The Humiliations of Pipi McGee Read online

  “Why in the world would we do that?” Dad moaned. “The mall? The mall full of people?”

  “Yes, Dad!” I slapped his leg. “People! You need to be around people.”

  “The mall full of sound? Full of…” He spit out the next word: “Lights?”

  “Yes. Sound and lights!” I bounced next to him. “A new home store opened a couple weeks ago. We should get you some nice throw pillows. Maybe a salt lamp or something.”

  Dad muttered some words that would’ve made Mom’s face go tomato red.

  I grabbed Dad’s chin, cupping it with my hands. His cheeks were bristly with whiskers. “Enough wallowing! We’re changing. You and me.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, his squished-up face making me laugh.

  “We’re changing, Dad. We’re going to face issues head-on. We’re going to reinvent ourselves.” While there was no way I’d go to Eliza’s makeup shop—I could just picture her looking down her nose at me and laughing at any attempt I made to be beautiful—the mall was full of makeup shops. I couldn’t stop thinking about Tasha’s contouring comment. “You also haven’t paid me allowance in six weeks,” I reminded him. “Ready to go?”

  Dad’s face twisted but, still holding his cheeks, I made him nod.

  Chapter Eleven

  At the home store, I filled Dad’s cart with sunny yellow pillows and a white slipcover for his couch.

  “You can bleach it,” I said when he groaned about the color. “Or even eat at a table.” I let my eyes drift down his pizza-sauce smudged brown T-shirt, his brown khaki pants, and his old, beat-up brown leather shoes. “Everything on you is a shade of depressing. And it’s worse in your apartment.” I poked his chest. “Brown walls, brown carpet, brown curtains. Even your couch is brown. Reinvent yourself!”

  “Why?” he grumped. “It’s my favorite color.”

  “It’s boring.”

  “It’s me,” he replied with a shrug.

  I smiled. “Every single time I complain about being bored you tell me bored is another word for lazy.” I added a fake aloe plant to the cart. “Besides, you’re never going to have a date, like, ever, if you don’t reinvent yourself.”

  Dad blinked at me a couple of times. Dad hadn’t dated anyone since the divorce. Mom used to say that he was married to his work. And maybe in a lot of ways he was. But for just a moment, something flashed across his face. The expression—sad and, well, lonely—made tears pop in my eyes.

  “Pillows are not the path to reinvention,” he finally said. “And you can put a slipcover over it, but it’s the same couch.”

  “Yes, but now it’s going to be pretty.” I directed the cart toward a stand of salt lamps.

  Dad paused. He threw a gray blanket into the cart. “I’ll sit on this,” he said.

  A half hour later, Dad handed me a folded-up pile of bills, mostly fives and ones. “Keep your phone on you and don’t buy anything silly. Meet me in an hour.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “First, I’m going to unload two hundred dollars’ worth of pillows and a lamp I could lick into my car trunk, and then I’m going to get a haircut.” He smiled.

  “And a shave?” I suggested.

  Dad nodded. “I’ve gotten boring, haven’t I?”

  I crossed my arms. “A bit.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. He took a deep breath and I thought for a moment he was going to tell me something profound. Instead, he simply said, “Meet me here in an hour.”

  The walls of the makeup shop were all shiny black. So were the counters. A half dozen employees walked around with aprons full of makeup brushes. Mirrors hung everywhere. Every. Where. I had hoped there would be signs like those at grocery stores indicating the contouring pencils. No such luck.

  There were buckets of eyeliners, though, in all different colors. Dozens of different shaded powders. Pot after pot after pot of eyeshadows. Foundations in a thousand shades and varieties. Probably a million types of face wash and curling irons. Soon I was in front of the store with only a half hour left.

  A tall black woman with bright orange eyeshadow and teal eyeliner approached me. “May I help you?” She had a gold hoop in her nose with a thin gold chain that stretched to a diamond stud in her ear.

  “How do I contour?” I blurted.

  She laughed and ushered me toward a chair in front of a huge mirror rimmed with lights. “Have a seat, love.” Once I settled, she asked, “Now, what makes you think you need to contour?”

  I stared at my nose in the mirror. “I want my nose to be smaller.”

