Save the Date (8 page)

Instead, I change the subject to chemistry and finals, and we commiserate about all the studying we have to do for next week. We talk until almost midnight, and when we hang up, I go straight to sleep, because I want to keep the sound of his voice in my head and dream about the future, when all the weddings will be over and maybe it’ll be safe for me to date once again.

Victoria and Paris somehow manage not to speak to each other all through Sofia’s graduation weekend. There are enough people in our family that they can always find at least one person to force into listening to their wedding woes, even if, sadly, that person is often me. Paris, for instance, talks my ear off for the entire ceremony about how she can’t decide what color to dye her hair for her wedding. It’s pretty riveting.

But having Sofia home makes a huge difference. Now I can hide in her room to study, and when Paris or Victoria comes looking for me, Sofia can step in to deflect their attention to her.
With her help, I finish all my papers, study for all my finals, and pass with decent enough grades to probably get me into the colleges I want next year.

Finally, June arrives and school ends. We have one week to go until the (first) wedding, and Vicky is totally freaking out. She shows up on our doorstep on Saturday morning (early, of course) and shrieks “SPA DAY!” when I answer the door.

“Vicky,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes, “why didn’t you just let yourself in?”

“Because I wanted you to get up and answer the door,” she says, as if this makes perfect sense. “I’ve come to abduct you and Sofia for a special bridesmaids spa day. It’s my present to you guys! Isn’t that exciting? Lucille and Kelly are in the car already.”

I peer around her at the two faces pressed against the window of the car. I would pretty much rather do anything in the world than get in the car with these people and be dragged to a spa. I would rather sleep all day. I would rather
scoop ice cream for screaming four-year-olds. Heck, I would rather get eaten by polar bears.

For one thing, I don’t like spas. I didn’t have a great spa experience with the last two weddings. Pedicures I can handle; anything else makes me nervous. I got a massage at Sydney’s “special spa bridal shower” day, and it made me feel all greasy and sore afterwards.

Not to mention, spending the day with Victoria and Lucille right now sounds just about the opposite of relaxing. They’ve been squabbling nonstop over all kinds of stupid bridesmaid stuff. I think Vicky would happily throw her out of the bridal party too, except that she can’t decide who would be maid of honor in her place.

But I don’t really have a choice, since I’ve been forbidden to work at The Yummery on weekends during the summer just in case of wedding emergencies, so I go and wake up Sofia, get dressed, and follow her out to Vicky’s car.

“Jackie!” Lucille squeals at me. “You are so
cute! Are you so excited about the spa? Have you ever been to a spa?” She says all this in a singsong baby-talk voice.

“I have, yeah,” I say, since that seems like the safest answer.

“All right, you guys,” Vicky says, handing us each a pamphlet for the spa we’re going to. “I’ve picked a service for each of you and marked it on these pamphlets, so you’ll know what you’re getting. I think you’ll really like them!”

I notice that she’s made sure to pick “services” that are all under $45…and that my initials are down next to “facial.”

“Um, Vicky?” I say. “I don’t really want a facial.”

“Sure you do,” she trills. “You’ll love it.”

“I’m okay with my face the way it is,” I say. This is about as true for me as it is for any girl I know—some days I hate my skin, some days it’s acceptable. I just don’t like touching my face, and I certainly don’t like anyone else touching it (with, you know, the notable exception of Leo, but that’s in a prelude-to-a-kiss kind of way,
which is totally different, and was only once, and isn’t going to happen again, so…yes).

“Facials are
divine
,” Lucille gushes. “And you could really use one, honey.”

Gee, thanks. “Can’t I just get a pedicure?” I say to Vicky.

“I could trade with her,” Sofia offers. I see that she’s been assigned to a pedicure.

“No,” Victoria snaps. “I put a lot of
thought
and
effort
into these decisions, and we’re not changing them, and that’s final, because this is
my
day.”

Sofia pats my arm comfortingly, as if to say,
Don’t worry, it’ll all be over in a week.
Except it won’t, of course, because then there’s Paris’s wedding to worry about, and if sweet Victoria has been this transformed by the experience, goodness only knows what’ll happen to the Tyrant Queen of Crazy.

At the spa, we are each sent off to different areas. I am apparently the only victim of the facial plan, so I am left in a small pink-and-beige waiting room with faint Indian-sounding music
playing in the background. After a few moments, a very large blond woman with enormous, muscular arms and severely plucked eyebrows appears from a back room.

