True Love (32 page)

“Jon’s jealous,” she blurted. “He doesn’t like me seeing other guys.”

“Couldn’t he understand this one time? I’m not asking for much. After this one meeting I’ll drop out of your life. I promise.”

Her head was spinning, desperate to find a
way out of her dilemma. She didn’t want him out of her life, but the need to protect herself was far more intense than her willingness to tell him everything. Suddenly an idea came to her. “Okay, all right, fair enough. I’ll let you see me. But it has to be from a distance.”

“How far? North Carolina?”

The sarcasm in his voice made her cringe. “I don’t want Jon to know about you,” she explained. “Please. If you care about me, you’ll do me this favor.”

Again there was a long pause. “All right. Whatever you want.” She sagged with relief. “Where can I see you?” he asked.

She realized she had no place to tell him because she’d never been anyplace on a date.
Where would Jon take Janelle?
she wondered. She remembered her sister telling her about the Mudpie, a coffeehouse that had opened in September and had quickly gained favor with the older high school crowd. She asked Kyle if he’d heard of it.

“I’ve been there once. Before my accident.”

“Well, that’s where I’ll be Friday afternoon with my boyfriend. That’s when you can see me.”

“What time?”

“Four-thirty.”

“All right.”

“But, Kyle, you can’t come over and speak to me. You have to hang back. I—I wouldn’t want Jon to know. He wouldn’t like it.”

“I won’t embarrass you.” His voice sounded emotionless. “Steve will be with me because he has to do the driving, but I’ll make certain he keeps out of the way too.”

“I—um—probably won’t wave to you, or acknowledge you in any way.” Carley nibbled on her bottom lip nervously.

“I understand the rules.”

“I wish things could be different.”

“You’re the only one who can make things different.”

She knew he was right. “I can’t,” she said softly into the phone. “I just
can’t.”

Carley cornered Jon in the atrium the next afternoon while he was waiting for Janelle to finish ensemble rehearsal. When she
told him her plan, he balked. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that.”

“And why not? All I’m asking is that you take her to the Mudpie Friday afternoon and buy her coffee or a soda. I’ll even pay for it.”

Jon shook his head. “There isn’t enough money. If she suspects anything, she’ll kill me and disown you.”

“Believe me, being disowned is preferable to your not helping me.”

“Don’t pressure me. I won’t do it.”

Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. It wasn’t easy for her to beg. “Kyle promised he’d keep out of the line of vision. He swore that all he’d do is look, then leave. You’ve got to help me, Jon. Please.”

“Don’t cry.” He glanced nervously toward the hallway, where Janelle was soon to appear. “If Janelle sees you, she’ll have to know why. Have you asked her if she’d do it for you?”

“She won’t. I know she won’t. And once she knows the plan, she’ll never go to the Mudpie with you. No, it’s better to take her, let Kyle slip in and see the two of you, and disappear. He’ll see her, and Steve will tell
him it’s me, and hell think I’m beautiful. Nobody will get hurt.”

“Nobody?”

“All right—
I
won’t get hurt. What’s so terrible about that?”

Jon looked pained, indecisive. Carley felt as if he wanted to help, but was scared.

“This will be the end of it, Jon. Once Friday is over, the door will be closed and I’ll never ask a favor of you again. Please help me.”

On Friday Carley had a makeup test after school and missed the bus. That left her no choice but to accompany Jon and Janelle to the Mudpie, which worked out better because, with Carley along, even if Janelle happened to see Kyle and Steve in the coffee shop, she wouldn’t be suspicious—Janelle knew Carley would never run the risk of bumping into Kyle. Her sister would never suspect that
she herself
had set up the meeting.

The three of them sat in a booth in the far back of the small coffee shop. Carley told them it would make her feel self-conscious if she sat anywhere else, and of course Janelle
believed her. She fidgeted, watching the clock constantly. At exactly four-twenty she excused herself to go to the bathroom. There, in the small, protected hallway, Carley could peek around the corner without being seen.

