“I know.” Beauty felt herself shutting down again, felt the distance stretch between her and her voice. She’d known Sabrina since kindergarten, and they’d been friends through unfortunate growth spurts and even more unfortunate pimples the size of quarters. Sabrina had come to the funeral, and her mom had made piles of warm chapatis because she knew Beauty loved them so much. It was a comfort to have a friend who had known her for years, before everything seemed to unravel. Even so, it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap that she felt growing between her and everyone else, between her and herself. Sometimes she wished no one knew her and she could be the New Girl and start from scratch.
"Do you still have to shave your legs in the gym bath–room?" Sabrina asked.
“Yeah,” Beauty sighed. “No razors allowed in He keeps his locked up in his medicine cabinet.”
Sabrina shook her head. She would have said more, but Beauty was getting that lost sorrowful look again. She tore open her packet of cookies and pushed one over.
“Here, have a chocolate cookie. Guaranteed to solve all “Here, have a chocolate of life’s problems.”
They chewed in silence for a while. Beauty turned when she heard laughter and the tinny sound of an acoustic guitar. Poe sat in the back corner with some of his friends. His long hair was tied back, and he was wearing a leather necklace with some kind of pendant on it.
Sabrina nudged her under the table. “Go make a Sabrina request.”
“Yeah, right,” Beauty scoffed. “I told you what happened last night. I request that he forget me altogether.”
“You are way too shy. Go sit in his lap.”
Beauty’s laugh was slightly strangled, like a bird suddenly free of a cage and afraid of the sky. “Go get your head checked,” she suggested.
Sabrina just laughed. “You know you want to.”
“I want a lot of things.”
“Good,” she said with a nod of her head. “It’s a start.” She wadded up her wrapper and flicked it off the table. It bounced off a black steel-toed boot.
Luna kicked the wrapper aside and slid onto the bench beside Sabrina. She was wearing a skirt over faded patched jeans and a long medieval velvet shirt and yellow nail polish. Nothing about her remotely matched.
“Can I sit here?” Luna asked. There was a bindi in the middle of her forehead and faded henna on her palms. She wore thick silver on her fingers and a candy ring. The girls at the table next to them nudged each other and sneered. “I’m Luna,” she said to Sabrina.
Sabrina smiled. “I know. I’m Sabrina.”
“Hi.” Luna pulled a bag of popcorn out of her knapsack. The smell of movie theaters and summer afternoons was thick and sudden. She shrugged. “No food in the house,” she offered by way of explanation.
“Wish we had that problem,” Beauty muttered.
The girls at the next table laughed. Luna ignored them. One of the girls leaned over, all false smiles, and stared pointedly at her. “You know, Halloween’s not for a month,” she said sweetly.
Luna ignored her. Sabrina blinked innocently.
"Then you might want to consider wearing a paper bag on your head until then," said Sabrina.
There was a shocked gasp. Luna made an odd sound as she tried to swallow a giggle.
“Thanks,” Luna said finally, offering her popcorn. “I don’t “Thanks,” Luna even know her.”
Sabrina shrugged. “That’s Clare. You’re not missing much. She was, however, going out with Matt Doran in August.”
Luna winced. “I went to the movies with him a couple of Luna winced. weeks ago.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t seen him since,” she continued, defending herself. “He was boring. There are definitely more interesting guys around here.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Luna sighed. "I really hate new schools sometimes. I wish they came with a manual."
Sabrina brushed salt off her hands and grabbed her bag. “You’re doing fine. I gotta go.” She made a face at Beauty. “See you in language lab.”
Luna watched her go. “She seems nice.”
Beauty nodded. “Some people are scared of her, though.”
“Why?”
"She's never been one to take any crap." Beauty shrugged. "Some people are scared of me too."
Luna opened a bottle of pineapple juice. "Really? How come? You're so quiet."
Beauty rested her chin on her hands. “They think I’m weird. You haven’t heard the stories yet?”
Luna shook her head. "Nope. Do you have an evil twin or a secret life as an adolescent marketing spy?"
