Such a Pretty Face by Annabelle Costa

Chapter 6

Gay? Are you sure?

I glare down at the text message on my phone from Camille as I sit in my evening class, waiting for it to start. Apparently, she was clueless about Jack’s sexual identity.

Very sure, I write back. He wanted me to be his beard.

OMG I’m so sorry!

I glance around the room, at the students filing inside. It’s fine. Just don’t set me up ever again.

I shove my phone back into my purse, which I drop next to my ankle. I’m sitting in a normal chair today. I arrived very early and swapped out a chair from a different classroom with one of these chairs. I’m not taking another risk about not being able to get up.

I also sit on the end, on the same row as the door. Partially because it was easier to drag the chair in. But also, this way I could leave extra room for Brody to get inside and not have to do like ten maneuvers to get his chair to turn around. My entire life involves maneuvering around tiny spaces and feeling awkward about it, so I sympathize with his frustration. I want to help the guy.

It pays off. Brody shows up and sees that I’ve left a spot for him next to me, and he looks thrilled. He flashes me a smile that makes his whole face light up. He has one of the most infectious smiles I’ve ever seen—it’s almost impossible not to smile back. “Hey, Emily,” he says.

He remembered my name. “Hey, Brody.”

“You remembered my name,” he says. He looks as pleased I felt.

Because I’m going to be photocopying my notes for Brody at the end, I spend a little extra time on them. Usually, I take decent notes, but these are especially good. A few times during the lecture, I look up at Brody and he grins at me.

At the end of the lecture, Brody respectfully allows me a few seconds to heave myself out of my seat before he clears his throat. “Hey, Emily, I hate to bother you again…”

“You want to copy my notes,” I say.

He smiles again. Christ, he’s cute when he smiles. Even cuter than Jack. Except Brody isn’t gay. Granted, I couldn’t tell with Jack, but in retrospect, the signs were there. Brody isn’t gay though—you can just tell. I would bet my life savings.

“Yeah, I would,” he says. “Please?”

I notice he says “please” a lot. Even though it’s proper etiquette and you’re supposed to say please, let’s face it, most people don’t say it. But Brody always does. Considering how much he has to ask for help with things, I guess it’s a good habit to have. He was raised right.

“Of course,” I say.

“Thanks so much,” he says. “Your handwriting is really good. Your notes are excellent.”

“I’m glad it helped you,” I say.

For the second time, we make the harrowing journey to the copy machine. I watch Brody as he pushes his hand into the joystick on his chair and his lower body bounces with the imperfections on the floor. I’m curious why he needs that chair. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s paralyzed. He goes a little slower this time, so I don’t have to jog to keep up with him but I’m still walking more briskly than I normally do. Most people don’t realize I can’t move as fast as they can, because I’m carrying around more weight. And once again, we’re having trouble locating the copy machine. I never realized how big this building was.

“What do you think of Dr. Nichols?” Brody asks me.

“He’s pretty good,” I say. “I like the lectures so far.”

“Are you trying to get a Master’s or a doctorate?” Brody asks me.

“Just a Master’s,” I say. “For now. You?”

“Ditto,” Brody says. “I’m a code monkey now and this is the only way I’ll ever get to advance at work.”

I wonder what sort of work he does. A lot of people with a disability like Brody’s might just stay home and do nothing. I appreciate his ambition.

“Oh, I know,” I say. “That’s my situation too.”

“Not that I don’t like my job,” he says. “But I’ve got higher aspirations, you know? I’ve been on kind of a hiatus from the degree and now I’m trying to pick things up again. I took some classes at Queens College but those mostly sucked. Anyway, it’s too big a commute from where I live now.”

I look at him in surprise. “Are you from Queens? Like, originally?”

Brody nods and raises his eyebrows at me. “Yeah. Are you?”

“I am!” I say excitedly. It’s the first time I’ve felt like we aren’t just making awkward small talk. “Where in Queens?”

“Fresh Meadows.”

