Bras & Broomsticks (16 page)

She flushes. “I’ll return it on Monday.”

“Sure you will.” I shake my head with exaggerated disappointment. “Two weeks and you’ve already gone over to the dark side.”

She pouts until I stick out my tongue and wag it up and down. As usual, my silly face makes her laugh. She crosses her eyeballs in response.

“So how are you going to get the concoction on STB’s skin?” I ask. “Hug her?”

“I would if that weren’t completely out of character. She’d know something was up.”

“Why don’t you mix it in with her moisturizer? You know the two hundred dollar mini-tube she special-orders from France and hides on the top shelf of their bathroom?”

“If I mix it with that, she’ll get a rash every time she uses the cream.”

“Is that what’s going to happen? She’s going to get a face rash? We could have just put poison ivy in her room.”

“It’s supposed to cause the ugliest of ugliest face conditions. Which I’m guessing means boils or maybe even jaundice.”

“It’s not going to hurt, is it?” It’s one thing to make her temporarily ugly, but I’d feel horrible if we caused her any physical pain. (I was just kidding about breaking Annie’s and Wendy’s legs. Sort of.)

“No. And I added horseradish, which is supposed to make any spell temporary, so it should only last a few days. Just long enough to make Daddy snap out of his fascination with her and cancel the wedding.” Miri stares into the beaker. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

As soon as we step off the train, we spot our father.

“Hi, Daddy,” Miri says, and throws her arms around him.

I feel a lump in my throat, like I always do when I first see him. It really sucks to have divorced parents. I know I’m supposed to be mature about it (I’m lucky to have two parents who love me, et cetera, et cetera), but sometimes I can’t help feeling sorry for myself. I don’t want to be a hypotenuse stretched between two divergent parents. I don’t want to see my dad only once every two weeks. I see my gym teacher more often than that. Is that normal?

My dad hugs me, and my throat slowly de-lumps. He takes our bags, and we follow him to the car, where STB and Prissy are waiting. STB waves as soon as she spots us. Prissy squishes her face against the back window.

STB turns her head to see us when we climb into the back, then gives us a big fake smile. “Hi, girls, how are you?” There’s no way she likes these weekends. Why would she? Who wants to take care of two teenagers?

“I get to sit in the middle,” Prissy says, settling back into her booster seat.

STB faces front again, admiring her reflection in the sun visor mirror. “Did you have a good two weeks?”

“Yup,” I say. I bet she won’t be admiring herself after tomorrow. And I bet as soon as my dad’s out of earshot, she won’t be this nice.

“That’s great,” she says. “Really great.”

As if she cares how our weeks went. Two can play that game. “How were your weeks?” I ask.

She sighs. “Long. Weddings are so difficult to plan, aren’t they, honey?” She reaches over and pats my dad’s bald spot. If she keeps touching it, it’s going to get even bigger.

“And we’ll have three more weddings to plan after this one, since we have three daughters,” my father says.

It weirds me out that Prissy lives with my father. At least she doesn’t call him Dad. I wonder if she’ll start to after the wedding. Her father lives in L.A., so she only sees him a few times a year. I wonder why he and STB got divorced. I wish he’d share the reasons with my dad. I’ll ask him for a top-ten list if we ever meet.

My father parks in front of Happy Palace, the neighborhood Chinese restaurant, to pick up takeout. “Honey, will you ask for chopsticks for me?” STB the show-off asks as he gets ready to run in. As soon as he’s gone (okay, it was a few minutes later, but still, she’s so rude), STB whirls around. “Miri, how are your fingers? Have you stopped biting?”

Miri sits on her hands.

“Do we have to put the Band-Aids back on? And I won’t have you giving me attitude like last time. Your mother might let you get away with that type of behavior, but it won’t be happening at my house.”

Miri’s face turns redder than a stop sign. I’m hoping she turns STB into a frog, but nothing happens. She must be exercising her self-control. It’s one of the things they learn in Tae Kwon Do. She’d be amazing on a diet.

“And Rachel, I’d appreciate it if you could try to keep your room tidy this weekend. I’m not a maid.”

“Mommy doesn’t like messes,” Prissy adds.

STB laughs. “No, I don’t. And sometimes your room looks like it was taken over by animals.”

I wish Miri were sitting next to me so I could squeeze her hand. Hard.

My father returns with the food. “That was quick, honey,” STB says, smiling sweetly, all traces of evil gone from her voice. He hands her the food and kisses her on the cheek. How does he not see through her sickeningly sweet facade?

“Lemon chicken, General Tso’s shrimp, Szechuan beef, and crispy noodles with tofu for Miri,” he says while backing the car into the street.

“Did you get me chopsticks?” STB asks.

He slams his hand against his forehead. “Oops.”

“That’s all right. Next time.”

When we reach our driveway, I help my dad with the bags. Miri approaches our target. “You have dirt on your cheek.”

STB wipes her face with the back of her glove. “I do? Where?”

“I’ll get it,” Miri says, and before STB can reply, Miri dips her gloved finger into the vial behind her back and rubs a drop of the concoction on STB’s cheek.

“Thanks,” STB says.

