AN OILY MESS

A short story by Jolene Rice

Written for A Writers’ Shindig

Part 3

Skin Care

Cassandra spent every Sunday at the library. The library was her happy place. The smell of oldbooks brought back sweet memories of her childhood. On Saturday morning, while other children her age were watching cartoons, she and her dad were off to the library. It was always something different; from strange animals the children were allowed to pet to puppet shows, it was all happening at the library. While she was living on the streets, the library intimidated her.

What if they threw her out? It would shatter her happy place. Cassandra was thrilled that the library was on the other side of the park near the spa, close enough she could walk. Her Sundays were filled with sweet childhood memories and learning about skin care. She could do things like have her clients wash their faces in rose water. From time to time, she applied masks. Not being a doctor, she was afraid to do much more. That didn’t stop her from learning. The letter opener that she was using was an extraction needle someone left behind. There were other sized needles, tweezers, and comedone extractors. Cassandra had never used a comedone extractor. Didn’t even think there was one at the spa. They looked like a small open hole on the end of a pencil. Where her letter opener was used to poke the skin, you pressed down on a comedone extractor allowing the pustule to protrude through the hole. It was supposed to be gentler on the skin than using your fingers to squeeze the pustule out. She got tickled; one piece looked like a spatula. A tiny little spatula for your pores. Pieces could be purchased individually or in sets. Sets started around $10.00 to hundreds when you started looking at gold plated hypoallergenic tools.

When Mr. Daily discovered she was really interested in the job, he showed her tools other techs had left behind and gave her the pick of the litter.

Jackson rolled up beside her in his chair as she set at a computer in the library. She didn’t jump; he rolled up beside her all the time. “Would you like to grab a drink when you’re finished?” he asked. “Just a drink.”

While Cassandra was sitting at the computer, she did a YouTube search for the salon, Youthful Wishes. Jackson was right, hundreds of thousands of people watched these videos. After five videos, she could tell which ones Jackson had filmed versus the girl. Cassandra began pointing them out.

He laughed. “Good eye.”

They left the library to get coffee.

“What did you do in the before time?” Jackson asked. Cassandra just sipped her coffee. “Well,” he stammered, then tried a different approach. “Was there anything special about the before time?”

“Not much.” She sipped again at her coffee, “I’m from a painfully small town called Sunshine Valley.”“Why did you come here?”

Cassandra said, “No plan. I thought moving to the big city would be the answer to all of life’s problems. You know, stay here for a little while and then go home being heralded a hero. I would be able to get what I wanted.”

“What you wanted?” Jackson asked.

“What I thought I wanted,” Cassandra told him as she sipped at the coffee. “It is amazing how our priorities change. Things that where once so important, now just seem stupid.”

“You moved here without a plan?”

She laughed, “You could say that. What about you?”

Jackson didn’t answer right away. “To be honest, I didn’t have a plan either.”

They both just laughed.

More homesickness

Cassandra awoke with a start. She’d been dreaming about her grandmother. Maw would be so ashamed of some of the things her Sue Bug had done in the big city to survive. The moonlight from the open curtains poured into her room, falling on a pack of paper she’d found in her scavenger hunt ‘girling up’ her new workspace. She hadn’t left home because of a horrible family life. Her family was fantastic. Hateful Guts was the reason she left. She wanted to prove to him that more than one person could leave a small town and win. But damn! Was this winning?

She used some of the paper to write a letter to her parents. Cassandra told them it was her goal to be home by Christmas.

Cassandra jumped when Mr. Daily called her name. The bow-legged penguin was sneaky. But then, she reasoned, in order to be a good pervert you needed the art of stealth. She opened the door for him.

“Oh, sorry. Never meant to startle you.” He almost blushed. “Should’ve knocked.”

“It’s fine, Mr. Daily. I was lost in another world.”

“I wanted to pick your brain. Do you have any great ideas for a Valentine’s Day special?”“For the spa as a whole or just us?”

“As a whole.”

“I might not be the right person to ask but I will do my best.”

He smiled and left.

She sat cross legged on her bed thinking about ideas for a promo. Honestly, she wasn’t the right person to ask. Love had always eluded her. Even when she got close to love it slipped through her fingers. Her love life was a joke. In high school she had a huge crush on a guy. Her parents didn’t teach her about crushes. There was zero guidance. Subsequently, everyone knew about her crush. ‘One day’, she always told herself. ‘One day’. When that one day came, it would be perfect. She was already in love. He couldn’t help but fall head over heels in love with her. Life would be perfect.

When that day did come, it wasn’t the fairy tale romance she had little girl dreams about. It was horrible. It was screaming, shouting, an emotionally dead nightmare. He worked long hours. Would clam up and not talk to her for days. When he did speak, he shouted at her. She’d convinced herself she could fix it. Fix him. Sitting here, now, it hit her like a bucket of ice water. He had his own crush. And she had run away to the big city chasing someone else. Trying to be someone else. If she could be that other woman, maybe he would finally love her?

“Jackson,” she said out loud. “Maybe he could help me?”

