My Life in Black and White (31 page)

There were four packets of butter in my hand, warm now from the heat. I didn’t have to squeeze very hard to make those shiny yellow bombs explode.

“What are you
doing
?” he said, jumping back, staring down at his blazer.

“Oops. Sorry.”

“Are you
crazy
?”

“I already apologized, Ryan,” I said. “We really don’t need to rehash it.” Then I turned to the man in front of me, whose beard was as white and fluffy as new snow. I smiled and said, “Would you like some bread and butter?”

“I know,” I told my mom on our way to the car. “I know it was rude. I know it was immature. I know it was not proper soup kitchen etiquette.”

I could feel her eyes boring into me.

“Although believe me,” I added, “Ryan deserves a lot worse than he got.”

I opened the passenger door, getting ready to explain everything, when I heard my name.

“Lexi!”

Crap
.

“Wait!”

He’s going to squirt me with butter
.

I turned around and sure enough, there was Ryan, still wearing his blazer and sprinting straight toward me.

Double crap. He’s going to beat me up.

“What in the world?” my mother murmured.

“Hey,” Ryan said, screeching to a halt in front of me. “Don’t you wonder who it was?”

“Huh?” I said.

“Principal Levitt,” he said. “Coach Donovan … Who do you think gave them those names?”

“How should I know?”

“Think about it,” he said. Then, “I’ve done some fucked-up things in my life, Lexi … I probably deserved this”—he paused, pointing to the grease spot on his lapel—“but I’m not a complete asshole.”

While Ryan turned to my mother—“Sorry, Mrs. Mayer”—my mind worked overtime to understand what he was saying.

“Oh my God,” I murmured. “You’re the snitch?”

He looked me in the eye, holding my gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ryan,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I understood then, it was like
The Princess Bride
—like Westley and Buttercup. Ryan was saying one thing while telling me something else entirely.

“Oh my God,” I repeated.

He held my gaze a moment longer. Then he said, “See you in trig,” turned, and walked away.

It took a long time to explain everything to my mother.

At first, she didn’t react. When she finally did, it was like she hadn’t heard a word I said. “Squirting people with butter, Alexa, is not how I raised you to behave. There are other ways to express your frustration. More socially acceptable ways.”

“Yes,” I said, “I
know
that.” I felt myself getting mad at her again, but I willed my voice to stay calm. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to be the girl you raised me to be. Kind, sweet, polite … all those good qualities. But sometimes…” I hesitated, choosing my words. “Sometimes a girl needs to squirt butter on people … or throw ice cream at the wall or a plate across the room … and it’s not that she’s
proud
of this behavior … it’s just … well, she needs to flip out once in a while. To relieve the pressure.”

My mother shook her head, trying to make sense of this.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.

She nodded slowly.

“You should try flipping out some time,” I said. “It’s kind of fun.”

For the first time since we got in the car, she smiled, and I could tell that her disapproval was lifting. When she reached out to pat my knee, I thought how weird it was that we could go from fighting to making up in the same conversation. I wondered if it was like that for all mothers and daughters.

Turning the key in the ignition, my mom asked if I wanted to pick something up to bring home for dinner. We could swing by Illiano’s on our way. Salads? Sandwiches? Pizza?

I looked at her, surprised. “Pizza?” The last time my mother let me eat pizza I was twelve. Since then, I only got to eat it at other people’s houses, when she wasn’t watching.

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“Okay,” I said. “Pizza then.”

As we pulled out of the parking lot, it occurred to me. The whole time I was talking and my mother wasn’t listening, she might have heard more than I thought.

Just Happy Not to Be
Barfing My Guts Out

“LOOK AT YOU with your bad self,” Heidi said a few mornings later. “Showing up without a hood.”

“Uh-huh.” I kept jogging, my eyes on the track. “I needed some peripheral vision so I could see your technique. Which
rots
, by the way. Get your elbows in. You want to move forward, not sideways…. And lower your shoulders. You’re hunching.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you want my help or not?”

“Yes,” she said, adjusting her form.

“Better.” This time I gave her the thumbs-up, reminding myself that a little praise goes a long way with Heidi. She likes to act all tough and cynical, but really, underneath that crusty exterior, she’s as soft as they come.

“We’re going for two today,” I said.

“Two?”
Heidi stared at me. “Are you insane?”

“A little bit … yeah.”

“I can’t run two miles!”

“That’s what you said about
one,
remember? And you did that.”

“Barely,” she muttered. “And it was torture.”

“But you felt great after, right?”

“Sure. Like you feel great after the stomach bug, when you’re just happy not to be barfing your guts out.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Keep moving, Sunshine.”

