Radical (22 page)

“So . . .” Karen says, looking around the shop and then back at me, then at Cammie. “Where’s —?”

“Not here,” I say, looking toward the door to the service area. “I mean . . .” I don’t know what I meant. I don’t know why they’re here.

“Wow,” Karen says. “I was going to say bathroom. You do have a bathroom, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. Over there.”

“Hi,” I say to Cammie when it’s just the two of us.

“Hi,” she says.

It’s weird, like we’re different people here from at training.

Cammie looks at the clock. Ten to five. “You almost done?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” she asks, and her whole face is softer, and I can’t square this Cammie with the one who barks orders and glares to wound.

“Yeah,” I say again. “But I
have
to leave by five thirty.”

Karen comes back out of the bathroom and detours for the snacks. “Oooh,” she says. “I love these!” She picks up two bags of Swedish Fish. “Want some?” she asks Cammie.

“That’s a lot of sugar,” Cammie says.

“I’ll ration it out,” Karen says. I ring them up and take her money. “Outlet work?”

“Huh?”

“In the bathroom,” Karen says. “Does the outlet work?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

She nods at Cammie.

“Okay, Mrs. Frankle is good to go,” Uncle Skip says, coming through the door from the service bays. “You can . . .” He looks at them, and me, and them, and me.

“Uncle Skip,” I say, because there doesn’t seem to be a way out, “these are my friends Cammie and Karen.” They smile at him. “And this is my uncle Skip.”

“Well, hi,” Uncle Skip says, big, like he’s trying too hard.

Karen says, “Hi.”

“Hi, Mr. Mullin,” Cammie says. “You probably don’t remember me, but my grandfather Ben Baxter used to —”

“Cammie Baxter. Of course,” Uncle Skip says. “But last time I saw you, you had pigtails and braces. How’s your grandfather?”

“Good,” she says, all smiling nice girl. “He’s up at the cabin for the summer.”

“Well, say hello for me. I can call Mrs. Frankle,” Uncle Skip says to me.

“Are you sure?”

“No problem.”

I wait for the door to close behind him. “We can go outside if you want,” I say to Cammie and Karen. Not knowing why they’re here is bugging me.

Karen rips open the first bag of Swedish Fish. Then she gives Cammie a look, and when Cammie doesn’t say anything, nudges her with her shoulder.

Cammie narrows her eyes and then says, “Come on,” wanting me to follow her.

“Where?” I swallow.

“Just come on,” she says, tugging on my sleeve as she passes me.

She’s acting so weird, but Karen is still smiling, easy, chowing down on her candy.

I follow Cammie, very aware that Karen is behind me. When we get near the bathroom, Karen practically shoves me inside, and they follow me in.

I recover and turn on instinct, crouched low.

“Whoa,” Karen says, laughing.

“Seriously,” Cammie says. “Relax. It’s not an ambush.”

I don’t like surprises. I don’t trust surprises. Especially from people who may or may not be my friends. Cammie hangs her bag from the hook on the door and fishes around in it for a minute. When she turns around she’s holding clippers.

“We noticed how much it was bugging you the other day,” Karen says.

“And no offense, but it looks like a deranged toddler cut it,” Cammie says. “With safety scissors. So I borrowed my mom’s stuff.” It takes me a few seconds to follow. “She’s a stylist,” Cammie says. I keep staring at the clippers and the small black case in her hands. She gives Karen the clippers and opens the case to show scissors. Several pairs, and other things. “I can clean it up for you if you want.”

“It’d look cool totally buzzed,” Karen says, turning my head so I can see the side and back in the mirror. “All this, just buzzed short.”

I touch the hair near her hand. It is a choppy mess.

“She’s good. Promise,” Karen says. “Does mine,” she says, brushing her fingers over the newly trimmed sides of her hair.

“I do what she asks me to,” Cammie clarifies, like she’s not taking credit for a mullet. “You tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

I swallow. I touch the back near my neck.

“Or you can just trust me. Can’t be worse.” Cammie’s ready, clippers all plugged in. “Turn around.”

