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employee high on angel dust; I thought he’d be pleased to see his views in print. When the letter was published, though, Mike was in Sioux City at a fishing tackle trade show, and I was too shy to show it to him later. My gym teacher read it, however, and seemed impressed, so I began to write letters on other issues, from welfare mothers to nuclear disarmament. Having no opinions of my own, I took random positions, pro and con.
    Audrey flipped to a fresh sheet of paper. “I have to find something distinctive about myself. And not some cliché like my eyes or sense of humor.”
    I pictured Johnson in his trademark shades helping Audrey out of a black limo. Red neon splashed his face and her bare shoulders. Around them milled a crowd of nightclub-goers in tippy high heels and loose Italian jackets.
    “Your smile,” I said.
    “That’s worse than sense of humor. This contest’s nationwide—we need a gimmick. Something to set me apart from all the other gals.”
    It struck me that Audrey knew what she was doing and might end up meeting Don Johnson, after all.
    “It’s five,” I said. “Mike could come home at any minute.”
    “Shush. I’m thinking.” Audrey started writing. Her letters were steeply slanted, almost flat, and she held herchin just inches above the page. The cane in her chair seat creaked as she bore down, but once she’d filled half a page she lost momentum.
    “Aren’t you making dinner tonight?” I said.
    Audrey scratched a sentence out. “I’m having Mike grab a pizza at Giorgio’s. I told him I’m weak from giving blood. Don’t snitch.”
    I broke into a codeine-muffled panic. Only once had Mike let us eat pizza for dinner—a brittle, tasteless store-bought pie bought because Audrey was groggy after having her wisdom teeth removed. A rich, sticky restaurant pizza might spoil us and upset the budget Mike was trying to keep us on. Joel, who seemed to be eating for both of us now that I could barely manage a bite, would probably want one every night, and Audrey might lose interest in her kitchen duties. Even her language,
grabbing a pizza
, had taken on an alarming breeziness.
    “Listen,” said Audrey, “and tell me what you think.” She flattened out the page so she could read it. “A woman’s beauty isn’t just external. Faces and figures fade. What counts is
inside
.”
    “It’s good. It’s on the mark.” I felt relieved. Such corniness, I was convinced, would never win.
    “Nevertheless,” Audrey continued, “the outside often
reflects
the inside, lending a shape to invisible qualities. The body is a mirror of the spirit. So it is with my scars. It’s true: my scars. I consider my scars my most attractive feature, for each one tells a tale about my life.”
    My neck prickled and my earlobes heated up. This scar idea was ingenious. A winner, maybe.
    “My plan,” Audrey said, “is to tell where each scar came from. For example, the time when Joel fell through the ice and I cut my legs up wading in to rescue him. Or the scar from when I was changing an IV and the patient woke up delirious and bit me.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s pretty strange. Maybe you should just write about your hair.”
    “What do you mean? My hair is limp. It’s ordinary.”
    “Do you have to send photos?”
    “No photos.”
    “So exaggerate.”
    Audrey pushed out her lower lip and made a grumpy, dimpled chin. The ease with which I’d discouraged her surprised me. She set down her Flair on the pad and gazed again at Johnson’s lethal grin. “I know this seems stupid to you, but it’s important. I want to see the expression on Mike’s face. Maybe if you’re still sick tomorrow,” she said, “you could help me take another stab at it? We could drive to St. Paul, have lunch, go shopping. Brainstorm.”
    I glanced at the level inside the codeine bottle: there wasn’t enough to last another sick day. Still, I felt I couldn’t run the risk of letting Audrey write the essay