Keep Holding On

  This is going to be one fierce haircut.

  The guy who’s about to cut my hair doesn’t really speak English. He’s not understanding what I want. He gives me a pencil and a piece of paper so I can sketch it for him. Not exactly what I was expecting from the most upscale hair stylists around.

  I draw what’s supposed to be my profile. I draw my nose really big to make sure he understands it’s my nose. I draw my hair straight and ask him to blow it out. Then I try to draw angling on the side with blunt ends, the way Jolene DelMonico’s hair is. She has it cut straight across the back with these boxy ends that always make her hair look like it was just trimmed that morning.

  My guy nods like he gets what I want.

  I sit back. He spritzes my hair. The spritz smells like flowers. I take a big whiff of it. Then I proceed to have a coughing fit. I clearly do not belong here and all these fancy people know it. Trying to blend in, I pick up a glossy magazine and start flipping through it. I hardly ever get to read magazines. Being decadent for a change will be fun.

  When my guy tells me he’s done, I wish I had more time. I really want to finish this article about a girl who got plastic surgery so people would stop bullying her. But I’m excited to see my new upscale haircut with professional angling and blunt ends. It should look like a shorter version of Jolene’s.

  Except that’s not what I see. Not even close.

  What I see is the worst haircut in the history of the world. This butcher destroyed my hair so badly I can’t believe I’m looking in the right mirror. Huge chunks of hair around my face have been chopped off. He didn’t cut the sides at an angle. He cut stairs into the sides of my head.

  This isn’t a haircut. It’s a staircut.

  I. Am. Mortified.

  I stay frozen in my chair. My eyes get watery. It takes all the effort I can manage not to burst into tears.

  The staircutter is asking what I think. I want to yell at him so bad. I want to storm out without paying. Instead, I don’t say anything. I get out of the chair. I hand over Sherae’s money and go wait for her outside.

  When Sherae shows up, one look at her face confirms what I already know.

  “It’s really bad, right?” I ask.

  Sherae shakes her head slowly. “No, it’s … not that bad.” But the horror in her eyes confirms it’s a disaster.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” I panic. “There’s no way I can go to school like this.”

  All I want to do is go home and hide, but I let Sherae drag me to Claire’s. She picks out a bunch of hair clips and pins for me. My eyes keep getting blurry. I blink back tears, determined not to cry in front of her. At least I have the weekend to figure this out. There has to be some way to make my hair look decent.

  There is no way to make my hair look decent.

  The first thing I do when Sherae drops me off at home is go to my room and cry. I thought I hated my hair before. But this is so much worse.

  After I’m completely dehydrated from crying, I take the hair things Sherae got me at Claire’s into the bathroom. I spread the sparkly pins and cute clips out over the counter. It was awesome of Sherae to buy me all this stuff. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

  I spend the next hour trying out every combination of hair tools I can imagine. Nothing helps. In the end, I settle for pinning the top two steps of my staircut with bobby pins so they’re overlapping the bottom step. It sort of looks like I’m just wearing my hair back. Or maybe it looks like I’m the biggest reject ever.

  I’m whipped up into a froth of agony by the time mother gets home. She scavenges through the kitchen cabinets, hunting for random scraps to scrape together for dinner. I don’t know why she’s bothering. There’s never anything to eat. We have some stale crackers. Some odd spices that were here when we moved in. A lonely packet of revolting mint hot-chocolate mix. She should throw those things out. But clinging to them gives her backup when she insists there’s stuff to eat.

  She opens the refrigerator. Which is an even bigger joke. The entire contents of our refrigerator are a jar of spicy mustard, butter, and the end piece of a loaf of bread.

  “You ate the rest of the cheese?” mother accuses.

  “There wasn’t anything else to eat. And it wasn’t even that much.”

  “I can’t keep food in the house if you’re going to gobble everything up in one day.”

  “Um, it’s called I’m hungry?”