"Nothing that interesting. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll hear all sorts of things soon enough."
Before Luna could reply, Poe walked by their table and paused. He was carrying his guitar case, and the earphones around his neck blared out unidentifiable muffled music. His friends Kennedy and Paul didn’t notice his abrupt pause and stumbled into him.
“Hey, Luna,” Poe said, his ears pink. He glanced at Beauty. “Beauty, right?”
She was suddenly absolutely certain there was a huge piece of her lunch stuck in her teeth. And that her entire knowledge of the English language had escaped her completely. Sometimes she hated her life. She realized he was still looking at her and she hadn’t said anything yet.
“Right,” she whispered, nodding. “Hi.” Brilliant. Just brilliant. I’ve probably got drool running down my chin too. Oh my God, does he even know how beautiful he is? I have to get out of here.
Luna smiled. “What’s up?”
He shrugged. “Not much. Finished that song.”
“Cool. You’ll have to let me hear it later.”
“Sure.” He smiled at them both. “See ya around.”
Beauty waited a full minute before speaking. Her stomach felt weird and her throat was dry. She watched him saunter away, guitar case bumping against his leg. He didn’t look back.
“Is he…are you together?” she blurted out finally. As she waited for Luna’s answer, she was uncomfortably aware of every sound: the crinkling of paper, laughter and whispering, a shout, a book being dropped and the blood moving in her veins. It shouldn’t matter what the answer was. She knew Poe would never look twice at her. He was so…and she was…well, she just wasn’t. It was as simple as that. And he must know about her and her mother. Everyone knew, it seemed, except Luna.
Luna shook her head. Her blond hair was sleeked down today and it made her look like a disoriented flapper. “Nah, we thought about it but we make much better friends.”
It was as if all the air had left Beauty’s body and then a wind had stormed into her. She knew her smile must have been too bright, too obvious. She almost didn’t care. “Oh. You went out though?”
“Sure. I’ve been out with a lot of people. It’s how you make friends.”
Beauty wondered how it must feel to be so confident and casual, so natural. “Most people aren’t like that around here,” she said.
Luna glanced ruefully at Matt’s ex-girlfriend. “Apparently.” She shook her shoulders as if to shake off the whole situation. “Anyway, who cares? Why don’t you come over later? We can talk about the project. I have an idea.”
Beauty tried to follow the abrupt change of topic. Half of her was still swooning over the fact that Poe had said her name. Sad. She really had to get a grip.
“Beauty?”
“What? Oh, sorry. Sure.”
Luna grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. It was covered with beads and patches, and the back was painted with a woman in a rowboat looking tragic.
“Do you need directions? It’s right near your place.”
Beauty had to smile. “Everyone knows where you live, Luna.”
Luna grinned. “Ah, I’m famous already.”
“You have no idea.”
Beauty spent her spare period before math class in the art room. It was mostly empty; one or two students she didn’t know were talking over wet clay in the far corner.
The old radio was playing something instrumental that sounded vaguely like a waltz. Mr. Andrews only stocked classical and jazz CDs. Anything else students wanted to listen to they had to bring in themselves. Mr. Andrews was a very popular teacher. He wore jeans and he was only ever strict if you didn’t take care of the paintbrushes properly.
Beauty took a deep breath of the paint-and-turpentine-laced air. It was strangely comforting. She loved the old and stained tables and the rickety easels and the canvases that hung in every available space to dry. Baskets of charcoal and pastels shared space with tubes of paint and glue and brushes of every size and description.
She stood in front of her easel and pursed her lips. Her sketch was off somehow; something was missing and she didn’t know what it was. The woman had her mother’s features, and the bathtub was just an outline. The garden was rendered in painstaking detail, every rose opening and every petal sharply shaded. But it was flat, dull. Anyone could have drawn it; it had no character.
She sighed and reached for a palette and paints. She’d try adding some color and see what happened. It couldn’t get much worse than it already was.
