Mad Love (17 page)

My research goal was to collect some feelings and write them down, then apply them to Errol’s story—thus proving to Errol that I could make his story sing. But why was I so nervous? Tony had asked me out twice already. He’d given me yellow roses. As I looked at my reflection in the bus window, at my plain brown hair and round face, I wondered if his interest fell into the “friendship” category. He’d just moved to Seattle and didn’t know many people. I’m the kind of girl a guy might want to be friends with—
just
friends.

That’s when I saw it—a sandwich board with big pink letters:
VELVET’S TEMPLE OF BEAUTY.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I reached up and grabbed the red cord. A buzzer sounded up by the driver’s seat. He stopped at the next stop and I jumped off. My plan was to pull the oldest trick in the book. “A little hair spray, a little lipstick,” my mother often said, “and you can turn a frog into a princess.” Maybe I wasn’t a frog, exactly, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used a blow-dryer and round brush, or had my eyebrows waxed.

I turned down an alley that ran between a coffeehouse and a pharmacy. Velvet’s pink neon sign beckoned from the alley’s end. I opened the salon’s door and stepped into an air-conditioned land of pink—pink product bottles on pink shelves, a pink couch with fuzzy pink pillows, pink curtains, pale pink walls, a checkered pink floor. A catchy hip-hop song played overhead, its rhythm echoed in the tapping feet and swinging hips of Velvet’s salon girls. Dressed in pink aprons, they formed a line along the back wall, their hands flying this way and that as they worked their magic. Their clients read celebrity magazines, their feet also tapping to the music. The pink intensified when I took off my sunglasses, like seeing the world from the inside of a cotton candy machine.

“Alice.” Velvet hurried up to me, her red curls bouncing. “It’s so nice to see you. Girls, this is Alice. She’s Errol’s new girlfriend.”

The salon girls turned and waved at me. They were young and beautiful, with perfectly made-up faces and trendy haircuts. I recognized the two who had brought Errol breakfast and had collected his laundry. “I’m not Errol’s …,” I started to explain but Velvet took my hand and pulled me to an empty chair.

“I bet you came for your free makeover. This will be so much fun. I just love doing makeovers.” She grabbed a pink smock and tied it behind my neck. Then she pushed me into the chair. A mirror spread across the entire wall. “So,” she said, folding her arms. “What should we do with you?”

I had no answer. We stared at my boring reflection.

“There’s some reason you want a makeover,” Velvet said. “You obviously haven’t had your hair cut in ages, so why today of all days?”

“There’s this guy,” I said quietly.

“Errol?”

“Uh, no, it’s not Errol.”

Velvet smiled wickedly. “That’s all I need to know.” She swiveled my chair around and ran her fingers through my hair. “There are a few universal truths about beauty. While some guys like short hair and some like straight and some like curly, they all like long hair. It’s always been that way. So let’s keep your hair long, but how about we add some nice layers to make it bouncy and fresh?”

That sounded good.

An assistant washed, conditioned, and combed my hair. A different assistant served me sparkling cider in a champagne glass with a pink paper umbrella. Then Velvet started cutting my hair, her hands flying to the beat of the music. Small strands flew here and there, falling to the floor. Hair doesn’t lie. That’s what we learned in eighth-grade biology. Each strand of hair records a person’s life—the diet, the chemicals, emotional stress, all sorts of things. If you analyzed one of my fallen strands you’d find that it was mostly made of unhappiness. Good riddance.

Even though my hair was still wet, it already felt lighter and bouncier. The last time I’d gone to the beauty parlor was the day my mother was crowned Queen of Romance. I’d sat by her side as they prepared her for the photo shoot, a treat from her publisher. She’d been so happy that day, floating between the extremes. And I’d been so happy sitting next to her. The hairdresser had woven a ribbon in my hair to match my mother’s gown. I even got to try on the tiara.

“How long have you known Errol?” Velvet asked.

“Just a few days,” I said. “I know you think I’m his girlfriend, but I’m not.”

“But you have a mad crush. Go on, you can admit it. We’ve all had a mad crush on Errol, haven’t we, girls?”

“He’s so gorgeous,” one of the salon girls said.

“Totally gorgeous,” said another.

Velvet snipped some layers around my face. Her cleavage sparkled with glitter and she’d swapped her grape perfume for vanilla. “Do you remember how ragged he was when he stumbled in here?” she asked her girls. They nodded. “He’d run out of money and had no place to go. We felt so sorry for him. We all wanted to take care of him.” Then she turned on the dryer and worked my hair into impossible waves. The assistant grabbed a pink can and sprayed. A thick cloud, like nuclear fallout, filled the air above my head.

When the cloud cleared, the assistant wheeled a little cart and set it next to my chair. Velvet dipped a brush in hot wax, then applied it to my eyebrows. “The second universal beauty truth is that guys like big eyes,” she said. “Women have known that forever. The bigger, the better. Eyes may be the windows to the soul but windows are boring without the right trim and curtains.” I winced as little strands of hair were ripped from my brow.

“Where did Errol come from?” I asked. “I mean, why didn’t he have any place to stay?”

“He’s very mysterious about his past,” Velvet said. “He won’t tell me anything about his family. It was so weird but even though I didn’t know him when he first came in here, I felt like I had to help him.” She shrugged. “It was this overwhelming feeling. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Nor did I.

“But we’re not sleeping together, so you don’t have to worry. It’s not like that. Now hold very still and don’t speak so I can do your face.” She grabbed a palette of eye shadows and lipsticks and began dabbing and brushing as if my face were a piece of canvas.

