Such a Pretty Face Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Such a pretty face : short stories / edited by Ann Angel.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8109-1607-4;

  eISBN: 978-1-61312-061-3

  I. Angel, Ann, 1952-PS648.S5S795 2007 813’.0108—dc22

  2006023612.

  This collection copyright © 2007 Ann Angel. Introduction and Reader’s Guide copyright © 2007 Ann Angel. “Such a Pretty Face” copyright © 2007 Ron Koertge. “Farang” copyright © 2007 Mary Ann Rodman. “Red Rover, Red Rover” copyright © 2007 Chris Lynch. “Bad Hair Day” copyright © 2007 Lauren Myracle. “Sideshow” copyright © 2007 Louise Hawes. “What I Look Like” copyright © 2007 Jamie Pittel. “Ape” copyright © 2007 J. James Keels. “Cheekbones” copyright © 2007 Ellen Wittlinger. “Bingo” copyright © 2007 Anita Riggio. “How to Survive a Name” copyright © 2007 Norma Fox Mazer. “Bella in Five Acts” copyright © 2007 Tim Wynne-Jones. “My Crazy, Beautiful World” copyright © 2007 Jacqueline Woodson. “Goin’ out West,” written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, copyright © 1992 JALMA MUSIC (ASCAP).

  All rights reserved. Used by permission. Book design by Chad W. Beckerman. Published in 2007 by Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. All rights reserved.

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  www.amuletbooks.com

  This is dedicated to the writers within for sharing their beautiful passion.

  —Ann Angel

  Contents

  Introduction

  Ann Angel

  Such a Pretty Face

  Ron Koertge

  Farang

  Mary Ann Rodman

  Red Rover, Red Rover

  Chris Lynch

  Bad Hair Day

  Lauren Myracle

  Sideshow

  Louise Hawes

  What I Look Like

  Jamie Pittel

  Ape

  J. James Keels

  Cheekbones

  Ellen Wittlinger

  Bingo

  Anita Riggio

  How to Survive a Name

  Norma Fox Mazer

  Bella in Five Acts

  Tim Wynne-Jones

  My Crazy, Beautiful World

  Jacqueline Woodson

  Reader’s Guide

  About the Contributors

  Beauty I’d always missed

  With these eyes before

  —The Moody Blues, “Nights in White Satin”

  Ann Angel

  My older sister Katie raced into her teens with a head full of crazy dark curls and wild blue eyes that warned she would take on anyone and win them over. She had looks and charm and fascinating, sometimes insane, ideas. She was the pretty girl whom all the other girls wanted to be. The guys swarmed around her like bees seeking honey. And if sometimes they seemed more like lusty dogs hungry for action, Katie was able to make them believe there was a chance without really giving them one. She was the party girl, the fun one, the beautiful sister I also wanted to be, but there were times I thought she was my tormentor.

  I slunk into my own teens furtively, aware that guys failed to see me when I walked down the school halls. The girls only wanted to be around me to get near my popular big sister. Born slightly less than a year after Katie, I was the short “Irish twin” whose hair hung straight and lank. My own serious blue eyes were usually hidden behind the pages of a notebook, where I wrote snippets of stories and bad poetry.

  Katie was quick to tell me I was a dork, a nerd. Too smart for guys to like. Too shrimpy for guys to think I was anything more than a kid. Too unaware to be cool.

  I followed our unwritten rule, that I could talk only to those girls who weren’t already Katie’s friends. I had one of those. She had all the rest.

  I felt little-girl blue next to my sister’s dark beauty. Katie wore tight jeans and sexy silk shirts that all the girls copied, the sleeves of which all the boys loved to slide their hands along. My broadcloth shirts hung on me, and I only owned one pair of jeans.

  Katie and her friends seemed always to know whose parents were gone, where the party was. While I spent Friday nights babysitting, I imagined the group I thought of as “the beautiful girls” sipping stolen liquor out of pickle jars, pairing up, and kissing boys.

  Even if the topic of the next party came up in front of me, I was never invited. Had I shown up at a party, I knew the beautiful girls would have entertained themselves watching the boys pass by invisible me.

