Skin

by Napoli, Donna Jo

  Joshua is good to be with—every sense of good—deep down clean and pure good. He talks without hesitation, about anything. And I do the same. It’s like we tumble together with abandon. We talk about things that have happened to us all through school. Big and little. We count on each other.

  When Devin told me she’d been waiting her whole life to fall in love, and asked what I’d been waiting for, I didn’t know. I really truly didn’t. Now I do; now that I have it, this is it. I had no idea that people, ordinary people, could feel such joy.

  The month of being grounded ended Monday. This weekend we have plans to go to our first party together. I am planning to dance with Joshua all night, dance crazy and wild, dance till I drop.

  In Jazz Dance Club Ms. Martin beams at me. Melanie gives me a thumbs up. But even without them, I’d know it. This body is on a roll.

  This is my happy blur. My blindingly colorful blur. It has nothing to do with white. I can almost forget white. I can almost forget vitiligo.

  I am lucky. So very lucky.

  That is the thought I have every morning, even as I pop my vitiligo vitamin pill.

  And, oh dear God, this is the thought I have right now. At 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I am standing here looking in the mirror and then I see it.

  The finger of white on my neck now juts past where a turtleneck can hide it. It splits and then splits again, like the tree-shape of a neuron. And, oh Lord, I see something else. My fingers reach up to my face toward the faint hint of a new spot going off from the top of the right side of my upper lip to my cheek, a hint that will assert itself if not tomorrow, then soon. Very soon. It’s the size and shape of one of those ugly, fat, green worms that sometimes attack Mamma’s tomato plants. My stomach turns.

  Time has run out.

  People battle time in a thousand ways. Women turning forty rush to get pregnant before they dry up forever. New parents take nine hundred photos of each stage of their baby’s life before it’s gone for eternity.

  I rushed. And I made it in time. And now it’s over. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes till the tears stop.

  I’ve been lucky. I had more than a month with Joshua. Lucky.

  Probably luckier than most girls. I bet first loves are full of insecurities about hair and teeth and breasts and pockets of fat, even the pitch of your voice and little speech habits you have and the way you talk too much and your stupid laugh and how you chew too loud and all that—all the things you’re afraid someone else won’t like. I didn’t have that. Every time one of those anxieties dared to pop up, I just squelched it—I had no energy for it. It took all my effort just to hide my big secret… somehow I managed to shove it to some very deep and ancient part of my brain—maybe even to the brain stem, where it couldn’t interfere with anything. My breathing, my heartbeat, my blood pressure, they all went on in spite of everything I was hiding. Joshua and me—we went on in spite of it. We were bigger than it. We were immune.

  Except we weren’t.

  All that about tumbling together with abandon—what bullshit. I am the worst liar alive.

  I tie a scarf around my neck and don’t pack a lunch. I meet up with Devin and Becca and walk to school, silent, unable to even listen to them. I go to my first class. Then my second. Then the library. Joshua’s waiting in the lunchroom, of course. I should tell him. But I don’t want to risk crying at school. He’ll assume something came up. He has a way of assuming the best.

  I go to my third class, and fourth. I go to Jazz Dance Club. I take a shower.

  Becca stands by her locker and asks, “What’s up with the scarf?”

  I realize now I wore it in the shower. I am a total flake. Now I’ll have to go outside with a soaking scarf. I shake my head as Becca leaves.

  “In the dumps?” asks Melanie.

  I cannot look at her. If I meet anyone’s eyes, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold it in.

  “Think pink,” she says.

  I don’t even care what that means.

  When I go outside there’s Owen, reliable Owen, my Wednesday walk-home partner. Will Owen get labeled a freak when I am? Do I owe it to him to shoo him away?

  Nah. It’s no reflection on him that he walks home with me. No one will give him shit over it. Besides, if they do, or if he can’t stand the sight of me, or whatever, he can simply stop.

