The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter

by Kristen Tracy

  “Cool binder,” I said. I pointed to the small bird flying over the water. “I didn’t know you liked ducks.” Because I knew she didn’t like ducks. In fourth grade we’d gone on a field trip to Warm River and she’d sat in duck poop during our picnic lunch and then ended up getting attacked by a duck. It pecked her legs and arms and head.

  “It’s not a duck. It’s a seagull,” she said.

  “Really?” I asked, trying to plant some doubt.

  I could feel my mother standing behind me. “I’m going to go track down your ruler. It says here that one side has to be in centimeters.”

  I flashed my mom a quick smile. “Cool.” Then I turned my attention back to Malory. Her mom was looking at me now. She had thick pink blabber lips just like Malory. And she was chewing gum and tapping her foot like she was in a hurry to be somewhere else. Other shoppers passed by us.

  “This is Bessica Lefter,” Malory said. “We go to school together.”

  I waved politely.

  “We need to get moving,” Malory’s mom said.

  I was so sad watching Malory hold that binder. But I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Is that the binder with the lighthouse on it that you were looking for?” Grandma asked. “Where did you find yours?”

  Malory pointed to an empty area. I made a very sad face.

  “Oh darn,” Grandma said. “Maybe we can try another store.”

  I nodded a very sad nod.

  “Were you looking for a binder with a lighthouse on it?” Malory’s mom asked.

  “Her heart was set on it,” Grandma said.

  Malory looked very annoyed. But I didn’t care.

  “Maybe you should give it to Bessica,” Malory’s mom suggested.

  This was a fantastic and surprising suggestion. My mom would never make me give up my favorite binder to somebody I didn’t like. Because my mom was loyal.

  Malory slowly extended the binder to me and I snatched it right up. “Thank you so much!” And then I left that aisle as quickly as I could and headed toward the rulers and hoped that Grandma was following me.

  She was.

  “Congratulations,” Grandma said.

  “Now I need to call Sylvie again,” I said, flipping open the phone.

  “Is Malory still there?” Sylvie asked.

  “We’re not in the same aisle anymore. Get this. Her mom made her give me the lighthouse binder.”

  “No way!”

  “Way!”

  My mother appeared out of nowhere. “Let’s hustle. At this rate we’ll be here until tomorrow.”

  I waved the lighthouse binder in the air. My mother gave me a thumbs-up sign, which did not thrill me, because we were in public.

  “We still need glue and Kleenex and five hundred sheets of lined writing paper and a container of antibacterial wipes.”

  “What about my heavy-duty scissors?” I asked. Because I remembered those from my list.

  “I’m sure we’ve got a pair at home,” my mom said, leading us toward the tissue section.

  I froze. “But I’m starting middle school. I can’t show up with regular old scissors from home. What if I need to cut something heavy-duty?”

  My mom tossed three boxes of tissues into the cart. “Bessica, don’t get anxious about your scissors. We’ll make sure you’ve got the kind you need.” She looked at me and smiled. “Are you on the phone?”

  I’d forgotten that I was talking to Sylvie. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m still here,” Sylvie said.

  “Cool,” I said. That was exactly what I wanted to hear.

  I felt so happy as I plodded behind my mother, talking to Sylvie, purchasing all my brand-new middle-school gear. I mean, what did I need a red correction pencil for? It was so exciting! Middle school wasn’t going to be anything like elementary school. I coasted down the aisles until we’d found every last thing on my list.

  Loading it into the car, bag after bag, it looked like so much stuff. I was so excited that it was hard for me to resist hopping. But I did. Because hopping in a parking lot, where the entire city of Rexburg, Idaho, could see me was lame. And after I got in the car, I was very thrilled that I hadn’t done anything lame, because three parking spaces away from me, I saw the gorgeous Noll Beck. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of his Mustang.

