I almost wish she hadn’t told me. I can’t get it out of my mind now.
How does she go through the day with a family drama like that? What does she do for diversion? Shop? Hang out with Josh? Even sleep with him?
Until now, Amber has been a blank slate that I measured my fantasies of happiness against. I always saw her like the actresses in the magazines who look like they live in a perfect bubble. Fame, great looks, money. But then one day you find out all their pictures were retouched, and when you pick up the next month’s magazine, you see the paparazzi shots of them heading to rehab, their faces drawn, hiding behind big sunglasses, hair tucked into baseball caps.
The curtains around Amber are parting now, and the girl I see has a life that’s a world away from what I imagined. I think of a sentence I heard in a play: “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.”
I rush off to school, trying to stop the film in my head of Amber in my room telling me, but it seems to start over and over again like a movie trailer that’s stuck.
Jen once told me that to manage her scattered life, she taught herself to compartmentalize.
“What do you mean?”
“Decide what your priorities are,” she said. “Worry about things when they need to be dealt with, not before.”
“I’m not sure how to do that.”
“On Monday, I study for the math test I have on Tuesday. And Tuesday I focus on my sched for Wednesday. Why agonize over something a month away if you’re powerless to do anything about it now?”
That made complete sense to me. It was so focused, so I attempt that now. On today’s priority list is Mel’s surgery.
When my clock radio went off at six ten to a miserable weather report about scattered showers, I lay back in bed with the covers pulled up to my neck. All I could think about was what she was about to go through. I feel like I am her fairy godmother who will wave my magic wand and make it all go okay because right now, Mel’s life is intertwined with mine. She is my alter ego. If things go well for her, that will be a good omen for me.
Now she’s already in her car. At seven a.m. she’ll be at the surgeon’s office, face scrubbed, wearing a shirt that buttons down the front so it doesn’t have to be pulled over her head after surgery. She’ll be in the recovery room one to two hours later. After the anesthesia wears off, her mom will drive her back to Connecticut. Mission accomplished.
I’m going through it with Mel. I am in her head every step of the way. So is Katrina. This is group surgery—one nose, three brains.
“You have to swear to call me and Katrina as soon as you’re home,” I said to her last night.
“Swear.”
“You swear you swear?”
“I swear I swear.”
I think back to then.
I was in bed about to turn out the light. I went to Facebook one last time to check for messages, but there was nothing new. Before I turned off the lamp, I grabbed my cell to turn it off. Just as I lifted it, it went off in my hand. I jumped.
Mel.
“I thought you’d be sleeping by now.”
“I can’t sleep.”
This wasn’t the upbeat, goofy Mel who coasts through life thinking about clothes and things she’s “dying to do.”
“Are you okay?”
A few seconds went by. “Allie?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember when we once talked about whether we ever thought about something bad happening … like during the surgery …”
“Yeah.”
“And I said I never thought of things like that?”
I waited.
“I was lying.”
I held my breath.
“I’m really scared,” she said, starting to cry. “I mean, what if I die?”
“You don’t have to worry. You just don’t,” I blurted out like I knew. “Everybody gets scared, really. I go to the bulletin boards all the time, and everybody feels that way,” I said, even though it wasn’t true.
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. And you know what?”
“What?”
“You’re going to not only be fine, but you’ll also look so gorgeous that Katrina and I will totally hate your guts.”
“You think?” She sniffled. I knew I made her smile.
“Yes, so just go to sleep and think about the gorgeous girl you’re going to turn into in less than twenty-four hours, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “And Allie?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Mel. Now go to sleep and call me tomorrow.”
“I swear.”
“You swear you swear?”
“I swear I swear.”
I was about to hang up when I heard, “Allie?”
I pulled the phone back up. “Yeah?”
“Something we all have to remember. It’s all in the name of beauty,” she said like a solemn oath.
“Uh, yeees,” I said. Then I hung up. Beauty? Just beauty? Was she serious?