Lipstick Apology

by Jennifer Jabaley

  I had no clue what was going on, but at least it seemed like neither did Andi or Lindsey. We walked back into the hallway and found the second door on the left. It opened to a narrow staircase. Andi turned to us and raised her eyebrows.

  Lindsey and I shrugged back. In single file we climbed the creaky staircase. As we rose higher, the air became cooler, and we could hear the thumping of loud music. The door at the top of the staircase opened to a huge rooftop garden, surrounded by the most magnificent views of the city I had ever seen.

  The three of us gasped all at once. From one side of the roof you could see the Empire State Building blinking in the dark, amid the severe skyline of Midtown Manhattan. Lit-up domes and skyscrapers made the whole sky look jagged and bright. In the opposite direction you could see all the way to the West Side Highway, where cars raced by.

  Hordes of people filled the terrace, lounging on wrought iron benches and chairs, meandering under the low trees in one corner—I’d never seen a tree on a roof before! Some people were dancing, and I thought I saw a group clustered around what looked like a shiny keg. Many of them were dressed in a sea of different-colored cheerleader uniforms, but there were crowds of people dressed in jeans and sweaters, too.

  “Oh my God.” Andi scrunched her nose as a shaggy boy with scruffy facial hair jostled her shoulder passing by. “Half of these people don’t even go to Darlington!”

  “I bet half these people aren’t even in school anymore,” Lindsey said.

  Andi spotted Aidan over in the far corner. She strutted across the rooftop, the pleats of her miniskirt slapping against her swaying hips. Heads, both male and female, swiveled and followed her strides. She fluffed her teased hair, enjoying the attention, and smiled at the onlookers.

  I scanned around looking for Owen but didn’t see him anywhere. What I did see was unlike anything I had ever witnessed outside of a movie theater. I thought wild high school parties with chaos and mayhem were all products of the imaginations of screenwriters. But here, perched amid the amazing city skyline, mayhem was everywhere. There were swarms of people singing, dancing, and making out. Straight ahead someone had somehow propped a mattress up, leaning against two benches turned on their sides. A hose was jimmied up at the top, creating a real-life water slide. Two burly guys were hoisting up a girl I recognized from my history class and throwing her down the mattress slide. She yelled as the water splashed and drenched her. There was a long line of eager participants, so I guess the bitter late October air didn’t bother them.

  I thought about the “parties” I had gone to back in Pennsylvania and felt so lame. Justin Henderson’s so-called rager last year had maybe thirty people max. And while some of my friends could be considered more rebellious than I was, I clearly remember a provocative coed game of Twister at Selena Thompson’s Christmas party creating a buzz around school. The party at my house, the night of the accident, was considered extreme, and that was because we danced on the kitchen counter. These partyers were probably dancing on counters by the age of ten. Quickly I forced my mind to stop recalling the past for fear that Andi and Lindsey would somehow telepathically pick up on how sheltered I was.

  “Come on, let’s dance!” Lindsey said, taking my arm and walking toward the right side of the roof, where several benches and terra-cotta pots had been pushed aside to form a dance floor.

  I absolutely hated dancing in public because I was pretty sure I looked like I was being electrocuted, but I followed Lindsey and tried very hard not to do anything moronic like snap my fingers. The music was retro eighties, and more groups of girls gradually drifted toward the music. Crowds of guys hovered around the perimeter of the dance area, gawking.

  We danced for a long time, then the music shuffled to a hard techno beat and some guys entered the scene, pressing up behind girls and gyrating. Lindsey rolled her eyes at me. I laughed, and we walked over toward the edge of the roof. Numerous carved pumpkins were lined up along the brick ledge. Candles glowed inside the jack-o’-lanterns, sending beams of orange light across the roof onto people’s shirts and faces. There were long aluminum heaters wrapping around the floor edge. It made me think of the time that my parents and I went to my cousin’s wedding in New Jersey. The reception was held in a big, white tent and they had those same electric heaters. I started to get that tingly numb feeling I got whenever a memory emerged to haunt me. Couldn’t they just have the party indoors like normal people? my dad had said. As an engineer, he was always super-concerned about wasteful energy-sucking devices. But my mom had touched him on the nose and declared that an outdoor party had the perfect ambience. I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but now, as I scanned the roof again for Owen, I realized that an outdoor gathering definitely sparked romance and excitement even in New York, where you couldn’t see the stars.

