Making Faces (10 page)

“I signed up,” Ambrose said, his words
clipped and final.

“For what? School? Yeah. We know, Brosey.
Don't rub it in.” Grant laughed, but the sound was pained. There
had been no scholarships for Grant Nielson, though he'd finished in
the top of his class. Grant was a good wrestler, not a great
wrestler, and Pennsylvania was known for their wrestlers. You had
to be a great wrestler to get a scholarship. And there was no money
in some savings account for college. Grant would get there, but he
would have to work his way through . . . slowly.

“Nah. Not for school.” Ambrose sighed, and
Grant's face twisted in confusion.

“Ho–ly shit.” Beans drew the words out on a
long whisper. He may have been on his way to being drunk, but the
kid wasn't slow. “That recruiter! I saw you talking to him. You
wanna be a soldier?”

There was a shocked intake of breath as
Ambrose Young met the stunned gazes of his four best friends. “I
haven't even told Elliott. But I'm going. I'm just wondering if any
of you want to come with me.”

“So, what? You brought us out here to soften
us up? Make us feel all patriotic or somethin'?” Jesse said.
“'Cause that ain't enough, Brosey. Hell, what are you thinkin',
man? You could get a leg blown off or something. Then how you gonna
wrestle? Then it's over! You got it made! You got Penn freakin'
State. What? You want the Hawkeyes? They'd take you, ya know. A big
guy that moves like a little guy–a 197 pounder that shoots like
he's still 152? What you bench pressin' now, Brose? There isn't
anyone who can hang with you, man! You gotta go to school!”

Jesse didn't stop talking as they left the
makeshift memorial and pulled back out onto the highway heading for
home. Jesse had been a state champ too, just like Ambrose. But
Ambrose hadn't just done it once. Four-time state champ, undefeated
the last three years, the first Pennsylvania wrestler to win a
state championship as a freshman in the upper weights. He'd been
160 pounds as a freshman. His only loss had come early in the year
at the hands of the reigning state champ, who was a senior. Ambrose
pinned him at state. That win had put him in the record books.

Jesse threw his hands up and swore, letting
loose a string of obscenities that made even Beans, Mr. foul-mouth
himself, feel a little uncomfortable. Jesse would kill to be in
Ambrose's position.

“You got it made, man!” he said again,
shaking his head. Beans handed Jesse the flask and patted his back,
trying to soothe his incredulous friend.

They rode in silence once more. Grant was at
the wheel out of habit. He never drank and had designated himself
the driver and caretaker ever since they all started driving, even
though Paulie and Ambrose hadn't partaken in the comfort that Beans
had to offer that night.

“I'm in,” Grant said quietly.

“What?” Jesse screeched, spilling what was
left in the flask down the front of his shirt.

“I'm in,” Grant repeated. “They'll help me
pay for school, right? That's what the recruiter said. I gotta do
something. I sure as hell don't want to farm for the rest of my
life. At the rate I'm saving money, I'll finish college when I'm
forty-five.”

“You just swore, Grant,” Paulie whispered.
He'd never heard Grant swear. Ever. None of them had.

“It's about damn time,” Beans howled,
laughing. “Next we just gotta get him laid! He can't go to war
without knowing the pleasure of a woman's body.” Beans said this in
his best Don Juan, Latin lover voice. Grant just sighed and shook
his head.

“What about you, Beans?” Ambrose asked with a
smirk.

“Me? Oh, I know all about the pleasure of a
woman's body,” Beans continued on in accented English, his eyebrows
waggling.

“The army, Beans. The army. What about
it?”

“Sure. Hell, yeah. Whatever.” Beans
acquiesced with a shrug. “I got nothin' better to do

Jesse groaned loudly and put his head in his
hands.

“Paulie?” Ambrose asked, ignoring Jesse's
distress. “You in?”

Paulie looked a little stricken, his loyalty
to his friends warring with his self-preservation. “Brose . . . I'm
a lover. Not a fighter,” he said seriously. “The only reason I
wrestled was to be with you guys, and you know how much I hated it.
I can't imagine combat.”

“Paulie?” Beans interjected.

“Yeah, Beans?”

“You may not be a fighter, but you aren't a
lover either. You need to get laid, too. Guys in uniform get laid.
A lot.”

“So do rock stars, and I am a lot better with
a guitar than I am with a gun,” Paulie countered. “Plus, you know
my mom would never let me.” Paul's dad had been killed in a mining
accident when he was nine years old and his younger sister was a
baby. His mom had moved back home to Hannah Lake with her two
little kids to be closer to her parents and ended up staying.

“You may have hated wrestling, Paulie. But
you were good at it. You'll be a good soldier, too.”

Paulie chewed his lip but didn't answer and
the car fell silent, each boy lost in his own thoughts.

“Marley wants to get married,” Jesse said
after a long lull. “I love her, but . . . everything is moving so
damn fast. I just want to wrestle. Surely some school out West
wants a black kid that likes white people, right?”

“She wants to get married?” Beans was
stunned. “We're only eighteen! You better come with us, Jess. You
gotta grow up some before you let Marley put a collar on you. Plus,
you know the saying. Brose Before 'Ho's,” he quipped, playing on
Ambrose's name.

Jesse sighed in surrender. “Ah, hell. America
needs me. How can I say no?”

Groans and laughter ensued. Jesse had always
had a pretty inflated ego.

“Hey, doesn't the army have a wrestling
team?” Jesse sounded almost cheerful at the thought.

“Paulie?” Ambrose asked again. Paulie was the
lone hold-out, and out of everyone, Paulie would be the hardest for
him to leave behind. He hoped he wouldn't have to.