  So I should have known something was up when one of the beautiful boys, a curly-haired football player named Jay* with deep brown eyes, showed up one night while I was babysitting my younger siblings. I invited him in to watch a movie. I can’t tell you what it was about—I only noticed he sat so close that the heat of his leg seared my thigh. I glued my eyes to the television screen. I remember pulling away a bit but missing the feel of him and letting my knee fall back toward his. I kept feeding my baby sister her bottle.

  I burped my sister and took her to her crib. I tucked her in, certain Jay would be gone when I returned to the family room. But he was still sitting there, watching the movie.

  I considered moving to a chair but didn’t want him to think I was as dorky as I knew I was. So I sat on the couch a little bit away from him.

  Jay moved in. Put his arm around my shoulders. I stared at that screen as though it could swallow me, feeling the weight of his thick arm, thinking this was too cool, wondering if my face was turning red.

  I had no idea what to say. I had no idea why he suddenly liked me. But I was glad he did.

  I turned to tell Jay that my parents would be home soon.

  He turned too.

  We locked lips.

  He smelled of English Leather and that warm wool smell that permeates letter jackets. I loved that kiss. In fact, I kissed him again. And again. And, why not? Again.

  When we heard the garage door open, we jumped apart.

  “I gotta go,” he said.

  I didn’t notice that he failed to say, “I’ll call you.” He didn’t look back at me as I followed him to the kitchen door. And I was too tongue-tied with his kisses to speak, so in love with his mouth and brown eyes. My mind spun with my luck! I imagined he’d call the next day. We’d go to a party the next week. My storyteller’s mind floated into a perfect future.

  I was convinced Jay was my prince, my ticket to popularity, my ride out of the world of nerdy people. I showed him out the back door just before my parents walked through the front. I went to bed that night one happy little dreamer.

  The next day I waited for a call. It didn’t come. I told Katie what had happened. And when she didn’t seem happy for me, I was sure she was jealous.

  On Monday at school, when the beautiful girls gathered in the bathroom after lunch to discuss the weekend, I was in there with them. My sister’s sidekick, Sue, asked me about my weekend. I told her about Jay. First Maura, then Sheila, Barb, and Patty turned to listen to me. I was the center of attention as I told the popular girls about my wonderful night.

  My sister Katie remained uncharacteristically silent. Before I finished my story, she turned so quietly that not a single curl swayed, and walked out the door.

  It was after supper that night that she came into my room and told me, “Sue paid Jay to kiss you. It was a joke.” Her eyes flashed anger at me when she added, “They were all laughing about you.”

  I was frozen in place. While I stood there para
lyzed, a rage so wild filled me, I wanted to slap her silly. I hated her for telling me the truth, and for failing to have the power to stop her friends. I reached out, grabbed her hand, and wove my fingers between hers. I squeezed until I saw pain in her splendid eyes.

  Then I hugged her and cried into her shoulder while she held on tight, as only a sister who loves you can.

  I doubt I slept much that night. I know that sometime before the next morning I figured it out. Being beautiful doesn’t make a person all-powerful, and it doesn’t make a person good. Those girls flocked to my sister, but it seemed she couldn’t control them or protect me from them. And I saw that their power to hurt me came from my own misplaced regard for them and their looks.

  I recall that a blush burned my cheeks when I faced those girls the next day. But I walked tall and alone. When Sue asked me how Jay was, I stared straight into her eyes and didn’t bother to answer. When Maura asked me if he’d called, I only smiled. As I looked into each face, I saw how ugly they had made themselves to me.

  When I ran into Jay in the hall, I looked into those brown eyes, and though I wanted to, I didn’t call him an ass. I just smiled until he blushed. I said, “I know they paid you five dollars to kiss me.”

  He looked down and mumbled, “I’m sorry. I didn’t take the money.” That evening he called me and apologized again.

  Though we dated for a while after that, his kisses had lost their magic. But beauty was redefined in my life for ever after. For me, beauty comes from the goodness of a person’s heart or soul, not a person’s physical characteristics. I will always carry the knowledge that those girls, and others like them, aren’t beautiful people. I can’t be either if I let them have power over me.

