My Life in Black and White (6 page)

Clearly, this wasn’t going to be the abridged version. She was going to rehash my father’s entire courtship, play-by-play, right down to the fateful moment when he shows up at her dorm with a guitar and proceeds to serenade her. My mother has no choice. The minute she hears “Carolina in My Mind” she knows she will break Landry McCoy’s heart, confessing that she is not only in love with someone else, but she is also transferring to UVA to be with him.

“What’s your point?” I asked, cutting my mother off.

“My point?” She looked surprised.

“Your reason. For telling me this.”

“It’s the Laundry McCoy Story,” Ruthie said. “She doesn’t need a point.”

“Never mind,” I muttered. I felt an inexplicable lump in my throat, realizing that my mother had been so busy reminiscing the glory days she’d forgotten what we’d been talking about to begin with.

But I hadn’t forgotten. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ryan. It wasn’t just the roses. It was the texts he’d been sending, the pathetic attempts to apologize.

Lx, sry abt wht hapnd sat nite. (You should be.)

I f-d up bg time. (Yeah. You did.)

Let me x-plain. Pls? I lv u.

Lv?
Lv???
How much could Ryan love me if he did what he did? If he couldn’t even write the whole word?

“Honey,” my mother said, obviously catching the look on my face—well,
half
my face. “There’s a plan.”

“What?” I croaked.

“There’s a plan,” she repeated, “for you and Ryan. Just like there was for your father and me. Everything happens for a reason.”

“What’s Ryan got to do with it?” Ruthie asked, giving her soda one last, noisy slurp. I have never known anyone who drinks as much soda as my sister. No wonder she has so many zits.

“Nothing,” I told her. The last thing I needed was one of Ruthie’s cracks about me and Ryan—one of her Ken-and-Barbie comments.

“Whatever.” Ruthie shrugged and tossed her cup in the trash. The perfect ending to a conversation that never should have started.

The whole Ryan-not-showing-up-at-my-bedside situation was easy to explain to my family. We had a fight.

Taylor was harder.

After a week, I was allowed nonfamily visitors, and thirty girls arrived at my door. No joke. Thirty girls, fifteen balloons, eight teddy bears, six
People
magazines, three bags of Swedish fish, one
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
DVD, and one fruit basket. But no best friend.

“Lexi! Omigod! You look so good!”

Ironically, it was Heidi leading the pack, carrying the fruit basket. Heidi, whose lifeblood was Little Debbie snack cakes. “This is from me and Taylor,” she announced, walking ceremoniously across the room and lowering the basket to the foot of my bed. “We’re
so
sorry this happened to you, Lexi. Taylor
really
wanted to be here in person today, but…” Heidi paused, trying for an aggrieved expression but not quite pulling it off. “…she couldn’t make it.”

In the silence that followed, thirty arms were nudged, thirty knowing glances exchanged.

Suddenly, I understood why so many of them had shown up—girls I’d gone to school with and played field hockey with but wasn’t really friends with, girls I barely knew. It wasn’t compassion; it was morbid curiosity. They’d heard about Taylor hooking up with Ryan and wanted to witness the emotional fallout for themselves. Not to mention the carnage.

I took a deep breath, reminding myself that however I was feeling, my face was still bandaged. Whatever I looked like, no one could tell. And I wasn’t about to give Heidi the satisfaction of appearing anything but fine.

“Thanks, Heidi,” I said. Calm. Cheerful. Then, to the rest of them, “Thanks, you guys.”

“You’re welcome!” everyone chorused back.

Awkward silence followed. Made even more awkward by my mother launching into hostess mode, bustling around collecting teddy bears, offering Dixie cups of water, while out of nowhere my dad became a stand-up comedian.
How do you make a Venetian blind? … You poke him in the eye!

If Kendall and Rae hadn’t burst through the door in their sarongs and flip-flops, swooning over the male nurse they’d just met in the elevator, I might have yanked the IV out of my arm and run screaming out the door.

