The Girl with the Mermaid Hair (16 page)

L
ONG into the night they discussed the mirror. They were snuggled in bed—Frannie in her own, Sukie and Jenna in sleeping bags on air mattresses. The lights were out, and they each had a pile of goodies scrounged from the kitchen cupboards—chocolate-covered mints, chips, raisins (for Jenna), and red licorice vines from Halloween, stale and tough but still tasty. Aside from their whispers, the only other sounds were crunching, chewing, the crinkle of paper, or the slurp of a tongue sucking a mint until it dissolved. The privacy of darkness made it easier to confide. Sukie told them how much fun she’d had in the mirror, about the dreamy encounters with Bobo, the soothing visits with Issy.

“Everything was so much nicer in the mirror,” she said.

“Nicer than what?” said Jenna.

“Than my life. Except sometimes.”

She told them about the freaky wicked turns—her butt as big as an island, her ramp a four-lane highway.

“What ramp?” said Frannie.

“The ramp down my nose. The one my mother got rid of.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Frannie. “I’d kill for your nose.”

“Why? What’s wrong with
your
nose?” Jenna asked Frannie.

“The bump.”

“But it’s elegant.”

“A bump isn’t elegant.”

“It is, it’s positively regal. My nose is so little and perky,” said Jenna. “Who wants perky?”

It turned out no one liked her own nose. Sukie, brushing potato chip crumbs off her pillow, wondered if spending all that time relating to her reflection, rather than, say, another person, might possibly have blown her anxieties out of proportion.

“I trust only one mirror,” said Frannie. “The one in
the downstairs bathroom. If I’m going out, that’s the one I look in.”

“Why is that?” asked Jenna.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the mirror, maybe it’s me.”

“My grandmother’s mirror is especially flattering,” said Sukie. “Except when it isn’t.”

“Sometimes,” said Jenna, “when I’m in dance class, I go nearly mad looking in the mirror. I see my thighs, only my thighs, nothing else, and they look simply huge, especially compared to Cecelia’s thighs. She dances next to me. If you watch yourself in the mirror, you can’t dance. I mean, you can but not really because you’re supposed to let go, to feel the music and the movement, and yet how in the world am I expected to do that with all those mirrors?”

“Your thighs are perfect,” said Sukie. “I’d love to have your graceful ballet legs.”

“Remember when Mom forced me to play soccer?” said Frannie.

“You hated it,” said Jenna.

“I was on that team,” said Sukie.

“Right, you were. You were good, but the coach, Coach Randall McCord, I remember his whole name,
it’s burned in my brain because he was really mean to me. I’d be daydreaming in the middle of practice and the ball would go right by or hit me on the head, and he would scream. He called me Flake.”

“I vaguely remember that,” said Sukie.

“‘Hey, Flake, wake up.’ ‘Hey everyone, look at Flake.’ ‘Hey Flake, run around the track ten times.’ I’d come home, lock myself in the bathroom, and tell him off in the mirror. I would call him much worse names than Flake.” Frannie giggled. “Then I would say, ‘You are arrested for extreme mental and physical cruelty and are going straight to jail.’ It really helped, it did, it helped.”

“Who used to sing in the mirror, raise her hand?” said Jenna.

They all raised their hands.

“What about with a hairbrush for a microphone?”

They all kept their hands up.

Sukie sat up and pulled the sleeping bag around her shoulders to keep warm. “I have to tell you something strange. My mirror cracked. I feel as if I caused it because it didn’t just crack, it kind of cracked up. But that’s impossible. I researched it. Telekinesis has no basis in science. That a person can cause an object to
move or change…that energy, grief, or I guess joy or anxiety or even fierce determination could cause something to happen…people claim to have done it, but there’s no proof at all.”

“Just because you can’t prove something scientifically,” said Frannie, “doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Things happened to me—”

“Things?”

“After my dad died,” said Frannie.

She left it at that, and the silence that followed was deep, like the quiet of deep sleep. Sukie knew not to pry further.

“You lived in that mirror more than you lived in the real world,” said Frannie.

“It’s true,” said Sukie.

“So.”

T
HE next morning when Sukie was eating French toast in the most delicious way, with sour cream and blueberry jam, and Frannie’s mother was fretting about how many more poinsettia plants to order for the Christmas season, the doorbell rang.

“Your dad’s here, Sukie,” Mel called.

“You don’t have to see him,” said Frannie, “does she, Mom?”

Sukie looked pleadingly at Frannie’s mom as her dad came into the kitchen. He didn’t put out his arms as he normally would and expect her to fly into them. All he said was “Hi, kiddo.” He didn’t mosey around to investigate his surroundings and lay on the compliments or probe Mel about his work or Frannie’s
mom about the flower business. He pulled out a chair at the breakfast table and sat down next to his daughter. “How about some tennis?”

