The Girl with the Mermaid Hair (5 page)

“B
UT Mom, we have the same nose.”

“Not anymore,” said her mom cheerfully, now ensconced on the bed, surrounded by mail, slicing open some envelopes with her nail file but tossing most into a junk pile. “Where’s Señor? Why isn’t Señor here? Señor?” she called. “He’s rejecting me, what can I do? How have you been? Tell me everything.” Her mom patted the bed for Sukie to sit.

“How did you change it?” asked Sukie, standing in the doorway. She’d been twirling her hair nervously and was surprised to discover that she’d yanked out some strands.

“Well, aren’t you a broken record. It’s just one piece of the pie.”

“What pie?” Sukie didn’t know what to do with the hair in her hand. She stuck it in her pocket.

“My face. Stop obsessing.”

“I’m not obsessing.”

“You are obviously obsessing. I obsess, so don’t tell me you don’t obsess. Come on, sit, talk.”

“Today was horrible,” said Sukie.

Her mother flinched. “Don’t touch your stitches,” she scolded herself. She slapped her own hand, which had misbehaved and scratched a spot under her ear. “My whole scalp itches,” she confided. “I have a staple in my head. What happened?”

“My phone. I lost it. At the club.”

“They’ll find it, I’m sure. Don’t go getting hysterical.”

“I’m not hysterical,” said Sukie, wondering if she was.

“Because you’re always getting hysterical.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Don’t bother to deny it. Doesn’t Sukie get hysterical?” she asked her husband, who had creaked in carrying a bag of frozen peas. He carefully lowered himself into an armchair, flicked on the TV, and pressed the bag against the bruised and battered
side of his face. “Doesn’t she?”

Sukie’s dad simply winked at Sukie with his only visible eye.

Her mom perused a letter. “Well, this is inconvenient.”

“What?” said Sukie.

“The big school meeting about college is Wednesday night.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Sukie.

“Of course we have to go.”

“This counts, kiddo. Big time,” said her dad.

“No, really, you don’t have to go.”

How would she explain her mother? What lie would cover it? A box fell on her head. A spa accident. What was a spa accident? Sukie’s mind was racing while her mother prattled on. “You have to get into the best college. We have to make sure that we’re doing everything and that you’re doing everything. Perhaps you should volunteer at a homeless shelter. Is there one nearby? That would be so wonderful for your college application. We’ll see what they say on Wednesday. We’re not the kind of parents who don’t care that we’re not doing everything possible for your future. Look at me, Susannah Danielle Jamieson.”

Sukie twisted to face her mom directly, realizing as she did so that her mom had pieces of Scotch tape next to her eyes and below her ears.

“We love you,” said her mom.

“I love you, too,” said Sukie. “What’s that tape for?”

“To hold my stitches in place.” Her mom leaned close. Sukie could see the bits of black thread underneath.

“How long does the tape stay there?”

“Until the stitches come out. Listen, darling, don’t worry. I’ll wrap myself in something fantastic. No one will ever know.”

Sukie wandered out of her parents’ bedroom and into her own. Señor was waiting. She looked into his eyes. She often did that to channel his strength, his confidence, his judgment, or another of his gifts that she wished she possessed. Today, feeling the damp sweat that heralded the onset of the jumps, she searched for Señor’s stillness, hoping to shore up her own. After a minute of silence, Señor made himself clear. “I know,” said Sukie, “but who?” She didn’t have a close friend. She liked Jenna, but Jenna was best friends with Frannie. Sukie couldn’t possibly
spend time with Frannie. She couldn’t even look her in the eye.

Maybe Issy would understand. She was older, but she was so friendly and warm. Still, Sukie couldn’t just turn up at Clementi’s, order a pizza, and pour out her heart.

A true friend. She was reluctant to write how much she longed for one even in her private journal, for her eyes only.

Usually she pushed it out of her head.

She planned her school days judiciously, making sure she had a meeting every lunch—Educating Girls Globally, Debate Club, Spanish Club, Math Club. On Fridays, when there were no meetings, she went to the cafeteria. Kids never minded if she joined their table, but no one ever called her over or saved her a seat. Sometimes she sat alone, spread papers around as if she needed the entire space, and knocked off the weekend’s homework. By these means, if she didn’t stop herself from feeling lonely, she at least kept everyone else from thinking that she was. Friendless. The bleak word skittered around the fringes of her mind, scurried ahead of her through the halls, clearing the empty way.

