Things Jolie Needs to Do Before She Bites It

  I grunt my affirmation.

  I feel the car door slam like a shock through my body, and then we’re in motion.

  “Jolie,” Mom says from behind me. “You did great in the surgery—everything went even better than expected. But just as a warning, prepare yourself before you look in a mirror. Because you have some pretty major swelling.”

  “I can handle it,” I mumble, and I glance in the passenger-side mirror as the scenery rushes past me in a woozy blur. I let out what can charitably be called a scream as I take in my current look: Right there above the words “Objects in Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear,” there’s a person who kind of, sort of looks like me, but with cheeks like a cartoon chipmunk and ice packs secured to the sides of her face with what appears to be a scarf made of gauze.

  “What happened to me?” I try to ask, but it comes out as “Mwah mummuh mummuh?”

  Luckily, Dad understands me, or at least guesses what I’m trying to say. “Your face looks pretty gnarly right now—”

  “Tim!” Mom says.

  “—but this is temporary. Dr. Kelley said this amount of swelling is totally normal and nothing to worry about.”

  But as I look at myself in the mirror again, I’m kind of worried. Telling yourself you’ll be swollen and then actually seeing your own swollen face are two different things. Blood-tinged gauze pokes out of my mouth, and I look like I’m starting to get a black eye. This is like that time when Abbi got her wisdom teeth out, but way, way worse.

  “Urrrrgh,” I gurgle before falling asleep again.

  When I wake up, I’m on the sofa at home, and Abbi’s looking down at me.

  “Do you want some chicken broth?” she asks.

  Truth be told, I want pizza or chicken wings or potato chips or, like, anything chewy or crunchy or crispy, but I know that’s not an option, so I sit up and take the bowl from her. I’m just glad I didn’t have to have my mouth wired shut, which is the case for some people who have underbite surgery—Dr. Kelley thought I could get by with just some screws holding my jaw in place. Of course, I still have my trusty braces—they’ll be there for at least the next six months to make sure my teeth don’t stage a rebellion and slide out of place.

  “Tell me the truth,” I say through my gauze, wincing as the pain reminds me that I need another dose of my meds. “How bad is it?”

  Abbi looks away from me, then back at my face, then away again.

  “That bad?” I ask.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say you look great,” she says delicately. “But this is just temporary, remember?”

  “Ugh,” I say, then attempt to spoon a little bit of broth into my mouth. It dribbles down my chin.

  “Jolie.” Abbi leans over and puts her hand on my knee. “It’s gonna be a rough few weeks, but it will be okay. It will be better than okay, because you did it. It’s done.”

  I nod, then spill more broth on myself.

  Abbi takes the bowl away from me. “We’ll try this again later. You want to watch TV?”

  “Yes,” I say, so Abbi turns on some show that, as best as I can tell, is about serial killers. Or maybe private eyes. Or a hospital. I don’t know; I’m on very strong painkillers.

  That’s what the next couple of weeks are like. I attempt to make use of my free time and catch up on all the shows I’ve been meaning to see, but I definitely don’t have the mental ability to follow any sort of plot right now, so I resort to watching reality television. I fall asleep so often that it all becomes a blur of housewives yelling at each other, Kardashians staging zany stunts, and British people baking elaborate cakes.

  I also get tired of soup pretty quickly, so I start using the blender to chop up anything and everything. Like, for example, a piece of leftover steak I found in the refrigerator, and slices of pizza.

  One day in mid-June, I’m putting a can of SpaghettiOs into the blender (perhaps not my best idea, but desperate times call for desperate measures) when the doorbell rings. Abbi has just gotten Margaret to sleep, so I run to get the door before whoever it is rings the bell again and risks waking her up. At the last minute, I grab a dish towel to hold over my face—my swelling has gone down some over the past two weeks, but the bottom half of my face is still alarmingly big. I’d rather not field a lot of questions from whatever neighbor or political canvasser is at our door.

  When I swing open the door, I couldn’t be more shocked to see who’s standing on our front porch.

