Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel (7 page)

“Uh, you know, international survival skills,” said Nikki, searching for an appropriate answer, trying to remember something innocuous in the curriculum. “I think driving is next.”

“Driving? You know how to drive. Why on earth would they need to teach you that?”

“You know, in case I go to England. I’ll need to know how to drive on the left.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Nell said, and Nikki looked at the phone in disbelief. She hadn’t thought her lying had improved that much. There was a tap on the glass of the phone booth, and Nikki looked up to see Heidi holding her watch up and pointing at it significantly.

“OK, Mom, one of the other girls wants to use the phone, so I’d better go.”

“She can wait,” said Nell firmly. “I want to tell you about work. You remember that old coot George Pembroke? Well, I had to go over to his office for . . .”

Nikki looked up apologetically at Heidi, who rolled her eyes and walked out of view. With a sigh, Nikki settled in to listen to the ongoing tale of the crazy old coot, but realized that after tonight, she had a whole seven days before she would have to hear from her mother again. Yes, she was starting to like Carrie Mae very much.

CALIFORNIA VI

First Gear, It’s All Right

As their group walked across the parking lot toward the bus, Nikki’s face was plastered into an immovable grin. Behind her the Saugus Speedway, a recent Carrie Mae purchase, hung as a backdrop to her delight.

“Do we get to do this again, Jorge?” asked Nikki, as the driving instructor bounded up, clipboard tucked under one arm, multiple sets of car keys jangling from his fingers.

“All next week,” he said, grinning back. “And motorcycles are the week after.” There was a groan from the group in general. Nikki looked around, surprised. She had to admit she felt a little on the tired and grimy side, but the exhilaration of learning how to drive backward at speed, forward through cones, slide the car, do 180s and burnouts, and just generally drive way too fast more than compensated for tired arms and a face full of track dust and exhaust fumes.

Nikki looked back at Jorge, and he shrugged. “Some people don’t like speed,” he said. Nikki chuckled, and he smiled at her artless enthusiasm. “Then again, some people do.”

The first question of the morning had been “How many of you know how to drive a stick?” Nikki had raised her hand and then glanced around, surprised to see Jenny intently studying the ground at her feet, hands firmly in her pockets. Four other girls had claimed ignorance, and the non-stick-shifters had been sent away with Mrs. Boyer and the guest instructor, Erica Elleson. Erica had her foot in a flexible cast, but was peg-legging it cheerfully along with a cane.

Nikki was dying to ask Jenny how her driving lesson had gone, but she wasn’t sure how she would react. They filed onto the bus, and Nikki slid into her seat and dangled over the back to look at Jenny, who was stretched out on the vinyl-covered seat.

“How was it working with Erica?” she asked, striving to bring up the subject tactfully.

“Good,” said Jenny. “She’s got the patience of Job. Mrs. Boyer was freaking out by the end of the first five minutes, but Erica was as just as calm as anything. Even when Heidi nearly ran into a light pole. Mrs. Boyer yelled, of course, and Heidi started to cry, and then she had mascara running down her face. Which is when Mrs. Boyer really hit the roof and started screaming about waterproof mascara. It was scary.”

“Mrs. Boyer is wound a little tight,” agreed Nikki.

“Truer words were never spoken. Although, she’s got a point about the mascara. I may have to invest in some: I know it’ll be my turn to cry soon enough. I’m just terrible at shifting, Nikki. I don’t get it at all!”

“I’m sure you’ll get it tomorrow,” said Nikki confidently. “How did Erica hurt her foot?” she continued, hoping a change of subject would lighten Jenny’s mood.

“She said she ‘dropped in on a bar fight,’ but I think she might have been making a joke. Or maybe not. It was hard to tell, and Mrs. Boyer told us not to be impertinent.”

“How do you hurt your foot in a bar fight?” asked Nikki, trying to visualize the scenario, picturing Erica John Wayne-ing up to a bar, all fists and swagger.

“Kick somebody wrong, I suppose,” answered Jenny.

“Yeah, I guess,” replied Nikki, revising her scenario to include Erica Jackie Chan-ing up to a bar, all flying feet and acrobatics.

“Hey,” Jenny said, interrupting Nikki in the midst of her fight choreography. “I took a peek at Jorge’s clipboard. You had the fastest times of anyone in your group.”

“Really?” Nikki had never been the fastest at anything before.

