Beauty (25 page)

“Hello?” I said groggily, my eyes too blurry with sleep to make out the name of the caller.

“Molly, it’s Mrs. Cahill. I’m so sorry to call you at this hour bu-but …” Mrs. Cahill trailed off, breaking down into sobs. In the background I could hear Olivia wailing: big gut-wrenching wails.

I pulled myself up in bed, sagging against the wall. “Is everything okay, Mrs. Cahill? Is Olivia okay?”

“She’s fine,” Mrs. Cahill choked out. She just … she won’t stop crying! And I thought maybe … maybe you could come out for a minute and—no, I’m sorry, this was a terrible idea. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m so sorry for waking you up.”

“Wait.” I sat up straighter. “Come out? Are you outside my house, Mrs. Cahill?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Cahill whispered.

I slid out of bed, grabbing a sweatshirt off my desk chair. “I’ll be right there.”

Mrs. Cahill was parked across the street in her green Volvo, a screaming Olivia clasped to her chest. I stifled a yawn as I climbed into the passenger seat.

“Oh Molly,” Mrs. Cahill sobbed. Her face was almost as red and tear-streaked as Olivia’s. “I just don’t know what to do. You worked such a miracle earlier, so I just, I found myself driving here… .”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Cahill. Really.” I reached out and touched one of Olivia’s pink hands. “Hi, Olivia,” I said softly. “Hi, cutie.” Olivia was crying harder than I’d ever seen a baby cry. Her whole body was shaking as she screamed, the noise pounding through the air around us. “Hi,” I said again, a little louder this time. I gave her hand a gentle tug, and slowly she looked over at me, her eyes finding my face. And just like that, she stopped crying.

“I knew it,” Mrs. Cahill breathed. “It’s your face. It seems to calm her somehow.”

“Shh,” I said soothingly, rubbing Olivia’s back. “Shh.” Olivia let out a little coo of contentment, her eyes still trained on my face. Then, with a soft sigh, she snuggled against her mom and promptly fell asleep.

“I don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Cahill whispered as she buckled a sleeping Olivia into her car seat. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” She was staring at me in awe, the lines on her face slowly relaxing.

I didn’t know what to say either. “Glad I could help,” I said at last. “You should go get some sleep.”

Mrs. Cahill nodded, still looking awestruck as she pressed a twenty-dollar bill into my hand. I tried to give it back, but she insisted. “Thank you, Molly. Thank you so much.”

I got back in bed after Mrs. Cahill left, but I couldn’t fall back asleep. I just kept thinking about Olivia, and how she’d stopped crying the instant she saw my face. In a way, it made me feel like the boys who followed me on my furious bike ride did. It was amazing how much my face had impacted them, but … it was also a little scary. If my face was capable of that, what else might it be capable of? I don’t know how long I stayed up wondering about that, but when my alarm went off in the morning, I felt like I’d just fallen asleep.

“Molly!” my dad called. “Seth! Time to get up!”

“I don’t feel good,” I groaned, wrapping my blanket tightly around me and burying my face in Spaghetti’s back.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” My dad came into my room, sitting down at the foot of my bed. I kept my face buried firmly in Spaghetti’s dark brown fur. I’d promised myself I’d show my parents my face once they got home, but they’d been so busy this week, it had just been easier not to. I thought about sitting up now—letting my dad see my face and the chips fall where they may, once and for all. But then I thought about all the questions he’d ask and how he’d frantically get my mom and … the whole thing just gave me a headache. I’d tell them. I would. I just needed to wait until everything calmed down.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked into Spaghetti’s back. She was usually the one to get us out the door in the mornings.

“She had an early showing for a house.” My dad gave my foot a squeeze. “What’s up, Mol Doll?” It was his old nickname for me, and I couldn’t help but smile into Spaghetti’s back. “You’re not feeling good?”

“Uh-uh. I think I’m sick.”

“Hmmm. Well, what hurts?”

“Everything.” I let out another groan for emphasis. “My head, my stomach, my toes …”

“Your toes?” My dad laughed. I could hear him shifting in his spot, probably looking at the clock to calculate how many minutes he had left before he had to get to work. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t think I feel up to going to school today,” I said meekly. That part, at least, was the truth. The thought of facing Hayley or Kemper right now made me feel queasy. All I wanted was to go back to sleep.

