Pretty Is as Pretty Does

by Debby Mayne

  “You know what I mean.” She folds her hands on the table and looks me in the eye. “So do you still want to go with me to the reunion?”

  I shift in my seat and turn slightly to the side so she can’t see the excitement making my eye twitch. “Yeah, I think that’d be quite nice.”

  “Good, then it’s a date.”

  I drop the pretense and turn to face her head-on. “Are you sure you want me to go with you?”

  For a moment, she just stares at me, but then she bobs her head in a nod. “Positive.”

  I try to make out like I’m feeling all normal, but just knowing I’ll be going to one of the most important events of Priscilla’s life with her . . . as her date . . . well, if a feather came along and waved itself at me, I’d probably fall right outa my chair.

  She tosses all her breakfast sandwich paper onto the tray and stands. “I need to get back to the office, and I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do today.”

  I do, but in all honesty, it’ll be tough to concentrate.

  4

  Trudy Baynard

  I toss the invitation onto the bed then move to my oversized walk-in closet to see if I have anything to wear to the reunion that doesn’t make me look like the backside of a hippo. I yank my favorite skirt off the hanger and step into it. As I tug it up, my heart sinks. Even if I can get into the skirt, I can only imagine how it’ll look. Before I turn to look in the mirror, I suck in my gut and hook it before zipping the side, praying the seam doesn’t split.

  When I turn around and see my image in the mirror, I groan. The puckers are a dead giveaway that I’m cramming my size eight thighs into this size six skirt that fit until that sorry, no-good ex-husband of mine decided to toss me to the curb. Next thing I know, I’m living in that big old house all by myself, while he’s out gallivanting with some perky, cheap, twenty-year-old imitation of me. And then after he dumped that one, he found himself another.

  One thing that keeps me going is knowing none of those other girls were ever Miss Piney Point. I glance up at the crown that still has a place of honor on my dresser, and an overwhelming sadness fills me. The joy from winning that crown has long since left me, and here I am, a pitiful divorcée trying to figure out how to hold my head high at my ten-year high school reunion. My classmates have certain expectations, and I don’t want to let them down.

  Tears sting my eyes as I break free of the skirt that threatens to cut me in half. I always thought Michael and I were meant to be together for life. Like Barbie and Ken. In fact, that’s what people called us. We were the beautiful couple at Piney Point High. I was the head cheerleader, homecoming queen, and the Piney Point representative in the Miss Mississippi pageant. Michael was the captain of the football team and the boy all the girls swooned over but knew they didn’t stand a chance with—as long as I was around.

  Piney Point isn’t the kind of town where a girl can hide, so after the divorce, I sold the house and took off for the Big City of the South—Atlanta—where I could get lost. And then I found myself, and I haven’t looked back. But still, being in Piney Point brings out some things I just can’t seem to help. It’s deep.

  It would have been so much fun to go back to the ten-year reunion with Michael—especially if we had a couple of kids who looked just like us. We’d whip out our electronic photo key chains and show off little Junior and Buffy while all our jealous classmates wished they had perfect children like ours. But now, here I am, wide as the side of a barn, divorced, and barely making ends meet.

  I wonder if Michael will be there. I shudder to think about having to face him with Tiffany, or whatever her name is. Every once in a while, when Mama has her hair done at Prissy’s Cut ’n Curl, she picks up a tidbit or two of gossip about Michael, and she always calls to tell me about it, which would be fine if Michael was miserable and suffering from some incurable disease—Lord forgive me, but I can’t help how I feel. But apparently, he’s thriving and well, and his business is going like gangbusters. Since we don’t have kids, he got out of paying more than just a couple years of alimony. I probably could have gotten more if I’d found an attorney who didn’t idolize Michael from his glory days in high school.

  Oh well, that’s water under the bridge, as Mama says. No use crying over spilt milk. It’ll just make my mascara run and send me to the pantry looking for chocolate. Nothin’ pretty about that, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s the value of being pretty.