  Lindsey rubbed her hands together over the red electric glow. “Ooh, that feels good,” she sighed. “I’m going to have to leave soon. My mom makes me come home by midnight if I have a practice on Saturday.”

  “Practice, like for a sport?” I asked, realizing that Jolie had not mentioned a curfew.

  “Horseback riding, yeah. I have lessons in Scarsdale. Hey, do you want to come? It’s beautiful out there. You could meet Ginny, my horse. And my really hot instructor.” She grinned. “Or would that be totally boring for you?” she asked, running her fingers through her hair.

  “No, I would love to come,” I answered quickly. “Your new haircut really looks great, by the way.”

  Lindsey smiled. “I’ll call you in the morning so we can come pick you up on our way,” she said.

  “Okay, great,” I said, feeling a surge of happiness and belonging—one I hadn’t felt in a long time. We both turned around toward the dance floor and finally, I saw Owen in the far corner, his attention turned to a pretty girl dressed in a tight maroon sweater with a yellow 22 printed on it and a tiny maroon pleated skirt with yellow trim. She kept touching him on the chest. Her mouth spoke with exaggeration: Owen, you are soooo funny.

  My stomach did a flip.

  Lindsey followed my gaze. “That’s Carrie Lisbet; what’s she doing here? She’s a freshman!” Lindsey looked over at my face. “You really like him, don’t you?” she asked.

  I looked at his short blond hair and angular jaw. “I don’t know, maybe.”

  Lindsey laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, I think he’s really hot. I mean, who doesn’t, right?” I asked.

  Lindsey nodded in agreement.

  “But there are a lot of hot guys at this school,” I said. “It’s just that Owen is the only one who makes me all jittery inside.”

  “I know the feeling,” Lindsey said wistfully.

  “Really? Who?”

  She tapped her foot for a minute and said, “Okay, don’t tell Andi because she’ll freak, but I have this thing for my instructor.”

  “Why would Andi freak?”

  “Because he’s twenty-three, and Andi says that’s too old, plus she says he’s just a riding instructor and I should only focus on top-tier guys.”

  “That’s kind of crappy,” I said, though I did think it was kind of wild of her to be interested in a guy that old.

  She looked across the room at Andi, who was surrounded by a group of fawning admirers. Lindsey had an unreadable look on her face. I knew all of Georgia’s crazy expressions—like how she crinkled her nose when she was confused or how she tugged her left ear when she was embarrassed. But my friendship with Lindsey was still so new, that faraway look on her face was unrecognizable to me. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was: why was Lindsey here with me, the new girl, while her best friend was off flirting with hordes of guys?

  Lindsey turned back toward me. “It is a little crappy. But that’s Andi. She has her ideas,” she air quoted, “about what’s acceptable. But I just can’t help it. Jason—that’s my i nstructor—is so adorable and his biceps, my God, don’t get me started. Sometimes, I fake being wobbly on the
saddle just so he’ll spot me.”

  “Well, he may be hot,” I said. “But hello, twenty-three! When we were peeing in a diaper, he was practically doing multiplication tables!”

  Lindsey laughed. “God, I know. I can’t help myself, though. He’s that cute.”

  “I will definitely come with you tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve gotta meet this guy for myself.”

  I felt a light touch on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Owen smiling. Spark. Spark. Spark. His eyes were so light and clear I swore I could see the moon’s reflection.

  The music suddenly blared, the bass thumping under our feet.

  “Hi,” Owen screamed over the music, inching closer toward me.

  I tried to say hi, but it came out like a cough.

  “Are you cold?” he yelled, putting his arm around me.

  I nodded and pretended I was.

  “I need to make a phone call,” Lindsey said, and walked away, giving me a quick smile.

  Someone adjusted the music volume. Owen smiled and said, “That’s better.”

