Dreamland Social Club(34)

Time can be a trickster.

Memory, too.

Can I remember, for example, anyone ever teaching me how to apply makeup?

No.

Of course not.

But my mother. Now there was a woman who knew how to wear makeup. Though why I think that I’m not even sure. Except that I remember jars of goo, cases of tiny squares of shimmering colors, and soft brushes—big and small—wherever we lived. I remember her brushing makeup onto my cheeks and onto my eyelids when I begged. I remember looking in the mirror then and seeing nothing there and being a little bit confused but still feeling pretty. Like her, with her silver-dusted eyelids and ruby red lips. Now I know she was faking.

I pick up a pale shade of fleshy cover-up, some rosy blush, and a lip gloss that looks sort of like the color of my lips but with a bit of sparkle. I grab mascara but skip the rest of the eye stuff, since I don’t know what to do with it anyway, and honestly have no idea how any person can pull off silver eyelids.

I swing by hair products and grab some of those: a pomade that claims to “Energize,” a gel that smooths, a mousse that adds body. I’ve got all my bases covered.

Hands full, I head toward the register, surprised to see Halloween candy, since it’s still only September. I consider buying decorations for the house—paper cutouts of pumpkins with demonic faces carved out of them and of witches with gap teeth on broomsticks—but decide not to. It’s pretty much fright night at Preemie’s house every night. I’ve all but stopped going downstairs after dark to get water lest my eyes fall on that horse, with its glassy eyes and bared teeth.

Shivers.

But the question of the horse is no longer the priority.

Thunder. Jump. Wonder. Bath.

These are the new priorities, as is not making a complete fool of myself at this party.

I recognize a guy from school a few spots ahead of me, already at the checkout counter, and I make the mistake of noticing that he is buying condoms. The thought that some of my classmates are having sex, will maybe be having sex tonight, fills me with dread and makes me a little queasy. I’ve only ever kissed a boy once. In London. So it wasn’t even that long ago but it feels that way, and I have to work to remember his name, the way I’ve been working so hard to remember so many other things.

Martin.

Martin Booth.

It wasn’t an especially good kiss and I didn’t really care that much at the time; I just thought it would be nice to get that out of the way. The first. It was, after all, past due. But now I sort of wish it had been better. Or that I’d waited for someone else.

For, let’s face it, Leo.

There is a problem with the line. An old lady is arguing about the price of a certain kind of toilet paper and the cashier is patiently explaining that the circular the old lady is holding is not the current one and that the sale was for the four-pack not the six-pack of rolls anyway. Nothing in the whole store seems to be moving except for their lips and even those seem so . . . very . . . slow. I hope I never become the kind of person who will keep a girl from party prep on account of the price of t.p.

Because I can’t bear to just wait—it makes time go even more slowly—I double back to the hair products and put back the tub called “Energize,” now that I’ve had ample opportunity to actually notice its exorbitant price. After that, I swing down the aisle that holds stomach remedies, but the queasiness has passed now that the guy from school and his condoms are no longer in the store.

I keep moving.

Movement makes time go faster.

The cashier calls for a manager through the store intercom, so I decide to wander a few more aisles. Maybe I’m forgetting something.

Toothpaste. Check.

Razors. Check.

Shampoo. Conditioner. A-okay.

On my way back to the cashier, eventually, I pass through the Halloween section again, this time noticing the costumes. A pirate. Mickey Mouse. Tinker Bell. And a mermaid. And then I am remembering that I am lying on my big, blue beanbag chair as my mother wraps a sheet around my legs.

We are playing mermaids, and the beanbag is supposed to be a seashell, my favorite place to lounge and watch the ocean go by. When my legs are wrapped and the sheet tied with some kind of scarf to help make a fin at the bottom, my mother wraps her own legs up, too, and lies down on the floor in front of me.

“We’re not like other women,” she sings as she starts to fan herself with a folding fan. “We don’t have to clean an oven.”

I’m giggling and pretending to fan myself, too.

“And we nev-er will grow old. . . .” she sings. “We’ve got the world by the tail!”

My journal is in the next room—the kitchen—and I get up and shuffle over to get it because I want to draw a mermaid in it, but as soon as I turn to bring it back to my shell, my mother says, “Eh-eh-eh. It’ll get wet.”

“But I want to draw a mermaid,” I say. I can’t write a lot of letters yet, only the four that spell my name. So my journal is full of pictures, and I only keep it at all because my mother keeps one and it makes me feel grown-up.

“A self-portrait,” my mother says with a laugh. “Great idea. But you’ll have to do it when you’re above water.” She’s still fanning herself and smiling.

“But we live down here.”

She gets up and shimmies into the kitchen and comes back with a clear plastic Ziploc bag. “Keep it in here to keep it dry,” she says. “And we’ll find a good place to hide it.”