White Oleander

Of course I did, I was blank, anyone could fill me in. I waited to see who I would be, what they would create on my delicious vacancy. The woman in first class, reading French Vogue and sipping champagne? Catherine Deneuve walking her dog in the Bois, admired by strangers?

 

Linda outlined my eyes on the inside, rolling back my lids, dabbing tenderly at my tears with the corner of a Q-tip when it made me cry. She gave me four coats of mascara, until I was seeing through a tangle of spiders. I was going to be so beautiful, I could feel it. Marvel redefined my big lips smaller, penciling them inside the lines and filling in Piquant Peach.

 

"God, she could be Miss America," Debby said.

 

Linda said. "No shit. Go look in the mirror."

 

"Hair," Debby said. "Let me get my curling wand."

 

"We don't have to get carried away, now," Marvel said. She'd suddenly remembered who I was, not Miss America at all, only the kid who did her wash and set.

 

But Debby overrode her objections with the phrase "total effect." Heat and the smell of burning hair tangled in the spikes of the curling wand, section by section.

 

Then I was done. They led me into Marvel's bedroom by both arms, my eyes closed. My skin crawled with anticipation. Who would I be? "And here, representing the great State of California — Astrid!"

 

They pulled me in front of the mirror.

 

My hair curled and frizzed around my shoulders and rose three inches above my scalp. White stripes raced down my forehead and nose like Hindu caste marks. Brown patches appeared under my cheekbones, white on the ridges, dividing my otherwise dead beige face into a paint-by-number kit. Blusher broke out on my cheeks like a rash, my lips reduced to a geisha's tiny bow. My eyebrows glared in dark wings, protecting the glistening bands of eye shadow, purple, blue, and pink, like a child's rainbow. I never cried, but now tears sprang unbidden to my eyes, threatening a mud slide if they were to break out of their pool.

 

"She looks just like Brigitte what's-her-name, the model." Linda held me by the shoulders, her face next to mine in the mirror. I tried to smile, they'd been so nice.

 

Debby's brown eyes went soft with pride. "We should send Mary Kay her picture. Maybe they'll give us a prize."

 

At the thought of reward, Marvel quickly rummaged in her closet, found her Polaroid, and arranged me in front of the mirror. It was the only picture she ever took of me. You could see the unmade bed, the bureautop clutter. They congratulated themselves and went back out to their sodas and Chex mix, leaving me in front of the mirror, a toddler's fussed-over Barbie abandoned in the sandbox. I blinked back my tears and forced myself to look in the mirror.

 

Looking back at me was a thirty-year-old hostess at Denny's. Anything else I can get you, hon? I could feel this vision burning itself into my soul, burning away Deneuve and Dietrich like acid thrown in my face. The woman in the mirror would not have to orchestrate three different lovers. She would not dance on rooftops in Mexico, fly first class to London over the pole. She was in for varicose veins and a single apartment with cat litter and Lana Turner movies. She would drink by herself with tomatoes dying on the windowsills. She would buy magic every day of the week. Love me, that face said. I'm so lonely, so desperate. I'll give you whatever you want.

 

SCHOOL LET OUT at the end of June under a marine layer heavy as wet towels. The pencil-gray days were broken only by the blue flowers in Olivia's yard. I babysat, ran errands, reread A Spy in the House of Love. I longed to see Olivia, but Marvel kept me working. If I so much as walked outside, she gave me four other things to do. Sometimes I'd see Olivia picking herbs in her garden, and our eyes would meet, but she gave no indication she knew me. She would have been a good secret agent, I thought, and tried to do the same, but after a while, I wondered if it was a good act or if she had forgotten me entirely.

 

Dear Astrid,

 

The all-prison issue of Witness is out, you must buy it, they printed my whole poem. It ran seven pages, illustrated with photographs by Ellen Mary McConnell. The response

 

has been tremendous. I had them include a brief note in which I humbly mentioned that gifts of stamps, books, and money would be deeply appreciated.