The coffee shop was crowded with tables and booths filled with teens and groups of twenty-somethings preparing for weekend fun. A sofa, two easy chairs and a coffee table toward the front gave the place a homey atmosphere. Green plants hung on cords from the ceiling, and the aromas of exotic coffees and sweet-scented vanilla and cinnamon spiced the air. Carley would have enjoyed herself if she hadn’t been so nervous.

When she saw Kyle come in the door, she caught her breath. He wore a wheat-colored cable-knit sweater, jeans, and dark glasses. Another boy was with him; she assumed it was Steve. Her heart wedged in her throat as she watched Kyle scan the room. She watched as Steve nudged him in the ribs. Kyle stared toward the booth where Jon sat with Janelle.

Janelle, oblivious to her surroundings,
leaned toward Jon, her face animated and smiling. Jon held her hand across the table, took a dollop of whipped cream from atop his cappuccino, and offered it to Janelle’s pretty red mouth. Kyle watched the scene without expression. Knowing she was hurting him, Carley felt a terrible heaviness. She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, Kyle and Steve were gone.

She gazed longingly at the space that had held him. At the sunlight playing through the glass window and leaving bright patches on the floor where he had stood. He was gone, just as he had promised. Her charade was over. She was safe, yet inside she felt no elation, no satisfaction. She felt hollow and empty.

Goodbye, Kyle
. His dark glasses had hidden his eyes, and with a start she realized that she had never once looked into their depths. She didn’t even know what color they were. And now she never would.

“H
ello, Carley. I’m Dr. Chaffoo.”

“Hi,” she said, shaking the hand of the plastic surgeon. She took a seat beside her mother on the leather sofa in the doctor’s plush office.

The doctor was good-looking, with a wide, generous smile, blue eyes, and brown hair flecked with gray. He didn’t wear the white lab coat so typical of other doctors she had known, but instead was dressed in a well-tailored navy suit, crisp white shirt, and a colorful silk tie. Her mother had assured Carley that he had come highly recommended, and together they’d driven the thirty miles into Knoxville to meet with him
about the possibility of reconstructing her face.

“I’ve obtained your medical charts and read through them,” Dr. Chaffoo said, leafing through a thick manilla folder on his gleaming mahogany desk. “I’ve also talked to your oncologist and have a very thorough picture of what you went through four years ago.”

“The question is,” her mother interjected, “can you help my daughter? Can anything be done to give her a more normal appearance?”

“Is that what you want, Carley?”

“More than anything.” Carley felt both anxious and excited. She was afraid to get her hopes up, yet she longed for him to tell her she was “fixable.”

Dr. Chaffoo stood, came around his desk, raised her chin with his forefinger, and scrutinized her face. It made her feel self-conscious. She disliked anyone staring at her too intently. Gently he smoothed his thumb along the sunken contours of her cheek, eye, and nose, then returned to his chair. “In a
few minutes I’m going to take you into another room where I have an imaging computer and a camera set up. But first let’s talk about the realities of reconstructive surgery. No matter how much plastic surgery you have done, you’ll always have a scar on your face and some residual effects of your cancer surgery. I can’t make you perfect.”

Carley felt her hopes sag. No one could help her.

“However,” the doctor continued, “I can make you look a whole lot better.”

“Tell us,” her mother said.

“What plastic surgeons try to do with this type of malformation is add symmetry back to your face. As it is now, anyone who sees you is automatically drawn to the defect because your face is out of proportion. If we fill in the caved-in areas, your cheek can look fuller, your eye can be elevated to align with the other, and your nose can be reconstructed to give you a more normal appearance.”

Her mother asked, “But bone and tissue were removed during her cancer surgery.
They told us it can’t regrow. It’s gone forever.”

Carley looked straight at the doctor. “What do you use? Silly Putty? Paper and paste? Play-Doh?”