  After trying on half my wardrobe, I get into my nightgown and crawl beneath the covers of my queen size bed. Images of how things will look when I walk into the reunion alone, without Michael, flitter through my mind. Everyone has always assumed it was wonderful to be me, but at this moment, I would give anything to be someone else—even Laura Moss or Celeste Boudreaux. No one expects a thing from those two, and sometimes I actually envy them. The only person who would even come close to understanding how I feel is Priscilla Slater, but I suspect she’s doing just fine. She never has cared what people thought. I still think it’s funny how she thumbed her nose at her parents and dropped out of college to do hair. Now that took some serious guts. According to Mama, she’s the best there is, but she’s not even working in Piney Point anymore because an opportunity in Jackson pulled her away.

  I scrunch down beneath the covers and try to turn off all the crazy thoughts and memories that continue to haunt me. Being me has never been easy, and now I’m not so sure I’m up to the task.

  When I open my eyes the next morning, I’m as exhausted as if I’d put in hours of practicing my pageant walk in four-inch heels. I skip the breakfast cereal and head to my job at the mall with nothing but a cup of black coffee swishing around my gurgling stomach. Before the big D, I didn’t need food. But being alone sure does make a girl think about food a lot.

  Mama used to tell me ways to make a marriage work. Before the wedding, I assumed I wouldn’t need all those helpful hints, but less than a week after we got back from our honeymoon cruise, I started my daily phone calls for more advice. Now as I look back, I realize some of that advice was misguided.

  For instance, Mama told me a good wife had selective hearing, but I know better now. If I’d put on my listening ears, I would’ve caught Michael before he’d gotten so carried away with his life outside the house.

  Mama said too much truth leads to divorce. When Michael popped the trunk in the sports car my daddy bought me for my high school graduation and wedding gift combined, and spotted all the shopping bags I hadn’t brought into the house for fear of his fussing at me, you’d have thought I’d been unfaithful. He made me take everything back, and he never trusted me again . . . at least that’s what he said.

  Mama also told me that communication is essential for a good marriage. That might sound like a contradiction, but it’s all in the perspective. Well, here I am to tell you that too much communication is terrible. Michael still claims I can talk the ears off a donkey. But that’s not really who I am. I was just doing it because I thought my communicating would keep my marriage open and strong.

  I learned many other things and I made every single mistake a newlywed woman can make. Next time—if there ever is a next time—I plan to say what needs to be said without saying everything that’s on my mind, listen to everything he says while reading between the lines, and flaunt all my newly purchased clothes right smack dab in front of his nose. If I want something, and I have the money for it, it’s mine. And if he has trouble with that, fine. We can duke it out and be done with it. At least he won’t be able to call me a liar. I might not go to church as often as I should, but I still call myself a Christian, and I know God doesn’t like liars.

  We’re heading into the prom season, so I work with frantic mamas who know I’ll help them steer their precious daughters toward something age appropriate. I don’t know why girls think they look better in skimpy dresses on a night when they should look like princesses. Word has gotten out to mamas that I say just the right things, like, “That dress is so you,�
�� or “That dress makes you look too skinny,” to make the girls want whatever I want them to have. I’m proud of the fact that I’m good at working both sides of the mama-daughter war—sort of like a double agent. And I’m happy my boss and my boss’s boss are aware of my special abilities.

  I work until eight, so when it’s time to go home, I’m too exhausted to worry about the reunion. That can wait until my day off, when I’ll decide how to handle it. It’s not like I can’t go. If I stay away, everyone will talk. My big decisions are how to lose a few pounds, what to wear, and if I should go alone. I know enough guys who would be happy to escort me, but since none of them are really my type, I hesitate, lest they get ideas I’m actually interested.

