2007-09-26
crush with eyeliner
Monday morning assembly. I only recognize half the sleep-creased faces in the auditorium: the girl with the neckbrace (like those donut pillows old people wear on planes), the guy who's always got a turban snuggled on top of his skull, and Thayer, who can't stop tapping his doodle-infested sneakers against my chair.
On stage, the principal waddles up to the podium. She taps the microphone so hard, it booms like an atom bomb.
"Pardon my sign language," she says, wiggling her hands like the closed-caption bubbles on telethons. I tune out and her squawking becomes a background noise--just like the rattling air-conditioner. There aren't enough seats in the bleachers so every time somebody strolls in late, they have to grab a chair and unfold it in the front row. (How embarrassing).
Sharon Lubbitz pops open an Altoids tin and it catapults a fistful of mints all over the floor.
"Oh, my God," she says, giggling, as if it were God's fault she's so stupid.
The clump of prepsters behind me won't stop talking.
"He says he couldn't make it because his Beamer broke down," says this senior boy (I think his name is Starbuck. No joke).
"He didn't say, 'car?' He actually said, 'Beamer?' That's so lame," says Sharon.
"My Toyota never breaks down," says Thayer and everybody stares at him.
I watch the principal's red-lipsticked mouth open and close. "Make sure everything's in there. Like Prego sauce," she says, laughing at her own joke.
I have no idea what she's talking about.
A giggle erupts behind me. I spin around and see this freshman boy doodling my profile in his notebook. He's got the hair right--my cowlick sticking up like an asterisk. But the face is all wrong. Does my chin really stick out like a dresser drawer? Do I really look that depressed? (I've never been good at hiding my emotions).
"Do you like it?" he asks me.
His wingmen howl. They don't look old enough to shave.
I say nothing.
He rips the page and hands it to me. The three-hole margins are frayed and the corner tore off. Not to mention, it's stained with some kind of Kool Aid-colored juice. I fold it into origami and cram it into my notebook.
The boy blinks at me. That's when I notice the eyeliner. He's not Goth or anything. He's not wearing leather pants or a pentagram around his neck. He's Abercrombie from the nose down. His hair is Hot Topic (flecked with unnatural shades of orange. Maybe that explains the stains on his notepaper).
"Now it's your turn," he says.
"What?" I ask, stumbling into his trap.
He wants me to draw his portrait. I tell him I'll think about it. He says, "You can't do better than me" (meaning his drawing skills). I say, "Yeah. I can do better."
"The frosh are getting weirder every year," says Thayer on the way to lunch.
I don't tell him about the drawing-duel.
I nod and say, "I need to buy new markers."
When I get home, I try the eyeliner trick in my bathroom mirror (I use "midnight" tinted eyeshadow because I haven't quite mastered the liquid pen technique). The magazines say it's a no-no.
"Never underline your lower lids. It only makes your eyes look smaller.
I disagree.
My eyes have never looked so big.
f-i-n at 12:25 p.m.