Making Faces (21 page)

Her eyes were a deep, soft brown and a
sprinkling of freckles speckled her small nose. Her mouth was
slightly disproportionate to the rest of her face. In high school,
when she wore braces, her top lip had looked almost comical, like a
duck bill stretched over her protruding teeth. Now her mouth was
almost sensual, her teeth straight and white, her smile wide and
unpretentious. She was quietly lovely, unassumingly pretty,
completely unaware that at some point between awkwardness and
adulthood she had grown so appealing. And because she was unaware,
she became more appealing still.

Ambrose had watched her, night after night,
positioning himself where he could gaze at her unobtrusively. And
he wondered more than once how he could have so easily dismissed
her before. Moments like these made him long for the face that he
used to see when he looked in the mirror, a face that he'd taken
for granted. A face that had smoothed his way more than once with a
pretty girl that caught his eye. It was a face that would surely
attract her to him, the way she'd been attracted to him before. But
it was a face he would never have again, and he found he was lost
without it. So he just watched.

She always had a paperback tucked to the side
of the cash register, and she would pull her long curls around her
left shoulder, twining them around her fingers as she read, the
lateness of the hour making shoppers few and far between, giving
her long stretches where she manned her register with little to do
but flip pages and twirl her red locks.

Now she was writing him notes using word
games and Shakespeare, just like she'd done senior year, posing as
Rita. He had been so angry when he'd found out. But then she'd been
so sweet and so obviously sorry when she'd offered her apology. It
hadn't been difficult to see she had a huge crush on him. It's hard
to stay angry with someone who loves you. And now she was at it
again. But he didn't think for a minute that she actually liked
him. She still liked the old Ambrose. Had she even looked at him?
Really looked at him? It had been dark the night she practically
ran over him on her bike. She’d gasped when she saw his face. He’d
heard her, loud and clear. So what was she up to now? Thinking
about it just made him angry all over again. But before the night
was out he was back to feeling like a jerk. So he walked to the
white board and scribbled the words.

Asshole or Jerk?

He thought his dad might object to the word
'asshole' being written on the bakery whiteboard, but didn't think
any other word would do. Shakespeare wasn't going to cut it this
time around. Plus, he had no idea if Shakespeare's characters ever
begged for forgiveness from pretty redheads with hearts that were
too soft for their own good. He went home in a sour mood that
soured his stomach and made the maple bars he'd eaten feel like
rocks in his gut. When he arrived at work at ten o'clock the
following night the board had been wiped clean and no new message
had been added. Good. He was relieved. Kind of.

Ambrose sneaked little peeks through the
opening that separated the bakery display cases and front counter
from the working part of the kitchen, trying to catch a glimpse of
Fern, wondering if she had finally decided he wasn't worth her
time. She had already been gone by the time he arrived at work the
last few nights. He had started coming in earlier and earlier so he
could see her–even from behind the bakery window–before she left
work for the night. He made excuses to Elliott about things that
needed to be done at the bakery, but his dad never questioned it.
He was probably glad to see Ambrose out of the house and out of his
childhood room, although he would never say so. It was exactly what
the doctor ordered.

His psychologist, the one the army made sure
he had, told Ambrose that he needed to learn to adjust to his “new
reality,” to “come to terms with what had happened to him,” to
“find new pursuits and associations.” The job was a start. Ambrose
hated to admit that it was actually helping, and he’d been running
and lifting weights too. Exercise was the only thing that made him
feel something besides despair. So he exercised a lot. Ambrose
wondered suddenly if spying would qualify as a “new pursuit.”

He felt like a creep, spying on Fern, but he
spied anyway. Tonight, Fern was sweeping the floor singing along
with “The Wind Beneath my Wings,” using the broom handle as a
microphone. He hated the song, but he found himself smiling as he
watched her swaying back and forth, singing in a slightly off-key
but not-unpleasant soprano. She moved her pile of dirt until she
was directly in front of the bakery counter. She saw him standing
in full view and stopped, staring back at him as the last words
rang through the empty store. She smiled tentatively, as if he
hadn't made her cry just a few nights before, and Ambrose felt the
newly acquired fight or flight reaction that flooded him anytime
someone looked directly at him.

Fern had turned up the music that trickled
out of the store's sound system until it felt more like a skating
rink than a grocery store. The tunes were a benign mix of soft hits
designed to put shoppers in a coma as they perused the aisles for
items they could probably do without. Ambrose suddenly longed for a
little Def Leppard, complete with full-throated wailing and
high-powered choruses.

Suddenly, Fern dropped the broom and ran for
the front doors. Ambrose stepped out from the kitchen, rounding the
counter, slightly alarmed that something was wrong. Fern was
unlocking the sliding doors and pushing one aside to allow Bailey
Sheen to roll through in his wheelchair. Then she pulled it back
and relocked it, chattering with Bailey as she did.

