Fries and Spies

(Trigger warning: implications of sexual assault.)

“Oh. My. God.” Cora says, practically jumping onto the bench of our go-to picnic table outside of the Burger Hut. “You will not believe what just happened.” Triple cheese fries slam on half-rotten wood between us.

“Your mom is engaged to Henry,” I say, holding up my phone. “Facebook beat you to the punch.” Cora scoffs and takes a forkful of fries.

“I jush dondundersha-”

“Cor, you’re gonna choke before you can finish the story if you don’t chew and swallow right now.” She shoots an eye roll at me as she follows my advice.

“He proposed while they were on their first trip together as a couple. They went up to the mountains for a weekend. I was half-scared she wouldn’t come back at all; I mean, she’s only known him for, like, three months or something.” She pauses for another forkful. “And then, while I’m at home twiddling my thumbs, worried about my mom’s safety, he pops the question after knowing her for, like, two minutes!” Her arms swing out into a gesture that knocks over my iced tea. She mouths an apology.

“You owe me $1.50. Also, your mom has awful taste in men. Henry gives me the heebie-jeebies.” I jab at the fries, looking for the cheesiest ones.

“I totally agree. He doesn’t even live with us yet, so I can’t get a gauge on what’s off about him. What if he’s the type to go through my underwear drawer or something? I’ve only met him about five times, and two of those times, he touched my hair.”

My eyes grow wide. “Okay, once I understand because you do have gorgeous hair which is ridiculously healthy despite being dyed so many times,” I say. She thanks me and nods her neon pink head. “But twice is completely and totally creepy.” She nods again. The conversation lulls while we quickly finish the fries, racing against the clock as the autumn breeze rapidly cools them. On our final bites, we lock eyes and seemingly think the exact same thing at the exact same time. “I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll seduce Henry.”

“I should be the one to do it,” she says. “We already know he has a thing for me.” She shivers.

“What if we’re wrong? Then he moves into your house thinking you have a thing for him.” She thinks for a moment. Without responding, she slowly gets up from the table, walks over to the Burger Hut window, and returns a few minutes later with a fresh basket of triple cheese fries, a new iced tea for me, a receipt, and a pen.

“If we’re doing this, we need a plan.”

We spend the next half hour sketching out a plan on the back of the receipt. “First thing’s first. You’ll need a makeover,” Cora says.

“Ouch!”

“I just meant that we know he has a type. My mom and I both wear a decent amount of makeup. I can do yours the day of the operation. We can also get some temporary hair dye for you.” I nod in agreement.

“Second thing,” she continues, “my mom is never going to believe any of this if we don’t document it. When I tried telling her about him touching my hair, she completely blew me off. Luckily, I just moved out of my old room and into the basement for more privacy and a bigger space. While I was moving my stuff, I found our old spy gear from Christmas of ‘09.”

“You say that like we were in the CIA,” I laugh. “We were just kids.”

“That is point numero tres, which I will get to in a moment. Do you remember the pin?”

“The heart-shaped one with the mini spy cam? Does that even work anymore?”

“Mhm. I tested that out when I found it. The company even made an app to receive the live feed, so I’ll be able to watch out for you and make sure things don’t get too skeevy.”

“What was the third thing?”

“We still are kids. We’re both sixteen. If we catch this creepazoid on camera, he’ll get registered. He won’t be able to touch the hair of a teenager ever again.”

“You’re brilliant,” I say, pushing the last bite of cheese fry towards her. “You’ve earned this.”

“I know,” she says, beaming.

“We should do it on Thursday. We can shop for beauty supplies at the Rosy Cheeks on main street and spend Wednesday, the first day of Fall Break, doing my hair and planning out an outfit that goes with the camera pin. That should probably be at my house so we don’t preemptively blow our cover.”

“I totally agree. I’m thinking red dye to go with the pin. Plus, it would really compliment your skin tone.” Cora stares intensely at my face and hair, doing a mental makeover mid-conversation.

“You will have complete control over the makeover situation. I promise. You should bring the other spy stuff over, too. There might be something else we could use.” She nods in agreement. “I think that I should sleep over at your place Wednesday night. Henry is probably going to be staying with you and your mom now that they’re engaged, right?”

“That would make sense. We haven’t really talked about it, but she mentioned using my old room as Henry’s new office space.”

“Your mom should be going back to work this week. That means we’ll be alone in the house with Henry on Thursday while she’s at work. You can do my makeup in your room, then I’ll go upstairs. I’ll tell Henry that you’re studying, and I’ll make some coffee.”