“All right,” my dad sighed. It was the good thing about never feigning sick. The one time you did, it was an easy sell. Especially with a dad who needed to get to work. “Stay home and rest. I have to get going, but call me or your mom if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” I murmured. I snuggled deeper into my blanket, pulling Spaghetti in with me. As my dad closed the door to my room behind him, I could already feel myself drifting back to sleep.

I woke to the sound of Seth’s voice. “It’s noon, Sleeping Beauty. Think you’re ready to grace the world with your presence?”

I sat up slowly, stretching my arms over my head. “What are you doing home?” I asked grouchily. My plan had been to have the house to myself for the whole day.

Seth smiled broadly. “I told Dad I was sick too. I mean, if you can do it, I can do it.”

“Maybe I really am sick,” I sniffed. My phone buzzed and I reached for it. I had a text from Sally, the play’s director, wondering if I was absent.

Yeah, sorry, sick
, I typed back.
But
I’ll be back @ rehearsal Thurs!

“You are so not sick.” Seth tossed a pillow at me. “Now get up. I’m bored. Want to go play video games?”

I didn’t respond, waiting for the catch or the joke or the insult that was sure to follow. It had been so long since Seth and I had spent any real time together, just for fun, that I barely remembered what it was like. But Seth just sat there, waiting for my answer. “Yeah,” I said finally. “Okay.”

Two hours later, we were on our fourth game of
Mars Attacks!
and our third plate of snacks. “Mom would kill us if she knew how much junk food we just consumed,” Seth said, tossing a handful of M&M’s into his mouth. “And she’d kill Dad if she knew he kept this stash around.” We’d found the plastic bag filled with candy in the back of the linen closet, hidden behind our dad’s toolbox.

I took a bite of a mini Snickers. “Seriously.”

Seth looked over at me, his eyes tracing from my forehead to my cheekbones to my chin. “Do they know yet?” he asked quietly. “About your … you know, new face?”

I shook my head. “I know I have to tell them eventually but … I guess I haven’t gotten up the courage yet. I just don’t know how they’re going to react.”

“How did it happen, Mol? Can you tell me? Did you get some kind of plastic surgery or something?”

“No!” I insisted. “Besides, plastic surgery takes
weeks
to recover from, Seth. I just woke up like this last Monday.”

“Wow. Like overnight growth spurt?” I shrugged, and Seth looked thoughtful as he fiddled with the controller in his hands. “Do you like it?”

“I—” I was about to say that of course I did, but then I stopped. “Most of the time,” I said instead, surprising myself.

“Well, my friends sure like it.” Seth rolled his eyes. “They won’t stop talking about you. Molly this and Molly that and when do we get to see Molly again? It’s driving me bonkers. And for that, I plan on kicking your butt in
Mars Attacks!
” He turned his focus back to the TV, his controller gripped carefully in his hands. “What do you say—best of seven?”

“You’re going down,” I told him.

An hour later, my phone buzzed from the coffee table. We had moved on to best of thirteen, so I paused the game as I reached for it. It was a text from Kemper.

R u sick?

I stared at my phone for a minute, trying to decide how to answer. Normally, of all people, Kemper would be the one I’d tell the truth to—that I’d just needed a day off. But she’d been so weird during the whole fight with Hayley yesterday. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into it with her.

Yeah
, I wrote back.
Will be back tmrw.

I got ur homework
, was her reply.

Thx
, I wrote back.

The whole conversation felt stilted, but I didn’t know what to say to fix it. So I said nothing. I tossed my phone back on the coffee table. It left me with a strange feeling in my stomach, like I’d eaten something bad. After everything that had happened this year, getting in a fight with Hayley hadn’t been that surprising. But I’d been best friends with Kemper since the third grade, and things had never once been weird between us in all those years. I sighed as I reached for my controller. I’d talk to her tomorrow, I told myself. And it would be fine. It would all be fine. “Get ready,” I told Seth. “Because this time my alien’s taking your alien down.”

By five o’clock, I’d played fifteen games of
Mars Attacks!
with Seth, and I was starting to go a little stir crazy. I’d given up on video games and was playing fetch on the stairs with Spaghetti when my cell rang.

“Mani-pedis,” Ashley announced when I answered the phone. “You, me, and Blair. Right now.”

“Ash, I stayed home sick from school today. My parents would kill me if I asked them to go out for mani-pedis.”

“So sneak out then.” She said it so casually, like she did it all the time. “Use the old pillows-stuffed-under-your-blanket trick. If you’re supposed to be sick, they’ll totally buy that you’re sleeping.”

