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

A short story by Jolene Rice

Written for A Writters’ Shindig

Part 2

Cassandra had clients start asking for her by name. She tried to be gentle and not cause much bleeding, especially on someone’s face.

One day on her lunch break, Cassandra wandered over to the hair salon. As Cassandra watched the beautician work, one said, “I bet you’ve lost ten pounds.” The beautician showed the client a large pile of hair in the floor. It gave Cassandra an idea. She started collecting all matter from a client in a jar. After each session, she put it on a scale in front of her client and announced how much the jar weighed. Making sure the client knew how much the jar weighed before she started filling it. Mr. Daily liked it so much that he made a contest out of it.

Cassandra was good at her job and Mr. Daily noticed. After a month, she got a cot. After two months, she got new clothes. After six months she got special items like rose water for her clients to wash their faces. Mr. Daily started doing before and after photos. Even her YouTube videos got more views than the other techs.

Move

As Cassandra came out of the bathroom the smell of pizza hit her in the stomach.

“Come,” Sue patted the floor. “Join us.”

“Just a moment.” A sick feeling overtook Cassandra as she started looking for her dollar. “Where is it?” she said, more to herself than anyone. She flung her belongings onto her cot. “Where is it?” she shouted.

“Oh,” Millie sighed. “We were a dollar short on the pizza, so I borrowed yours,” she announced with pride.

“You had no right,” Cassandra shouted.

“It’s just a dollar,” Millie reported.

“That was the last dollar from the last paycheck I made from the before time.”

“The before time?” Jackson asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It was the last dollar from my old life,” Cassandra cried.

Millie sank her teeth into a slice of pizza. “Time to let that shit go.”

“That was my decision. Not yours.” Cassandra left the room.She bumped into Mr. Daily in the hall. He noticed her puffy cheeks and handed her a hanky.

“Clean, promise.”

She smiled. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“I was looking for you.” He returned the hanky he had offered her to a different pocket, before he pulled out one to mop his head with. “How would you like to move?”

“Move?”

“Come,” he grinned. She followed him through one dingy hallway to another. They stopped in front of a dirty green door. “Come.” It was an equally small room like the one she was already in, dirty but empty of people. And it had a real bed. The only door in the room led to a small bathroom with a tub. How long had it been since she’d had a proper bath? “Your reward.” Mr. Daily smiled. “Clients love you.”

“I’ll go get my stuff.”

“Good. Good.” He blushed. “Oh, good.”

Mr. Daily did a little dance in the hall. Not noticing that Cassandra saw him. ‘Dance fat man, dance,’ she thought, smiling to herself. The image of a penguin flooded her mind again. This time it had on a top hat and was dancing with a cane.

It didn’t take long for the other techs to start treating her differently. Millie flipped her off. Down under the table where clients couldn’t see. “All over a dollar.” Millie hissed, with a downcast smile.

Each tech was busy, quietly working on a client. Soft music played in the background, filling in the space. Phyllis’s client was a young man. With each extraction, the man said, “Ouch!” or drew a sharp breath through his teeth. Phyllis ignored his wincing noises and kept working. Jackson filmed the entire session. Each time silence returned to the room the man cried out in pain. He’d give Cassandra a minute to relax and then shatter her nerves all over again.

Suddenly he screamed and started thrashing like a two-year-old in a candy store after being told he couldn’t have another lollipop. Cassandra almost poked her client in the eye.

“I’m so sorry.” Cassandra apologized.

The lady smiled at Cassandra, turned, then shouted at the man, “Idiot! What’s wrong with you?”

Mr. Daily rushed into the room, mopping his head. “What?”“Sounds like a temper tantrum to me,” Cassandra’s client reported, pointing in the man’s direction.

“What did you do?” Mr. Daily questioned Phyllis.

“She hurt me!” The man rose up off the table, blood pouring down his face.

“Phyllis!” Mr. Daily shouted.

Jackson was now sitting beside Cassandra. He had stopped recording the session with Phyllis when the man cried out. “She’s fired,” he reported. “That’s her third offense.” Before he moved to roll away, “Oh here.” He handed her a dollar.

“No, it’s okay.” Cassandra smiled. “I’m over it. Why will she get fired?”

“Phyllis will ignore client instructions.” Jackson said. “Her first offense was a woman who wanted her back done in sections. The client was on some very strong blood thinners and was afraid that she would start bleeding. The woman fell asleep, and Phyllis did her whole back in one sitting. We didn’t think we’d ever get the bleeding stopped. The client threatened to sue.”

A new girl was sitting at Cassandra station when she showed up for work the next morning.

Jackson was right. Phyllis did get fired. Mr. Daily did it quietly.

Mr. Daily had put the sign back in the window. He had a passion for hiring homeless people, drifters and folks down on their luck. Score one for Mr. Daily, Cassandra thought. Was it really hurting anyone that he watched the girls shower? Maybe he watched the guys too. Growing up in a small town, that was the sort of thing that got you branded as a pervert, but he did this really great thing of hiring undesirable folks.

