At Face Value (16 page)

“But you kissed!” I say this as though she’s crazy to feel anything other than thrilled.

“So what? Yeah, it was awesome, and yeah, he’s super hot, and … but it feels weird to know you’re with someone who wants so much from you.” She twists her pen around and loops it into her hair so it forms a bun. “Sometimes I don’t want that much from a guy. I just want to hang out. To be together and like each other without all that …”

“Probing?” I throw in.

“Makes me think of some outer space show, but yeah.” She pauses, considering. “You like that kind of stuff. Maybe it’s one reason we’re good together as friends. I like to be, and you like to be, c, d, e, f, and so on.” She cracks up. Her prettiness takes a back seat to her ease. “Don’t you ever like to just not think? To have a clear mind?”

My chin drops to my chest. I nod. The sickness and her words swirl around me and I stand up. “I get what you’re saying,” I tell her. “And it’ll be good for you to relax. I, on the other hand, need to go home.”

“You okay?”

“Just sick,” I say. “Sick and tired.” I tell Harold I’m leaving, then blow my nose.

“Here.” Leyla hands me her emergency packet of Kleenex.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You look terrible.” Concern fills her words. “Wait, not like …”

I take a breath, thinking of Linus, thinking of my cluttered head, thinking of all the stuff I spew out but how little I say. “I’m sure I do, Leyla.” I hand her my
Word
notebook. “If I’m not back tomorrow, think you and Linus can handle some of the auction stuff? We need to check on sponsors, get ads placed for the programs, double-check the flowers and other things that are being delivered to the—”

“To Wilson Farms, I know. Weekend-after Thanksgiving. I got it.”

“And make sure the seating works—you know, not too crowded, but crowded enough that people get nervous and bid higher. And the paper! The regular issues … I know it’s a lot, but … and anywhere you can insert the theme …” I look at her. “The—”

“Cornucopia,” she says, proving something. “I remember the name, Cyr.” She smiles at me, and I sniff and smile back. Leyla is still completely calm. “No problem. We’ll get it covered.”

O
N MY DESK IS
a picture of me from last year, playing tennis. As a rule, I’m not one to pay homage to myself on film, but I like the shot because I didn’t know my photo was being taken. Maybe I’m better caught off guard, when I don’t have a chance to plan, edit, and worry—about how I look, about which angle will downplay the center of my face.

I’m staring at the picture when my dad knocks on my door. “Enter,” I grunt, and he pokes his head in.

“Food for the sicky. Day three of the fall illness. Still not sleeping?” I shake my head
no.
“You sure you don’t need to go to the doctor?” He slides a lunch tray of grilled cheese, tomato soup, and a brownie onto the desk.

“You know she’ll say it’s just a virus. Senioritis. Trying to avoid all that lies before me.”

He picks up the picture. In it, I’m in full Westie gear, my legs poised, my racket back, about to deliver my signature cutting forehand. “You were great in that match.”

I clear off wadded-up tissues so my lunch tray can fit in front of me, and study the picture. “We were playing Guilford. The best.”

“Until you came and knocked them from their throne.” Dad uses a booming voice.

I cover my ears. “Ow. Headache. But yeah, we crushed them.” I sigh and pick at the crust of my sandwich. The girl I’d played against took the defeat well, shaking my hand and saying how well I played. Then she saw my nose, let out a guffaw, and trotted back to her teammates feeling like she hadn’t lost that badly.

“You crushed them—single-handedly, I believe.”

“I probably could have done better.”

“But you won, Cyrie.” Dad takes a corner of the brownie for himself. “Why bother editing what you can’t change?”

I’m about to nod and half-heartedly relive my varsity days, but I frown instead. “I wish everything were as easy as that. As thwacking the ball or scoring a point or devising a plan to win.”

Dad puts his wide hands on my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “Wouldn’t that be boring?” I shrug. “Maybe winning isn’t as important as—”

“Don’t say ‘playing the game.’ Cliché, man.”

“Playing the game.” He laughs.

“Besides,” I add, “I’m a good editor.”

“Let me know if you need anything.” He steps out the door and then pokes his head back in. “Just remember that old saying about editors.”

I stick my nose into a wad of tissues and retreat to my bed. “What’s that?”

