“Next!” the lady at the register barks, and it’s our turn to pay.
“Turn a little—no, that way—to the right.” Helen stands behind me, twisting a lock of my hair and pinning it against my head. She’s already done my makeup. It’s Friday and we are at her house and she’s been working on “my look,” as she put it, for twenty minutes. We are going to a party, another thing on my list.
Helen lives only an hour’s drive from my town, not far by most standards, but it may as well be an entire continent away. It’s the first time I’ve been this far from home without my mother or José as a chaperone. Helen picked me up and brought me here, to her house. It’s small—a bedroom, living room with a kitchen attached, a porch out front—but it seems perfect. It is Helen’s and only Helen’s. She rents it for college, and it’s a five-minute walk from the beach where the party is.
“Now a little to the left,” she says.
I’ve been doing Helen’s bidding as I watch my transformation in the bathroom mirror, in between glancing down at my new phone, trying to figure out how to send a text. I took it from the gift room before I left. Helen helped me to set it up. I bring it close to my face. Then I tap the screen. “Oh! I did it!”
“Marlena, stop moving. You did what?”
I am concentrating too hard on tapping the screen in the right place for each letter to answer her at first. Then I finish what I want to say and hit Send. “I figured out how to send a text!”
Helen laughs right as her phone dings. She picks it up from the counter and reads it and laughs harder. “Marlena, I’m right here. You don’t need to text me.”
My text said: Hi, Helen, it’s me, Marlena! I’m so excited we’re going to a party! “I know, but I wanted to test it out.”
“You also don’t need to spell everything out exactly,” she advises. “Or use punctuation.”
“Yes, I do. How else is the person I’m texting supposed to understand me?”
Helen shakes her head and goes back to fixing my hair. My eyes return to the screen, tapping slowly. This time a text to Finn, which appears inside a little yellow bubble.
My first text to Finn!
Hi Finn. This is Marlena. I got a phone today.
I hit Send and stare at the screen like it’s a magical object, waiting for it to do tricks.
“Turn a little again,” Helen directs.
I obey, never taking my eyes from the phone.
Then, suddenly, a waving smiley face, a tiny image of a truck, followed by a picture of a phone with an exclamation point appears, but nothing else. The name next to the blue quotation bubble tells me it’s Finn. My first text from Finn! “What does this mean?” I hold the screen so Helen can look at it.
“That Finn is happy to hear from you, that he’s excited you got a phone, and that he’s driving, which is probably why it doesn’t say anything else.”
“Oh. Okay. I’m glad you understand it. Thanks for the translation.” I type out a really long message this time. It takes me forever.
I’ve seen so many people staring down at these things and I always think they’re going to bump into a pole or a tree but now I know why! I CAN’T BELIEVE I CAN JUST WRITE YOU THINGS! Also, please don’t get in an accident!
This time Finn’s answer is nearly immediate.
LOL.
I tap my response. I am so slow. Finn, what does LOL mean?
Finn: LOL, LOL!!!! Laugh out loud, Marlena. That’s what it means.
Me: Stop laughing at me! I’m new at this! Where are you? Will you be at the party, when you said?
Finn: Yes. (Still LOL.) But only if we stop texting so I can get back on the road. I pulled over to answer you.
Me: OH! Good idea. Sorry. That’s all from me.
I look up from the screen. I feel breathless. “I can totally see how these are addicting.”
Helen plucks the phone from my hand and sets it on the counter next to hers. “You are not allowed to become one of those people who never look up from their phones, Marlena.” She slides another pin into my hair. “There.” She grabs her beer bottle for another sip. She gestures at the mirror. “What do you think?”
I stare at the girl I see. My hair is up but it’s also falling around my face. Wine-colored lipstick stains my mouth and my eyes are dark and smoky. “I look older.”
Helen studies her work. “I’d say you look your age. And hot.” She laughs and takes another sip. “Perfect for a party.”
I roll my eyes. “I have never looked hot in my life.”
She plucks at the strap of the black top she gave me to wear. She paired it with jeans and black heels. I can barely walk in them. “Well, congratulations. You do now.” Helen gets a knowing look on her face. “Finn is going to faint.”
“I don’t want him to faint,” I say, but I’m smiling.
“Not literally.” She’s laughing. “But you do want to make his heart pound.”
“Maybe. Will Sonia be there tonight?” I ask, dragging out the name of the girl Helen likes. “Are you going to make her heart pound?”
Helen sweeps a hand across her body. “Damn, I hope so! I mean, look at this! What girl wouldn’t want this?”
I laugh. “I wish I had your confidence.” I reach for Helen’s beer bottle and wait to see if she swats my hand away. When she doesn’t, I take a sip. It makes me wince. It’s only my second sip of beer in the entirety of my life and this one seems even more disgusting than the first.
“Good thing you can’t really get that down,” Helen says. “I don’t want you drunk and puking at your first party.” She makes a warning face. “You need to be careful, my darling. You have zero tolerance and the alcohol will go straight to your head, and fast.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Seriously. You are not getting sick on my watch. Parties are supposed to be fun, not vomit-inducing. There’s a difference, and it all depends on this”—she grabs the bottle and holds it up as evidence—“and how much or how little of it you drink. Besides, you can’t get sick, because I need to hit on Sonia tonight!”
I stand up and nearly topple over on these heels. “I know, I know.” I slide the phone into the pocket of my jeans and follow Helen out of the bathroom, through the front door, and onto the porch, almost falling again. “You really think I can handle these on the beach?”
She glances over her shoulder. “We’ll be on the deck in the back. And until then”—Helen stops and slips her own heels off her feet—“we can go barefoot. And if you want to walk the beach, then voila!” She dangles the straps from a single finger.
I slip mine from my feet too, grateful to be rid of them, imitating the way Helen holds hers. The two of us set off across the grass. Everything about today, this evening, the promise of a party, thrums through me. The sun has just set, and the sky is the bright aqua blue of early evening, the stars like crystals across the expanse of night ahead. As we walk from yard to yard, the soft scuffing sounds of our steps break the quiet. I reach out and grab Helen’s hand.
She turns to me, hair curling over her shoulders. “What, Marlena?”
I weave my fingers through hers, searching inside myself, searching for the healing touch that has always been as familiar as the lines on my palm, even the shape of my own face. I find something else instead. “I’ve seen inside your soul,” I tell Helen. “I think I even saw this moment between us, all those years ago when you first came to me in that chair.”