My Life in Black and White (12 page)

Then she actually had the nerve to get mad. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do? Why do you think I’ve been calling you every five minutes for the past month? What am I supposed to do when you keep blowing me off?”

“Oh, this is
my
fault now?”

“It’s not like I haven’t been punished,” Taylor said, her voice rising. “My dad grounded me for two weeks!”

“Oooo. Two whole weeks.”

“Come on, guys,” Kendall said. “Don’t do this.”

“Yeah,” Rae chimed in, “life is too short. And you’ve been friends for too long.”

When I heard those words, they hit me literally.
“You’ve been friends for too long.”
“You’re right,” I said. “This friendship is beyond over.”

“You don’t mean that,” Rae said.

“Yeah. I do.”

My throat thickened, but I pushed past it. I told Taylor that I meant what I said. I told her to stop calling me. I told her to stop texting me. I told her, for the very last time, to stay out of my life.

I didn’t even give her a chance to respond. After I hung up, I sat on the couch, holding the phone in my lap and waiting for it to ring.

It didn’t.

Delinquent

ON THE FIRST day of school, I watched from the kitchen as Ruthie the senior backed out of the driveway in her VW clunker. A few minutes later, a big yellow school bus—my big yellow school bus—slowed to a stop at the end of my street, idled, then pulled away.

Hence my mother’s sigh, her sideways glance in my direction. Was I sure I didn’t want her to drive me? It wasn’t too late. If I hopped in the shower right now we could still make it.

“I told you,” I said. “I’m not going.”

“Well, if you change your mind…”

“I won’t.”

“But if you do…”

“I
won’t
. God, Mom. How are you not getting this?”

“All right.” My mother nodded, rubbing the counter with her dishrag. “All right, I understand.”

“Good,” I said.

I couldn’t believe she was pushing the school thing. Last night, in the Mayer Family Debate about Education, my mom had been my biggest ally. While my sister threw out terms like
pity party
and
enabling
—and my father reminded me that when he took the job in Connecticut, he chose Millbridge specifically for the
quality of the public schools
, public schools that have an
anti-truancy statute
—my mom was the one who insisted I have time to heal.

But now, with Ruthie back to school and my dad back to being a workaholic, maybe she didn’t know what to do with me. Maybe me staying home all day was cramping her style.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I told her. “Whatever you need to do, errands or whatever, just do it.”

“Well,” my mother said, “I already went to the market … and the dry cleaning won’t be ready until tomorrow … and—I know!” Her face lit up. “Why don’t the two of us go into the city? We haven’t done any back-to-school shopping yet, and the stores won’t be crowded. We could grab a bite, get you a few cute outfits for fall….”

“Cute outfits for fall.”
Ha!

What was the point of shopping if I was going to spend the rest of my life in my pajamas? Besides, the thought of me and my mother in a dressing room together—under fluorescent lights, surrounded by mirrors—made me sick. I literally couldn’t stomach the thought. Yet I couldn’t stomach the thought of her at home, either, hovering over me.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I don’t think I’m up for the city today.”

“Well,” my mom countered, “how about just Lord and Taylor? We could find you a little dress, some heels….”

I stared at her. “Why would I want a
dress
and
heels
?”

She smiled, swinging her dishrag through the air like a pom-pom. “Homecoming!”

“What?”

“Homecoming!” she repeated, gesturing to the calendar on the wall. “October twenty-fourth!”

Of course. The minute my mother started planning an event, or whenever she received something in the mail—a baptism invitation, a tooth-cleaning reminder, a school calendar—she would document it, in color code, on the kitchen wall. Every upcoming occasion in our lives from here to eternity.

“You and Ryan will make up,” she continued, “or another boy will ask you. Either way, you’ll want to look your best at the dance.”

Oh, there were so many things wrong with this I didn’t know where to begin. How could my mother, who was born in 1972, still think we were living in the 1950s? Nobody went to dances as couples anymore. Not to mention the fact that there was no way in hell I would show
this
face on a dance floor, high school gym or otherwise. I hated to rain on my mother’s homecoming parade, but…

“I’m not going to any dance. Ever.”

“Of course you are,” she said brightly.

I told her no, I wasn’t, and if she thought otherwise then she was in for a lifetime of disappointment.

“Oh, honey,” my mother sighed as I grabbed a bag of Chips Ahoy! from the pantry and marched right back to the couch.

I turned on the TV and started flipping around—one stupid game show and soap opera after another, reminding me of how I was wasting my life sitting there. Finally, I stopped on 61. I watched a bunch of girls wearing cheerleading uniforms and shiny, wholesome smiles, standing at their lockers, talking about the big game.
“Omigosh, you guys! Isn’t high school the best?!”

What a crock,
I thought as I started to cry. I pictured my face on one of their bodies. Not that I ever wanted to be a cheerleader; that was my mother’s dream, not mine. I just wanted to see what I’d look like—the butt-faced girl, standing at her locker, trying to act normal.

It was a vision too pitiful for words.

Day two … Day five … Day seven … Day ten.

In all my years as a student, from nursery school to elementary school to junior high, I had never missed so many days in a row. Not for sickness. Certainly not for playing hooky. And now here I was, two weeks into my high school career, already a delinquent. And bored out of my mind.

In my former life, if I ever got bored, I would call Taylor. My best friend, the boredom buster. Needless to say, I wasn’t doing that now. Which left me with three options: daytime TV, food, and feeling sorry for myself.

Lying on the couch, all I could think about was the fact that I was stuck at home like some kind of leper, while Taylor and Ryan were living it up on the sports fields. I knew from Kendall and Rae, who’d texted me from the gym as soon as the team rosters were posted, that Ryan made varsity football, and Taylor made varsity field hockey.