  Derek.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  We stare at each other for a moment, me gripping the doorknob with one hand and holding my dish towel over the bottom half of my face with the other.

  “Hey,” he says, and then, gesturing at my face, “Is … this a bad time?”

  I shake my head. “No, just blending some SpaghettiOs. Come in.”

  He looks confused, but he doesn’t question it. He hands me a glass container filled with something orange. “Mom sent over some soup for you. It’s butternut squash with coconut milk and it’s supposed to be heart-healthy or whatever.”

  “Tell her thanks for caring about my heart,” I say as we walk into the kitchen. I put it in the fridge, and then I feel self-conscious because, well, our hearts have caused a lot of problems lately.

  “Yeah, um.” Derek looks around the room anxiously. “Can we talk?”

  “Okay,” I say, a little too high-pitched. “Let’s go sit down.”

  “Do you…” Derek gestures toward the blender.

  “Oh, no!” I squeak, my dish towel still in place. “The SpaghettiOs can wait.”

  We sit down on the couch in the living room in our respective Terrible Movie Night spots. I lean against the very comfortable, non-matching throw pillows Mom bought in an attempt to be stylish yet edgy, and Derek turns to face me. I don’t put my feet on him, because this seems like a feet-free conversation.

  Finally, Derek is here, right in front of me. Now that I’m not flinging text messages into the void, I’m about to launch into one of my much-rehearsed speeches when Derek takes a deep breath and says, “Do you remember the loneliest whale?”

  Out of all the things I thought he might say, this wasn’t one of them. “What?” I ask.

  “You know, the whale I told you about when I was doing Deep Dive research. The one who’s just roaming around the ocean, making weird whale noises that are unintelligible to other marine life.”

  “Uh … yeah,” I say, still unsure where he’s going with this.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about that whale, and not just because it’s a ridiculous story and I spent so long researching it. I’ve been thinking about what you said to me at the party, about how I should talk about my dad sometimes…”

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” I mumble from behind my dish towel.

  He shakes his head. “No, you were right. Because I’m always thinking about him, even if I’m not saying anything out loud. And I don’t want to be the loneliest whale, you know? I don’t want to swim around all by myself, with no one understanding anything I’m actually going through.”

  I smile a little bit, even though he can’t see it. “You’re not the loneliest whale.”

  He doesn’t look at me. “I talked to my mom about it—for basically the first time ever—and I’m starting therapy next week. I think it’ll help.”

  “That’s great!” I say encouragingly.

  He shakes his head. “But that’s not why I’m here. I feel like such a jerk for what I did. Or the way I did it, I guess. I had a crush on you, so I read into what you were saying and doing.”

  My mouth drops open in shock, but of course he can’t see that behind my dish towel.

  “And, honestly, Melody and I had needed to break up for a pretty long time, so I don’t regret that. But I do regret ambushing you at Toby’s party. That was shitty, and I’m sorry about it. It’s cool if you don’t have feelings for me—or, it’s not cool, but it’s okay. You’re my best friend—you’re the person who helped me realize t
hat I can’t just never talk about my dad—and I don’t want to lose you.”

  He looks down at his hands. I realize that they’re shaking.

  I swallow. “You had a crush on me?”

  Derek stares at me. “What?”

  “Is it past tense? You had a crush? Or do you still have it?”

  Derek’s shoulders slump. “Jolie,” he says softly. “Please don’t do this to me. I want us to be friends, but we can’t if you’re gonna make me—”

  “Because I have a crush on you,” I say. “And I have for, like, forever, even though I didn’t really know it. I’m glad you broke up with Melody, and I’m glad you said you liked me. I’m the one who should apologize for being too scared to do anything about it. But I’m not scared anymore.”

  Derek opens and closes his mouth, looks at the ceiling and then at me. “Then why…”

  I shrug. “Because what if it doesn’t work out? What if we kiss and it totally sucks? Or what if we start hating each other? I’ve spent my entire life thinking that there’s something wrong with me, so I just assumed you thought there was something wrong with me, too. I figured there was no way you could ever possibly like me, and you only wanted me once I was going to be fixed—”

  “You didn’t need to be fixed,” Derek interrupts me, but I hold up a hand to stop him.

