Free The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron Page B

awaiting more details of her mother’s fate. “You won’t believe what my mom looks like,” Sukie babbled. “Like someone punched her.”
    She would remember and regret her choice of words.

A Funeral Procession
    S UKIE spent forty-five minutes doing the mermaid float, a fleet of vanilla-scented candles sweetening the air, her bathwater oiled with a concoction of eau de kelp and coconut. She emerged liquid-calm. But shortly afterward, she felt the jumps return. By the time her hair was dry, they’d spread from her solar plexus down her arms and legs. That’s how much she feared showing up at the meeting tonight with her mom and having to take her nose to meet Bobo on Saturday.
    Preoccupied with these worries, she’d barely thought about the strange incidents in the mirror, even when she was looking into it. Her imagination had run amok, turned happy fantasies to nightmares,that’s all. The night before, in between answering the Final Jeopardy question and finding out she got it right—“Who is Chaucer?”—she’d even had a fit of giggles thinking about her mom, Señor, and herself all screaming at the same time. As for the crack, while it was possible that Señor’s piercing scream had caused it, more likely it was the result of age—the mirror was over sixty. Considering that, it was in remarkable shape. The tiny crack was hardly visible. When she stood in front of the mirror, it bisected her ankle, not a high-priority body part.
    Now that her cell was back in her possession (and her racket too—delivered by the club’s lost and found), she summoned Bobo’s texts to enjoy them again and again. MEET ME AFTER THE GAME. DANGER CATION . She’d texted back, SEE YOU THEN . The brevity evoked mystery—or so she believed until she hit send, when the truth clubbed her: It was bland. Her golden hair and even her creamy complexion were a front. Underneath she was one hundred percent beige. She wished this truth were deep underground, but she suspected the opposite. It was right out there, and only Sukie had been too blind to see it. “Beige Girl. You are Beige Girl,” she tortured herself in the mirror.
    “Why does Mikey have to come tonight? He’s not going to college,” she said, although she didn’t really care.
    “Because I forgot to get a sitter.”
    Her mom lay on her back in her underwear as she pulled on tight pants that showed every curve of her shapely legs. On her bed on her back was the only way she could put on pants without bending over, an act that was positively forbidden. As Sukie watched, standing in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom, she squeezed the flesh on her arms, working her way from her wrists to her biceps. Again and again she squeezed, trying to quiet the jumps.
    “What are you doing?” asked her mom, sitting up carefully.
    “Nothing.” Sukie stopped, but she started squeezing again a minute later.
    “As soon as I get all my expressions back, I’ll teach you how to cry on command. It can be useful. Put that on me, would you?” She nodded toward a silk top draped on the chair and raised her arms like a little kid. Sukie dropped the blouse over her mom’s head. Her mom adjusted the shoulders and slid her feet into flats. “Now pull me up slowly.” She extended a hand.
    Ever since she’d come home, Sukie’s mom had moved in slow motion. She never turned her head without at the same time turning her shoulders and chest. “Mom’s a robot,” said Mikey. Now she squatted slightly to pinch her scarf off the ottoman. Mikey pointed the cable remote at her and emitted simulated sound waves—“eh-eh-eh-eh-eh”—as if he were controlling her movements.
    Her mom swirled the scarf around and around, up her neck, over her chin, to just under her bottom lip.
    Sukie handed her a black felt hat. Studying herself in the mirror, her mom adjusted the brim low and slipped on her enormous dark glasses. “Ta-da,” she said.
    “In case anyone asks, I think we should all say I had a