Prettiest Doll

by Gina Willner-Pardo

  It was one way to live, I guessed, as I lay there trying to stop myself from shaking.

  I got up at 5:30, just as the darkness started to fold over on itself into the gray, damp morning. I tiptoed around so Mama wouldn’t know I was up, getting ready. I left the note I’d written the night before on the kitchen counter, near her purse.

  Dear Mama,

  When you get this, I’ll be gone. I’m with a friend, so don’t worry. Not Imogene. Someone you don’t know but you would like. I’ll call you when I can. Don’t worry. I know you will anyway. But don’t.

  I am a terrible singer and I always will be. Lessons won’t help.

  I’m through with pageants for good.

  Don’t worry.

  Love,

  Liv

  I closed the front door as quietly as I could. Everything was soaked with the night’s rain. The air smelled like wet dirt. I walked until I was in front of the Dotsons’. Figuring I was out of earshot, I pulled out my phone.

  “What?” Imogene’s voice was ragged with sleep. “It’s still nighttime.”

  “It’s after six.” When she didn’t answer, I said, “Imogene! Don’t fall back asleep! This is important!”

  “What?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  I could hear the rustling of her sheets as she sat up.

  “What do you mean you’re leaving! ”

  “Shhh. Don’t wake up your dad! Now listen,” I said. “I’m leaving. I’m taking a bus.”

  “What bus?”

  “You’re the only one who knows,” I said.

  “What bus? Where?”

  “I’m not going to say, because if you know, you might tell. And I can’t answer my cell if you call. But I’ll call you when I can.”

  “What about school? Liv, you can’t just not go to school! ”

  I thought about first period, how Mrs. Fogelson would ask, “Anyone seen Olivia?” when I hadn’t shown up for three days in a row. It seemed hateful not to tell her what I was doing, to explain that it had nothing to do with American History. I wished she could know how it was my favorite class, my favorite subject.

  “I’ll figure that out later,” I said.

  “What are you saying? You’re thirteen! ”

  “Imogene, I’ll be okay. Trust me.”

  I hate it when people say “Trust me.” It usually means they’re lying or up to something and just want to shut you up.

  “Really. You’ve known me almost my whole life. I wouldn’t do something stupid.”

  “What about your mom?”

  Imogene’s mom had died of some rare disease when we were in first grade. We were friends in kindergarten, but we got even closer after. We knew things the other kids didn’t. We both felt it was like God gave us to each other after taking one of our parents away.

  “I left her a note. I told her I’d be okay,” I said. I could feel my brain shutting down, not wanting to think about Mama alone.

  “Is it the singing?” Imogene’s voice was starting to rise again. “Because I can’t believe you’re running away because of singing! ”

  “Not just that,” I said.

  I couldn’t explain it to her: how I couldn’t sing “Beautiful Doll” again, ever, or look over my shoulder and wink, or answer another idiotic question about what my favorite color is and why, or which do I like better, cats or dogs.

  And how there were things I had to ask, things I had to find out for myself.

  And then there was Danny and everything that went with that.

  “Running away isn’t going to help. You know that.”

  “Imogene! Shhh!” And when there was silence, I said, “I’m sorry. But I have to.”

  “But what about me? Who will I eat lunch with? Who’ll hang out at the barn with me? Who’s supposed to be my best friend now?”

  She was panicking. Imogene never thinks about how something is going to affect her unless she’s scared or angry.

  “I am. I’m your best friend,” I said. “You can eat with Jenna and Marlena.”

  “Great.”

  I knew she was thinking how Jenna and Marlena are always talking about shopping and being on diets, and how even though they’re our second- and third-best friends, they’re boring to eat lunch with every day.

  “If I were you, I’d be saying the same thing,” I said.

  “Well, see?” She sniffed. “But you’re doing it anyway, aren’t you?”

  “I have to.”

  I looked at my phone. It was quarter after six.

  “I have to go,” I said. “Don’t be mad.”

  “You call me. You call me, do you hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “Because this just sucks, that you’re doing this.”

  After a second I said, “You’re my best friend.”

  “Call me, you bitch.”

  I smiled. I knew she was making a joke.

  “I will. As soon as I can, I will.”

  “Liv,” she said, “you’re not being kidnapped, are you? There’s no one pointing a gun at you, making you say all this, is there?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s just me.”

  It was starting to rain again. The clouds looked like growling animals, low and threatening in a burrow.

  “I have to go.”

  “Is it a boy? ”

  “It’s not a boy,” I said, which felt like the truth and a lie at the same time.

  The bus was in the station, belching out smoke and fumes when I got there. An old married couple wearing matching blue visors and a guy who looked like he was either a college student or homeless were sitting on the benches in the waiting room. The college student had a backpack. The old married lady had a little pink suitcase on wheels. I wondered where Danny was and thought, I’m going anyway, whether he goes or not.

  I had to get out.

  I went up to the ticket window and shoved my money under the glass. “Can I get a ticket to Chicago?” I asked.