I give in and turn around, but I can feel how tense my shoulders and neck are. I’m poised for flight.

Cammie pulls a rolled-up towel out of her bag and drapes it around my shoulders. She thought of everything.

“Hold still,” she says, and starts the clippers. The buzz vibrates over my skin before they even touch my hair.

What’s the worst thing that could happen? She cuts it all off? It would grow back.

Her fingers touch my neck, and I shiver.

Karen starts to open her other bag of candy, and Cammie says, “Oh, gross, you can’t
eat
in here!”

“Yeah, no,” I add, shuddering.

“Fine,” Karen says. “I’ll be outside, eating my yummy gummy fish.”

The door opens and then clicks shut. Cammie’s fingers are still on my neck, and then the clippers move through the hair at the back of my neck. I shiver again, from the feel of it, from her fingers, from her breath hitting my ear.

“Hold still.”

“I’m trying.”

She’s so close. I can feel her body behind me. Each pass of the clippers feels good. I can tell how she wants me to move from the pressure of her fingers on my neck. She moves my head, and then my body, so she can get to the left side. Just like when we’re in maneuvers, I know what she wants.

She pauses. I can tell she’s thinking. “Do you want —?”

“I don’t care,” I say. My voice sounds strange. “Do whatever you want.”

She studies the side of my head.

“Okay,” she finally says, and I know it will be.

Working on the long layers, she’s so close I can smell her. She smells different from how she does in training. Maybe it’s the makeup. Or perfume. Or these clothes. She turns me again and lifts the long layer. We’re almost face-to-face, but she’s taller. I’m breathing hard. She’s not. She’s focused on my hair.

“You’re good at this,” I say, catching a look in the mirror at the parts she’s already done.

“Thanks,” she says.

She works. I try to stay still. Curiosity gets the better of me. “How do you know my uncle?”

“My pop-pop used to bring me here. I could have as much candy as I wanted if I didn’t bug him while he talked. His car was always needing something,” she says. “Granma knew he was coming down here just to shoot the shit, but she didn’t care. Broke my arm trying to jump from the picnic table to the tree branch out front when I was seven.”

She lifts the long layer and tilts my head, bringing my nose an inch from her arm. It’s definitely her skin that smells so good.

“Hold still,” she says. She has a pair of scissors close to my cheek.

She cuts in sections, then uses her fingers to shake it out.

She stares at me and then smiles before going back to cutting. Slowly. Deliberately. Everything slows down.

“There.”

I’m afraid to look.

It’s me, only better. The long layer is more defined and falls to a sharp, sleek point at my cheekbone. The rest, clean and perfect. What I wanted but didn’t know how to do.

“Thanks.” I touch the place on my neck where her fingers were.

And then we’re just standing there in the grimy bathroom.

“I should probably . . .”

“Yeah,” I say. “Me, too.”

We walk out of the bathroom, and I’m still touching my neck.

Karen says, “Hey, let me see.” She jumps up from her perch near the door. I self-consciously rub at my neck. “Looks good! Nice job, Red.”

“At least it no longer looks like a toddler cut it,” Cammie teases, and Karen laughs, and the door jingles.

Lucy, standing there just inside the door, looking pissed. “Hey,” I say, trying to remember to breathe. Shit, it’s five forty-five. “Hey, I was going to text you,” I say, and immediately realize it was the absolute wrong thing to say. “I mean, because I was running late, and I didn’t want you to —”

“I needed gas anyway, so . . .”

She looks from Karen to Cammie to me, her eyes flashing when she gets back to me.

“Uh, this is Cammie, and Karen,” I say. “Cammie cleaned up my hair.”

“I can see that,” Lucy says, more twang than usual. “Looks . . . better.” She turns a sharp forty-five degrees, squares her shoulders, and shows all her teeth to Cammie. “Hi, I’m Lucy.”

“Cammie.” Cammie squares off, too. “Nice to meet you.”

