Page 81 of An Overdue Match
I keep my upper body still but reach out a hand and snatch a sheet of stickers out of the storage container. Peeling one off by feel alone, I place the ruby-red jewel on the apple of Martha’s cheek, followed by another on Hayley’s.
“What are you doing?” Hayley lightly touches the sticker.
“Sharing my sparkle.” The words are trite. I can hear that.But when Martha and Hayley squish me in a hug sandwich, I know they understand the depth of what I truly mean.
“There. I think that does it.” Hayley places one last gem to the crown of my head, then straightens.
Martha leans her shoulder against Hayley’s and inspects their collective work. “Chin up, Evangeline. You’ve got your glow back, and you’re not going to let anyone snuff it out again, you hear?”
I sniff against the tingle of emotion threatening to fill my eyes and nod.
“Aunt Missy really likes Martinelli’s Sparkling Blush but never buys it for herself because she thinks it’s too fancy for some reason. Anyway, if you show up with a couple of bottles, she’ll be tickled pink with you.”
“I can do that.”
Both Martha and Hayley look at me expectantly.
“Oh, you mean now? But my shift isn’t over.”
“We’ll cover for you,” Martha assures.
“That way if you want to go to the store a couple towns over and share your sparkle”—Hayley waves her hand toward my bedazzled head that I still haven’t gotten a look at—“while not worrying about running into anyone you know, you can.”
Martha nods in agreement. “Now shoo.” She swats the air like she’s trying to get a pesky bug to leave.
“I’m going, I’m going. Sheesh.” Before I leave the closet, I carefully place my wig on my head so I don’t accidentally knock any of the stickers off. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I grab my purse from behind the front desk, then do as I’m told—I get.
When I turn into the parking lot of a grocery store three towns away, I take a deep breath and pull down the visor in front of the windshield. My reflection stares back at me in the tiny mirror.This is the last time, I promise myself. The lasttime I drive out of town like I’m ashamed of myself or have a deep dark secret.
“No more hiding.” My fingernails graze my nonexistent hairline and hook under the webbing of my wig. I lift the headpiece and let my scalp breathe.
The afternoon sun shines through the side window, bouncing off every ridge and plane of the paste jewels stuck to my scalp, throwing light in a million directions. My breath hitches at the sight. Lyrics from a Danny Gokey song blaze through my mind:“You were made to shine.”
I have to squint against the sun’s brightness as I step around a poorly parked car. The store is busier than I would’ve expected, and there are quite a few people navigating the parking lot, pushing carts full of grocery bags.
“Mommy, look. It’s a princess.”
I can barely hear the little girl’s voice over the clattering of shopping cart wheels, but my gaze scans the area, looking for said princess. Sometimes the high-school girl named that year’s town royalty shows up for events in a ball gown and sash. I don’t see a teen with ringlet curls, though. I do, however, see a little blond girl about four years old sitting in a racecar-designed cart staring straight at me.
“I want to be a princess like her and have a crown of jewels like that.”
I press on one of the colored rhinestones as my throat thickens. The girl’s mom leans toward her daughter and says something I can’t hear, then she straightens, smiles at me, and nods as we pass each other, her to her minivan and me toward the automatic doors whooshing open in front of me.
The blast of arctic air-conditioning snaps me out of my momentary daze. I refocus, looking at the hanging aisle signs to find where the beverages are shelved. I turn down a row with a line of glass bottles on one side and scan their labels, looking for the nonalcoholic brand Tai’s mom likes.
There. I grab two bottles and pivot toward the checkout counters. I pass a few fellow shoppers, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice them noticing me—or my head, more precisely.
But I keep my shoulders back and my chin up. They may pity me or come to their own wrong conclusions, but at least one person today said I was a princess and that’s probably more than they can say about themselves.
In true small-town style, there isn’t a self-checkout register, so I enter the short line to pay, one customer ahead of me. He only has a deli-made hoagie sandwich and a can of Coke, so it doesn’t take long before I step in front of the cashier and put the two bottles of sparkling blush onto the conveyor belt.
I smile congenially at the cashier, who appears to be so ancient that she was one of the eight occupants on the ark. “Hello. How are you doing today?”
She grabs one of the bottles by the neck as she squints at me then points with a gnarled finger at my head. “Why’d you do that to yourself?”
My chin tucks as I flinch in surprise. “Excuse me?”
She jabs the air with her finger again. “Your hair. Why’d you do that to yourself?” She slowly slides the first bottle across the scanner, and the machine beeps.