  The ticket seller was a man I’d never seen in town, too young to be the father of anyone I knew. He had pimply skin and looked as though he was embarrassed to be wearing a uniform. “One-way or round-trip?” he asked, not looking up from his cash drawer.

  “One-way.” I didn’t know he was going to ask. The words just spilled out of my mouth, like a mistake, but even though I knew I could take them back, I said nothing and waited patiently for my change.

  Only when I turned around did I see Danny coming out of the men’s restroom, his hair wet and combed.

  “What?” he said when he realized it was me.

  His forehead was crinkled up with the irritation you feel when you’re surprised and it isn’t something like a present or a snow day. But I thought I saw something else, too: a little gladness in his eyes.

  “Are you still going to Chicago?” I asked. My heart was beating in my ears, and a voice in my head was keeping time with it, whispering, Say yes, say yes.

  “Yeah.” He hoisted his duffel bag higher on his shoulder. “I’m not sure about calling your uncle. I may just want to be on my own. I really appreciate your help, though,” he said. I could tell he thought I was going to be mad, was going to start arguing with him again about not knowing anyone, not having anywhere safe to stay.

  “Well, I’m going to Chicago, too,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Not because of you. Because of other reasons.”

  “What reasons? You don’t have any reasons.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know anything about me.” The old lady glanced over at me. “I have lots of reasons,” I whispered.

  “Like what?”

  I didn’t want to say. It was pushy, asking me like that, not even thinking that maybe it was too personal for me to talk about. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  A man in a gray uniform emerged from the bus and pushed open the door to the waiting room. “You folks on the six forty to Chicago?” he asked, not looking at any of us in particular. “
Backpacks and luggage gotta go in the back.”

  We fell in line behind the old couple, who were hunched over but fast. You could tell they liked being first in every line they stood in. The old man turned and looked at us, probably thinking we were brother and sister and wondering where our parents were. “You youngsters have any breakfast?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we did,” Danny said. “At home.”

  My heart flipped over when he said “we.”

  “You like those Honey Clusters? I love those Honey Clusters. It’s a cereal,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “They’re good.”

  “Not too sweet,” the old man said. “Now my grandson, he’s a Cap’n Crunch man.”

  “Cap’n Crunch is good,” Danny said.

  “He’d eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if my daughter’d let him,” the old man said. “I never seen a boy so attached to one food before. It ain’t normal.”

  “Oh, Ed,” the old lady said.

  The old man looked at her and almost said something but seemed to change his mind. He turned back to us. “He’d eat it without milk. Just dry, right out of the box.”

  “I used to like Cap’n Crunch,” Danny said. “But it’s a little too sweet.”

  I let myself pretend that Danny and I were grown-ups—married and on our honeymoon—and Danny was doing all the talking because he knew I was shy about having to make conversation with strangers. Then it was like he was doing all this talking for me, like he was protecting me in a manly, husbandly way. So all this talk about cereal was almost sexy.

  “The sweetness kind of gets to you after a while,” Danny said.

  The bus driver took my backpack and stowed it in the luggage compartment, which was already half-full of suitcases. I looked up and saw people staring out of the bus window. As if he could read my mind, he said, “We started out in Houston.” I thought how going somewhere on a bus is different from going on a plane, which is probably thrilling even if you’ve done it a hundred times. You get to look down at clouds and the world as it slides away behind you. I couldn’t even imagine how that would feel: like magic, or when Pastor Templeton talks about the ecstasy of knowing Jesus. The bus passengers were looking out the window with tired eyes. If they knew Jesus, it wasn’t showing on their faces.

  Danny and I headed toward the back of the bus, where it was emptier. We had to wait in the aisle while the old couple fussed with overhead storage. “Where’d you put my pills, Doris?” Ed asked, standing in the aisle, not even noticing that we were waiting to get past him. “I gotta take two at ten thirty.”

  “They’re in the toiletries bag,” Doris said. She was standing over her seat, trying to ease one shoulder out of her powder blue Windbreaker. “Honestly. Can you help me, please?”

  “Pills aren’t toiletries, for God’s sake. Toiletries are shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash. For God’s sake, Doris.”

  “Will you pull this, please?” Doris offered him a bony shoulder. “Honestly.”

  Ed shook his head at Danny, trying to rope someone else into the conversation. “Pills are medicine, for God’s sake. You don’t just throw them in a toiletries bag. Don’t you know that?” He pulled Doris’s Windbreaker off her arm and winked at Danny, showing him that this is how you talk to women. “Last time I let you pack the pills,” he added. “Now move over. Let me sit down. My knees are killing me.”

  We found seats and settled in. Danny tucked a brown paper sack under his seat. Then he looked backwards down the aisle, making sure no one was close enough to hear. “Ed and Doris are like my grandparents before my grandfather died,” he said. “Always arguing.”

  “My grandfather’s dead, too.” It was nice, finding out we had something in common. “But they didn’t argue. I don’t think they were very happy, though.”

  “How come?”

  “Everything was hard. They were always working. It’s hard to be happy when there’s so much work. And my grandmother is still working, and she’s almost sixty.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Grandma’s a nurse.” I didn’t say anything about Grandpa doing taxidermy. I’m used to not telling. It’s a secret I always keep with me, like a locket I never take off.