Well,
I thought bitterly.
At least Mr. Dano will be happy.
Ryan’s dad used to play Division 1 football for Notre Dame, and whenever I was over at the Danos’, that’s all Mr. Dano could talk about. Football, football, football. He cared about football, it seemed, more than he cared about finding a job. No way would he have been satisfied if Ryan only made JV.

Taylor making varsity wasn’t a shock, either. She and I were the best players on our ninth-grade team. Up until the accident, the two of us had practiced every day of the summer—running drills, even timing each other in the two-mile, to ensure we were in the best shape possible for tryouts.

Tryouts that I missed.

A team that, even if the coach took pity on me and let me try out late, I would never play for. Because the mere thought of running down the hockey field—my hair in a ponytail, my face bare to the world—filled me with dread.

The longer I thought about it, the worse I felt. Why should Taylor get to play when I couldn’t? Why was I the one to end up looking like this when she deserved the punishment? And why, for God’s sake, did I
defend
her to my mother?

This tsunami of self-pity swept me off the couch and down the hall to the bathroom, where I stood in front of the mirror for a long time, squeezing my eyes shut.

Finally, I opened them.

Even though the stitches had dissolved since the last time I’d looked, and the bruises had faded from a deep purple to a sick, yellowish green—even though the entire right side of my face was no longer swollen up like a puffer fish—I still looked horrible. Worse than horrible.
Hideous
. All you could see when you looked at me was the graft. It drew your eyes in like a target. A two-by-two-inch target of angry, red butt-skin with a crispy maroon border, about two millimeters higher than the rest of my face. It was the ugliest, most wretched thing you have ever seen in your life.

“I hate you,” I said to my reflection. “I hate you so much.”

The girl in the mirror glared at me. I took a few steps back, trying to see the big picture. I was still wearing pajamas, but since my mother forced me into the shower last night, my hair was finally clean. Clean and thick and shiny as ever, the color of corn silk, down to my shoulder blades. “Barbie hair,” Taylor used to call it. “Rapunzel hair.”

All I could think now was how incongruous it was. How could someone so ugly have such beautiful hair? It made no sense. It was absurd.

The girl in the mirror smirked at me.
You know what to do, silly
.

I opened the medicine cabinet and peered inside. Lying on the second shelf from the top, in their faux-leather carrying case, were my mother’s good scissors. I remembered how bossy she always was about these scissors—how Ruthie and I were never allowed to use them for craft projects, not even for cutting thread—like they were made of thousand-year-old crystal.

Now, holding them in my hand, I felt their power. The metal was cool and slick against my skin.

I reached for a hunk of hair. As I cut, the blades of the scissors made a soft, satisfying swooshing sound. An eight-inch stretch of blonde fell to the sink.

Never in my life had I seen so much of my hair
off
my head. For fifteen years, my mother wouldn’t let me get more than a trim, no matter how hard I begged. Well, who was she to dictate what I did with my own hair?

I reached for another hunk.

Swooosh.

Then another.

Swooosh.

Then—

“Oh. My. God.”

I jumped, just as the silhouette of my sister appeared behind me in the mirror.

“Jesus, Ruthie!” I said, whirling around. “You almost made me stab my eye out!”

She stared at me. “You’re pulling a Deenie.”

“What?”

“Deenie,” she repeated. “You’re channeling Deenie.”

“Who the hell is
Deenie
?”

“You know,” Ruthie said. “Pretty girl with the messed-up spine? Hacks off her own hair when she gets the back brace?”

I shook my head.

“You’ve never read
Deenie
?”

“No,”
I said, annoyed.
“So?”

“
So,
it’s only one of the greatest books of all time. Vintage Judy Blume …
Please
tell me you know who Judy Blume is.”

I shrugged.

Ruthie gasped. “Blasphemy!”

“Did you come in here to lecture me on literature?”

“Actually, I came in here to pee, but—”

“Then pee,” I snapped, turning back to the mirror. “And get out.”

I grabbed a fresh hunk of hair, lifted the scissors again.

“Oh, no,” Ruthie said. “No, no, no.” She whipped out a hand so fast I didn’t have time to stop her.

“What are you
doing
? Give those
back
.”

“No.”

I lunged for the scissors. Ruthie hopped up on the toilet, holding them over her head.

“What the
hell
, Ruth!”

“Trust me. You’ll thank me later.”

“No I won’t!”

“Yes,” she said calmly. “You will…. Now get dressed. We’re going for a ride.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Ruthie sighed. She tucked the scissors into the back pocket of her jeans and hopped down from the toilet. She took two steps forward, grabbed both my arms, and leaned in so close I could smell the peanut butter on her breath. “If I have to drag you out of this house, I will do it.”

Brush your teeth,
I thought.

“I’m serious, Lex. You need to get out of here.”

“Whatever,” I said, even though she had a point. I was going stir-crazy. Spending the first two weeks of school in exile was one thing. But the first official weekend of fall? In New England? If I didn’t smell some of that good, leafy air soon, I might shrivel up and die.

“Is that ‘whatever,’ you’re coming?” Ruthie asked. “Or ‘whatever,’ I have to drag you?”

I looked at her fingers gripping my arm, the ragged cuticles, the bitten-down nails. “You need a manicure,” I told her.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not.”

Ruthie squeezed harder.

“Fine!” I said. “I’ll come! You don’t have to break my arms off!”

“You’ll get dressed?”

“Yes,” I said. Then I thought better of it. I would get in a car with my sister, let her drive me around, but no way was I showing my face in public. I would exit the front seat when, and only when, we were home again, which meant there was no point in changing out of my pajamas.