  She paused, her mouth pursed as she studied my face. “Your nose isn’t your problem.”

  “It isn’t?” My hands flew to my face. What was my problem?

  “Nah. Your nose is fine. It’s cute, even. The problem is you don’t draw any attention to it.”

  “Why would I draw attention to my nose? I hate it.” I frowned at my reflection, but she just smiled back.

  “I used to think my ears were too big. Now, I draw a line”—she ran her finger along the chain from her nose to her ear—“right to my ears.” It reminded me of that afternoon when Tasha told me she used to hate her mouth and that now it was her favorite feature. The lady shrugged, swiveling me around so my back was to the mirror. “When you hate something, it’s all you think about. When you enhance it, you find its beauty.” For a few moments, she dipped a cotton swab into different pots and then swiped it along my cheeks and eyelids. Then she swiveled me back. I blinked. And blinked again.

  “I look exactly the same,” I said.

  She smiled even wider. “But now your face is moisturized.” She leaned down so she was looking me straight in the eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with your nose. Only thing wrong is what you think of it.” She faced me toward the mirrors again. “Look at that face. Really look at it. Your nose is straight. Your pores are tiny. Your nose is… well, I’d say it’s noble.”

  “Noble,” I repeated. I looked. You know what? My nose was nice.

  “Besides,” she said as she crumpled up the cotton, “I’m not sending a kid home with a mountain of overpriced makeup she’d never remember how to use. My daughter, she’s about your age. She told me this girl, she tried to give herself a makeover a couple years ago. One thing led to another, and then this kid suddenly had one eyebrow.” The stylist threw back her head, guffawing. “Can you imagine? Like being in middle school isn’t hard enough. Try going at it with one eyebrow!”

  I closed my eyes. “Does your daughter go to Northbrook Middle?”

  “How’d you know?” she said, wiping at the tears seeping out from the corners of her eyes.

  “Just a guess,” I murmured, eyes on the chain glinting from her nose in the Hollywood-style light shining from the mirror.

  I met Dad at the mall entrance of the home store. His hair was crisp and swooping over his forehead, and his face was clean-shaven. Even better? He had shopping bags in his hand.

  “New clothes?” I asked.

  He waved them in my direction. “Following my kid’s advice. Getting rid of the brown.”

  I peeked inside the bags. “Everything in here is black.”

  “Black is bold.”

  “Black is a start, Dad.” I sucked on my bottom lip for a second.

  “Where are all your bags? All that back allowance should’ve burned a hole in your pocket.”

  “Well,” I said, “speaking of being bold…”

  “Uh-oh. Why do I think this is leading somewhere I don’t want to go?”

  “Can we swing by just one more shop?”

  “Pipi.” Dad groaned. “You had an hour! I’m going to break out in hives if I have to stay here any longer.”

  “I just need you to sign a permission form at this one place.” I grabbed his elbow, leading him back into the mall despite his grimace of shopping-induced pain.

  Finally, I got him to the piercing section of a trendy jewelry store. “You want your ears pierce
d? Aren’t they already?” Dad asked.

  I shook my head. “No. My nose.”

  Dad laughed. “Yeah. No.”

  “C’mon, Dad! Sometimes you have to love the thing you hate. I want to love my nose.” He shook his head, as if trying to process my words, which, okay, fine, didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “There is no way in the world I am sending you back home to your mother with a pierced nose. No offense,” he said, looking up at the piercing attendant, who had clearly practiced on himself quite a bit, judging from the hardware in his face.

  The attendant shrugged and went back to cleaning the piercing equipment. “Truth is,” the guy said, “nasal tissue closes a lot faster than ears. Safer, really.”

  “I’m calling your mother,” said Dad, punching out the digits on his cell phone. I sat down in the piercing chair, and the attendant put a little blue dot on the side of my nose with a marker. He held up a mirror. “Here?”

  “Perfect!” I said.

  Dad held the phone to his ear. “Don’t get too comfortable there.”

  I heard the ring the next aisle over. “Mom?” I called out.

  My mom’s face peeked out from behind a counter. “Pipi?” She stepped toward us, holding Annie’s hand. “What’s going on here?”