She painted slowly and quietly for awhile. It made her uncomfortable to be in the classroom where anyone might come in to watch her. She preferred painting in her basement where she knew she was alone and could wear paint-splattered shirts and thick black eyeliner. At school she tried to fade, tried to make everyone forget all of the stories about her. She just wanted to be invisible. Except when she wanted to shoot through the halls like a falling star.
Luna had had a taste of Briar High this afternoon. It hadn’t taken long for people to figure out that she didn’t exactly fit in. And fitting in was practically an Olympic sport at their school. Lately, Beauty had started wearing vaguely trendy clothes so she could blend, so no one would remember that she didn’t fit in either. She still half-expected someone to stand up in the middle of a biology test and scream “freak!”
She’d never been able to decide if her gravestone would read “She tried too hard” or “She didn’t try hard enough.”
But Luna, Luna wasn’t even trying. She lived in an old house everyone thought was haunted. Her mother had purple streaks in her hair and a nose ring, and Luna swam naked in backyard pools, even when they weren’t hers. The guys from school all watched her through the fences and gates and from treetops. If it had been anyone else, they’d have hooted and hollered. Instead they just watched her silently, staring at her plump body as if it held some kind of answer. Once someone had even stolen roses from Beauty’s garden and left them in the pool’s sharp waters after she’d gone.
Guys didn’t watch Beauty at all. Well, except when she tripped over her shoelaces or froze in the middle of a class presentation. Lately her idea of rebellion was chewing gum in class. She was about as dangerous as tea at four in the afternoon with your deaf grandmother. If Luna was a firefly, then Beauty was the glass jar.
She snorted to herself. Luna might be a glass jar too, if she had Beauty’s father. Sabrina had it right: Her father was getting weirder. She knew he loved her, but he was becoming so overprotective it was ridiculous. They both knew her mother’s birthday was soon, the first one since the accident. It made Beauty tired and numb inside, but it seemed to be doing the opposite to her father. He was nervous and edgy.
She shook it off and turned back to her painting. The acrylic was drying quickly and she knew without a doubt that it was no better than the black and white sketch. She ran her hands over her face and turned away. She tossed her paintbrush aside and her eye caught the glint of an X-Acto knife lying among the ruins of a newspaper that had been used for papier-mâché.
She picked it up, the yellow plastic handle as hot as fire in her palm. The blade was short and slanted like a guillotine. She looked at the canvas again and then at the forbidden edge of the blade. When she sliced it across the canvas, it parted the paint like water. The edges of the canvas curled to the wooden frame on which it was stapled. She sliced at it until it hung in tatters like a bead curtain. Strips of paint and material fluttered down to drape over her hands like the long petals of pale lilies.
When the bell rang, she jumped and the knife nicked the base of her thumb. Drops of blood formed and fell, red as rose petals. The pain was quick and sudden, and it felt like a tiny mouth breathed on her hand. She stuck it between her lips and sucked at the blood, feeling a little bit disoriented and a little foolish. She turned her back on the ruined painting.
Her father would freak out if he saw the cut on her thumb. She wrapped it in a wet paper towel and hurried off to class, wondering how she was going to hide it from him.
3
The day was still bright
and warm when Beauty walked up the driveway to 17 Thorntree Drive. The tall house was a riot of muted colors and the gardens were a wild mess. She itched to get in there and start pulling at the weeds. The black-eyed Susans were choking and the roses were growing leggy, stretching out to search for sunlight. Wind chimes, Chinese fortune coins and tin lanterns danced in the maple tree in the front yard. Somewhere down the street a dog barked.
She paused in front of the lavender-hued door and lifted the brass knocker shaped like the snake-haired face of Medusa. She jumped when the door swung open suddenly. A barefoot woman in a sundress barely glanced at her. She was concentrating on the old book in her left hand, and her fingers were stained with ink. Her hair hung down to her elbows.
“Yeah?” the woman asked.
Beauty hesitated. “I’m, uh, looking for Luna?”
The woman nodded, waved her in. “She’s around,” she said before wandering off.
