The List (12 page)

little before midnight, Candace stands at the lip of her backyard swimming pool. A silvery tarp stretches across the rectangle, pulled taught like the skin of a trampoline. Dead leaves, dropped acorns, and dirt marinate in shallow puddles, the remains of a recent rainstorm.

Her mom’s boyfriend, Bill, closed the pool weeks ago, at the end of August, despite Candace’s pouting that there were plenty of hot days still to come. She hadn’t wanted summer to end. Summer had been entirely too much fun. Her friends had come over nearly every day, depending on whom Candace had been in the mood to invite. There were only four patio chairs to lie out on, and that had been her excuse for being selective. Really, though, Candace liked the power of this musical chairs game, with her stopping the music and her friends scrambling for an open seat. All her friends wanted to be invited, and even if one girl was mad to have been skipped over on a particular day for whatever reason struck Candace, she’d be so happy to be asked the next that she’d forget about the hard feelings. They listened to the radio, shared bottles of coconut oil, passed magazines, rotated themselves in tandem with the sun.

Candace’s tanning drove her mom crazy, and it was probably why she’d been so insistent that Bill close it up. Ms. Kincaid would regularly emerge from the patio door veiled by a straw hat with a ridiculously large brim to lecture the girls on the dangers of the sun, show them department store receipts of how
much a good wrinkle cream went for these days, warn them that they’d never look as beautiful as they did right now.

Candace would roll her eyes behind her sunglasses and recall how her mom had looked when she was a teenager spending the summers at Whipple Beach, with tan lines that rivaled the swirls of vanilla ice cream in a caramel sundae. If Candace’s bikini wasn’t wet, she’d even bring out some pictures from the mantel to prove her point.

And then Ms. Kincaid would soften and lower herself to a seat on the edge of Candace’s lounge chair. She’d share a couple stories about the boys who’d tried to get their Frisbees to land on her towel, how Candace’s grandfather had taken to sleeping on the porch swing to make sure no boys came to steal his daughter away, the catalog work she’d done for a now-defunct department store. Then she’d kiss Candace’s forehead and offer vague life advice to the girls, such as “Live like there’s no tomorrow.”

When Ms. Kincaid would leave, the girls would tell Candace how beautiful her mom had been, and how Candace looked just like her. Candace knew her mom listened from behind the venetian blinds.

This performance occurred every few weeks. Each seeking compliments over applause.

Now Candace peels back a corner of the pool cover. She is pleased to find the water underneath still turquoise and beautiful. But despite her being careful, a bit of the slippery muck slides into the pool and clouds it.

Last year, Candace began to wonder if maybe she’d be tapped to make the list before she graduated. She imagined herself getting mailed an envelope with an anonymous note
and the embossing stamp, or perhaps an invitation to join a secret society of girls at the fifty-yard line of the football field at midnight or something dramatic like that. She’d do a great job making the list, because she has the confidence to tell it like it is, to be completely objective evaluating other girls. Not like whoever had made the list this year. Putting her as the ugliest sophomore is clearly a cheap shot from someone jealous of her.

She gingerly dips her toe and the chill bolts through her, shaking her as if she’d been dreaming. She takes a small step back, the sight of her bare legs and torso catching her off guard. Looking back toward the house, she sees her pajamas discarded in a pile next to the patio chair. On the cushion, the pages of her open notebook flutter in the breeze. In the sliding glass door, there’s her ghostly reflection, wearing only her bra and underwear, surrounded by the raw colors of autumn and a smoky night sky.

A lump fills her throat.

She’d been online for hours after school. And not one chat window had opened.

No one had said they were sorry that Candace had been on the list.

No one had said it was wrong.

No one had even talked to her at school today.

No one but Horse Hair.

Candace takes a deep breath and leaps toward the water. She jumps too far and her feet hit the pool cover, ripping it free from its tethers and sinking it down with her. When she hits the bottom, a twig pierces the sole of her left foot, and pain momentarily overtakes the squeeze of the bitterly cold water.
She pops back up, breaking the surface with a yelp, and swims for the edge.

The patio door slides open and her mom darts out, all perfect hair and makeup and perfume and clothes. “Candace! Candace!” Halfway to the pool, Ms. Kincaid clips an ottoman and upends it. She stops to check her stockings for a rip.

Candace pulls herself up and sits on the edge, the cement prickling her underwear, the water streaming off of her. She pulls her foot into her lap and squeezes where it’s bleeding, hoping to push out whatever punctured her. “Get me a towel, okay?”

