At Face Value (22 page)

More racing pulse, more stomach flips. I switch off my emotions and go into editorial mode. “I don’t need to know what … Leyla wrote. Sometimes it’s best to let things stay in the past.”

Eddie nods. My curiosity piques and I try to see which letter it is, but he keeps it pressed to his lap. “Well that’s just it. I want to push all this away, but when I read them it doesn’t feel like it’s gone. How could something so awesome just disintegrate overnight?”

“Some people think the Grand Canyon was created in a few days—just a big explosion,” I tell him with a weakened voice. I’m making that up, too, as an example.

“Really?”

“No.” I see his fingers on the page and I can’t take it anymore. “Fine. Let me read this incredible tome. Maybe it’s just your sports-page perspective.”

“Exactly.” Eddie breathes a sigh of relief and hands me the paper. “Read it with your editorial eye, and make it seem lame so I can get rid of it.” He gives a half-grin.

The sky is dark, the shouts from the football game fading into the background as I read. “
Hey you
—” I pause—“Who starts a letter with hey you?” I swallow nervously and watch Eddie.

He shrugs. “It’s just what we did.”

“Okay.” I keep my voice light, almost monotone, so I don’t read emotion into the words. “Moving on:
You’re such a thoughtful person, you seem to notice every detail about me down to my shoelaces and the color of the tiles at the diner
—true.” I look up. “You are, um, observant, Eddie.”

“Keep reading. Go to the part—” he points down the page “—where she says how she feels like …”

I scan the page, pretending to search for what he’s talking about when I know the words by heart, when I’m perfectly aware of which letter this is—the last one in our frantically paced exchange. “…
Ever thought about going someplace
f
ar away like Thailand …
no, here it is.
I wish there were a fancy way of saying this, but the truth of it is that I just plain like you. I feel good being around you. I like being next to you or even in the same room as you. In Drama when we’re just joking around or at the Word it’s almost easy to forget there are other people nearby.”

I keep reading, my mouth remembering my fingers as they typed the words to him, my voice strong with the emotions behind it.
“My whole body feels charged up when I’m with you, as though I could run farther, sleep better, laugh more, taste more when I’m with
…” I catch him staring at me and abruptly stop. “Yeah, I see your point, it’s a nice letter.” My voice falters and my hands shake, not just because I’m cold. I hand the letter back to him.

“Cyrie …” Eddie bites his lower lip and takes time to think about what to say.

Our moment is interrupted by Josh and the rest of the team, who bombard us with their shirtless selves. “Rock on, Rox! It’s time for the festivities to really begin!” Josh yanks Eddie’s foot and he starts to slide off the rock. “That’s right, folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for—skinny skating! Strip down to your skivvies and skate, then join the rest of us in the hot tub!” Josh puts his fist in the air as though he’s leading a revolution. Eddie turns back to me once he’s grounded, his eyes asking.

“Rox—come on!”

Eddie laughs, and as I’m about to jump down, I’m greeted by a “hey” from Linus. Eddie sees Linus start to climb up next to me. He pauses long enough to raise his eyebrows at us, maybe wondering what all the mistletoe action was about before, then follows the rest of the sports guys to the lake.

So, you cold enough?
Linus signs. He takes off his ski cap and puts it on my head. I sign
thank you
and wonder if this is the moment Linus has been waiting for, our post-mistletoe more-than-friends conversation. “We need to talk, Cyrie.”

Oh no. There’s nothing worse than letting someone down, than not being able to return their feelings, and I dread saying this to Linus. “Look, Linus, I can’t—”

“You have to.”

I frown. “Well, don’t get pushy. You can’t make someone feel—”

Linus shoulders me. “Who said anything about feeling? I bought you. You owe me.”

“Oh!” I smile with relief. “The auction. You want me to write something for you. Okay. What is it? Let me guess—you’re weaseling out of that school budget meeting and want me to cover it for you.”

Linus nods enthusiastically, and then at the same time says, “No.” He clears his throat. “I actually need help writing a letter.”

My face shows my surprise, my lips turned down and my eyebrows raised. “Like for college?”

He shakes his head. Out on the ice the skinny skaters whoop it up, freezing and acting silly and shouting. “I want you to write a personal letter for me. A love letter.” He looks nervous, picking at the lint on his sweater and unable to make eye contact.