In her journal she railed against the unfairness of it.
It’s not my fault that I’m the total package, looks and brains. Everyone’s jealous.
That, she told herself, was why her cell phone hardly rang, even though every week she changed the ring as if the ring tone had become stuck in her head from hearing it again and again and again.

Bobo.

She let herself fall backward onto the bed and crossed her arms over her face. This was a way not to cry. Tried and true. Tears could trickle out, but mostly, in this position, her eyes would simply fill to the brim like glasses of water.

Your dad’s slime.

Already she could hardly remember the grim man’s face, only his red Windbreaker and his thin lips barely moving. He hadn’t spoken in a threatening way, more as if he were breaking the news, tipping her to it.

Your dad’s slime. Never forget it.

Bury it. Bury it deep. It’s not a truth, it’s a falsehood. A horrible lie. Blot it out. Think about something else—ice cream, dancing elephants, Señor’s eyes. Bobo. Think about Bobo.
Your dad’s slime. Never
forget it.
She had buried it and already it rose from the grave.

Sit up. That’s an order.

It wasn’t Señor’s idea, it was Sukie’s, but she knew he would approve.

She stormed into the bathroom and faced the mirror. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” she ordered. “Hup, two, three, four.” Calling out the numbers, she marched in a circle until she came face-to-face with herself again, and then, almost as if someone were beckoning her, she drew closer.

“If I can’t have an actual friend, I want a friend in the mirror,” Sukie announced, and, in a blink, instead of her own reflection she beheld Issy with her punky pink hair and sly eyes twinkling with fun. Issy was wearing an outfit Sukie had once admired—a baby-doll dress with straps that came over her shoulders, crisscrossed under her breasts, and wound around her body at least two more times (binding her tiny waist snugly) with still enough length for her to twirl the ends languidly as Issy in the mirror was doing right now. It was a summer dress, but Isabella, who Sukie suspected never did the obvious, wore it in cold weather as a jumper with a long-sleeved jersey
underneath. “I love your dress,” said Sukie.

“You can borrow it,” said Issy. “Anytime. We should go shopping.”

“I’d love that,” said Sukie.

Issy smiled her wonderful, wide, and welcoming smile. “If I had a little sister, I’d want her to be you.”

“Thank you,” said Sukie. “Today, especially, I really need that.”

Issy disappeared from the mirror, and the good feeling generated by an imaginary visit with Issy dissolved as Sukie confronted her own nose.

From the tip to the top, she pinched it, trying to round the narrow flat ramp.

Scotch tape. That’s what she needed.

Sukie had a label maker. She used it to identify things that didn’t need identifying, like her Scotch-tape dispenser. She’d printed
SUKIE’S SCOTCH TAPE
and stuck it on. The label wasn’t a warning to her younger brother: “This is mine, don’t touch.” She just loved to label. Everything that could be labeled was labeled, and had assigned seating across the top of her desk. A place for everything, everything in its place. In rows straight and even. The Jamiesons’ housekeeper, Louisa, who came in twice a week, marveled at
Sukie’s order and at how little work she had to do in Sukie’s compulsively arranged room. Lopsided equals bad luck, Sukie believed it utterly. She tore off short strips of tape, about two inches, sticking one on each fingertip. If she fluttered her fingers, they waved like flags.

Returning to the mirror, she stripped the tape bits off and, so that they would be handy when she needed them, stuck them on the silver frame. As she did, she leaned sideways. She could still look at herself, but at the same time she could see back through the doorway into her bedroom where the telephone sat. “Do it.” She cracked the whip. “Just do it. Grow up, you miserable baby.”

She marched to the desk and dialed.

The phone rang and rang. To distract herself from the depressingly inevitable—no answer—she examined her cuticles.

“Shoot, how does this work?”

“I can hear you,” yelped Sukie.

“Who is this?” The man sounded amused.

“Susannah Jamieson. This is my cell. You have my cell.”

“Warren’s kid?”

Sukie tried to tell if he disapproved of her dad, but it wasn’t like talking to Mrs. Merenda, where she sensed something weird. “Yes,” she said. “I dropped it at the club.”

“Here you go.”

“What?”

“I was talking to the conductor.”

“The conductor?”

“I’m on the train.”

“The train?”

“I’ll have some of those, please. Sorry. Wait a second while I pay for this.”

Sukie straightened the stapler. She turned the mug of pens so
SUKIE’S SHARPIES
faced front. Lopsided equals bad luck. Lopsided equals bad luck.

