At Face Value (15 page)

“I went to Philadelphia once,” Leyla offers. “I had cheesesteak. They’re famous for that.”

“I know.” Eddie’s got his bored-out-of-his-mind voice on, the same one he uses when the
Word
meetings go too long, the same one I’d follow with, “Story at eleven.”

Eddie clears his throat and tries again. “After our emails, you know, I was kind of hoping …” he touches her sheeted shoulder. “Flannel.”

“Yeah, it’s soft.” Leyla laughs, her voice filled with nerves. I hope she doesn’t throw up; then again, if she does, at least she can use the sheet for cleaning purposes.

“Tell me what it is about me that makes you want to write all that stuff to me.” He peers into her circle-eyes. She says nothing, but her legs shake—I can see it even under the sheet. “Name one thing that stands out for you. About me.”

Leyla’s feet scrape the flagstone path as she takes a step backwards. “You’re …”

Inquisitive,
I think. “You’re …”
Able to see the best in people even when they don’t deserve it.
“You’re …” Before I can fill in another blank, Leyla says, “Hot.”

Eddie’s face demonstrates his surprise. “Hot?” He crosses his arms.

Leyla reassures him, as though he doubts her. “No, really, you’re very hot. Boiling. And you’re a total jock, which is great, right? I mean, you work out, and … and …”

He stares at her and shakes his head. “Why are you doing this?” He looks down at his shoes like he wants them to explain. Then he looks back at her. “Maybe this—” he points to her sheet, and to his ruffled shirt “—isn’t the best idea after all.”

Slowly, he starts back up the stone stairs toward the house, toward the sounds of people actually having a good time. Leyla turns to me. She moves her hands out from under the sheet, holds them out, asking me
now what
?

I think fast. Immediate action must be taken lest this whole thing implode. And then I’ll be left to deal with the fallout from all fronts. I wave her over, and she crouches down in the bushes with me.

“Yell to him,” I tell her.

“Eddie! Come back!” Leyla’s voice gets him to stop. “Great,” she whispers to me. “Now he’s just standing there. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Well, think quicker.”

“What for?” Eddie shouts. “Because I’m such a hottie?” He slings the line as part humor, but the dismay in his voice floats all the way down to our hiding spot.

“Tell him you were just nervous,” I command her, buying time.

Leyla slides the sheet off and cups her hands, muffling her voice slightly as she shouts. “I was just scared, you know. Nervous. I’m not good under …”

“Under spontaneous circumstances,” I fill in.

“What?” she whispers.

“Under spontaneous circumstances!”

“Spontaneous!” she shouts. “I can’t do spontaneous!”

Eddie gives a quiet laugh. “Oh, yeah? What can you do?”

Leyla looks like she might throw up on me. She covers her mouth with her hand and pleads with me with her eyes. “I can quote lyrics like you wouldn’t believe,” I say, changing the pitch of my voice just a little.

“You sound funny,” Eddie says, taking a step back toward us.

“Just stay there!” I yell, and nearly pop out of the bush to make him stand far enough away that we’re hidden. “I don’t want … I’m less nervous from here.”

Eddie pushes his hands through his hair and sits on the steps. “Well, fine. For now, I guess. So, then, tell me what you really think about me. Am I just some guy you want to ask you to the prom, or what?”

Just the mention of the prom brings out my own wriggling worries and my hope that he’d ask me one day. Leyla opens her mouth, but I speak. “I don’t even care about the prom that much …” I start. “Except maybe I do a little. The point is—you’re not just hot. That’s secondary. Or tertiary …”

“Tertiary?”

“I don’t know that word! Don’t make me sound better than I really am!” Leyla hisses, swatting my shoulder.

“Thirdy-dary, I mean. Secondary and thirdary—anyway, I think the best thing is that you always know what people need. Like in drama with Jack Schneider, how you kind of rescue everyone.”

Eddie absorbs this. “Thanks.”

I go on. “And you … when you look at me I can tell that there’s so much happening in your mind. Like you want to pour everything onto the table for me to see, just so I can know all about you.”

Leyla nudges me and whispers, “That was good.” She peeks through the bushes. “He looks happy!”

“I do want you to know about me,” Eddie is saying. “And just so you don’t think I’m conceited or anything, it’s not just about what you think of me.” He clears his throat, his voice softer. “I think about your good qualities. And I want to be able to just talk. A lot. Not just talk, but …”

“And your writing. When I read it, I feel like I’m the most privileged person in existence.”

