At Face Value (21 page)

Using his hands, he tells me,
I answered a question.
He goes on:
Do you think it’s better to risk the truth and fail, or never to try
? With his eyes he asks me to answer that question myself, but all I do is give him the sign that I’m done with signing, that I don’t have an answer to that question.

E
VERYTHING I’VE EVER READ
or heard about Wendy Von Schmedler’s lake house is true. Though the house is built to resemble a log cabin, it’s anything but simple.
Neither is friendship,
I think, as I take in my surroundings. Outside the mansion, the lake is frozen and people are skating, and there’s a hot chocolate stand, too. As far as friendship goes, who knows what’s happening with Leyla.

Out of habit, I checked our old account before coming to the party—just to see if she (or Eddie) had written anything. But she hadn’t. And he hadn’t—or if he had, it was erased. Then “Dancing on the Ceiling” (possibly one of the worst songs ever) came on the radio, and though it’s hilarious in its lameness, I wanted to cry. Leyla and I used to joke about this song. The funny thing is, instead of pushing away all my feelings of missing her, or feeling angry about how things ended, I felt the same kind of longing I feel for Eddie. All my fantasies about how a friendship should be—the closeness, the confiding, the trust, the fun—evaporated, and I wrote her this:

Leyla—It’s me. The real me. The Cyrie you used to sit next to at Word meetings to ask how to spell things. The one who didn’t know that Roberto Cavalli was a clothing designer and not a made-up name. The one who wishes she never got involved with the whole email thing. The one who understands why you want me to tell Eddie everything but resents that you took your frustration at your inability to express yourself out on the wrong person. The one who is guilty of doing the exact same thing. The one who still loves “Dancing on the Ceiling” only because it reminds her of you. The Cyrie who misses you and wants to befriends again.

I sent it, but didn’t hear back. I don’t know if—or when—she’ll ever get the message.

I stomp my boots on the mudroom floor in the house’s entryway, and when I take my boots off, my feet are instantly warmed up. Under-floor heating? I look down, impressed.
Radiant heat,
I note on my pad for the
Word.

“This place rocks!” Josh puts his fist in the air as he shoulders by me.

“It’s like old-fashioned hunting lodge meets luxury hotel,” I say, writing these thoughts down. Being here in an “editorial capacity” may not be as cool as being here like a regular invitee, but writing articles does have its privileges.

“So, you’re just snooping?” Eddie asks me when I’ve slung my coat down with everyone else’s. Tomorrow morning, when people go to leave, they’ll have to dig their parkas and hats out from under the piles, but for now the mound of down and gloves grows ever larger.

“I’m allowed to snoop,” I tell him, trying to avoid his eyes. Just being near him makes me think of his letters, makes my heart ache in a way that hurts too much to contend with. “I’m too curious—for my own good.” I don’t explain this, just study the inlaid floors, the gilt-framed oil paintings on the walls.

“Want some help?” He points toward the billiards room. “I could inventory the rooms if you want.”

I don’t want him to inventory anything or take notes or smile at me. I want him to write to me again. To know that it’s me he loved or liked or wanted. “No thanks, I’m cool.”

He pauses for a second and then, spying Leyla’s arrival, waves to her. I take off up the stairs before I feel any worse. They’ve been seen around together recently, and even though I’m glad Leyla’s free of Josh yet again, and I want her to be happy, I can’t think about her being with Eddie. I can’t think of anyone being with him. Maybe not even myself.

When I investigate the hot tub area, I find Westies bikini-clad and jovial, splashing and shrieking about someone’s lost shorts. I watch as Jill Carnegie is caught under one of the many sprigs of mistletoe Wendy has hung in the doorways. Jill plants a kiss on some freshman who has talked his way into the party, and then suddenly, the whoops and shouts focus on me.

“Your turn, Cyrie!” Jill calls, her voice laced with evil.

I’m all set to defend myself, to stomp off and refuse, but when I see that it’s Linus next to me under the kissing leaves, I feel as though I can’t decline. At least, not without hurting him.

Ready?
he signs. I nod and shrug. He grins. We lean in, our lips connecting briefly as my classmates cheer.