“Karen,” Karen says, even though no one seems to care. Lucy looks at her like Karen just spit on her and barely acknowledges the greeting before turning back to Cammie. Karen’s bristling, working up to saying something. But Cammie’s staring Lucy down, both of them puffing out their chests, looking each other over. Lucy gives Cammie another big, fake, nasty smile.

“Nice to meet you, too, Cammie,” Lucy says, like it’s the furthest thing from “nice.” Lucy turns back to me. “I needed something, for dinner, so I thought I’d swing by here on the way back from the market. Are you ready to go?” All saccharine sweet, to hide the poison. And batting her eyes, staking her claim.

“Yeah, great, thanks,” I say, trying to cover how freaked out I am to have them all here, in the station, at the same time. I should tell Uncle Skip I’m leaving, but I’m afraid to leave them alone.

I open the door to the service bays but don’t step through. “I’m leaving, Uncle Skip!”

“You can leave it open,” Mike yells.

“Okay.” I’m ready to escape this awkward uncomfortableness. Now. “I’m ready.”

“See you tomorrow?” Cammie asks, practically pushing Karen out the door.

“Yeah, tomorrow.” I grab my backpack from behind the counter and hoist it over my shoulder.

“I’ll pick you up at seven forty-five,” Karen says, her look promising teasing and digging for details on the drive.

“Ready?” I ask Lucy, trying for normal and happy and not at all freaked out.

“Great,” Lucy says, but it’s hard to tell if it really is under all the fake happiness she’s throwing at me.

Lucy hurls herself into the driver’s seat and barely lets me buckle in before she’s pulling out of the lot.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what she’s thinking. I let her drive and brace for whatever comes next.

“I guess I should have just picked you up on the side of the road, as usual,” Lucy says. She’s pissed — that much is clear. Any answer seems likely to piss her off more. “I wasn’t going to say anything about who I was or anything.”

“I know. It’s fine.”

“It’s just . . .” Lucy starts, and then rethinks what she was going to say. “Okay,” she says. “I’m just going to lay it out there. I don’t care who you tell or not. You want this to be your dirty little secret, fine by me. But it’s sort of humiliating to have to pick you up on the side of the road or in some deserted lot, when your other friends come by all the time.”

“They don’t. They’ve never come by before. Cammie brought the clippers, and . . .” I stop, because none of this is making her less pissed off. “But it’s totally fine that you came by to pick me up.”

“Really?” She glances at me at the four-way stop.

“Really,” I say, forcing a smile. “I don’t care who knows.”

That was what she wanted to hear, I guess, because she relaxes back into the seat.

And maybe I
don’t
care anymore.

A song Lucy loves comes on the radio, and I turn it up without her asking, just as she starts singing along, making her sing even louder. What she lacks in voice she makes up for in enthusiasm. I join in on the next song to make her laugh.

By the time we’re at her grandparents’ house, the station is forgotten. She has ingredients and cooking stuff laid out on the counters, and a cutting board and bowls on the table.

“Can I help?”

“Sure,” she says, grabbing another cutting board and knife. “Scrub your hands, then come over here.”

In the time it takes me to carefully slice the mushrooms, she dices an onion, cuts up the chicken, mixes flour and a bunch of stuff in a bowl, and then coats the chicken in the flour mixture.

When she’s ready to cook, she takes the mushrooms. I hop up on the counter, where I can watch. Lucy cooking is like a different Lucy. Calmer. Quieter. Less . . . on. Relaxed, like after we’ve been kissing for a while and she stops trying to be so cool, only without the sexy feelings, or at least
all
of the sexy feelings.

She moves around the kitchen from sink to cupboard to stove to oven. Focused and efficient. She’s someone else right now.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, her back to me while she cooks the chicken.

“Sure,” I say, and even I can hear the nervousness in my voice.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” She looks over her shoulder at me. “To cut your hair? I’d have done it for you.”

“I didn’t really know I wanted it done.” She blinks and turns back to the stove. That wasn’t the right answer. “I mean, I knew it needed to be cut better, but . . . I guess I hadn’t gotten around to thinking about doing it.”

“But Cammie knew?”