  Noll’s sunglasses looked so cool that it made me want to buy some. I lowered my head so that he wouldn’t see me watching him. I stared at Noll Beck’s gorgeous head of dark brown hair as it bobbed to the radio. I wondered what he was listening to. I wondered if he bobbed his head like that when he listened to music in his bedroom or if it was something he only did while sitting in cars. I wondered a lot of things about Noll Beck. But before I could watch him do anything else, my mom drove away and he was gone.

  efore middle school started, I needed a drastic haircut. Making bangs or getting my ends trimmed wasn’t enough. I wanted to become a different-looking person. But I knew my mom might not be so hot on this idea. Because before I did things that were extreme, she always asked me to think about how it would impact me in a week and a month and a year. So I didn’t run it by her. I just let her go to work and figured I would tell her when I saw her again, which would be when she got home at three o’clock.

  My mom worked five days a week, from nine to three, for a podiatrist in Sugar City, which is a city so far east that it’s barely in Idaho anymore. It’s almost in Wyoming. And Montana. And because she dealt with files for people with foot issues (such as bunions and hammertoes) day after day after day, she always thought about how long life was and the consequences of your footwear and your decisions. This was not ideal.

  Because when you want a drastic haircut, you can’t think like that. You have to go to the salon and make your demands quickly and get it over with. So I called Sylvie and asked her to meet me at the mall.

  “My mom won’t drop me off at the mall anymore because it’s ‘dangerous.’ Remember?” Sylvie said.

  “I remember,” I said. The last time we’d been dropped off there, I thought it would be fun to buy a Frisbee at the toy store and then walk to the park and play with it and maybe look for boys. And it was fun. There were people doing puppet theater. And even though you were supposed to buy a ticket, Sylvie and I sneaked behind the ropes and watched it for free. We laughed our heads off at the emperor and his pet monkey. After the performance, we stood in a line for free ice cream sandwiches. But then Sylvie’s mom drove past the park and saw us and demanded that we get into the car, and she made us throw away our ice cream sandwiches. And she gave us a lecture about being irresponsible, and dishonest, and about freeloading.

  “Tell your mom that my grandma will take us and that we plan to go to the bookstore and have a nutritious snack afterward,” I said. Out of everyone in my family, Mrs. Potaski liked Grandma the most.

  “Hold on,” Sylvie said.

  As I waited, I worried that Mrs. Potaski was going to say no. Sometimes she was a real bummer.

  “I have to be home by four o’clock,” Sylvie said.

  “Awesome!”

  I went down into our basement, where Grandma had lived for the last six years. Even though Grandma was old and smelled a little bit like toothpaste, she was still pretty cool.

  Grandma sat in front of her computer, pecking at the keys. She was writing an email. Probably to Willy. I launched into my question.

  “Grandma, don’t you want to do something exciting this afternoon with your favorite granddaughter?”

  Grandma turned around and smiled at me. Her brown hair was pulled back into a nice-looking bun. And she was wearing her tangerine-colored lipstick, which meant she already had on enough makeup to leave the house.

  “Do you want to water the hedgehog?” she asked.

  Because a hedgehog was tearing up the lawn, and Grandma and I sometimes stuck a garden hose in its hole and tried to water it out of its tunneled maze.

  “Better!” I said. “I want to go to th
e mall!”

  “I do need some face cream,” she said.

  “Cool,” I said. But, really, I wished Grandma would stop buying face cream. Even though she only wore it at night, it made her face look light blue and creepy. Like she had demon issues.

  When we rolled up to Sylvie’s house, she burst down her front steps and ran full speed toward us. She was breathing hard halfway to the mall. Sylvie didn’t do a ton of bursting or running full speed.

  When Sylvie, Grandma, and I walked into the mall, I was the only one who knew about the extremeness of my plan.

  “Should we get pretzels?” Grandma asked. “If you ask politely, they’ll double-roll them in the salt at no extra charge.”

  I shook my head. While Grandma was one of the most nutritious people I knew, her one weak spot was salt.

  “You do that,” I said. “Sylvie and I are going to the bookstore.”

  And even though that wasn’t the truth, I thought it was pretty close. Because the bookstore was right next to the salon. And Grandma would enjoy browsing the magazines more than standing around a place that smelled like hair spray.

  “I’ll meet you near the tabloids,” Grandma said.

  “Cool,” I said.

