“That’s awful,” her friend said, but I could tell she was smiling by her voice.
“She totally deserves it,” Caroline said. “She’s the biggest slut in our school. Plus she thinks she’s so cool because her mom is Kiki Sparks. Like that impresses anyone.”
I pulled my legs up against my chest, balancing my chin on my knees. I could have been back at school, in the locker room, the day Caroline and her friends opened up my gym bag and took out my big panties for everyone to see.
Every time I’d thought it couldn’t get worse, I was wrong.
If I’d been Mira, I would have pretended to ignore it altogether. If I’d been Morgan, I would have stood up and walked in there to give Caroline a piece of my mind. If I’d been Isabel, I probably would have thrown a punch. But I was just me. So I pulled myself tighter and tighter, closed my eyes, and waited for it to be over.
“I just can’t believe she’s here,” Caroline said. “If I have to see her ugly face again it’ll, like, ruin my vacation.”
Then I heard something behind me, in the hallway. Something close.
I turned around, my eyes blurring as they adjusted to the shade. It was Isabel. She was standing on the other side of the door, arms crossed over her chest. And she was watching and listening to Caroline Dawes.
Oh, great, I thought. Now she can hate me for a reason.
I waited for her to say something, one of those snarky, half-grumbled Isabel remarks. But she didn’t. After a few seconds, Norman yelled that the order was up, and she walked back down the hallway.
I heard her ringing up their food, the drawer popping out with its cheerful bing. She made change and the front door creaked as Caroline or her friend pushed it open.
“There you go,” I heard Isabel say. “Y’all have a good day.”
“You too,” Caroline’s friend said, and the bell rang again as they left. Isabel came out from behind the counter and flipped the sign to CLOSED.
Whatever fresh start I’d wanted, whatever I’d wished she and Norman would think of me, was gone. Isabel would take this information and run with it.
I heard her walking back toward me, taking her time, and I swallowed hard, preparing myself. She stood on the other side of the screen. I could feel her.
“Just don’t say it,” I said. “Okay?” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded weak and sad.
She didn’t say anything for a long time. I just concentrated on the sky, memorizing the blue. And I was startled when she said, quietly, suddenly, “Come on.”
“What?” I turned around. She was looking at me.
“You heard me,” she said, and she took off her apron, tossed it on the counter, and started toward the front door. She didn’t look back to see if I was following her. She just went. “Come on.”
We walked out to the Rabbit, leaving Norman to lock up behind us. Isabel got in and fished for the key, which was on the floor.
She cranked the engine, the CD player immediately blasting. She turned it down, but not much.
I felt like I should say something.
“Look,” I said, “about that girl—”
She shook her head and reached for the volume, turning it back up and drowning me out.
We must have driven back at about seventy miles an hour. Not that I could be sure; the speedometer was broken, along with the rearview mirror, which was lopsided, and the gearshift, whose missing knob had been replaced with one of those squeezy balls painted to look like the Earth. The floor and back seat were littered with lipsticks, more CD cases, Vogue and Mirabella, and about twenty pairs of sunglasses, all of which rattled from one side to the other every time we took a turn. Isabel didn’t say a word as she drove; her mouth was set in a thin, hard line.
We barely slowed down when we hit the dirt road. Since my seat belt was also broken, I just hung on to the door handle the entire way. By the time we screeched to a halt in front of the little white house, I felt like I’d knocked a couple of fillings loose.
Isabel got out, grabbing some CDs from the backseat. “Take these,” she said, and I did. I watched her kick off her shoes on the porch and get the key from under a dead plant on the steps. She unlocked the door and went inside, stepping over a few magazines and discarded articles of clothing, heading for the kitchen. I stood in the doorway.
She went to the fridge, got a beer, and knocked off the cap on the side of the counter. Then she sucked some down, burped, and put a hand on her hip.
“The world,” she said, “is chock full of bitchy girls.”
I came inside.
It was easy to tell which side of the bedroom was Isabel’s. One had its bed made, pictures straight, the clothes on the shelves folded and sorted by category and color. The other was covered, from the floor to the bed, with stuff. Clothes and CDs and socks and magazines and bras and empty cigarette packs, all burying and supporting each other. But the thing I noticed most was the mirror.
It was over a dressing table, and all around it, stretching out at least a foot from each side, were hundreds of faces cut from magazines. Blonde girls, brunettes, redheads, all staring out hollow-cheeked and seductive. There were girls with drastic makeup, girls with no makeup, all of them skinny, some of them smiling. They were taped up kind of slapdash, overlapping each other, spreading out like a cloud from the mirror’s edges. Here and there, mixed in, you could see pictures of real people: some of Isabel and Morgan, family pictures, a couple of babies and several of smiling, good-looking boys. Next to the models, they seemed smaller, and you noticed every imperfection.