Different Kind of Beauty

by Sylvia McNicoll

  Control—what a laugh. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll work harder at it,” I told him.

  “Well, you can probably go home tomorrow morning, then, if all things stay the same.” Dr. Peters clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Take care, Kyle. And let me know if you change your mind about the group.”

  Mom started in on me the moment he left. She was obviously really keen on the idea. “Come on, Kyle. If these teens have a party, everything there would be dietetic. You could relax and not worry so much about what to eat, at the very least…”

  She wouldn’t have to worry so much about what I ate.

  Dad and Shawna came to visit next. Dad immediately joined the campaign for the teen support group. “Now, why wouldn’t you want to join that?” he asked.

  Why couldn’t they all just leave it alone? And to top it all off, Shawna also had another plan to shove down my throat, whether I wanted it or not. I heard Dad’s laptop beep as it powered up.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Just listen,” Shawna said, and I heard a diskette click into the drive. “This is information on the guide dog program.”

  She and Dad oohed and aahed as this voice explained the program along with all the requirements.

  “Who would look after the dog?” Mom asked a few minutes later, when the voice stopped.

  “Well, Kyle would have it with him all day, like the man said. Even at school,” Shawna said in an amazed, happy tone. “But then after, at home, when he takes the dog’s harness off, it could be everybody’s.”

  “You mean yours,” I pointed out. It was that amazed, happy tone that got to me. My blindness would turn into her greatest wish come true.

  “Sounds like another great ah-dea,” Dad drawled.

  “Oh, come on,” Mom interrupted. “Kyle’s hated dogs ever since the Parkinses’ German shepherd bit him.”

  “It has nothing to do with that!” But in my mind I heard Max’s rumbling growl. I tried to think, instead, of that warm weight on my chest last night. Beauty stayed with you and kept you warm. I saw again the bright light in my mind—brighter than any night-light, guiding. I tried to combine that vision of light and sensation of heaviness with the touch of fur.

  That was the urgent thing I still needed to do. I should tell that girl from the park that I had been dreaming and mixed up; that I was sorry I had accused her dog of biting me. I fingered the scar on my cheek.

  “Well, if he’s not afraid of dogs anymore, ah say let’s fill out those forms we got,” my father said.

  “What?” my mother and I both said at the same time.

  “Well, Mother, you said so yourself. That girl’s Lab found our boy last night. Saved him, really.”

  “But you didn’t know that when you sent away for those forms," Mom said.

  “I did it. I was the one,” Shawna piped up. “You know, after that show. I checked out the Web sites and e-mailed four schools for more information.”

  I clicked my tongue in disgust and shook my head.

  A moment’s pause. “Well, it wasn’t like you were going to do anything on your own. You never do, anymore,” Shawna continued.

  “Look, Kyle, these things take a lawng time, any-ways,” Dad drawled. “Like it said on the CD, we need to get a report from your school, a recommendation from your O & M instructor, some references…. Why don’t you just let Shawna and me help you with these forms. If the school accepts you and you still don’t like the idea, well…”

  A recommendation from my O & M workers—that should nix their plan nicely. How many times have I let both Jack and Amber know that I have a dog phobia? I sighed and wished I didn’t. Last night—well, actually, early this morning, what had really happened? I replayed all the sensations. I tried really hard in my mind to focus on the light, the warmth and the weight on my chest; those weren’t so bad after all. Then I remembered again the feel of the lapping tongue on my face and the fur under my fingers. I tried not to tense up. From somewhere I recalled the good sounds: the laughing girl from the park talking in the hospital earlier, the dog collar jingling. Couldn’t I make myself want a dog like that? But then I heard Max’s growling in my mind, felt his gouging black nails, imagined his snapping jaws. Ugh, what was the use? I knew I just could not trust a dog.

  “Go ahead, fill out the forms. They’ll never accept me, anyway,” I said.

  “And will you join that group?” Dad pushed on. “Probably if you’d gone to a meeting earlier, you would have known how to correctly compensate for the extra alcohol you consumed last night. You wouldn’t have needed a dawg to save you.”

