The bench is where they wait for each other before and after school each day, where they do their homework and split a pair of earbuds for the right and left sides of an illegally downloaded song. An oasis where two kids who once kept to themselves suddenly keep with each other.
Once, Sarah tried to carve their names in the bench, but discovered the wood was that new space-age treated stuff and broke the knife she’d nicked from the cafeteria after the third stroke. So she makes sure to have a black marker in her book bag to trace a fresh layer of ink over their initials whenever they begin to fade.
As Milo’s bus pulls in, Sarah tucks the long front pieces of her inky black hair behind her ears. Milo had shaved the back of her head for her a few weeks ago, after he’d finished shaving his own, but it’s growing in fast. That hair, pure and healthy, is soft, like a puppy dog’s, and a golden brown that totally clashes with the dyed-black front. Her natural color. She’d almost forgotten what it looked like.
Milo, all lanky bones and sharp angles, walks toward her with a manga split open in front of his face. His knobby knees pop past the army green fringe of his cutoffs with each step. Milo claims he wears shorts no matter the weather. Sarah says that’s because he’s never lived through a winter on Mount Washington. She will give him such shit the first time she sees him in jeans.
She catches herself smiling and quickly resets her mouth with another drag.
“Yo,” she says when Milo reaches the bench, and gets ready to let the ax fall.
Milo looks up from his manga. A grin spreads across his face, so deep his dimples appear. He says, “You’re wearing my T-shirt.”
Sarah looks down at herself.
Milo’s right. This is not her black T-shirt. There are no white spots from bleaching her hair. She always strips it before she dyes it, so the new color sets as pure and saturated as possible. It’s the only way, really, to make sure what’s underneath doesn’t show.
“You can keep it,” he mumbles coyly.
“I don’t want your shirt, Milo.” In fact, if Sarah had other clothes with her, she’d change out of it right now. “Obviously I grabbed the wrong one last night. And I haven’t done laundry, so I just threw it on again this morning.” She clears her throat. Damn. She is already off her game. “Look. I want my shirt back. Bring it tomorrow.”
“No problem.” Milo falls next to her on the bench and goes back to his manga. From her seat, Sarah can see the page. An innocent school girl with doe eyes and a pleated skirt cowers in fear before a wild, snarling beast.
She moves her eyes and thinks, Makes total sense.
Milo’s quiet for a few pages and then says, out of nowhere, “You’re acting weird. You said you wouldn’t act weird.”
He is wrong.
“Let’s not make this weird, okay?” is what Sarah had said when she’d come out of the small space between his wall and his dresser without her jeans. She left everything else on — her hooded sweatshirt, her socks, her underwear.
“Okay,” he’d said, eyes wide, lying on a set of faded Mickey Mouse sheets, ones he’d probably had since he was a kid.
“No talking,” she’d said, and dove under the covers.
The rest of her clothes came off shortly thereafter. Not her necklaces, though. Sarah never took off her necklaces. Milo climbed on top of her and his weight pressed the tiny metallic links into her collarbone.
She reached out to his nightstand and turned his stereo up as loud as it could go; it was playing one of the mixes she’d made when they’d first met. The vibrations shook the crap piled on Milo’s dresser, buzzed the window glass. But even with the music blaring right next to their heads, Sarah could still hear Milo breathing, hot and fast in her ear. And every so often, a moan. A tender sigh. From her own mouth.
The memory of her voice fills Sarah’s head now, like an echo, mocking her over and over.
She turns away from him. “I’m not acting weird. I just don’t want to talk about last night. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Oh,” Milo says glumly. “Alright.”
Sarah won’t let herself feel guilty. This is all Milo’s fault.
She takes a drag and blows the smoke down against his school bag. She knows his sketchbook is in there. She could reach in right now, flip to that page, and ask him straight up, How come you never told me?
That’s what she goes to do. But she’s drowned out by the girls standing near the bench.
