Candy Floss

chapter five | snickerdoodles

“You can’t do that!”

“Can’t I? You’ll be eighteen by then. We’re legally not responsible for you.”

I turned to face my father. “Dad!”

He put his hands up once more. “Not getting involved.”

Aggravated and desperate to become a dentist, I agreed.

+++

My task was to tidy up the dressing room. I only had to worry about the girl’s. Some poor soul (I think it was the director’s son) cleaned up the boy’s. I’m not positive it having the female’s is better or worse. There were more women in the play and there were more costumes to keep track of.  The men, to put it bluntly, were slobs, pigs, and other things of that nature.

Honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever get around to cleaning up whatever was in that corner, not that I was particularly making an effort to clean it, anyways. I would mask the smell with Febreze to mask the smell if anyone bothered me about it. Whoever decided to pee in here when the bathroom was not even five minutes away could come scrub away at it. I didn’t sign up for this, and it wasn’t my job (I mean, it sort of was), so I wasn’t going to do it.

A head popped in through the doorway. “Knock, knock.”

The head didn’t scare the living daylights out of me; the voice did. The floating head was just a gruesome bonus. “Holy--who are you?”

The figure came closer towards me; towards the light. A gentle shadow was cast over half of his face. I hated to be cliche about it, but his features were almost perfection, in my eyes at least. I’m sure Eunice would think he was “just all right,” like all of the other boys I thought were cute. First of all, he had the most adorable nose ever. It was so perfect. It wasn’t abnormally thin or thick, but it wasn’t short or longer either. His jawline was nicely defined, and I saw a bit of baby fat left on his cheeks. In his defense though, it was disappearing quickly. His lips were drawn into a curt half smile that I found incredibly endearing. His eyebrows weren’t too thin as to suggest he waxed them, but not too thick that you could shear it all off and make everybody who was feeling chilly a blanket. They were like two brown McDonald’s golden arches. His hair was a luscious meadow of milk chocolate. I would skip in that meadow anyday. I would eat a mountain of milk chocolate without immediately requesting a cleaning if it meant I could be with him.

This feeling was foreign and it made feel like Eunice, but I couldn’t help wanting to feel it again. In the five seconds I had to look at his face, I drank it all in, savoring each drop of beauty. Quite frankly, I was melting.

I didn’t know who he was, but if he was going to be here as often as I was, I understood why Mom was so persistent and why she said girls would kill to be in my position, because I would kill myself to be in my position, but that would be pointless. I was in a dark and almost-private room with him only a couple of feet away from me. Too bad I didn’t know him. Unless that made things more romantic, which would change everything. I hadn’t had my first kiss yet, so what if he thought I was inexperienced? I mean, I was inexperienced, but--wait. He’s not going to kiss me. He’s probably in here to see if this is the bathroom. It would make a whole lot of sense. What if he was the one peeing in the corner? Oh, I’d murder him. Even if he was pretty.

“My name’s Owen. I’m guessing you are”--he looked at his right hand--”Fossil?”

“Flossy,” I corrected.

He smiled sheepishly. “Oh, right. Sorry. My handwriting is sort of messy, and it sort of got smudged.”

Holy crap! My name’s on his hand! He gets flustered easily. He probably has the cutest scrawl ever…I should answer back. He probably has the impression that I'm some sort of desperate, lovestruck fool.