  “I just never let myself think about what it would be like if you liked me back, because I never thought you could. And now that I know you do, well … the thought of us trying and it not working and us not being friends anymore makes me want to barf. But the thought of not trying … it kind of makes me want to barf, too.”

  “Barfing is sort of a thing with you,” Derek says, a small smile playing across his face.

  “I regret bringing up barfing at a time like this,” I say.

  “I have a question.”

  My heart skips around in my chest, and I will it to stay in place. “Okay.”

  “Can I kiss you? Now?”

  The unfairness of this moment suddenly feels unbearably heavy. “No.”

  “I am … very confused,” Derek says.

  “My jaw,” I say. “Not only do I not want you to see my swollen face, but I wouldn’t even be able to feel a kiss right now. And I want to feel it.”

  Derek smirks. “Let me see.”

  I shake my head.

  “Come on,” he says, drawing out the words like this is a joke. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dish towel.”

  I sigh, then let it drop.

  “Jolie,” he says, leaning forward and looking straight at me. “I like you, and I think you’re beautiful. I would think you were beautiful if you looked like Nicolas Cage, or Nicolas Cage with John Travolta’s face in the terrible movie Face/Off. And when your cheeks aren’t swollen to three times their normal size, I’m going to kiss you, okay?”

  I nod, swallowing hard.

  He leans forward and my breath catches in my throat. His lips brush softly against my forehead, one of the few places on my head that actually isn’t swollen. And even though my lips aren’t involved at all, it feels like fireworks. Like soda bubbles. Like a red convertible.

  “Ahem.”

  We look up to see Abbi standing in front of us, holding the baby, giving me a meaningful look.

  “This is Margaret,” she says to Derek. “Are you staying for dinner?”

  Derek looks at me. I nod.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I’m gonna stay.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  In August, a couple of weeks before senior year starts, Abbi has a party to celebrate Margaret’s birth. “I wanted to wait until your head wasn’t the size of Texas,” she says. “And also until I wasn’t wearing a robe all day.”

  I’m definitely still swollen, but my face is emerging from all the puffiness. I still can’t chew anything hard, but I have been eating soft things, like scrambled eggs and the occasional Twinkie (listen, I got tired of smoothies).

  The most ridiculous thing is that even though I know I look different, I don’t feel any different. I thought that after my surgery I would look in the mirror and suddenly feel confident. I thought I’d know, deep in my bones, that I was beautiful. But when I look in the mirror, I just see … me, with a slightly different jaw. The exact same Jolie: daughter, sister, friend, aunt, Terrible Movie fan, and musical star.

  It would be hilarious if it weren’t so depressing that I wasted so much time wishing to look different. All the time I spent on that scrapbook, all the time I spent smiling with my lips closed … and after all that, I was just fine all along. Who knew? Everyone except me, apparently.

  But it feels good that both Abbi and I are officially on the road to recovery. Yes, I’m going to be a little swollen for a while, and yes, she’s constantly complaining about her nipples being sore, but still. We’re getting there.

  Pretty much everyone we know is in our backyard, enjoying the beautiful summer early evening. Abbi is wearing a pink floral dress that, of course, looks great on her, just like literally every article of clothing does. And I stole one of her (pre-pregnancy) dresses, a yellow sundress that I never would’ve worn before because it’s too bright and draws too much attention. But I don’t care; I’m not afraid of attention anymore.

  Abbi invited some of her friends from school, and they’re all standing beside the punch table cooing over Margaret, who’s doing a very good job of being cute. My aunt Jayne is here with her yorkipoos, one of whom definitely pooped on the patio already. Mom created a killer all-female playlist that she titled Mothers of Modern Rock in honor of Abbi’s new status as a mom, so we’re listening to that instead of bro-country like every other backyard in Brentley. Dad’s sitting on one of the benches he made just for this party, happily eating a pulled pork sandwich. There are twinkle lights hung above the patio and a few yellow “Welcome, Baby!” balloons bobbing in the gentle breeze.

