I really want to go and wash off my face, but Mr Shurin sticks a Coke in my hand and pulls a pizza he’s obviously had waiting for us out of the oven. We sit and eat, flakes of make-up falling onto my pepperoni.
“Jared asked you about the cabin?” Mr Shurin says.
I look up, chewing cheese. “What?”
“After prom.”
“Dad wants us to throw a party out there,” Jared says. “When we’re done dancing.”
“Not a party,” Mr Shurin says. “The prom’s a party. This would be an after-party. A chill-out.”
Jared winces at his dad’s ancient slang.
“Look,” Mr Shurin says, “I know you guys are going to drink and hang out somewhere, so why not do it in a safe place no one has to drive home from?”
The cabin he’s talking about is a decent-sized if cheaply made shack out on the far – meaning poor
– end of the big glacial lake. To call it basic would be an optimistic use of “basic”, but I’ve been a bunch of times with them in the summer over the years and it’s fine. They had a bit of an otter problem not too long ago, but the musk and rotting fish smell must have faded by now.
“Sounds fun to me,” I say. “Aside from it being exactly the sort of situation where we’ll all be murdered by a skin-eating serial killer or something.”
Jared barely responds. He’s been pre-occupied since at least this morning–
Actually, it’s been longer than that, hasn’t it? Now that I think about it. Now that I think about something other than myself. Oh, damn. Have I missed something? Am I letting my best friend down somehow?
“Well, it’s there, the idea,” Mr Shurin says. “If you want it.” He takes a bite of pizza. “You boys doing anything tonight?”
He means together. I shake my head. “I’m meeting Henna.”
Mr Shurin brightens. “A date? At last?”
Yes. Everyone knows. Everyone.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “More a car crash survivor ’s meeting.”
Mr Shurin nods, then looks at Jared. “You going out?”
“Mm,” says Jared, wiping his mouth on a napkin. He stands and opens the back door where we came in. A dozen neighbourhood cats sit outside, patiently. “Give me a minute,” Jared says.
It’s the third time through washing my face that I know I’m screwed.
I’m in Jared’s bathroom, and I wash in a particular order, of course, being me. I splash water on myself from the sink and rub some of Jared’s medium-fancy face soap into my forehead, upper corners first with both hands, then circles to the centre. I move down my nose, washing either side, four, five, six times, out across my cheekbones, my hands working in mirror, then my cheeks – gently on the still-healing scar – and across my chin with my right hand. Both hands wash under my neck, dripping water on the collar of my T-shirt. Rinse with one, two, three splashes of water, then a towel in the same pattern to dry it.
The first time I do it, whole slabs of make-up come off – I’m going to look like an Easter Island head in my senior pictures – so I wash again in the same exact order. Third time through, I know I’m gone. Forehead, nose, cheekbones, chin, neck. Forehead, nose, cheekbones, chin, neck. Forehead, nose, cheekbones, chin, neck. Shit shit shit shit shit.
My shirt is soaking wet now. I can feel my fingertips starting to crack again as the oil is washed away. The repeated washing of my black eyes and cheek scar, no matter how gently I do it, gets more painful each time. The eighth time through, I try to force my hands to rest on the sink and fail.