“Omigod, you guys, he was so hot!”

“He looked like Mario Lopez—”

“But with Justin Bieber’s nose—”

“I told him he could give me a sponge bath anytime—”

“Kendall gave him her number on a piece of toilet paper!” Rae shrieked, and everyone laughed. Except my dad, who shook his head, as if to say, statutory rape is no laughing matter.

“Omigod, Lexi!” Rae suddenly said.

And Kendall said, “You look so good!”

As they ran over to hug me, apologizing for being late—they’d been at the beach—I felt a rush of tears that I couldn’t explain. “Thanks for coming,” I said. Because that is what you say when your friends come visit you in the hospital. And even though I
was
thankful, Kendall and Rae being there only made me feel worse. Their presence made Taylor’s absence all the more glaring.

“Where was Taylor?” Ruthie asked as soon as everyone left.

I shrugged.

“Did something happen with you guys?”

“Gee, Ruthie, I don’t know. Her brother just decided it would be fun to drive me into a tree.”

My dad cleared his throat and said, “Maybe a little distance from Taylor is a good thing. Until we determine the legality of this situation.”

“Jeff.” My mother frowned delicately. “We’ve discussed this. We are not going to sue the LeFevres.”

“Well,
someone
needs to take responsibility here, Laine.
Someone
is going to need to cover these medical bills. Do you know what our deductible is?”

The minute the conversation stopped including me, I reached for my cell. Just to torture myself, I listened to Taylor’s voice mails, starting with the gem she’d left me the morning after the accident. Eight days ago. But who was counting?

“Lex, oh my God … I heard what happened. Well, obviously, since Jar was driving … I can’t believe he was driving … anyway … I’m freaking out here. Call me when you can, ’kay? I’ll keep my phone on.”

Oh, you’ll keep your phone on? Wow. You are such a good friend. You should win an award.

“Lex … it’s me again. Still freaking out … Call me.”

You’re freaking out? YOU’RE freaking out???

“Lex, hey … My mom talked to your dad and he said something about surgery…? Oh my God … I guess that’s why you haven’t called me back…”

Yeah. That’s why.

“…but could you at least text me? … I’m sooo sorry about everything. We need to talk. Please?”

It was unbelievable. Taylor spent a full fifteen voice mails pretending to care about my well-being, pretending to care that she hadn’t heard back from me. She throws out some lame, generic apology to assuage her guilt, and I’m supposed to call her back like everything’s fine? No mention of the party. No mention of Ryan. It was like she thought my brain had been so damaged in the accident I couldn’t remember what she’d done. Please.

I drove myself crazy, listening to Taylor’s voice mails.

And reading Ryan’s texts.

And picturing those thirty girls in my hospital room, nudging each other, exchanging glances.

I went certifiably insane trying to make sense of it all. Why Taylor and Ryan did what they did, how they could live with themselves, whether it was just the one night or if it had happened before. My head was spinning so fast, and my stomach was twisted up in so many knots that I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

I had no idea.

A Lifetime Supply
of Antimicrobial Soap

THE NEXT DAY I met with a new plastic surgeon, a specialist in reconstruction, who examined my face for all of two seconds before concluding that the skin wasn’t healing properly. I would need another procedure, a “split thickness skin graft,” taken from my buttocks. While my mother cried, I had one nauseating, hysterical thought.
I’ll be a butt-face! Literally!

As if that wasn’t preposterous enough, not thirty minutes after Dr. Ass-Graft dropped his bomb, Taylor’s mom showed up. Unannounced. Holding an enormous cellophane-wrapped duck.

Seeing Mrs. LeFevre standing in the doorway of my hospital room, I felt a slow burble of crazy juice rising in my throat. I didn’t know whether to barf or cry.

“What is she doing here?”
I hissed to my mother, who was perched on a chair next to my bed.
“I told
you no more visitors.”