“Ooo! That’s a good idea. Drinking black coffee will make you seem mature and approachable. Mental note: smudge-proof lipstick.”

“I’ll do my best not to blow my cover. It’s going to be pretty difficult to pretend that I’m attracted to him,” I say, staring down at my shoes and digging my heels into the dirt. Cora grabs my hand.

“Hey, Robin. You don’t have to do this.”

“No, I want to. I’m just nervous.”

“You were incredible in the school play last spring. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Plus, we can have a code word for you to say in case you want me to come upstairs and sock him in his big, stupid nose.”

In the same type of shared wavelength as before, I know we are thinking the exact same thing. Code words: triple cheese fries.

We finalize our plans as the sun begins to set over the Burger Hut. After properly disposing of our trash, we do our secret handshake: a fist bump, followed by an “explosion” that falls into a low-five where we lock our fingers, squeeze each other’s hands exactly three times, then release and snap twice in one motion, using the ring and middle finger.

Cora and I have known each other since kindergarten. We bonded over our mutual love of string cheese and apple juice. Since then, we’ve been through a lot together including her parents’ divorce, the death of my dog, and about a decade of other various life events.

When Henry first came into Cora’s life, her gut reaction was to dislike him. I tried to convince her to give him a chance. I feel guilty for telling her not to trust her gut. I really hope this works.

I wake on Wednesday morning five minutes before my alarm with acid in my throat. I don’t know why I am so nervous; today is the fun part. Today, I will dye my hair for the first time. I try to focus on the positives. It’s just a makeover.

I pull on a fresh pair of sweatpants with my favorite band t-shirt. In the mirror, I fuss with my hair until the shoulder-length, dirty blonde mess looks somewhat presentable. I squish my face, assessing my own conventional attractiveness. I might be able to pull this off. I shake the nerves through my body and release my stress in a heavy sigh. Cora rings the doorbell. Here we go.

“Phase one: Rosy Cheeks,” she says in lieu of a greeting. She’s beaming with excitement, and her composure disarms me. I remember why I’m doing this. I smile back and grab my coat.

We live downtown in a small city on the coast of South Carolina. Everything we need, including each other, is within walking distance. Rosy Cheeks is about a fifteen minute walk from my house. Cora holds my hand on the way there, rambling about the best shade of eyeshadow for my skin tone and whether or not we would need to bleach my hair for the dye, which I immediately veto.

As we step into Rosy Cheeks, the anxiety resurfaces. I never knew there were so many different types of makeup. Before my eyes can even swallow the vast array of colors, Cora is already talking to the clerk at the opposite end of the store. They keep turning to me, pointing at my different features, discussing my flaws at length. After a few minutes, Cora comes back over to me with a basket full of items.

“Cor, how are we going to pay for all of this?! I thought we were just going to get a few things.” Her glowing expression boils down into something devious.

“I may or may not have swiped a fifty from Henry’s wallet,” she whispers through a smirk. I do my best to stifle a laugh at the irony, but a chuckle sneaks through. Cora stifles a laugh as well, but soon we are both laughing so hard we start to cry. When we regain our composure, we do our handshake and proudly check out with our items.

Back at my house, Cora dumps the haul from Rosy Cheeks onto my bed, explaining each item to me. She bought foundation, a contour/ highlight stick, a neutral smokey eyeshadow palette, dark red lipstick, and deep, burgundy hair dye to match. My eyes triple in size when I see the dye.

“That’s not temporary dye, Cora.”

“Technically all dye is temporary. Plus, you’ll thank me later. I have a feeling this is going to be your signature color.” I shoot daggers at her with my eyes.

We move the makeover supplies over to one side of my bed so that she can dump out her purse onto the other side. The contents, aside from a disturbing amount of loose change and cough drops, include two walkie-talkies, a fingerprinting kit, a small notepad with an invisible ink pen, binoculars, and a blood red, heart-shaped pin with a teeny-tiny camera hidden just between the two bumps at the top.

“Well, the walkies are useless. He’d be able to hear them,” I say. “The fingerprinting kit might come in handy, but if we already have video evidence, we might want to save that for when it’s really necessary. You should take notes with the invisible ink in case he goes through your stuff. You can make a dummy sheet of fake notes for your fake studying, but skip every other line so that you can write in invisible ink.”

“That is absolutely brilliant!”

“Thank you. We won’t need the binoculars either. What we do need is an outfit that goes with the pin.”

Cora salutes me and heads to my closet to rummage through the options. In just a few moments, she pulls out a pair of skinny jeans, a black tank top, a push-up bra, and a dark red cardigan. Despite it being my own closet, I couldn’t have chosen a better outfit myself.

