Making Faces (2 page)

First Day of School–September, 2001

The school gymnasium was so loud that Fern
had to lean down next to Bailey's ear and shout to be heard. Bailey
was more than capable of maneuvering his wheelchair through the
teeming student body, but Fern pushed him so they could more easily
stay together.

“Do you see Rita?” she yelled, eyes roving.
Rita knew they had to sit on the bottom bleacher in order for
Bailey to sit near them. Bailey pointed, and Fern followed his
finger to where Rita was waving frantically, making her breasts
bounce and her fluffy blonde hair swing wildly around her
shoulders. They made their way to her, and Fern let Bailey take
over control of his chair as she scrambled up to the second row,
sitting just behind Rita so Bailey could position his chair at the
end of the bench.

Fern hated pep rallies. She was small and
tended to get bumped and squished no matter where she sat, and she
had little interest in cheering and stomping her feet. She sighed,
settling in for the half hour of screaming, loud music, and
football players working themselves up into a frenzy.

“Please rise for the National Anthem,” a
voice boomed, and the mic shrieked in protest, causing people to
wince and cover their ears, but effectively quieting the
gymnasium.

“We have a special treat today, girls and
boys.” Connor O'Toole, also known as Beans, was holding the mic
with a wicked grin on his face. Beans was always up to something,
and he instantly had everyone's attention. He was part Irish, part
Hispanic, and his up-turned nose, sparkling hazel eyes, and
devilish grin were at odds with his smoky coloring. And he was a
talker; it was obvious that he relished his time at the
microphone.

“Your friend and mine, Ambrose Young, has
lost a bet. He said if we won our first game, he would sing the
National Anthem at this pep assembly. “ Gasps were heard, and the
volume in the bleachers rose immediately.

“But we didn't just win our first game, we
won our second game too!” The audience roared and stomped their
feet. “So, being a man of his word, here is Ambrose Young, singing
the National Anthem,” Beans said and waved the mic toward his
friend.

Beans was small. Though he was a senior, he
was one of the smaller players on the team and was more suited to
wrestling than football. Ambrose was also a senior. But he wasn't
small. He towered above Beans--one of his biceps was almost as big
around as Beans's head--and he looked like one of those guys on the
cover of a romance novel. Even his name sounded like a character
from a steamy read. And Fern would know. She'd read thousands of
them. Alpha males, tight abs, smoldering looks,
happily-ever-afters. But no one had ever really compared to Ambrose
Young. Not in fiction or in real life.

To Fern, Ambrose Young was absolutely
beautiful, a Greek God among mortals, the stuff of fairy tales and
movie screens. Unlike the other boys, he wore his dark hair in
waves that brushed his shoulders, occasionally sweeping it back so
it wouldn't fall into his heavily-lashed brown eyes. The
squared-off edge of his sculpted jaw kept him from being too
pretty, that and the fact he was six foot three in his socks,
weighed a strapping 215 pounds by the age of eighteen, and had a
body corded with muscle from his shoulders to his well-shaped
calves.

Rumor was that Ambrose's mother, Lily
Grafton, had tangled with an Italian underwear model in New York
City during her quest to find fame. She became quickly untangled
when he discovered she was carrying his child. Jilted and pregnant,
she limped home and was swept up in the comforting arms of her old
friend, Elliott Young, who gladly married her and welcomed her baby
boy six months later. The town paid special attention to the
handsome baby boy as he grew, especially when diminutive, blond,
Elliott Young ended up having a brawny son with dark hair and eyes
and a build worthy of, well, an underwear model. Fourteen years
later, when Lily left Elliott Young and moved to New York, no one
was surprised that Lily was going back to find Ambrose's real
father. The surprise came when fourteen-year-old Ambrose remained
in Hannah Lake with Elliott.

By that time, Ambrose was already a fixture
in the small town, and people speculated that was the reason he
stayed. He could throw a javelin like a mythical warrior and barrel
through opponents on the football field like they were made of
paper. He pitched his little league team to a district championship
and could slam dunk a basketball by the time he was fifteen. All of
these things were notable, but in Hannah Lake, Pennsylvania, where
the town closed their businesses for local duels and followed the
state rankings like winning lottery numbers, where wrestling was an
obsession that rivaled football in Texas, it was Ambrose Young's
ability on the mat that made him a celebrity.

The crowd went instantly quiet as Ambrose
took the microphone, waiting for what was sure to be a highly
entertaining massacre of the anthem. Ambrose was known for his
strength, his good looks, and his athletic prowess, but nobody had
ever heard him sing. The silence was saturated with giddy
expectation. Ambrose pushed his hair back and then shoved his hand
in his pocket as if he was uncomfortable. Then he fixed his eyes on
the flag and began to sing.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early
light . . .” Again, there was an audible gasp from the audience.
Not because it was bad, but because it was wonderful. Ambrose Young
had a voice fitting of the package it was encased in. It was smooth
and deep and impossibly rich. If dark chocolate could sing it would
sound like Ambrose Young. Fern shivered as his voice wrapped around
her like an anchor, lodging deep in her belly, pulling her under.
She found her eyes closing behind her thick glasses, and she let
the sound wash over her. It was incredible.

“O'er the land of the free . . .” Ambrose's
voice reached the summit, and Fern felt like she had climbed
Everest, breathless and ebullient and triumphant. “And the home of
the brave!” The crowd roared around her, but Fern was still hanging
on that final note.

“Fern!” Rita's voice rang out. She shoved at
Fern's leg. Fern ignored her. Fern was having a moment. A moment
with, in her opinion, the most beautiful voice on the planet.

“Fern's having her first orgasm.” One of
Rita's girlfriends snickered. Fern's eyes shot open to see Rita,
Bailey, and Cindy Miller looking at her with big grins on their
faces. Fortunately, the applause and the cheers prevented the
people around them from hearing Cindy's humiliating assessment.