“You know what they say…” Taylor’s mom called gaily from across the room. “If Mohammed won’t answer her cell phone, the mountain will come to Mohammed!” She plopped the duck down on a chair and ran a bejeweled hand through her red, spiky hair. “You would not
believe
how crowded the gift shop was. Everyone and their
dog
seems to be having a baby today! All they had left were ducks!”

I watched my mom glide across the room like an ice dancer, her face morphing before my eyes. “Bree,” she chirped as though Taylor’s mom were a guest arriving for a dinner party. “It’s so good of you to come.”

“Hello, Laine.”

The mothers clasped fingertips.

“How are you holding up?”

“Fine, just fine. How are
you
holding up?”

You would think, watching the two of them, that they were old pals. But the truth was, even after all the years Taylor and I had been friends, our parents barely knew one another. Whenever they overlapped at school functions and sleepover drop-offs, they would exchange pleasantries, but that was about it. Taylor’s mom tried once, when we first moved to town, inviting my mother to one of her ladies’ cocktail parties. I never heard what happened. I just I remember my mother telling my dad she wouldn’t be doing
that
again.

Laine Mayer vs. Bree LeFevre was like milk vs. whisky. Talbots vs. Juicy Couture. If my mother were a bumper sticker, she would read
THAT’S NOT APPROPRIATE
. Taylor’s mom would read
WHY THE FUCK NOT?

“Oh, Lexi.” Mrs. LeFevre shifted her gaze to me. “Oh, sweet girl.” When she reached my bed, my ex–best friend’s mother took my hand in hers, cupping it gently. Her voice dropped three octaves. “I am
so
sorry this happened.”

“That’s okay,” I mumbled. The lie of the century.

Taylor’s mom held my hand tighter.

She read my palm once, I remember. It was during a thunderstorm. I was ten and I was sleeping over at Taylor’s when a humongous boom woke me up. I was so scared I ran downstairs, where Mrs. LeFevre was sitting alone at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of wine. She took my hand to comfort me, and then she started reading it. My heart line, she said, was the deepest she’d ever seen.

“Taylor is worried sick about you,” Mrs. LeFevre said now.

Right.

“She wanted to visit sooner, but since you didn’t return any of her calls…”

Uh-huh.

Mrs. LeFevre turned to my mother. “Taylor and Jarrod are down in the cafeteria, getting some ice cream to bring up for Lexi.”

Ice cream. Sure. That will fix everything.

“Oh!” my mother said brightly. “Alexa’s father and sister are in the cafeteria, too.”

“Oh?” Taylor’s mom said.

“Mm-hm. Maybe they’ll run into one another.”

Then, right on cue, like some terrible TV sitcom, the door opened. My dad, Ruthie, Mr. LeFevre, Jarrod, and Taylor filed in, one after the other. They reminded me of the conga line at my cousin Jody’s wedding. Only this time the band wasn’t playing “La Bamba,” and my father wasn’t laughing. His expression was downright grim.
Reckless driving,
his face said.
Reckless endangerment. Criminal prosecution. Compensatory injuries. DUI.

The conga line stood there. For a second, my one eye locked with Taylor’s, and a thousand flashbacks came over me. The two of us dressed as carrots in the school play. Sack racing across the green on July Fourth. In matching bubble dresses at the seventh-grade formal. Flopped on the LeFevres’ couch, watching
The Exorcist
, grabbing each other’s hands during the scary parts. One happy snapshot after another until up pops Taylor in a kelly-green halter and matching miniskirt, guilty as sin, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand as if to erase what she’s just done.

Suddenly, there were eight mouths too many sucking oxygen out of the room. Taylor’s mouth, shiny with lip gloss. Jarrod’s mouth, two slabs of rubber, one slimy, probing, sour-cream-and-onion tasting—
Oh God
.

My throat was squeezing shut.

I focused on the ceiling tiles, trying to breathe, but that didn’t help. So I heaved my legs over the side of the bed and lunged for the bathroom, dragging the IV pole along with me.