“I’m sorry,” said the man. “I meant to leave your phone at the club, but I put it in my pocket and forgot all about it until it just now rang. I’ll cruise by your house and drop it off as soon as I get back.”

She tapped down the paper clips so she could close the box neatly. “Back from where?” she asked.

“New York City.”

Her phone was on its way to New York City. “When are you coming back?”

“Wednesday.”

Four whole days. She wanted to bang her head against the wall. She really did. She wanted to walk over to the wall and knock herself out.

“You know what? I’ll drop it at your dad’s office. I’m Glen Harbinder. Your dad knows me.”

Sukie adjusted the label maker. Now everything on her desk was straight. Later she wrote in her journal,
Emotionally I was at the edge of a cliff. Should I leap? I closed my eyes.

Sukie leaped. “Would you please read me my text message?” She trotted out her most pitiful little-girl voice.

“How do I do that?” he asked.

“Touch the little green square at the top.”

“Got it. You’ve got two.”

“Two?” Sukie’s eyes snapped open.

“Two from Bobo.” He enjoyed the name, she could tell. She could hear him thinking, How cute.

“What’s the capital of North Dakota?”

“That’s the message?”

“No, I’m not telling you the message until you answer the question.” He chuckled, or maybe chewed.

“Bismarck.” God, was he mentally ill? She knew them all. She could recite the presidents backward and forward. Who did he think he was dealing with?

“‘Meet me after the game.’”

“That’s the message?”

“And the other is ‘Danger cation.’”

“What?”

“‘Danger cation.’”

“Is that one word?”

“No, two.”

“Would you spell it?”

“D-A-N-G-E-R C-A-T-I-O-N.”

She hung up and began jumping. She bounced into the bathroom and back into the bedroom.
MEET ME AFTER THE GAME. DANGER CATION
. Cation? Cation? Caution. He must mean caution!

MEET ME AFTER THE GAME. DANGER CAUTION
.

Definitely caution. He must have misspelled it. Everyone makes mistakes texting. Lots of really smart people were bad spellers too. She’d heard that somewhere.

DANGER CAUTION
.

He is not only a bad speller, he is bad. She’d never known a guy who was bad. There was no one bad at
Cobweb. Kids there were sickeningly decent.
ROLL ME OVER
. Sukie was tingling.

Thank God she’d straightened everything on her desk. Who cared that he couldn’t spell? She was a good-enough speller for both of them. With luck, their children would take after her.

S
UKIE peeled a strip of tape off the frame. She stuck one end on one side of her nose, pulled the tape taut, crossed it over her nose, and stuck it down on the other side. Holding a magnifying mirror inches from her face, she evaluated the result. Her ramp was softened, maybe even eliminated, although the nose was slightly squashed, the tip now tilted down.

She stuck the end of a second piece of tape to the tip of her nose and pulled—not too forcibly or it would detach from the tip, not too gently or it wouldn’t correct the squash and the unattractive downward tilt. The procedure took patience and concentration. She might have been performing microsurgery.

She was excited, which made it hard to focus. How
quickly her anxieties about her dad and the grim man had flown from her head at the prospect of seeing Bobo. She’d Googled the Hudson Glen High School calendar of sports events. His game was next Saturday afternoon. She pulled the tape up vertically—the idea was to raise her nose tip and keep it anchored in a slightly elevated position. It was an ingenious piece of facial engineering, and she congratulated herself silently when she pressed the other end of the tape between her eyes and, as she released it and lowered her hands to her sides, it stayed stuck.

Señor caught Sukie’s eye in the mirror.

He was right. She couldn’t say, “You are so right, Señor.” She couldn’t risk speaking, but she agreed with him. Her nose did look snub. Almost “Miss Piggy.” And the Scotch tape on her face distracted from her more pleasing features. I’d kill for candlelight, she thought, but she knew that striking a match might send a quiver through her body, causing all the tape to fall off her nose. She dimmed the overhead light to its lowest and softest glow.

Having done that, she moved slowly backward to the opposite wall, and there in the twilight of twenty watts, she gazed into the mirror at the faraway truth.

Her face was perfection.

If only she could stay eight feet away from Bobo, with a taped nose and in near darkness at all times.

“Bobo.” She tried out his name, but her voice was flat, without allure.

She needed clothes to find her voice. The wrinkled tennis shorts and white tee she wore were worse than useless. They were an obstacle.