Ms. Kincaid stands over her in disbelief. She raises her hands, then lets them drop to her sides. Her silver bracelets jangle. “You’ve ruined the pool cover! I’m going to have to beg Bill to come and fix this. He’ll probably have to drain the water, with the crap you’ve spilled in. What in god’s name were you thinking, Candace?”

Candace looks up at her mom. She wants to tell her about the list, about everything. But it’s too embarrassing to try to explain what had happened. Her mom would probably get so worked up over it, she’d go into school and raise hell with Principal Colby. And Candace has already caused enough trouble on that front. She knows the way she acted in Principal Colby’s office only made things worse for her, made her look even more pathetic.

So instead Candace snaps, “Are you going to get me a towel or what?”

Ms. Kincaid walks away and picks up Candace’s notebook instead. “Are you running Spirit Caravan again this year?”

“Yeah.”

“And these are all the girls who want to ride with you?”

Candace knows what her mom is looking at — a column of names stretching down the page. A list of her friends. Girls she thought had cared about her, girls who now celebrated her misfortune.

A list of suspects.

“Who’s Horse Hair?”

“Some new girl.”

“Sounds … cute,” Ms. Kincaid says with a chortle.

Candace shakes her head, grabs her things, and says sharply, “Actually, she is.”

Horse Hair, who’s been transformed overnight into a symbol of beauty and niceness. It had been completely embarrassing how earnest Horse Hair had acted when she’d tried to talk to Candace in the bathroom. Like she was so pious and above it. Like she didn’t care about being on the list one bit.

Who knows?
Candace thinks.
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she
is
that weird.

Candace walks inside the house, dripping water onto the carpet. She heads for the first-floor bathroom, the one adjacent to her mother’s bedroom. Candace grabs a towel hanging next to the sink. She is about to dry her face but stops. The towel is smeared and stained like a painter’s rag, a rainbow of colored blotches. “Ew, Mom.”

Ms. Kincaid huffs and pulls another towel out from under the sink. “Here. This one’s clean,” she says. It is also stained, but at least it smells like fabric softener.

Candace wipes herself down, careful not to knock anything over. Every inch of the counter is covered by glass bottles and tubes and pots and brushes and sponges.

Her mom doesn’t need it. She is a beautiful lady. But she’s
hardly ever without it. Candace hates seeing her in bright light. Painted women have a different look to their skin. Fuzzy. The little invisible hairs thickened with powder.

“I brought you this from the studio.” Ms. Kincaid digs in one of the tackle boxes full of makeup and produces a tiny palette of gold eye shadow. “Won’t this go nicely with your homecoming dress? Oh, Candace. Will you pleeeease let me do your makeup for the dance? You know I can do younger looks, too.” Ms. Kincaid works as a makeup artist for the local news, camouflaging high-definition wrinkles.

“Maybe,” Candace says. Though at this point, she wonders if she’ll go to the dance at all.

Her mom is always pushing a weird green eyeliner, a matte coral lipstick, or fox-fur eyelashes on her. She didn’t seem to get that kids in high school didn’t go for the overly dramatic, editorial look. For prom, maybe. But certainly not every day. Still, it is great to have someone who can expertly mix Candace’s exact shade of foundation for her occasional pimple.

“Why don’t you invite the girls over to take pictures before the dance?”

Candace thinks about it. A pre-party. It might help to smooth things over. “Can you get us alcohol?”

“Candace …” Ms. Kincaid groans. She’d hooked Candace up a few times for parties over the summer, but had said that was over now that school had started back up.

“Two bottles of rum,” Candace pleads. And then, to sweeten the deal, she adds, “I’ll let you do my makeup.”

“Really?”

“Yup. You can do whatever you want to me. Gold eye shadow, black lipstick —”

“Come on,” her mom says. “I would never put black lipstick on you.”

“I’m just saying, Mom. You can go wild.”

“I don’t need to
go wild
,” Ms. Kincaid corrects. “A makeup artist’s job is to accentuate and highlight your natural beauty. Which you, my darling, have oodles of.”

Candace leans forward to hug her, even though she’s still all wet. As she does, a bottle of foundation falls into the sink and breaks, sending glugs of thick orange down the drain.

fter smacking her alarm, Sarah rolls over in her bed and sniffs her armpit.

She frowns. It’s been three days without a shower, and she is not nearly as stinky as she wants to be. Barely smelly, in fact. Which completely blows.

Then again, when her grandma started to have bladder problems, she had absolutely no idea her whole house reeked of piss.

Sarah gets up and checks herself in the mirror. At least she looks disgusting.

The
UGLY
on her forehead is still surprisingly intact, but she doubts it will last until Saturday. Maybe on the night of the dance, she’ll retrace it for effect.