  We leaned over and rested our elbows on the ledge, staring out at the twinkling lights of the city. The view from Jolie’s apartment was all cobblestone streets, trees, and river, but Owen’s building looked like it was dropped right in the middle of the city, with buildings shooting up all around us. Windows glowed everywhere, and twenty stories below cars scurried across streets.

  Owen looked at my empty hands. “Do you want me to get you a drink?” he asked.

  “Oh, no thanks, I’m fine.”

  He nodded and tilted his head with a touch of sympathy. “AA?”

  AA??!! “Um, no, I just don’t drink.”

  Owen looked confused for a second like he had never heard such a crazy thing. Then he changed the subject. “So, how is Darlington’s new darling? Have you fallen madly in love with our school yet?”

  “I’m getting used to it,” I answered. I wanted to say, You are making it so much easier to forget all my problems, but his flirtatious tone made me nervous so instead I stammered, “Your, um, I mean, this roof thingy, it’s really amazing.”

  “You’ll have to see it in the spring when all the flowers are blooming,” Owen said.

  Was that an invitation?

  I could imagine the roof garden in full bloom: an oasis in the middle of the sky. I didn’t say that because he would think that was cheesy, so I said, “Someday, when I get older, I’m going to have a rooftop just like this.” Which, let’s face it, is even more cheesy. Argh! If only I’d asked Georgia to help me script something cute to say.

  “Oh, yeah?” he said, his eyes crinkling. “There are lots of things I like to do up here.”

  Oh, man, he was definitely flirting. “Like what?” I said, t rying to sound comfortable, like I had conversations like these with guys all the time.

  “Talk to pretty girls like you, for one thing.”

  He thought I was pretty. That’s what he was implying. Right? Oh. My. God. My face must have turned a horrifying scarlet, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Nice outfit, by the way.”

  “Th-thanks,” I stammered. “It’s from my old school. I was on the team. Briefly. I kept, like, tripping and messing up the sequences, though. So you know, I quit.”

  Owen chuckled lightly and leaned toward me. “You’re funny. You’re the kind of person I’d like to get to know better. You aren’t like the other girls.” He was staring into my eyes now, leaning closer so I could smell his breath: sweet and citrus.

  Oh my God, he was going to kiss me, right there in front of everyone. He saw something was different about me, and just then, I didn’t care if it was because I was an orphan or if he’d somehow heard about my crooked toes. All I knew was that he was looking at me with those piercing green eyes and I suddenly really, really wanted him to kiss me . . .

  But did it have to be so exposed? What if I turned my head the wrong way and we bumped noses? Not only would Owen realize how clueless I am, but practically the entire student body of Darlington would witness my incompetence.

  He was inching closer, still grinning that slightly mischievous grin. Get a grip, I thought, this is Owen, mega-popular, beautiful Owen, and this might be my only chance.

  I saw his lips part, just a fraction, and I could see a hint of his top teeth. He was doing the tilt-and-lean. Note to self—Tell Georgia his lips were parted. Shut up! I thought as I saw his eyelids close. Quick, close your eyes! But I couldn’t because I was oddly fascinated by the scene next to me, where a group of guys had started piling the glowing jack-o’-lanterns on top of each other to form a pyramid. A guy with a Darlington football uniform on began stacking beer cans in between the pumpkins, and I have to say all the candlelight bouncing off the aluminum cans made a spectacular light show.

  But then, as if in slow motion, I noticed a guy dressed only in jeans and shoulder pads walking toward the pumpkin pyramid with a bottle outstretched. I squinted and saw it was a whiskey bottle, 100 proof. My mind was racing. Alcohol and heat, that wasn’t a good combination, was it? I knew I wasn’t very good at chemistry, but I did have experience watching the Food Network and the word that kept coming to mind was flambé. Shoulder pad guy added the whiskey bottle to the jack-o’-lantern display and in an instant, flames erupted bursting ten feet above our heads with a loud poof.

  There were screams. There was running. And then, there was the smell. The smell of burning hair.

  Lindsey barreled toward me. “OH MY GOD, EMILY!” And then I fainted.

  When I came to, Lindsay was on top of me, using the pleats of her skirt to extinguish my burning hair.

