Making Faces (5 page)

“Wrestling season only started two weeks
ago.” Fern defended Ambrose even though she didn't need to. Ambrose
had no bigger fan than Bailey Sheen.

“But September 11th was two months ago, Fern.
And he's still not over it.”

Fern looked up at the grey-streaked sky
hanging heavily above their heads, tumultuous with the predicted
storm. The clouds were churning, and the winds had just started to
kick up. It was coming.

“None of us are, Bailey. And I don't think we
ever will be.”

Fern wrinkled her nose at the childish
missive and looked at Rita's hopeful face. Fern was not the only
one who had noticed Ambrose. Maybe because he was so involved with
wrestling, constantly traveling and practicing with very little
downtime, he hadn't had many girlfriends. His unavailability made
him an even hotter commodity, and Rita had decided she was going
after him. She showed Fern the note she had written for him,
complete with pink paper, hearts, and lots of perfume.

“Um, this is fine, Rita. But don't you want
to be original?”

Rita shrugged and looked confused. “I just
want him to like me.”

“But you wrote him a note because you want to
get his attention, right?”

Rita nodded emphatically. Fern looked at
Rita's angelic face, the way her long blonde hair swung around slim
shoulders and perfect breasts and felt a pang of despair. She was
pretty sure Rita already had Ambrose's attention.

“
She's such a beautiful child.”

Fern heard her mother speaking from the
kitchen, talking to Aunt Angie who sat by the screen door watching
Bailey and Rita sitting in the swings in Fern's backyard. Fern
needed to use the bathroom, but had come in through the garage
instead of the screen door so she could check on the turtle she and
Bailey had captured by the creek that morning. He was in a box
filled with leaves and everything else a turtle could ever want. He
hadn't moved and Fern wondered if maybe they had made a mistake to
take him from his home.

“
She almost doesn't look real.” Fern's
mother shook her head, pulling Fern's attention from the turtle.
“Those bright blue eyes and those perfect doll features.”

“
And that hair! It's white from root to
tip. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it,” Angie said.
“And yet she's brown as can be. She's got that rare combination of
white hair and golden skin.”

Fern stood awkwardly in the hallway,
listening to the two women talk about Rita, knowing that her mother
and aunt thought she was still in the backyard. Rita had moved to
Hannah Lake that summer with her mother, and Rachel Taylor, a
pastor's wife to her core, was the first to welcome the young
mother and her ten-year-old daughter. Before long, she was
arranging lunch dates and inviting Rita to come play with Fern.
Fern liked Rita. She was sweet and happy and willing to do whatever
Fern was doing. She didn't have a very good imagination, but Fern
had enough for both of them.

“
I think Bailey's smitten.” Angie laughed.
“He hasn't blinked since he laid eyes on her. It's funny how kids
are drawn to beauty just like the rest of us. Before you know it,
he's going to start demonstrating his wrestling skills and I'm
going to have to find a way to distract him, bless his heart. He
begged Mike to let him participate in the wrestling camp again.
Every year it's the same thing. He begs, he cries, and we have to
try to explain why he can't.”

There was silence in the kitchen as Angie
seemed lost in her thoughts and Rachel prepared sandwiches for the
kids, unable to protect Angie from the realities of Bailey's
disease.

“
Fern seems to like Rita, doesn't she?”
Angie changed the subject with a sigh but her eyes stayed fixed on
her son swinging back and forth, talking non-stop to the lovely
little blonde beside him.
“
It's good for her to have a
girlfriend. She spends all her time with Bailey, but she's going to
need a girlfriend as she gets older.”

It was Rachel's turn to sigh. “Poor
Fernie.”

Fern had turned to walk back down the hall
toward the restroom but stopped abruptly. Poor Fernie? She wondered
with a jolt if she had some disease, a disease like Bailey's that
her mother hadn't told her about. “Poor Fernie” sounded serious.
She listened intently.

“
She's not pretty the way that Rita is.
Her teeth are going to need some major work, but she's still so
small and she hasn't lost most of her baby teeth. Maybe when all
her permanent teeth grow in it won't be as bad. At the rate she's
growing, she's going to be in braces when she's twenty-five.”
Fern's mother laughed. “I wondered if she would be jealous of Rita.
But so far, she seems unaware of their physical
differences.”