Fifteen minutes later, she stepped back. The salon girls gathered round and smiled at me. “I’ve worked a small miracle,” she said. They nodded. I tried to turn around to look in the mirror but she held the swivel chair in place. “One more little touch before you look.” She held out a tiny heart, like the one she wore at the corner of her eye. She peeled off its sticky backing.

“Velvet?” I asked, as she pressed the heart onto my upper cheek. “What’s wrong with Errol? Why does he take so much medicine?”

“Because he’s dying,” she said.

Dying.

She’d said that word very matter-of-factly. Then she said, “Ta-da!” and turned me around to face the mirror. I gasped. A girl with huge eyes and bouncy hair looked back at me.

“Dying?” I asked.

“Three rounds of chemo couldn’t beat the cancer,” Velvet said, removing my smock. “That’s where all his money went. And now the doctor says there’s nothing more to be done. It’s just a matter of time.”

We only have a few days
, Errol had told me.

Errol has cancer
, I thought as Velvet fluffed my hair. Time was, once again, squeezing my world with its impatient fingers. And Errol’s world too. As Velvet reached for a can of hair spray, I slipped out of the chair.

“Thank you so much for the makeover,” I said, hurrying toward the door.

“Wait. Don’t you want to know the third universal beauty truth?” Velvet called. I stopped, mostly just to be polite.

“Okay.”

“The third truth is that no guy’s going to think you’re beautiful if you don’t believe it yourself.”

“Thanks again,” I said, panic rising in my throat. Only a few days.

“Good luck!” she called as I stepped back into the humid July air.

Soon after, I stood on the cobblestones of Pioneer Square, staring across the street at the red door with the golden pillars. My pits were sweaty again. Errol wanted me to do this. This was for him. For his story. For
our
story. This was research. So why was my heart pounding? Why was I feeling like a total chicken?

An
OPEN
sign beckoned from the window of Lee’s Antiquities. I imagined myself turning the knob, opening the door, and stepping inside. Tony would be sitting at the counter just like before and he’d smile at me. I took a step. I took another step. It felt like a moth was trapped in my stomach.

Still summoning courage, I darted into the candy shop next door to Lee’s and bought some chocolates.
Get over yourself. Tony likes you, you know that. So march right in there and ask him on a date. And if you’re still too nervous, then remember that this is a mission to save your mother’s career, and, as it turns out, to help a dying guy with his final request.

Poor Errol. Three rounds of chemotherapy. No wonder he thought he was a Roman god. Chemicals had fried his brain.

Back on the sidewalk, little paper bag in hand, I lifted my foot to take that big step, when a girl darted in front of me. She peered through Lee’s picture window and waved. The red door opened right away and Tony stepped out. “Hi,” he said to the girl, whose long blond hair was the color of honey.

“Hi,” she said back.

Tony leaned against the doorway, his arms tan against the pale blue of his T-shirt. I stood off to the side, stiff and silent. He’d opened the door so quickly. Had he been waiting for her?

She swept her hair behind her shoulders. “You said noon, right?”

“Yeah. Noon.” Those two freckles danced on his cheek as he smiled at her. Then his gaze drifted over her shoulder and he saw me, standing there. Just standing there. The girl turned around and they both looked at me. Still just standing there. “Alice?” His smile dropped. “What are you doing here?”

What was I doing there?

“Alice?” Tony repeated. “You look different.”

The little moth went spastic in my stomach. “I’m doing some errands.”

Tony looked from me to the blond girl, then back to me. The girl glanced at her watch. Tony shifted his weight. No one said anything. No introductions were made, and you’d think Tony would introduce us because he always seemed so polite.
Blond Girl, this is Alice. I gave her a bouquet of yellow roses. Alice, this is Blond Girl. I’m going to marry her.

“Okay,” I said. “Bye.”

“Alice?” he called as I walked away, fighting the urge to break into a run.

The sun beat down on my shoulders as I waited at an intersection. A Turkish rug seller tried to convince me to come into his shop but I ignored him. Honestly, why would a sixteen-year-old want to buy a rug? And why wouldn’t Tony want to go out with that cute girl? I’d had plenty of opportunities. I could have accepted his offer to go to the movies when we first met. I could have called him after he’d given me the flowers. I could have said something to him all those times he’d skated past.

I picked the little heart off my cheek and flicked it away. Then I reached into the paper bag and grabbed a chocolate that might have once been round, or might have once been square, but was now just a wad of melted goo.

That’s what happens when you wait too long.

Tony
Lee was a distraction. I didn’t need him.

And I didn’t need to do any research. Errol was totally wrong about that. I’d read a million romance novels. I knew exactly what Heartstrings Publishers liked. I didn’t need experience with first dates or second dates or even with sex to write about it. Writers constantly write about things they’ve never experienced. What fantasy writer has actually slain a dragon or melted a witch? Do mystery writers actually commit murder? Do most romance writers have steamy affairs with ripped, long-haired hunks? I highly doubt it.

Five blocks from home I ran into Archibald. On lunch break, he sat at a kosher delicatessen’s sidewalk table, safely tucked beneath the shade of a pin-striped awning. “Alice,” he called with a graceful wave. “Your haircut is adorable.”

We hugged. Archibald’s hugs didn’t come with soft rolls of belly fat like Mrs. Bobot’s hugs or with the vast six-foot-six expanse of the reverend’s hugs. Archibald was lean and just a little taller than I was—the perfect size to be my dance partner, if I ever needed one.