“Oh, my vision’s not perfect. I’ve still got a long way to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m real sensitive to light. But when he took my bandages off, I could see shapes. Everything was really blurry and my eyes watered like crazy, but things are looking clearer and sharper every day.”
“So no more gauze pads?”
“I’ve graduated. I have to wear dark glasses if I go outside. Or even if I’m inside and the lights are bright. And my doctor still wants me to keep my left eye covered with a black patch for a while, but for the most part I can see again.”
Carley twirled the phone cord around her finger. She knew she should keep asking him questions and be happy for him, but both were difficult for her to do when she had so much at stake in his answers. “How long before you’re one hundred percent?”
“It may be weeks yet. And they still don’t know if my vision will ever be twenty-twenty or not. I just wish I could lose this stupid eye patch. I look and feel ridiculous.”
“Like a pirate, huh?”
“Worse. People come up to me all the time and ask me about it. Seems kind of rude to me, but still they ask.”
She understood completely. “People are nosy. You have to ignore them.”
He gave a short laugh. “ ’Course my friends Steve and Jason tell me to consider the plus side.”
“Such as?”
“It’s a cool way to meet girls.”
“Whatever works.”
“But I told them I’ve already met the perfect girl.”
Her hand had grown clammy on the receiver and she was having trouble keeping it tight on the slippery plastic. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“That’s why I want to get together with you.”
“Well I—”
“Not right yet,” he added hastily. “I’d like my eyesight to clear up a little more so that I can see you. I’d like to ditch the patch too. I mean, when you can only see out of one eye, there’s no depth perception. Uncool. I can’t judge how close or how far away something is, which makes me fumble around a lot. But it sure beats not seeing at all.”
“I’d guess so.”
“Anyway, I want to meet you. See you with my own eyes. Steve and Jason are still talking about you.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say, but she was desperate to keep a meeting from happening.
“Listen to me,” Kyle said apologetically. “I’m going on and on about me and I haven’t once asked how you’re doing. How’s the leg?”
“I’ve ditched the crutches. And my doctor says I might be able to shed the cast by the middle of next month.”
“Maybe in time for Valentine’s Day?”
Carley’s eyes darted to the calendar posted on the wall behind the desk. Sure enough, February fourteenth was pretty much in the middle of the next month. “Maybe.”
“Well, whether you’re in a cast or not, I’d like you to go to our school’s spring dance with me. It’s on the weekend after Valentine’s Day.”
“I don’t dance.”
“I don’t either, but so what? We’ll just go together, sit, and watch the others. It’s being held at the big Marriott downtown; there’ll be a banquet and everything. It’s going to be really nice. Of course, I can’t drive because of my eyes, but we’ll go with Jason and Steve.”
“I won’t know anybody.”
“You’ll know me. Plus, you’ve met Jason and Steve. Their girlfriends are pretty nice. We’ll all have a great time together.”
Just then the door of the bookstore opened and a customer walked inside. “Uh —can we talk about this later? Business is starting up and I have to go to work.”
“You bet. But don’t hang up without giving me your home phone number.”
Quickly she told him, then said goodbye. Janelle came behind the counter as she was hanging up the phone. “Thanks a lot for making me take that call.” Nervous perspiration caused Carley’s bangs to stick to her forehead.
“I’m not going to lie for you. I did that once and I hated it.” Janelle smiled at the customer who was browsing the stacks. “What did Kyle want?”
“He can see again and he wants to meet me. He wants to take me to some dance his school’s having.” Carley sagged into a chair behind the counter. “Not me of course. You.”
“And who’s fault is that?”
“I’m not in the mood for a lecture.” She glanced around to see if the customer had his back to the front desk. She hated the idea of the man staring at her once he saw her face. “I’m going into the back room and start unboxing and cataloging.”
“I wish you’d been honest with Kyle from the very beginning.”
“Well, I wasn’t, so start helping me figure out a way to keep this face-to-face meeting from ever happening.”
Janelle threw up her hands and backed away. “Oh no, baby sister. You’re on your own this time.”
“Aw—come on.”
Janelle ignored her plea. “I’m going to see if this man needs help.” She swept from behind the counter and hurried over to the browsing customer.
Carley hauled herself to the backroom, where boxes of new books were stacked and waiting. She lowered herself onto a nearby chair and stared gloomily at the floor. Life wasn’t fair! For the first time in her life, she’d been asked out on a date. And by the one boy she’d give anything to go out with. Except that she couldn’t because the girl he thought was her, wasn’t. And the girl he thought was pretty, was not.
She should have been honest with him from the start. Except that if she had been honest, he would never have wanted to see her in the first place. And the days that she’d known him in the hospital had been wonderful, because for just a short time she’d been treated as if she were a normal girl.
Carley sighed and told herself to get to work. Thinking about Kyle was only depressing her. She’d think of some reason to keep him from meeting her. After all, she’d been able to fool him and his friends once. She’d have to do it again. She’d have to come up with something that would end her relationship with Kyle once and for all. There was no choice. She’d shut the door on their friendship forever.