The kiss is fine. The definition of a kiss. Two sets of lips meeting. There’s nothing to report that’s bad about it, but, I realize, that doesn’t make it good. I smile at Linus to let him know I’m okay with it, and he squeezes my hand. I lean on the doorway to make notes about this whole scene, and realize that included in the audience for our kiss was not only Leyla, but Eddie. I put my fingers on my lips and head elsewhere to explore.

“So here we have the master bedroom.” Wendy points out the features of her palatial house while ogling students take the tour. I take notes about the square footage, the custom-made beds, the extra-wide bathtubs, the granite, the marble, the game rooms, the bar, the chef’s kitchen, and the various lounging areas until I need a break.

Groups of kids are clustered by the fireplace making s’mores and laughing. Others dance in the music room where the lights are dimmed and a DJ spins records, and in the kitchen, a professional chef makes appetizers and desserts for a cast of thousands. The kitchen is surrounded on all sides by floor-to-ceiling windows outlined by fake logs. A modern twist on lodge décor. I help myself to an oversized chocolate chip cookie.

“Freshly made vanilla-bean ice cream to go with that?” Clad in a starched white jacket, the chef holds out an example of a cookie sandwich. I make a note in my notebook. When I look up, Leyla is in front of me.

I stare at her. I want to hug her, or make her talk to me, or plead with her to be my friend. “Gotta love the cookie-wich,” is what I say. I put a scoop of vanilla on my cookie. She does the same.

“You look nice,” she says. Her first words to me in weeks.
Nice.
But I don’t flinch at the word. There’s nothing wrong with “nice”—not necessarily. I catch my reflection in the glassy windows. While some revelers are clad in New Year’s garb—fancy dresses, starched suits, sparkling sheaths—others are in jeans and fleece. I’m in the latter camp: my favorite worn-in jeans, striped socks, a navy blue cashmere turtleneck (a gift from my parents), and earrings in the form of moons and stars. I fiddle with one now, feeling the star’s points on my fingers. In the semi-sheer reflection of the window, my hair is white-blonde, and my familiar profile doesn’t trip me up. It just is.
If only I could shave a little off here
—
a bit there,
I think for a quick second, as my nose stretches across the panes. I turn back to Leyla. “Thanks.”

The music has stopped, and we stand there in silence. Then, from the dance room, it starts up again. We eat our cookies awkwardly, without saying anything, listening to the Bee Gees and Supertramp and, finally, a slow song. I nearly choke on my dessert when I realize—

“I can’t believe they’re playing this.”

“Me, neither,” I tell her. “What’re the odds?”

Depeche Mode’s “Somebody” plays, and the lyrics are barely audible but I mouth them anyway. Somebody. Sumbodee. I look at Leyla. I think about my mother’s advice, the advice that helped get items for the auction. Maybe the same rules apply here. Never miss a moment.

“You’re a really good person,” I tell her. I think about her easygoing manner, her goofiness, her ability to ask for help or admit she’s incorrect. “You have a lot to teach me, I think.”

Leyla grips her glass of soda and stares out the window at something. I peer to the left, to see what it is.

“Eddie,” I say.

“Rox.”

We focus on each other. “You don’t have to tell him,” she says after a minute. “It was stupid of me to want you to do something you’re not ready to do.”

“That sounds like something I would say.”

Leyla nods and picks at her cuticles, then looks at me. “I think I got pissed off at you for being right so much of the time, such an … editor. This word or that word. Do this, not that. And I wanted to do it back to you.” She puts her hands on my shoulders. “And you could! You could totally tell him! I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?” She pauses, looking out the window again. “What? You’d tell him how you feel, that you …”

“Liked him all along?”

Leyla nods. “I mean, I had to be pretty blind not to see that in the first place. But if you’d just told me …”

My voice is filled with regret. “I should have. I should have. I couldn’t risk—” I pause “—losing you.”

“But you did anyway.” She sighs and looks away.

I stare at her. I’ve lost her. My only really good friend. “So that’s it?” The song continues. Innermost thoughts and intimate details.

Leyla nods. “That’s it.”

Tears spring to my eyes. Even though I thought it might be like this, actually hearing that it’s over is worse. “Oh.”

Leyla starts flailing around, her arms waving, her voice jumpy. “Oh. Oh! No. Not like that! Not ‘that’s it.’ I mean, that’s it!”

I look at her like she’s gone mad. “What?”

