“Errol, can we just talk about the story?”
“I’m trying to explain why I chose you,” he said, smacking the counter with his palm. Startled by the sound, Oscar the cat scurried away. My entire body tensed. This was the side of him that I hated—the quick temper, the parental tone.
“It’s true,” he said. “Except for your hair color, you look like Psyche. Just like her. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you walk into that bookstore. That’s why I didn’t give my notes to one of the other romance writers. I thought you were evidence that the gods hadn’t abandoned me. A girl who looks just like Psyche, a girl who’s the daughter of a famous romance writer—that couldn’t be a coincidence. I stupidly thought that the gods had sent you to me. So I told you it was your destiny to write my story because I wanted it to be true.” As he looked out the kitchen window, his tone softened. “But the gods did abandon me. People stopped believing in them, so they went away and left me behind, forgotten—to live on and on and on without them. But now it’s coming to an end and I’ve wasted precious time with you just because you look like her. I’m a fool. I should have given my notes to one of the other writers.”
The world was trying to collapse again. Everything had fallen into place but now it was spinning. Whether or not I looked like Errol’s imaginary wife didn’t matter. The fact that he was delusional didn’t matter. The story mattered. I needed that story. “We can fix the chapter, Errol. I’ll go work on it. My mom always has to revise a couple of times before she gets things right.” I knew what I’d do. I’d load the chapter with emotion. I’d steal some phrases from my mom’s books and weave them between the lines of dialogue. Temptation filled my soul. Yearning ate at my brain. Titillation made me quiver. Stuff like that.
“I don’t know.” He walked back to the living room and sat on the carpet. I threw myself next to him.
“Give me a second chance. I can make it work. I know I can. Tell me the next chapter.” Like a kid waiting to open a birthday present, I waited for the story that would fix everything. “Come on, Errol. Tell me.”
He ran a hand across his face, as if wiping away his doubts. “Okay.” Then, elbows on knees, hands clasped, he continued his story.
“While Psyche slept that night, I took a long walk, trying to get her out of my head. She hadn’t said a word to me, hadn’t even looked into my eyes, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The gods were waiting for my report. If I told them the truth, Venus would inflict a horrid punishment. Her jealousy was uncontrollable. Look at what she did to Medusa.”
“Medusa?”
“The girl whose hair was made of snakes. Her only crime had been beauty and she was changed into a creature so hideous that she could kill with a single glance. I couldn’t let them maim Psyche. I couldn’t bear it. So I lied to the gods. I told them that Psyche was nothing. That those who’d claimed she was more beautiful than Venus had simply had too much to drink at the festival.”
“Had you ever lied to them before?”
“Never. Oh, I’d been lazy many times. Late with my tasks, forgetful, that kind of thing. But I’d never outright lied. This is where the mythology books get it wrong. Most claim that I shot myself with my own arrow and that’s why I wasn’t thinking clearly. That makes me look like an idiot. Of course I didn’t shoot myself with my own arrow. I lied to the gods because I was in love. Real love. Not something induced by a spell.”
He paused, stretched out his long legs, then continued.
“Morning came and I didn’t dare introduce myself to Psyche. I followed her and her father home, to make sure that they arrived safely, but mostly because I couldn’t tear myself away. I kept my distance, watching from the hilltop behind their farm. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. It was like I’d lost all my courage. I felt … I felt …”
“Afraid she’d reject you.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Yes. I couldn’t bear her rejection. But it made no sense. I’m Cupid. I wield the power of love. All I had to do was shoot her with an arrow and she’d be mine forever. But I didn’t want to use magic. I’d used magic on plenty of girls, just to spend a night with them. But I wanted Psyche to love me for real. Nothing I did from the moment I looked at her sleeping face made any sense. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I closed my eyes and saw her face. I heard her voice.”
“Lovesickness,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I had it bad. And clam juice wouldn’t cure it because it wasn’t caused by my arrow. It was real love.”
“Go on,” I urged.
“Her father owned a small farm—some goats, a vineyard, nothing much. This is another place where the mythology books get it wrong. They will tell you that Psyche was the daughter of a king and queen and that men traveled from all over the world to gaze upon her. Because they were so busy lusting after her, Venus’s temples went ignored. Sure, Psyche got a lot of attention from the village men, but Venus’s temples were as busy as ever. The truth was, Venus grew jealous of a simple peasant girl just because she’d been born beautiful.”
“How did Venus find out the truth?” I asked.
