She shrugs knowingly and sends me on my way.
In my sprawlingprivatebathroom, listening to the sloshing of the water as it fills the tub that could easily fit two, I stare at my naked body in the impeccably lit mirror. I chart the course of freckles across my nose and the mole on my right shoulder. My nipples look puffy and hairy, and my eyes look too sleep-deprived to function. Even the espresso couldn’t counteract those less-than-designer dark bags.
Had it only been days ago that Hector touched me and I felt like the most desired person in the world? It couldn’t have been that short a time since he ran that bar of soap across my skin in the miniscule shower we shared.
To distract myself, I pull my La Mer detoxifying and revitalizing face mask from a nearby cabinet, and I let out a sigh of relief as I step into the water. My body takes a while to adjust to the temperature shock in the tub. The water at Grandma and Gramps’s was always slightly south of warm. I tip over a bottle of rose-scented bubbles, which is a mistake since it reminds me of Grandma’s favorite tea. I light the candle near the window to counteract it.
I rest my head on a Mako cotton towel and use the luxury brush to paint on the mask. Each brushstroke tickles my sensitive skin, but I don’t dare smile. Smiling feels wrong, and anyway, the mask will crack if I do.
Setting the cucumbers on my eyes, I wait for relaxation. When rising anxiety comes instead, I start planning a Forget About the Boy Bash. It would take place in a quaint piano bar. A fishbowl for tips would be set out along with a sheet-music binder full of show tunes. As the host with the most, I would perform a ravishingThoroughly Modern Millienumber.
Only hiccup is, as the fantasy goes on, I remember that that song’s not in my range, and the idea of being gawked at and judged for anything more right now makes me super nauseated.
I grow even sicker when I realize how this spa moment is so much like the fake event I planned with Hector out on the porch at Grandma and Gramps’s place. Churning starts when I remember how I shut down his attempt to help me last night. Would someone who threw me to the wolves do something like that? Maybe this was all an accident. Maybe I misunderstood.
Started with an H…
That’s what it was…yes.
No. I’m firm in my knowledge that he did this. Mom may be spacey when it comes to parenting, but she wouldn’t lie to me like that.
I wash my face, my hair, and unplug the drain. I grab a cucumber slice from the plate. Letting the citrusy notes dance over my tongue, I close my eyes and consider Hector for a second. Consider how weightless I was dancing with him at the gala. How supported I felt with him by my side on that stage.
It’s incomprehensible that a guy with that much integrity could stoop so low. Just goes to show you, like he learned with Natalia, that people aren’t always what they appear to be.
Once I’m dried, moisturized, and dressed in my cream sweater—the designer version of the sweater Hector had worn on that day in the bookstore (because I’m a sucker for self-punishment)—I slink into the kitchen for a predinner snack.
On the way, I spy Oksana in the living room. She sports bright-red lipstick and a short, tousled hairdo. In an oval mirror, she’s attempting her eyeliner.
“Let me,” I offer, holding out a hand. This is familiar for us. When I was young, I had a fixation on clothing and beauty. Naturally, this led to an obsession with watching Oksana put on her makeup. I’d beg to poke around in her makeup bag, back when she was still a live-in au pair.
Even after, I’d help doll her up for dates or parties or wherever her life took her beyond the walls of our apartment. Funny to think I never once asked where she was going, who she was meeting. For someone so firmly set in my life, I know so little about her.
“You always did do it better than me,” Oksana says, giving me the pencil.
“After a lot of practice,” I say. “Honestly, some of those attempts got pretty dicey. I’m surprised you still have both your eyes.”
She laughs. “I trusted you, Matthew.”
Hearing those words does something the bath couldn’t. It fills me with bubbles instead of surrounding me with them.
I have her sit, and with a steady hand, I draw flawless lines beneath her down-sloping eyes. It’s nice to channel my frenetic energy into something simple. There’s a calming intimacy here that I’ve missed.
Makeup, I realize, is another way I costume myself to face the world. If I hide the blemishes, nobody can point them out or blow them up.
But on Oksana, even as I touch up her lips and powder her nose, it doesn’t read like armor. This isn’t the face she needs to take on the outside. It’s only meant to enhance the natural beauty she lets shine through every day.
“Are you happy to be home?” she asks.
That question is too much for my fragile heart. “Mm-hmm,” I lie. Even if I’d like to pamper her some more, I drop the cone-shaped sponge and change the subject. “Party tonight?”
“Just a small dinner tonight,” she says. “Big party at my place tomorrow. I know you have fancy plans, but you’re always welcome to come by.”
“Thanks,” I say, already lost in my own head again.
Once she leaves, I fiddle with my phone, contemplating a call to Grandma and Gramps. I want to know if the gala was successful. If they made any more cookies. If they know what Hector did. They deserve some honesty from my end. But like with Noelle, I left without a goodbye. I can’t expect everyone to forgive me just because it will clear my conscience.
I guess I’ll have to learn to live with this.