The front pieces of her hair are greasy from the roots down to the tips, and no matter how many times she brushes them, they don’t fall like normal hair. Instead, they stay separated with grease, like they don’t want to touch each other. The back of her hair, where it had been buzzed, is terribly itchy and dry, and though she’s never had a problem with dandruff before, white flakes float down and land on her shoulders when she rakes her fingers over her scalp.

Sarah has good skin without even trying, except for the occasional pimple before she gets her period. But today she finds tiny clogged pores dotting her cheeks, hard zits that don’t have heads but make her face look pebbled.

The moons of her fingernails are rimmed in black.

The insides of her ears itch.

She gets dressed as quickly as possible. It is definitely a test of will to put these dirty clothes on her dirty body. The neck of Milo’s T-shirt is stretched out, the collar sagging precariously low on her chest, like a shirt one size too large for her. The armpits are rimmed in white from the salt residue of dried sweat. Her jeans are no longer tight, but baggy in the ass and the knees, and have a dusty feeling. Her underwear is just straight-up gross, her socks, too — fibers stiff and crusty.

At least it’s Wednesday,
she tells herself. It’s already half over. By the dance, she’d hopefully be as ripe as a homeless person.

On her ride to school, it occurs to Sarah that most of the kids in Mount Washington have probably never even seen a homeless person before. Sheltered little babies.

Milo is at the bench. His sketchbook is open in his lap, and he’s hunched over, drawing. Sarah climbs off her bike and walks slowly, quietly over.

She remembers Sunday.

She’d been on his floor, flipping through that sketchbook, checking out his drawings. Milo was an excellent artist, and she really wanted to work with him, maybe on a comic, or just get him to illustrate some of her poems. Milo didn’t even know she wrote poems, because her poems were mostly crap that she would die if anyone saw, but there were a few that Sarah might share with him. Maybe.

Most of Milo’s sketches were of manga girls. Schoolgirl fantasy types with big chests ready to burst from their uniforms, long shiny hair, puckered lips. Always so vulnerable and
demure, so primed to be taken advantage of. It made her uncomfortable, which she knew was ridiculous. It wasn’t jealously, exactly. After all, they were cartoons. And it wasn’t like she and Milo were girlfriend/boyfriend or anything.

Sarah flipped a page and saw a drawing of a girl. A very real Asian girl. A school picture was taped in the corner of the page for reference. It was the first time Sarah thought that one of Milo’s drawings wasn’t awesome. It didn’t even come close to capturing how pretty this girl was. She wore a pink blouse, her hair falling over one shoulder, a perfect smile, sparkling eyes, a tiny gold
A
pendant draped over her collarbone. She looked like an Asian angel.

“Who’s this?”

Milo was sitting on his bed, watching her. “That’s Annie.”

She’d known Milo had an ex-girlfriend back in West Metro. They’d broken up before he’d moved to Mount Washington, but they were still friends. Every so often, Sarah would see Annie’s name on his phone or in his e-mail. He’d talk about her, too. Now, thinking back, it seemed to Sarah like he brought up Annie a lot. Sarah had never seen Annie’s picture.

She’d always assumed they looked relatively the same.

Something stormy and panicked grew inside her. It was the feeling of having caught Milo in a lie, or in a disguise that she now saw through. All the times he’d talked about Annie, he never once mentioned that she was beautiful. It made her question everything about Milo, that he’d picked this girl to be with. Maybe, if she hadn’t invited him to come and sit on her bench, he would have waited to get adopted by the people she hated, and he would have dated someone like Bridget Honeycutt.

A shadow crossed the page as Milo crawled down from the
bed, leaned forward, and kissed her on the lips. Sarah pulled away, shocked … and saw Milo’s extremely pleased look. He was happy he’d thrown her for a loop. There was no trace of the shy, timid boy she’d met. No trace of him at all.

Sarah quickly got her bearings. She closed the sketchbook, rocked forward to her knees and kissed Milo hard on the mouth, hoping it might wipe the image of Annie out of her mind.

It didn’t.

After that, it was a game of chicken, raising the stakes until there was nowhere else to go. Sarah never backed down. Ever. Milo probably knew as much. Maybe he even used that against her. Maybe he’d known that she’d wanted this to happen all summer long.

But the whole time, she couldn’t make sense of how Milo could want to be with her when he’d had a girl like that. It wasn’t even hurtful so much as common sense. These opposites didn’t attract. That and the embarrassing fact that she’d had her first kiss, her first everything, all in one night, with a boy she suddenly hardly knew.