“It’s twelve degrees out,” said Sukie.

“Not quite. More like forty. I brought your racket and sweats. It will be fun.”

In the car Sukie kept her eyes directed out the side window. She counted out-of-state license plates, a game she and Mikey used to play, but the thing about riding in cars is that eventually you talk. There is too much history, going for ice cream, being picked up from school or taken to the movies. Or, as her dad was doing right now, driving to the club. Sukie and her dad had ridden together too many times and shared too many confidences on those car trips not to end up talking now.

After a few blocks of quiet, her dad jumped to the heart of the matter.

“Look,” he said, “I’d like to tell you that I’m a good guy, that your mom and I are back on track, and that your life is going to be easy, but I think what I have to be with you is honest. I don’t know what’s in store.”

“Are you and mom getting divorced?”

“We don’t know. Your mom and I lost our way.
You know, she’s difficult and—”

“Stop,” said Sukie. “Stop right there, Dad. Don’t criticize Mom to me. I don’t want you to do that anymore even though…well, I just don’t.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“That guy called you slime.”

“What guy?”

“The one who punched you.”

“Richie?”

“That was Richie?” said Sukie. “That was Issy’s boyfriend?”

“He’s a hothead.” Her dad pulled over and let the car idle. He drummed his thumb on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry you went through that, and all of this.”

“Is he right? Are you slime?”

“What do you think?”

Sukie shook her head. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Your mom wants to see you.”

“No way,” said Sukie.

“I know she booted you out, but she went a little crazy when she found out…” Sukie could see that it took great effort but he forced himself not to hedge.
“…when she found out about me and Isabella.”

“I’ll never forgive her.”

“I hope you do,” said her dad. “I hope you’ll forgive us both.”

“Are you living at the house now?”

“No, but nothing is settled.” He started up the car again and pulled into traffic. “God, I miss tennis, don’t you? I can’t wait to see that killer forehand of yours.”

“Do you know if Mom happened to notice Grandma’s mirror?” asked Sukie.

“She didn’t say anything. Why?”

“It cracked. It cracked a million ways from Sunday.”

“How?”

“Stress,” said Sukie.

M
IKEY tore down the stairs and threw himself at Sukie. When she half carried, half dragged her brother back upstairs because he simply would not let go, Señor came to greet her at the top. He brushed against Sukie’s legs, circling around and around, rubbing against her.

“Hi, my darling beast.” She knelt and hugged him, pressing her face into his fur, inhaling the musty scent of a dog seriously in need of a bath.

She tapped the door to her room and let it swing slowly and soundlessly open. After the comforting mess of Frannie’s bedroom, with its collage of personal expression on the walls, display of bizarre objects, rumpled spread with an ink stain, her own neat and
pretty environment seemed the room of a stranger. She sat on the edge of the bed and bounced gently, reacquainting herself with it.

Her mother bustled in, setting down a vase with some pink baby roses in it. “A homecoming,” she said. “I picked up some tacos for lunch, the ones with chicken, your favorite.”

She fussed with the buds, pulling the roses this way and that. Her hair, normally exquisitely coiffed, appeared egg-beaten in the back. She’d obviously brushed the front that morning and, either from loss of focus or despair, had forgotten to do the rest of it. When she finally turned, she couldn’t quite meet Sukie’s eye. Her face, bright thanks to an application of full makeup, still had shadows of sleeplessness. Her blush was too bright and sharply drawn. She hadn’t blended. Since her mom was big on blending and had held forth on the subject on many occasions, Sukie knew that her mom was a wreck.

Already, within seconds of seeing her, Sukie felt more sorry for her mom than she did for herself.

“Oh yes, I also got that cake you love, the yellow with the pink frosting. I might even have some.”

There would be no apology, Sukie realized. Flowers,
tacos, and cake were the closest her mother could come.

It was a perfect time to break the news. Her mom was vulnerable. She was feeling guilty, albeit without the courage or grace to meet the problem head-on, nevertheless she was trying to inch into Sukie’s good graces while overwhelmed with her own marital problems. She’d never have the energy or inclination now to pitch a fit, and Sukie did not have the tiniest twinge of guilt in taking advantage of that.

“Grandmother’s mirror,” said Sukie. “I’ve been meaning to show you.”

She walked into the bathroom. Her mother followed.

“Oh, dear,” her mom said as she and Sukie beheld their distorted reflections in the splintered glass. “It’s literally gone to pieces. I’ve never heard of anything like this, of a mirror disintegrating like a natural disaster. I’ve seen spots on old mirrors, mottling like the skin on old people’s hands, but this? It has to go.”

“Does it?” said Sukie.

