Making Faces (31 page)

“Hell, Bailey! You remind me of Beans–”
Ambrose winced at the pain that lanced through him, like he'd
pressed his fingers into a fresh wound, the sharp sting silencing
him immediately. But his silence only fed Bailey's fears.

“If you are stringing my cousin along and you
aren't head over heels in love with her, I will find a way to kick
your ass!” Bailey was getting agitated and Ambrose laid a hand on
his shoulder, soothing him.

“I do love Fern,” Ambrose admitted, his voice
hushed, his gaze heavy with confession, and felt a frisson of shock
at the truth. He did love her. “I think about her all the time.
When I'm not with her I'm miserable . . . but when I'm with her I'm
miserable too, because I know it's Fern that's settling. Look at
me, Bailey! Fern could have anyone she wanted. Me? Not so
much.”

Bailey laughed and groaned loudly. “Boo,
freakin' hoo! Waaa! You big baby! Do you expect me to feel sorry
for you, Ambrose? 'Cause I don't. It reminds me of a book I just
read for this online English course I'm taking . This guy, Cyrano
De Bergerac, was born with a big nose. Who the hell cares? So
Cyrano never got with the girl he loved because he was ugly. That's
the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life! He let his big
honker keep him away?”

“That Cyrano guy? Wasn't he the one that
wrote love notes for the good looking guy? Didn't they make a movie
out of that?”

“That's the one. Remind you of anyone? I seem
to remember someone writing you love notes and signing them Rita.
Just like Cyrano. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Fern didn't think she
was good enough for you then, and you don't think you're good
enough for her now. And both of you are wrong . . . and so stupid!
Stuuupiiiid!” Bailey dragged the word out in disgust. “I'm ugly!
I'm not worthy of love, waaa!” Bailey mimicked them in a whiny,
high-pitched voice, and then he shook his head as if he was
thoroughly disappointed. He paused a moment, gearing up for a new
rant.

“Now you're telling me that you are afraid to
love Fern because you don't look like a movie star anymore? Shoot,
man! You still look like a movie star . . . just one that's been
through a war zone is all. Chicks dig that! I keep thinking that
maybe you and I could take a road trip and tell all the girls we
meet along the way that we're both vets. You've got a messed up
face and my war wounds have put me in this chair. You think they'd
believe it? Maybe then I could get some action. Problem is, how am
I going to get a handful of tit if I can't lift my arms?”

Ambrose choked, laughing at Bailey's
irreverence, but Bailey just continued, unfazed.

“I would give anything to do one of those
Freaky Friday
switch-aroo things with you, Ambrose. Just for
one day I want to trade bodies with you. I wouldn't waste one
second. I'd be knocking on Rita's door. I'd pummel Becker a few
times, throw Rita over my shoulder, and I wouldn't come up for air
until neither of us could move. That's what I would do.”

“Rita? You like Rita?”

“I love Rita. Always have. And she's married
to a dick, which is actually comforting in a very selfish way. If
she was married to a cool, nice, awesome guy I would be more
miserable.”

Ambrose found himself laughing again. “You
are something else, Bailey! Your logic is priceless.”

“It is kinda funny. Funny ironic, I mean.
Fern always said Rita has spent her whole life being chased by
boys. Because of that, she never had a chance to stop running long
enough to figure out who she was and what kind of guy she should
let catch her. It's kinda ironic that Rita and I are friends,
seeing as I've never been able to chase her. Maybe that's the
silver lining. I couldn't chase her, so she never had to run.”

After a time, Ambrose picked Bailey up in his
arms once more, and together they descended the hill from the
memorial, lost in their own thoughts of life and death and silver
linings.

Uncle Mike looked surprised when he saw Fern
slip into the wrestling room with Bailey Saturday night. He did a
double-take, then seemed confused, and then he looked at Fern
again, frowning a little. But when Ambrose noticed her sitting on a
rolled-up mat next to Bailey's chair he smiled, and his smile
negated Uncle Mike's frown.

Bailey was transfixed by the action in the
center of the room. Fern was too, although not for the same
reasons. For Bailey it was the smell of the mats, the movement, the
wrestler who might just make a comeback. For Fern it was the smell
of the man, his movements, the wrestler who had finally come back.
Bailey had been crashing some of the drill sessions between his dad
and Ambrose for the last few weeks, but tonight was a first for
Fern. She tried not to chew on her nails, a habit she forbade
herself, especially since she'd just painted them that morning, and
looked on, hoping it was really okay that she was there.

Ambrose was dripping with sweat. His grey
shirt was soaked through on his chest and down his back, and he
mopped at his bare head with a hand towel. Mike Sheen challenged
him through another series of drills, encouraging, correcting, but
when Ambrose flopped on the mat at the end of the workout, the
coach's brow was furrowed and he kept biting his lip, chewing over
an obvious concern.

“You need a partner. You need some guys to
beat up on, to beat up on you . . . drilling shots is one thing.
But you gotta do some live wrestling or you aren't going to get
back into the kind of shape you need to be in . . . not wrestling
shape, anyway.

“Remember how gassed Beans got when he
couldn't compete until halfway through the season his junior year?
He'd been in the room, practicing with the team, but he hadn't been
in a real live match, and he about died those first couple meets
after he came back. Heck, Grant pinned him in the Big East tourney,
and Grant had never pinned Beans before. Remember how tickled he
was?”

