My Life in Black and White

by Natasha Friend

  “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.

  “Alexa?” my mother called from across the room. “Honey, are you okay?”

  No, I am not okay. I am not okay because … well, because I just remembered this crazy thing I did.

  I kissed Jarrod LeFevre.

  Correction, I let Jarrod LeFevre kiss me.

  We were getting into his car and—given the hideousness of the scene I’d just witnessed between Taylor and Ryan and the beer I’d just chugged in the LeFevres’ kitchen—I was feeling more than a little deranged. So when Jarrod looked at me and said, point blank, how hot I was, I sort of giggled. “Oh, really?” I said. And he said, “Yeah. Really.” Taylor’s brother had been flirting with me for years, and I had never given him the time of day. Now, I was flirting back. I had the sudden realization that Jarrod was about to kiss me, and when he leaned in to make his move, I did nothing. I didn’t say no. Or stop. Or, “Get off me, numnuts, your breath stinks.” I did … nothing.

  “Lex?” My father’s voice was at the door. “You okay in there?”

  I stood at the sink, staring down at a bottle of antimicrobial soap. There was a mirror on the wall, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. Not yet.

  I thought about telling my dad I was sick so he’d send the LeFevres home, but I couldn’t give Taylor the satisfaction. Taylor and her stupid cork-soled sandals with the four-inch heels, the same ones she was wearing the night of the party. I wanted to kick her right in the knobby knees.

  “Lex?” my dad said again.

  I turned on the water. Screw Taylor, I thought as I pumped soap into my cupped palm. The smell was so strong my eyes burned. Screw Jarrod, too. I dried my hands on the hem of my hospital johnny.

  What were they even doing here? That was the question. Probably their parents dragged them, because no way would they show their faces voluntarily.

  “There she is!” Taylor’s father boomed as I emerged from the bathroom. His voice sounded fake, more like a game-show host than a sportscaster. Let’s tell the lovely lady what she’s won, folks! … A lifetime supply of antimicrobial soap!

  Knowing Mr. LeFevre as I did, his smile was an act. Back home, he must have blown a gasket about the party. Yelled. Thrown things across the room. He’d probably placed Taylor and Jarrod under house arrest, letting them out just to visit me.

  “Beans?” My father’s voice was low in my ear. His hand was on my elbow. “You okay?”

  I nodded, fixing my gaze across the room. From the waist down, Mr. LeFevre and Jarrod were twins. The same tan, hairy legs. The same shiny brown loafers without socks.

  How could a guy who sweats as much as Jarrod possibly justify no socks? The night of the party, his hands were so clammy they left streaks on the dashboard. When he kissed me, I tasted salt—the tang of sweat from his upper lip. Salty, slobbery, jam-it-down-your-throat kisses. Not like Ryan. More like a rabid Saint Bernard. A rabid, sweaty, slobbery—

  “Lexi?”

  Waffle cone.

  “I brought you some … uh…”

  Waffle cone, in my face.

  “…Heath Bar Crunch.”

  Suddenly, Jarrod was standing beside me. One arm in a sling. The other, tan and bare, holding a waffle cone. He was so close. So close I could smell him. So close I could feel the pressure of his fingers on mine, the heat coming off his skin just like it had that night.

  I tried to think of something to say, the perfect insult to hurl. But instead of words, it was ice cream. I didn’t plan to do it. It just happened. Now, Heath Bar Crunch was splattered all over the wall, an explosion of white and brown, like a Jackson Pollock painting.

  The room was dead silent.

  Before anyone could speak, I yanked my arm away from my father and stumbled back into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

  When the LeFevres were gone, Ruthie convinced our parents to disappear so we could have some sister time. I don’t know what surprised me more: the fact that they listened, or Ruthie’s use of the term sister time.

  Ruthie and I weren’t like most sisters. We lived in the same house, obviously, but we didn’t bond the way Kendall and her sister, Claire, bonded. We didn’t gossip about boys, or swap nail polish, or stay up late talking. And we didn’t really fight, either. Because, well, what was there to fight about? We were nothing alike. We had totally different interests. Most of the time we were so busy living our separate lives that we barely noticed each other, let alone engaged in passionate conversation.

  I watched Ruthie now, picking up the box of chocolates Mr. LeFevre had brought and tearing open the cellophane with her teeth—a move that our mother would call “crass.” But did Ruthie care? No. My sister didn’t worry what anyone thought of her. She just let her freak-flag fly. Today she was wearing a variation on her summer uniform: vintage concert T-shirt (The Kinks) and cutoff jeans (stained). Her long, dark hair had zero shape. If you saw her on the street, here is what you would think: drugs. But as far as I knew, my sister had never tried anything stronger than Tylenol. Not that she would tell me if she had.