That night Carley did something that she hadn’t done in years. She took the family photo album off the shelf and retreated to her room, closed the door, climbed onto her bed, and spread it out in front of her.
She started with her baby pictures. She turned the pages and saw herself transform from cute, chubby, and bald with a broad, toothless smile into a gangly seven-year-old with front teeth missing and lank dark hair in braids. By the time she was nine, the teeth were back and the hair was brushing her shoulders.
Her fifth-grade school picture was the last one ever taken with her face in one piece. Carley stared long and hard at the grinning photo. At the perfect symmetry of her nose and eyes. At the full, dimpled cheeks and the smooth, flawless complexion. At her forehead uncluttered by bangs. Why, by anybody’s standards she had been cute, even pretty in a childlike, innocent way.
She ran her fingertips over the photograph, as if by touching it she might somehow absorb her former self into her present self. How wonderful it would be if she could align the two faces and superimpose the younger one onto her current one. How good it would be to fill in the sunken places of her “now” face with her “then” face.
She had been born whole and complete. At age twelve she’d been held hostage by cancer. And robbed of normalcy. No clever cosmetic makeover could ever make her look whole again. So, how did she mourn for this lost piece of herself? This missing part from the inside of her body that so affected the outside?
Carley sighed and shut the photo album. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror over her dresser, but did not turn away. No need to ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Her mirror couldn’t lie. The truth was stamped within its frame just as surely as it was stamped upon her face.
Now she resembled a piece of modern
art—a painting by one of those artists who liked to paint people in the shapes of cubes and squares. Her face was right out of a futuristic drawing, lopsided and off-center. When she smiled, it caved in more tightly, like a flower turning in upon itself.
The phone call from Kyle had been wonderful and she was happy that he was able to see. But she was more determined than ever that he shouldn’t ever see her. For the girl he’d created in his imagination was the girl she wanted him to think of as Carley. She still wasn’t sure how she was going to get him out of her life once and for all, but she was determined to do so. No matter how much it tore her up to do it. No matter how badly it broke her heart.
Sixteen
“I’m ready to meet you, Carley. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
Kyle’s words on the phone ten days later caused Carley’s heart to skip a beat and her stomach to constrict. She’d taken the call in her room on the portable phone and lay across her bed, clutching it to her ear. Her leg in the cast felt as if it weighed a ton—almost as heavy as her heart felt in her chest. “I’ve been thinking about it too,” she said.
“And the dance? Will you go with me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? I told you I don’t care about dancing. I just want to be with you. I want to show you off.”
“I’m not a prize cow, you know.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” His voice sounded hurt. “I miss you, Carley. I miss talking to you. Visiting with you. I even miss your Books on Tape. I have a bunch to return, you know.”
“Just keep them. I can get more.”
“What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to see me?”
Her heart was thudding so loudly that she was afraid he might hear it through the receiver. “I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me. Please.”
Her gaze fell on a photograph of Janelle and Jon taken over the Christmas holidays. They had their arms around each other and Jon was wearing a Santa hat. Inspiration flooded through her. “Remember in the hospital when you asked me if I had a boyfriend?”
“You said you didn’t.”
“Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“Yes. Jon and I’ve been going together for over a year, but we had a big fight before Christmas and sort of broke up.”
“If you broke up—”
“But now we’re back together,” she added hastily.
“And the whole time you were in the hospital he never paid you a visit?”
“He was away on a skiing trip with his parents.”
“At the start of the new semester?”
Carley chewed on her bottom lip. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. “What is this, Twenty Questions?” she asked. “Take my word for it, he and I had a fight but we’ve made up and we’re together again.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this in the hospital?”
“I—I didn’t know how.”
“Simple. You say, ‘Kyle, let me tell you about my boyfriend.’ I remember asking you if you had one.”
“Sorry. I didn’t.”
“And so you met my friends and let them think you liked me.”
“I do like you.” She began to squirm. “It’s possible to like you and still have a boyfriend, you know. I really thought we had broken up for good when I met you in the hospital. But now that I’m back in school and all—well, I realized I still liked him.” Lying to Kyle was difficult, but she felt she was in too deep to turn back now.
He didn’t say anything for such a long time that she wondered if he’d put the phone aside and walked away. She asked, “Kyle?”
“I’m here.”
“I—I’m sorry.”
“I still want to meet you.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe he was being so insistent. “Why?”
“Carley, when I was in the hospital, you helped me more than anybody. The talks we had, the visits, the phone calls—all those things kept me from climbing the walls. I want to meet you. I want to see you for myself. I want to tell you thanks to your face.”
“Jon’s jealous,” she blurted. “He doesn’t like me seeing other guys.”
“Couldn’t he understand this one time? I’m not asking for much. After this one meeting I’ll drop out of your life. I promise.”
Her head was spinning, desperate to find a way out of her dilemma. She didn’t want him out of her life, but the need to protect herself was far more intense than her willingness to tell him everything. Suddenly an idea came to her. “Okay, all right, fair enough. I’ll let you see me. But it has to be from a distance.”