  I shook my head and sighed. “Did it ever occur to any of you that we would have all been better off had I not been saved?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Elizabeth and Beauty

  Trial by Audio Tape

  So Beauty wasn’t appreciated by one dysfunctional blind guy. Who cared, right? It’s just that when it was time to give her up, I wanted to picture someone truly worthy, not Kyle. Still, I tried not to be in a bad mood, for Debra’s sake. The ultrasound had made her so happy. “I really am having a baby!” she said. “Play the heartbeat again!”

  Whomp-whoosh, whomp- whoosh. Beauty settled nicely on the bus, listening to it, and back home it seemed to have a magical effect on everyone too.

  “A nice, healthy heartbeat,” Dad said when I played it at supper.

  Mom still looked as though she wanted to waken from a bad dream when anything to do with the baby was mentioned. But the lines on her face seemed to soften and smooth at that sound. Whomp-whoosh, whomp-whoosh. “When is your next appointment with the doctor?”

  “Monday at ten,” Debra answered.

  “I have a free period at that time. I can take you.”

  What a breakthrough for Mom. I looked for a reaction from Deb. None; she just ate her lentils and spinach quietly. Lots of calcium and protein in that meal. No one bugged her to eat meat or drink milk today.

  “Hey, I only have ten more quarterly reviews to do,” Dad offered brightly—his idea of good news.

  “But aren’t those all for last quarter?” I asked as I picked up one of Mom’s famous barbecue ribs.

  Wrong thing to say. I could tell right away, by the way Dad’s face kind of froze. “Yes, that’s true. I’ll have to at least get a couple of projects launched before I can evaluate them with my own notes.”

  “Mmm. You’ll manage. You always do,” Mom told him.

  “Well, I feel fabulous.” Debra waved her fork in the air. “Alive and creative. I think I’m going to rip up my old painting and do an entire retake of Camel on a Surfboard after supper. How is your suite of poems coming, Mother?” Debra smiled, a piece of spinach dangling from her front teeth.

  The lines all tightened up across Mom’s face again. “I have the worst writer’s block ever,” she grumbled. “I should be able to write two poems in my sleep.”

  “Rip up all the old stuff. I say start fresh,” Debra suggested, flinging her arms wide, cutlery still in hand.

  I signaled with a rib bone to my teeth so Deb would get the spinach out.

  “Play the baby’s heartbeat again,” she said, instead. Whomp-whoosh, whomp-whoosh. Beauty came over, attracted either by the sound or the way I waved the rib in front of my face.

  “Maybe I’ll just do that,” Mom said, breaking into a surprised smile. “I can’t get into the mindset of those others. And I have time to write a new suite, after all.”

  “And you’re a far better writer now than you’ve ever been,” Debra added, spinach-free now. Perhaps finally she was acknowledging Mom’s breakthrough on baby doctor appointments.

  “Can I cut some of the meat off these bones and give them to Beauty?” I asked, interrupting their moment. “She was the best dog in the universe on the bus and in the hospital.” “Take those three from the pan on the stove,” Mom said. “Oh—which reminds me: Scott called. Says he found a road repair site and taped the sound of the jackhammer for you.”

&nb
sp; “Wow, that was so thoughtful of him. I’ll call him right after I feed Beauty.” I cut off some meat into Beauty’s dish and made her wait the ten-second countdown. At the word go she chowed down on the dog-and-people-food blend with such gusto, I felt pretty sure her depression was cured, if not her noise phobia.

  Meanwhile, I grabbed the portable and dialed Scott’s number. The line buzzed in short pulses. Busy. Sigh. I called again twice later—no answer—and the third time left a message. “Well, I’ll see him at school tomorrow, Beauty. Maybe he’ll give me the tape then.”

  Next day I did catch a glimpse of him, on the bleachers with Gwen, but he wouldn’t have noticed me. He was too busy, “sucking up her lungs,” as Alicia put it.

  Alicia put her hand on my shoulder. “I know he still likes you. I don’t get this thing with Gwen at all.”

  Which made two of us.