  “So,” Ruthie said, plucking a chocolate from its paper skirt and popping it into her mouth. “Are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, playing dumb.

  “The accident, Lex.”

  I pushed a finger up under the gauze on my face, trying to scratch. The worst part about stitches isn’t the pain; it’s the itch. You have to be gentle when you scratch, though. Otherwise it hurts like hell.

  “Lex.”

  “What?” I said. “I told you. Jarrod was driving and we ran off the road. End of story.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ruthie bent over the chocolates, plucking out another. “So what about the beginning of the story?”

  What was I doing in Jarrod’s car in the first place? she wanted to know. Where were we going? And what actually caused the crash? An oil slick, a squirrel in the road, what?

  I remember my father saying once that Ruthie would make a great lawyer. I’d witnessed enough debates between the tw
o of them to know that my sister could strip an argument down to its bones, poke holes in any claim. I could avoid Ruthie’s questions for a few hours, maybe a day. Eventually, she’d wear me down.

  “Fine,” I said. “But you can’t tell Dad.”

  Ruthie raised an eyebrow.

  “Or Mom.”

  “Agreed,” she said.

  So I began at the beginning, sparing no detail.

  The only time Ruthie interrupted was when I got to the part about Taylor and Ryan.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. “That explains a lot.”

  “What?”

  “Your boyfriend’s conspicuous absence, for one.”

  “Ex-boyfriend.”

  “Whatever. And Taylor acting all weird and twitchy.”

  “I didn’t notice,” I said. As if I hadn’t been watching Taylor’s every move.

  Ruthie looked at me. “Are you serious? She was biting her nails the whole time. I’d be surprised if she had any left.”

  “She can bite off her arms for all I care.”

  “Tell me how you really feel.”

  I knew I sounded bitter, but I didn’t care. I kept going with my story, knowing that when I got to the worst part—the part I’d suddenly remembered when Jarrod was handing me the waffle cone—my sister would go ape. Or catatonic with shock. The last thing I expected was laughter. Ruthie laughed so hard, in fact, she choked, and the half-chewed chocolate in her mouth went flying out onto the floor.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded. “He pulled down his pants while he was driving. In the middle of the Merritt Parkway! He wanted me to touch it!”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not funny, it’s just—”

  “There is nothing remotely funny about this, Ruthie! I am in the hospital. I’m … Look at me! My face is … WOULD YOU STOP EATING THOSE STUPID THINGS?!”

  I ripped the box of chocolates out of my sister’s hands. Then, without thinking, I popped one in my mouth.

  Ruthie blinked at me. “Oh my God.”

  “What?”

  “You’re eating candy.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t eat candy, like, ever.”

  I shrugged. Ruthie was right. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten candy. Or anything fattening. Now, grabbing an Enzo’s Bakery box off the bedside table, I imagined what my mother would say if she could see me. Remember, Alexa. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips. Or, Nothing tastes as good as looking good feels.

  Normally, those words would stop me cold. But right now, the sugar crystals on these blueberry muffins were twinkling like stars. For the past eight days, all I’d been eating was yogurt and oatmeal. “Screw it,” I said, lifting a muffin out of the box and shoving the whole thing in my mouth. My jaw hurt, but the taste was worth it.

  “Nice,” Ruthie said.

  Ruthie, who’d never dieted a day in her life, never counted a calorie or a fat gram, never scooped out the guts of a bagel and eaten just the shell. My sister had no idea how lucky she was. She could wear what she wanted, eat what she wanted, and my mother wouldn’t say a word. Ruthie was “the smart one,” “the gifted one.” The rules didn’t apply to her.

  “So,” Ruthie said, getting back to the matter at hand. “Did you touch it?”

  I shook my head. My mouth was one huge, sweet, cakey gob of muffin, juicy with berries. I couldn’t swallow.

  “Take your time,” she said.

  Finally, my throat was clear. “He kept trying to make me, but I kept pulling my hand away. We got in this huge fight. He called me a tease, and I was like, ‘All I wanted was a ride home, five blocks, not some joyride across Connecticut,’ and the whole time he was still trying to grab my hand and put it on his … you know … God, what an idiot.”

  My sister snorted. “I can think of a lot stronger words than idiot to describe Jarrod LeFevre.”

  “Not Jarrod. Me.” Suddenly, my eyeballs were burning, but I wouldn’t let the tears fall. Instead, I blurted, “I took off my seat belt! In the middle of the Merritt! I took off my seat belt and opened the door and—”

  “Wait a second.” Ruthie cut me off. “You opened the door… of a moving car?”

  “No! … I mean, yes, but it’s not what you think. I wasn’t really going to jump. I was just threatening to … you know, to get him to leave me alone … but he must have thought I was serious because he kept yelling, ‘Shut the door! Shut the door!’ And I couldn’t … I tried, but we were going too fast … I didn’t want to fall out.” I shook my head, pounding my thigh with one fist. “Idiot!”