“Good editors edit. Great editors stop.”

After he leaves, I look out the window at the autumnal scene. Everything is movie-perfect. Bright mums burst with orange and deep reds, pumpkins cluster on my neighbors’ doorsteps. If only more yellow leaves would fall, then the ground would be evenly coated.

“Jeez—I’m editing nature now!” I say aloud, putting my head into my hands.

I try again to sleep off my viral germs but then reach for my laptop instead, pulling the hard shell of it onto my bed, half under the covers. With Linus and Leyla covering paper duties and my homework pretty much done (save for my college essay), there’s not much to do. So I clean out and organize my email in-box, creating files for emails I want to keep and discarding hundreds of others.

I lie back on my pillows. What I want to do is talk to Eddie. He’d make some crack about my voice being nasal, and I wouldn’t even mind because he’d say it in a gentle way.

I look out the window one more time, as though a ghost might be watching me. Feeling the familiar pangs, I log on to the Sumbodee account.

“Just rereading,” I mutter, and indulge myself with the rest of my lunch and Eddie’s words. I go back to the beginning and read every note from him, savoring his phrases and pairing them in my mind with his physical self. Even though he’s miles away looking at colleges right now, the letters make me feel closer to him. I’m about to do my sigh-and-pack-it-up routine when I refresh the page, and find a new email.

I bite my lip. It’s not for me. Not really. Well, it kind of is. Then I shake my head. It wasn’t my lips that got kissed last Friday. My body stayed cloaked in the ghost sheet while Leyla’s … I click and read.

Question:

How hard is it to focus on interview questions when all I want to do is be with you?

Answer:

Very.

My heart flutters, even though I know he means her. Not me. But still. In my feverish state, my overly edited state, I pause: I want to write back. But I can’t. Or I shouldn’t. But another email pops through.

Okay, so I know we aren’t supposed to write while I’m gone, but now I’m feeling like that was a dumb rule. Why shouldn’t we just keep talking (or typing)? That way when I’m back we’ll have even more to say.

I could do nothing. I could call Leyla and tell her to write back—but then she’d know I was in the account for no reason … no reason except frothing over Eddie. But I want him to write more—to talk to me—and to have him hear me, too.

With the wind-swirled leaves outside and my feet warm under the blankets, I do what I should have done long ago. What I need to do. I stop editing and just write.

I’m so glad to hear from you! A week is way too long to go without the usual barrage of notes back and forth.

I send it, and it isn’t until I reread it that I notice the word “barrage” and wonder if that will give him pause—it’s not really a Leyla word. But he writes back.

I’m sitting here in the library at Dartmouth wondering where I’ll spend the next four years of my life. Where should I go to school? What should I do with my life? Even though I’m the one being judged here (or, um, interviewed), I don’t feel particularly qualified to make these decisions.

I turn onto my stomach and type, burrowing my feet further under the sheets.

Maybe we’re not qualified and we should have some other system set up so that someone other than us (and the colleges) can make the choice for us. An independent committee of sorts.

I type on and on, then send and wait for a response. It’s better than IMs because we’re writing more, saying full thoughts with no abbreviations—emotional or otherwise. We get to the point where we’re overlapping, him sending, me sending—and saying everything.

When I was seven I thought I was cool because I was old enough to have a bubble bath while my parents were doing breathing exercises (yes, true) downstairs. I always thought their deep-breaths-in, deep-breaths-out were lame (verging on weird), so I went upstairs and ran the bath, added an appropriate amount of lavender-scented bubble bath, and went to get a book from my bedroom to read while soaking. But! I got the book and began reading, then forgot about the bath, forgot I’d put the water on full, and it wasn’t until my dad yelled “Oh, shit!” or something like that (which is very unusual for him) that I looked up from the page. Turns out, water had filled not only the bathroom but the hallway. It seeped into the cracks and found its way into the kitchen via the ceiling, and dripped onto my parents, giving them the antithesis of relaxation.

Eddie writes back:

That’s a lot of water. But I sense you’re not talking about water.

I answer him, my cheeks flushed, my fingers moving quickly on the keyboard.