As we ran, I marveled once again that the two of us were here together. Me and Heidi Engle, running. Cracking jokes. We never planned for it to happen; we just both kept showing up at the track in the mornings, and now … well … I guess you could say we’re workout partners.

It’s funny how your whole life can shift. How friends can become enemies and enemies can become friends. How the guy you thought you loved turns out to be a jerk—and then, against all odds, tries to redeem himself. And the guy you thought was a jerk turns out to be someone you can’t stop kissing.

Yesterday at the boxing gym, Theo did the weirdest thing. After we hit the bag, he led me around the whole building, introducing me to people and telling me about their injuries. There was Carl, a plumber, and his friend Tyrone, a hospital orderly, who had both broken their noses so many times they barely had any cartilage left. Lyle, who lost half an ear in a street fight. Steve, a baseball player for Fairfield U, who got hit in the eye with a line drive last season and has the glass eyeball to prove it. Did that make him quit baseball? Hell no. He still plays second base—
and
he boxes middleweight.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” I murmured as Theo grabbed my hand, leading me over to three guys jumping rope.

“What?” he said innocently.

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m not playing dumb. I’m making introductions.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not making introductions?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t put into words what I was feeling. I wanted Theo to know what this meant to me, how touched I was that he would even think to do what he was doing. After a long pause, I said, “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

Theo leaned over and, gently pushing back my hood, he kissed my hairline. “I know you are,” he whispered. “But what am I?”

I could feel myself smiling, just thinking about it, as Heidi and I stood on the fifty-yard line doing our cooldown.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“Nothing’s funny.”

“You’re smiling.”

“So?”

“So…”

“Maybe I’m just happy not to be barfing my guts out.”

“Uh-huh.” She narrowed her eyes at me.

“What?” I said. “Stop staring.”

“You know,” she said musingly, “I actually like your face better now than I did before.”

I snorted. “Of course you do.”

“No, it’s not an insult.” She pulled on her foot for a quad stretch. “You’ve always been beautiful and you still are. But before, you were kind of …
bland
beautiful.
Vanilla
beautiful.”

I opened my mouth, full of defensiveness, ready to lash out, but then I changed my mind. “What am I now?”

“Now,” Heidi said, “you’re interesting.”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “I’m interesting, all right.”

I thought about my graft, how it wasn’t as hideous as it used to be, but it was still bad. Instead of purplish red, it was pink. Instead of two millimeters higher than the rest of my face, it was one.

“Look at it this way,” Heidi said. “You’ll always have a story to tell at cocktail parties.”

I gave her a funny look.

“What? Everyone needs a good cocktail-party story. Taylor’s mom taught me that.”

We both got quiet for a moment, thinking about Taylor.

“She won’t be grounded forever, you know,” Heidi said.

“You sure about that?”

“It’s not until summer anymore. Her dad said Christmas.”

“I know what he
said
. I just don’t trust him.”

Heidi shrugged. She bent down for a hamstring stretch, then popped right up again. “Did you see what those guys wrote on her locker today?”

“No, what?”

“
Open 24 Hours
.”

“Imbeciles,” I muttered.

“Will they
ever
run out of insults?”

“Probably not.”

Heidi shook her head. “I feel so bad for her.”

“I know.”

“She won’t even talk about it. She won’t even
try
to clean off her locker.”

“I know.”

“So what do we do?”

“We wait,” I said. “Until she’s ready to deal. And when she is, we’ll be there.”

Heidi nodded. “Yes we will.”

I handed her a bottle of water. “In the meantime, we hydrate.”

Heidi took a few sips. Then she handed the bottle back to me. I tipped back my head and drank, long and deep, feeling the cool wetness on my throat and sting of the November air on my cheeks.

Epilogue

HERE IS A picture. I am standing in a boxing ring in Quincy, Mas sachusetts. It was Theo’s brilliant idea, entering me in the New England Girls’ Boxing Competition. I told him no, but the entrance form kept magically appearing in my locker. And my backpack. And my sweatshirt pocket. It was so annoying I finally caved, filled the thing out, and mailed it in.

So now, here I am, wearing the ridiculous boxing shorts Ruthie gave me for my sixteenth birthday—shiny gold with red stripes. My hair is in a ponytail, long pieces and stumpy pieces all mixed in together. It is a warm spring day, and the gym is a sauna. Everybody’s sweating.

I am supposed to have on my game face, but I keep sneaking glances at the bleachers. I can’t believe they’re all here. I knew they were coming, but still—the fact that they drove this far, for me … I can’t explain how it feels.

I know my mother will watch the whole thing from behind her fingers. She doesn’t like boxing, and she’s worried about my face. Even though I’m wearing this puffy red helmet thing Theo gave me that makes me look like a Martian and protects every bone in my skull. My mother will never understand my need to do this, just as I will never understand her need to freak out.