  When I get home, I ponder what to eat. After my morning coffee, all I had to eat all day was a package of cheese crackers I got from the vending machine during my lunch break. I open the refrigerator and peruse the contents. I see lettuce, carrots, celery, yogurt, cheese, orange juice, milk, and ranch salad dressing. The freezer is stocked with frozen diet dinners and a tub of fat-free frozen yogurt. I totally don’t get what’s making me fat. I would skip dinner, but I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. So I opt for a salad made from lettuce I just now notice is turning brown around the edges, a bunch of carrots, celery, and cheese, with half a bottle of thousand island dressing to give it a little flavor. I grab some butter crackers from the pantry and sit down to eat my rabbit food.

  I’m barely halfway done when the phone rings. I don’t bother to check caller ID, so when I answer, I’m shocked to hear Michael’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Hey, babe. Did you get your reunion invitation yet?”

  In spite of the fact that it’s been nearly five years—or perhaps because of it—my heart skips a beat, and I feel like the girl who used to wait for my high school hero by our lockers. He called me babe. Babe! I clear my throat and try to regain my composure.

  “Yes, I got it yesterday. Why?” Do I sound like an adult? I certainly don’t feel like one.

  He chuckles, and my skin gets all goose-bumpy. “Yeah, I’ve had mine a few days now. I didn’t hear from you, so I thought I’d call and see if you planned to attend.”

  Is he asking because he wants to see me? Or does he? Oh, stop it. I give myself a mental smackdown. “I haven’t decided yet. I’ve been so busy. You know how it is.”

  “Do I?” He waits a few seconds, making me squirm. “Are you really that busy, or are you afraid to see me?”

  I force myself to laugh, but it comes out more like a squeak than I intend. “Michael Baynard, why in the world would I be afraid to see you?”

  “So you’re okay with being in the same room—”

  “Of course I am. It’s not like we just split up last week.” I shove my salad bowl away, now that my appetite has fizzled.

  “Let me finish. I’m bringing Tiffany.”

  “Tiffany? I thought you were with Liza.” That’s not true, but I don’t want him to know I’ve kept up with his carousing.

  “Nah, that ran its course. Liza started making all kinds of possessive sounds, and you know how I hate to be tied down.”

  “Really, Michael. You’re the one who proposed to me, not the other way around.”

  “Don’t start on that, Trudy. That’s history, and this is now. I have a new lady in my life, and I don’t want you embarrassing her at the reunion.”

  “So that’s what this call is all about. You’re worried I’ll say something that’ll embarrass your . . . your . . . whatever she is. Well, don’t you worry your big, meaty head about that because you’re not worth the effort of embarrassing.”

  “Come on. I would’ve thought you’d be over me by now.”

  “Oh that’s low. I’ve been over you for a very long time. Besides, you called me. I didn’t call you.” I stop and swallow, hoping to stop the tears that are threatening. Then something hits me. “How old is your new girlfriend . . . what’s her name . . . Tiffany?”

  “Yes, Tiffany.” He pauses then blurts, “Nineteen, but she looks at least twenty-one.”

  Suddenly everything changes inside me, and I laugh. Not a normal, ha-ha laugh, but an out-of-control laugh that borders on sounding psycho, even to me.

  “I better let you get back to whatever you were doing. I just figured it would be a good idea to warn you.”

  I manage to recover long enough to say, “Consider me warned. Good-bye, Michael.”

  I slam down the phone and resume laughing—until a steady stream of tears forms a river down my cheeks, and I’m in a full-blown sob. I drop my face into my hands. Why is this happening to me, Lord?

  5

  Priscilla

  The phone has been ringing off the hook,” Mandy announces the instant I walk into the office the following Monday. “Seems everyone in Piney Point wants you to do her hair for the reunion.”

  I start to smile before I remember how much I have on my plate. “I haven’t decided what to do yet.”

  Mandy gives me a curious look. “I thought you decided for sure you were going.”

  “Oh, I am. I just don’t know if I’ll be there early enough to take appointments.” The less time spent beneath my mother’s withering disapproval, the better.

  She picks up a stack of phone messages and waves them in the air. “Want me to call all these folks back and let them know you’re booked?”

