The moment felt like my tae kwon do conversation with Hannah. I don’t mean to make people feel distant and unseen, but I do. And I do want friends—that’s new for me. They never mattered before. Life was a job. But now I think friendships make it more worthwhile. What’s the cost of real friendship?
Ashley sucked in a deep breath. “I have a wall too, Sam. The clothes, the shoes, the hair products. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a good, strong wall.” More tears dripped from her nose. “And tonight my mother placed another brick in it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mother sent me a blouse. I texted a picture of me in it to thank her, and here’s what I got in reply.” Ashley picked up her phone and read the text. “‘Clearly you need an appointment at Sania’s. Go there straight from the airport Wednesday.’”
Ashley looked up. “I can’t even go home for Thanksgiving without a cleanup.”
“Who’s Sania?”
“It’s a brow bar on 56th and 5th.” Ashley sniffed.
I laughed. “A brow bar?”
She frowned at me, so I rushed on. “No, that’s what you don’t get, Ashley. I’m serious. What’s a brow bar?”
“Eyebrows. Shaping, waxing, threading. Not that you need it.” She squinted at me. “You just need tweezing.”
And there she hit it: my biggest insecurity. Eyebrows like Oscar the Grouch. I reached up to cover them. She pushed my hand away.
“They’re pretty, Sam. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“They’re horrible.”
“Get me tweezers.”
“What?”
“Just do it. It’ll give me something to do. And trust me, I know how to do this. Maybe it’s all I’m good for.” She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand again and sat up.
Speechless, I started for the bathroom to grab both tweezers and Kleenex, questioning my sanity. First I let Coach Ridley insult my stride to help Kyle, and now . . . Was I really going to let Ashley yank out my eyebrows to boost her self-esteem? Was she helping me? Or was I helping her? Then I had to concede, Kyle is doing better and I’m running faster. We both won.
So I got the tweezers. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous. “What do you plan to do with these?”
“Sit at the table.”
I sat in front of her. Ashley reached up and plucked a hair between my eyes.
“Ouch! You can’t do that!” I jerked my head away.
“Stop it and sit still.”
“Watch the scar, it’s super tender.”
“I won’t go near it. Sit still or I’ll miss and land right on it.”
I froze. I didn’t even breathe. Clearly she needed this. Maybe I did too.
“I’m sorry I criticized your room, Sam. I was angry. I know you hide, but at least you do it somewhere intellectual. Most people don’t think I have a real thought in my brain.”
“Of course you do. You’re smart, Ashley. You’re just amazingly pretty too, and that can be intimidating—ouch.” I tried not to cry out each time, but it hurt.
“Really?”
“Sure. You’re the classic kind of pretty: petite, blond, blue-eyed. And you have that great accent. It’s intimidating. And I think you know it.”
“Sometimes.” She had the grace to smile.