  And so, the stories included in this collection look beyond the pretty face to the person within. They examine the wonderful, and sometimes wretched, ways beauty exists around us. Some of the stories on these pages examine the ideal of physical beauty, some define beauty found in nature and emotion, and others respond to beauty’s absence.

  While some of these stories acknowledge our culture’s obsession with looks, the writers refuse to accept beauty’s myths. In honestly examining beauty, these authors make connections to something deeper—a beauty of the heart and soul.

  I hope their stories help you to redefine beauty, to recognize that beauty is so much more than the almost impossible physical ideal we’ve come to worship. Beauty can be a friend who knows when to sit quietly by our side. It can be found in nature or in a stunning moment of self-recognition. Beauty can be found in one special person who knocks the breath from you because he or she is honest and unique.

  Maybe we need to reach our own conclusions about what is beautiful and give beauty breadth and scope, so we’ll always find something to celebrate in ourselves and those around us.

  As you move from story to story, I think you’ll experience a surprising range of emotions evoked by the unexpected insights that fill these pages. In the first story, Ron Koertge’s “Such a Pretty Face,” we see that even the most physically beautiful have rules to live by. From here, the stories move to subtle and more personal perspectives on beauty, captured in a significant moment of meaning.

  Mary Ann Rodman suggests that none of us are good enough when we measure ourselves against the collective ideal of beauty. Chris Lynch’s “Red Rover, Red Rover” asks if judging others based on the physical is a shallow view. Lauren Myracle’s hilarious story, “Bad Hair Day,” demonstrates the mistake of focusing on our flaws, no matter how insistently they demand our attention. Louise Hawes’s story, “Sideshow,” depicts rejection in the extreme, exploring what happens when we fail to measure up in the eyes of someone we wish to emulate.

  Many of these stories depict characters in situations that unravel their beliefs about beauty and leave them with a deeper understanding of what they value in the world. Jamie Pittel’s “What I Look Like” talks about how we find our own beauty and how we come to really own our beauty. Rather than in the mirror, J. James Keels suggests, we find our beauty reflected in someone close to us. While Ellen Wittlinger’s “Cheekbones” shows the possibility of escape from a beauty trap, Norma Fox Mazer’s “How to Survive a Name” makes it clear that sometimes beauty is nothing more than a name.

  Tim Wynne-Jones shows us how we can look at the world to see beauty. Anita Riggio follows the lives of two teens: one who sees no beauty in life, and his best friend, who sees beauty all around her. Finally, Jacqueline Woodson plays on the theme that beauty can be discovered outside our physical selves. It is found in personality, in community, in the world, and in our independent values.

  This collection is intended to challenge our culture’s emphasis on appearance, the message that our physical self is more important than our intellect and sensibility.

  May you discover, like the characters on these pages, that we aren’t just pretty faces. We’re individuals who define beauty through our lack of uniformity and conformity, through our intellect and uniqueness, through our enthusiasm, humor, energy, and independence.

  I hope this collection encourages you to search for new and individual awareness of beauty in your life. I hope this journey moves you to discover that beauty goes beyond the physical to encompass all of the unique aspects that make up this beautiful, crazy world.

  *Some names have been changed.

