Violet sat forward, turning down the Gin Blossoms singing on the radio. She turned on the windshield wipers. After a bit they started to squeak. The wipers were too fast for the rain. The deluge had tapered down to a fine mist.
“Scarlett…”
I put a hand up. “Violet.”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. She turned off the wipers and slammed her head against the seat. She turned the Gin Blossoms back up. She wanted me to open up, but when I compared her pent-up tirade to giving back the jacket—giving back the jacket won out.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop the sadness that infiltrated my heart when I thought of it no longer belonging to me. He wanted it back, but parting with it felt eerily like parting with him.
Final. No more.The end.
Another part of me died with the thought. I had never been prone to melodramatics, but there I was.
Violet turned the radio down again. “This is such a working-class neighborhood.” Her tone was not judgmental, just matter of fact. She was giving me a break, a moment of respite from leather-jacket withdrawal.
I sat back with her, relaxing into the seat. I felt some of the pressure escape from the car when she changed the subject, or at any rate, it was deflected for a bit. I used my fingers to wipe away some of the moisture that had built up inside the car from the window. Of all things, my fingers decided to draw an elegant B and then F in the leftover condensation.
Instead of torturing myself with a tattoo of his initials, I looked out at the world around me.
Brando’s neighborhood was what my mom had always referred to as the “wrong side of the tracks.” It didn’t have any two-story brick houses with grand white pillars, picturesque lakes rippling behind them, or any shiny new Cadillacs in the driveways. Some of the yards were overgrown, with beaters sitting in the driveway, some of them up on cement blocks, while pieces of their bodies were strewn about. A few houses had blankets covering the windows instead of curtains.
This was the type of neighborhood that my mother, and women like her, tried to save with their fundraisers—what I liked to call an excuse to show off their own two-story brick houses that had white pillars and beautiful lakes behind them, with the most up-to-date Cadillac model, or something comparable, in the driveway.
My mother and her people enjoyed running in social circles where the grandest buffets were a means to get the job done.
The politics of it made me cringe.
A loud sigh escaped my lips as I looked down at the jacket again. It was now or never. It had to be done. Escaping the cage he had left me in felt close to visceral. And there was no refusing what he had asked me for. His jacket. Emphasis solely on his.
Flipping down the visor in front of me, I stared at my reflection in the small mirror. My part was centered, so I fluffed up each side the best I could. The rain had withered me a bit. Excessive humidity in the air caused the hair at my hairline to curl and wave around me in a wild cascade.
Violet had been right.
In this wearisome light, with this rain, the auburn of my hair had turned chestnut and made me look even paler. Even I could not dismiss the deep sadness that lingered in my eyes. Elliott used to say that when I was sick or depressed, the green of my eyes seemed almost…alien. Sometimes he’d call me Froggy.
“Here.” Violet reached into the backseat and brought her bag forward. She dug around for a moment and then produced a lipstick case. She handed it to me. “Put that on. It’ll bring out your skin and eyes.”
I handed her the cap and then twisted until the lipstick appeared.Sugar Pink. The color seemed neutral enough, but after applying a liberal amount to my lips, I had to sit back in the seat. It was bright. Almost neon. In fact, it should’ve come with a warning label—your lips will glow!
I looked at the lipstick again and then at my lips, comparing the two.
“I know. It’s not what it seems. The color.” She smiled. “But if you’re going to stand on Brando Fausti’s stomping ground, you need something bold. You need to knock him out. A man that fine needs shock treatment,Sandy.”
We both turned toward one another at the same time and laughed. The thing about Violet was, even though I had a hard time being friendly, I never had trouble beingherfriend. It just sort of happened and blossomed without much interference or work from either of us. We justbecamewithout reason or cause or action.
Violet had always been loyal to me. Up until Elliott had died, my mother and father had private tutors for me, and all I did was dance, dance,danceunder the strict eye of my famous ballerina grandmother, Maja Resnik. Violet and I had met through the dance studio my parents owned, her mother attempting to get her out and socializing when she was three. We had been friends ever since. Even though my dance career took me away from home quite a bit, she had always been there. Even if it was through letters and calls, it all added up to dedication.
The girl you see hanging from the barre sticking her tongue out?Violet.The girl you see grinning at her but playing her part?Moi.
Violet was the Alicia Silverstone to my Liv Tyler. The nutty peanut butter to my grape jelly. We were two colors of a different spectrum in the same crayon box.
Our laughter tapered as the rain picked up and the sounds of water pelting tin got louder. Another glance in the mirror and I turned from the reflection staring back at me.
It was hard enough to learn that Brando had never thought of me as anything more than his friend’s little sister, but losing the leather jacket was a symbol of losing him, of what he had offered me, and the struggle to let him go became a tangible thing in my hand.
“You look beautiful, Scarlett. The color brightens everything about you.” Violet gave me a reassuring smile, misreading my sadness as nervousness. “In fact, it looks much better on you. Keep it.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. My grip tightened around the lipstick; a weapon in my palm. Then I stared at the house, again, asking myself if I was ready for this.