Eddie stands up, moved enough to take a step closer. “I’m the privileged one. Everyone thinks they know you, but they don’t. Not the way I do.”

Leyla clutches my arm and then her heart. “I’m so loving this. Tell him how I really feel. Now.”

I look at Leyla and watch her eyes, how they gleam with excitement, how her whole self seems poised to fall. “I could love you,” I say, blurting it out before I can reel it back in.

Leyla pinches my sheet. “Ouch!” I squeal.

“That was too much,” she says in angry whisper. “I semilike the guy, but come on, ‘love’?”

“What’s going on down there?” Eddie asks.

I cover my tracks. “Oh, nothing! I’m just talking to myself—ouch. You know, like love can hurt. Or crushes can, anyway.”

“You don’t have to feel hurt,” Eddie says, his voice soothing. “Come out of the forest and come over here.”

“No!” Leyla and I say precisely at the same moment.

“Why not?” Eddie’s voice grows louder. He leans to one side, trying to see exactly where the voice is coming from.

“Because you haven’t said what you like about me,” I say to him.

“That’s easy,” Eddie replies. “Your potential. You have basically everything anyone could ever want in another human being—sweetness, compassion, thoughtfulness. You’re funny. You’re athletic. You like cool music.”

I eat it all up. Each and every word makes the cells in my body jump around. I lean forward, inching my way out of the bushes just slightly. “And?”

“And … I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say you were just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

This comment sends me reeling—once when I think it’s truly meant for me, and again when I realize it’s not. Of course it’s not.

Leyla has freed herself from the bushes, brushed off the remaining twigs, and made her way over to Eddie.

Wordlessly, he puts his arms around her waist and pulls her to him. Their faces are inches apart, bright in the new moonlight.

“Where’s your costume?” he asks.

“Back there,” Leyla points in my direction, where her sheet is puddled on the ground. I duck, even though I know they can’t see me.

“Leave it behind for good,” Eddie says. Without waiting for her response, he tucks his hands behind her head and puts his mouth on hers. They kiss for what seems like an eternity, connecting in the fall air, until Eddie leads her back toward the house.

And I am there, just a ghost, alone.

“D
ID YOU WANT SOME
cream with your nose?” The new server at Any Time Now asks, his eyes pinned on my face.

“This is not a vestige from Halloween,” I inform him, my voice pointed. “This is, in fact, real. Which is more than I can say for your efforts in the serving realm. Ever hear of a knife? Am I supposed to spread my butter with a fork?”

He looks at me as though the last thing in the world he wants to bring me is a knife. “Sorry. Sorry.” He blushes and runs to the kitchen.

The café is decked out in an ode to the 1980s—graffiti on one wall, day-glo colors abounding, triangular tables with bubblegum-colored stools everywhere, Wham! on the sound system, and minuscule, highly stylized food arranged on giant plates. I eat my hexagonal mini-brownie and turn my attention back to my work.

“Hi!” Linus’ voice saves me from the blankness that is my essay. “Nice to see you.”

“Nice?” I’m not in the mood for Linus’ positivity. He’s always chipper. Always okay.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says, grabbing a turquoise stool to sit on.

“Nice life,” I say, remembering my lonely arrival home last night after Wendy’s party. “Nice nose.”

Linus gives me the sign for
enough.
“I heard what the guy said. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yes,” I say, looking at the server as he refills salt and pepper shakers with Hanna. Hanna’s dressed in a power suit with giant shoulder pads, deeply tanned pantyhose with anklets over them, and high heels. Her eyes are rimmed in electric blue liner, and her hair is as large as a toaster and just as stiff. “He did. He meant to be mean. People think they’re so subtle, but they’re not.”

Linus shakes his head, disapproving. “And what do you do? Be mean back?”

“God, don’t get all supercilious on me.” I chew on my pen cap. But this makes me think of Eddie and how he always has teeth marks on his ballpoints, so I stop.

Linus stands up. “What’s wrong with you these days, Cyrie?” He studies me. “Where
are
you? I thought it was just college pressure or something, but you’re not…”

“I’m not the person you want me to be?” I ask, thinking about his note that we never talked about.

He waves that off. “No. I don’t want you to be any particular way. Except, maybe, the nice person you could be if you’d only stop defending yourself, for once.”

I meet his gaze. “What right do you have to tell me to stop defending myself? If I don’t do it, who will?”

