The Music of What Happens(8)

“What would you do if I let you?” I ask her.

Pam, who I thought was not paying attention as she is still staring over at Panda in between bites of something orange chickenish, answers simultaneously with Kayla.

“Your hair,” Pam says.

“Your clothes,” Kayla says.

“I hate you both so much,” I say. “Like truly, utterly hate you to my innermost self.”



We wind up back at my place, after a stop at Forever 21, where Kayla bought me a pair of flimsy midnight-blue sweatpants with the word “Star” written all over them and a yellow hoodie with a photo of Jesus, with the zipper running right through the middle of his face. Mom is holed up in her bedroom with the door shut, which suits me fine because I can’t with her right now. I put on the Thompson Twins on my turntable — I am obsessed with ’80s synth-pop and their song “Lies” is everything — and Kayla makes me change into my new outfit. Once I’m dressed, I look at my reflection in the mirror.

“I look like a ten-year-old foreign exchange student,” I say, and Pam bursts out laughing. She’s taken the turquoise lava lamp off my desk and brought it over to my waterbed, where she’s propped herself up on purple satin pillows and is tilting the lamp back and forth to watch the ocean-like lava ooze back and forth.

“Oh my God you do!” she says, and she rolls onto her back on my bed and just cackles. “We’re gonna call you Ludwig, okay? You are from the Black Forest and your Evangelical hosts took you out on your first weekend in the country and picked out your outfit. Ludwig!”

Kayla is lying on my dark purple shag carpet, texting — Shaun probably — and I clear my throat a few times to get her attention. When she doesn’t budge, I go over to where she’s reclined and put my skinny, “Star”-studded butt in her face and wiggle it.

“Whoa, whoa,” she says, looking up from the phone. “What’s with the unwanted lap dance?”

“Your outfit is being besmirched,” I say, and she looks up and I can tell her first impulse is to break out in laughter but she holds it back.

“Oh. Um. I think it’s very — stylin’ —” she says, and Pam throws one of my flip-flops at her. It hits Kayla in the side of the head. Kayla picks it up, dramatically rubs her forehead, and yells, “Hate crime!”

“Against a cisgender white girl with blond hair,” Pam says. “Okay then.”

I flop down on the carpet next to Kayla and enjoy this floor’s-eye view of my ’80s bordello-themed bedroom. A few years ago, I convinced Mom to take me to all the Goodwill stores in the area and we bought all the most depraved stuff — her word, once she got into it — which is why I have a disco ball with half the mirrored panels broken off above my bed, and one of my walls is covered in pink wallpaper with black velvet designs on it, and the others are adorned with album covers by Shaun Cassidy, Shalamar, and Duran Duran. It explains why the desk where I write my poems is replete with three lava lamps and vanilla candles. It’s why my night table is a brassy cocktail waitress, with the glass table resting on her ample boobs.

“Let’s play How Many Bodies! Teachers’ Edition!” I say. It’s this game we play where we try to decide how many bodies various people have hidden in their backyards. Because apparently everyone is a serial killer.

Pam laughs from the bed and puts a sequined pillow under her head. “I like how nothing ever gets done with us. We have literally done no things all day. We keep starting and stopping. We may be the least effective people ever.”

“Speak for yourself. Mom and I did the food truck today for the first time,” I say.

“Thank God!” Kayla says. “I was wondering if you were going through some teen boy phase where your pheromones smell like fried cheese.”

I sniff my arm. I smell nothing. “Is it that bad?”

“Depends,” Kayla says. “Are you looking to attract someone at a carnival?”

I curl my lip as if I’m upset. I never am with them.

“My mom freaked. She’s done.”

Pam cackles. Like literally cackles. “Oh my God I love Lydia. There should be a reality show about Lydia.” She wraps herself in a pink feather boa that was hanging on my bedpost.

“Yes!” Kayla says. “Vaguely Bipolar Housewives of Chandler.”

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t even give you the most random part of all this. Guy Smiley. He’s taking my mom’s place.”

Kayla inhales dramatically. “What? From AP Comp? Back-row dude? That’s not even random. That doesn’t make sense. How the? Why? Is he like a chef or something? Is there like an Uber app for chefs, and did you pick him because he’s hot?”

“He was just there. When Mom freaked.”

Pam raises an eyebrow. “Super random. I give it a day. You and Guy Smiley? You know when you hear something and you know it isn’t happening? This is one of those times.”

Kayla nods and sits up. “Pam is right, for once. Anyway. We need to up the ante on this makeover, because if he doesn’t get a date soon and I have to hear more whining, even ONE MORE TIME, I am going to spontaneously combust.”

She jumps up and goes to my closet.

“Don’t!” I yell, and Kayla looks over at me, amused. Pam jumps to her feet and puts her arms out like she’s blocking me. She’s joking, but I’m not. That’s my private stuff. Mine. Whatever happened to asking permission?