  We walk home and he tells me about some mathematical construct he’s learned about called a lattice. In some other world, I think I might even care.

  When I look at my cell after dinner, there’s Joshua’s message: “what’s up? where were u 2day?”

  I don’t want to answer.

  But I have to. I can’t let him just wonder. The sooner he faces reality, the better.

  There are nine hundred things I could say, ways I could ease into it. But what’s the point? It’s like when Nonna, my grandmother, was dying. Mamma spent a lot of time preparing us. But it hurt just the same as when Nonno simply dropped dead out of the blue. Gone is gone.

  I type: “its over.”

  “whats over?”

  I type: “u and me.”

  “what r u talking about?”

  I turn off the cell and double over in pain. I’ve just plunged headfirst onto a sword. What must he be feeling?

  I stretch out on the floor and take slow, deep breaths, but the huge ache won’t stop.

  I hold up the cell. Dead.

  There are reasons why I did that. Right now, though, I can’t think of a single one. I am the stupidest person in the world. No, I’m a nonperson. I’m not here, inside this body. I’m nowhere.

  The kitchen phone rings. I yell out, “If it’s for me, say I died and moved to Minneapolis.” Because if I talk to him now, I’ll lose my resolve. Everything will spill out and then he’ll be in the muck with me. Mired.

  I do my homework and go to bed early. But I can’t sleep. I toss all night. When the alarm rings, I want to throw the clock across the room. But I don’t. I don’t do anything. What’s the use?

  I look in the mirror. The spot on my face is still faint, like a whisper. The one on my neck is more distinct. And they’re not spots—that’s what Dr. Ratner calls them, but he’s wrong. None of them are spots. They’re blotches. Fat or skinny, they are horrible blotches.

  I have one scarf in the world. So I tie it around my neck again.

  Thursday is a repeat of Wednesday. I wonder if I’ll lose weight, skipping lunch every day.

  Joshua’s waiting for me as I come out of my last class of the day. “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t talk.”

  “Why not?”

  I walk faster.

  He steps in front of me. “Sep. Please. What happened?”

  “I can’t see you anymore.” I look down at my shoes.

  “Please look at me.”

  I won’t cry here. I won’t. He has to leave me alone. For his own good—not just mine. But I owe him something; I force myself to look in his face.

  His cheeks are flushed. His eyes glisten. “Did your parents find out? Because if they did…”

  “No. It’s not them.”

  “Then what? What happened?”

  I press my lips together so hard they go numb.

  “Did I do something? Tell me, Sep. I don’t know what I did, and anyone has a right to that. Just tell me. Give me half a chance.”

  “You didn’t do anything. No one did. You were wonderful, Joshua. You are wonderful. It just happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “Something awful. Or I think it’s going to get awful. And you shouldn’t be part of it.”

  “I am part of it.”

  “No, you’re not. And you won’t want to be. Trust me. I have to face this alone.”

  “Whatever it is, I am part of it—because I’m with you.”

  I shake my head. “I have to go, Joshua.”

  “Are you pregnant?” he whispers.

  “No!” He knows when I had my period and when we
last slept together, so how can he ask that? I close my eyes and press the heels of my hands against my eyelids to stop the rush of tears. When I think I have it under control, I look at him again and murmur, “It isn’t going to work. We’re not going to work. And I really—really, really, really—can’t talk about it.”

  His mouth drops open. His cheeks go slack. He looks like he’ll cry, too. He lifts his hands out to both sides, then drops them. “I don’t believe this.” And his voice cracks midsentence.

  “It’s for your own good,” I whisper.

  “What does that mean?”

  I turn and run.

  Another evening of homework. And text messages I don’t answer. Another night of twisting the sheets into knots.

  Friday morning the tomato worm on my face is distinct. I stare in the mirror. It’s so ugly, my stomach pitches. I retch into the toilet. I can’t do this.

  I go back to bed. I put a pillow over my face. Could a person hold a pillow down with enough force to smother herself or would she pass out before she could die?