They’ve doubled in size, from two to four. The girls scream with laughter, completely oblivious that there is a relationship about to implode right next to them.
Sarah feels the heat on her fingertips. Her cigarette has burned down to the filter. She flicks her fingers, sending the orange butt soaring in their direction. It bounces off one girl’s fuzzy yellow sweater.
Milo puts his hand on her arm. “Sarah.”
“You could have lit me on fire!” the girl who’s been hit screeches, and she spazzes out, checking herself for burn marks.
“I asked you nicely to go somewhere else,” Sarah points out. “But I’m not feeling nice anymore.”
The girls shift their weight in one unified huff.
“Sorry, Sarah,” one says, shaking the paper. “This is just really funny.”
“That’s how inside jokes usually are,” Sarah snarks back. “Funny to those inside, annoying as shit to the rest of the world.” Milo laughs at her barb. It makes her feel marginally better.
After sharing plotting looks with the rest of her group, another girl steps forward. “Well, here,” she says. “Let us clue you in.”
As soon as the paper is dropped in her lap, Sarah realizes what it is. That damn list. It makes her want to barf year after year, watching how the girls in her school evaluate and objectify each other, tear girls down and build others up. It’s pathetic. It’s sad. It’s …
… her name?
It’s like she’s trying to be as ugly as possible!
Sarah looks up. The four girls are gone. It’s like a sucker punch to the gut, the surprise worse than the hurt itself, and no chance to hit back.
“What’s that?” Milo takes the paper.
Milo transferred in last spring to Mount Washington, so he doesn’t know about the shitty tradition of the list. Sarah’s head hurts, watching him read it. For a second, she thinks about explaining, but ends up chewing her fingernail instead. She says nothing. She doesn’t have to. It’s all right there, on the stupid fucking paper.
His mouth puckers. “What kind of asshole guys would do this?”
“Guys? Please. It’s a coven of secret evil sluts. This happens every year, a masochistic prequel to the homecoming dance. I swear to god, I can’t wait to get the hell off this mountain.” She means it for so many reasons.
Milo reaches into Sarah’s back pocket. His hand is warm. He grabs her lighter. After a few clicks, a flame hisses up. He holds it under the corner of the list.
It’s nice, watching the list burn until it’s nothing but char. But Sarah knows that there are copies hanging up all over school. Everyone will be staring at her, wanting to see her embarrassed, belittled. The tough girl knocked down, forced to admit that she does care what they think of her. When the paper breaks into tiny pieces of flaming ash, she grinds them out with her sneaker.
I’m such a dumbass, Sarah thinks. Believing that she could do her thing and they could do their thing, both sides coexisting in a fragile but still-functioning ecosystem. It started every morning on the bus. She’d plop herself in the front seat, put up her hood, tuck her headphones into her ears, and sleep with her head against the window. It was easier to completely tune out than to overhear girls talking the cruelest shit about each other one day and pledging themselves as BFFs the next.
The phoniness is what sickens her most about the girls of Mount Washington. Their charade of undying friendship and love is as badly acted as the high school musicals, yet everyone plays along and pretends that in twenty years, their cheap FRIENDS
FOREVER charm necklaces won’t have a bit of tarnish.
Other girls have been knocked out of favor, the same way she had back in seventh grade. But Sarah is the only one who never tried to get back in, and she knows it makes them hate her even more.
Evolution provides clues to the clueless. Animals bear the kinds of markings and bright colors that show how dangerous, how poisonous they are. Sarah has taken great pains to make sure everyone won’t think she wants to be like them.
The maddening thing is that she could have tried. She could have made the decision to shop at their stupid stores, to buy the ugly boots and the teeny purses, to bounce along to their crappy music.
If they think she’s ugly for trying to be different, that’s fine by her.
Mission accomplished, in fact!
“Forget it,” Milo says. “Those so-called pretty girls are completely deluded. They’re the ugly ones.”