Small and pale, with bright red hair and
forgettable features, Fern knew she was the kind of girl who was
easily overlooked, easily ignored, and never dreamed about. She had
floated through childhood without drama and with little fanfare,
grounded in a perfect awareness of her own mediocrity.

Like Zacharias and Elizabeth, parents of the
biblical John the Baptist, Fern's parents were far beyond their
child-bearing years when they suddenly found themselves in a family
way. Fifty-year-old Joshua Taylor, popular pastor in the small town
of Hannah Lake, was struck dumb when his wife of fifteen years
tearfully told him she was going to have a baby. His jaw hit the
floor, his hands shook, and if it hadn't been for the serene joy
stamped on his forty-five-year-old wife, Rachel's face, he might
have thought she was pulling a prank for the first time in her
life. Fern was born seven months later, an unexpected miracle, and
the whole town celebrated with the well-loved couple. Fern found it
ironic that she was once considered a miracle since her life had
been anything but miraculous.

Fern pulled off her glasses and began shining
them on the hem of her T-shirt, effectively blinding herself to the
amused faces around her. Let them laugh. Because the truth of the
matter was, she felt euphoric and dizzy all at once, the way she
sometimes felt after a particularly satisfying love scene in a
favorite novel. Fern Taylor loved Ambrose Young, had loved him
since she was ten years old and had heard his young voice lifted in
a very different kind of song, but in that moment he reached a
whole new level of beauty, and Fern was left reeling and dazed that
one boy could be gifted with so much.

August, 1994

Fern walked over to Bailey’s house, bored,
having finished every single book she'd checked out from the
library the week before. She found Bailey sitting like a statue on
the cement steps that led to his front door, eyes trained on
something on the sidewalk in front of him. He was pulled from his
reverie only when Fern's foot narrowly missed the object of his
fascination. He yelped and Fern squealed when she saw the enormous
brown spider just inches from her feet.

The spider continued on its way, slowly
traversing the long stretch of concrete. Bailey said he had been
tracking it for half an hour, never getting too close, because
after all, it was a spider, and it was gross. It was the biggest
spider Fern had ever seen. Its body was the size of a nickel, but
with its gangly legs it was easily as big as a fifty-cent piece,
and Bailey seemed awestruck by it. After all, he was a boy, and it
was gross.

Fern sat beside him, watching the spider
take his time crossing Bailey's front walk. The spider meandered
like an old man on a stroll, unhurried, unafraid, with no apparent
goal in mind, a seasoned citizen with long, spindly limbs,
carefully unfolding each leg every time he took a step. They
watched him, entranced by his terrifying beauty. The thought took
Fern by surprise.
He was beautiful even though he frightened
her.

“
He's cool,” she marveled.

“
Duh! He's awesome,” Bailey said, his eyes
never wavering. “I wish I had eight legs. I wonder why Spiderman
didn't get eight legs when he got bit by that radioactive spider.
It gave him great eyesight and strength and the ability to make
webs. Why not extra legs? Hey! Maybe spider venom heals muscular
dystrophy, and if I let that guy bite me I’ll get big and strong,”
Bailey wondered, scratching his chin like he was actually
considering it.

“
Hmm. I wouldn't risk it.” Fern shuddered.
They became entranced once more, and neither of them noticed the
boy riding down the sidewalk on his bike.

The boy saw Bailey and Fern sitting so
still, so silent, and his interest was immediately piqued. He
stepped off his bike and laid it on the grass, following their
gazes to where a huge brown spider crept along the walkway in front
of the house. The boy's mother was petrified of spiders. She always
made him kill them immediately. He'd killed so many he wasn't even
afraid of them anymore. Maybe Bailey and Fern were afraid. Maybe
they were scared to death, so scared they couldn't even move. He
could help them. He ran up the sidewalk and smashed the spider
beneath his big white sneaker. There.

Two pairs of horrified eyes shot to his.

“
Ambrose!” Bailey shouted,
horrified.

“
You killed him!” Fern whispered,
shocked.

“
You killed him!” Bailey roared, pushing
up to his feet and stumbling down the sidewalk. He looked at the
brown mess that had occupied the last hour of his life.

“
I needed his venom!” Bailey was still
caught up in his own imaginings of spider cures and superheroes.
Then Bailey surprised them all by bursting into tears.

Ambrose gaped at Bailey, and then watched as
Bailey walked on unsteady legs up the steps and into his house,
slamming the door behind him. Ambrose closed his mouth and shoved
his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

“
I'm sorry,” he said to Fern. “I thought .
. . I thought you were scared. You were both just sitting there
staring at it. I'm not scared of spiders. I was just trying to
help.”

“
Should we bury him?” Fern asked, her eyes
mournful behind her big glasses.

“
Bury him?” Ambrose asked, stunned. “Was
he a pet?”

“
No. We just met,” Fern said seriously.
“But maybe it will make Bailey feel better.”

“
Why is he so sad?”

“
Because the spider is
dead.”



“
So?” Ambrose wasn't trying to be a jerk.
He just didn't understand. And the little red head with the crazy,
curly hair was kind of freaking him out. He'd seen her before at
school and knew her name. But he didn't know her. He wondered if
she was special. His dad said he had to be nice to kids who were
special, because they couldn't help the way they were.

“
Bailey has a disease. It makes his
muscles weak. It might kill him. He doesn't like it when things
die. It's hard for him,” Fern said simply, honestly. She actually
sounded kinda smart. Suddenly, the events at the wrestling camp
earlier that summer made sense to Ambrose. Bailey wasn't supposed
to wrestle because he had a disease. Ambrose felt bad all over
again.