They got coffee and went for another walk in the park. She told him about Mr. Daily asking her for promo ideas. Asking Jackson if he had any ideas.

“I have no desire to help you.”

His comment shook her. “Why?”

Jackson took a deep breath, “Cassandra, I need your help. I’m an investigative reporter doing a story on Dr. Mac.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Three years.”

“You’re kidding?”

Jackson, confused, asked, “About?”“You’re an investigative journalist but you drink those drinks?”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing. Just the timing isn’t good.” Cassandra paused, pursing her lips. “I need to work this out in my head first.”

“I don’t follow.”

“That’s why you’ve been here three years.”

That cut deep but he sucked it up. “Then help me.”

“I’m saving up enough money to go home. I’m not sure I want to help you.”

“Help me tear down Dr. Mac’s playhouse.”

“Why?”

“Dr. Mac is not a good person. Who hires a pervert to run their side piece?”

“Side piece?” Cassandra asked.

“Her clinic is downtown. Miles away from this dump. Downtown is where all the action takes

place. Where she does all her photo shoots with high powered politicians. Downtown is where her rich clients go. This dump is where she sends her poorer clients.”

Cassandra stopped walking. “Her?”

“Yeah.”

Cassandra was instantly pissed. “Do you want to bring her down just because she’s a successful woman?”

“No,” Jackson gasped. “Heavens no. She’s a bad doctor. Dr. Mac encourages the clients to eat oil rich or highly processed foods. She prescribes them oils instead of hydrating lotions. Some have even been prescribed oil pills.”

“Cod or fish oil can be good for people.”

“No, these are straight up oil. Like cooking oil. She owns a lab, Earth Bound. They make oil pills out of vegetable oil that you can buy at the grocery and then prescribe to her patients. It’s what got me onto her.”Cassandra started walking again, thinking. “Here’s the first clue I’m going to give you, stop drinking those shakes. I want to be sure I’m right before I tell you what I think is in them.”

“First clue,” Jackson smiled.

Bringing down the house

Over the next year, Cassandra kept feeding Jackson information that didn’t make sense to her.

The shakes. And while it was noble that Mr. Daily only hired society’s rejects; Cassandra never filled out one piece of income paperwork.

Cassandra’s new room was much closer to the massage parlor side of the salon. One night she heard crying through the air vent above her bed. A small voice whimpered, “I just want to go home.” Then she thought she heard someone say. “Shh, it will be okay. The first time is always the worst.” Cassandra had been through a lot of hard times, but no one had ever made her do anything against her will. This was the last straw. Yes, she would help Jackson bring Dr. Mac’s playhouse down.

Jackson couldn’t really bring Dr. Mac down. No newspaper wanted to touch the story. Dr. Mac donated heavily to the city and to many charities. She was considered a ‘who’s who’ among the city’s social elite. It was Cassandra’s idea to use the internet. To spread the word that Dr. Mac was a bad doctor. And they had proof. Dr. Mac was prescribing her patients oil and oil pills. The oil Millie used on her clients was Dr. Mac’s creation. Dr. Mac was encouraging her patient’s skin to produce too much oil so they would go to her spa.

Cassandra had started using her library time to find anything they could use against Dr. Mac. She found a newspaper article from five years back, outlining indecent exposure charges against Mr. Daily. She found another newspaper; front page was an article about Dr. Mac opening her first skin care clinic. In what she hoped would be the first of many. And who was in the picture with her: Mr. Daily. They learned that Dr. Mac and Mr. Daily were brother and sister. Cassandra and Jackson assumed that Mr. Daily was ‘all in’ on her shenanigan since his sister was kind enough to let him run the spa. And she had bailed him out. Mr. Daily was never charged. Dr. Mac’s money talked louder than the charges. In a paper dated for the next day, following the indecent exposure claims was a retraction from the paper stating it had all been a misunderstanding. That same year, Dr. Mac donated $100,000 to the chief of police’s reelection campaign. Chatter from several internet sites called it ‘hush money’. The more they dug, the dirtier Dr. Mac got.

Cassandra was right. The shakes were bad news. Least of all being that no one had filed for a food handler’s license. When she was able to prove what was in them and told Jackson, he was sick for a week. “How many of those did you drink?” Cassandra asked smiling. His response was puking again. It didn’t matter where he was at when she mentioned the shakes, he threw up. Each one had a purpose: the ‘Cassandra’ was for vitality. ‘Sue’ was overall health. ‘Jackson’ was formental focus. ‘Millie’ was for skin health. Mr. Daily’s was the ‘Randy’. It was blue for a reason. Giving the shakes employees’ names just ended up being creepy.

By the time the internet was done with Dr. Mac no one wanted her pustule shakes. Or her oil heavy skin care regimen.

Going home

Jackson watched Cassandra sprint up the steps of the bus. This was not the same woman he first met, dripping wet and hungry. She was alive. Happy.

“Do I get to know your last name?” He asked as Cassandra stepped onto the bus.

“Morgan.”

The End