Beauty stood uncertainly in the front hall. The living room was off to her left and the walls were crammed with paintings, mostly of women in medieval gowns or knights in armor. The lamps were off, fringed shades like ornate Edwardian hats. She could see dusty plants in the kitchen, and the hallway was papered with intricate dizzying patterns in burgundy and green. The air smelled like burning wood and paint.
Luna laughed from the top of the staircase. It was old and wooden with a faded carpet runner marching up the center. She was barefoot too, and silver rings gleamed on her painted toes. A jumble of Indian anklets rang out when she crouched down to be seen.
“Never mind Simone,” she said. “She gets like that when she’s writing poetry.”
“Is she your sister?” Beauty asked.
Luna shook her head. “She just lives with us sometimes. Come on up.”
Beauty climbed the stairs, feeling like she was entering Aladdin’s cave or some distant land where oranges grew in rivers and flowers were eaten for breakfast. Luna led her down a narrow hallway. Doors opened onto several rooms filled with easels and towers of books. They went up another staircase and Luna ducked into the door on her left. A purple bead curtain swayed and clinked together, sounding like raindrops on the roof.
Beauty’s eyes widened. “Wow,” she said. “You’ve got a great room.”
Luna grinned and threw herself down on her unmade bed. “We move around a lot. I’ve learned to decorate quickly.”
There were candles burning on the windowsills and incense smoke coiling lazily from a wooden holder shaped like a branch. Music she didn’t recognize spilled out of a small stereo covered in rhinestones and star stickers. The sound of it was thick with drums and women’s voices, making her think of long nights and abandoned castles. There was a desk and a chair and a beanbag cushion surrounded by a pile of embroidered pillows. Beauty lowered herself down into one and had to smile. She felt dangerous and interesting and her name suddenly didn’t seem so absurd.
Posters of rock bands and movies shared space with reproductions of old paintings. Beauty recognized the sad woman painted on Luna’s knapsack.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
Luna followed her gaze. “The Lady of Shalott,” she replied. “She was cursed never to look on Camelot, but she saw Lancelot in her mirror and fell in love with h
im. When she turned to look at him, she saw Camelot and died in the river.”
Beauty tilted her head. “Cheerful.”
Luna smiled. “I like it. Tennyson wrote a poem about her, and that painting’s a Waterhouse. He was a Pre-Raphaelite, like the guys I told you about.”
Beauty nodded. She felt oddly comfortable around Luna, as if they’d been friends for years. It seemed perfectly normal to be sitting around chatting about dead artists. Luna pointed to a pile of books on the low blue table between them.
“I pulled out some of my mom’s books on the Pre-Raphaelites. You can borrow a couple if you want.” Beauty picked up the one on top and flipped idly through it while Luna kept talking. “The Pre-Raphaelites revolutionized art in the mid 1800s. They used these really bright colors and they painted on white canvases instead of the traditional black ones. It was a big deal. They were like a rock band, you know? Everyone talked about them. Am I boring you? I tend to babble when it comes to this stuff. It runs in the blood.”
“Is your mom really an artist?” Beauty asked wistfully.
“Yeah, half the people living here are artists or poets or musicians. It’s very much a Pre-Raphaelite house. Even Poe and some of his friends have been by to rehearse. The basement’s soundproof, for all the musicians to practice in if it’s late. My mom’s weird about getting her eight hours of undisturbed sleep. Anyway, where was I? The project. Right. So that’s why I thought we should do that as our topic. Kind of cheating, but why not? What about your mom?”
It was like the air filled with dust.
“My mom worked in an office building. She loved her gardens, though.”
“What happened?”
"She died." Beauty picked up another book and forced a smile. "Does your mom have a studio here?"
Luna watched her for a moment but decided not to push it. "Yeah, I'll show it to you later if you want."
Beauty thought of her cramped corner in the basement with virtually no light and paintings stacked under the couch, and then she thought of a real artist’s studio.
“I’d love to see it,” she said. It was the first thing she could remember wanting this much since her mother died. Well, except for Poe. And she just liked watching him.