“You’re beautiful,” she said.
“Thank you, but you have nothing to complain about,” I replied, and immediately felt like an idiot. “I mean, you’re very pretty, too, Sheena.”
She smiled. “I know,” she said. “I just don’t know why I was given a pretty face. It seems to me it was a great waste.” She retreated into the bedroom.
Maybe, I thought, I was getting in too deeply, and not only would I drown, but I would also hasten her drowning, and there was no question how Mrs. Brittany would feel about that.
Actually, it was hard, if not impossible, for me to imagine myself being helpful to anyone these days, especially someone as innocent and vulnerable as Sheena.
But maybe, just maybe, if I helped someone else, I would help myself.
The thought sounded too much like something Mr. Wheeler might tell me.
Suddenly, however, that didn’t devalue it the way it might have only days ago.
Perhaps I could change.
10
“You shouldn’t think like that, Sheena. The beauty in your face is not a waste,” I said when I walked into the bedroom. She was sitting at my vanity table again, looking at the books and pamphlets.
She looked up at herself in the mirror.
“I can’t help it, Roxy,” she said. “I know I have an attractive face, but it’s almost as if a terrible joke has been pulled on me, don’t you think?”
She turned to me before I could answer.
“Everywhere my grandmother takes me, people tell me I’m beautiful. Most of the time, I think it’s because they feel sorry for me and want to make me feel better or because they respect my grandmother or want something from her.” She pulled up her robe to show me more of her prosthetic leg.
“I bet most of those people never noticed your leg.”
She smiled and shook her head at me as if I were the naive one and not her. “I used to dream of that and pretend it, too. Even if I wear jeans, they still can see my false ankle, and even if they couldn’t, they still see me limping or walking with the cane. Roxy, I’ve stopped pretending or dreaming. Grandmother tells me she is working on getting me a far better . . . what should I call it . . . device? One that resembles a real human leg and feels like real skin and muscle so that people will actually wonder if it is or isn’t. But I won’t ever wonder, will I?”
“Anyone who judges you on only one part of you isn’t worth your attention, anyway. They have to be willing to know all of you.”
“And how will that happen? Do you know I’ve never even danced with a boy? Sometimes, when I’m alone, I dance, but I feel foolish, even though no one can see me. I’ve never gone on a date just to have a hamburger or pizza or something. Actually, I’ve never even held hands with a boy.
“Oh, I know all about what it’s supposed to be like,” she continued. “I’ve read so many romance novels it would make your head spin. I have even read all the scientific information about sex. I probably know as much as any doctor or therapist, but I don’t really know what a kiss is like, I mean a real kiss on the lips.” She paused and then smiled. “How many times have you seen Gone with the Wind?”
“Only once, I think. Why?”
“Rhett tells Scarlett she should be kissed, and often. I love that scene. I pretend I’m Scarlett O’Hara. I’ve pretended to be lots of characters in romantic movies. Half my youth has been spent talking to myself and embracing imaginary characters. When no one is around, of course, but at least I get kissed on the lips in my imagination.”
“Well, I’ve kissed a few dozen lips recently, and I can tell you, all but one time, I’d rather I had kissed a duck.”
She laughed.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Most boys don’t even know how to kiss. They do it to get something over with so they can get to groping you and slipping their hands under your clothes, panting like some wildcat. I once broke a boy’s pinkie because he put it where he shouldn’t.”
“You didn’t!”
“That was quite a mess. My father ended up paying the doctor’s bill. I tried to explain, but he believed the boy, who said I encouraged him. Well, maybe I did a little,” I admitted.
She laughed again. “That’s what I like about you. I saw it right away.”
“What?”
“You’ll tell me the truth . . . about everything, no matter what.”