“
Our little, funny, Fernie,” Angie said, a
smile in her voice. “You can't find a better kid than Fern. I am
thankful every day for her. She is such a blessing to Bailey. God
knew what he was doing when he made them family, Rachel. He gave
them each other. Such a tender mercy.”

But Fern was rooted to the spot. She
didn't hear the word blessing. She didn't stop to ponder what it
meant to be one of God's tender mercies.
She's
not pretty
. The words clanged around in her head like pots
and pans being jostled and banged.
She's not
pretty. Little, funny Fernie. She's not pretty. Poor
Fernie.

“Fern!” Rita shouted her name and waved her
hand in front of Fern's face. “Hello? Where did you go? What should
I say?”

Fern shook off the old memory. Funny how some
things stuck with you.

“What if you say something like, 'Even when
you're not around, you're all I see. You're all I think about. I
wonder, is your heart as beautiful as your face? Is your mind as
fascinating as the play of muscle beneath your skin? Is it possible
that you might think about me too?'“ Fern paused and looked at
Rita.

Rita's eyes were very round. “Oh, that's
good. Did you write that in one of your romance novels?” Rita was
one of the only people who knew Fern wrote love stories and dreamed
of having them published.

“I don't know. Probably.” Fern smiled
sheepishly.

“Here! Write it down,” Rita squealed, pulling
out a paper and a pencil and shoving them into Fern's hands.

Fern tried to remember what she had said. It
came out even better the second time. Rita giggled and danced up
and down as Fern finished the love note with a flourish. She signed
Rita's name dramatically. Then she handed the note to Rita, who
pulled some perfume from her backpack, gave the paper a spritz,
folded it up, and addressed it to Ambrose.

Ambrose didn't respond immediately. In fact,
it took him a few days. But on day four, there was an envelope in
Rita's locker. She opened it with shaking hands. She read silently,
her brow furrowed and she clutched Fern's arm as if she was reading
a winning lottery ticket.

“Fern! Listen!” she breathed.

“
She walks in beauty, like the
night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;”

Fern’s eyebrows shot up and disappeared
beneath her too-long bangs.

“He's almost as good a writer as you are,
Fern!”



“He's better,” Fern said dryly, blowing a
stray curl out of her eyes. “The guy who wrote that is better
anyway.”

“He just signed it with an A,” Rita
whispered. “He wrote me a poem! I can't believe it!”

“Uh, Rita? That's by Lord Byron. It's very
famous.”

Rita's face fell, and Fern rushed to console
her.

“But it's awesome that Ambrose would quote .
. . Lord Byron . . . in a letter . . . to you, I mean,” she
reassured haltingly. Actually, it
was
pretty awesome. Fern
didn't think many eighteen-year-old guys regularly quoted famous
poetry to beautiful girls. She was suddenly very impressed. Rita
was too.

“We have to write him back! Should we write a
famous poem, too?”

“Maybe.” Fern pondered, her head tilted to
the side.

“I could make up my own poem.” Rita looked
doubtful for several seconds. Then her face lit up and she opened
her mouth to speak.

“Don't start with roses are red, violets are
blue!” Fern warned, knowing intuitively what was coming.

“Darn,” Rita pouted, closing her mouth again.
“I wasn't going to say violets are blue! I was going to say, ‘roses
are red and sometimes pink. I'd really like to kiss you, I
think.’”

Fern giggled and swatted her friend. “You
can't say that after he's just sent you
She Walks in
Beauty.”

“The bell is going to ring.” Rita slammed her
locker shut. “Will you please write something for me, Fern?
Pleeeeeaase? You know I'm not going to be able to come up with
anything good!” Rita saw Fern's hesitation and begged sweetly until
Fern caved. And that's how Fern Taylor started writing love notes
to Ambrose Young.

1994

“
Whatcha doin'?” Fern asked, plopping down
on Bailey's bed and looking around his room. It had been a while
since she'd been in there. They usually played outside or in the
family room. His room had wrestling paraphernalia, primarily from
Penn State, all over his walls. Interspersed with the blue and
white were pictures of his favorite athletes, shots of his family
doing this and that, and piles of kid's books about everything from
history to sports to Greek and Roman mythology.

“
I'm making a list,” Bailey said briefly,
not lifting his eyes from his task.

“
What kind of a list?”

“
A list of all the things I want to
do.”