My Life in Black and White

by Natasha Friend

  Taylor kept going, laying out all the atrocities of the modeling industry. The longer she talked, the more obvious it became that—much as she denied it—the Zander Kent thing had touched a nerve. Big-time. And, bottom line, Taylor’s friendship meant more to me than a few photos.

  So that night, I nipped the modeling thing in the bud. When my mother wasn’t looking, I dug through her purse until I found Zander Kent’s business card. Then, I walked to the kitchen sink and stuffed my modeling career down the disposal.

  But a few days later, a package arrived in the mail. My mother squealed when she saw the return address and opened it right away. She wouldn’t even let me peek at the photos until she’d seen them. Then she got the crazy notion to run to the mall and buy frames so we could surprise my father with the “big reveal” at dinner. I thought this was a horrible idea, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Sure enough, after we had eaten my father’s favorite dinner—brisket, wilted greens, potatoes au gratin—and we’d reached my mother’s “Honey, let me tell you what happened the other day at the Met” portion of the meal, my dad got very, very quiet. He wiped his mouth on his napkin for a full minute. Finally, he set the napkin down. “Tell me you didn’t sign anything,” he said.

  My mother’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “Tell me you didn’t sign your name on a piece of paper. A photo release, a contract, anything.”

  “No,” my mom said. “Absolutely not.”

  My father sighed. “Good.” Then he launched in: How could my mother have given our address to a complete stranger? What could she have been thinking? Didn’t she watch the news?

  “That’s how girls end up in Dumpsters,” Ruthie chimed in.

  “Ruth,” my mother said, shocked.

  “What? It’s true.”

  “Laine,” my father said. “She has a point.”

  “Well,” my mother said, “he wasn’t a stranger. Zander Kent is a genuine fashion photographer…. Look.” She reached into the package and whipped out another business card that Zander Kent must have stuck in there. “It’s not as if this gentleman—and he was a gentleman, wasn’t he, Alexa?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Well, he was. Very polite. And it’s not as if he just approached us out of the blue. He was already there, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on a legitimate photo shoot.”

  “Or…” Ruthie paused for effect, “he was just posing as a polite, legitimate photographer. Any pedophile perv with a computer can make a business card.”

  “Ruth,” my mother said.

  But my father nodded his approval. “Another great point.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  It was almost comical, like watching a three-way tennis match. My mother would serve up something along the lines of “Modeling is a wonderful way for Alexa to earn money for college,” and my dad would hit back with “She’s only fourteen.” Then, out of nowhere, Ruthie would drop some gem: “You know, Mom … Charles Manson had a camera.”

  Finally, dinner ended. But my mother’s campaign continued. She hung the framed photos of me on the wall outside my father’s study. She told him to run a background check on Zander Kent. She clipped out articles bemoaning the rising costs of a private, four-year college education. In short, the woman was relentless. And eventually, she wore my father down. So the two of them came up with a compromise: in nine months, when I turned fifteen, my mother could take me into the city to Zander Kent’s studio, to have professional photos taken. Head shots, not body shots. After that, we would discuss—as a family—the next course of action.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I knew how keyed up my mother was, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. Plus, if I was really honest with myself, a part of me was just as excited. Because … what if I ended up on the cover of Seventeen some day? Or Elle? Then I remembered Taylor, how weird she’d been about the whole thing. How afterward, whenever she was at my house and walking by my dad’s study, she’d pretend not to notice the photos of me at the Met.

  But as the months went by, I stopped thinking about Taylor’s role in my decision. The two of us had been having a blast, riding the wave of our ninth-grade popularity all the way to graduation. Two weeks before school let out, I turned fifteen. And my mom called Zander Kent to book an appointment. And I thought, Well, what Taylor doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I decided I wouldn’t say a word unless something huge happened, like me on the cover of Vogue. If I made it that far, wouldn’t my best friend be happy for me? And if she wasn’t, I could always blame my mother. This whole thing was, after all, her idea.