Ambrose tried not to smile. Really he did.
But Bailey was wearing a headlamp on his head, a giant one, with
thick elastic bands that wrapped around his head like one of those
old-fashioned retainers. It was the kind of headlamp he imagined
miners would wear as they tunneled into the earth. It was so bright
Ambrose winced, covering his good eye and turning away.

“What the hell are you wearing, Sheen?”

Fern's head whipped around, obviously
surprised that he had ventured out from the confines of the
bakery.

Bailey wheeled past Fern and kept rolling
toward Ambrose. Bailey didn't act surprised to see him there, and
though his eyes were locked on Ambrose's face, he didn't react at
all to the changes in Ambrose's appearance. Instead, he rolled his
eyes and wrinkled his brow, trying to look up at the klieg light
strapped to his forehead.

“Help me out, man. My mom makes me wear this
damn thing whenever I'm out at night. She's convinced I'm going to
get run over. I can't take it off by myself.”

Ambrose reached out, still grimacing at the
blazing bluish-white light. He pulled the lamp from Bailey's head
and snapped the light off. Bailey's hair stood up on end, and Fern
smoothed it down absentmindedly as she walked up behind him. It was
a touching gesture, maternal even. She patted Bailey's hair into
place as if she had done it a thousand times before, and Ambrose
realized suddenly that she probably had. Fern and Bailey had been
friends for as long as he could remember. Obviously, Fern had
become accustomed to doing things for Bailey that he couldn't do
for himself, without him asking or even realizing what she was
doing.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Bailey,
surprised that Bailey was roaming the streets in his wheelchair at
eleven o'clock.

“Karaoke, baby.”

“Karaoke?”

“Yep. Haven't done it in a while, and we've
been getting complaints from the produce section. Seems the carrots
have formed a Bailey Sheen fan club. Tonight is for the fans.
Fern's got quite a following in the frozen foods.”

“Karaoke . . . here?” Ambrose didn't even
crack a smile . . . but he wanted to.

“Yep. Closing time means we have free rein of
the place. We take over the store’s sound system, use the intercom
for a microphone, plug in our CDs, and rock Jolley's Supermarket.
It's awesome. You should join us. I should warn you, though, I'm
amazing, and I'm also a mic hog.”

Fern giggled, but looked at Ambrose
hopefully. Oh, hell, no. He wasn't singing Karaoke. Not even to
please Fern Taylor, which he actually wanted to do, surprisingly
enough.

Ambrose stammered something about cakes in
the oven and made a hasty beeline for the kitchen. It was only a
few minutes before the store was filled with karaoke tracks and
Bailey was doing a very poor Neil Diamond impression. Ambrose
listened as he worked. He really had no choice. It was loud, and
Bailey was definitely a mic hog. Fern only jumped in occasionally,
sounding like a kindergarten teacher trying to be a pop star, her
sweet voice completely at odds with the songs she chose. When she
broke into Madonna's “Like a Virgin” he found himself laughing out
loud, and stopped abruptly, surprised at the way the laughter felt
rumbling in his chest and spilling out his mouth. He thought back,
his mind racing over the last year, since the day his life had been
thrown into a black hole. He didn't think he had laughed. Not once
in an entire year. No wonder it felt like engaging the gears on a
fifty-year-old truck.

They sang a duet next. And it was a stunner.
“Summer Nights” from Grease.
Wella wella wella oomph
poured
from the speakers and the Pink Ladies begged to be told more as
Bailey and Fern sang their lines with gusto, Bailey growling on all
the suggestive parts and Fern snickering and flubbing her words,
making up new ones as she went along. Ambrose laughed through the
next hour, enjoying himself thoroughly, wondering whether Bailey
and Fern had ever considered doing comic relief. They were
hysterical. He had just finished rolling out a batch of cinnamon
rolls when he heard his name echoing throughout the store.

“Ambrose Young? I know you can sing. How
about you come out here and quit pretending we can't see you back
there, spying on us. We can, you know. You aren't as sneaky as you
think. I know you want to sing this next song. Wait! It's the
Righteous Brothers! You have to sing this one. I won't be able to
do it justice. Come on. Fern's been dying to hear you sing again
ever since senior year when we heard you nail “The National Anthem”
at that pep rally.”

“Had she really?” Ambrose thought, rather
pleased.

“AAAAAMMMMMBRRRROOOOSE YOUUUNG!” Bailey
thundered, obviously enjoying the intercom way too much. Ambrose
ignored him. He was not going to sing. Bailey called him several
more times, changing his tactics until finally the lure of the
karaoke track distracted him. Ambrose continued working as Bailey
informed him that he'd lost that loving feeling.

Yeah. He had. A year ago in Iraq. That loving
feeling had been completely decimated.