THEY CALL ME THE ugly one—the boys do, anyhow. The girls call me Marbles, because of the bumps on my face, I guess. My grandmother tells me not to worry. That one day I will grow up and be beautiful, like the ugly duckling in the book. But she don’t tell me what to do now, while I’m still ugly, and all by myself.
They transferred me here to Mulligan High last year, in the second half of my freshman year. The principal said it only made sense, ’cause he couldn’t make the kids stop bothering me. And he was tired of my grandmother and my father coming up there all the time, “raising Cain.”
Mulligan ain’t so bad, I guess. Maybe that’s ’cause I keep my mouth shut. Don’t answer questions when teachers call on me, or finish tests before the rest of the class. But I keep my grades up, no matter what. So far, I got a 3.98 average. My little brother says that’s ’cause I don’t have no friends. “Just books to keep you company.” He’s right. Only I never tell him that.
My name is Asia Calloway. I am just a regular girl. Not too tall. Not too short. Not fat, or skinny, or nothing. If it wasn’t for my face, people would not even remember my name. But this thing—this face—gets me noticed everywhere I go. And all I want to be is invisible—to curl up like a dot at the end of a sentence and disappear.
I was born pretty, that’s what Grandma tells me anyhow. “You had shiny black chicken feathers for hair,” she’ll say, rubbing the soft hair on my head. “And skin the color of piecrust baked just so.”
Then something happened. Bumps—boils popped up on my face like bubbles in a witch’s brew. I was seven when the first one came. Ten when the doctors finally figured out what went wrong.
“Don’t worry,” Grandmother says. “They gonna find a cure for it, by and by.”
No they won’t. Even I know that.
I never miss a day of school, ’cause once school’s out, it’s me in my room all by myself. So rain or shine, I’m here. Like today. Even if nobody but the teachers talk to me.
“Out the way,” a girl says, pushing past me when I get off the bus.
I apologize, even though it’s not my fault.
“Hey, Asia,” Nock says, walking over to me.
He’s with three friends, and smiling at me way too much. I know what that means—trouble. I walk a little faster.
Nock yells for me like he’s calling plays on the football field. “ASIA!”
I stand in place. Squeeze my books to my chest, and watch my fingertips turn white.
Nock’s hairy brown arm slides over my shoulder. I close my eyes for just a minute and pretend he’s Ramon.
“Asia Calloway, why you ignoring me, girl?”
I’ve never been held by a real boy before. So even though Nock’s staring at my bumps like some gross experiment he’s got to work on in chemistry class, I am kind of happy inside.
“Yo, ugly,” a boy says, throwing a Tootsie Pop wrapper at me.
Nock gives him five. “Hey, Ug—Asia. You going to prom tonight?” he asks, laughing just a little.
I shake my head no.
Nock tickles my ear with his fat, flat thumb. Then whispers, “Yeah, you is. With one of them, right?” He points.
His friends talk all at once. “Naw, man, I ain’t taking her.”
“She a dog, man. Ruff! Ruff! Give a dog a bone,” one kid says, throwing a big thick pencil my way.
Nock’s fingers pull at my long black hair. He shakes his head and spits. “God gives you good hair like this, and a face like that. It don’t seem right. Do it?”
My left foot moves. My right foot follows.
Nock gets mad. “I tell you to go, girl?”
I look around. More kids are pressing in on me. “No,” I say, taking two more giant steps.
Nock is knock-kneed—that’s how he got his nickname. When he moves toward me, his jeans rub together.
“Yo, Nock,” a boy in the crowd yells. “You take her to prom, man. You be beauty, she be the beast.”
They all laugh, even the janitor just picking up leaves under the dogwood tree.
Nock’s girlfriend, Nicole, comes over. She tells him that she should drop him just for talking to something like me.
I put my head down and walk into the crowd. They part like sliced butter, ’cause they afraid they gonna get what I got.
“Ill,” people say, like looking at me makes ’em sick to the stomach.
