Serena looks at her lap; she’s sitting between my mother and me, so it’s impossible for her to avoid the cross fire. It’s not like she’s never been around when my mother was yelling before. After more than a decade of playdates and sleepovers, it was impossible to hide Mom’s temper.
“I am not a teachable moment, Mom,” I say. “I’m not an after-school special.” Arguing is so much harder when I’m this tired, but I refuse to give in. Finally I say, “I’m just trying to make it through the year, okay?”
Mom shakes her head. “A special assembly is an excellent idea. We don’t want this happening again.”
“It won’t happen again,” I say with certainty. The truth is, I’d rather it happened a thousand times than have to get up in front of the whole school. But Mom doesn’t see it that way. One more time and Mom will bring up the assembly again. Next time, she won’t take no for an answer.
So it’s up to me to make sure that there is no next time. I just have to figure out how.
Later, Chirag texts me: Heard what happened in Mr. Wolf’s class. You okay?
I don’t answer right away. Before, he’d have written Why didn’t you tell me? Before, Chirag would have written Want me to come over? or maybe just I’m coming over. Now he waits politely, carefully, gently for an invitation I’ll never give.
I’m fine, I write finally.
You sure?
Yeah, I answer. I feel pretty good tonight, I add. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever lied to him.
I’m glad.
Good. One of us should get to be glad about something.
Serena is turning into a vampire. Her skin is three shades paler than usual, her lips a dozen shades redder. She’s wearing tight black shorts with shiny black tights and leather boots with three-inch heels and somehow she still looks like giggly, warm, sweet Serena. She could layer on pounds of makeup and still look like herself. My stomach aches jealously as she leans over the magnified mirror she stole from one of my mom’s makeup drawers and propped up on my desk, shoving aside my pill bottles to do so.
Serena and I have gotten ready for Halloween together every year since the first grade. When we were twelve, we decided that we were too old for trick-or-treating, but we dressed up anyway, counting the days until we’d be old enough to go to the annual Highlands High Halloween Spooktacular. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t know about this party. Everyone in town knows about it. Some of the more daring kids even try to sneak in while they’re still in middle school, but Serena and I waited patiently for our freshman year.
“I can’t believe this is our last Halloween party.” Serena studies her profile, checking for any spots she might have missed, making sure that her honey-colored skin doesn’t show through anywhere.
“They’ll have Halloween parties in college.” I’m careful not to say at Berkeley. As long as I don’t say it, I’m not officially lying to her about my real plans.
“Yeah, but it won’t be the same.”
Nothing is the same anymore, I think but do not say. My own costume is much simpler than Serena’s: brown pants, brown sweatshirt, werewolf mask. Last year I went as a witch, but it was really just Serena’s way of forcing me into a skimpy outfit. I wore a black miniskirt and a sequined black tube top and a pointy hat. I didn’t wear tights and I was freezing all night, goose pimples dancing up my arms and down my legs and into my shoes. My parents would never have let me leave the house like that if it hadn’t been Halloween, or maybe they were just so busy fighting that they didn’t notice my outfit at all. Chirag and I weren’t a couple yet, and I pretended not to notice the way the boys looked at me when Serena and I made our way to the center of the dance floor. I can’t remember how it felt, to be looked at like that. Now when they look at me, it is without even the shadow of desire. Maybe they think: Man, what a shame. She used to be hot.
“Are you sure you can wear that?” Serena asks, gesturing to my mask.
“Are you kidding?”
“I mean, what if it presses on your nose or your chin or something? Could it—I don’t know—hurt you?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t actually hurt at all.”
Serena’s face softens; even under her makeup, I can tell she’s blushing. “It doesn’t?”
“I can’t feel a thing.”
“It looks like it hurts.” She must mean the jagged pink scars on my cheeks. It’s been a long time since I looked in the mirror closely enough to consider whether they’ve faded like the doctors promised. Now Serena’s face tells me that they haven’t, at least not much.
