watch with my dad.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a moment, absentmindedly patting his pocket where he finds a pack of gum. “Your dad didn’t want to come out and see you fly the other day?”

  “He’s dead,” I say. “He was a pilot too, but he died.”

  He rocks back and forth on his heels as he looks at me, chewing his gum in fast, rapid chomps. Then he says, “You gonna sit out here all morning or you going to make yourself useful and help me wash my planes?”

  I get out and help him wash the planes. We don’t say much, and after Stew covers some ports on the planes with tape, he disappears into his office long enough for me to think he might have taken a nap, but I don’t mind. Splashing the planes with water from the hose and then scrubbing them down is mindless work. Perfect. The bottoms of the planes are covered with grease and it takes all my concentration to scrub it off. Stew comes out to tell me to not clean the windows in circles but up and down to prevent glare and then he disappears again.

  Once I finish washing them, Stew walks out of his office and tosses me a can of wax.

  I start all over again with the wax. Stew sits in a rolling office chair and starts telling me about the planes. This is a Cessna 172, the most popular plane in the world; over there’s a Cessna 152, which we call the Land-o-Matic, it’s so easy to land; that’s a Piper Tomahawk, the Air Force guys love that one ’cause it’s got big-airplane-style handling … He rolls from plane to plane as he talks and at first I wish he would be quiet, as I am in a no-thought zone, but after a while I start listening. It’s interesting; I bet my dad knew all this stuff.

  “You want to learn to fly, you’re going to need a get a medical and a student pilot certification before you solo, and you need to study for the written test.” He goes into his office and brings out a pile of books so high it’s hard to see his face over the stack. He dumps them on the workbench beside me. “You can do a ground school course, online if you want, or I can work with you on these.”

  I look at the stack of books. Seriously?

  He picks up the can of wax and goes to work, occasionally pointing out parts of the plane: The ailerons turn you, the flaps slow you, the stabilizers balance you …

  When we are done, Stew thanks me gruffly.

  “No problem,” I say. “If you need help again, let me know.”

  He nods and picks up a wrench and I head for the parking lot.

  “Hey!”

  I turn around.

  “You’re Justin Bailey’s daughter, right?” he says, standing by a plane, looking at me with his hand shading his eyes.

  I turn around and stare at him in disbelief. “How did you … ?”

  “Last name Bailey. Dead pilot dad. Thought so,” he says and turns away without another word.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Three weeks later, Faith still hasn’t posted the picture. I know, somehow I know, that she’s holding on to it as ammunition. It feels like blackmail. Stay away from him, and we’ll forget the whole you-kissing-your-best-friend’s-boyfriend thing, okay?

  I need to tell Trina, I know it, but somehow I can’t.

  The doorbell rings and I hear Trina downstairs, loud and in a hurry, as always. She’s talking to Mom and Jill and I want to hide under the covers and pretend to be asleep.

  Jill is here because Mom starts her second round of chemo tomorrow.

  Five more rounds to go.

  Five. More. To. Go.

  I’m happy Jill is here this time. I dread how sick Mom will get, how terrible she will feel, and that there is nothing I can do about it.

  Trina comes up the stairs and I tense, preparing myself.

  We haven’t talked a whole
lot since the night I kissed Chaz. I’m not sure she’s noticed, not really, because I’ve been trying to act normal (Busy, busy, busy, my tone says whenever we meet in the hall. I love you, I do, but I’ve got so much to do! Right now! See you later!), and she’s been so wrapped up in Chaz. She’s invited me out with them a couple of times, but I’ve said no. I don’t want to face Chaz.

  I’ve spent the last three weeks taking flying lessons with Stew every chance I get and helping him out around the hangar when I’m not flying. It’s been the only time I’ve been able to breathe without feeling as if someone’s sitting on my chest.

  Trina comes in, and her face is serious. My heart sinks. Did Chaz tell her?

  “Hi, bee-aaatch,” she says, but it’s solemn.

  “Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

  Because I have to know now, if she knows. I can’t stand it.

  She looks confused. She didn’t used to need a reason to come visit.

  “I thought … we haven’t been hanging out as much lately. I wanted to see how you were doing. You know, with your mom and all.”

  She doesn’t know. Somehow I’m not relieved.

  “She’s got another chemo session tomorrow, but Jill’s going with her this time,” I say. “And Jill is going to stay for the next couple of days, when it’s bad. I’m really glad about that.”

  She nods, fiddling with her phone, sneaking a quick glance at the screen. Evidently there’s not a text from Chaz, but give him five minutes and he’ll think of something. They text constantly. “Good.” She wanders around my room, and I hold my breath as she picks up the glass tube on my desk, but she puts it back down without saying anything. I feel guilt about so much, about what happened with Chaz, about not telling her about the BRCA gene mutation …

  “Want to do something tomorrow night? It’s your big one-seven, we gotta celebrate.”

  “I guess,” I say.

  She looks at me for a long moment. “Are you okay? I mean … really? Things don’t seem right between us anymore. I know I’ve been spending a lot of time with Chaz, but …”