Next comes the scary part: dyeing my hair. Cora snaps latex gloves over her hands as though preparing for surgery. First, I wet my hair in the sink. With an old towel over my shoulders and Cora’s go-to dye shirt underneath, she carefully applies the thick dye all over my head. “It looks like blood,” I groan.

“I know! Kinda cool, right?” I roll my eyes at her in the mirror. After letting it sit for a while, she rinses my head in the bathtub.Through the corner of my eye, I watch as a deep red river runs into the drain. I gulp.

Cora makes me sit with my back to the mirror as she styles my hair, blow-drying it and curling it slightly. When she lets me turn around, my jaw hits the floor. I can barely recognize myself. After I sing my praises, Cora takes a bow.

We gather up the supplies for tomorrow and toss them into my designated sleepover bag. I shout to my mom that I’m going over to Cora’s, and we head to her house. Luckily it is only a few streets away.

“Are you nervous?” she asks, elbowing my arm. I give her a weak smile. “Remember the code word, alright? You can back out at any time.” I nod.

I have trouble falling asleep on the futon in her new room. I never liked her basement. There is a long, thin window where the wall peers over the edge of the ground. I feel the chill of a draft. After tossing and turning for what felt like hours, the window began to gradually lighten. I hadn’t slept all night.

I hear the footsteps of her mother leaving for work, and I decide to grab a bowl of cereal before the operation begins. Cora is sound asleep as I sneak up the basement steps.

I navigate the kitchen as though I have lived there my whole life, making my bowl of cereal in thirty seconds flat. My mouth is full of frosted corn flakes when he walks in the room.

Henry is over six feet tall, and he is wearing nothing but boxer briefs. The elastic waistband stops just below his beer belly, which he is actively scratching as he yawns. When he is done yawning, he sees me at the table and smiles at me. When he smiles at me, my blood runs cold. “Morning, Robin. Cereal day, huh?” I nod.

He starts a pot of coffee and then makes a bowl of cereal for himself. Out of the five other chairs at the kitchen table, he sets his bowl at the one directly next to me. He goes back over to the coffee pot and returns with two cups of coffee. “You drink coffee, right?” He sits down next to me. “You seem like the type of girl who drinks her coffee black.” I feel the heat of his breath as he talks. My heart is beating in my ears. I want to punch him in the face.

“I do,” I say. “Thank you.” I feign a sip from the mug and flash a smile. At the same moment, I feel a large, calloused hand touch my inner thigh. Without thinking, I shoot to a standing position and throw the steaming coffee into his face. I quickly escape to the basement, locking the door behind me.

His shouting must have woken Cora. He pounds on the basement door as I shakily explain to her what happened through steaming tears. “I panicked,” I say. “I didn’t want him to do anything to me.” She rubs my back and reassures me that I did the right thing.

We hide away in the basement until her mom comes home. I nap in Cora’s bed while she reads. We overhear Henry shouting about what happened. To our surprise, her mom shouts back. They continue arguing for a while, ending with the slam of the front door and the sound of a car driving away. A few moments later, there is a sheepish knock at the basement door. “Girls? Can I come in?” her mom asks. Cora looks at me. I nod.

Cora’s mother looks almost exactly like her except older and blonde. She sits on the edge of the futon. She looks nervous, spinning her engagement ring on her finger for a while, staring at the ground. She takes it off and holds it in her fist with white knuckles. When she looks up, she looks to Cora first. “I am so sorry that I didn’t believe you.” Mutual tears roll down their cheeks. “I kicked him out,” she says.

When she looks to me, she is caught off-guard by my hair color and smiles. “When did that happen?” she asks. After sharing a glance with Cora, we decide to tell her the whole story, spy gear and all. Her mom squeezes both of our hands. I can tell she wholeheartedly regrets letting Henry get so close to either of us. The minute she realized that he was a predator, she sent him packing.

“I can’t believe you kept all that spy gear,” she says, laughing slightly. “I might need to hire you guys some day.” It’s good to see her smile.

Cora’s mom drives us all over to the Burger Hut for dinner. The sun goes down as we laugh over a few orders of triple cheese fries. It’s cold enough to see our breath, but we don’t mind. Cora and I even teach her mom our handshake.

I decide to sleep over again that night. As I am brushing my teeth, I look at my new hair in the mirror, and I genuinely love it. When I get back to the room, Cora is already crashed on the futon, so I take the bed; I sleep the soundest I have in days.