  “Listen to me,” Ruthie said firmly. “You are not an idiot. Anyone in that situation … I might have done the same thing.”

  Right. Like “the smart one” would ever go to a party to begin with, let alone hop into a car with the captain of the football team. I remember her saying once, “I don’t get adolescent social rituals.”

  But I didn’t argue with my sister. I kept going. “Jarrod tried to shut the door. He let go of the wheel for, like, a second and leaned over me…. I saw what was happening … we were hitting the soft part … the shoulder … I tried to grab the wheel, to straighten us out, but he jerked it back from me and we … The car just flew off the road….”

  Ruthie grimaced.

  I fingered the candy wrapper in my hand. “If Ryan was driving … he never would have … when we hooked up it was always, you know … through the clothes. And he was okay with that. I mean, I thought he was. And then, Taylor…” My voice broke off.

  “I’m sorry, Lex,” Ruthie said quietly. “I really am. I didn’t mean to make light of what happened to you. The whole thing sucks.”

  “The whole thing does suck,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “And you know what sucks even more? Tomorrow I have to get this skin-graft thing. They’re taking skin off my butt and putting it on my cheek.”

  “I know,” Ruthie said.

  “How twisted is that?”

  My sister shook her head. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, then closed it.

  “What?”

  “Are you scared?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  Because sometimes you lie. You have to, just to convince yourself. Otherwise, here’s the thing: you might lock yourself in a bathroom and never come out.

  Bogus, Bulimic, Smack Shooters

  IRONICALLY, THE DAY of the skin graft was the day I was supposed to be getting professional head shots. Modeling was my mother’s idea, based on this one time when we were in New York City and a photographer stopped us on the sidewalk, asking to take my picture.

  I will never forget that moment, and I doubt Taylor will, either. We were on our way to the Met to see the Picasso exhibit since Tay and I had both been home with strep throat the week before and had missed the ninth-grade field trip. When we got to the museum, a photo shoot was taking place, right there on the front steps. The models were gorgeous—dressed all in red against the gray stone, with cherry-colored lipstick and bare legs that went on forever. They looked almost too perfect to be real. You couldn’t imagine them burping, or stepping in gum, or having a bad hair day—and probably if they ever did, some guardian hair angel would swoop down from the heavens and spritz everything back into place. Taylor, my mother, and I were mesmerized. We stood on the sidewalk for a full twenty minutes, gawking.

  That’s when this man came up to us. He was dressed in black and holding a camera with the biggest lens I’d ever seen.

  “Excuse me,” he said to my mother, “is this your daughter?”

  When he gestured to me, my mom nodded and smiled.

  “She’s stunning.” The man paused for a second, holding his chin and squinting at me, tracing my body with his eyes, like he wanted to be sure of something. “Yes,” he said finally. He extended a hand to my mom. “Zander Kent.”

  “Laine Mayer,” my mother said.

  He told her he wanted to photograph me and whippe
d out his business card—ZANDER KENT, COMMERCIAL AND FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY. Which of course got my mom all jazzed because, in addition to being runner-up to Miss South Carolina three years in a row, she used to do commercials. In fact, she helped put my dad through law school. Tussy deodorant was one, and then a Folgers coffee ad where, inexplicably, she got to dance with a refrigerator.

  When she told this to Zander Kent, he laughed, revealing beautiful, pearl-colored teeth.

  “Well…” My mother smiled, giving her hair a self-conscious pat. “That was a long time ago. It’s Alexa’s turn now.”

  At which point, Zander Kent snapped my photo. Me, Lexi Mayer, right there on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, surrounded by supermodels. Then he snapped another one. And another. It was crazy—like an out-of-body experience. I knew it was happening, but I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.

  Afterward, I felt giddy. I couldn’t stop smiling. As we walked through the exhibit hall, I could tell Taylor was annoyed because she pretended to be really interested in Picasso, taking a million notes and even drawing little sketches in the margins of her notebook. Taylor, who never cared about school, let alone art history. So after about an hour of watching her become the world’s leading expert on the Cubist movement, I confronted her.

  “What’s bugging you?” I asked when my mother was safely tucked away in the restroom.

  “Nothing’s bugging me,” Taylor said.

  “Obviously something is.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The photo thing? It’s not like I asked to have my picture taken. He just came right up and—”

  “Whatever.” Taylor waved her pencil through the air. “Modeling’s bogus. Half those girls are bulimic and the other half shoot smack.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  Taylor gave me a look like I’d just fallen off a turnip truck. “How do you think they stay so thin?”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s not like I’m going to—”

  “Plus, they sleep around.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course. That’s how they get the big jobs.”