about him.
A man passed us as we sat there. “Nice day,” he said, or something like that, and I smiled back. Tim's feet had stayed still then, I noticed. His ankles were white and bony above his unlacedtrainers. A vein snaked its way round the bump like a twisting river of blood.
“You're not saying you picked someone up in the park!”
I came back to the salon with a start.
“Do you not know how dangerous that is? Do you not know that, Molly? There was this woman in one of my magazines who was captured by a man she met in the park. He kept her like a dog in a flat nearby, let her out for exercise and she was so frightened that she always came back to him when he called. Can you not imagine that?” When Miranda got excited a Scottish undercurrent always came out, not just in the accent but in the sentence order too. The negativity of her Caledonian grammar made me more defensive than I knew I should have been.
“I can look after myself,” I said.
Miranda pulled a piece of my hair especially tight, ignoring my gasp. “Leave that chair alone,” she said, and I let go of it, but not before spinning it once more round for luck.
“I was just sitting on the Seize the Day bench reading,” I said. “He came to sit there too. Asked if I had any idea who Jessica was.”
“Not local then.”
I shook my head. That had been one of the first things I'd thought too. All locals knew about Jessica Owens. She was a teenage girl who had killed herself four years ago. It was just before she took her A levels and when she died, it started a big campaign about adolescent pressure at school and academic achievements and how girls were supposed to look like models as well as everything else.
Because that's what she wrote in her suicide note:
Maybe if I was prettier, then none ofthis would have mattered.
No one but me seemed to think it was funny how the newspapers used the story as an excuse to print photographs of Jessicalooking pretty alongside the articles about how dangerous it was to worry so much about appearance. Lots of photographs too, not just of Jessica but of film stars, supermodels, musicians. Pages and pages of beautiful women.
“Molly?” Miranda said.
I gave another start. I'd been thinking about Tim's ankles.
“You were telling me about the man.”
“He's different,” I said.
“Hard to explain.” “Could I meet him?”
“I'll ask. It's not that he's shy exactly. More private.”
She shrugged and twisted my chair so I was sitting straight, facing the mirror with her standing behind me. I normally liked seeing us like that, one on top of the other like two twists in one of those fancy breadsticks they sell in the Italian deli on the corner, but there was something strange about our reflections tonight. The plait had scraped my face back so it looked almost plastic-like in its tightness but Miranda's skin was shining with perspiration, and she'd been trying out this new red eye shadow that was supposed to be the in thing in all the magazines. It made her look fatter than normal. Well, we were both fat. It was something we didn't mention to each other, but now her shiny face and piggy eyes were drawing attention to it in a way I didn't like.
“I thought we might go for a flick-out at the end of your hair next time,” she said. “It'll bring out the beautiful texture of your skin. You've been blessed with your skin. It makes me mad with jealousy.”
I put my hand up to my neck in the mirror, let my finger and thumb stretch across so I could be strangling myself, but then dropped my hand down so it was just cupping my chin. Softly. “But your neck …” I said. Behind me, Miranda lifted her face up in the mirror to expose the arch of her neck.
Four
I was pleased Tim was late for our date that night. It gave me more time with Jessica.
“Jessica,” I told her in my head, tracing the carved letters on the rough wood of the bench with my fingertips like I was playing the piano. S.E.I.Z.E.
A man passed us as we sat there. “Nice day,” he said, or something like that, and I smiled back. Tim's feet had stayed still then, I noticed. His ankles were white and bony above his unlacedtrainers. A vein snaked its way round the bump like a twisting river of blood.
“You're not saying you picked someone up in the park!”
I came back to the salon with a start.
“Do you not know how dangerous that is? Do you not know that, Molly? There was this woman in one of my magazines who was captured by a man she met in the park. He kept her like a dog in a flat nearby, let her out for exercise and she was so frightened that she always came back to him when he called. Can you not imagine that?” When Miranda got excited a Scottish undercurrent always came out, not just in the accent but in the sentence order too. The negativity of her Caledonian grammar made me more defensive than I knew I should have been.
“I can look after myself,” I said.
Miranda pulled a piece of my hair especially tight, ignoring my gasp. “Leave that chair alone,” she said, and I let go of it, but not before spinning it once more round for luck.
“I was just sitting on the Seize the Day bench reading,” I said. “He came to sit there too. Asked if I had any idea who Jessica was.”
“Not local then.”
I shook my head. That had been one of the first things I'd thought too. All locals knew about Jessica Owens. She was a teenage girl who had killed herself four years ago. It was just before she took her A levels and when she died, it started a big campaign about adolescent pressure at school and academic achievements and how girls were supposed to look like models as well as everything else.
Because that's what she wrote in her suicide note:
Maybe if I was prettier, then none ofthis would have mattered.
No one but me seemed to think it was funny how the newspapers used the story as an excuse to print photographs of Jessicalooking pretty alongside the articles about how dangerous it was to worry so much about appearance. Lots of photographs too, not just of Jessica but of film stars, supermodels, musicians. Pages and pages of beautiful women.
“Molly?” Miranda said.
I gave another start. I'd been thinking about Tim's ankles.
“You were telling me about the man.”
“He's different,” I said.
“Hard to explain.” “Could I meet him?”
“I'll ask. It's not that he's shy exactly. More private.”
She shrugged and twisted my chair so I was sitting straight, facing the mirror with her standing behind me. I normally liked seeing us like that, one on top of the other like two twists in one of those fancy breadsticks they sell in the Italian deli on the corner, but there was something strange about our reflections tonight. The plait had scraped my face back so it looked almost plastic-like in its tightness but Miranda's skin was shining with perspiration, and she'd been trying out this new red eye shadow that was supposed to be the in thing in all the magazines. It made her look fatter than normal. Well, we were both fat. It was something we didn't mention to each other, but now her shiny face and piggy eyes were drawing attention to it in a way I didn't like.
“I thought we might go for a flick-out at the end of your hair next time,” she said. “It'll bring out the beautiful texture of your skin. You've been blessed with your skin. It makes me mad with jealousy.”
I put my hand up to my neck in the mirror, let my finger and thumb stretch across so I could be strangling myself, but then dropped my hand down so it was just cupping my chin. Softly. “But your neck …” I said. Behind me, Miranda lifted her face up in the mirror to expose the arch of her neck.
Four
I was pleased Tim was late for our date that night. It gave me more time with Jessica.
“Jessica,” I told her in my head, tracing the carved letters on the rough wood of the bench with my fingertips like I was playing the piano. S.E.I.Z.E.
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