“Jamaica.”

Brody grins at me. “Did people ever ask you growing up how you managed to get into the city all the way from the Caribbean?”

“Yeah, all the freaking time,” I laugh.

“Where’d you go to high school?” Brody asks.

“Townsend Harris.”

Brody gasps. “You’re kidding! Me too!”

“Well, it’s the only decent high school.”

“That’s for sure,” Brody snorts. “Hey, what year did you graduate?”

We determine we were two years apart in high school—he was a junior when I was a freshman. I try to remember from my freshman or sophomore years if I saw a guy zipping around the halls in a power wheelchair. Seems like the kind of thing I would have remembered. But I’m drawing a blank.

“Of course,” he says, “you were an underclassman while I was a super cool senior. So we couldn’t have interacted unless I was, like, pushing you down the stairs or something.”

I stare at Brody in surprise. He doesn’t look like he’s in any position to be pushing anyone down any stairs, although maybe he was a little more mobile back in high school. That doesn’t seem like something he’d have done at any age though. Maybe it’s just his face deceiving me, but he seems like one of those genuinely nice people.

“I’m kidding,” he finally says when he sees the shock on my face. “Seriously though, what’s your last name?”

“Davison,” I say.

“Emily Davison.” He rolls my name over his tongue. I have such a boring name, but I like the way it sounds when he says it. Some of my irritation over not being able to find the copy machine wanes.

“What’s your last name?” I ask him.

“Nolan,” he says. And before I can comment, he says, “Yeah, I know, Brody Nolan. Could I be any more Irish?”

“Could be worse,” I say. “Your name could be… Seamus Murphy.”

“Or Flynn McMahon.”

“Or Finley O’Sullivan.”

Brody finally laughs. “Okay, you’re right. Could be worse. But Brody Nolan’s pretty bad. Especially with my face.”

I look at Brody’s face. As I’ve said before, he’s got a pretty attractive face. He’s really good-looking. So I have absolutely no idea what he’s complaining about. He doesn’t even look Irish aside from the hint of red in his hair, not that Irish guys are intrinsically bad looking or anything. “What do you mean?”

“I have freckles!” Brody says.

I look closer, close enough to smell his spearmint breath, and my own breath catches just a bit. It turns out he’s right. He has light freckles, mostly over the bridge of his nose and over his cheekbones.

“They’re practically invisible,” I point out to him.

“They were horrible when I was a kid, but they mostly faded when I hit puberty,” he explains. “But if I went out in the sun without sunscreen, I’d have a serious recurrence.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have noticed them.”

“Most people don’t.” Brody shrugs. “But that’s because most people aren’t paying much attention to my face, you know?”

You can’t accuse Brody of not having self-awareness. He’s right—you see a guy in a power wheelchair and his face isn’t the focus of attention. Nobody looks at my face either, except to tell me how exquisitely pretty it would be if only I dropped a hundred pounds.

“Hey,” Brody says. “Are you by any chance related to Cammy Davison?”

I freeze. He’s talking about Camille, of course. Back in high school, everyone called her Cammy. Then she went to college and reinvented herself as Camille. It shouldn’t surprise me he knew Camille—she was very popular. “Yeah, she’s my sister.”

Brody’s eyes widen. “Wow, you’re Cammy’s sister? That’s… surprising.”

He doesn’t have to say what he means by that. Everybody is always surprised I’m Camille’s sister. Because she’s beautiful and I am… me.

Brody notices my expression. “I just mean… she had blond hair, right? And you… you have darker hair.”

Right. Because that’s the only difference between me and my sister. It isn’t like I’ve been through years of people telling me how pretty my sister is. If she’s skinny, why can’t I be?

I would have thought somebody like Brody would be more sensitive. But apparently, he thinks just like everybody else.

We turn yet another corner. My thighs are starting to hurt. Why are we having so much trouble finding this copy machine each time? When I get home, there’s going to be an angry red rash all over the insides of my legs. He doesn’t get it. All he has to do is push that joystick.