  Danny leaned back. He was so short that he didn’t even come up to the headrest.

  “I’m going to be a doctor,” he said. “A pediatrician. That’s a doctor for kids.”

  “I know that,” I said, irritated that he thought I didn’t. “Everyone knows that.”

  “I want to be the kind of doctor kids like. The kind who gives out lollipops and makes jokes and doesn’t lie,” he said. “The kind who, if he has to do something that hurts, just tells you straight out.”

  I thought about Dr. Parker at the clinic. He’s old and seems tired of kids. Whenever he gets out a tongue depressor, I remind him that I can open my mouth really wide and don’t need one. He always nods and says “Can’t hurt to save a little scratch” as he slides the tongue depressor back in the glass jar.

  “I guess you want to be a beauty queen or something,” Danny said. “A model. A spokesmodel.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  I’d thought about it, though. All the things I could picture myself being had something to do with looking pretty. It was what I was good at, what I knew how to do. What good was all that smiling and eye contact if I was just going to be making cakes in a bakery?

  I felt the bus engine vroom under our seat. For a second, I thought about Mama, who would be waking up in ten minutes and calling for me to come out for breakfast. It would take her another few minutes to realize I wasn’t there, if she didn’t find the note first. My throat closed up, thinking how she would whisper “Oh, sweet Jesus” as she read it.

  The bus rumbled away from the station and out onto Mound. On the ramp up to the interstate, it started to gain speed. I watched as the leafless trees became a gray blur, slipping away. I remembered that people in cars we passed might be looking up at me, so I blinked the terror out of my eyes and made sure no one could see what was in my head.

  eight

  THE land on either side of the interstate was part patchy grass and part weeds the color of straw. We thundered past landmarks I recognized: Kum & Go Gas, the Elms Shopping Center, the cracked Café sign for a restaurant that had closed down before I was born. I’d seen them all before, on drives with Mama to pageants in Joplin and Springfield, on the fourth grade field trip to the air and space museum in Tulsa. Today they looked unfamiliar. I wondered if places always look strange when you’re leaving them behind.

  The smell of cow manure. Billboards for Adult Superstores, Fred’s Radiator, Branson Radio 1550 AM, University of Missouri Southwest Center. Flying past, I really paid attention, memorizing everything, making sure I wouldn’t forget.

  The distance was thick with trees. Some stayed green all year, some had turned, and some were already bare. Even in the rainy murk, the yellow and red leaves were like flames, like danger, in all the green. Soon they would burn out, leaving the gray, twiggy skeletons of tulip poplars and Autumn Blaze maples and crape myrtles, my favorite. And then there would be snow.

  “Hey,” Danny said, “you’re fogging up the window.”

  I sat up and rubbed at the glass with the arm of my hoodie. Now I could see more clearly the passing highway signs: to Racine and Neosho and Fort Smith, Arkansas; to Diamond and Duenweg; to Carthage and Kansas City.

  “I went to Kansas City once,” I said. “Little Miss Adorable Missouri was in Kansas City.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s what it was called?”

  I thought about saying what I always do: that it’s just a name, it’s all about inner beauty, you’re not even allowed to wear flippers, which are the fake teeth some pageants make you wear if your adult ones haven’t come in yet.

  But I didn’t. “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  “I can’t believe you do those things,” Danny said.

  “It was at the Marriott, I th
ink. There was an indoor swimming pool and a whirlpool, and I wanted to sit in it, but Mama said we didn’t have time. The pageant was in one of the rooms off the lobby, and the people at the front desk stared at all of us in our gowns. I think I wore the blue tulle with the violet sash.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven. This one girl at the desk, she was probably twenty or twenty-one. She couldn’t stop staring. She came around the desk and leaned down toward me, her hands on her knees, all smiley. ‘She’s so cute!’ she said, still staring. She. Looking right at me. Like I couldn’t hear her. Like I was somebody’s beagle.

  “She stood up and said it again to Mama. ‘She’s so cute!’ Then she said, ‘Have you thought about having her ears done?’ And Mama said, ‘Oh, they been pierced since she was three.’ And the girl says, ‘No, done. Like, pinned back. It’s an operation. So they don’t stick out so much.’ ”

  Danny sat forward and looked at me. “They don’t stick out. Your ears look fine.”

  “That’s what I think.” Out of habit, I ran my fingers through my hair, making sure that it puffed in just the right way around both sides of my head. “Mama, she just said something polite, like ‘Maybe when she’s older.’ But really, she would have done it if she could. If we’d had the money.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe she liked you the way you were.”

  “She did. She does. But she looks at me differently. Since that day. She peers at me when she thinks I’m not noticing. Like she’s trying to figure out what I would look like with different ears.”

  Danny looked away from my face to the landscape out the window: more hills and trees, not so much flatness. The beginning of something new.

  “My mom is always talking about how great it would be to be taller,” he said. “How taller people get better jobs. How girls like taller boys. She says there are studies that prove that tall people are more successful.”