Operation Beautiful

“Hey, beautiful,” my friend Matt says suggestively, wiggling his blond eyebrows. I look at him as though he were insane.

“You’re creeping me out, man,” I say, running a hand through my dark reddish-brown hair.

“Your locker, Corey,” Matt says, nodding towards a pale, rose-pink sticky-note on my locker door.

Smile!, it says, You’re beautiful!

I peel the note off in surprise and look around. There are a couple girls squealing a set of lockers down.

“Aww! That’s so sweet!”
“Do you think they picked people or just stuck them on randomly?”
“Who cares? This totally makes my day!” The girls have a pink sticky note between them as well.

“Looks like a prank,” says Matt, nodding towards the girls.

“You mean a community service,” I say with a laugh, putting the note in my pocket. “Pranks aren’t supposed to make you feel good.”

"All right, whatever," says Matt. "Let's go to lunch."

“Let me see!” Clarice begs the minute Matt starts making fun of my little post-it note. I sit down at the lunch table and pull the note out of my pocket and hand it to her. “Aww, that’s so sweet! Isn’t it, Haley?” She leans over her boyfriend Spike to hand it to her best friend. Haley pushes her brown hair out of her eyes and looks down at the paper.

“That’s a definite mood booster,” she says, her stoic face cracking into the briefest of pleasant smiles. Haley's had a long history of...emotionlessness. It all began with her best friend's death four years ago. She’s gotten better about letting her face show emotions, but sometimes it’s still hard to tell what she’s thinking.Well, for most of us, anyway.

“What does it say?” Trevor asks, snatching it from Haley’s hand. He’s probably the only one who can tell Haley’s emotions 90% of the time. That’s probably why it’s better that he date her than I do.

Yup, Haley and I dated at one point. It was a brief, emotionless affair, really, and ended in tears...for me. Yeah, can someone spell embarrassing? Meanwhile, we make much better friends than lovers, so it’s all cool between us now.

“Hey! I wasn’t done with it!” Haley says in annoyance, but her voice is quiet.

“Yes, you were,” Trevor says with a grin, holding the note up out of her reach. He takes it upon himself to tease her as much as possible to get her emotions to show. Progress so far? Well, Haley’s gotten the hang of glaring at him. And...that’s about it.

“No, I wasn’t,” she says, determination etched in her gorgeous features. Trevor’s arm kind of freezes and I can see his face melt just the tiniest bit. He’s like jello around her and, for whatever reason, she’s still completely oblivious to it. I mean, they’re dating and all, but I don’t think she realizes just how whipped this guy is on the inside.

Haley stands up on the bench and snatches the post-it from her boyfriend’s fingers.

“You’re such a jerk,” she says with her glaring face. She sits down and smacks him lightly on the arm, but her face breaks into a pleasant little smile. He just laughs and leans over her shoulder as she looks down at the post-it.

“There’s something on the back,” she says, handing the now rather rumpled thing back. I look at where she’s pointing.

Behind the Guys and Dolls poster.

I raise an eyebrow.

“That’s odd,” I say, reading the words out loud.

“You should go check it out,” says Spike, leaning forward to take a bite of the salad on Clarice’s fork. He has his own sandwich, he just likes to annoy her sometimes. He makes a face.

“Dude! What’s up with all the grass you’ve been eating? What are you a cow?” Clarice turns around and opens her mouth, but a dry voice cuts her off from the end of the table.

“Things Never to Say to Your Girlfriend #53.” It’s Janice, the ridiculously sarcastic blond cheerleader. “Join us next time for our Shopping Episode.” Clarice laughs.

“Spike, does this dress make me look fat?” She asks, playing along.

“Like a whale, babe,” Janice says, in a deep fake-Spike voice. Then she switches back to her usual dry tone. “And then he loses his balls.”

“I wouldn’t lose my balls!” Spike protests as everyone laughs.

“Like a needle in a haystack, baby,” Clarice says, shaking her head. “Now hurry up and tell me I’m not a cow before I go white bitch on your ass.” His eyes go wide and he pulls her into a hug.

“Not a cow!” he yells. “Never a cow! More like...a mermaid. Or an attractive, weightless iguana.” Everyone just turns to stare at him. “What? You don’t think iguanas are awesome?”

“Okay, so I guess I’ll go check on this note thing before Spike ropes me into losing my balls.”

“Or your sanity,” Matt says, chuckling.

“Tell us--” begins Haley, but she’s cut off by a strangled gargle from Clarice’s direction.

“Dude!” She yells, elbowing her boyfriend in the stomach. “Eat your own freaking food!” Spike backs off.

“Yes, my iguana love.” He reaches for his sandwich and brings it close to his mouth, only to have Clarice lean forward and take a bite. Spike just rolls his eyes as Clarice and Janice bump fists.

“All right, I’m going now,” I say, waving vaguely.

“Tell us what happens!” Haley calls. I nod.

I know which poster this is, I think. The bulletin board is close to my locker so it’s probably over there. I find the poster for the musical in question in one of the corners. I lift it up to see a small olive green post-it. It’s blank, I think.

I pat my pockets and groan internally. I don’t have a pen on me. After a brief run to my locker, I lean over the post it and hesitate. What am I supposed to write? Then I see a small note in pencil at the bottom.

ON THE BACK, TELL ME WHERE I SHOULD PUT THE RESPONSE-- PICK IT UP TOMORROW AT BREAK

So first I flip the note over and think for a minute. I don’t really want it on my locker again. It’ll be a rose-pink sticky note, for crying out loud.

Behind the hanging hat in Negrutot’s room.

There. I have French third period, so picking it up will be a breeze. Now I turn the paper back over and scribble my question.

Hi. You put that sticky note on my locker. Umm...can I ask who you are?

***

“So, what happened?” Haley stops me on my way to football, well...soccer practice. I am from Belgium, you know. I shrug, not sure what to tell her. Her faces scrunches up the slightest bit. “Do you not want to talk about it?”

“It’s just kind of embarrassing,” I admit. She pretends to look shocked. She’s very good at pretending, just not the real emotions.

“Too embarrassing to tell me?” I shrug again.

“It was blank and so I just wrote ‘hi’ and asked who they were.”

“Ooh. When do you get your reply?”

“Tomorrow at break.” She nods as I head to the field and she to Trevor’s car. Her family only has one so she drives to school with Trevor and then swings by to pick him up after practice. He’s probably the only guy I know who would let his girlfriend drive his baby. Even Spike doesn’t let Clarice drive his car. And his is nowhere near the quality of Trevor’s Porsche. Then again, Spike has a good reason.

”Clarice is the type of girl,” he explained during lunch once when the topic came up. ”Who will get into the car with a straightener in one hand, mascara in the other, and holding a bowl of cereal up with her feet. And then she’ll use the other foot to try to turn up that God-awful music she listens too--”

“I listen to the same music you do!” He holds up a hand to stop her.

“---and then she’ll crash into a tree or something.” He motions to Haley while we laugh. We know it’s 80% true. “Haley is the type of girl who will get into the car, put on her seat belt, make sure every passenger and their invisible friend is wearing their seat belt, snag a cop for driving over the speed limit, and then go through the car wash and fill up the gas before giving me my car back.” We laugh even more as Haley looks down with a smile. Even she knows it’s 100% true.

“You better tell me what happens when you see it,” she says, her finger poking warningly into my nose. I nod and laugh.

“Of course.”