  It took a while, and someone came running and dumped water on us, too. I was coughing, sputtering. Between the smoke in my eyes and the water in my clothes, I was confused, shivery. It was hard to see, and with all the commotion, I could barely tell which way was up. Already I could hear a siren in the air.

  I didn’t see it, but I heard later that the hose from the water slide was the only thing that prevented the whole building from bursting into flames.

  When Lindsey finally rolled off me, I lifted my head off the ground and looked at my body, covered in orange pulp and slippery seeds. I reached around and felt the singed tips of my hair. “Trent is going to kill me,” was all I could think to say.

  Lindsey gave a sympathetic smile. We both lay there for a while, stunned.

  Smoke seemed to be rising off the floor like steam. Shards of glass and slices of aluminum cans littered the floor. A huge line of people jostled each other trying to exit single file down the narrow staircase.

  I looked over my shoulder. Owen was being interrogated by police officers and firefighters. They got here fast. I guess when rich people are in danger, the cops come running quick.

  Lindsey followed my glance over to where Owen was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking surprisingly calm. “Just shy of contact, huh?”

  I contemplated asking her if my pre-kiss head tilt had looked right, before the flames had gone up, that is.

  Instead, I peered through the haze of smoke toward the sky. Given the proximity of the rooftop to the great beyond, I wondered if my parents had a clearer, bird’s-eye view of all the rowdiness. I looked over at Owen again. I could visualize my parents sitting in lawn chairs, popcorn in hand, shaking their heads. First she forces the kind, smart boy out of the apartment like a crazy person, I imagined my parents’ thoughts. Then she carouses with drunken fire starters. What’s happened to our little girl?

  I inhaled deeply and linked my arm through Lindsey’s. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I have a ten-minute cab ride to invent an excuse for why my hair is burned and I’m covered in pumpkin.”

  In the cab, Lindsey and I tried to concoct a feasible explanation for my singed hair while brushing leftover pumpkin goo off of ourselves.

  “Oh my God, you’re like Cinderella!” Georgia exclaimed over the phone when I called her for some advice. “And why didn’t you stop, drop, and roll?
!! Everybody knows: you catch on fire, you stop, drop, and roll! Did you sleep through elementary school?” Georgia’s voice was shrill.

  In the end, Lindsey and I decided on a modified version of the truth. We invented a story involving a slippery floor and a single jack-o’-lantern whose top had been removed.

  The cab pulled up to my apartment and Lindsey wished me luck. I rehearsed my story on the elevator ride up. Funny thing is, I never even needed the details because Jolie was more obsessed with what happened rather than how.

  “Your hair! Your hair!” she kept repeating after seeing me trudge into the apartment. She raced over to me. “Thank God, not your face.” She put her hands on either side of my face and tried to assess the damage. Then she wrapped me in an amazingly soft blanket and called an emergency session with Trent. He showed up twenty minutes later.

  “I’m not happy about being called over at one in the OH MY GOD, your hair!” He practically ran over to where I was perched at the kitchen bar and started molesting my head. He walked around me four times, then took a breath and said, “Well, at first I thought we could go funky, asymmetrical, but I keep getting eighties flashbacks, so that’s a no go.” He sucked in a breath. “I think we’re just going to have to whack it off. I think you could pull off a wedged bob.”

  Jolie saw my face and tried to reassure me. “Lindsey went shorter with her hair and she looks great.”

  “Yeah, but not that short. Plus, I don’t have her bone structure,” I whined. “My face is all cheeks. And I love my long hair. Just the other day, a lady at the bus stop told me my hair looked like Gisele’s—the model.”

  Trent’s eyes widened. “Gisele? Oh, honey, let’s not get carried away.”

  So, with no other options, I let Trent whack my hair into a bob.

  The whole time I watched my wavy locks fall to the shiny kitchen floor, I thought of Owen—and what would have happened if the fire hadn’t interrupted us.

  chapter eleven

  I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING with the smell of smoke still lingering in my clothes and thoughts of Owen lingering on my mind. What would have happened if the fire hadn’t erupted? Was it possible that gorgeous, popular Owen really wanted to kiss me? I thought of all those sleepless nights back in Pennsylvania when I was afraid I’d never have a boyfriend. Now in this new life, could it be that romantic possibilities were within reach?