“Hello,” she says. “I am HELGA!” She seizes my hand in a viselike grip that really should have sent me running for the hills, leaving nothing but a Jack-shaped hole in the wall.

Instead I say, “Nice to meet you, Helga,” and try not to wince as she pumps my arm up and down.

“No!” she cries. “It is HELGA!” As far as I can tell, the only difference between what I said and what she said is volume, but I’m not about to shout at her, so I bob my head agreeably.

“This way!” she says, jabbing her finger down the hall. I follow her into a dark, cool, gray room with the same Indian music and the smell of incense, plus a sound machine of bubbling noises that instantly makes me need to pee.

HELGA! shoves a bundle of cloth into my arms.

“Undress,” she snaps. “Put on smock. Lie down.”

It sounds straightforward enough. But as soon as she slams the door behind her, I get confused. Undress? How much? Surely I don’t have to take off everything? I’m here for a facial…please tell me I can at least keep my pants on.

I settle on a compromise. Shorts: on. Shirt: off. Bra: on. If I do it wrong and HELGA! yells at me, I’d rather not be scolded naked. Some clothes are better than no clothes. I lie down on the table and pull the sheet over me.

Apparently this is an acceptable decision, because when HELGA! returns she doesn’t yell at me. Instead she seizes my hands and shoves them into a pair of heated mittens filled with some kind of paraffin wax or moisturizing something-or-other. It actually feels kind of cool, and I start to think maybe this won’t be so bad.

HELGA! applies mysterious things to my face, washing them off with a warm washcloth when she’s done. Then she points a large machine at me and flicks a switch. Immediately
a hot mist starts wafting around my head.

“Now you are steamed,” HELGA! says. “Ten minutes. No moving!”

Of course, the minute she leaves the room, my nose starts to itch. My hands are still trapped in heat wraps under the blanket.
I
am trapped under the blanket. There’s no way to get anything to my nose or my nose to anything.

Itch, itch, itch.

Yeah. It’s very relaxing.

I try to take my mind off the itching by thinking about something else, but the only thing that springs to mind is Leo, which is very bad. I haven’t seen him in two weeks because he’s been away helping his mom with a couple of weddings in the mountains, and I’ve been studying for finals. But we have talked on the phone…probably more than we should, because every time I think about him, I think about kissing him, and I really need to make it through the next week without giving in to that impulse.

The door opens and HELGA! comes back in.
Wow…thinking about Leo really did manage to take my mind off the itching. HELGA! flicks on a bright light and leans in to inspect my face carefully.

“Hmm,” she says. “Much to do! Very bad!”

“Really?” I say weakly. “Maybe we shouldn’t mess with it.”

“Time to unclog!” she bellows. “Much better then!”

Suddenly she attacks my face with enthusiastic vigor.

“OW!” I shout immediately. What is she
doing
? It feels like she’s excavating for diamonds in my skin. With a pair of knives. Dude, nobody told me this would
hurt
.

“Lie still!” she commands.

“Are you sure you’re doing this right?” I ask, struggling to my elbows. She doesn’t like that very much. She seizes my shoulders and shoves me down flat again.

“LIE STILL,” she hollers.

I think,
All right, maybe it’s just the first one that hurts. Maybe that was a particularly difficult…
whatever the heck she just yanked out from under my epidermis.

“OW!” I scream again. That one hurt even MORE, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. I’m not standing for this. I don’t need to suffer this much for Victoria. It’s her wedding, not mine. Nobody’s going to be looking at
my
pores. They can just stay clogged, fine by me.

A brief wrestling match ensues. I am determined to get off the table; HELGA! is equally determined to keep me on.

“My pores are fine!” I yell. “All done! Great work! I love it! Let me go!”

“You are terrible client!” she shouts. “Much unclogging still to do!”

Perhaps it will not surprise you to hear that the gigantic Swedish woman with arms the size of small Labradors wins the tussle with the girl whose favorite athletic activity is racing her sisters to the fridge for the last pint of ice cream.

I have no choice but to lie there as she pokes and prods and basically turns my face inside out, and then applies some kind of stinging substance
that makes every cell in my face feel like it’s on fire.

“So…OW,” I say. “This really—OW—really hurts—OW.”