  My stomach growls loudly. She can’t pretend she doesn’t hear it.

  “There’s never anything to eat!” I yell at her.

  Mother looks up from where she’s crouched in front of the refrigerator. “Excuse me?” she says.

  This could be dangerous. When mother’s in a bad mood that isn’t my fault, she’ll rant about her job even more than usual. Or she’ll sit around staring into space, playing her sad music. If I’m lucky, she’ll go hide out in her room so I won’t have to deal with her. But when I’m the one who made her angry, she’ll get crazy nasty for days and do scary things like slam my door in the middle of the night. I hate being on edge, carrying that nervous feeling around in my stomach of never knowing what to expect. I’m nervous all day at school. I really don’t need to be nervous at home, too. I should just stay quiet.

  Except I’m not thinking rationally right now.

  “There’s never anything to eat,” I say. “Isn’t it against the law to starve your kid?”

  Mother scoffs. “You’re far from starving.”

  “Why, because I’m not anorexic like you? Because I actually worry about not getting any nutrients? It’s normal to want three meals a day.” I’m craving the kind of dinner Mrs. Feldman makes so badly I can’t stand it. Delicious main dish. Pretty bowls of side dishes. Basket of warm, homemade bread with whipped butter. The wanting is driving me crazy.

  Mother closes the refrigerator door. “I can’t deal with the grocery store tonight. Guess I’ll run to McDonald’s.”

  “Why can’t we ever have real food?”

  “Real food costs money. McDonald’s has a Dollar Menu. Guess which we can afford?”

  I hate that she’s right. How ridiculous is it that fresh produce is so expensive? Shouldn’t food that’s good for you be affordable and junk food cost more?

  Mother gets back from McDonald’s a thousand years later. She takes cheeseburgers and fries out of the bag. I’m so hungry I don’t even care what I’m eating. I stuff my mouth with huge bites of burger. I cram in fries.

  Then I start crying.

  I should not be forced to eat this crap.

  I bat my fry carton across the table. I’m disgusted by everything right now.

  “You shouldn’t be feeding me this junk,” I say. I wipe my eyes with the thin napkin. It rips apart on my face. “We should be eating healthy food. Why am I the one explaining this to you? You’re supposed to be the mother!”

  Instead of waiting to see how angry she’ll get, I storm off to my room. I slam the door. Let her be the scared one this time.

  She never even noticed my hair. I can’t remember the last time she really looked at me.

  I have this fantasy of going to Retail Rodeo one day when mother’s working. I’d pile my basket full of all the things I need that she never buys me, like deodorant and face cleaner and tampons. Then I’d go over to customer service, ring that stupid bell they have on the counter, and drop my basket in front of mother when she comes out.

  “I would like a refund,” I’d say, “on a defective mother. And P.S.? Here are some of the things I need. I’m a teenage girl, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  It would be epic. I just wish I had the courage to actually do it.

  Parents should be interviewed before they’re allowed to have kids. They interview people to work at McDonald’s. Isn’t taking care of a kid a way more important job?

  Sometimes I wonder if things would be different if my parents were married. The only thing I know about my father is that he’s an addict. He left when I
was one. But then a few years later, he came back. He must have been high that day. He came bursting into Lewis’s house threatening mother that if she wouldn’t let him see me, he’d take me away.

  That’s all I remember. He went away again and never came back.

  Being a parent isn’t supposed to be a job you can quit.

  twelve

  monday, may 2

  (34 days left)

  Warner Talbot takes one look at me in physics.

  “Nice hair,” he announces.

  “What did she do?” Jolene DelMonico wonders.

  Welcome to my Monday.

  I concentrate on avoiding Julian between classes. There’s no way I can face him with my hair like this. Matt probably wouldn’t be too bothered, but I tell him that I can’t hook up today because I have to do some homework in study hall.