As she chains up her bike, Milo says, “So Annie says I have to get you a corsage for the homecoming dance.”

Sarah lets her bike crash on the ground, and she doesn’t bother picking it up. “What did you tell her?” For the first time, she is embarrassed about what she’s decided to do. And she feels dirtier than she has all morning.

In a low voice, he says, “I didn’t tell her about, you know, the not-showering thing. Only that we were going to the dance together.”

Sarah shakes her head. She’s not sure if that’s better or worse. “Milo, I told you I don’t want a corsage.”

“I know, but Annie said you probably want me to buy you one, even if you tell me you don’t.”

Sarah is shaking. “Annie doesn’t know me. And apparently, neither do you.”

“Sarah, I only thought —”

“I don’t want a fucking corsage!” she screams at the top of her lungs. Everyone at Freshman Island turns to look.

“Okay! Okay! No corsage!” Milo closes his sketchbook. He takes a deep breath, so deep his shoulders nearly touch his ears. His face is bright red. “Sarah, I need to ask you something. Did I suck? You know … in bed?”

Sarah winces. “Oh my god, what?”

“I’m serious. You’ve barely wanted to look at me for the last few days. I keep thinking it’s because I… I was disappointing.”

Couldn’t Milo tell that she’d liked it? Or was he holding her up to someone like Annie? She takes a seat at the other end of the bench, making sure there’s some distance between them. “First of all,
ew
, Milo. I am not going to comment on that at all. Ever. Secondly, I’ve had other things on my mind besides you.”

“Then can we talk about that? I mean, am I such a dick that you can’t talk to me about what you’re feeling? Like I can’t understand how hurtful it is to have people call you ugly?”

Sarah laughs. What she wants to say is,
Oh! Why? Did Annie have that problem?
She doesn’t say it. She laughs and tries to make Milo feel stupid so he’ll stop talking.

“You know I like you. Right, Sarah?”

The words are nice to hear, of course. But there’s too much going on for Sarah to feel the warmth. It’s already so cold out.
If she and Milo were together, she’d always be wondering. She’d compare herself to Annie, and worry that he’d leave her for someone better if he got the chance. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

“So you regret …
you know
… with me?” He looks physically pained.

“I regret this whole conversation, Milo. I mean, I’m not looking to have a big talk-show moment with you on our couch.”

“I’m trying to be there for you.”

“What do you want me to do? Cry in your arms?”

“I want you to talk to me like we’re friends.”

Sarah lets her head drop into her hands. “So now we’re friends? Okay. Then I don’t have to worry about you trying to hold my hand anymore?”

Milo’s mouth gets thin and tight. “No.”

“Look, don’t get all crybaby about it. I’m going to buy my homecoming ticket. If you still want to come with me, you can. If not, whatever. That’s fine, too. Do what you want.”

Milo fishes in his pocket. “I’m going with you. I haven’t changed my mind.” He hands her his money.

Sarah feels something tucked into the folded bill. A small rectangle.

A piece of gum.

Milo drops his head. “Don’t be pissed. Your breath kind of stinks, Sarah. And I don’t want anyone to say something that might hurt your feelings.”

Sarah takes the gum and throws it back at him. “Gee, thanks, Milo.”

It would be so much easier, she thinks, if she had never become friends with him at all.

She marches into school. Near the main office, there’s a
table manned by two senior girls selling dance tickets. They both have little stickers on their chests that say V
OTE
Q
UEEN
J
ENNIFER
.

Jennifer Briggis. For homecoming queen? Are they fucking serious?

If anything, this makes Sarah even more determined to see her anarchy through to the end. Jennifer is proof positive that this sick tradition of the list needs to be subverted and fucked up from the inside out. Jennifer is like a prisoner of war, passed out from having been beaten down so terribly after all these years. Sarah would be the smelling salts.

She wants to puke all over the girls at the table. Instead she says, “Gee. That’s one hell of an apology.”

One girl, the one making up the stickers, looks up, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the whole ‘Vote Queen Jennifer’ thing! It’s nice. You know, after calling her an ugly piece of shit for four years.” She holds out her money. “Two tickets.”

The girls share unsure looks with each other. Neither one takes Sarah’s money.

Sarah leans forward, opens the cash box, and shoves her money inside. Then she grabs two tickets. “See you both on the dance floor!”

As she walks away, she hears one of the girls hiss, “God, she smells disgusting!”

Sarah smiles as she walks away, the first time today. She’ll smell up the entire gym on Saturday night. She’ll shake her stench all over the place. The pretty girls in their pretty dresses will have to sit on the bleachers, pinching their noses. She’ll make sure she’s the only one having a great time.