  “Hey, Slut, Ma says to get your ass down to the kitchen now.”

  I press the pillow harder.

  Dante rips it off my face. He’s staring down at me. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah, holy shit, little brother.”

  “Ma’s waiting.”

  “Tell her I died.”

  Dante walks to the door.

  “Give me back my pillow.”

  He looks at me, then he leaves, with the pillow.

  The idiot actually thought I might kill myself. That’s how bad he thinks I look.

  I stare at the green seahorse on the back of my hand. I stamped it there yesterday morning. It barely shows now. I could put green seahorses all over my face.

  “Pina?” Mamma comes into the room. She sits on the bed beside me. She gathers my hands in hers.

  “I’m not going to school today.”

  “All right.”

  “All right?” I sit up, rigid with instant fury. “Really? Are you going to let me stay in my room for the rest of my life?”

  “You won’t want to stay here for the rest of your life. But for today, yes. You can stay here.”

  “Don’t be reasonable with me.”

  She hugs me.

  I beat at her.

  And she keeps hugging. Till we’re both crying.

  But it doesn’t help.

  The day is long and boring. I sleep on and off. I don’t brush my teeth or comb my hair. Once I glance in the mirror and put both hands in my hair and thrash it around. I look like some lunatic in a B horror movie, the madwoman from the woods.

  I read. I surf the Internet.

  Mamma comes home at four. “Get your clothes on. We have an appointment with Dr. Ratner.”

  “You go.”

  She pulls the covers off me. “He was nice enough to fit us in at the end of his day. We’re showing up.”

  “What am I supposed to do, put a bag over my head?”

  “Just get your clothes on.”

  “Medicine can’t do anything for me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I hate you,” I yell.

  She goes to my closet, takes out a pair of jeans, and tosses them on the foot of my bed. “We’re going. Ten minutes.”

  THE CREAM IS NOT a bad match for my skin. Dr. Ratner is pretty observant. And so apologetic about how long it took for his order to arrive that I have to tell him it’s all right to make him feel better. I rub it onto the back of my hand slowly. The color doesn’t blend perfectly, but it’s not bad.

  He’s writing in my chart, but I know he’s checking me out with his peripheral vision. He’s trying to be discreet. Like Mr. Weisskopf, saying he didn’t get a good look at the teens in his gazebo.

  All these adults who think they’re so kind. They think they know what it’s like. But they don’t. They can’t even guess.

  I can feel the fury ignite inside me again. Control it. Breathe deep. Count to nine hundred. Whatever it takes. Just don’t keep yelling at people.

  Except I haven’t yelled at people. Only at Mamma. I look at her.

  She’s watching me.

  “I’m sorry, Mamma.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  Dr. Ratner looks inquisitively from me to Mamma and back to me.

  “I yell at her,” I say. “Please don’t tell me not to. I already know I suck.”

  “Rage is a normal reaction, Sep.” Dr. Ratner scratches his ear.

  Does he realize he just used the N-word with me: normal? Is he about to apologize?

  Dr. Ratner looks at me and raises his brows. “Well, what do you think of that cream?”

  “Little old normal me will use it.”

  He blinks at my tone, and now I’ve hurt him, too. I really do suck.

  “It’s simply cosmetic,” he says. “It won’t change anything. But this brand doesn’t come off that easily, so you don’t have to worry when you work up a sweat or get caught in the rain.”

  “Great.”

  “And here.” He hands me a sheet of paper.

  It has the words Changing Faces and a phone number and a web address.

  “What’s this?”

  “A group that might help.”

  I reread the words. Then I get it. “A bunch of freaks like me? Sitting around moaning?”

  “It’s a support group. It can help to know you’re not the only one.”

  “Misery loves company.”

  “People find different ways to deal. You can learn.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m smart. Aren’t you going to tell me I’m smart, Dr. Ratner?”