  When it’s time for Spanish, I dart in with my head down. I put my hand up to cover the side of my hair facing Julian, pretending that I’m smoothing it. I can tell Julian’s already here without having to look up. It’s like there’s this force field around him that I can always detect when he’s nearby. I slide into my seat. My plan is to quietly start getting my stuff together before the bell rings so I can run out. If I do this every day until my hair grows out, maybe Julian won’t notice that I’m more deformed than ever.

  My plan to make a fast exit backfires. Mrs. Yuknis slams us with a pop quiz ten minutes before the end of class. I’m still answering the last question when the bell rings. I pass my quiz up and prepare to bolt.

  Julian is right by my desk.

  “I like your hair like that,” he says.

  “Yeah, right,” I mumble. It’s bad enough being inflicted with a staircut. Does he really have to make fun of me like everyone else?

  “I’m serious. It looks nice pulled back. You can see your face more.”

  I peek up at him. He doesn’t appear to be making fun of me.

  “Oh. Well … thanks.” Julian probably feels bad for me. There’s no way I can compete with Jolene. I don’t know why I even tried.

  Gym. Shoot me now.

  We’re playing volleyball today. Volleyball ranks extremely high on my Worst Things We Have to Play in Gym list. The only thing worse than volleyball is dodgeball. Dodgeball isn’t remotely a good idea. Since when does a bunch of balls being hurled at you sound like fun? Why is that even allowed? Volleyball is almost as excruciating. Instead of balls being whipped at you from all directions, one ball fired right at you instigates the inevitable disappointment of everyone on your team when you can’t smack it back.

  Any time balls are flying at me, I’m an unhappy girl.

  Pretty Perfect Popular girls are picking teams. Triple Ps always get to pick teams. They are the Deciders.

  I am always their last choice.

  We gather in a clump across from the Deciders. The polished gym floor has all these lines painted on it. I have no idea what any of them mean.

  “Jolene,” Caitlin Holt says.

  Jolene DelMonico whisks herself over to the Other Side. Once you are on the Other Side, you are safe.

  The Deciders go back and forth, selecting who gets to cross over. Rewarding all the other girls who were born beautiful. Confirming the genetic lottery losers.

  “Kim,” Caitlin Holt says.

  The teams get bigger. Our clump gets smaller.

  I always promise myself that I won’t get upset next time we’re picking teams. And then it’s next time and everyone’s smirking at me from the Other Side and I’m a sweaty, dizzy mess all over again.

  Only three of us remain in the clump.

  “Noelle,” Caitlin Holt relents.

  I cross the divide on shaky legs. There is no walk of shame more shameful than this one.

  Caitlin Holt only picked me because she had to. I wish someone would pick me because they want to.

  After carving out a squiggle for my new mobile and painting it lime green, it’s time to chill with my people on Friday Night Lights. My shows and books are an instant mood adjuster. They’re my drugs of choice. And the fictional characters I love are like my friends.

  My stomach clenches when I hear mother’s car pulling into the driveway. The warm, fuzzy feeling I had going is erased in one harsh swipe. I get tense like this every night when she comes home. But her weird behavior since the McDonald’s Incident is making my stomach hurt even more.

  All mother did the whole weekend was sit around sulking. She’d either hide out in her room or sit on the couch, staring at nothing for hours. I knew there’d be fallout from yelling at her, but it was ridiculous. Mother hogged the living room last night. She planted herself on the couch, cranked up her oldies, and just spaced out.

  I was trying to do my homework. Which was impossible with her annoying music blasting through the cardboard wall. Her music was so loud that it sounded like she’d come into my room and cranked my stereo instead. Focusing on my Spanish essay was impossible. So I went into the living room. Mother was still lost in her own world on the couch.

  “Could you turn that down?” I yelled over the music. “Some of us are trying to do homework.”

  Mother ignored me.

  “You have to turn it down!” I yelled louder.

  She glared at me. A scary, hateful glare. Like I was the enemy. Which mother had already made clear. I’d heard the diatribe a thousand times. If it wasn’t for me, mother would be happy and married and wouldn’t have to work at a job she hates. I’ve ruined her life by existing.