  I was ready to give up totally until he just showed up at our house Friday night, tape in hand. I tried not to smile too hard, or let everything inside me rise up to greet him. Friday night is prime date time, after all. But Beauty wagged all my feelings openly.

  “Here are the sound effects. But…” Scott grinned with excitement, “I just noticed they’re digging up the street on Mapleview. If we hurry, we can test Beauty on the live jackhammer sound, complete with vibrating ground effects.”

  “All right! Just give me a sec.” I snatched up the tape player from the shelf in the family room, grabbed a jacket and snapped on Beauty’s leash. “I’m going for a walk,” I hollered back through the house. I knew that Mom was writing at the computer in the basement and Dad was pounding nails into wallboard for the baby’s room, which guaranteed nobody heard me. Beauty didn’t even jump a the sound of Dad’s hammering. Good stuff. I slammed the door happily behind us.

  We jogged to get to the construction site more quickly. Beauty always enjoyed a good run. By the time we got to Mapleview, though, the workers had all gone home. “We can try out the audio tape on her, anyway,” Scott said as we strolled, more slowly now, along the dug-up pavement.

  “Wait, I want you to hear this first.” I pressed the Play button. Whomp-whoosh, whomp-whoosh. Beauty lifted her ears slightly as she picked her way through the broken asphalt.

  My hand brushed up against Scott’s, and my whole arm tingled.

  “What is that?” Scott asked.

  “My sister’s baby’s heartbeat. Cool, huh?” I tried. But the magic didn’t seem to work on him.

  “I guess. It sounds like lots of liquid sloshing around.” We turned to head back and I bumped into him. He held me steady so I wouldn’t topple. Whomp-whoosh, whomp-whoosh—my heart beat almost as fast as the baby’s, but then he let me go.

  I couldn’t make my heart slow down again, so I finally exchanged the baby tape for the one of the jackhammer. I turned it up as loud as possible but it just didn’t sound as threatening as it had that day when we stepped off the bus. Beauty tilted her head to an angle and gave me her golden stare.

  “Maybe she’s really cured.” Scott smiled at me, the paleness around his mouth signaling the start of one of his blushes.

  I wanted to be cured too, so I turned away and we continued home. When we got back to my front door, I faced him again.

  “Thanks, Scott, for helping me with Beauty.”

  I went to kiss his cheek—just a friendly thank-you kiss— but as I drew closer, I changed my mind and kissed his lips. He grabbed my elbow and continued the kiss. Finally when we broke apart, he shook his head. “Oh, man, what you do to me.”

  I looked him straight in the eye and waited for him to say something. To tell me that it was all over with Gwen, that he wanted to go out with me from now on. Instead he shook his head again, turned and walked away.

  Kyle

  O & M with Maddie

  We’d all be better off if I was dead. That’s what I was really saying, and no one would ever admit to that. Instead Mom was ticked off.

  “How could you say such a thing!” She was also ticked that I wouldn’t change my mind about the support group. “With your attitude, I’m not sure you even want to help yourself.”

  Maybe she was right. Apart from the hallucinations of Max, it had been comfortable floating around, dreaming. Death didn’t seem so bad, and there had been that warmth and light. It was life that seemed like hell.

  Dad really needed all his time to prepare for his big trial, so anything that pleased Mom and kept her quiet would have been good about now, a teen support group included. I almost felt sorry for him—especially when Mom announced her “really exciting news” over artificially sweetened pudding that night.

  “I know you’ll all be happy to hear I’ve finally made the Automotive All-Star team. I’ll be meeting with the rest of the nominees for a celebration and strategy exchange from Wednesday through the weekend.”

  “In my trial week?” Dad asked.

  “I was hoping you’d drive Kyle to and from school.”

  “Why can’t we just call Jack and get him to show Kyle how to do it on his own? Kyle’s a big boy, and this isn’t going to go away.”

  “No time. And I don’t want to worry. For once in my life, when I finally make the list—in a year with a sales slump, too—I think I deserve to go away without having to worry.”

  “Ah go to court next week. Don’t you understand? Ah can’t just walk out in the middle of a trial to act as chauffeur.”

  “Why can’t Shawna walk me?” I suggested.