And even though I know better, I rub my hand across my lumpy face and slide it through one girl’s long brown hair. I pat another boy on the cheek, just when he’s trying to get out my way. I reach back as far as I can and pinch Nock’s girlfriend’s arm. Then I run just as fast as I can.
“The principal called,” my grandmother says when I get home.
“I know.”
“Said you attacked some kids. Just like you used to do in the other school.”
I throw my books down on the table. Jump up and sit down on the cold, green kitchen counter. “If they wasn’t so stupid they would know what I got ain’t catching, just ugly.”
My grandmother’s arms jiggle, like Nicole’s fat booty, when she lifts ’em and points to me. “How many schools you been to now, gal?”
My baby brother, Barley, walks in the room and answers for me. “Seven.” He holds up five fingers and his thumbs. “I bet it’s gonna be eleven by the time you graduate.”
I jump to the floor. Watch my grandmother shake her head. “Lord. What I’m gonna do with that girl?”
Before I answer, Barley puts in his two cents. “Just ’cause you ugly, don’t mean you can’t have friends.”
The chair creaks like it’s breaking when my grandmother leans over and smacks Barley across the mouth.
“I just meant . . .” Barley says, running to me with his arms out.
He’s squeezing the blood outta me. I’m staring at myself in the metal paper towel holder. It’s a ugly face. He ain’t lying about that.
Barley is nine years old. Too big to be picked up. I do it anyhow. “Shhhh. I know what you was trying to say.”
He twists my long curls around his finger like spaghetti on a fork. “I mean . . . you gotta be ’specially nice to people, if you want ’em to like you.” He looks up at me. “Treat ’em like you do me.”
I put Barley down and head for my room. My grandmother says I better call my father at work and tell him what happened. He knows, I say. He knows it was coming, anyhow.
I go in my room and lock the door behind me. Cut on the TV. Cut on the stereo. Close the lavender shades. Yell at Barley when he turns the knob and asks to come in here with me.
I lie across the bed. And even with the music on I can hear Ramon’s soft voice. You know I’m taking you to the prom tonight, he says.
I kneel down by my bed. Pull back the pink, flowered spread and grab magazines from under the bed. “I know,” I say, turning to page twenty-seven and kissing Ramon on the lips.
Ramon is not Hispanic like you might think. He is Jamaican. He’s studying to be a lawyer. He’s too old for me, really. I tell him that. But he won’t listen.
Wear the yellow dress, he says. The one your granny bought you for your cousin’s summer wedding.
I run to the closet. Pull off my jeans. Pull the dress over my head and do circles in the mirror when I see how pretty I am.
“How should I wear my hair, Ramon?”
I close my eyes. He starts to hum. Then yellow roses and white daises float off the bedspread and cover my hair like a hundred butterflies.
Oh, baby girl, Ramon says, holding me close. A thousand Hawaiian hula girls couldn’t compare to you.
I shake my head. Feel my wavy hair dance and fall and bounce on my nose and cheeks like sweet, pretty petals from a magnolia tree. My eyes open wide. “I hate my face, Ramon.” I lean into the mirror and watch my lips curl under. “Everybody hates my face.”
Let’s dance, he says.
“No.”
He whispers. In here you are the most beautiful girl in the world. The love of my life.
My fingers find his big brown lips. They roll over his long blond dreads and stop at his hands. “In here . . .”
He interrupts me. In here, you belong to me.
“But I . . .”
Ramon raises his voice. And I won’t let anybody hurt you . . . or be mean to you. Or say that word I hate.
I look in the mirror. “Ugly,” I say.
His voice goes low and deep. Kiss me.
I lean over and press my lips to his.
Again, he says, touching my beautiful hair. Holding me tight.
I go to the stereo and turn up the music. He is telling me a funny joke and saying he will be jealous if I dance with anyone else tonight. I tell him not to worry; I’m saving all my dances for him.
“I like that shirt on you,” I say, coming back to him.
He looks at his chest. Points. Mango, he says, patting my nose. My favorite—
“Color,” I say, then I remind him that mango is a fruit, not a color. He doesn’t care, he says, because in here, we make the rules.