  He looks me in the eye. “You’re smart, Sep. Good luck.”

  I skip Corina’s party that night, of course. The party that would have been our coming-out party. Joshua texts me. I don’t answer.

  Then Devin texts me. “hey? u sick?”

  I type: “vitiligo wins.” And tears roll down my cheeks again. I delete it. I need to see her face-to-face. I type: “skipped school, thats all.”

  “u never skip school”

  I type: “i did today.”

  “im about to go to the movies with C.”

  And she worried about me when she was waiting for her date? Good old Devin. I type: “have fun”

  “thnx. hey, J just texted me. hes upset. whats going on?”

  So that’s it. I type: “forget it”

  “oops, Cs here. gotta run”

  “have fun”

  “feel better”

  It’s funny Joshua would ask Devin for help. I’m glad now that I didn’t tell her how bad the vitiligo has gotten. This month changed things; Joshua became the person closest to me. If my vitiligo had started after we were already together, he’s the one I would have told. And now, if I was going to tell anyone that vitiligo has won, it should be him.

  But I’m not going to tell him—so I’m not going to tell anyone. At least that way I’m not betraying him even more.

  If this is crazy thinking, well, it’s the best I can do.

  And so the regimen begins. I buy tan and brown and olive turtlenecks. That way if some of the cream gets on them, it doesn’t show that easily. Black and white were disasters. Luckily the weather has changed, and turtlenecks make sense now.

  I put the seahorse stamp in my bottom drawer, along with the green ink. And I get a star stamp and blue ink. So that takes care of the back of my hand.

  I wear my lipstick, of course.

  And I paint the worm on my face with Dr. Ratner’s miracle cream.

  I am completely hidden. And better dressed than ever before. And I’m the one who thought vitiligo victims were ridiculous to go into hiding. In fact, I thought the word victim was melodramatic. I knew nothing.

  I march to school in disguise. I march home in disguise.

  No one knows.

  For now.

  In the first
days Devin asked me a dozen times why I dumped Joshua. But then she stopped, like she just forgot it. She’s too busy with Charlie. They text each other maybe twenty times a day. Maybe nine hundred. She doesn’t have time to think about me.

  Just like I was too busy to think about her the whole time I was with Joshua.

  Guys do that. They slide into a girl’s life like a thick layer of honey, blocking off the air.

  Honey. I could smear myself with honey and go lie outside and see if Dad’s fox comes to eat me.

  He’s still around, that fox. He ate Sarah’s dead mouse—when? God, it was three weeks ago already. I put it on a brick in the backyard, and the next morning Dad was so excited. He told all of us he saw the fox run up to the brick, snatch something, run halfway back to the bushes, stop to chew up the mystery meal, then disappear.

  Mamma asked who put a brick in the middle of the yard. But I wouldn’t fess up. I don’t know why. These days I hardly talk, but I did then. I was happy then. I was with Joshua.

  Anyway, Dad now leaves treats for Foxy on an irregular basis. He’s convinced himself that the fox will come consistently if the food appears less than consistently. He thinks any wild animal will instinctively resist a regular food source that obviously isn’t natural, otherwise they’d risk becoming tame, and tame foxes have no place in this world.

  I don’t know how Dad arrived at his reasoning. He’s wrong. In Biology we’re now on evolution and heredity, and Mr. Dupris told us canines are the earliest known mammalian carnivores. Mr. Dupris turns out to love foxes. One of his favorite experiments is by these scientists from Harvard who are studying foxes in Siberia. They’ve found out foxes can be tamed. No one expected that—they thought domestication had been bred into wolf-descended canines over centuries. But now they think a dog’s sensitivity to human emotions has nothing to do with biology. Maybe it’s just that when you aren’t afraid of someone, when you don’t have to fight them, you can understand them better. At least if you’re a canine. Maybe this fox has Dad all figured out, and he knows that if he keeps coming around, Dad will put out food now and then.