Kasie West - On the Fence

“Henry. My boyfriend. He plays for a local band. Well, I shouldn’t call them local anymore—they’re getting some statewide gigs. It’s pretty amazing. They still play here sometimes, though.” She picked up a different glass bottle and walked over to me. “Can I use your arm? I don’t want to mix scents.”

I held up my arm and she twisted it, palm up, then sprayed a small amount on my wrist.

She put her arm next to mine. “You’re tan.”

“My mother was Mexican.” I bit down on my tongue, hoping she didn’t catch the was I threw in there. I didn’t want to have to explain that word. Especially not when I kind of told Linda my mother was alive.

“Ah. Well, that makes sense.” She smiled, then smelled my wrist and curled her lip. “No on that scent.” She replaced the bottle, then sighed. “I think I will try the duct tape idea after all. It could look really good with these boots.”

“Will you be able to get them off?”

She laughed. “Eventually.” She headed toward the back.

I wondered why she always came that way. She obviously had a key, but if she was coming from her shop a couple of doors down, wouldn’t it be just as easy to walk in the front door?

“Thanks for the good idea, Charlie.” She paused for a moment. “By the way, you look really cute.”

She left, and I looked down at my outfit—a pair of jeans and a satiny black shirt with a little lace around the neckline. I had worn my tennis shoes in to work and Linda immediately called a friend, who brought over a pair of black sandals. Apparently I had committed a fashion foul with my shoes. All I cared about was that the sandals were super comfortable.

A while later, Linda came back into the store carrying a handful of colorful leaflets and ads.

“What are those?”

She spread them out on the counter next to the register. “Makeup ads.” She held one up. “I think I’m going to carry some designer makeup in the store. A girl came by the other day and asked if I’d be interested. I think it will drum up some business. What do you think?”

“I have no opinion in these types of matters. I’m clueless. But I guess it can’t hurt to offer a bigger variety of items.”

“Exactly. Hopefully we’ll get crossover traffic. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. The girl is going to come in and do a demonstration. She’s thinking about offering weekly makeup classes to draw people in. You get to be her blank canvas for the class.”

She said it so casually that I didn’t catch the meaning at first.

When I realized what she’d said, my hand froze above the ad it had been reaching for. “Wait, what?”

“You’ll just have to sit there. You won’t even have to say a word.”

“No way. Nuh-uh. You should have Skye do it. She was just in here a little while ago.”

“I would, but Skye works on Saturdays. Plus, I think you’d be better at it.”

“In what universe? No way.”

She took a breath and then closed her eyes. Holding her hands about an inch from her body, she ran them from her head to her waist, then opened her eyes like nothing had happened. “Just think on it. I will give you a split commission for whatever we make from the class.” She swooshed her hands back and forth in front of me as though clearing away some invisible dust, hoping to give her idea a clear lane to my brain. “Just think on it.” She handed me one of the makeup pamphlets.

Back home, I walked the path up to the house, staring at the girl on the front. She was coated in makeup. More makeup than I had ever seen on a face in real life. It did not look pleasant to me at all. I sighed and opened the door.

A Nerf gun was shoved into my hand, and Braden grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the dark front room, pushing me up against the wall. “You are now on my team,” he whispered, no more than two inches from my face. A piece of his reddish-brown hair flopped into his eye and he pushed it back. “Three shots equal death.” He grabbed the pamphlet and the bag full of my work clothes out of my hand and flung them onto the couch five feet away. The makeup ad didn’t quite make it and fluttered to the ground in front of the couch.

“You ready?” he asked, stepping back in front of me. He was so close that his hip brushed against my side. A chill went through me.

He tilted his head and his face moved closer to mine. I froze. Then he sniffed my hair and neck. “What’s that smell?”

For a second I couldn’t answer him. My breath seemed caught in my throat. Then I held up my wrist, between our too-close faces, “It’s a spray from work. A girl, Skye, she sprayed it on me.” My voice came out tight and I let my hand fall back to my side.

Braden lowered his brow. “What’s wrong?” he said. His eyes flickered to my lips, then back to my eyes.

My heart picked up speed. What was going on? I put my arms between our chests, needing a little space. Work was making me weird, I decided. Linda, with all her talk of auras and makeup and fashion, was not good for me. “Nothing.” I looked over his shoulder to the shadowy hall, sure my brothers would’ve heard us by now. We were probably about to get ambushed. “Who’s playing?”

“Everyone.”

“My dad?”

“No. He’s at work.”

I slipped off my shoes so I could be stealthier, hooked my arm in his, and crept along the wall. “We are so winning.”

Braden smiled big. “I knew I made the right choice holdin’ out for you to get home.”

“Darn straight.”

“Let’s kick some butt,” he said, in his horrible imitation of me.

A low voice from across the hall said, “I could’ve killed you guys three times by now. Stop flirting with my sister and get your head in the game. I’ll give you a ten-second head start.”

His accusation made my heart jump. But this was Gage. He was always joking. Plus, he never stopped flirting. Ever. He probably just assumed the same of everyone else. “Shut up,” I said, then pulled Braden the opposite way down the hall. Ten seconds wasn’t very long.