A party dress in silk charmeuse? Charmeuse. The word, vaguely foreign sounding, conjured up misty, clinging, sheer, something worn by a woman lost in a fog. Although recently in
Teen Vogue
she’d seen a fashion spread of puffy charmeuse dresses, some with gathered high waists that hid one’s body as successfully as a tent. Those charmeuse dresses were girlish, too skipping-through-daisies.

Her mother had a black silk jersey tunic, and Sukie loved the cool, slinky feel of it. Once, when her mom was out, she’d tried it on and danced, enjoying that every bounce and tremble of her breasts was revealed and yet remained invisible. Sukie had a vague notion that showing and hiding at the same time was more enticing than just showing or just hiding. This was all because of Bobo. Meeting him had opened her up to
a whole new way of thinking: What was hot and what wasn’t? Silk jersey was sophisticated, too.

Fixing the mirror with a hypnotic stare, she saw herself dressed in a loose white silk jersey top with a V neckline. A deep V, she corrected, increasing the angle enough to reveal cleavage. Nice. Very nice. She needed a bottom—a black skirt as tight as a snake’s skin, slit to her thigh, accessorized with a wide belt slung low on her hips.

Picturing this, she spoke his name. “Bobo.” Her voice came out satisfyingly sultry.

Let the games continue.

“Hi, yes, fine, terrific.” Words all murmured, well, imagined to be murmured as Bobo circled her, nuzzling her neck. She broke away and ran down the field until he tackled her.

No, start earlier. Much earlier. An unearthly sunset. In the mirror she envisioned it: The sun, an acid orange, scorched the horizon, and Sukie stood alone, framed by a fiery sky the way an angel has a halo or the Statue of Liberty a spiked crown. The heat of the sun burns inside me, she thought, thrilled that her skin might be so hot to the touch that Bobo, stealing a kiss, might have to run his lips under cold water or rub on
vitamin E. In spiked heels she traversed the football field, scuffing up white dust from the lines of the touchdown zone. Ahead, swarms of people gathered at the entrance to the locker room. She sauntered up behind a phalanx of silly screaming girls. Over their shoulders Sukie could see one player after another drift out. They were tired, spent, but revved by the fans cheering their victory. Sukie ruffled her hair so the gentle waves framed and flattered. “I am tall enough that a man who aims to find me can find me,” Mirror Sukie assured herself. Mirror Sukie didn’t worry that the tape would fall off her nose. In the mirror, now, her nose appeared corrected, rampless, no tape necessary. The sunset shimmered in intense heat, and for an instant the words
DANGER CAUTION
blazed. Just then the star quarterback ambled out, his hair still wet from the shower, stuck down in clumps. Even if I hadn’t seen him shake his head as adorably as a wet puppy, spraying drops in every direction, thought Sukie, I would know he was there from the chanting. “Go-bo Bobo, Go-bo Bobo, Go-bo Bobo.” With his confident slouch and lazy smile, he soaked up the adulation. At the same time, he searched. No one could tell. In the football game he dodged, ducked,
spun, and sprinted, but off the field Bobo was a study in minimalism.

His pupils flicked left to right. Giving no indication that the prize had been spotted, he eased forward slowly, and the cheering hordes pressed in. Ignoring them, he kept walking, and the fans, receiving neither encouragement nor resistance, no sense that they even existed, soon fell silent and drew back, providing a pathway straight to Sukie.

She slipped off her shoes and ran. Thank God for the slit in her skirt. Her running skills were on display. She too was an athlete.

They streaked down the field. She felt him closing in and slowed to provide the opportunity. He lunged and took her down, the deer slain by the hunter. They fell onto soft earth. “Roll me over,” said Sukie, and he did.

“Your nose,” he said.

“My nose?”

She sat up. In the mirror she saw the ramp spread, its edges sharpen. She had a road down her nose.

Sukie screamed.

Her mother screamed.

Señor screamed.

“Oh my God,” her mom wailed. “You scared me. I came in to say good-night and you made me scream again.”

Sukie jammed her face smack against the mirror. The taped construction had collapsed and her nose had returned to its normal ramped state. No longer a two-lane highway. No longer a runway for jet planes, or a football field where Bobo could be blitzing or being blitzed. Tape dangled half on, half off.

“What’s that tape on your nose? Are you making fun of me?”

“No.”

Her mother carried on piteously. “I’ve done nothing but scream since I’ve been home, and make faces I am absolutely not supposed to make. You and your father. And you know what? I’m not even allowed to cry.” She pushed Sukie aside to see in the mirror what damage had been done. She felt her neck and around her eyes and then slapped her hand again for misbehaving.