“Um …”

“You know you can. Make it sound really great, okay? Like you’re writing to the other half of you. The missing pieces and the parts that complement you. How friendship can turn into …”

He wants me to write this. To write for him all the things he can’t say to me. “I don’t know, Linus, I mean—”

“Cyrie,” his voice is stern, serious. “Please. Do this for me, okay?” He touches my shoulder. “I know it’s weird.” From his back pocket, he pulls out a little notebook, the kind we use at the
Word
to jot notes at meetings or write down quotations for articles. “I’ll write. You dictate.”

“Fine,” I say, “but not out here.” I glance at the ice. Even from a distance I can see Eddie sliding. “Let’s go inside.”

Wendy’s house affords nothing if not a chance to escape the cold and the clutter of people. We bypass the game room (the billiard balls clicking together), more mistletoe, and a tipsy Wendy trying to perfect her pout in the hallway mirror.

“Here,” Linus pulls me into the breakfast nook in the kitchen. “This is fine.”

I slide into the leatherbound booth. “This place looks more like an upscale steakhouse than a family kitchen.”

Linus laughs and whips out his pad. “Now start.”

I tap my fingers on the table, wishing the wood wasn’t quite so polished. As is, its high-gloss sheen reflects my face from the bottom up, the underside of my beak making me lose my train of thought. “Okay. Start with—‘Like the newly budding forsythias in spring, friendship can blossom when you least expect it.’”

Linus tilts his head back and forth, considering. “That’s a little fluffy, don’t you think?”

I make a face. “I think it’s fine. Anyway, then, let’s see …”

“Something about the feeling of being together, about it being the right move.” He looks deep into my eyes and I have to look away. I should offer to write a break-up letter instead, for the relationship that’s never going to happen. He’s an acceptable kisser and a great guy, but—

“Hey, I paid up, keep going.” Linus poises his pen to write.

“You never know when love will tap you on the shoulder. Or if it will,” I say, and he jots it all down. “But when it does, there’s not much you can do to quell the desire.”

Linus nods. “This is good!”

He looks happy. How then, can I say what I’m about to say? “The thing is, I can’t help you.” He writes that down. I reach out and put my palm on the paper so he stops. “No. Don’t write that part. What I’m saying is …” I take a breath that feels ocean-deep, filled with the truth I’ve been shoving away for so long. “I can’t do this, Linus. I’m not the girl for you. I don’t feel the way you feel—or, I do, but not with you if that makes sense. I don’t want to write a love letter to myself because—” I look at him, but he doesn’t look sad. He doesn’t look upset, he looks—

“Pathetic.” Linus shakes his head, but his voice isn’t angry. “You thought this was for you? Why the hell would I buy a letter to have you write to yourself?” As he says this, it does start to feel far-fetched. “Do you think I’m that tongue-tied around you?” My mouth hangs open in shock until I cover it with my hand. “All this time, you thought I wanted to turn our friendship into a … a thing?”

“A relationship, yeah.” I blush, feeling both conceited and dumb at the same time. “I just didn’t …”

“That was mistletoe. Tradition.” He smirks. “And this—” he swats at my hand with his pad “—is not for you.” He closes the notebook. “It’s for …” He points with his eyes over to the stove, where the hot cider bubbles away. “Her.”

The familiar stance. The brown hair flecked with gold. The smiling face.

“Leyla? You like her?” Everyone does. Of course they do.

“So much,” Linus says.

I feel the heat creep over my chest, my legs, my face. My nose is probably red from the cold and starting to chafe with the forced-air heat. “Then tell her,” I command him. “You don’t need my skills for that. You’re the one who won that writing award as a freshman.”

“That was for science writing.”

“So?” I glance at Leyla. She sees us now and starts to come over. “Just write it. Say all the things you think and you can’t go wrong.” I look at Linus and see him not as the shy boy who signs hello, not as the spine of the
Word,
but as a good-looking guy who kisses well and has all the depth anyone could ask for. “Leyla’s lucky. She’d be lucky to be with you.” Leyla’s nearly here. “You’d be lucky, too.”

Without having to say anything, Leyla and I lock eyes and I know everything’s cool with us, that our conversation earlier means we’ll get back to being what we were. Or maybe better—maybe not what we were, but who we are.