She stares Milo down. Had he said this yesterday, before she’d found out the truth about him, she could have believed him; she would have felt better. But today was today, and now she knew better. Whatever they had was over. It had to be. She can’t pretend Milo is something he’s not.
But Sarah is glad he’s here right now. Glad for the moment, anyway. Because she needs Milo’s help.
She hoists her book bag onto her lap and pulls out her black marker from the front pouch. “Do me a favor. Write UGLY as big as you can across my forehead.”
Milo shrinks back. “Why would I do that? Why would you want to do that?”
Sarah stutters for an answer, and settles on, “Do it, Milo.”
He swats the marker away. “Sarah, we had sex last night.” He’s all earnest. It’s infuriating.
“Milo! You do not want to piss me off right now! I’d do it myself but I’d write it backward. Please.”
He groans, but he climbs onto his knees and pushes the hair up off her forehead.
The marker drags across her skin. As Milo writes the word, she glances up at the windows in the second-floor bathroom. There are girls staring down at her; they know where to find her, so they’re checking to see if she’s heard yet. Sarah salutes them with her middle finger. “Make it as big as you can,” she tells Milo.
The spicy scent of the ink makes her woozy. Or maybe it’s the anticipation. Milo caps the marker, and the click is like a movie clapboard. The show’s about to start.
“For the record, I am totally not cool with this,” Milo whispers as they enter the main door of Mount Washington.
“Then don’t walk with me,” she bites back. “Seriously. Don’t.” She gives him the chance to leave, to take the easy out.
Milo opens his mouth, then thinks better of it. “I’m walking with you,” he says. “I walk you to class every day.” His eyes go again to the word on her forehead, and the corners of his mouth sink.
It makes Sarah’s throat tight. She can’t fucking deal with Milo right now. So she starts walking, fast. The speed flutters her hair off of her forehead, so people can see the word. And they do. They see it.
But only for a second. Once the people in the halls see what she’s done to herself, they quickly find another place to set their eyes. Their shoes, their friends, their homework. They’d rather look at anything but her.
The list is so powerful, its judgment so absolute, and yet no one wants to deal with it in black Sharpie on her face.
Fucking cowards.
But knowing this doesn’t make Sarah feel better. In fact, it makes everything worse. Not only do they think she’s ugly, but they want her to be invisible, too.
ridget Honeycutt is halfway to school when her sister, Lisa, starts begging to put on a little bit of her lipstick.
“No way, Lisa. I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until sophomore year.”
“Come on, Bridge! Please! Please! Please! Please! Mom won’t know.”
Bridget puts a trembling hand on her temple. “Fine. Whatever. Just … be quiet, okay? I have a serious headache.”
“You’re probably just hungry,” Lisa says, and then reaches into the backseat for Bridget’s purse. She rummages until she pulls out a slender black tube.
Bridget watches from the side of her eyes as her sister flips down the visor. Lisa traces her lips with the stub of peachy pink, presses them together, and blows a kiss at Bridget.
The pink makes Lisa’s braces look extra silver, but Bridget doesn’t say that. Instead she says, “Pretty.”
Lisa touches up the corners of her mouth. “I’m going to wear red lipstick every single day when I’m your age.”
“Red won’t be good with your skin,” Bridget tells her. “You’re too pale.”
Lisa shakes her head. “Everyone can wear red. That’s what Vogue says. It just has to be the right red. And the right red for girls with dark hair and pale skin is deep cherry.”
“Since when do you read Vogue?” Bridget wonders aloud, thinking of the rainbow that the spines of Lisa’s horse books make on the shelf over her bed.
“Abby and I bought the September issue and read it cover to cover on the beach. We wanted to be prepared for high school.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Don’t worry. Besides the red lipstick thing, we didn’t learn much. But we did get ideas for homecoming dresses. Abby will be happy you like the one she wants. It’s a red-carpet knock-off.” Lisa pouts. “I hope I find something nice, too.”