Brody is looking down the hall and frowning. “Wasn’t it right here?”

“Obviously not,” I snip.

He scratches at his chin with his curled-up right hand. “Maybe it was in the other direction…”

Oh no. I am not walking all the way back the way we came. My thighs will literally start bleeding. I mean, does he think I have all night to do this with him? I’m sure he wouldn’t drag Cammy all over the floor trying to find a copy machine. No, Camille is the sister everybody loves and I’m the one people take advantage of. Like by bugging me for my notes every single lecture. I’m the only idiot who would agree to do this.

“I’m sorry,” I say in that same clipped voice. “I have to get going. I can’t spend half an hour wandering the hallways with you after every class.”

That infectious smile dies on his lips. “Oh…”

“Sorry,” I say. “Maybe you should ask somebody else next time.”

“I apologize,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to be an imposition. I’ll just ask Dr. Nichols to give me copies of the notes from now on. I won’t bother you again.”

“Well, that just makes more sense,” I say, pushing away a stab of guilt in my chest. “He’s the professor, so I’m sure his notes are better than mine.”

Brody nods and flashes me a tight smile. “Yeah.”

He looks so hurt, I immediately want to take it all back. I shouldn’t have been mean to him. I’m just feeling cranky because my thighs hurt so much, and also I went out on a date with a gay guy last night. And then when he compared me to Camille, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I didn’t feel like he was taking advantage of me. He seems like a nice guy. He probably barely even knew Camille.

As I stand there, trying to figure out if there’s something I can say to make it right again, Brody does a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn in his wheelchair. He zooms down the hall to get away from me as fast as he can, and I can tell he’s never going to talk to me again. And that thought makes me really sad.

_____

That night, I’m lying in my bed, sifting through my class notes, when I see the familiar number pop up on my cell phone. I deleted the contact a while back, but unfortunately, I still recognize the number instantly: Norm Donohue.

I stare at the phone, shifting on the sunken area of the mattress that I always slide into during the night. The salad I ate for dinner churns in my belly. Norm’s number is the last thing I want to see on my phone right now. I’m in no mood to take a call from my ex-boyfriend.

This requires an explanation:

I said I’ve never had a boyfriend. Well, that isn’t entirely true.

In college, I watched all my friends, even the ones who weren’t particularly attractive, pairing off with guys. Meanwhile, my weight kept ballooning up. I’d always been shy, but after I got over two hundred pounds, my shyness became almost crippling. I couldn’t even contemplate dating a real guy. I couldn’t even look at a guy.

So the only alternative was a guy who wasn’t real. In a sense of the word.

Yes, I discovered internet relationships.

The internet is different. The men there don’t see me—they don’t see all my cellulite. They don’t know how many chins I’ve got. On the internet, every girl is a pretty, skinny girl until proven otherwise.

It was during my junior year of college that I started flirting with men I met online. It was so easy when I wasn’t face-to-face with them—I wasn’t shy at all on the internet. But I was careful about it. I’d pick guys who lived at least several hundred miles away from me, so there would be no chance of ever meeting them in real life.

At my peak, I was a bit of a slut (despite being a virgin). I was “dating” about half a dozen guys online. I’m a great email pen-pal.

But of course, most guys didn’t want to “date” me without seeing a photo. And obviously, a real photo would have killed the fantasy. So my go-to place for photos was the Facebook page of a girl named Nadia that I sort of knew from high school. Nadia is skinny, blond, and very cute. But not so pretty that she seems unreal. Plus Nadia is a wannabe actress and is constantly posting very public photos of herself doing just about everything—I swear, if I looked, I could probably find one of her on the toilet. (“Number two selfie!”) So I essentially had an endless supply of photos of “myself” to send to these guys.

Soon after graduating from college, I met Norm. We ran into each other on a message board for geeks, and we got in a passionate argument about freedom of speech on the internet. It got ugly for a short time, but then when I hinted that I was a woman, he backed off. And started being nice. More than nice.