Linus’ normally upbeat persona fades. His mouth is sad. “I don’t know, Cyrie. I don’t know anymore.”

He leaves without telling me why he came in the first place, and I sit with my tiny food wishing I could fix everything. That I could clear my head enough to unclutter and simplify my life.

“Last night should have been ideal,” I say to Hanna when it’s closing time and I’ve scared away yet another server. “Trying on someone else’s face? It’s better than the noses at Dr. Schnoz’s office.”

“You’re not still doing that … procedure, are you?” I flick my nose. “January 18th. I’m there. In the chair. Or, um, on the table or whatever.” I flash forward to that day, to the relief I’ll feel. “But last night? I couldn’t wear a costume—you know why?” Hanna shakes her head. “Because I live in one. And no one can see me any differently.”

Hanna wipes the counter and fixes one of her ridiculously long press-on nails. “No offense, Cyrie, but I think you’re full of shit.” She delivers this line as well as any of the ones from her cancelled television show.

I give her a steely glare. “How so?”

She tidies up while she talks, tucking cutlery away, folding napkins into stacks. “This is real life. You have the face you have, okay? So maybe you didn’t turn out like that image you have of yourself—I sure as hell didn’t think I’d be listening to ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ at my age and sweeping floors. I mean, I was on TV for God’s sake!” She laughs and leans onto the counter. “But you know what? Deal with it. The reason you didn’t wear a costume last night has nothing to do with how other people see you. You could’ve shown up as a cheetah, or a flapper in a wickedly cool dress and pearls, or a disco queen. But you went as you because you can’t let go of yourself long enough to let anyone else in.”

She continues her closing-up mission, leaving me to ruminate and wonder if maybe—maybe—she’s a little bit right.

At school on Monday, I sneeze through History, Calculus, and French. By the time I get to lunch, I can hardly take the tissues away from my nose before having to—

“Look out folks, she’s gonna blow!” Wendy pretends to duck for cover in the hallway. She faux-cowers and then gives a snorty laugh to Jill and their girl group.

Fever creeps into my cheeks, and I can feel a cough starting in my chest. I need to go home and crawl into bed, but I don’t want to miss Drama and seeing Eddie. See him post-lip lock with Leyla.

“All the ‘Sweetness’ in the world couldn’t cover up your flaws, huh, Wendy?” It’s not one of my better put-downs, but Wendy looks like I’ve slapped her hard on the cheek. She blushes and walks away without another word.

I leave the cafeteria and find that Leyla’s saved a seat for me in Drama. “Hey, you!” She goes to hug me but I stop her.

“I’m germ central right now.”

She backs up. “Oh. Well, maybe this will make you feel better.” She leans in and whispers. “Halloween was awesome! We kissed …”

“I know. I was right there, in the bushes?”

Leyla checks for spies and shushes me. “Right, but I mean, after that, we made s’mores with Wendy and everyone by the fireplace inside and sat together and—this is the cutest—he fed me the marshmallows!” She smiles, her eyes aglow. “Sorry I was so incommunicatory over the weekend. My dad snagged the phone.”

Incommunicado,
I want to correct her, but I don’t because I’m too caught up in the image of Eddie’s fingers feeding Leyla mini-marshmallows. Maybe they weren’t mini. Maybe they were big. Or shaped like pumpkins.

It’s so sweet I want to throw up. But I don’t, because this is just proof I shouldn’t waste my efforts. “You look happy,” I tell her. And she does. Her hair is bouncy, her smile wide, her body calm instead of jittery.

“We kissed again—he’s just the best—”

“I get it. He’s a good kisser.” My heart feels upended. I look around. “So where is he?”

Leyla shrugs. “College tours, remember? He’s gone all week.” She sighs.

“What, you miss him already?” I wipe my nose. It’s already raw underneath, and I wince each time I have to blot it.

“No, actually.” She looks at her notebook and fiddles with her pen. Today it’s a poppy, bright red and cheery—unlike her face all of a sudden. “The thing is, I’m kind of relieved.”

I blow again. “What do you mean?” Harold comes in and gathers props for what is sure to be an interesting class.

“We’re not writing this week. No emails, I mean. Phew!” She swipes her brow in dramatic fashion. “But seriously. I mean, after I got home, I felt all …” She mimes goose bumps on her arms. “But then, I thought back, and sometimes it’s like we’re not—” she looks at me “—on the same page. I’m not trying to be funny.”