Operation Beautiful

Smile! You're Beautiful

Smile! You're 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!” One of the girls exclaims.

“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 80% 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.