Homesick

Cassandra stood in the phone booth with her fingers shaking. She picked up the receiver. Then quickly hung it up. “Let it go.” She let out a long even breath as a way to steady herself.

Suddenly, she couldn’t remember her parents’ phone number. The only number that came to her was Hateful Gut’s. But he would know how to get ahold of her folks. The number rang once before she slammed the receiver back onto its holder. “No. Not him.”

She jumped as someone beat on the glass. “Hey lady,” the man was very drunk and slurring his words. “Get out lady.” As she opened the door, the man tipped his hat. “Gotta call a ride lady.”

He licked his lips, “gotta,” stumbling backwards, “ride.” The phone rang as he stepped inside.

His hand shook picking up the receiver. He spoke into the phone. “Gotta. Need ride.” He burped.Cassandra sat on a nearby bench watching him as she built up her courage to try again. The man all but fell out of the phone booth. Smiled at her; tipped his hat again. He stumbled around. With his back to Cassandra, he peed on the phone booth. A beat cop walked past her then tapped the drunk man on the shoulder. As the drunk man turned, he peed on the officers’ shoes. “You my ride?”

“Oh yeah,” the officer spoke. “Yeah, I’m your ride.”

A cold wind started blowing. It blew a sheet of last month’s news across her shoes. Why couldn’t people throw trash away? The streets were lined with garbage cans. Throwing this away wasn’t difficult. The phone rang, pulling Cassandra from her thoughts. She just stared at the booth while the phone inside rang out five times. Cassandra smiled; it would be too sweet if Hateful Guts was the one trying to call back. “Good, score one for me.”

Shots rang out through the night. “Time to go home,” she said to herself. Passing the booth, the phone started ringing again.

New work stuff

A knock on Cassandra’s door startled her. It was Mr. Daily. She answered the door with a protein shake in her hand. “Good?” he asked, pointing at the shake.

“It’s okay.”

“Just, okay?” Mr. Daily asked.

“I’m not real hungry but I needed something.”

He changed the subject. “Come with me.” He talked as they walked. “This building is an old hotel. Dr. Mac has been transforming it into a salon. How would you like your own workspace?

You did such a great job training our new girl. She’s gentle and kind.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Daily stopped; Cassandra thought it was two doors down from the big open room they all worked in. He opened a door to a room. The smell told Cassandra it had been freshly painted.

There were no decorations of any kind, it was just a plain white room. “This is going to be your workspace. We’ll get you a new workstation.” He paused. “You can girl it up.”

“Girl it up?”

“Flowers and shit.”She couldn’t contain her laughter. “Thank you, Mr. Daily.”

He twisted his shoe on the carpet, “what’s your favorite flavor?”

“Carmal.” Mr. Daily looked blank. She smiled, “caramel.”

Mr. Daily just giggled.

The penguin was back. Her mind filled with the image of a penguin wearing pink rabbit ears, munching on a chocolate egg, with a ribbon of caramel hanging from its mouth. It was all she could do not to laugh. She never wanted Mr. Daily to think she was making fun of him, but he always conjured up that penguin image.

She did ‘girl up’ the new workspace, a little. Mr. Daily allowed her to look for things that might be nicer from the empty rooms of the hotel. Lighter curtains, a couple small end tables, a fake tree for the corner of the room. She even found a compact disc player with a bunch of classical compact discs; perfect.

Her first client for her new space arrived with Jackson in tow. It was Tantrum Man. He was drinking something. “Have you tried these?” Tantrum Man asked just before he sucked at the straw, forcing pink liquid up. “This is great.”

She and Jackson exchanged glances. Both admitted they had not tried the drink. “This might be the best thing Dr. Mac has done.” Tantrum Man drew more pink liquid up the straw.

More and more of Cassandra’s clients came in drinking Dr. Mac’s new drinks. Cassandra even saw Jackson drinking them. One day he held the drink in his hand up high so she could see it. It was in a clear cup. From the bottom up, it was white. About an inch from the bottom was a band of brown, more white, then a small pink band, then more white. The top was brown with whipped topping and a cherry. “This one is called the ‘Cassandra!”’ He laughed.

Cassandra didn’t say a word. She suddenly felt naked.

Jackson slurped at the drink. “I taste vanilla and caramel. Delicious!” He smacked his lips.

Her client had a different drink, the pink one. “It’s the ‘Millie’,” her client reported. “It’s hot strawberry. It’s a sweet heat. I like it.”

Jackson locked eyes with Cassandra. “The ‘Cassandra’ is my favorite.”

She moved to start setting her client up. “I’m honored.”That evening Cassandra was surprised to find a bouquet of red roses in the floor outside her bedroom door. The card read, “Thank you. Dr. Mac.”