  I hesitate, but only for a few seconds. “Nah, I’ll take care of that. It probably isn’t a bad idea to take at least few appointments. It’ll take some of my focus off myself.”

  “You’re not nervous, are you?”

  I start to tell her no, but that would be a total lie. “Yeah, I sort of am.”

  Mandy looks relieved. We’ve gone through some rough patches, but unlike the receptionists before her, she’s stuck with me. I’m willing to work with her as long as I see progress.

  I wave the handful of messages as I head toward my office. “I’ll return these calls now.”

  As soon as I sit down at my desk, I pick up the phone and punch in my mother’s cell phone number. If things are going my way, she’ll be in class, and I can put off talking to her a little bit longer.

  She starts right in. “Hi, Priscilla. I’ve been expecting your call. Your father and I have been fielding calls for you ever since that reunion announcement went out.”

  I sigh. Great start for the day. Not.

  “Any urgent messages?” I ask.

  Mother lets out one of her sarcastic, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding laughs. “Only if you consider hopeless makeovers urgent.”

  “Well, they can be.” The instant those words escape my lips, I brace myself for one of Mother’s tirades about putting too much focus on looks and not enough on the mind.

  But she surprises me. “I think one of them just might be. Remember Celeste Boudreaux?”

  How can I forget Celeste Boudreaux? She’s always been so mousy, even I feel like a beauty queen around her. “What about her?”

  “Her mother says she’ll pay you double your standard rates if you’ll give her the works. Makeup, hair, nails, and anything else you do at your salon.” Mother clears her throat and continues. “Priscilla, I think this is one person who actually needs you.” I can tell that’s hard for her to say, but it does my heart good to hear it.

  “Give me her number, and I’ll call her back,” I say as I grab a pen.

  After we hang up, I lean back in my chair. I suspect it’ll take more than “the works” to make Celeste into anything more than a mousy woman with great makeup, hair, and nails. But I have a heart for the underdog, and I can’t turn down someone who needs me.

  I spend the rest of the day returning calls—and I can’t say no to a single person. Looks like I’m needed in Piney Point. I need to make arrangements for the time I’ll be gone. It’s a good thing Sheila suggested keeping a station empty for times when I get the urge to do hair for the hometown folks. I guess I can handle the business long distance for a while.
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  Then Tim calls. Until now, I haven’t given him another thought. “Hey, when are you planning to go to Piney Point? I need to book a room at the hotel.”

  “Uh . . .” I realize there’s no way he can take off a whole three weeks, so he’ll have to make the drive alone. “You might want to book it for the night before and the night after.”

  “You sound strange, Priscilla.” His voice cracks.

  “Looks like I’m going to spend a little extra time in Piney Point.”

  “A little extra time? How long?”

  “Well, actually a long time. Three weeks.” I pause to let it sink in. “You can drive over any time, though. According to the buzz, there’ll be something happening for at least a week before the big night, but I don’t expect you to be there for everything.”

  “Would you like me to be there a week early?”

  Although it really doesn’t matter to me when he goes, I’m not about to hurt his feelings. I’ve done that enough already. “That would be fine, but only if it doesn’t pose a problem for you to take off that much time.”

  He laughs. “Then I’ll be there. I don’t want to shirk my responsibility as the date of the girl ‘Most Likely to Succeed.’ ”

  I groan, and he laughs even harder. I’m not so sure having a date is a good idea. This might be one of those times I’m better off alone, but it’s too late—unless one of us gets sick, which could happen, the way I’m feeling at the moment.

  I call Mother to let her know my plans. “Looks like I’ll be booked with appointments for three weeks.”

  “You know you always have a place to stay when you come home, but don’t you think this is a bit long?”

  It never dawned on me that Mother and Dad might not want me at their house that long, but now that she mentions it . . . “I don’t want to inconvenience you. I can stay in the hotel.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think of letting you do that, Priscilla. Of course you will stay here. I’m just saying—” She cuts herself off before starting over. “You aren’t an inconvenience. We want you to stay with us. One of these days your father and I will need you.”