  So my conscience was clear. I allowed myself to embrace the prospect of a real, in-studio photo shoot. Zander Kent was an amazing fashion photographer, and my mother was beyond thrilled to act as my agent. Together, the three of us would work to ensure that my future was bright and all my dreams would come true.

  Okay, maybe that’s laying it on a bit thick, but let’s just say things were looking up. Until the night of Jarrod’s party, that is. When, you know, small detail: My face became roadkill.

  Make Yourself Comfortable

  I CAME OUT of the graft surgery with cottonmouth and a crazy dream in my head. I dreamt that I ran into Zander Kent in the art room of my old elementary school. He was wearing a beret, and instead of a camera in his hands, he held a paintbrush. Standing beside him, at one of those miniature kindergarten easels, was Ryan. They were discussing a work of art. I moved in closer, to get a better look. It was a portrait—a girl’s face—but the closer I got, the weirder it looked. One eye on her forehead, another on her neck. A nose without nostrils. Her skin, a nonsensical jumble of colors and textures that shifted like beads in a kaleidoscope.

  Dude, Dream Ryan said, shaking his head. Girlfriend is messed up.

  Oh no, my boy, Dream Zander Kent replied. That. Is art.

  The next week brought more pain meds, not just for my face, but also for the graft site—the place on my butt where the skin had been removed. Now, whenever the nurses came to check on me, they weren’t just looking at my face, they were looking at my bare behind. It was humiliating.

  There were also more balloons, more flowers, more boxes of candy to eat, more stupid cards to tape on the wall. And a shrink.

  “Why do I need a psychologist?” I demanded when my parents told me. “I’m not psycho.”

  “Of course you’re not, baby,” my mother soothed. And my father explained that this wasn’t a judgment on me personally; it was hospital procedure. Following a traumatic injury—particularly a traumatic facial injury—all patients are required to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to ensure their blah blah blah…

  “Well,” I said, “I’m not doing it.”

  I wanted my dad to tell me this was fine, I didn’t have to—that he would plead my case to the hospital board, find some loophole in the system. But here he was, shaking his head.

  “If you don’t do the psych consult,” he said, “you can’t come home. These aren’t my rules, Beans. They’re the hospital’s. They have to cover their bases, legally speaking.”

  While I knew he was right, I couldn’t bring myself to agree. And, anyway, the tin of shortbread cookies on the table next to my bed was calling to me. Eat us, they commanded. Eat one, eat ten, keep going. As I stuffed my face, my mother stared at me with barely disguised horror.

  “Why don’t I take these down to the nurses’ station,” she said briskly, lifting the tin out of my lap. “And get you an apple?”

  Why don’t you get an apple and stuff it in your pie hole? I wanted to say. During the past week my mother had been bugging me worse than ever. First, it was Ryan: Why won’t you take his calls? Why won’t you let him visit? Why won’t you give him a chance to make up? Then, it was Taylor: Why won’t you take her calls? Why did you throw ice cream at the wall when she was here?

  Now, it was my diet. “This hospital food is pure starch!” she informed me. “Why don’t I run out to D’Angelo’s and ge
t you a salad? A yogurt? A protein bar?”

  What’s the point?! I wanted to scream. I would never be a model. I knew that. Even without looking in a mirror, I knew. I could tell by the way my mother glanced away every time one of the doctors or nurses checked under the gauze. By her overly chipper comments. Things are really healing nicely, Alexa! You’ll be back to your old self before you know it! I wanted to grab a cookie and bean my mother in the head.

  But what good would that do? It wouldn’t change anything. Short of building a time machine to transport me back to kindergarten, where I could tell Taylor to shove her offer of friendship up her fickle, treacherous ass—which would then, obviously, set my life on a completely different track—I was stuck. And if I was going to be stuck, I might as well be home. In my own bed. In my own room, which didn’t reek of disinfectant and canned peas.

  So I agreed to the psych consult.

  The pediatric psychiatrist was a woman, which I didn’t expect. All of the other doctors I’d seen had been men. She was also the first one without a lab coat. Instead, she wore a yam-colored sari and jeans. Her shiny black hair was center parted, pulled back in a bun.