“Yup. I don’t suppose you want do a little bit of homework with me and help me with the whole shifting thing?” Jenny picked at the seam of the bus seat.

“I’d love to,” Nikki replied instantly. “Maybe tomorrow, after the War Games seminar, we can get a car from the motor pool.”

“Thanks. You’d think I would have learned before now, but none of my brothers wanted to teach me on their trucks, and Mama said hardly anybody drives a stick anymore and not to worry about it, so I never did learn.”

“That’s OK,” Nikki said. “I never learned to shoot. So now we’ll be even.”

“Deal,” Jenny said, reaching up from her supine position to shake Nikki’s hand.

“I don’t like all this mechanical nonsense,” Ellen said, dropping down next to Nikki as the bus trundled into motion. “First it was engines and hot-wiring, and now it’s driving.”

“It’s not nonsense,” disagreed Nikki.

“I can see how this would be useful knowledge, but honestly, if I want to change my oil, I will hire a man,” Ellen said.

Jenny snorted in disgust. “And your generation claims that ours
isn’t feminist enough,” she said, sitting up. “Do you even know how to change a tire?”

“Yes, you call Triple-A,” Ellen said firmly.

“What if you’re somewhere that doesn’t have Triple-A?” Jenny demanded.

“You know, call me crazy, but I’m just willing to bet that in whatever foreign country I go to, there will be a man who knows how to change a tire.”

“That’s terrible. Y’all might just as well have not burned your bras,” said Jenny, shaking her head.

“Don’t be silly,” said Ellen. “We burned our bras so that your generation could learn how to change things. I’m not obligated to know.”

Nikki laughed. “What are we doing after we get back to the ranch? More shooting?” she asked.

Jenny chuckled again, sliding down in the seat until her butt was off the bench and her knees could be felt through the padding of Nikki’s seat. “Give the girl a gun and all she wants do is shoot things.”

“I don’t know,” Ellen said, answering Nikki’s question, and smacking at Jenny’s knees through the seat. “I think the schedule said ‘Specialty Items.’”

“What on earth are Specialty Items?” asked Jenny, still slumped in the seat, her shoulder blades nearly touching the bend of the bench.

“Search me,” said Ellen as the bus pulled up to the ranch.

“All right, ladies,” shouted Mrs. Boyer as the girls shuffled off the bus. “Forty minutes to shower and change, and then we’re meeting in Classroom B for our next class.” There was another collective groan from the group.

“Don’t be late,” snapped Mrs. Boyer, and she headed into the main house.

Nikki happily raced for the shower and, thirty minutes later, came down the stairs to an empty dining hall. Shrugging, she jogged toward the lecture building.

The doorway to Classroom B was open, and Nikki could hear someone inside whistling off-key. Pausing in the doorway, she saw a woman in a rumpled lab coat standing over a desk jotting down something on a piece of paper. As Nikki watched, the woman ran her hands through her blond curls, but at opposite angles, so her hair frizzed out in all directions. She had a slightly uncertain expression, as if she had just put her glasses down and couldn’t quite remember where. Nikki cleared her throat, and the woman looked up. A worried furrow began to form on her forehead.

“The atomic weight of cobalt,” she said. “Shoot! I had it just a minute ago!”

“Fifty-eight point ninety-three,” Dina supplied, stepping into the classroom after Nikki, practically pushing her out of the way.

“Oh, thank you,” the blond woman said with relief, and went back to scribbling on her piece of paper. “Yes,” she said, stepping back to admire her chicken scratch, “I think that just might work.” Then she looked back at the two students, her frown creeping back in.

“Can I help you with something?”

“We’re here for the class,” said Nikki with a smile.

“Oh! Right. Class. Right.” She looked around the classroom as if surprised to find herself there.

“I’m Dina Kirk. I majored in chemistry.” Dina shook the blond woman’s unresisting hand. “I had the highest GPA in the class. If you’d like a student assistant, I’d be more than happy to help.”

Carmella and Sarah entered the room laughing, but stopped when they saw Dina and the woman in the lab coat.

“Nice of you to offer, but why don’t you all just take a seat,” said the woman. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Dina tried not to look disappointed and sat at a front table. The other girls walked past her, refusing to sit next to her.

“Did she just pull the ‘majored in chemistry’ bit?” Carmella whispered as they walked to seats nearer the back of the room. Nikki nodded.