“I gotta get some air,” I tell them, and leave Linus and Leyla to figure out whatever they have.

The hallway that leads to the front door is lined with a long mirror. Trimmed in dark oak, the thing extends from one end of the hallway to the other, making it impossible not to see yourself.

“My mother’s cruel joke,” Wendy says to me from one end as I near the front door.

“Do you ever wonder why she wants you to focus so much on the exterior?” I ask her.

Wendy shrugs. “Because she wishes she was my age still?”

“Maybe.” My own reflection is everything I don’t want to see. “Or maybe … maybe it’s more like if she points to the outside of you, the outside of herself, she doesn’t have to bother with the inside parts. The parts that are harder to change.”

Wendy doesn’t say anything, but I hear my own words for the first time. Staring at my face, my whole self, I know that it’s not my nose—but my feelings—that I can’t hide. And that a nose job won’t change the way I live my life. That altering my honking great beak won’t do anything to get rid of the longing I carry inside.

“You can change your looks, but you can’t change your heart,” Wendy says. Her voice echoes in the empty corridor.

I smile at her. “That’s poetic.”

“It’s from a nail polish ad I read once,” she admits. “But true, anyway.” She trots off toward the sound of partying.

I face myself again, and I know that what shows most on my face isn’t the thing in the center, isn’t the feature that I’ve always thought betrayed me, but the crush that is apparent on every part of me. As I open the front door, everything Leyla said comes back to me—that not saying anything is a lie to myself. A lie to Eddie. A lie that is more blatant than the biggest nose.

I don’t realize I’m running until I’m halfway down the long driveway and panting in the cold. Surrounded by snow-topped pines and thickly set woods, I stop and catch my breath. Headlights swivel on the paved drive, and I wave just so they see me. But the car slows down. The driver’s side window slides open and Eddie’s in the front seat.

“Glad to see you’re not partaking in some skinny driving,” I say, joking, but my voice has lost its flair. I can’t joke anymore. It hurts too much.

“Nope—I’m all clothed. Making a run into town for some much-needed sparklers. How could Wendy forget those? What else are you supposed to do when the clock strikes midnight?” He looks at me and I look away.
You’re supposed to kiss someone,
I think. “Wanna come with me? Just a quick run?”

I make one more attempt at being his friend only. His buddy. His sparkler-run, jogging, hanging-out, chitchat buddy. “Sure.” I get into the warm car and buckle up as we drive toward town.

Eddie parks in front of Hale’s Liquors. “I thought you said we were getting sparklers.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. And maybe beer?” He produces an ID from his pocket and hands it to me.

“You have a goatee in this.”

“It’s my cousin’s. Think it’ll fly?” He slouches toward the entrance.

“Honestly? No.” I follow him inside the brightly lit store. We wander the aisles, trying to feign indifference. Eddie snags a couple of six-packs and a handful of beef jerky, but before we approach the cash register the clerk offers this:

“Hey, guy.” He waves to Eddie and studies us. “I’m going to save you the embarrassment of trying to purchase the goods in your hands. I don’t want to have to turn you down in front of your girlfriend.”

It’s my turn to blush. I bolt from the store and Eddie follows, leaving the illegal drinks and chewy meat products behind.

“Hey—Cyrie—wait up!”

I go to the car. “We should head back.”

Eddie sticks his tongue out and blows a white burst of breath into the air, and then laughs. “Well, this was successful.” He hoists himself on the hood of his car. “Climb on. It’s warm.”

Reluctantly, I join him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded paper.

“I think I’m done with that for tonight,” I tell him. I’m done with letters. Done with writing and trying to figure it all out.

“Okay, but humor me just one more time. Read this.”

The paper he hands me isn’t the email I read before. But I do as he asks, and read it aloud.
“Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I pulled down all the walls I’ve built up and just started fresh. No concrete. No spackling. No paint, even. Just me being me and not worrying about how I look or act or sound. Maybe if we all did this then we’d just be able to look our problems
—
or our loves
—
in the face and say
…” I look up. “It stops there.” It stops there because I should complete the thought. Look love in the face and say … what?

Eddie shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t. There’s a P.S.” I look down and read aloud.
“P.S. Cyrie wrote this. Lets talk. Form, Leyla.”