“Pain is good!” HELGA! insists. “It would not hurt so much if your pores not so bad!”

Well, at least I know all this suffering is my fault, then.

HELGA! smears something all over my face that feels like mud, then waits for it to dry so she can peel it off again. I’m thinking this can’t possibly go on much longer, and I let myself fantasize about Leo because anything that’ll take my mind off the pain is okay at this point.

Finally, HELGA! peels off the mask, spritzes my face with something light and chemical-smelling, and then smears moisturizer all over my skin.

“Good,” she says approvingly. “Much better.” She washes off her hands as I lie there wondering whether I now have giant craters in my skin, because that’s what it feels like. Then HELGA! switches on the overhead light and leaves to let
me dress myself again.

I pull on my shirt and shoes and hobble weakly back out to the waiting room, where she is lying in wait for me. Victoria has kindly informed us that we have to cover the tipping ourselves, so not only did I have to let this mad-woman dig through my face, now I have to pay her for it. I hand her a few dollars.

“Thanks very much,” I say, and take a deep breath. “HELGA!”

To my immense shock, she cracks a smile.

“Good lungs,” she says, whacking me on the back. “Terrible pores, but good lungs!” And she strolls off back to her evil lair. Yeah, I totally don’t mean
strolls
. I mean
lumbers
.

In the main waiting room, I find a mirror and discover that now there are bright red spots all over my face. Leo is supposed to see me like this? Over my dead skin cells. Maybe I can steal Alex’s veil. And wear it for the rest of my life.

“Don’t you feel refreshed?” Lucille proclaims, drifting into the waiting room with Kelly and Victoria. They’ve all had massages, and the
oil is all through their hair, but they do look more relaxed—even Victoria. I guess some people are just spa people, and some people aren’t. Me, I’d like to go home and bury my head under my pillows for the rest of the summer.

But much to my horror, Leo is sitting on our front steps when we pull into the driveway. I see Victoria’s shoulders tense when she spots him.

“Is something wrong with the wedding?” she shrieks, hurling herself out of the car the minute it’s parked. “Is it the band? It’s the clarinet player, isn’t it? Did he flake out? I always thought he looked suspicious. I’m going to
kill
him!”

“It’s not the clarinet player,” Leo says, looking amused. “My mom just wanted me to drop off the list of songs the band can play, so you can go over it and pick the ones you like or don’t like.”

“Oh my lord, if they can’t play ‘Greensleeves’ as I’m walking down the aisle, I will DIE, I will just DIE,” Victoria declares, sweeping past him.

“Come on, bridesmaids! We’ve relaxed enough for one day! We have work to do!”

“Yeah,” Sofia whispers to me as Lucille and Kelly throw themselves out of the car and chase her inside. “Stop slacking, Jack.”

“I’d be happy to work,” I whisper back, slowly getting out of the car. “
Please
give me work; just don’t make me ‘relax’ anymore.”

Sofia’s cell phone rings and her face lights up as she looks at the number.
Ben
, she mouths, then scoots off around the side of the house to talk to him in private.

Leo is still sitting on the porch, waiting for me. I throw my sweatshirt over my head and approach with just my eyes showing, so I can see the ground. “Do NOT look at me,” I say as I get closer. “I’m totally hideous right now.”

“I highly doubt that,” Leo says, with maximum adorableness. He scoots over so I can sit next to him. I swat his hand away when he tries to peek under the sweatshirt. Through the gap I have left for my eyes, I can’t help but notice his remarkably well-formed legs, since he is wearing khaki shorts, and his legs are very close to mine on the porch steps. If I leaned just a little
to the right, our knees would be touching. Our skin would be touching. I suddenly have a vivid mental image of my bare skin touching his all the way along our bodies, and I have to yank my imagination back from that precipice.

“Seriously,” I say, hoping my voice sounds casual enough that he won’t guess what just went through my mind. “I used to think the worst thing my sisters could do to me was make me wear a terrible dress. Maybe force me into a terrible hairdo—did I tell you about the one Alex insisted on? She wanted us all to have our hair pulled straight back into these really tight, small buns so we looked like we had practically no hair, basically. On the plus side, it stretched my face so tight I looked like I was kind of grimace-smiling all night long, which at least kept me awake through Harvey’s incredibly long, boring speeches.”