“Let me guess. She followed it up with the ‘highest GPA in the school’ bit?” Sarah asked, rolling her eyes. Nikki covered her mouth, trying not to hide a smile.

“It’s easy to get good grades when you never leave your dorm room. Sucks to be a dork,” Carmella said.

Nikki took a seat somewhere toward the middle of the room and waited for Jenny and Ellen. She felt bad about Dina. She’d spent her share of time feeling friendless and dorky, and she sympathized with Dina. On the other hand, even in her full-blown dork stage, she’d never been as big a bitch as Dina. It was hard to befriend someone who had all the warmth, kindness, and social understanding of a cement block.

There were eight long tables in the room. They had been covered with what appeared to be various pieces of the Carrie Mae product line. Nikki was seated in front of a bottle of Lilac Mist Body Spray and two tubes of Apricot Spring Lipstick. Carmella and Sarah’s table held compacts in various sizes. More girls began to file in. Jenny sat down next to Nikki and picked up one of the lipsticks. Ellen sat in front of them, examining a pair of red stilettos.

“What’s all this stuff?” Jenny asked.

“Specialty items, I guess,” answered Nikki with a shrug, as the
blond woman walked to the front of the room.

“Good afternoon, everybody. I’m Rachel White and I’m head of Research and Development for the Carrie Mae Foundation. In front of you, you’ll find examples of our work. You’ll note that each item looks very much like a standard Carrie Mae product.”

“Uh, Ms. White.” Heidi raised her hand. “Is mine supposed to be beeping?” Heidi held up a tube of lipstick. Its top flashed neon purple and emitted a whining beep.

Rachel White snatched the lipstick from Heidi’s hand with a speed that was the antithesis of her laid-back attitude. She twisted the lipstick case a few times and set it gently back down on the table. The flashing and beeping stopped promptly.

“However,” continued Rachel, as if she had not been interrupted, “these are not ordinary products, so please don’t touch anything until you’ve been given permission.”

Everyone in the class leaned away from the items on the tables in front of them, as Rachel began a highly informative lecture on pepper spray perfume, flash grenade lipsticks, mini-scanner compacts, knockout breath mints, acid nail polish, plastic explosive foundation, and stiletto stilettos. Many of the compacts had Lego-like qualities. They could be pulled apart to create bugs, tracking devices, or stun guns. Many of the liquids and powders could be combined to create various serums, gases, or a highly irritating itching powder. Nikki couldn’t quite figure out why someone might need an itching powder, but it was still a pretty cool invention. From there, Rachel moved on to items that only looked like Carrie Mae compacts to the casual observer. She proudly displayed a holographic projector, a satellite uplink, and a fingerprint falsifier.

Rachel eventually ended the lecture and divided the trainees into groups, giving them instructions to rotate throughout the
classroom examining each device. Nikki was holding a blusher brush and trying to decipher its alternative usage when she caught a whiff of smoke.

“Do you even have any idea what that thing does?” asked Valerie, leaning in the window frame from the outside. She was wearing a motorcycle-style leather jacket and her black hair was tucked back behind her ears.

“No,” said Nikki, honestly. “We’re supposed to figure it out and write it down on the questionnaire. But I haven’t got a clue as to how.”

“It’s in the UPC code.”

Nikki flipped the brush over and looked at the sticker on the bottom. A string of letters and numbers ran around the edge of the sticker.

“KNI001,” Nikki read. She stared thoughtfully at the blusher brush for another moment and then turned it clockwise gingerly.

“Twist harder,” advised Valerie. Nikki did as instructed until, suddenly, a sharp double-edged knife blade slid out of the brush end.

“I get it!” exclaimed Nikki. “
KNI
for
knife
?”

“Very good!” Rachel said from the front of the classroom. “That’s right, everyone. The weapons identification is in the UPC code.”

“That’s not fair,” said Dina loudly. “She had help.”

“There’s nothing wrong with help, Dina,” Rachel said. “The whole point of Carrie Mae is women working together to better themselves.”

Valerie blew smoke in Dina’s direction and stared at her until Dina turned her head away and pretended to fill out her questionnaire.

“Well, Valerie Robinson,” said Rachel, coming over to the win
dow. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m teaching a war games seminar tomorrow,” she said, boosting herself into the room and sitting on the window ledge. “I thought I’d see how the ducklings were doing.”