The mirror had reflected every turn her mind took, every anxiety, every wish, every vanity, and it had cracked under the strain, she had no doubt about it. For good and bad it reflected her soul, and that made
it, in some true way, a living thing.

How could she get rid of it?

She was even frightened to get rid of it.

How could she keep it?

“Should we save the frame?” said her mom. “Or see if an antique dealer wants it? Is it actually silver? It could be pewter or even steel. Maybe we should simply cart it to the sidewalk and let the garbage men take it.” Her mom rubbed her back against the doorjamb. “I have an itch and I’m practicing for when I’m alone. I mean if your dad and I don’t…” She faltered. “Well, it’s not a big problem, it’s just I’ve been thinking about all of it, large and small.”

“Maybe Señor could learn to scratch you. He’s good at scratching himself.”

They smiled and, in the broken mirror, four broken smiles came back at them.

Her mother stroked the frame. “It’s useless now.”

“Which means…,” said Sukie. “Do you know what that means?”

“What?”

“It’s art.”

“F
RANNIE’S here,” called Sukie’s mom.

Sukie stuck her head over the banister and waved her up.

“Where is this thing?” said Frannie as Sukie’s phone rang.

“Here, this way, in the bathroom. Hello. It’s Jenna,” she told Frannie. “She’s parking. She’s getting out of the car, she’s walking up the front walk, she’s ringing the doorbell.”

The doorbell rang.

“It’s Jenna, for me,” called Sukie.

“Hi,” said Jenna, walking in and shrugging off her parka. “Sukie’s expecting me.”

“Well, sure.” Her mom was smiling as widely as
her face work could ever permit. “Go right on up.”

Sukie and Frannie lifted the mirror off the bathroom wall and, with Jenna directing and Mikey and Señor getting in the way, carried it into Sukie’s bedroom and laid it on a large piece of plastic spread over the carpet.

Sukie banged the tin of metal polish and pried off the top. “I figure we have to polish the frame.”

“We could distress it too,” said Frannie.

“What does that mean?” asked Sukie.

“After you shine it, you buff it with steel wool. It makes for a great effect.”

“Let’s definitely do that.” Sukie handed out special soft polishing cloths and read the directions aloud. “Rub gently.”

They flopped on the floor and got to work.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Sukie. “We can’t hang it in the bathroom again, because then it’s still just a mirror. Environment is important.”

“That is so true,” said Frannie, “especially with art.”

“And it shouldn’t be vertical because that’s also its normal way of being. Diagonal would be cool, but impossible to hang, so horizontal.” Sukie was
bubbling with originality. “And over there, that’s where it goes.” She pointed to the wall above her desk. “By the way, do you want popcorn? Mikey will get it, won’t you?”

Mikey, draped over the bed, rolled off. “What kind do you want?” he asked.

“Just butter and salt for me,” said Sukie.

“Butter and salt, the only way,” said Frannie.

“Butter and salt,” said Jenna. “That must be why we’re all friends. James was always forcing me to have popcorn with truffle oil.” She fell silent as she rubbed more polish onto the frame, unaware that she had said the thing that Sukie had been hoping with her whole heart was true.

Until that moment she hadn’t been certain. Did Frannie and Jenna really like her or were they being kind because they felt sorry for her? Now, dropped into the conversation so casually as if it were self-evident, the fact: They were friends. Sukie finally had friends, great ones. Loyal, soulful, fun. What more could she ask?

Late that night she wrote in her journal that today was maybe the happiest of her life, and, with all that was
going on with her parents, how strange was that?

She patted Señor. “In a second I’ll turn out the light, but I have to finish. Besides, you’re in it.”

Selecting a turquoise Sharpie—turquoise being, in her opinion, the color of joy—she wrote:
Just as we were done distressing the frame, Simon arrived. Señor, who observes all newcomers from afar, bolted down the stairs and danced around Simon. Simon dropped right down on the marble floor—Mom nearly had kittens—and they rolled around together. Simon turns out to be the only person in the world around whom Señor behaves like a dog.

After we agreed that the placement was perfect, and that really did take time and patience, Simon banged a nail into the wall and hung the mirror. Frannie, Jenna, and I jumped on the bed. That way we were all tall enough to greet our reflections. Jenna demonstrated ballet moves while the mirror fractured them. We swayed and watched ourselves crack into pieces, our eyes multiply, our legs split, our arms separate from our bodies, our hair appear to float. All in all, it was thrilling.

Sukie closed her journal and tucked it into the drawer in her bedside table, thinking that she’d find a serious hiding place tomorrow. She clicked off the light.

“Good night, Señor.” She kissed his wet nose, pulled up the covers, and, comfortably squished into the sliver of space that the dog allotted her, fell instantly asleep.