I sit and think on that for a while. This was the thing Mom did—looked at all sides of things. She believed that situations and people were almost never black-and-white.
Ten minutes later, I’m reading everything I can find on prosopagnosia, which leads me to an artist named Chuck Close, neurologist/author Oliver Sacks, and Brad Pitt. According to the Internet, they all have face blindness. I mean, Brad Pitt.
What if the entire world was face-blind?
If everyone had prosopagnosia, there’d be hope for the homely. No one would ever say “You’re too pretty to be fat” or “She’s pretty for a fat girl” because looks would stop mattering. Would people still care if you were overweight or too thin? Tall or short? Maybe. Maybe not. But it would be a step in the right direction.
At fat camp, we had to try to put ourselves into the skin of other people, just like Atticus told Scout: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it … Skin’s so fascinating anyway—I mean the way it expands and shrinks. I used to weigh twice what I do now—that’s two times more—and my skin fit me then and it fits me now. Weird.
I try to put myself in Jack Masselin’s skin and imagine what he sees when he looks at me. Do I look different, in some way, from everyone else? Or do I blend in? Then I imagine that I’m the one with face blindness. What would the world look like?
I pull up a new document. I write:
Dear Jack,
Thanks for explaining your douchiness. I don’t think prosopagnosia gives you the right to be a jerk, but I’m at least glad you’re not rotten to your core. Maybe there’s hope for you.
Libby
p.s. I have questions.
On the other end of the phone Kam says, “I wish you could have seen it. The look on her face when you threw yourself around her, and then when you just hung out there and wouldn’t let go.”
I force out this kind of halfhearted laugh that sounds like I’m being strangled. “Man, I bet she looked surprised.”
“As surprised as that chick in Psycho when Norman Bates interrupts her shower. So what did Wasserman say?”
“Oh, she was really fucking thrilled. Community service and counseling. For weeks.”
“Shit.”
“I know.”
“But it was worth it.”
“Says the man who doesn’t have to do it.”
He’s laughing again. “But wait, it gets better.”
Great.
“Remember the girl who got cut out of her house a couple of years ago?”
“What about her?”
“That’s her.”
“Who?”
“Libby Strout. She’s the one you rodeoed.”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the face again.
“Are you sure?” I try to sound like I don’t really give a shit, but here’s the thing—I do give a shit. I give five million shits, which is why I feel like I’m going to be sick all over these Legos.
“Oh, I’m sure.” He’s laughing.
I do my strangle-laugh again, only it sounds worse this time.
“Man, you sound rough.”
“I think she broke my throat.”
“So do you remember her?”
“Yeah. I do.”
Outside, the neighborhood is asleep. I climb out my window and into the tree that acts as a ladder to the roof. I snake all the way up it until I’m there, and then I walk to the edge, over by the gutter. My weather station is anchored near the chimney, battered and lopsided. When I was six, I fell off the roof and cracked my head open. Without thinking, I reach up to feel the scar.
I run my fingers along it as I stare across the street. If I stand here long enough, I can see it—the gaping hole where the front wall of her house used to be.
THREE YEARS EARLIER
* * *
I dream that the street’s on fire. And then I wake up to sirens. I lie still and listen as they come blaring toward the house. It’s end-of-days dark in here, but suddenly the ceiling flashes red and the sirens wind to a stop. I’m up and out of bed and grabbing shit off my dresser and bookshelves before I even know what’s happening.
On my way out, I fall headfirst into the hallway, where I hear but don’t see my dad, who says from the black recesses of his bedroom, “It’s not us. Go back to bed.”
But the dream was so damn real that I’m still half in it, and I keep right on going. Outside, the air is cold but smells clean. No fire, no smoke. I’m still holding the shit I grabbed—my granddad’s watch, my retainer, a stack of baseball cards, my phone charger (but no phone)—and of course there’s no jacket.
It’s the house across the street. Rolling up in front is this line of fire trucks, an ambulance, two police cars. I figure it must be drug lords or a meth lab or maybe even a terrorist. I think it would be really damn cool to have a terrorist on our street because Amos, Indiana, is one boring-ass place.
“Whose house is that?” It’s Mom behind me.
“Strom, Stein …” This from Dad.
“Strout,” says Marcus, who’s twelve, almost thirteen, and knows everything.
I say before he can, “The Strouts moved out years ago.” The house has been empty since then. You never see anyone coming or going.
“No, they didn’t.” My other brother—Dusty, seven—is hopping on one leg. “Tams and me went over last week and looked in the windows.”
“Dusty.” Mom shakes her head.
“What? We wanted to see the fat girl.”