“I don't know, man. I guess I gotta grow up
sometime. I bet my dad would be proud of me if I did. My great
grandpa served in WWII. I just don't know.” He sighed. “Joining the
army seems like a good way to get myself killed.”

There wasn't a fancy hotel or a posh location
anywhere near Hannah Lake to have the Prom, so Hannah Lake High
School made do decorating their gymnasium with hundreds of
balloons, twinkle lights, hay bales, fake trees, gazebos, or
whatever the prom theme dictated.

This year's theme was “I Hope You Dance,” an
inspirational song which offered no inspiration with regard to
decorating ideas. So the twinkle lights and balloons and gazebos
made yet another appearance at yet another Hannah Lake High School
Prom, and as Fern sat next to Bailey, staring out onto the
gymnasium floor filled with swirling couples, she wondered if the
only thing that had changed in fifty years was the style of the
dresses.

Fern fiddled with the neckline of her own
dress, smoothing her hand over the creamy folds, swishing her legs
back and forth, watching the way the skirt draped to the floor,
thrilling at the hint of gold sparkle when the fabric caught the
light. She and her mother had found the dress on a clearance rack
at a Dillards in Pittsburg. It had been marked down over and over
again, most likely because it was a dress made for a tiny girl in a
color that was not fashionable among tiny girls. But taupe looked
good on red heads, and the dress looked wonderful on Fern.

She had posed for pictures with Bailey in the
Taylor's living room with the bodice pulled up around her chin the
way her mother liked it, but two seconds after she left the house
she pushed the ruffled neckline off her shoulders and felt almost
pretty for the first time in her life.

Fern hadn't been asked to the big dance.
Bailey hadn't asked anyone either. He had joked that he didn't want
to make any girl dread going to her prom. He'd said it with a
smile, but there was a flash of something mournful in his face.
Self-pity wasn't Bailey's style, and his comment surprised Fern. So
she asked Bailey if he would go with her. It was Prom, and they
could sit home and sulk that they didn't have dates or they could
go together. They were cousins, and it was completely lame, but
being uncool was better than missing out. And it wasn't like going
to Prom together would cause any image problems. They were both the
epitome of lame–literally in Bailey's case, figuratively in Fern's.
It wouldn't be a night for romance, but Fern had a dress for her
Prom and a date too, even if it wasn't a conventional one.

Bailey was outfitted in a black tux with a
pleated white shirt and a black bow tie. His curls were moussed and
artfully placed, making him look a little like Justin from N'Sync .
. . at least that's what Fern thought. Couples rocked back and
forth, their feet barely moving, arms locked around each other.

Fern tried not to imagine how it would feel
to be pressed up against someone special, dancing at her Prom. She
wished briefly that she was there with someone who could hold her.
Fern felt a flash of remorse and looked at Bailey guiltily, but his
eyes were locked on a girl in hot pink sparkles with cascading
blonde hair. Rita.

Becker Garth held her tightly and nuzzled her
neck, whispering to her as they moved, his dark hair a striking
contrast to her pale tresses. Becker, who had more confidence that
he deserved and a swagger that some smaller men develop out of a
need to make themselves seem bigger, was twenty-one and too old for
a high school Prom. But Rita was in the early stages of
infatuation, and the dreamy look on her face as she gazed at him
made her more beautiful still.

“Rita looks so pretty.” Fern smiled, happy
for their friend.

“Rita always looks pretty,” Bailey said, his
eyes still held captive. Something in his tone made Fern's heart
constrict. Maybe it was the fact that she, Fern, never felt pretty.
Maybe it was the fact that Bailey had noticed and was captured by
something Fern thought he was immune to, something she thought he
put little value in. Now here he was, her cousin, her best friend,
her partner in crime, lured in like all the rest. And if Bailey
Sheen fell for the pretty face, there was no hope for Fern. Ambrose
Young would surely never look at one so plain.

It always came back to Ambrose.

He was there, surrounded by his friends.
Ambrose, Grant, and Paulie seemed to have come without dates, much
to the despair of the senior class girls who sat home, uninvited to
their Senior Prom. Resplendent in black tuxes, young and handsome,
slicked up and clean-shaven, they celebrated with everyone and no
one in particular.

“I'm going to ask Rita to dance,” Bailey said
suddenly, his wheelchair lurching out onto the floor as if he had
just stumbled on the decision and he was going for it before he
lost his nerve.

“Wh-what?” Fern stuttered. She sincerely
hoped Becker Garth wouldn't be a jerk. She watched in equal parts
fascination and fear as Bailey motored up alongside Rita as she and
Becker looped hands to walk off the floor.

Rita smiled at Bailey and laughed at
something he said. Leave it to Bailey; he was definitely not short
on charm. Becker scowled and walked right past Bailey, as if he
wasn't worth stopping, but Rita dropped his hand and, without
waiting for Becker's permission, sat gingerly on Bailey's lap and
looped her arms around his shoulders. A new song pulsed from the
speakers, Missy Elliott demanding to “Get Ur Freak On,” and Bailey
made his wheelchair spin in circles, round and round, until Rita
was laughing and clinging to him, her hair a blonde wave across his
thin chest.

Fern bobbed her head with the music, wiggling
in place, laughing at her audacious friend. Bailey was fearless.
Especially considering Becker Garth still stood on the dance floor,
his arms crossed unhappily, waiting for the song to be over. If
Fern were a beautiful girl, she might dare go up and try to
distract him, maybe ask him to dance so that Bailey could have his
moment without Becker chaperoning. But she wasn't. So she gnawed at
her fingernail and hoped for the best.