I left my hair long, flowing in thick waves down my back. Once I had my makeup on, I sprayed some perfume behind my ears and in my cle**age and then put on the mask. With its silver, white and blue sequins, layed out in a design that curled and swirled around my eyes and over my forehead, I thought I looked the part: a mysterious sea siren.
A little pang of longing and loneliness pinched at my insides. It would be perfect if I was going to the dance with Bo, a magical night to match my magical costume.
I shook off the melancholy direction my thoughts were taking me. Tonight, I refused to mope. For one night, I was going to do my best to pretend that I was a normal teen going to a dance to have a little fun. No drama, no sadness, no soul-mate issues. Just fun. Carefree fun. Plain and simple.
I slipped on my shoes, said my goodbyes and headed for the car. As my hair shifted against my back, I noticed there wasn’t even so much as a prickle of pain where my scratches were. I reached back and felt beneath my hair. The skin was smooth, despite the fact that I hadn’t really focused on my back with my scrubbing and lotion application. The scratches were gone without a trace.
When I got to Savannah’s I walked in tiny steps to the door and knocked.
Her dad answered, letting me inside to await Savannah.
“You look very pretty, Ridley,” he said kindly.
“Thank you, Mr. Grant.”
“Call me Jeremy,” he insisted. “Mermaid?” he asked nodding to my dress.
“Yes, sir,” I said, smiling.
Good. At least there was no question about what I was made up to be. If nothing else, I wanted my costume to be a clear departure from the normal
“everything gone slutty” attire that many females chose to sport on Halloween.
“Would you like something to drink while you wait? I’ve got Dr. Pepper, orange juice, Propel and—”
Mr. Grant’s voice trailed off when movement drew his eye down the hallway behind me. I turned to look in that direction as well.
Savannah was making her way slowly toward us. She looked amazing. How a blind girl accomplished what she had was beyond me.
She was wearing a black dress that looked slick and scaly and it fit her perfectly. She had silver rattles at her wrists and ankles, and she wore silver sunglasses to hide her eyes. Her plump lips were stained blood red and her skin was porcelain smooth.
But it was her hair that told the real story. She had curled her already-wavy mess of red locks and then I assumed used hairspray to define each thick wiggling strand and make it stand away from her scalp. If I’d only been able to see her head, I’d still have known who she was—Medusa.
“You look awesome!” And I meant it. She did.
“Vanna, you look beautiful,” Mr. Grant said, awe evident in his voice. “You look so much like your mother.”
A sadness that was becoming all too familiar to me lit his eyes when he walked to Savannah and reached out to touch her cheek. In the likeness of his daughter, he was seeing the love of his life, living and breathing again, right in front of him. I knew by the pain in his eyes that he would mourn the loss of her forever.
As I watched him adore his daughter, knowledge slammed into my gut like a steel fist, knowledge that some day—maybe even some day soon—I would lose Bo.
Again. Only this time, for real. Forever. I wouldn’t lose him to death. Never to death. I would lose him to another love, a love I couldn’t compete with. And then I, too, would spend the rest of my life mourning him, the love I loved the most.
“Alright, Dad. Don’t get all creepy and ooey-gooey,” Savannah teased.
When Savannah took off her sunglasses and started fiddling with them, I thought at first that it was a nervous gesture. But then, when she looked up and I saw her eyes, I knew that it wasn’t. The sadness of her father was reflected in the warm brown pools, and I felt guilty for forgetting that Savannah knew all about loss, too.
“Sorry, honey,” he said, plastering a brave smile on his handsome face. “You girls have fun tonight. Just not too much. Stay away from shirtless boys with a six pack and tight pants,” he warned.
“Right, Dad. Way to make things less weird.”
I couldn’t help but grin at their exchange. Their life together, while tragic, was like a reprieve in a way. And their light banter helped to diffuse the desperate sadness that had swallowed up all the air in the room.
Savannah turned and walked cautiously to the door. I followed. So did Mr.
Grant.
He opened the door and held it while we exited. “Home by midnight.”
Savannah sighed. “Fine, Mr. Cleaver. Midnight.”
Mr. Grant smiled tolerantly, shaking his head in exasperation.
I was uncertain what I should do to help Savannah, but she took the reigns and reached out to grab hold of my forearm.
“Just gonna leave a blind girl to trip and fall, is that it?”
I laughed nervously. Her teasing took some getting used to.
“I’m kidding, Ridley. Just let me hold your arm and don’t get too far ahead of me. We’ll be fine.”
She said it so tenderly, so compassionately, as if she knew that I was struggling with my role in the night, with my role as her friend. I just wanted to hug her. Beneath all her joking, wise-cracking and goof-balling, Savannah was really pretty amazing. Devon had seen it first. It had taken the rest of us a little longer to catch on.
Once she was seated in the car, I shut the door and started to walk off. Her shriek stopped me.
“What?” I said, jerking open the door. “What is it?”
“You shut the door on my tail,” she said in a forlorn voice.
It was just then that I saw that her dress tapered off in the back to a long, narrow train that looked like an elegant tail, perfect for Medusa’s lower snakey half.
Savannah picked up the material and placed it gently in her lap, sniffling delicately.
“My tail! It’s broken.”
I know my face must’ve been comically horrified. Until I heard her laughing.
“You’re mean as the snake you’re wearing,” I said, slamming the door shut and walking around to the driver’s side.
“Gotcha ‘gin,” she boasted happily.
“Are you always like this?”
She pursed her lips for just a minute, while she thought. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“How does your dad stand it?”
“He laughs a lot.”