  “Nobody walks with their big brother,” Shawna answered. “And you’d make me late. I start at eight, remember?”

  “I’ll just have to cancel my trip,” Mom said.

  “Don’t cancel!” I slammed my hand down on the table, making the cutlery clink. “And don’t worry! This is my problem. I can solve it.” I pushed myself away and stood up. “I’ll call a friend.” Great plan, but I couldn’t even find the portable alone. I stumbled and groped through the house, following the pager beep, until finally Shawna just handed it to me. Then I called Rebecca and Sarah, who both had dance committee and soccer practice before and after school.

  “Call Maddie. You know you still love her,” Shawna suggested.

  “Shut up,” I answered. Instead I dialed the last person anyone would want to rely on, and asked him.

  “Hey, man, no problem,” Ryan answered. “But you’re missing your chance, dude. If you want to get back in with Maddie, ask her. Tell her she’s the only one who can do it. While you’re at it, tell her you want to feel her face. Who knows where that could lead to?”

  I gritted my teeth and silently counted to ten. I didn’t want to say anything to blow my only escort, sleazemaster or not. “Wednesday morning, then, eight-fifteen?” I said.

  “Absolutely.” The phone clicked off at the other end.

  Mom seemed even less thrilled with the arrangement than I was. “We don’t know this boy, or his parents.”

  “I’m not going to marry him, Mom.”

  Dad cracked up over that one. “Come awn. He’s going to school with a buddy. What could be more normal than that? He should be walking every day. A little fresh air can’t hurt him.”

  The normal and the fresh air bits got me—like I was some kind of invalid. And then on Wednesday, Ryan drifted by at eight-thirty. We ended up twenty minutes late, since he needed a smoke before he went in.

  It was Ryan’s third late that month; my second, so only he earned a detention. But I might as well have gotten one too, since I had to stay behind and wait for him. That’s when, it seemed, fate took over.

  I’d told Ryan I’d wait for him in the resource center, planning to listen to A Separate Peace and get the jump on my English assignment. Most of the kids had left for the day, and without three hundred teeming bodies, the O & M stuff Jack had shown me worked a little better. I could hear voices, follow the sound of a computer game coming from the lab. As I tap-swished my way through the halls, I suddenly smelled tangerine and heard keys jangling.

&nbs
p; “I’ve got the car today. Do you want a ride home?” Maddie asked.

  I hesitated, willing myself to say no. Have some pride, I thought, but I suddenly just missed her so badly. “Thanks, I’d really like that.”

  “Do you want to take my arm?”

  I folded the cane away and gratefully wrapped my fingers around the warmth of her upper arm.

  She asked me how I was doing and why I was still hanging around so late, and I told her about Mom’s sales conference.

  “That is a really big deal for her, isn’t it? Do you want me to ask my Mom if I can use the car for the rest of the week? I’m sure she’d understand.”

  I thought for a moment. That would have been so easy, but I wanted Maddie to see me as more than someone just needing a lift. I also wanted to show Dad I could manage without some stupid dog.

  “I have a bigger favor to ask you. The O & M instructors are always so backlogged. Could you just come with me back and forth to school a couple of times? I want to be able to do it myself.”

  I couldn’t watch her face to see why Maddie hesitated, but I held my breath. Those few moments of silence meant she had to at least have been thinking about it. If she agreed, it also had to mean something, didn’t it? Absurdly, I did want to run my fingers over her face—to feel whether her brow was furrowed, her eyebrows up or calmly down. Her mouth pursed or smiling.

  “I can’t do it right now. I promised Mom I’d pick up the groceries for her.”

  She wouldn’t get off that easy. “I meant tomorrow and the next day, to school and back.”

  She hesitated. “Sure. Why don’t I come by early, say eight o’clock, and we’ll head over on the bus together?”

  “Thanks, Maddie.” She guided me into the car and we chatted the rest of the way about ordinary things. Like our English assignment, and how we both thought we had to pretend John Knowles’s book really appealed to us, to get a better mark. And what we were going to do with our lives. Maddie wanted to go into medicine. Did I still want to go into law?