Our relationship progressed quickly. We talked on the phone pretty much every other day, and chatted via text messages during the day, or else instant messaged each other. He was great—really sweet, really understanding. And he was also fairly attractive too in the photos he sent me—nice dirty blond hair, a solid build, penetrating eyes behind thick glasses.

I “dated” Norm for nearly a year. It got so intense that I dropped all my other internet relationships, and then it was just me and Norm. This is going to sound dumb, but I started to feel like he was my soulmate. I always thought that soulmate thing was bullshit, but then I met Norm. He and I connected on so many levels. Like we’d be on the phone for hours, and I don’t even know what we talked about.

I loved him. I really did.

When I think about it, I still feel racked with guilt over the way I played him. I hate myself for it.

In some ways, Norm knew me better than anyone else in the world. But in other, more important ways, he didn’t know me at all. The only photos of “me” he’d seen were actually of Nadia. I refused to Skype or do Facetime, no matter how much he begged, claiming I didn’t have the internet capabilities. I was constantly lying to him to protect him from finding out how I really looked.

If I could do it over again… I don’t know. I wish I hadn’t sent him those pictures of Nadia. I wish I could have been honest with him. Maybe he would have been okay with the real me. I mean, stranger things have happened. Maybe right now, Norm and I would be a happy couple if only I’d been honest.

I mean, probably not, but it’s possible, at least.

In any case, by the time I realized how deeply I cared about Norm, I was already screwed. I’d already sent him loads of photos of Nadia. It was too late to say to him, “Whoops! That wasn’t me!” That wouldn’t go over well at all.

Norm lived in San Jose in California and I lived in New York, so geography made me feel safe. But I knew this situation had serious potential to come crashing down on me. And of course, after a few months, Norm suggested we find a way to meet up.

I always had the perfect excuse: work, family, no money. A plane ticket across the country wasn’t cheap and Norm was just as broke as I was. Plus Norm was taking care of his elderly mother, so it was harder for him to get away. So we just kept talking on the phone, planning all the things we would do during a meetup that I knew would never happen.

One day, Norm said to me, “If I send you half the money for the plane ticket through Venmo do you think you could come for a week?”

At first, I said no. But then he got more insistent, almost angry about the whole thing. He said, “What’s going on? Don’t you want us to meet?” So I agreed to do it. I had to. Norm sent me the money, and I thought about buying the tickets. I was on the airline website and everything. I thought maybe if I showed up at his door and explained in person, maybe he’d forgive me.

But in the end, I couldn’t do it. I just kept imagining the look on his face. He wouldn’t forgive me. He wouldn’t understand.

The right thing to do in this case would have been to end the relationship. But instead, I pretended to buy a ticket for two months in the future. I got him all excited for the trip. He even cleared out two drawers in his bedroom for me. We talked every night about what we were going to do when I got there.

And then two days before, my grandmother died suddenly, and I had to cancel.

Not really. My grandmothers are both alive and well. And it terrified me that one of them might die as karmic retribution for my lie. But I needed an excuse to get out of that trip. Sorry, grannies.

I’m not sure he entirely bought it. He asked me too many details about it to the point where I could tell he was questioning my story. Also, I refused to reschedule the trip. I knew he wouldn’t buy two dead grandma stories.

Just so you don’t think I’m completely evil, I returned the money he sent me for the plane tickets.

After that, my relationship with Norm fizzled. Unlike a real life relationship, there was no definitive, official breakup. He just stopped calling me.

I have no idea why he’d be calling me now. Nothing good can come of it. He still thinks I look like pretty Nadia when the reality is that I’m scared I won’t even squeeze into the XXL T-shirt that Candace is getting me for the charity run.

I grip the phone, staring down at the number. Maybe I should take it. Maybe I should just tell him the truth already. He deserves it.

My finger hovers over the green button.

But in the end, I hit the red button. Norm won’t understand. It’s the only thing I know for sure.