“Huh.” It wasn’t a bad idea, really. And the thought of spending another five hours in my house made me want to run headfirst into a wall. “Okay,” I said slowly, weighing the words on my tongue. “I’ll sneak out.”

It actually turned out to be pretty easy. I made a deal with Seth: cover for me with Mom and Dad, and I’d refuse to utter so much as a word to his friends when they came over. Then, after stuffing my bed with pillows to make a “sleeping Molly,” I took off on my bike to meet Ashley and Blair.

“What do you think?” Ashley asked when I got to the salon. She and Blair were huddled together in front of a long row of nail polishes. She held up a pale lavender bottle. “Pretty? Or too light?”

“Pretty,” I decided.

Ashley nodded. “I’ll go with this one,” she told the manicurist waiting next to her.

“Me too,” Blair echoed, grabbing an identical bottle off the shelf. “You too, Molly?”

“I don’t know.” I took a minute to scan the rows and rows of colors. In the bottom row sat a neon pink, so bright it was almost blinding.

“I’m going to go with this one,” I said, grabbing the bottle.

Ashley and Blair eyed it doubtfully. “That’s pretty bright,” Ashley commented.

“I know. But Hudson and I have this joke with pink so I think he’ll get a kick out of it. Plus, it’s kind of a fun color, right?”

Ashley and Blair looked at each other. “Definitely,” Ashley agreed. “In fact, I’m going to get it too.”

“Me too,” Blair said quickly, bending down to swap polish bottles. “We can be nail triplets!”

“All right,” I said, following them to our pedicure chairs. “If you guys like it.”

“So Mr. G was totally worried about where you were today, Molly,” Ashley said as we got settled into our chairs.

“Really?” I had a hard time believing that. The last time I’d been out sick, I’d had to ask Mr. G three times to give me the assignment I’d missed. Then again, I hadn’t had this face then.

“Oh yeah,” Blair said. “He must have asked every person in class if they knew where you were and if you were sick and if so, what you had … etc., etc. There was some serious concern.”

“Is there something you’re not telling us about you and Mr. G, Mol?” Ashley wiggled her eyebrows at me suggestively.

“Ew, no way!” It flew out of me louder than I’d meant it to, and the entire salon fell quiet, looking in our direction. Which of course made the three of us burst out laughing.

“Okay, okay.” Ashley held a hand in the air in mock-defeat. “Just asking.”

“You’re crazy.” I laughed. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I felt a flash of guilt as I pulled it out. What if it was Kemper again? What would I say to her? But it was just Renee, the store manager from Haute. She’d sent me a picture. I opened it up and immediately wrinkled my brow in confusion. It was the picture of me and Hudson, from lunch yesterday. The one with our heads bent together and me flashing my Ring Pop at the camera. There was a message typed underneath it.

Look familiar? People keep showing me this picture off Facebook, trying to find the shirt you’re wearing. We’ve completely sold out of every color in the last 24 hrs! And we’re also getting nonstop requests for Ring Pops… .
Nice work, Molly! Come by anytime for a wardrobe update!

I leaned back in my chair, reading the text again. Did I really have that much influence now? All I had to do was wear a shirt, and suddenly everyone wanted it? And people were even asking for the candy
Ring Pop
I’d been wearing? Even after everything that had happened this last week, it still seemed unbelievable.

“What do you think, Mol?” Ashley wagged her freshly polished foot in the air. The pink looked even brighter against her skin than it had in the bottle. Like it could glow in the dark. “Hot?”

“Mm-hmm,” I said. An idea was taking form in my head. A test, in a way. “In fact,” I said, “I like it so much that I don’t think we should stop with just getting it painted on our nails. We should totally get it painted on our knuckles too!” I looked from Ashley to Blair, smiling brightly. “Don’t you think?”

“Um, well,” Ashley stammered.

“It will look really hot,” I assured her.

Ashley hesitated. It looked like she was waiting for me to say that I was joking, but when I didn’t, she flashed her own bright smile back at me. “Okay, let’s do it,” she said.

“It will look so cool,” Blair chimed in.

I rested my head against the stiff leather of the chair, watching as Ashley leaned forward to talk to her manicurist, pointing to her knuckles. If this was a test, I’d just passed it with flying colors. My heart picked up speed in my chest as I realized what it meant. What it all meant: Renee and the nail polish and the boys on the bikes and little baby Olivia. This face didn’t just make me beautiful. It was more than that. It made me powerful, too.