That night in my room I stared at the girl in the ad some more. Makeup wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t practical with sports—sweat and makeup did not mix well—but I’d worn mascara on occasion. And ChapStick was my best friend. The extra money helping Linda out with this project sounded great to put a dent in what I owed my dad so I could quit this job faster. But there was no way I’d come home with my face caked in the stuff. I’d never hear the end of it. I sighed and shoved the ad in my desk drawer.

I walked in to work Thursday, set the pamphlet on the counter in front of Linda, and said, “It’s not waterproof, right?”

“What?”

“The makeup. I want to be able to wash it off easily when I’m finished.”

“I bet your mom would love to see you all made up.”

This was why it wasn’t good to lie. I’d honestly thought the subject would never come up again. This was way worse than the pity looks she would’ve given me. I shrugged.

She looked back at the ad. “It will come off easily with a good face wash.”

I nodded slowly, still not sure I wanted to do this. “And I won’t have to talk?”

She threw her hands in the air in an excited gesture like she thought I’d made up my mind. “No. Just a canvas. It will be great. She’ll do the first class this Saturday morning.” She pulled a form out from beneath the counter, proving she knew I would agree. “Because you’re underage, I need your mother—well, either of your parents—to sign this consent form. For liability issues. Amber isn’t licensed, which is why she isn’t putting makeup on anyone but you during the class. And also, I’m not worried about it, but if you have some sort of allergic reaction, this says you won’t sue me.”

I nodded and took the form, my eyes scanning over the words but not reading them.

“You should tell your mom to come watch.”

Every time she mentioned my mother, my stomach tightened. I should just tell her the truth and get it over with. Instead the words “My mom has to work Saturday so she won’t be able to make it” came out. My mouth had a mind of its own lately. I held up the form. “But I’ll get this signed.”

“Sounds good. Let’s get to work.”

That night I couldn’t sleep for two reasons: one, because I hadn’t run, and two, because the paper that I had forged my dead mother’s signature on screamed at me. It sat in my desk drawer, yelling at the top of its lungs. I should’ve just asked my dad to sign it. He would’ve . . . probably. After asking lots of questions.

I remembered one time my dad came home with a bottle of conditioner and put it on the desk in front of me. “Do you need this? Carol at work said you might.” I stared at the bottle. Of course I knew what it was, I’d seen enough commercials, but I had never used it before. He had guilt in his eyes like he had somehow failed me. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know. It would’ve been so much easier if he had four boys. I knew that, and I knew he knew that. “No, I’m good. My hair doesn’t really get that tangled. But thanks. I’ll use it.” And I did. I couldn’t believe I had lived that long without it.

I wondered if he’d feel just as guilty now for not buying me makeup. I sighed and stared at my desk as if the form Linda gave me was going to burn its way through the drawer. I finally rolled out of bed at one a.m. and turned on the lamp on my nightstand. What was wrong with me? I had justified the act by telling myself that the release was just a formality. I wasn’t going to have an allergic reaction, so it was unnecessary. And my dad would never find out. It wasn’t like this paper would be sent to the government to check and verify. It would get filed away in the ugly metal desk in the stockroom at Bazaar, never to be pulled out again.

I made my way downstairs. Once in the kitchen, I had a clear view of Braden’s house. His bedroom light was on. I grabbed my phone and texted him. Up for a fence chat?

Yep.

“Hey,” he said when we stood separated by the wooden barrier.

“Hi.” I waited for him to talk first, even though I was the one who’d called him out here. I felt embarrassed by the rashness of that decision. Instead of facing the fence, staring at his shadowy figure through the slats, I adopted our previous pose of sitting, back to the fence, then looked up at the moon. It was so much easier to talk to the moon than to Braden. At least about real stuff. I listened as he did the same thing.

“So, you’re up late tonight,” I said.

“Yeah.” He offered no explanation.

My neck hurt, and I rubbed at it. “Have you ever done something stupid and then felt incredibly guilty about it?”

“Yes.” Again, he didn’t expound. “What did you do?”

Pretended my life was whole. “Lied.”

“To who?”

“My boss.”

“About?”

“About . . .” Why did the moon make me want to spill all my secrets to Braden? “. . . something really dumb, but now I don’t know how to tell her the truth.”

“What’s your boss like?”

“Weird. I think she took one of those spiritual journeys around the world or something and thinks she’s reached some sort of inner peace. Now her self-imposed job in life is to fix broken spirits.”

Braden sometimes pulled on his bottom lip when he was thinking, and I could hear that he was doing that when he said, “And she thinks your spirit is broken?”

The clouds around the moon glowed white. “No. Not mine. Well, yes, mine, but not just mine, everyone’s. She thinks everyone has a broken spirit.”

“Everyone but her.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“So you lied to keep her out of your personal business?”

“Yes.”

“Then stop worrying about it. She doesn’t need to butt into your life anyway. If it’s nothing big then just forget about it.”

I just reincarnated a dead person, that’s all, nothing big. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Is that a first?”

“What?”

“Me being right?”

“Ha. Ha.” And then it was quiet. So quiet I could hear his breaths, deep and long. With each breath, it seemed, my shoulders relaxed.

“But if it is something big . . .” He trailed off and my shoulders immediately tensed again. “It will just eat at you.”

I knew this was true. It was already making a meal of my insides. “Well, as long as it starts with some of my more useless organs, then I have some time.”

He laughed.

“You eat a lot of carrots.”

“Uh . . . what?”