  Ron Koertge

  A DAY AT THE BEACH WITH BEAUTY

  Melissa always has a convertible, but her classmates pile into old VWs and Volvo station wagons with dents. In the movies, a beautiful girl has a spunky chum who hooks up with the handsome guy’s goofy buddy so they can all double-date. But Melissa has never had that sort of confidante. When kids do hitch a ride, they talk around her. Over and around. Rarely to. Maybe it’s because she’s always busy with other drivers. Men who throw their business cards at her. Or hold up hastily printed signs that proffer and cajole. It’s always a relief to get where she’s going. To see the coolers, the gaily striped chairs that unfold, the faithful volleyball. Because somebody might toss her a Frisbee, ask her to start a fire, or want to race to the nearest lifeguard’s stand. They might, but they don’t. Melissa watches the others sprawl on the sand. Boys start a fire, order one another around. Girls put sunblock on one another. A ponytail nestles into the nearest lap. Or across the small of a back. Or on a nicely upholstered buttock. Tiny radios appear, like books that gossip and sing. Laptops with DVDs yield stories of violence and passion, secrecy and love. Someone opens the contraband beer, lights a joint. Melissa sips bottled water. She’s accepted without being ostracized, segregated but not expelled. She tries to believe her friends are protecting her. They might say, “Melissa wouldn’t like that. It’s not her. But she’s cool.” They might, but they don’t. Everybody swims while the coals die down. They dive and horse around, then burst out of the surf, trunks tugged low by gravity, hair mashed flat or shaped by an energetic hand into quills. Their knees are knobby, stomachs a little slack, a bruised thigh here, a bristly armpit there. Melissa swims alone, emerges from the spindrift bejeweled. She appears groomed by the ocean, not disheveled. As she approaches, headphones go on, music’s turned up. She passes among them, passes through them. No one offers her a chili dog, some Doritos, or a beer. No one makes a space for her on their messy towels. She reaches her blanket, perfectly square and unsoiled, and settles into the lotus pose, eyes fixed on the couple beside her locked in a pythonlike embrace.

  BEAUTY BUYS A WART

  Melissa knows about shops like Costume Heaven; they flourish every year around Halloween, and the owners manage to eke out a living the rest of the time selling fake blood, sneezing powder, and whoopee cushions to nine-year-old boys. What doesn’t surprise Melissa is how what is grotesque and ugly outnumbers (and outsells!) what is comely. For every Snow White wig and tube of alabaster makeup, there are dozens of pimples and warts, rubber fungi, giant proboscises, bloodshot eyes, and scruffy wigs. Melissa settles for a small kit, wart + wart glue: $1.9
8. Her girlfriends whisper one to another, “What does she—of all people—need with a Melissa mark?” So she goes to a different aisle and buys a big snout + snout strap: $3.50. Her friends just stare at her, but crack up when one of the guys slips on the Dangling Eyeball Glasses. Melissa buys a Nixon mask, the rubber one, and wears it to school. Her friends are not amused. In fact, they’re nonplussed. Even her teachers act concerned. “Take that thing off.” She does, because Melissa is obedient.

  BEAUTY GOES SHOPPING

  She only needs a few things, so she drives to the nearest upscale department store. A man about to park right near the entrance gives up his spot; the doorman adjusts his gold epaulets, elbows two or three customers out of the way, and bows as she passes. Salespeople stop gossiping, folding, and straightening. A frock is pressed up against her and at just that, without her even trying it on, the employees burst into spontaneous applause and half a dozen customers demand exactly that dress in exactly that color and size and press it against them too, please. Melissa buys a pair of gloves, and everyone watching buys a similar pair. Next Melissa purchases Ginger Body Crème & Lotion. Two or three tame boyfriends who joined Melissa’s entourage have to sit down and fan themselves after watching her rub lotion on her forearms and wrists. The stuff sells out in a twinkling, and one savvy man calls his broker and buys Ginger Inc. She wishes they wouldn’t do that, but she can’t stop them. Then Melissa glides through the makeup department and is entreated by the pearly servants of Dior. They long to apply their unguents, antidotes, and balm. They begin to fight over her, so Melissa agrees, lest a riot break out. She perches on a tall stool. Kathleen (her nametag says so) pops in a breath mint and begins. Melissa can’t help but notice some friends of hers from Honors English sitting nearby with a startling eye and a drab one, a rosy cheek and a pale one, half a sanguine lip. “Finish them,” Melissa says. Kathleen barely glances. “Oh, they can wait.” “But I insist.” Kathleen leans in. “Don’t be that way,” she implores. “I’m not really doing anything to you. I wouldn’t gild the lily; I’m just pretending. But look at this crowd! They don’t know that. And the minute you leave, I’ll sell thousands of dollars’ worth of product. I’ll be merchant of the month!” Melissa looks at her school chums. “This isn’t my fault.” “Oh,” says the Luminous Eye, “it’s never your fault, is it?” Pale Cheek tears off a protective bib and stomps away. “You bitch,” cries one voluptuous Scarlet Lip, the other achromatic and thin.