  She didn’t move from the couch. I stomped over to the stereo and poked the OFF button.

  “You have to let me concentrate,” I said. “A person should be allowed to do her homework.” I was the first person in the history of public education begging to do homework on a Sunday night.

  There hasn’t been any drama tonight. Even more perplexing is mother’s anomalous good mood. We’re actually sitting here having dinner without her verbal vomit contaminating everything.

  “Eat your carrots,” she says. Why is she trying to bust out the Normal Mom Act when no one else is here?

  “Carrot cubes are not real carrots,” I object.

  “Sure they are.”

  “They don’t even taste like carrots. And I’m pretty sure carrots don’t come in neon orange. These might be radioactive.” I don’t think mother knows how to prepare a vegetable that doesn’t come from a can. She even manages to mess those up.

  “Eat them anyway,” she says like we’re sharing an inside joke.

  Beyond irritating.

  I swear, when she gets fake like this, it’s even more annoying than her usual stank mood. At least then I know she’s for real.

  thirteen

  tuesday, may 3

  (33 days left)

  Matt’s already waiting for me when I get to our place.

  “You look different,” he says.

  Is he seriously just noticing my hair now? I mean, we haven’t hooked up since last week, but still. He sees me in the halls. He’s had plenty of chances to notice.

  “Don’t remind me,” I grumble.

  “No, you look good. But … what’s different?”

  Wait. He doesn’t even know it’s my hair? Does he not see that half of it was chopped off and it’s all pinned back?

  “You can’t tell?” I ask.

  Matt pulls me close to him. “I can tell you’re pretty,” he whispers. Then he kisses me.

  I let myself be kissed. Pretty soon I forget that there’s anything to be mad about.

  “Oh my god, it’s true?” a girl’s voice yells from behind the wall.

  A girl’s voice I recognize.

  Because she used to be my best friend.

  Audrey stomps over to us. She has crazy eyes. “Carly told me you guys came out here, but I had to see for myself.”

  “We’re not—this isn’t how it looks,” Matt protests.

  “Oh, no? Then why does it look like my boyfriend was just kissing a dirty skank?”
br />   I gape at Matt. He’s Audrey’s boyfriend? How can he be her boyfriend when he’s my boyfriend?

  Matt’s not explaining that this is all a joke. Or that Audrey is lying. He’s not even looking at me.

  “How many times have you guys come out here?” Audrey wants to know.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Matt says. “She’s not even—”

  “How many?!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “More than twice?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Asshole!”

  “Audrey, come on.” Matt touches Audrey’s arm. It’s like I’m not even here. All Matt cares about is convincing Audrey that I’m nothing.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “I—”

  “Get off me!” Audrey shakes Matt off. She gives me such a nasty look that I can’t believe we were ever best friends.

  “First Corey, and now this?” she accuses me.

  Is she really bringing up those Valentine’s Day chocolates Corey Smith gave her in eighth grade?

  “I wasn’t jealous of Corey. And I didn’t even know you were …” My throat gets tight.

  “That I was what?”

  “Going out with … Matt.”

  “Yeah right, I’m sure you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Gee, I wonder why I don’t believe you.”

  “Tell her I didn’t know!” I yell at Matt.

  “Like I’m really going to trust you guys.” Audrey’s glare is ice-cold. “This isn’t over,” she threatens. Then she storms off.

  “Why—” I start to ask Matt. But he runs after Audrey, leaving me behind.

  “What just happened?” Sherae says.

  “You heard already?”

  “Everyone’s talking about it.” Sherae glances back at the cafeteria. After Matt abandoned me, I stayed out at our place until Spanish started. No way was I going to class. I could feel how puffy my eyes were from crying. I couldn’t stop shaking. Sherae has lunch fourth period, so I snuck over to the cafeteria and waved her out.