If I were one of those special people—the kind of person my mother wants me to be—I’d have picked a costume that showed them off.
Instead, I yank the mask over my head. “There,” I say, my voice echoing inside of it. Now you don’t have to look at it.
As though she can read my mind, Serena mumbles, “I’m not the one who’s trying not to look at it.”
With my face underneath the mask, Serena can’t see my surprise.
Serena bounds out to Chirag’s car like a puppy. We’re late because we had to wait until after eight p.m. to leave so that I could take my pills before we left. The fog hangs heavy and wet in the air, making everything feel damp, so that Serena’s voluminous hair sticks to her cheeks and her face.
Chirag is wearing a bloodstained tracksuit; he’s supposed to be our victim. I consider pointing out that, mythically speaking, vampires and werewolves don’t really work together, but then Serena might insist that I be a vampire, too. What would it be like if I let Serena paint my face to match hers? If she pressed white powder onto my cheeks, across the bridge of my nose, and over my chin? I shake my head, tugging my mask down lower, even though I can barely see out of the eyeholes. I wonder if my donor dressed up for Halloween last year.
At the party, hoping for some kind of transcendent caffeine high, I chug Diet Coke like it’s every bit as delicious as the Halloween candy Serena and I collected when we were little. I have to lift my mask for every sip, resting it across my forehead like a sort of rubber headband. Before, I never clung to Chirag at parties because I was cool, independent, fun. Now I keep my distance because I have to go to the girls’ room about a dozen times over the course of the night.
“I like your costume,” I say to Ellen on one of my myriad bathroom trips. She’s dressed as a zombie prom queen, wearing a hot-pink strapless dress made of taffeta that’s been ripped and shredded. She’s painted pale blue makeup across her arms, face, and chest.
“Is that you under there, Maisie?” Ellen asks, giggling. Even though I can’t feel the mask on my face, I can smell it: a dirty, rubbery swell that’s now tinged by my own sweat because it’s hot under here.
I don’t answer, but she takes my silence as a yes and says, “Well, thanks. It would have looked better if I’d lost a couple pounds like I’d planned on and if this stupid zit—ugh, you know how sometimes, you forget you have a pimple for a while and then you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you’re like oh my god, I can’t believe I’ve been walking around with that on my face all day.”
Wow, that must be really tough. The voice in my head is dripping with sarcasm.
Ellen giggles. “Sorry,” she says hollowly. “I know I’m not supposed to say stuff like that to you,” she adds. I wonder if Serena took the girls aside on the first day of school and told them that they shouldn’t complain about things like pimples and diets around me.
“It’s okay. Even my mother is back to complaining about her wrinkles these days.”
“I guess there’s only so much a person can take,” Ellen answers before trotting back out to the party. I’m not sure if she meant me, my mother, or my friends, and I’m not about to ask.
I don’t exactly intend to sneak out after her, but I find myself following her out of the bathroom, the gym, and into the hall, careful to keep far enough behind that she won’t notice me.
Part of what makes this party such a big dea
l is that every year, the senior class finds the most unlikely spot to hang out, someplace where the chaperones can’t keep an eye on us. Every year the school administration threatens to cancel the party, and every year the students promise to behave, but we never do—we just get better at hiding our indiscretions. Last year, the seniors took turns disappearing to the boys’ locker room.
Tonight, I have no idea where my classmates are sneaking off to. After all, there’s no reason why anyone would tell me: You can’t exactly party hard when you’re on an antirejection regimen. Or maybe the cool kids just kept the location to themselves because they wanted a place to hang out where they wouldn’t have to lay eyes on the class freak.
It’s eerie, walking through the nearly empty halls of our school on a Saturday night. Strange to be here without the din of lockers slamming shut, the clatter of high heels against the linoleum floors, the squeak of sneakers. I follow Ellen past the science labs (where the senior class set up camp two years ago), and past the hallway that leads to the gym (where the seniors hung out three years ago), and up the stairs to the teachers’ lounge.