  She looked at Dad. “Andy? You look… very nice.”

  Dad straightened. “You can tell the truth, Missy. I look hot.”

  Mom laughed. “It’s just so odd that you’re both here.”

  Annie tugged on Mom’s hand. “Can I go home with them?”

  “No,” Mom said in her forced-brightness voice that she used just before snapping. “We’re here to pick out a nice present for Tabitha’s fifth birthday.”

  “But I don’t like Tabitha. Can’t I just give her gum?”

  “No,” Mom snapped. She took a deep breath. Her mouth was white. This was not the first time she had had this conversation with Annie. “We are not getting her gum. We are getting her something in this store.” She blinked at me. “What’s that dot on your nose?”

  “Pipi wants to get her nose pierced,” Dad blurted.

  Mom’s hands did this quick flap thing that always precedes her totally losing her cool. Annie tugged on her sleeve again. “Can I pierce Tabitha for her birthday?”

  “No!” Mom snapped. “No. No one’s getting pierced.”

  “Except for me.” I stood up, so I could look Mom in the eye. “I love my nose, okay? I love my nose. It’s big and wide and I’ve spent years—years—hating my nose. My noble nose. No more!” I stomped my foot. “No. More.”

  Mom’s eyes went scary wide.

  “Besides,” I said, “Piercing Guy says it’s no big deal. Tiny hole. Grows shut.” My voice tapered off at the end.

  “No big deal?” Mom’s hands flapped again. “Fine.” She sat in the chair. “Me first.”

  “What?” Dad, Annie, Piercing Guy, and I all said at once.

  “I don’t have the energy to discuss this with any of you.” Mom’s glare spun around to all of us, including Piercing Guy. “I’m too tired to think, much less argue, about why putting a metal rod through a perfectly good body part is a poor idea. No offense,” she said to Piercing Guy, who just nodded and picked up the piercing needle. “I’ve thrown up every afternoon for the past two weeks just because of one disgusting piece of…” She shuddered, and Annie leaned in, whispering, “Cashew cheese.” Mom turned a little green and clenched her fists.

  “Every day?” Dad said. “For how long?”

  “Like I said, two weeks,” Mom said. “I’m bloated and tired and I just needed to pick up a tiara or a princess hat or something for a little b-r-a-t whom Annie doesn’t even like for a party I don’t even feel like taking her to, yet Eliza won’t speak to me because I’m MomMom and she’s Eliza. Then I come to this store and here you both are. Andy is getting to be the super cool makeover dad who takes his teen daughter for her nose piercing and buys her stuff at the mall, while I’m the heavy who has to say no. Well, not today, mister.” She said all of this in a huge rush, none of us having a chance to say anything (except for Annie, who kept whispering cashew cheese over and over again).

  “So…” Piercing Guy asked.

  “Oh, my,” Dad said, his eyes wide. “Tired? Sick? Bloated?”

  “Yes!” Mom said. “Yes. So, pierce me. Pierce me!” Mom just about snarled. “I don’t have time to argue. I don’t have the energy to argue. If one of us is getting pierced, we both are.” She turned toward me. “If you think it’s no big deal, then you won’t have any issue seeing me go first, will you? Huh?” She looked at me, and I realized she actually wanted me to answer.

  “Okay,” I squeaked. Piercing Guy handed her the form and pen. She, still glaring at me, scrawled her name.

  “So, same gold stud?” Piercing Guy asked. He put a little dot on her nose and held up the mirror.

  “Well, Pipi?” she snarled.

  “Um…”

  Piercing Guy moved the needle toward Mom’s nose.

  Dad rushed forward. “I can’t let you do this, Missy.” He pulled her up and slipped into the chair. Piercing Guy dutifully put the dot on the side of his nose and held up the mirror. Dad nodded without looking.

  “If anyone takes the shot, it’s me. Be bold,” he shout-whispered in my direction.

  “You guys are sending me really opposing messages,” I said.

  “No,” said Mom, crossing her arms. “Andy, get out of the chair.”

  “I can’t let you take a piercing in your condition,” Dad said. He nodded to the Piercing Guy, his eye twitching. Piercing Guy nodded back.