The true Leyla comes back. The goofy and funny and sweet one. “It’s like drama class, okay? Using different tones to say the same thing. I didn’t mean ‘that’s it’ as in forget it. I meant ‘that’s it,’ like let’s be friends again. Let’s be done with all the …” She blows a raspberry to convey the missing words.

A weight lifts off me, a smile appears on my face. “Seriously? So you got my email?”

Leyla’s head shakes, her tousled hair bouncing. “No. I’m also done with emails—for a long time!”

The song ends and one comes on that neither of us knows. “Like it?” I ask, feeling normalcy … if not return, then at least idle nearby.

She shrugs. “You know how it is with new songs—you have to wait and see if they stick with you after they’re over.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “See? I did that thing you taught me! Talking about one thing when really meaning something else.”

I grin. “Well done.” I look out the window at the hot chocolate stand, where Eddie is lingering with a few friends. “Think you can do one more thing for me?” Leyla nods. “Take this.” I hand her my notebook. “I’m stepping out of my role as editor—at least for tonight.”

She watches me watch Eddie through the window. “No more editing?”

I head toward the mudroom for my boots. “We’ll see.”

With my hands cupped around a mug of hot chocolate, I find Eddie sitting on an architect’s rendering of a group of rocks. “Mind if I join you?”

“Careful of that pointy one,” Eddie advises, thumbing at a rock near my boot. “I nailed my ankle on it getting up here.”

On the snow-covered lawn that slopes down toward the frozen lake, Josh and the other sporties play football, yelling every time someone slides on an icy patch.

“Want to play?” Eddie motions toward the game. I shake my head. I don’t want to be that girl anymore, the one who is his platonic sidekick, the one he talks to about all his romantic woes.

“Want some?” I offer some cocoa to him and we sit there, with the stars overhead, while Eddie drinks.

“It’s such good cocoa.” He pauses, licking his lips. “Is there a difference between hot chocolate and cocoa? Try it, Cyrie.”

There’s something so intimate about sharing a mug with someone, and I want to, but when I go to drink it I realize—yet again—that I can’t quite drink from it without the aid of a straw. “Actually,” I say, covering up my embarrassment with facts, “cocoa is from a bean. Hot chocolate is traditionally served with a cup of steamed milk and a pot of melted chocolate. You pour the chocolate in and …” He looks at me with a grin on his beautiful face. “Yeah, there’s a difference.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?” he asks, but I don’t answer. We watch people skating, people laughing and rollicking in the snow, and gaze up at the night sky.

“I know something,” he starts, and for a second I’m sure he’s going to say that what he knows is how he feels. But instead he says, “Do you know there’s a group of stars called the butterfly cluster?”

“That’s so poetic.” I squint, looking at my breath in the cold air, looking at the sky for answers. Even though we said so much to each other online, there’s still so much more we don’t know.

“Not that I have any actual idea where this cluster might be. There’s also the beehive cluster, and the Pleiades.”

“The seven sisters,” I say. I rub my hands on my cold thighs, feeling the chill work its way into my skin, my face, my bones.

“And the Great Hercules Globular Cluster.” Eddie laughs. “But what do we really know about the stars anyway, right? I mean, some scientist could spew out some theory and I’d probably believe it.”

“Why, because you don’t know any better?” I laugh a little, too. The mug grows cold in my hand and the drink goes untouched.

Eddie looks at me. “No. Because I’d want to believe it.”

“Sometimes,” I tell him, “I think people believe what they want to just because it makes the whole thing picture-perfect.”

Eddie turns to me on the rock, swiveling so that we’re face to face. “What do you mean by that?” He searches my eyes for answers, but I stop myself from going on.

“I should go.” I can’t be in such near-contact with him anymore without being in the precarious position of having my feelings ooze out, spill all over the rocks, and freeze in the loveless air.

“Wait.” Eddie half stands up, wriggling a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans. “I think I do understand what you’re saying.” He unfolds the paper and looks at it. “This is the best letter I’ve ever gotten. The best thing I’ve ever read—at least about me, anyway.”

My stomach lurches. He’s got an email printout. “Oh yeah?” I try for nonchalance, but I’m dying to know which of my emails really got to him. Which of my words or thoughts he carries around with him.

“It’s from Leyla,” he explains. He looks at me, his face sad until he asks, “You want to read it?”