Bridget wipes away a smudge of lipstick left on Lisa’s chin. “I said I’d take you shopping this week. We’ll find you a dress.”
“Do you think Mom will let me wear makeup to the dance? I was thinking that if I ace my Earth Science quiz, I’d show her the grade and then ask her. Isn’t that a great plan?”
“Maybe … if Mom didn’t already expect you to get As.”
“I guess I could sneak it on once I get there. I’ll just have to make sure no one takes any pre-dance pictures of me.” As Bridget parks the car, Lisa sets the lipstick on the dashboard and grabs her things. “See you later!”
Bridget watches Lisa sprint across the yard toward Freshman Island, weaving in and out of human traffic, her overstuffed book bag slapping against her legs, her long black ponytail stretching down her back. Lisa is growing up so fast, but there are plenty of glimmers of the little girl that shine through.
It gives Bridget hope for herself. That there’s still a chance to be the girl she was before last summer.
She turns off the car and sits for a few minutes, collecting herself. It is quiet, except for her deep, measured breaths. And the voice in her brain, calling out instructions that reverberate inside her hollow body.
You have to eat breakfast today.
Eat breakfast, Bridget.
Eat.
This is her life every morning. No, every meal, every bite chewed to a monotone mantra, mental cheerleading needed to accomplish a task that would be no big deal to a normal girl.
She picks up her lipstick and drags a finger through the thin layer of dust on her dashboard. Bridget wants to feel proud that she’s been doing much better. Eating more. But the victories feel bad, if not worse, than her failures.
A girl Bridget knows taps hello on the glass. Bridget lifts her head and manages to smile. It’s a fake one, but her friend doesn’t notice. No one does.
It’s scary how fast things got messed up. Bridget thinks about this a lot. The timeline of her life had been linear and sharp and direct for most of her seventeen years. Until something went jagged.
She could trace it back to, of all things, a bikini.
Every summer of Bridget’s life began and ended the same way — with a trip to the Crestmont Outlet Mall.
It was the halfway point between Mount Washington and the beach cottage where the Honeycutt family spent the entire summer. The family stopped at the Crestmont outlets to eat lunch, fill the gas tank for the second leg of the drive, and shop for clothes. In June, Bridget and Lisa stocked up on summer things. And then, on their way back to Mount
Washington in August, they’d search for back-to-school deals on cardigans and wool skirts.
With summer vacation beginning, Bridget’s shopping bags were full of new tank tops, shorts, a jean skirt, and two sets of flip-flops. The only thing missing was a new bathing suit.
The bikini she’d worn last year had sprung an underwire, and the tankini from the year before was too small for her chest, so she’d given it to Lisa. Snipping the tags off a brand-new bikini was akin to the ribbon cutting of a store or breaking ground on a building site. The Grand Opening of Summer.
Bridget was determined to find one. She flew in and out of stores.
“We should get going, Bridge, if we want to make it before dinner,” her mother said with a sigh from a few steps behind. She wiped some perspiration from her top lip with a napkin from the food court. “Your father and Lisa are already back at the car, probably dying of heat. You can get a suit on the boardwalk tomorrow.”
Bridget knew better. The boardwalk shops only stocked two kinds of bathing suits: fluorescent triangles that belonged in Playboy or frumpy flowered one-pieces for grandmas.
It was now or never.
The Crestmont Outlet Mall had opened a few new stores since she’d last been there, and Bridget came to a stop in front of one she recognized. It was a surf shop, complete with long-boards that doubled as the cash stand, beaded curtains on the dressing room doors, and twangy songs vibrating through the glass window. The same store was in the mall back home, only the clothes there were full price.
As soon as she walked in, she spotted a sherbet-y orange gingham bikini with a white eyelet lace ruffle. It was the last one, it was her size, and it was marked an additional 50 percent off. She ran into the dressing room while Mrs. Honeycutt reminded her daughter to leave her underwear on, lest she catch an STD.
The List Page 4