“Oh my God.” Sukie pointed to a tiny hairline crack. It meandered from one side of the mirror to the other about six inches from the bottom. She felt it. “The mirror just cracked. It cracked. How did it crack?”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing, I swear. I didn’t do anything. How could I do that?” Sukie, who specialized in fake baby voices, didn’t realize that she was squealing like a toddler.

Her mother raised the dimmer switch. In the unflattering overhead light, her mom’s face, swollen and pulpy, had a startlingly varied color palette. It reminded Sukie of the streaky mess that results when kids mush their finger paints together. “This is why I couldn’t live with my face,” said her mom.

Sukie wasn’t following. “Because of the mirror?”

“Decay.”

“Decay? What are you talking about? You’re only forty-one.”

Her mother ran her finger along the hairline crack. “Eventually everything goes.”

“Why did you change your nose?” asked Sukie.

“I hated it.”

“You hated it? Hated?” Sukie sat with a thump on the side of the tub.

“For goodness’ sakes, so what?”

Sukie stared at her feet. Her pinkie toe on her left foot was longer than her fourth toe. She’d forgotten that. Weren’t toes supposed to get smaller from one to the other? “Did you touch Señor’s feet?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why did he scream? He only screams when people touch his feet.” To trim his claws, the vet had to anesthetize him, because Señor uttered a yelp so shrill it could blow everyone’s eardrums. “You touched his feet,” said Sukie. “You did.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Bitch,” Sukie muttered. It was the first time in her life she’d called her mother a bitch, and she had no idea why she’d said it. It scared her a little.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

After a silence of mutual dislike they turned to Señor. What would he tell them, how might he scold them or provide some perspective? But he was having none of it. His jaw was set, his nostrils quivered, but Sukie and her mom rightly deduced that he had picked up the scent from the pizza delivery truck. They’d seen that look before.

“We had the same nose,” said Sukie plaintively.

“Mine was more pointed than yours.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, right at the tip.” Her mom ripped the tape off Sukie’s face and left.

Sukie slumped. Her arms hung limply, her bare knees knocked together. In this deflated pose, didn’t she look a little like a junkie? Didn’t she? She peeked in the mirror. Maybe. Anyway that wasn’t the point, she reminded herself. The point was, Her nose was awful. Her nose was so awful that her mother had it fixed. The point was, How can I take this nose to meet Bobo?

“Hey.”

Sukie jerked up. “Dad?” She craned her head. He was in her bedroom. She got up slowly, exhausted, and joined him. “Are you in pain, Dad?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” He grinned at her in a way that Sukie knew meant he had more to say. She waited while his smile bled off. He rubbed his fist against his lips. “Better not to talk about it,” he said finally. “You know, out there.”

She knew exactly what he meant, his incident on the tennis court. “Of course. I wouldn’t.”

He picked up
Madame Bovary
and examined the front cover, which pictured a woman with a lovely long arched neck, her eyes closed, her face suffused in either emotional pain or thrall. He turned it over and read the back. “An adulteress, huh?”

“It’s really good. It was shocking when it was written.”

“Good for you.”

She didn’t quite know what he meant by that.

He placed the book back on the desk, taking extra care to center it exactly the way Sukie had placed it originally. “I got a call from the hotel, the one where she stayed after her surgery. She took a duvet.”

“What?”

“Yep. She just took it. Packed it up.”

“Wow. How’d she squish it in? I mean into her suitcase?”

He pointed his finger at Sukie as if he had the answer and then let his hand slap down by his side. “Three hundred sixty dollars. I told them to put it on the credit card.”

“Why did she take it?”

“When you figure that out, let me know.” Sukie and her dad laughed. “Don’t tell her I told you.”

“I won’t.” Whatever her dad wanted, she would honor.

After a moment he said, “Promise?”

“I promise.” She spoke up louder because he seemed lost in thought. “Did you like Mom’s nose
before she changed it?”

He shrugged.

Sukie pressed. “Did you hate her nose before? Did you think it was ugly?”

“Crazy, really.” He might have been talking to himself, the way he said it, ever so quietly. Sukie waited for more, but he just rubbed his hand over his face. He walked over to her penguins and picked up Daphne, who had eyelashes and plaid wings. “Hey, I won this, didn’t I? At Magic Mountain.”

“Mom’s going to that school meeting about college. I don’t know what to tell kids.”

“About what?” He turned around. “Her face?”

Sukie nodded.

“You’ll think of something.”