Durable Goods_ A Novel - Elizabeth Berg [32]
I touch the top of my finger, and it wiggles. It looks as though it’s ready to fall off. “Dad,” I say, and then I start to hurt.
He leaps up when he sees the blood, grabs a kitchen towel and wraps it around my hand. “Sit down,” he says. He unwraps the towel, whistles low, looks up at me. “Does it hurt?”
I nod.
“Yeah.” He wraps it back up, goes to the cupboard, gets out his whiskey. He pours some in a coffee cup, hands it to me. “Drink this.”
I look up at him, unsure. “This?”
“It’ll help,” he says. “You’re pale. You need stitches. I’m going to have to bring you into the dispensary.”
I take a drink, shudder big. I feel a wave of nausea, shudder it away, stand up. “Okay,” I say, “let’s go.” He crosses his arms over his chest, smiles. At last I have done something right.
Cherylanne has rollers in her hair, a black net around it. I have six sutures in my finger, a white Band-Aid around it, serious and medical looking. “Who do you think I’ll marry?” Cherylanne asks the Ouija board and happy-sighs.
“Wait,” I say.
She looks up, irritated. “What? Now look, now you have gone and wrecked the mood and it won’t answer.”
“I want to know what you mean. Like, are you looking for a name?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she says. “You don’t ask questions you already know the answers for. What is the point of a Ouija board if you already know?” She sighs, leans back. “I don’t think you’re the one to do this with. Let’s do you a make-over.”
The sting of her insult is overtaken by my stubborn excitement at getting a make-over. I don’t know why. Cherylanne has given me make-overs before, and every time we get to the end, there is just my plain old face hanging out, breaking through all the tricks. Not that Cherylanne sees that. She thinks she is Makeup Queen of the Universe. She tells me about mistakes she sees on the stars when we go to the movies. “See, she has the wrong kind of eyes for that type of shadow,” Cherylanne whispered to me once—about Elizabeth Taylor! Like the movie people are just sitting around the set all sad, doing the best they can until Cherylanne can get there.
I sit down on her dressing-table chair, look at myself in the mirror. One time she did manage to cover up a lot of freckles. She ties a scarf around my head to hold my hair back, and then spreads on a layer of cold cream to remove the damage of everyday living. Much of the dirt on your face is microscopic, Cherylanne says. She says if you could see your skin under the microscope you’d about throw up. I don’t believe anything under the microscope would make me throw up. That would be like making fun of someone’s house when they invite you over. Looking at things so close up, that’s a modern privilege, and you owe what you see some respect.
“Now you just relax,” Cherylanne says in her makeup lady voice, “and I’ll be right back.” It’s a too-slow voice, like she’s talking to someone stupid, or a dog. She puts her robe over her yellow pedal pushers and matching blouse, ties it tight and efficient. Now she will go into the bathroom and make her selections for transforming me. I will be turned away from the mirror. I can’t look until she’s all done, and then I’m supposed to nearly pass out with pleasure. I have figured out the number of compliments I have to say to keep her from being mad: four. Of course, more are always welcome. She likes best when I ask for tips on doing it myself. Then she can rattle off some prepared beauty speech like the Gettysburg Address.
Well, I don’t mind any of this so much, especially since at the end I get to have my hair done, and Cherylanne does it so gentle. She makes me a French twist with two spit curls, and I am happy it takes a long time for her to get it right. It is so relaxing to have someone