Miri smiles. “Oh, you’re very welcome.”

Score! I refrain from giving Miri a thumbs-up and lift my suitcase out of the trunk. Hah. I’ll show her an animal. She’s about to look like one.

The next morning, at some unearthly hour, we’re awakened by a piercing scream.

Miri and I spring from our beds. A second later, we hear another, even more piercing scream.

“I guess it worked,” I whisper.

We open our door and poke our heads into the hallway. STB shrieks yet a third time.

We slowly walk to my father’s room and knock. “Hello?” I ask. “Is everything all right?” Then I whisper in my sister’s ear, “Be subtle.”

My father opens the door, looking half-asleep. “Girls, did either of you pack any pimple cream? Jennifer broke out.”

I don’t think benzoyl peroxide is going to do the trick this time, Dad.

“Can we see?” my not-so-subtle sister asks.

“What Miri means,” I say, elbowing her in the stomach, “is that as teenagers, we’re often afflicted with various unfortunate skin conditions. So perhaps we can help. Or at least empathize.”

This seems to make sense to my dad, as he nods and says, “Jennifer, come show the girls.”

“I’m not a freak show,” she cries from their private bathroom. “I must have had an allergic reaction. No more General Tso, I can promise you that.”

“Maybe the girls can help,” my dad says.

The bathroom door opens slowly. I see an arm, and then . . . a face covered in clusters of good old-fashioned zits.

That’s it? Where are the boils? The rash? Are pimples the worst face condition a witch can come up with? There’s hardly a day that goes by when I don’t have a pimple. I’m finding this highly insulting.

“Any suggestions, girls?” STB asks.

“No,” we say in unison. I’m trying not to laugh. “I’m sure they’ll go away soon.”

“Exactly,” my father says. He pulls his precious fiancée into a hug. “They’re kind of cute. Makes me imagine what you looked like as a teenager.”

STB giggles and pats his bald spot.

I try not to gag.

Miri and I desert the lovefest and retreat to our room. “Acne?” I whisper angrily. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

She shivers. “I hate pimples.”

At twelve, she has yet to experience one and therefore sees them as the world’s worst potential affliction. “Well, they’re not going to be enough to propel our father out of love with her! He didn’t stop loving me when I had that massive zit on my nose last Christmas, did he?”

She shivers again. That zit (which I referred to as Santa’s Gift—we joked that I must have been really bad last year) had freaked her so much that she’d started stuttering in its presence. I don’t know how she’s going to manage high school. “Maybe if he’s not so mesmerized by her beauty,” she reminds me, “he’ll see her true self.”

I’m not convinced. “Hey, did you ever find out what
Taraxacum officinale
was?”

“Of course. It’s in the spell. It’s a fancy name for a dandelion.”

“I’m going to the drugstore,” my father says through our closed door. “I have to pick up some pimple medicine and some vitamin A. That’ll be good for Jennifer’s skin.”

I climb back into bed. What would be even better for her skin is packing up and moving out. Can we give her that in a pill?

A few hours later, at a normal waking time, I pass my father on the stairs. My stomach is growling from hunger, and my dad is getting ready to go to the office.

I can’t believe he’s working again on the weekend. Which means Miri and I get to spend the day with the Pimple Queen.

And then I notice it. The nasty fist-sized red zit on his chin. I stop him in mid-step. “Dad, you’re breaking out too.” I’ve never seen my father with a pimple. Fathers aren’t supposed to have them. They’re also not supposed to cry or show signs of weakness. Or leave you alone with a wicked STB.

“I am?” He touches his chin. “I was wondering what that bump was.”

I race back to our room and close the door. Miri is reading the spell book shielded by her science textbook. “He’s breaking out too,” I whisper breathlessly.

“What?”

“Dad has a pimple on his chin. Is it possible it’s a coincidence?”

She stares at me. And continues staring at me. Then with a trembling hand she points at my nose. “It’s b-b-back,” she stammers.

No. No, no, no. No way. “Don’t tell me that.”

She drops her book and covers her face with her hands. “I screwed up.”

I can’t break out now! Santa’s Gift lasted for two weeks! Raf or Mick will never ask me to Spring Fling if I have a massive boulder on my nose! I push Miri away and peer into the nearest mirror. “No!” I cry, horrified. It
is
back. Bigger and badder than before. I thought sequels always paled when compared to their originals. And what’s that on my forehead? “How did this happen?” I shriek, spinning toward Miri. “Did you put the spell on me, too?”

Miri gnaws on her thumb. “I don’t know. Maybe it can spread. Maybe Dad touched STB with the potion and it spread to him and then you when he kissed you goodnight.” Her hand flies to her cheek. “What if I get it too?”

She starts scribbling in her spell observation notebook.

I’m going to cry. What if it spreads all over? Onto my hands, my neck, my stomach? Who knows what this spell is capable of? My entire body could become one big erupting pimple. I grab her shoulders. “You need to fix this. Now.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know how.”

“Figure it out!” I storm out of the room and knock on my dad’s door. I expect to find him and STB in a state of hysterics, but instead they’re lying on the bed, cuddling and, worse,
giggling
.