No. I’m using this charming story to get across my point that

a) I don’t take baths anymore

b) I get absorbed in certain activities and tend to forget the rest of the world

c) Everything that I have inside I’m pouring out to you right now like I’ve had it bottled up forever

I wait for his response, wondering how many seconds will go by before I hear the in-box ping.

I’m going to say b and c and leave the bath question open for further (ahem!) discussion. And if you’re wondering whether I’m feeling the same way, the answer is yes. I’m hundreds of miles away (and will be more than one thousand miles away tomorrow, when I go to Michigan), but I feel like I’m sitting next to you and we’re more than talking fast. It’s like we’re able to trade brains for a second (even though that’s a really bizarre image). More than varsity, more than goals or the golden Westie award, or the paper, or anything, I’ve wanted to find (and I’m cringing while I write this but then again, I’m hundreds of miles away!) a best friend. And more than a friend. And I’m thinking that I’ve found both. HOWEVER, I might be way off base.

Outside, the sky shifts from day to night. My lunch is long gone cold, and my heart is filled. I carefully type back.

You are not off base. You are home.

F
OR THE NEXT FEW
days, the germs continue to march through my body, giving me symptoms that alternate from queasiness to stuffiness, shivers to sweats—but the whole time, I am more than happy.

“For a kid who’s home from school, you are suspiciously chirpy,” my mother says, eyeing me as I trudge from my room to the bathroom to slather some cream on my chapped nose.

“I’m sick,” I say with the nasal voice to prove it. “I’m just …”

She studies my face and, motherly, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, her hands fluttering around my cheeks. “You’re—”

I watch her eyes. They’re green like mine, and carry in them worlds of words. “I’m fine,” I assure her, reaching for the cream. In the mirror I look miserable. My face does not accurately convey the bursting feelings I have inside, from late nights typing through various time zones and days spent reading Eddie’s emails.

“You’re so relaxed,” she says, and gives me a quizzical look. She waits to see if I say more.

My onscreen life stays private, but I give her this: “You’d be surprised how good it feels to breathe out.”

She nods, understanding at least part of what I’m saying, and watches me climb back to my tower room—where correspondence awaits.

When I wake up the next day with Eddie’s words nesting comfortably in my brain
(you just might be everything I’ve ever looked for)
and head to the shower, I feel at last as if my sickness is gone and my heartache is lifted. But as the hot water hits my head and steam gathers on the shower door, the reality of what I’ve done strikes me full force.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Breathe in, breathe out—forget that. I have committed a big lie. Two big lies. More than that. And the worst part about it is—

“I’m kind of happy,” I admit to Hanna as she steams up a latte for me before our early-morning
Word
meeting. I felt the need for a post-illness coffee fix, plus some sage advice that only a woman in leg warmers and a 1980s aerobic outfit (think wedgie and spandex) can give.

“But you’re not happy about deceiving him, are you?” Hanna leans onto the counter and passes me the caramel syrup. Normally I’m a purist, just coffee and milk, but today I’m in dire need of sweetening—both drinkwise and otherwise.

“Of course I don’t want to be lying. Not to him.” I think of Leyla’s friendly smile, all the help she’s been giving me at the
Word
while I’ve been absent. “And I feel terrible about
her.
Except that I’m trying to help her—”

“You
were
trying,” Hanna correct. She arranges wooden stir-sticks into neon plastic cups and shakes her head. “One time, on
Life’s a Beach,
we did this episode where my character got a love note from someone—they didn’t tell us who it was, for real, at least not until the end of the show. Anyway, I wanted it to be from this guy Lyle, but it ended up being from Brian, who I had kissed once at a party and it was gross, but that’s another story.”

I stare at her as the words rush out. “Um, not to be rude or anything …” If I were in editing mode, I would have trimmed that whole thing she said to find a point somewhere.

“I know, you have school, and you’re late, and you’re wondering why I told you that.” I nod at her. She adjusts the straps on her electric blue leotard. “It struck me as odd, after that show ended, that even though it was made up, even though I was just playing a character, I still had an opinion. That I said the words someone wrote for me and acted—as much as teen drama shows have acting—as though I didn’t care who the note came from. But really, I did. And it would have been so much better, for the show, for me, if I’d just done what I felt.” She stares at me with one of her cut-to-commercial looks, all poignant and deep.