  “Hello, Alexa,” she said, rising from her desk to greet me. “I’m Dr. Kamath.”

  “Hello,” I said. My voice sounded high and flimsy in the fluorescent-lit office, like Tinkerbell’s. If Tinkerbell had a voice … Did she? I couldn’t remember now. Did she talk or just tinkle?

  “Alexa?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dr. Kamath smiled. She gestured to several chairs and told me to sit wherever I’d like. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said.

  Comfortable. Right.

  How comfortable could I be, sitting on one side of my butt? When the other side was covered in gauze so thick I felt lopsided? This was my first time venturing out of my bed and into another wing of the hospital. I’d been wearing a johnny for so long I’d forgotten what it felt like to have on real clothes, to sit in a chair like a normal person.

  Normal. There’s a funny word. No one in their right mind would be using normal to describe me now.

  “Alexa?”

  “Hmm?”

  Dr. Kamath was looking at me expectantly.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, taking a seat—awkwardly, with both feet tucked up to the left. “Could you repeat the question?”

  “I was asking about the pain. How you’re managing physically.”

  I shrugged, shifting my position. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Are you uncomfortable? Would you like to try a different seat?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Dr. Kamath nodded, scrawled something down on the notepad in front of her. “Have you looked in a mirror yet?”

  Just like that, she said it. Like she was talking about the weather. Have you been outside yet? Is it warm enough for shorts?

  I cleared my throat. “Not yet. No.” I thought about all the times I’d almost looked but chickened out. There was a hand mirror on my bedside table. One of the nurses, Claudia, had left if there, for whenever I felt ready to look. But every time I thought I was, I wasn’t. I’d pick up the mirror and then I’d think, Shit. And I’d put it right back down.

  “Okay,” Dr. Kamath said. “What about friends? Has anyone been to visit?”

  I let out a snort. I didn’t mean to, but there it was.

  Dr. Kamath smiled. “Care to elaborate?”

  You sound like my mother, I thought.

  Every day in the hospital my mother had been hounding me about my friends. Who’d called, who hadn’t. Who’d sent flowers, who hadn’t. My whole life, she’d been hounding me. My friends were a constant source of analysis and discussion. Which was ironic since I never said a word about her friends—and there were certainly grounds for complaint. The annoying church ladies who dropped by the house without warning, the high school friends who called in the middle of the night, crying about their cheating husbands. Did I bug my mother about them? No. But she had no problem bugging me. Why didn’t I invite anyone besides Taylor over to our house? That pretty Kendall, or Rae, or Marielle Sisk who went to our church? I made up excuses, like the LeFevres’ house being more centrally located than ours or me and Marielle having nothing in common. But the truth was, Taylor was the glue. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have met Kendall and Rae. Without Taylor, I felt weird, even with the girls I’d known since kindergarten. I hadn’t forgotten sixth grade, when someone wrote snob on my locker. Or eighth, when Heidi invited everyone but me to her sleepover. Afterward, when I asked her why, she accused me of acting “too cool” for the rest of them. My mother always said the same thing: “They’re jealous.” “I don’t think so,” I’d say. “Oh, yes,” she’d insist. “They’re jealous. Because you are a beautiful girl.”

  Well. Not anymore.

  “Alexa?”

  I realized Dr. Kamath was still waiting for a response. My palms felt hot and moist against my knees.

  “A bunch of people came to visit,” I said, shifting my weight in the chair to take more pressure off my left bun. “But they’re not really my friends.”

  “No?”

  “Well, two of them are. One of them can’t stand me. And the rest are just … I don’t know … other girls in my grade.”

  “I see,” Dr. Kamath said, adding something to her notepad.

  I felt, suddenly, as though I were being graded. “Are you, like, not planning to let me go home if I don’t tell you exactly what you want to hear?”

  “What do you think I want to hear?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to go home, Alexa?”