Wow, I think, impressed. I can’t believe you guys chose the teachers’ lounge.
I don’t follow Ellen all the way inside. Instead, I hover by the door. The lounge is carpeted, and from here, I can see kids strewn across the couches inside. Eric and Erica are making out, and Ellen plops down right on top of them.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she giggles, but Eric and Erica don’t even seem to mind. After all, they have all the time in the world to make out. If I’d known that my time to kiss Chirag was limited, I don’t think anyone could have torn me away from him.
Just to the left of the door, so no one inside can see me, I slide down the wall and sit on the floor, lifting the mask a little bit so that I can rest my chin on my legs. I breathe through my mouth; it’s quieter that way. I allow myself to close my eyes. If anyone saw me sitting here like this, they’d say Poor Maisie. Someone better take the sick girl home.
I hear Eric’s voice: “Come on, Chi-Dog, loosen up.”
“Nah, I’m driving tonight.”
Erica’s voice now. “Eric, you know that nurses can’t actually have fun while they’re on duty.”
Eric. “But nurses at least get a night off once in a while.”
Chirag. “Come on, guys, cut it out.”
I should leave. I should get out of here before they discover me, before they know that I’ve heard them. Sweat plasters my hair to the back of my neck. Even the hair on the mask itself feels damp, wilted.
“Dog,” Eric says, “this is your senior year and you’re missing it. You’re wasting it.” He sounds so sincere, like he’s truly concerned about Chirag.
“Did you see the way Alexis Smith was looking at you tonight?” Erica adds.
Alexis Smith is a junior. She has blond hair and blue eyes. She dressed as a French maid tonight, waving her feather duster around the gym like it’s a magic wand. She’s on the track team, too. She has freckles, though not as many as I used to have. Just a tiny little sprinkling across her nose. Maybe Chirag thinks they’re sexy like he used to think mine were.
Erica continues, “You could be in here with her. You know that, right?”
All at once, an image of Chirag kissing Alexis flashes behind my eyes. Chirag kisses her smooth cheeks, her soft neck, the tip of her nose. Alexis would be able to feel all that. Alexis would be able to kiss him back without worrying that pursing her lips might be bad for her scars. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can’t stop seeing Chirag kissing the smooth crook of Alexis’s elbow, holding her left hand in the car while he drives. All those things he can’t do with his current girlfriend, who is quite literally damaged goods.
I can’t take a deep breath with this stupid mask over my face. The rubbery odor starts to smell like something else; it reeks like something is burning.
For the first time, I remember how it smelled the day of my accident. I remember the scent of my flesh on fire.
I rip the mask off and throw it on the ground beside me, trying to fill my nose with the scent of anything else. I try to inhale the scents drifting into the hallway from the teachers’ lounge: Erica’s perfume, Eric’s sweat, Ellen’s berry-flavored lipstick. I’m so hot that I wave my hands in front of my face like a fan before I remember that my face can’t actually feel the breeze.
Finally, Chirag says, “I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that. Maisie—”
It’s Ellen’s voice that cuts Chirag off. “Look, Maisie was always great. No one is arguing that. She was one of my best friends. But she’s different now.”
“I know,” Chirag admits. “I see the old Maisie sometimes, just for a second.” He says the words old Maisie like he’s talking about a girl he used to know. Which I guess he is.
I lift my werewolf mask from the floor and hold it in my lap like it’s a stuffed animal.
“Come on, man,” Eric scoffs. “You don’t see the old Maisie. That girl is gone.” When he says old Maisie, the words sound like a joke. Maybe it is. Maybe I am. Ellen snorts, and Erica starts laughing, hard and loud, like she wants to make sure that everyone in the room knows how funny her boyfriend is.
“Dude,” Chirag says, his deep voice a warning. “She’s not some kind of punch line.” My heart floods with gratitude. It’s exactly what you’d hope your boyfriend would say when you weren’t around to hear him.
