Beth Bauman - Beautiful Girls

This week’s seminar featured a dramatization of several kids gathered in a bathroom while Britney Spears’ “Oops!…I Did It Again” played in the background. One of the actors played a reluctant kid, who sat on the lid of the toilet bowl while several other actors tried to pressure him into putting a plastic bag over his head and sniffing some Aquanet hairspray.

Janet scribbled on a piece of notebook paper and handed it to Robin. “I think U R too dependent on me,” it read.

The lights dimmed, the actors froze and a voice from outer space said, “Rule number one: Think of your future. Remember your hopes and dreams. Brain damage is not cool!”

“Exasperating!” Janet whispered. “If you’re a big enough moron to sniff hairspray, then you should get brain damage.”

The actors unfroze and the reluctant one said, “Hey, listen, sniffing household substances isn’t cool. They can mess up your head. I have algebra homework, and in a couple of years I’m going to college.”

Robin underlined the words “too dependent” and scribbled, “How?” She stared at Janet’s profile, waiting.

“Not any 1 thing,” Janet wrote. “HOW can a ♀ go thru h.s. w/ only 1 friend?”

The actor who wouldn’t sniff the Aquanet leapt off the toilet seat lid, and a spotlight zeroed in on him. The outer space voice said, “Cool Kid.” Cool Kid smiled broadly and donned a graduation cap and then galloped offstage. The outer space voice then said, “Jackasses.” The spotlight zoomed in on the hairspray sniffers, who were wearing donkey ears and braying as they wielded the Aquanet and pulled plastic bags over their heads and banged into the toilet and the tub. There were snickers and yawns. Lame , a boy behind them called out.

“What do I do?” Robin wrote, feeling herself go clammy.

“I don’t have all the answers,” Janet whispered. “I definitely don’t.” She gave Robin a small, weary smile, revealing her bottom row of even white teeth.

Every week during the seminars they got a new pamphlet and this week’s said, “Everybody Wants to Be Cool and That’s Okay.” Robin read a list of ways to be cool. Help a disadvantaged child; be a good neighbor. Doing something for a kid or neighbor was certainly nice but it wasn’t cool, she thought. Who were these people to talk about cool when they didn’t know what it was either? The room was filled with the whish of pamphlets hitting the auditorium floor. Janet flicked hers, and it ricocheted off the seat in front of her before landing next to their feet.

Robin was saving the pamphlets. They were a mystery, not really helpful but occasionally very interesting. Last week’s—“Reach Out for Friends Not Drugs”—said only a small percentage of the people you meet will actually become friends and that it’s important to have realistic expectations. This was a revelation. There were hundreds of kids in the auditorium; there were so many bodies and voices, so similar to each other in their boredom—each of them wiggly and uncomfortable in the stiff seats. Most of us will never really know each other, Robin thought as she looked at the rows and rows of heads in front of her. When Janet wasn’t looking Robin slid the pamphlet into her notebook.

Robin sat in the library after school, trying to do geometry homework. She sometimes imagined herself marching over to Janet’s house and ending their friendship. She knew Janet would stare deeply into her eyes. Janet would say insulting things—or worse, she might say nothing at all. She might just say “okay” and go back to her little turquoise room at the top of the stairs and apply another coat of Intrigue #39 to her fingernails. It was possible.

Robin soon gave up on the idea and went online to a site she had heard some girls talking about called prettygirl.com. On a message board called “Being Pretty Is Enough,” she read:

“I’m kind of a snotty bitch. I like to diddle my boyfriend around and because I’m pretty I CAN. Ha!”

“Don’t get me wrong I love being pretty. In fact I’m super pretty but if I had been a little less pretty I might have developed more of a wit. I’m not good at one-liners like my mediocre-looking roommates and sometimes I get jealous, like yesterday when one of them came in with a little flower from the lawn and stuck it in a jelly jar and placed it on the table and said ‘weed du jour.’ I wish I could come up with stuff like that. I’m twenty so I’m probably older and wiser than most of you. All I’m saying is maybe I should have felt the need to be clever.”

And the responses: “I bet she isn’t really pretty.” “You are so right. I know an ugly girl who reads this website.”

Robin thought of the last party and all of the other terrifying parties Janet had dragged her to. She wrote: “I love that being pretty means I don’t have to do anything. People seem to like me just because I’m pretty to look at. Doors open for me wherever I go.”

As Robin left the library she saw Nolan Fry, gazing into his locker as if it were a refrigerator. Surprisingly, he was the only one in the hall.

Robin walked toward him. Doors open for me wherever I go . “Hi Nolan,” she found herself saying.

“Hey,” he said, turning his cool eyes on her.

“I thought I’d say ‘hi,’” she blurted.

“You’re Cheryl.”

“Robin.”

“Robin,” he said, brushing a finger over his lips.

“I’m a sophomore.”

He laughed.

“I mean you probably don’t know many sophomores, is all.”

“Have you read this Bartleby the Scrivener ?” he asked, pulling it from his locker.

Robin shook her head.

“Bartleby. I like that name,” he said, tossing the book into his backpack. He slammed shut his locker. “See ya.”

“Bye.” He walked the short distance to the side exit. Doors open for me wherever I go . Robin stared after him as he left the building. Being pretty hadn’t done a damn thing for her. It was almost nothing, really. She had the urge to check her face in the bathroom mirror.

But Nolan was opening up the door. “Want a ride?” he called.

She rode in the front seat of Nolan Fry’s pickup truck, which was blue with a slightly crunched passenger door. She was wondering if she should tell him where she lived or if she should wait for him to ask. It was easier to look at Nolan’s profile than to look at his dreamy, beautiful face. Nolan apparently didn’t feel the need for chit-chat, and they rode quietly listening to the radio. Every now and then he coughed and gave his chest a small pound with a fist.

“You’re Janet’s friend,” he said, after a time.

“She’s not really my friend,” Robin said.

Nolan pulled into the lot at the park and found a spot under some leafy trees. The sky was growing dark, and the air had became cool. He took a swig of the purple cough syrup that lay on the dashboard. “Want some?” he said.

“Okay,” she said. Her mouth had gone dry, and she took a sip. He laughed and took a joint from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. “You smoke?” he asked.

“Won’t that make you cough more?”

“Probably. I’m an idiot sometimes.” He took a hit and handed the joint to her. Robin didn’t especially like getting high, because most times nothing much happened, though once she had the repeated sensation of falling off a curb.

They passed it back and forth until she got a chill and the top of Robin’s head went momentarily frosty. Nolan took another swig of cough syrup and slunk down into his seat. Robin felt smooth and polished as a stone and slunk down next to him, and they stared into the park. After a while Nolan said, “Come.”

They crawled into the cab of the truck where it smelled like breath and sleep; he lay down on a pile of clothes and she lay next to him. He picked up a chunk of her hair and ran his fingers through it until she tingled all over. He held the strands to his nose. She was aware of how shiny and thick her hair must seem between Nolan’s fingers and how lovely she must look. She felt as though she were being revealed to herself for the first time, and she saw a flicker of the alluring girl she could become. Nolan scooted closer and scooped up more of her hair and let it fall over his face. They were like this for a while.