  “Yes!” I said. Then, “Why wouldn’t I want to go home?”

  Instead of answering, Dr. Kamath cocked her head to one side like some exotic bird. She didn’t say anything, just looked at me. And looked at me. And looked at me.

  I’ll bet she thinks if she looks long enough I’ll start spilling. I’ll bet this is lesson number one in shrink school.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “The guy who was driving the car … that caused the accident, you know? Jarrod…? He came to visit me, too. He’s not a friend exactly, but his sister Taylor is. Well, she was… I threw ice cream at the wall when they were here.”

  Dr. Kamath nodded as if this made perfect sense. Then, out of nowhere, she started talking about some author I’d never heard of who wrote some book about dying.

  “The process by which people deal with grief can be broken down into five distinct stages. Denial, the first stage, is usually a temporary—”

  “Jarrod didn’t die,” I cut in. “He just broke his collarbone.”

  Silence for a moment. Then Dr. Kamath explained that she wasn’t talking about Jarrod. She was talking about me.

  I gave her what must have been the world’s blankest stare, because she went off on some crazy tangent about grief coming in many forms and traumatic injuries being a kind of death. “Traumatic facial injuries,” she continued, “like the one you’ve endured, can be particularly devastating, triggering feelings of loss not unlike those felt after the loss of a loved one.”

  While Dr. Kamath psycho-babbled on, I focused on her teeth, which at first had seemed just a tad yellowish, but now appeared to be getting yellower by the second. She must drink a butt-load of tea, I thought. I pictured the bleaching trays that my mother, also a tea drinker, kept on her bedside table and used religiously. Maybe I should share this information with Dr. Kamath. She might not realize what an easy fix it was. Just pop ’em in your mouth at night, and in the morning … voilà!

  “Alexa? Does what I’m saying make sense to you?”

  “Mm-hm,” I nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Dr. Kamath jotted something down on her notepad. Why does patient insist on lying? Or, Why are patient’s shorts unbuttoned? Are shorts too small for rapidly expanding waistline? What has patient been eating?

  “So,” Dr. Kamath said, glancing up from her pad again. “Would you like to look in
a mirror now, with me? Or would your prefer to do it back in your room, with your family?”

  Um. What?

  “It’s your decision,” she went on, “as long as you take that first step here, at the hospital, where you have a support system.”

  And if I refuse? I wanted to ask. Then what? You won’t let me go home? But I already knew the answer.

  I thought about the girl I’d seen in the elevator, on my way here. She was maybe seven or eight, and her entire head and neck were covered in pink, shiny scars—thick and raised, like mountain ranges on a relief map. I knew I shouldn’t stare, and I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself. I kept thinking, No way can I look that bad. I didn’t get burned. I still have hair.

  “Alexa,” Dr. Kamath said gently. “Seeing your new self is the first step toward healing. Toward accepting your loss.”

  I wanted to tell her that I didn’t lose anything. I was still here. Still me. “Listen,” I tried to explain, making my voice calm, my words deliberate. “I’m not planning to kill myself, so if the hospital’s worried about getting sued, they can relax.”

  Dr. Kamath raised her eyebrows.

  “My dad’s a lawyer.”

  “Oh?”

  “Uh-huh. A public defender. Which is, like, a really important job … He’s taking time off to be here. Otherwise, you know, he’d be in court.”

  “Ah.” She nodded.

  “Yeah,” I said, picking at a stray thread on the hem of my shorts. “So I know all about liability and negligence and … you know … all that stuff.” My voice trailed off. Words seemed pointless, suddenly. I didn’t want to talk, yet I didn’t know what else to do, so I yanked at the thread on my shorts. Yanked and yanked until it broke free.

  “Alexa,” Dr. Kamath said softly. “I have a mirror, right here in my desk. Why don’t we look together?”

  I shook my head, thinking no way was I going to do this. Not here. Not now. No fucking way.

  I tried to think of my options, and I floundered. Because there weren’t any. What was I supposed to do? Stay in the hospital forever? Break every mirror on Earth?