Change Places with Me(33)

“You never said anything about dyeing my hair!” This was something Clara would never do. She trimmed her own hair with a few snips every six months or so, keeping her bangs just long enough so you couldn’t see her eyes.

“Don’t worry; this stuff will wash right out.” Kim spread some thick paste on an old toothbrush. “It looks yellow out of the tube, but winds up looking gray in your hair.” She pushed Clara’s hair back off her forehead, flattening it, so she could get at the roots and work her way to the ends. It dried almost instantly and felt like cement.

“I’d like to make your character’s life worse, if that’s okay with you.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound.” One of those things Clara’s dad used to say. Basically, it meant go ahead.

“Let’s say you got beaten for years. So you’ve got old scars and new bruises. Just to add insult to injury. Or is it injury to insult?” Kim applied a much darker shadow next to the nose and three colors to the curve under the right eye—gray-violet, slate gray, maroon red. “A little gloss, too—a shiner should always have some shine. Now for some scar liquid.”

The skin near the right side of Clara’s mouth pinched and tightened, like she was permanently sneering. That side of her nose felt pulled in the wrong direction.

Kim stepped back and picked up her phone again. “Time for the ‘after’ pictures,” she said, clicking away. She scrolled through the photos. “Hey, looks fantastic—even better than I’d hoped! Nothing to touch up. Want to take a good look at yourself?”

There was a mirror over the sink.

Clara stood and looked at her reflection. She saw an old, old woman, her face overtaken by wrinkles and age spots, with a broken nose, a black eye, and the remnants of a wound near her lower lip.

The outside, Clara realized, no longer turned you away from the inside. It was exposing it, holding it up to the light, demanding that it be seen.

“So, what do you think?” Kim asked cheerfully.

That’s me; that’s what I am, Clara thought. The bus didn’t stop, and the whole rest of my life will be spent catching up to the image in the mirror until the outside matches the inside. And then I’ll die, simple as that.

“Clara, I wish you’d say something.” Kim gave her shoulder a gentle nudge. “Do you like it?”

“It’s exactly right,” Clara said. “Dead-on accurate.”

Kim let out a little laugh. “I might do something like this for the witch in Into the Woods. But she’s supposed to be young and beautiful at the end—maybe it would be too hard to get all this stuff off between acts?”

“It would be impossible,” Clara said with certainty.

“You’re probably right.” Kim caught her breath. “Oh, Clara.”

“What?”

“You—you’re trembling.”

“I’m not.”

“Look at your hands.”

Clara gazed at her hands, surprised they were still young looking.

“Here, why don’t you wash up?” Kim handed her some wet wipes, the type for baby bottoms. “You may have to shampoo twice to get the gray out.”

Forcefully, Clara used the wipes, every last one. “You have any more?”

“I think you got it all off.”

“I need a picture for my phone.”

“From before or after?”

“After.” The “before” pictures were meaningless.

Clara got out her phone, received the photo, and slotted it in as her ID pic.

“So,” Kim began, “do you maybe want to stay for dinner? My mom—”

“I have to go,” Clara said without looking at Kim.

Kim bit her lower lip. “Clara, what’s wrong? I don’t know what happened—c’mon, let’s just go to my room and—”

“No, I really, really have to go.” It was too late already. It was over. Why couldn’t Kim see what was plain as day?

At home Clara rushed to the shower. She washed her hair three separate times and practically scrubbed herself raw, getting rid of the gray, any last traces of makeup, and that smell of Kim’s lavender soap. And she was trying with all her might, as if it were even possible, to wash out the inside.

No soap.





CHAPTER 20


It was late that same Friday. Clara sat in the big blue armchair in the living room, legs tucked beneath her. She had her phone open and was looking at the ID pic Kim had taken. How long had she been doing this? She had no idea.

Evil Lynn swept into the room. She wore a plain off-white kimono. Earlier, Clara had seen her gazing in the mirror at her own glowing, youthful appearance, head to foot, the fairest in the land, scrutinizing every inch of herself as if she didn’t want to miss out on any of it. Such a different experience from Clara’s.

“I spoke to a child-development specialist earlier,” she said.

“I’m not a child.” If only Evil Lynn knew how old she really was.

“She works with teenagers, too. I wish—I wish I knew what to do, Clara. I’m at the point—”

“There’s nothing to be done.” Clara had seen her future. She was looking at it that very minute.

“What is it, Clara, why are you shouting?”