“Fair enough,” Eric answers. “But she’s not some kind of girlfriend, either.”
What perfect response will Chirag have now? I close my eyes and imagine what I’d most want to hear: That he cares about me so much. That he’s taking care of me because he believes that the old Maisie might come back someday. That he doesn’t care what I look like, he loves me no matter what.
My heart beats fast and my stomach twists as I feel the familiar rush of adrenaline. I’ve never actually heard him say that he loves me out loud.
But instead of anything even resembling I love her, Chirag sighs heavily and says, “I know. I know. It’s not just that she doesn’t look like the old Maisie, doesn’t move like the old Maisie. She’s just … different. It’s like having a perfect stranger in the car next to me.”
“With a stranger’s face sewn onto her skull,” Eric adds, and I wince.
You have no right to refer to my donor that way! She’s not a punch line, either.
My heart starts to pound. What if one of them decides to get up, sees me here, realizes what I’ve heard? As quietly as I can, I take a deep breath and silently order my heart to slow.
“Shut up,” Chirag says, his deep voice more solemn that I’ve ever heard it. “Seriously, dude, just shut up. I know it’s over. I can’t even touch her anymore.”
Can’t, or don’t want to? I shake my head. Both answers are probably true: No one would want to touch a patchwork face that wouldn’t be able to feel his caresses, just as no one would know how.
Ellen’s voice: “So why don’t you end it? Say you just want to be friends. I mean, that’s all you are anymore, anyway.”
“And then you can start touching Alexis Smith,” Eric adds. I can practically hear his grin.
I imagine Chirag nodding slowly, his head bobbing up and down as though it weighs a million pounds, just like mine after the transplant. “I can’t,” he counters. “I’m going to be a doctor someday. I can’t just abandon someone who’s not well.”
“Dude, you haven’t taken your hypocritical oath yet, Dr. Srinivasan.”
“Hippocratic,” Chirag corrects. “And it doesn’t matter. I can’t be that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who breaks up with a girl that unhappy. I have to wait until she’s better.”
Carefully, I slide my way back up the wall and slip my mask over my head. I’ll sneak away before any of them know I’m here, before any of them can guess that I’ve been listening, before Chirag knows that I heard his rational, levelheaded explanation for why he’s still with me.
That’s what drew me to him in the first place, right? I wanted to be with that guy who didn’t raise his voice when he disagreed with me, nothing like my overly emotional, high-volume parents. And yet … I kind of wish that Chirag had been a little less logical just this once. Isn’t he at least a tiny bit sad about the way things turned out? Doesn’t he miss me, the way I used to be—the old Maisie, as he put it?
I’m literally on my tiptoes when I nearly walk head-on into Serena. Who is holding hands with Greg Baker.
Jesus. How bad is this night going to get?
The white makeup Serena applied so carefully is smeared. Maybe she was sweating while she danced, or maybe Greg rubbed his fingers all over her while they made out. I don’t think Serena has made it through a school dance without kissing someone, not since ninth grade.
Beneath my mask, I close my eyes and try to imagine Chirag kissing me. I should go back to practicing kisses on the pillow like a fifth grader.
“Hey!” Serena says, dropping Greg’s hand to take mine—my left hand. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Don’t let me spoil your fun,” I say, trying to twist my hand away. No one but Marnie, my doctors and nurses, and my dad, once, has touched my left hand since the accident. “I have to go,” I add blandly. Serena won’t release her grip. Her skin is smooth over mine. “I was just looking for a quiet place to call my mom.”
There is nothing lamer than calling your mom to pick you up early from a party, but I don’t care. It’s not like I have some cool-girl reputation to protect anymore. I just want to go home. I want to be alone in my room where I can’t hear what people are saying about me. Where I can hide under the covers and close my eyes and imagine that Chirag’s arms are around me. Around the old me.
“Say it ain’t so, Maisie!” Greg moans, his voice thick. “This party is just getting started.” He leans in and nuzzles Serena’s neck.
Faceless Page 13