  “She’s a great baby,” Evelyn says when I find her and Marla holding hands by the food table.

  I nod. “Maybe I’m biased, but I think she’s the smartest baby in the world.”

  Evelyn shakes her head. “Nah. That sounds like a perfectly objective opinion.”

  “This bruschetta is amazing,” Marla says, pronouncing it correctly. “Who did your catering?”

  “My dad,” I say. “Under the guidance of many Food Network stars.”

  I look at the table and realize our supply of pulled pork sliders has been seriously depleted. “I’m gonna run into the kitchen and grab some more food,” I say.

  The kitchen hums with pleasant stillness because everyone’s outside. I’m about to open the Crock-Pot and assemble more sandwiches when I hear the front door creak open. I assume it’s another one of Abbi’s friends, but then Derek steps into the kitchen.

  “Hey,” he says. He’s dressed up a little—for Derek, anyway—in a short-sleeved button-down striped with blue, gray, and pink. It’s not tight, but it’s definitely snug enough to cling to his somehow lean-yet-muscular chest and oh God, I just realized I’ve been staring at him without saying anything for way too long.

  “Hey,” I sputter, unable to come up with something less inane. I haven’t seen him all week because he’s been volunteering at the twins’ soccer camp, although he did become a much more frequent texter by constantly sending me pictures of them practicing. Seeing him now feels like everything good—like jumping into a pool on the hottest, sweatiest summer day. Refreshing, exhilarating, a little bit of a free fall.

  “Do you want a pulled pork slider?” I offer, my hands shaking so much that I almost drop the Crock-Pot lid. This is Derek, I remind myself. No need to be nervous. But things are different now—in a good way, I think, although I don’t really like this awkwardness.

  He shakes his head. “Maybe later. But right now I have something outside I want to show you.”

  I throw the lid back on the Crock-Pot with a clatter. Who cares about pulled pork right now? I follow him out onto the front porch, where he points at the
street.

  “Um,” I say, my eyes scanning the front yard. “What am I looking at?”

  “Right there,” he says, pointing to the curb.

  It’s a red convertible.

  “My uncle let me borrow it,” he says. “I figured you didn’t check this item off your list before surgery, so why not do it now?”

  Maybe it’s a little bit of overkill to say that my jaw drops after it’s already been broken and surgically moved into place, but that’s what happens. I can’t say anything. Derek found a red convertible?

  As we walk toward it, Derek stops. “Wait, is it rude to leave the party? Do you need to tell them where you’re going?”

  I shake my head slowly, still staring at the car. “No. Or maybe. But I don’t care.”

  He laughs, then tosses me the keys.

  “Wait, are you serious?” I ask. “I’m supposed to drive this?”

  “Wasn’t that the plan?”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  Derek hops into the passenger seat. “Take me to the playground.”

  I just stare at him from the sidewalk.

  “I’m waiting, Jolie,” he says, and right at that moment his smile is so winning that I would take him literally anywhere he asked. Because this scenario, this fantasy I had of driving a red convertible and having my surgery, it’s all real and it feels so much better than I ever thought it would.

  I drive slowly, coming to a full stop at every stop sign and looking both ways about fifteen times at each one.

  “This is a car,” Derek says. “It’s not made out of blown glass. I think the saying is ‘Drive it like you stole it,’ not ‘Drive it like you’re a ninety-five-year-old woman with limited vision.’”

  “Shut up, I need to concentrate,” I say, my hands gripping the wheel. The last thing I want to do is crash Derek’s uncle’s convertible. That would put a serious dent in my fantasy, as well as, presumably, the car.

  We pull into the parking lot of the playground, and now I realize I don’t know why we’re here. As we get out of the car, the streetlights pop on. There’s no one here except for a few kids practicing on the tennis courts, and other than the sounds of the tennis balls hitting their rackets, all I can hear is the hissing of the summer insects. I look at Derek expectantly.