“There are times like that, Bailey. Times you don't think you can take it anymore. But then you discover that you can. You always do. You're tough. You'll take a deep breath, swallow just a little bit more, endure just a little longer, and eventually you'll get your second wind,” Fern said, her smile wobbly and her teary eyes contradicting her encouraging words.
Bailey nodded, agreeing with her, but there were tears in his eyes too. “But there are times when you just need to acknowledge the shit, Fern, you know?”
Fern nodded, squeezing his hand a little tighter. “Yep. And that's okay, too.”
“You just need to acknowledge it. Face the shit.” Bailey's voice grew stronger, strident even. “Accept the truth in it. Own it, wallow in it, become one with the shit.” Bailey sighed, the heavy mood lifting with his insistence on profanity. Swearing could be very therapeutic.
Fern smiled wanly. “Become one with the shit?”
“Yes! If that's what it takes.”
“I've got Rocky Road ice cream. It looks a little like poop. Can we become one with the Rocky Road instead?”
“It does look a little like shit. Nuts and everything. Count me in.”
“Sick, Bailey!”
Bailey cackled as Fern climbed in the back, unhooked the belts that secured his chair and shoved the sliding door open.
“Bailey?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Fern.”
That night, after her shimmery dress was put away, her curls unpinned from the complicated twist, and her face scrubbed free of makeup, Fern stood naked in front of her mirror and looked at herself in frank appraisal. She'd grown up some, hadn't she? She was almost 5'2. Not that small. She was still on the scrawny side, but at least she didn't look twelve anymore.
She smiled at herself, admiring the straight white teeth she'd suffered so long for. Her hair was recovering from last summer's hair disaster. Convinced shorter hair would be more manageable, she'd directed Connie at Hair She Blows to cut it short like a boy. Maybe it wasn't short enough, because it had sprung out from her head like a seventies fro, and she'd spent most of her senior year looking like Annie from the Broadway play, further accentuating her little girl persona. Now, it almost touched her shoulders and she could force it into a ponytail. She promised herself she wouldn't cut it again. She would let it grow until it reached her waist, hoping the weight of longer hair would relax the curl. Think Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder. Nicole Kidman was a beautiful redhead. But she was also tall. Fern sighed and pulled her pajamas on. Elmo stared back at her from the front of her top
“Elmo loves you!” she said to herself in her best squeaky imitation of the puppet's voice. Maybe it was time to get some new clothes, maybe a new style. Maybe she would look older if she didn't wear Elmo pajamas. She should buy some jeans that fit and some T-shirts that actually revealed that she wasn't flat-chested . . . not anymore.
But was she still ugly? Or had she just been ugly for so long that everyone had already made up their minds? Everyone, meaning the guys she went to school with. Everyone, meaning Ambrose.
She sat at her little desk and turned on her computer. She was working on a new novel. A new novel with the same story line. In all her stories, either the prince fell in love with a commoner, the rock star lost his heart to a fan, the president was smitten by the lowly school teacher, or the billionaire became besotted with the sales clerk. There was a theme there, a pattern that Fern didn't want to examine too closely. And usually, Fern could easily imagine herself in the role of the female love interest. She always wrote in the first person and gave herself long limbs, flowing locks, big breasts, and blue eyes. But tonight her eyes kept straying to her mirror, to her own pale face with a smattering of freckles.
For a long time she sat, staring at the computer screen. She thought of the prom, the way Ambrose ignored her. She thought of the conversation afterward and Bailey's surrender to the “shit,” even if it was only temporary surrender. She thought about the things she didn't understand and the way she felt about herself. And then she began to type, to rhyme, to pour her heart out on the page.
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Does he make the legs that cannot walk and eyes that cannot see?
Does he curl the hair upon my head 'til it rebels in wild defiance?
Does he close the ears of the deaf man to make him more reliant?
Is the way I look coincidence or just a twist of fate?
If he made me this way, is it okay, to blame him for the things I hate?
For the flaws that seem to worsen every time I see a mirror,
For the ugliness I see in me, for the loathing and the fear.
Does he sculpt us for his pleasure, for a reason I can't see?
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Fern sighed and hit print. When her cheap printer spit out the poem, Fern stuck it to her wall, shoving a thumbtack through the plain white page. Then she crawled into bed and tried to turn off the words that kept repeating in her head. If God makes all our faces, if God makes all our faces, if God makes all our faces . . .