Chapter Seventeen
The alarm clock clicked pre-ring, but I shut it off just in the nick. If only it were the kind with the radio—c’est la vie. Best not to clutter your life with material details, anyway. Bad enough that the orange juice cans I rolled my hair with had come loose in the night, gouging a touch-noticeable dent in my forehead. Plus, I was a tad hung over.
No matter. There was a dilly to record in my dream book! My hand groped around under the bed before encountering the embossed cover that distinguished the dream book from the other books. I flipped to the motto page: “Ennui is the greatest evil.” That was from the kid story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” and never failed to cheer me up, an inspiration for the life I’d lead when my circumstances improved. You had to keep visualizing what you wanted, put some images into motion. Sure, you could do the hatha yoga bit all you liked, practice eating a slice of whole wheat for an hour, chewing each bite until it dissolved into nothingness. But beyond the discipline, you had to keep on dreaming yourself out the other end of the tunnel.
May 6, 1967. Trapped in a coffin on a hillside. The coffin is slanted on an angle so I can see grass and flowers all around me. This is kind of like Apollinaire’s “Cows grazing there/ Slowly are poisoned.”
This was my book, so I figured I could be as pretentious as I liked.
“My life from your eyes slowly takes poison.” In another coffin propped next to mine—
The Beach Boys blared out from Bread’s room, so scratch the dream book. In five seconds I was in the bathroom with his door locked and the shower steaming on. Then I took a piece of Kleenex and lowered the toilet seat before sitting down. Afterwards, I took some more Kleenex and wiped some of the black gunk out of the sink. He must have been working on his bike again last night. However, one peek in the mirror revealed black gunk on my face, too, but not from bikes. The hair had gotten rolled but the mascara hadn’t gotten removed.
I slathered on some Noxema as the room filled up with steam. The smell of camphor was queasy-making. Darlene never felt sick the next morning and she said it was because she stuck to Bacardi and Cokes. Wine was my choice, more continental, but it did fight back. If only absinthe were legal! I could always drink less and feel better, but how could you do that and still live life to the fullest? Look at Thomas De Quincey. Look at Baudelaire. Look at the Marquis de Sade, for Pete’s sake.
The shower was full of sand, as per usual. My skin was the kind of sore where it bothered, but you had to move right on through pain. And besides, if I didn’t hustle, there wouldn’t be time for my makeup. Without makeup, there was absolutely no point in going to school.
After a quick toweling, I wiped off the mirror.
“Pet, I’ve got to take a leak!”
“Five minutes!” I hollered back.
Cover Girl base went on first—who cared that it was made out of beeswax? It covered up zits like nothing else. And if you used a dark enough shade, you looked really tan, especially if you left some white space around your eyes, where the sunglasses would have been. If you were really into that, you could even leave a little white strip across the bridge of your nose.
After all the peaks and valleys were filled in with the base, you put on lots of loose powder, just in case you’d missed something. Plus it would sop up the oil that started oozing through within the hour.
This moment after the powder was always my favorite; I could have been anybody. The face was like a package that hadn’t been unwrapped yet. It was still possible that I might turn out to be really beautiful, or at least wildly exotic. Not just the same old dumb Pet-face with the small nose, brown eyes, turned-down mouth…
“Pet!”
“Three minutes!”
Black Maybelline eyeliner framed my eyes, skyblue shadow on the lids, and a heavy coat of mascara. While that was drying, I quickly contoured my cheeks. What you do is make the bottom of your face even darker so that it recedes and then put light blusher high up on the cheeks, for that hollow-face model look. I alternated coats of mascara and dustings of blusher until they balanced out. I could always add more at school.
Last was the lips, and I liked my mouth to kind of disappear. Not only did it turn down but it was also on the large side. First you powdered the lips, to give the gloss something to grip on to, then you slathered on the Yardley slicker in superpale pink, for that Jean Shrimpton appeal. However, she had those terrific eyebrows that arched up like bridges to—
“Pet, dammit!”
And I hadn’t done my eyebrows! Quickly I added in the little strokes that are supposed to look like fake hairs, except that my pencil must have needed sharpening or something.
Bread rattled the doorknob of the door that connected with his room.
“Alright already!” I pulled out the couple remaining juice cans, and my long blond hair, artificial but pretty anyway, fell relatively straight past my shoulders. My bangs had a hump in them but that would fall out.
Bam! Bam! He was pounding on the door.
“It’s all yours, Slick!” I unlocked his side and dashed out mine. The lock clicked from inside and he sighed loudly. Now he’d take twice as long as I did, coaxing his hair into that wavelike pouf that all the surfers affected.
The next production was picking out what to wear. I put the Doors on the stereo for inspiration and Bread yelled “Gross!” from behind the bathroom door. He was beach music all the way.
“Turn it down!” yelled Aunt Edith from the hallway. “Come and eat your breakfast or you’ll both be late!”
God, it was such a drag having all this chaos in the morning! And breakfast, forget it. What was I going to wear, for instance? I’d already worn my two favorite dresses Monday and Tuesday, and this was only Thursday. My new pink skirt had a rip in it, and the only other cool outfit was the wide-wale corduroy vest thing, but the blouse was dirty. My flowered suit felt too dressy: it was sunny out. The Mexican skirt—
“Breakfast, now!”
They were always yelling at you around here. I’d just have to wear the Monday dress. It was real cute, short with orange and purple stripes. If the gladiator sandals looked okay, no need for pantyhose since my legs were only a little stubbly. I grabbed my purse, sprayed some Oh! de Love under my hair and around my neck, and ran down the stairs.
Aunt Edith was frying eggs. As usual, she was all stiff mouth and neat hairdo.
I grabbed some coffee and added a bunch of milk and sugar. It tasted okay, which is to say not actively disgusting. What would be great was a cigarette.
Aunt Edith slid a couple yellow and white eyes onto my plate and returned to the stove to do Bread’s. “I don’t believe I heard you come in last night, dear,” she observed.
“Oh, really?” I concentrated on cutting up the eggs and swishing them around so they’d look eaten.
“You know you’re not supposed to stay out late on school nights.”
We both sighed, it was so hopeless. Sometimes I wondered how Linwood would have liked me as a teenager, but mostly I never thought about all that.
“And, dear, your makeup—” She swung around with her spatula in hand, the very picture of a Mom.
“—is totally bitchin’, fab, boss, far out!” Bread sat down across from me and forked some egg off my plate. The smell of English Leather was staggering.
“You know how I feel about that makeup,” Aunt Edith persisted, sliding more food onto both plates.
I concentrated on my coffee and perpetrating a kind of Zen negation around me. It’s so effective to refuse to respond, and besides, Bread was there.