and simple, and boring, right out of some Norman Rockwell poster. The one with the girl in braids, looking at her reflection in a mirror.
I pull the braid apart, drop my head forward and let my hair fall in front of me, shake it around, and whip my head up, letting it spill wild and full around my face. I pout my lips and put on one of Mom’s bright red lipsticks, exaggerating the curves, then find a charcoal eye pencil, and draw myself thick, dramatic lines.
There. Better. I look more like how I feel.
I smile, and think of Max, the sound of him moaning as he moved in my hand. The slick stickiness of him covering my fingers after.
I slip my hands down between my thighs, thinking of how it will feel to have him touch me there, pretending I’m him until I lose myself, my breath fast, then sit, finally, quiet and still.
“There,” I say aloud to my face in the mirror. “Better. Now, we have work to do, JL. Money to find. A trip to take with Max Gordon.”
I slide open drawer after drawer, wading through miscellaneous pill bottles and old makeup cases and containers, costume jewelry and sparkly hair combs, blow-dryer attachments and brushes, my mother’s flat iron, but don’t find anything but junk on the left side, or the first two drawers on the right. But in the third drawer down, I feel it immediately, tap my fingernail to metal.
Even without looking, I know.
I pull the box out, and open its dull pink lid, lips dry, blood rushing in my ears. It’s just like I remembered: Where index cards might be, a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills.
I slam it closed, slide it to the back of the drawer, and shut that, making sure everything is exactly how I left it.
I turn off the vanity light, needing to think. Sleep on it. If I take it, there’s no turning back.
In the bathroom, heart racing, I pee. Only as I flush do I notice Dad’s robe on the hook on the back of the door. The pale blue terry-cloth one he wore every morning down to breakfast. I don’t know why it surprises me there. I guess I thought he would have taken it with him.
I strip off Mom’s kimono, hanging it under some towels on the hook, and slide my arms into the robe, wrapping its thick fuzzy warmth around me, and sit on the edge of the tub and breathe in the soft, distant scent of him.
On my way out, I change my mind again, yank open the drawer with the box, and shove the entire wad of bills into my pocket.
So be it. She’ll probably never even notice it’s gone.
As I turn to go, I catch my reflection in the edge of the darkened mirror. Red lips, wild hair.
Jailbait.
I smile.
Maybe Aubrey is right. Maybe I’m a slut and a thief and a Jezebel.
I pucker my lips, hold my hand to my mouth, and blow a kiss goodbye to that sweet Norman Rockwell girl.
Part III
Moths, not butterflies, spin silk cocoons.
Butterfly caterpillars molt like reptiles.
LATE MAY
TENTH GRADE
“Jean Louise?” I startle at the light, at my mother standing in the doorway of my room. “Why are you wearing that?” I sit up, my mind racing. Dad’s blue robe. “Why do you have that lipstick on?”
I wipe drool from my mouth and try to gather myself. She’s not even talking about the robe.
On my bed is my history book. I meant to wash up, take the robe off and hang it back on her door, and study. My eyes shift to my desk, to the lower left drawer where I shoved the money, wrapped in a wad of construction paper.
“No reason.” I shrug, trying to breathe normally. “I just thought maybe…”
She walks to my bed and sits. She wears a turquoise kimono embroidered with chartreuse vines.
“You don’t need all that.” Her voice is dreamlike, her hair wet from a shower. “You’re beautiful just as you are.”
“Mom!” I stop her. I can’t stand it—her—any of it anymore. She has a pile of envelopes in her hand.
I close my history book, push it away, and stare at her.
“Yes?” She lifts her hand from the folds of the kimono, and I can see them, the words, the name, the dreaded purple stamp that’s coming in a week or two. A whole new pile. Return to Sender. No known addressee.
I turn away, tears stinging my eyes, and yank Dad’s robe off and