Dr. Chaffoo laughed heartily. “Good suggestions, but your body would reject such foreign substances. No … whenever possible I’d use your own body tissue, fat, and bone. Some silicone plastic if necessary.”

“My
tissue? How?”

“First I’ll send you to a radiology lab and have a three-dimensional CAT scan made of your head. This type of X ray will help me see you on the inside before I operate. It will give me exact dimensions of your nasal and cranial areas and offer me a model to follow for rebuilding. An old photograph of you will also be used for comparison.”

“Like
The Terminator
?” She remembered her photo as a twelve-year-old, and a movie she’d once seen about a robot made to look human.

He laughed again. “I’ll be able to see the extent of the area needing work, and that
will help me gauge the amount of material I’ll need to harvest for your surgeries.”

“How many surgeries?” her mother wanted to know.

“Probably three. Each one about six months apart with two to three hours in the operating room and one to two days in the hospital for recovery.”

Carley’s hopes dipped. She hadn’t expected it to take so long. “But that could take over a year and a half. I’ll be a senior by the time I look acceptable.”

“But you’re so young,” the doctor said. “Over the course of a lifetime what’s eighteen months?”

My entire life in high school
, she thought, but didn’t say it. A normal social life would still elude her. And being able to meet Kyle face-to-face was a dream gone up in smoke. Secretly she’d harbored the hope that fixing her face might take less time and therefore give her another opportunity to work something out with him.

“You said you could use tissue from my daughter’s own body. Tell us about that
part.” Her mother didn’t even sense Carley’s disappointment, but pressed the doctor for more details.

“I can take cartilage from behind your ear to replace nasal cartilage.” He tugged on his ear to demonstrate flexibility. “Your ear will be fine and look perfectly normal.”

“But what about bone? Could you take some from my leg?” She held up the leg in the cast. “I’m sure there’s plenty to go around.”

“Actually I’d use a calvarial bone graft—that’s bone taken from your skull and grafted into existing bone in your cheek to provide a floor for fat I’d take from your abdomen or buttocks. The fat will plump out the area.”

She stared at him. “You’re going to take a chunk out of my head?”

“The skull’s thick. You won’t miss the fragment I’ll take.” She remembered what it had been like to be bald from chemo. It had taken years to grow her hair long again. As if reading her mind, Dr. Chaffoo said, “Don’t worry, I won’t have to shave your head. I’ll take bone from in back of your hairline. You
can brush the rest of your hair over the area. I’ll insert the bone through an incision in your gum line.” He raised his lip and pointed to the area above his upper teeth. “And the bone to enhance your eye area can be inserted through an incision under your eyelash line.” He ran his finger along the lower lashes of his left eye.

Carley thought the whole idea sounded bizarre and creepy, and it made her stomach feel queasy. She glanced at her mother, who didn’t look especially pleased with his descriptions either. “Sounds like fun,” Carley said drolly. She recalled how horrible she looked following her surgery for the removal of the cancerous tumor.

“The stitches are exceedingly fine. I do them with a microscope.” The doctor stood. “Come with me, Carley. I want to show you something.”

In another room he took color photos of her, front and side views, and sent the picture electronically into a nearby computer. Her image popped up on the screen and she grimaced. She thought she looked ugly.
“Well, Mom, if the FBI ever puts these on the walls of the post office, I’ll sue,” she quipped.

“Watch this,” Dr. Chaffoo said.

Carley leaned over his shoulder and watched as he moved the computer’s mouse on its pad. Every few seconds she heard it click and slowly watched her face transform on the computer screen. With wonder she saw her left eye shift upward and the space between her nose and eye socket fill in. She watched the bridge of her nose swell and smooth, until her nose looked straight and perfectly formed. She saw her cheek plump and fill in like a round, full apple.

Minutes later Dr. Chaffoo leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, there you are, Carley. This is how I can make you look.”