“How far? North Carolina?”
The sarcasm in his voice made her cringe. “I don’t want Jon to know about you,” she explained. “Please. If you care about me, you’ll do me this favor.”
Again there was a long pause. “All right. Whatever you want.” She sagged with relief. “Where can I see you?” he asked.
She realized she had no place to tell him because she’d never been anyplace on a date. Where would Jon take Janelle? she wondered. She remembered her sister telling her about the Mudpie, a coffeehouse that had opened in September and had quickly gained favor with the older high school crowd. She asked Kyle if he’d heard of it.
“I’ve been there once. Before my accident.”
“Well, that’s where I’ll be Friday afternoon with my boyfriend. That’s when you can see me.”
“What time?”
“Four-thirty.”
“All right.”
“But, Kyle, you can’t come over and speak to me. You have to hang back. I—I wouldn’t want Jon to know. He wouldn’t like it.”
“I won’t embarrass you.” His voice sounded emotionless. “Steve will be with me because he has to do the driving, but I’ll make certain he keeps out of the way too.”
“I—um—probably won’t wave to you, or acknowledge you in any way.” Carley nibbled on her bottom lip nervously.
“I understand the rules.”
“I wish things could be different.”
“You’re the only one who can make things different.”
She knew he was right. “I can’t,” she said softly into the phone. “I just can’t.”
Carley cornered Jon in the atrium the next afternoon while he was waiting for Janelle to finish ensemble rehearsal. When she told him her plan, he balked. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that.”
“And why not? All I’m asking is that you take her to the Mudpie Friday afternoon and buy her coffee or a soda. I’ll even pay for it.”
Jon shook his head. “There isn’t enough money. If she suspects anything, she’ll kill me and disown you.”
“Believe me, being disowned is preferable to your not helping me.”
“Don’t pressure me. I won’t do it.”
Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. It wasn’t easy for her to beg. “Kyle promised he’d keep out of the line of vision. He swore that all he’d do is look, then leave. You’ve got to help me, Jon. Please.”
“Don’t cry.” He glanced nervously toward the hallway, where Janelle was soon to appear. “If Janelle sees you, she’ll have to know why. Have you asked her if she’d do it for you?”
“She won’t. I know she won’t. And once she knows the plan, she’ll never go to the Mudpie with you. No, it’s better to take her, let Kyle slip in and see the two of you, and disappear. He’ll see her, and Steve will tell him it’s me, and hell think I’m beautiful. Nobody will get hurt.”
“Nobody?”
“All right—I won’t get hurt. What’s so terrible about that?”
Jon looked pained, indecisive. Carley felt as if he wanted to help, but was scared.
“This will be the end of it, Jon. Once Friday is over, the door will be closed and I’ll never ask a favor of you again. Please help me.”
On Friday Carley had a makeup test after school and missed the bus. That left her no
choice but to accompany Jon and Janelle to the Mudpie, which worked out better because, with Carley along, even if Janelle happened to see Kyle and Steve in the coffee shop, she wouldn’t be suspicious—Janelle knew Carley would never run the risk of bumping into Kyle. Her sister would never suspect that she herself had set up the meeting.
The three of them sat in a booth in the far back of the small coffee shop. Carley told them it would make her feel self-conscious if she sat anywhere else, and of course Janelle believed her. She fidgeted, watching the clock constantly. At exactly four-twenty she excused herself to go to the bathroom. There, in the small, protected hallway, Carley could peek around the corner without being seen.
The coffee shop was crowded with tables and booths filled with teens and groups of twenty-somethings preparing for weekend fun. A sofa, two easy chairs and a coffee table toward the front gave the place a homey atmosphere. Green plants hung on cords from the ceiling, and the aromas of exotic coffees and sweet-scented vanilla and cinnamon spiced the air. Carley would have enjoyed herself if she hadn’t been so nervous.
When she saw Kyle come in the door, she caught her breath. He wore a wheat-colored cable-knit sweater, jeans, and dark glasses. Another boy was with him; she assumed it was Steve. Her heart wedged in her throat as she watched Kyle scan the room. She watched as Steve nudged him in the ribs. Kyle stared toward the booth where Jon sat with Janelle.
Janelle, oblivious to her surroundings, leaned toward Jon, her face animated and smiling. Jon held her hand across the table, took a dollop of whipped cream from atop his cappuccino, and offered it to Janelle’s pretty red mouth. Kyle watched the scene without expression. Knowing she was hurting him, Carley felt a terrible heaviness. She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, Kyle and Steve were gone.
She gazed longingly at the space that had held him. At the sunlight playing through the glass window and leaving bright patches on the floor where he had stood. He was gone, just as he had promised. Her charade was over. She was safe, yet inside she felt no elation, no satisfaction. She felt hollow and empty.
Goodbye, Kyle. His dark glasses had hidden his eyes, and with a start she realized that she had never once looked into their depths. She didn’t even know what color they were. And now she never would.