Cecelia Ahern - Flawed

She pulls on a pair of ripped denim jeans and a pair of scuffed-up boots that she has bought brand-new. They’re cool, but they don’t match. Not one thing goes with any other item she is wearing; she is clown-like. She looks in the mirror, studies her reflection with an intensity that concerns me.

It’s not just Pia who is different today. Mom still looks perfect, flawless makeup, not a hair on her head out of place, but … I study her. There is vehemence in her eyes, a determined line to her jaw, the finest of creases in her brow. Am I seeing a crack in the surface?

“Did Mr. Berry get in contact with you lately?” I ask.

She looks up and tries to read me. When she can’t, because I fix her with my best impression of her own unreadable face, she replies, “Not since Naming Day. We never got in touch with him about the sixth brand, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Not what I was wondering, but good to know. “Did he give you anything? Send anything?”

“A bill,” she snorts. “But I’m sure that’s not what you mean.”

“A bill?”

“Turns out if the Guild finds you Flawed, you have to pay for your representation. Bills that they rack up. Judge Crevan just so happened to hire us the most expensive representation going.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to … We’ll sort it out.” She sighs, throwing an oversized purple cardigan over the red T-shirt.

“Your Beauty Box contract can cover it for now, though, can’t it?” I ask. “I mean, I want to pay you back, eventually, but I can’t right now.”

“Celestine”—she comes toward me and gently wraps a braid behind my ear—“you’re so kind, but we’re covering the cost. Beauty Box has a new ambassador for the foreseeable future.”

My heart falls. Beauty Box was Mom’s cash cow, a cosmetic company whose famous tagline was “Flawless on the outside, Flawless on the inside.” Mom had been saying those words for almost a decade. She is synonymous with those words. When people think of Beauty Box, they think of Mom; she is the face and voice of it.

“I can’t believe they fired you,” I say, shocked.

“Oh, they didn’t fire me,” she says, lifting a loose dress out of another bag. She always said unstructured clothes were a no-no, that people must always be able to see her figure. “I just couldn’t bring myself to say those words. Flawless on the outside …” She trails off, unable to finish. “What does that even mean ? Why does anyone even want that? Whoever said that is what we should be?” She looks confused. Conflicted. Tortured even. Then it disappears again.

I look around at her bedroom covered in multicolored clothes—she has emptied her old, muted, pastel-colored clothes onto the floor beside the bed. I watch her for a while. She hasn’t left the house in as long as I have, but while I’ve been to school, she hasn’t been at work. I realize now the extent of our problems, of what I’ve caused. Her walk-in wardrobe, which is usually color-coded and immaculate but now quite the opposite, is eerie.

She undoes her hairpins, and her long hair falls down in beautiful curls around her shoulders. She starts to mess it up.

“What do you think?” she asks of her overall look.

I have never seen anything so mismatched in my life. I don’t want to insult her. I’m afraid she’ll crack, if that’s not what she’s doing already. “It’s really cool.”

She frowns and looks confused. “Oh.”

“Didn’t you want it to be cool?”

“No,” she says, distracted, picking up a zebra-print pair of trousers. “No, I did not.” She smiles sweetly at me. “We’ve been invited across the road to the housewarming of Candy Crevan.”

“Candy Crevan is moving into the Tinders’?”

“Right beside her brother, to keep an eye on him through his difficult time,” Mom says, without a note of sarcasm, though I know it’s intended. “So I will go to her party, for your father’s sake, because she always likes to have the presence of an international model at her parties,” she says through gritted teeth. “And I will sashay up and down for all her party guests in my beautiful outfit. Give them all something to look at,” she grumbles. “I’ll tell them it’s the new season’s look. And then, hopefully, they’ll all rush out and all be looking like clowns by next week. I’ll show them what Flawless is all about.”

She pulls off the cardigan, aggressively, and fires the T-shirt to the far corner of the room and starts again, rooting through more boxes. Her toned arms and fists rid her of her tension, while her face still manages to look calm and serene. I’m still standing there looking at her, feeling shock by what she has said. Candy Crevan is Judge Crevan’s sister, who owns News 24, the news station my dad works for, and the Daily News , the newspaper Bob Tinder was famously recently fired from and that Pia works for. To have her directly across the road would be a disaster, is a disaster. They’re closing in on us. Them versus us.

I exit the bedroom and leave Mom to herself to figure it out, how best to continue her silent protest at the treatment of her daughter. I’m worried, but the overriding feeling is pride that she is trying to find her own way to rebel. There’s a first time for everything.

* * *

In the home study downstairs, I search through the filing cabinet for Mr. Berry’s invoice. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I need to see if there’s any hint, any code that would tell me where the video is, if he’s hidden it, or even better a copy of the video itself. I find the letter and take it out, my heart pumping.

The invoice is still in the envelope. I slide it out and study the pages. A cover letter explaining the breakdown of charges, a second page, which is the invoice, and a business card. I turn the business card over and find a phone number scribbled on the back. I pocket the card. No clues, no private messages, no hints as to where the video could be. It isn’t even signed by him, but by his secretary on his behalf. I look inside the envelope. It’s empty. I hold the pages up to the light, wondering if anything will reveal itself, but I’ve watched way too many mysteries. There’s nothing to be found. It’s just a regular bill.

I sit at the desk and open Carrick’s file.

There’s a photograph of him from the day he was taken into the Guild’s custody, and my stomach flips at the sight of him. His entire demeanor has succeeded in being captured in the photograph, those black eyes, broad shoulders, pumped arms, and chiseled jaw. He’s like a soldier. I run my finger across his face. I’m surprised by my physical reaction to seeing him. I only knew him for two days and we never really spoke, yet … I feel such a connection to him.

My ghost is about to have a name, age, and address.

But the file is as enigmatic as the man. All the file reveals to me is that my ghost is eighteen-year-old Carrick Vane and his status is F.A.B., which I’ve no idea what that means. I take a guess that it’s similar to AWOL, because despite being found guilty of being Flawed, and branded on his chest for disloyalty to society, and being appointed a Whistleblower, he failed to appear for any of his tests and is AWOL.

I hope Crevan didn’t find Carrick, but that Carrick found a crack.

FIFTY-TWO

NINE AM ON Monday morning, my teacher, Ms. Dockery, arrives for our first day of homeschooling. I can’t say she and I had a particularly close student-teacher relationship, but she taught me math, so there was mutual respect in that she left me alone to figure most things out for myself while she gave more attention to those struggling. She had been at the forefront of pushing the homeschooling idea at school, and I assumed she was among the group of teachers that didn’t approve of my presence. She didn’t ignore me in class as some did, but she didn’t take me aside to offer a cuddle, either. Not that anybody did, for that matter.