Coach Sheen's words rang through the room,
the mention of Grant and Beans, the mention of death in any
context, creating an odd echo that kept ricocheting off the walls.
Ambrose stiffened, Bailey hung his head, and Fern gave in and
gnawed her fingernail. Mike Sheen realized what he'd said and ran a
hand over his cropped hair. He continued on as if the words hadn't
been spoken.

“We'll get some guys in here, Brose. I've got
a couple bigger guys on the high school team that you could work
over. It'd be good for them and helpful to you.”

“No. Don't do that.” Ambrose shook his head,
his voice a low rumble as he stood and started shoving his gear
into a gym bag. “I'm not here for that, Coach. I don't want you
thinking I am. I missed the room. That's all. I just missed the
room. But I'm not wrestling . . . not anymore.”

Mike Sheen's face fell and Bailey sighed
beside Fern. Fern just waited, watching Ambrose, noticing the way
his hands shook as he untied his wrestling shoes, the way he had
turned away from his old coach so he couldn't see Mike Sheen's
reaction to his firm refusal.

“All right,” Coach Sheen said gently. “Are we
done for today?”

Ambrose nodded, not looking up from his
shoes, and Mike Sheen jangled the keys in his pocket. “You going
home with Fern, Bailey?” he said to his son, noting the dejection
in Bailey's posture.

“We walked and rolled, Dad,” Bailey quipped,
trying as he always did to ease an uncomfortable situation with
humor. “But I'll come home with you, if you don't mind . . . you
got the van, right?”

“I'll take Fern,” Ambrose spoke up keeping
his gaze on his laces. He hadn't moved from where he was crouched
by his bag, and he didn't look up at the three people who were all
focused on him. He seemed tense and eager to be left alone, and
Fern wondered why he wanted her to remain behind. But she said
nothing, letting her uncle and Bailey leave without her.

“Make sure the lights are off and the doors
are all locked,” Coach Sheen said quietly, and held the door open
for Bailey to wheel through. Then the heavy door swung shut and
Fern and Ambrose were alone.

Ambrose took a long draw from a bottle of
water, his throat working as he swallowed greedily. He splashed a
little on his face and head and wiped it off with his towel, but
still made no move to get up. He pulled his wet shirt over his
head, grabbing the back of the neck with one hand and yanking it
over his head the way guys always do and girls never do. He didn't
pause to let her look at him, though her eyes raced over his skin,
trying to soak in every detail. Showing off wasn't his intent, and
a clean blue T-shirt replaced his soiled gray one almost instantly.
He slipped his running shoes on and laced them up, but still he
sat, his arms looped around his knees, his head bent against the
glare of the fluorescent lights overhead.

“Will you turn off the light, Fern?” His
voice was so soft she wasn't sure she heard him right, but she
turned and walked toward the door and the light switches that were
lined up to the right of it, expecting him to follow her.

“Are you coming?” she asked, her hand poised
on the switch.

“Just . . . turn it off.”

Fern did as he asked, and the wrestling room
vanished before her eyes, disappearing in the darkness. Fern paused
uncertainly, wondering if he wanted her to leave him there in the
dark. But why then had he said he would take her home?

“Do you want me to go? I can walk . . . it's
not that far.”

“Stay. Please.”

The door thumped shut and Fern stood next to
it, wondering how she was going to find her way back to him. He was
acting so strange, so forlorn and aloof. But he wanted her to stay.
That was enough for Fern. She walked toward the middle of the room,
carefully placing one foot in front of the other.

“Fern?” Just a little to the left. Fern sank
to her hands and knees and crawled toward the sound of his
voice.

“Fern?” He must have heard her coming,
because his voice was soft, more welcome than question. She stopped
and reaching out, felt her fingers graze his upraised knee. He
clasped her fingers immediately and then slid his hand up her arm,
pulling her into him and then down to the mat, where he stretched
out beside her, his length creating a wall of heat on her left
side.

It was a strange sensation, feeling his touch
in the dark. The wrestling room had no windows, and the darkness
was absolute. Her senses were heightened by her lack of sight, the
sound of his breathing both erotic and chaste–erotic because she
didn't know what would come next, chaste because he was simply
breathing, in and out, a flutter of warmth against her cheek. Then
his mouth descended and the warmth became heat that singed her
parted lips. And the heat became pressure as his mouth sank into
hers.

He kissed Fern like he was drowning, like she
was air, like she was land beneath his feet, and maybe that was
simply how he kissed, how he had always kissed, whenever he kissed
whomever he kissed. Maybe that was the way he had kissed Rita. But
Fern had only been kissed by Ambrose and had nothing to compare it
to, no informed analysis of what was good or bad, skilled or
unschooled. All she knew was that when Ambrose kissed her, he made
her feel like she was going to implode, implode like one of those
controlled demolitions where the building simply collapses into a
neat pile of rubble, disturbing nothing and no one around it.

Nothing around Fern would collapse. The room
would not burst into flame, the mats would not melt beneath her,
but when Ambrose was done with her, she would be a smoldering pile
of what used to be Fern Taylor all the same, and there was no way
she could go back. She would be unalterably changed, ruined for
anyone else. And she knew it as surely as if she'd been kissed by a
thousand men.