  “Andy!” Mom snapped. “What do you mean ‘in my condition’?”

  Dad arched an eyebrow at her. Her hand went to her stomach. She winced a little and then seemed to be counting something on her fingers.

  “In her what?” I gasped.

  “I’m pregnant,” Mom said, her eyes huge.

  “You never knew. Both times I had to point it out to you. We both had to point it out to Eliza.” Dad laughed.

  Mom is pregnant? What!

  Piercing Guy leaned forward.

  “Gah!” Dad screeched.

  “Cashew cheese,” Annie whispered.

  “Next,” Piercing Guy called.

  “That. Was. A. Bluff!” Dad cried. He jumped to his feet. His watery eyes spilled over. His hand touched his nose, where a gold bead now lived, embedded in his flesh. “I winked at you, man. I winked!”

  “You sat down.” Piercing Guy shrugged as he cleaned off the piercing needle with astringent wipes. “You sit down, you get pierced. Who’s next?”

  Annie jumped into the seat.

  “No!” The three of us said, yanking her out.

  Okay, so maybe it was wrong to take advantage of Mom’s shock over her ex-husband figuring out she was pregnant before she did. And maybe I totally took advantage of Dad’s shock at getting his nose pierced at fifty years old.

  But I took Annie’s place in the chair. “Me.”

  Mom’s hand drifted to her stomach. Dad’s drifted to his nose. Annie sighed.

  My noble nose.

  I sucked in my breath as Piercing Guy took aim.

  A piercing was the perfect way to draw attention to what I used to hide.

  But my dad was crying. A lot.

  And getting pierced involved metal being forcibly shoved through my skin.

  “Stop!” Dad and I said at the same time as Piercing Guy moved closer. Dad grabbed my arm. “If you still want your nose pierced, that’s what you can have for your fourteenth birthday,” Dad told me as Piercing Guy rolled his eyes. My birthday was three months away. But it still counted, I told myself, as enough to scratch first grade off The List.

  Chapter Twelve

  I stood in front of my corkboard, staring at The List.

  Holding a red Sharpie, I slashed through first grade.

  My eyes snagged on the other six items still on The List. I had a lot of work left to do; even so, I
thought I’d feel… I didn’t know. More accomplished. I’d see Piper in two days. Watching her play with all of her friends—that’d make me feel better. And until then I was going to pretend like my nose already was pierced. My noble nose.

  A soft knock on the door scattered my thoughts. Mom peeked in, then swung the door wide open. I could hear Eliza reading a bedtime story to Annie down the hall.

  “I just don’t think a toad being a friend to a frog is interesting,” Annie said.

  “I love this story. We’re reading it,” Eliza replied over Annie’s enormous sigh.

  “Hey,” Mom said. She closed the door behind her.

  “Hey,” I answered. I glanced down at her stomach.

  “So… your dad is pretty observant,” she said.

  I opened my mouth to congratulate her on the baby, then closed it again. I didn’t know what I was feeling. Sure, I was happy for her and Alec—he was going to be an amazing dad. But also a little… not happy? Like, I got why she was with Alec and not my dad. I totally was on board with that. But them making a new family together? It felt weird. Really weird. Not to mention that this baby would be Annie’s aunt, and Annie was only going to be five by the time it was born. And the biggest thing, the thing I definitely wanted to not be thinking about was that health class video we had to watch back in fifth grade.

  “I know you have questions,” Mom said. “This was just such a surprise. I’m a grandma! Alec and I weren’t even—”

  “No!” I blurted. “No, nope. No questions.”

  Mom laughed. “Okay. No questions. Let me just tell you the important details. I’m about two months along. We’re due this summer, best I can figure. But I’m going to ask you not to say anything to Annie. I told Eliza a little bit ago, and she’s going to decide when and how to let Annie know. I’m not talking about it publicly for another month or so, either.”

  “How did Eliza take the news?” I asked, remembering her cold tone while reading to Annie.

  Mom sighed. “She’ll be fine.” Again, her hand flashed to her stomach. I studied her face and the line between her eyebrows that seemed carved into her face when she was worried.