  Sylvie and I watched Grandma walk down the mall’s crowded corridor.

  “I don’t like it when you lie,” Sylvie said.

  I put my arm around her. “I know. I’ll work on it.”

  I was so happy before my world turned to garbage. I remember walking through the mall to the salon, excited about school and my classes and even my stupid locker.

  When I walked into the salon, the receptionist didn’t even question the fact that I’d shown up without an adult.

  “I need a haircut,” I said. “Nothing like what I have now. I want something that’s full of style.” I shook my head back and forth. My dull brown hair slapped my face and stuck to my lips.

  “Pebbles can see you now,” the receptionist said. “Or you can wait for Duncan.”

  Duncan had green hair, so I decided to go with Pebbles.

  The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chair looking up at Pebbles’s thick, black, freaky eyelashes. Then she tied a smock around my neck and asked me all kinds of questions about my hair regimen. I interrupted her.

  “I want a pixie cut.”

  “A what?” Pebbles asked.

  I was afraid this might happen, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out a page from a magazine. I pointed to the picture of a supercute girl with supershort hair. I’d found the picture in a magazine at the podiatrist’s office where my mother worked.

  “Where did you get this?” Pebbles asked, flipping it over to look at the pictures on the back.

  “A waiting room,” I said. “The haircut I want is from Morocco. They’re very fashionable there. They still have a king.”

  “Are you sure this is a girl?” Pebbles asked.

  Then I realized that Pebbles was looking at the wrong picture. She was looking at a boy with long hair on top and designs shaved into the sides of his head. “Not him! I want this haircut.”

  Pebbles gasped. And then she pointed at the correct picture. “But this is so short. And you’ve got such long and luscious brown hair.”

  I nodded. I was glad she could appreciate it, even though I thought it was dull and brown. “I’m starting middle school, and I’ll be taking six classes, and most likely be a cheerleader, and a member of the chorus, and on yearbook staff, and a ton of other stuff. I need something easy.”

  “Are you sure?” Pebbles asked. She squinted her overly made-up eyes at me. “Every girl goes through one terrible haircut in her lifetime. Maybe you should think about it and come back in an hour.”

  I was shocked to hear this.

  “Don’t give me a terrible haircut. I asked for a pixie!”

  Sylvie’s eyes were very big. She kept touching her hair over and over. It was a beautiful mop of blondness. Touch. Touch. Touch. And I knew exactly what she was thinking. Sylvie Potaski was thinking, Am I going to end up getting a pixie cut too?

  After Pebbles shampooed my hair, she cut away at it in quick scissor bites. Snip. Snip. Snip. My head felt lighter and lighter. Mounds of brown fluff piled up on the floor around me. It looked like somebody had shaved a cat. Then it happened. Pebbles finished and she spun the chair around so I could see myself in the mirror. And I didn’t even look like Bessica Lefter anymore.

  “Holy cow!” Sylvie said.

  “I look awesome!” I said.

  “Do you want a pixie too?” the stylist asked Sylvie.

  Sylvie looked at me. Then she looked in the mirror. Then she looked at the stylist.

  “It feels really great,” I said. “I think you’d like it.”

  “Do you have time?” Sylvie asked Pebbles.

  Pebbles looked at her watch and smiled. “I do.”

  And while I remember thinking that Sylvie looked a little nervous and abnormally colored, I thought things would work out okay.

  Sylvie climbed into the chair and got her own smock tied around her neck.

  I was so happy when Sylvie decided to get a pixie! Because it meant that we’d match. And because I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, I liked the idea of having one friend who I was very close to in every possible way, even appearance.

  While Sylvie got her shampoo, I decided to look at the leave-in conditioner pyramid in the window. That was when I spotted Grandma and she spotted me. She did not look happy. She hurried into the salon.

  “Your mother is going to kill me!” she said.

  But I knew that my mom wouldn’t kill Grandma. My mom loved Grandma so much that she let her live in our basement rent-free and play lame Frank Sinatra CDs over and over.

  “She won’t kill you,” I said.

  “Then your father will. Promise me that you’ll wear a hat around him.”