“It was simply a matter of time. I stayed on that hillside for days, neglecting my duties, sleeping in the grass. The gods hadn’t come looking for me yet, but they would. As soon as they needed to make a queen fall in love with a bull or an artist fall in love with his sculpture, they’d find me. They’d find us. And they’d punish Psyche for her beauty and they’d punish me for my disobedience. How could we be together without the gods knowing? How could we hide from them? That was the question I asked myself over and over as I sat on that hill.”
“What did you do?”
“I disguised myself.”
“How?”
“Psyche couldn’t know my true identity. She’d tell her sisters—women tell each other everything. The mythology books claim I visited Psyche only at night, to keep her from seeing my face. The stories say we were lovers in the dark, and just before sunrise I’d disappear. That’s ridiculous because even in the dark she’d still notice my white hair. It was a lot brighter in those days. When the gods were in full power, it actually glowed.” He swept his hand over his head.
It did glow. Velvet had probably given him some hair gel that absorbed light.
“No one else had hair like mine. I wore a hat whenever I wanted to blend in, and when I wanted to be noticed I let it hang loose. But I intended to make her my wife and I couldn’t wear a hat every moment I was with her. So I went to the nearest market and bought some henna to color my hair. Then I knocked on her farmhouse door.”
The grandfather clocked ticked while I waited for the next sentence. But Errol closed his eyes. “Errol?”
“That’s the end of chapter two,” he said quietly. “I wrote the description of the farm in my notes, and the old woman who showed me how to use the henna, along with all the other stuff you’ll need.”
“But what made you change your mind? I mean, how did you work up the courage to go talk to her?”
He opened his eyes. “It comes down to this—you either go out and get what you want or you don’t.”
Oscar the cat rubbed against me. I ran my hand along his back. “Don’t worry,” I told Errol as I took back chapter one. “I’ll put lots of feelings into it. I can do it. It’s a really good story.”
“Chapter three is about our first date,” Errol said. He struggled to his feet, then led me to the door. “I suggest you go out and get some experience.”
“Huh?”
“You understand the craft of writing but you have very little experience when it comes to love. I saw the way you looked at that guy when you were standing outside the library. Your aura was on fire.”
“My aura?”
“Go ask him out and be sure to take notes. Take lots of notes about how he makes you feel.”
“But—” I frowned. “I thought you said he was a distraction.”
“Look, Alice. I could imbue you with all sorts of feelings,
but I’m not going to do that. Even if it meant that I might relive a few cherished moments, I still won’t do it. You are not Psyche. You are a girl living in the twenty-first century who merely looks like Psyche. And even if I wanted to have a relationship with you, you are clearly attracted to this other guy. And that’s what you need to feel—something that’s real.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“We’re running out of time.” He gently pushed me into the hallway. Oscar the cat followed. “Remember, we’ve only got a few days to finish this. Go out there and get some experience.” He shut the door.
“What do you mean we only have a few days?” I called.
No answer came. I glanced over at Mrs. Bobot’s door, hoping she hadn’t heard. Then I put my mouth close to Errol’s door and said, “If I do this, if I get some experience, then you’ll tell me the rest of the story?”
The door cracked open and Errol’s eye stared out at me. “Yes.”
One of the top places to avoid during a heat wave is a city bus, because those things have no air-conditioning and the windows only open an inch and everyone stinks. But I didn’t have the money for a cab ride all the way to Pioneer Square. So I sank onto a black vinyl seat.
I’d called Harmony Hospital before catching the bus. The nurse told me that my mother had asked for coffee. The nurse called it amazing progress, but to me it felt like an inchworm crossing a football field.
The backs of my thighs stuck to the seat. I could blame my sweaty underarms on the heat wave, but I started sweating the moment I realized I was going to ask Tony on a date. I tried to think of it as an assignment, like a journalist being sent to cover a political rally or a traffic accident. This was research.
In Anyone Can Write a Romance Novel, the author stresses the importance of doing research before writing the book. A writer will get into big trouble if she describes orange trees growing in the Scottish Highlands or narwhals swimming in Puget Sound. My mother got into trouble once. In On the Road to Love, Babette Spangles drives her Volkswagen into a ditch. As fate would have it, a mechanic comes along, this guy named Rod Marshal. After a long, steamy description of his rippling muscles, my mother wrote that Rod Marshal opened the hood in the front of the car to check the engine. Mom got hundreds of letters about that one because the original Volkswagen engines were not in the front.
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 s
aid. “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.