  But I wasn’t about to do that. I didn’t think my head looked good capped. And I was using my own money to get this pixie cut and I wanted to show it off.

  “Where’s Sylvie?” Grandma asked.

  But I didn’t tell her, because I was a little bit afraid to disclose this information. Then we heard Sylvie scream and Grandma raced back to Pebbles’s haircutting station.

  Sylvie did not look happy.

  “My nose looks huge!” Sylvie said.

  But I disagreed. “It looks as big as it looked before.”

  “And my ears look pointy! Like an elf!”

  I didn’t object. I’d never noticed Sylvie’s ears before, but uncovered by hair, they suddenly appeared very triangular. Pebbles tried to fix this by hair spraying the hair around Sylvie’s ears so that it would lie flat over her tips. But that didn’t look so hot either.

  “These sections will grow out quickly,” Pebbles said.

  I think she said this because Sylvie was crying. I felt terrible. Even though it was sort of unflattering, I didn’t want Sylvie to hate her pixie. We were brand-new people now. Didn’t she see that? Didn’t she want to be brand new?

  “School starts in less than two weeks,” Sylvie said. “Will it grow out long enough to cover my ears in less than two weeks?”

  “Probably not,” Pebbles admitted.

  That was when Sylvie really started to cry, and Grandma stepped in.

  “Your ears look perfectly fine,” Grandma said. “And if you want your hair to grow as fast as possible, eat lots of chicken. The protein and the growth hormones will churn out a new head of hair fast.”

  Sylvie blinked and cried. Blinked and cried. Pebbles reached into her purse and pulled out a compact. Then she showed Sylvie how to apply a line of foundation to her nose to make it look less wide.

  “Make sure you blend it in,” Pebbles said. She tapped her fingers along the bridge of Sylvie’s nose.

  “I’ll help you do that,” I said. But really, I didn’t think Sylvie’s mom would let her wear makeup. Her mom had told her she had to wait until she was fifteen. And then she could wear lip gl
oss and blush and that was it.

  Grandma bought Sylvie and me each a hair product of our choice. I chose shampoo with sunscreen in it that would protect my hair from harmful UV rays. Sylvie picked a leave-in conditioner that was supposed to optimize strength. In the end, Grandma decided to pay for our haircuts too, which was supernice. Because I had brought money, but I didn’t want to spend it.

  “I bet strong hair grows faster than weak hair,” Sylvie said.

  “Totally,” I said. And then I nodded enthusiastically. Because a trick Grandma taught me was that enthusiasm always cheered up seriously bummed-out people.

  And then, while Grandma dropped Sylvie off at her house, I chose to wait in the car. Because sometimes Sylvie’s mom frightened me a little bit. Because she wasn’t a very fun person. In fact, she was a little cold. And stiff. For her job, this was pretty useful. She worked for a local doll maker called Country Buttons. Mrs. Potaski’s job at Country Buttons was to paint eyelashes on all the ceramic doll heads. And she never lost control or got shaky, and she sat for hours and painted perfect lash after perfect lash. Which made her a great eyelash painter, but she wasn’t always enjoyable to be around.

  I watched Grandma lead Sylvie by her elbow to the Potaskis’ front door. When Grandma went inside the house with Sylvie, I felt anxious. It never occurred to me that Sylvie wouldn’t like her pixie cut. It didn’t take long before Grandma was heading back to the car.

  “Did you smooth things over?” I asked.

  Grandma let out a big, exaggerated sigh. “I’m not a magician.” Then she started the car. “Where did you get the idea to whack off all your hair anyway?”

  “The podiatrist’s office.” I was usually pretty honest with Grandma.

  “Did you see somebody with a haircut you liked?” Grandma kept her lips pressed tightly together as she drove.

  “I saw it in a magazine.”

  Grandma’s eyes got a little big, like she was hearing surprising news. “I thought they just had foot-disorder magazines there.”

  “No. I found one with a ton of heads in it. In fact, I almost got the wrong haircut. Pebbles looked at the wrong picture and almost left my hair long in the middle and shaved designs into my sides.”