Stranger With My Face Read Free Page B

fathers among the vacationers complained to Mr. Rankin about his son’s activities
     with their daughters. The girls themselves never complained, of course, and since most of them were older than he was, I thought
     they could take care of themselves. As it happened, it was a good thing Jeff did have that summer, because halfway through
     the next one a can of lighter fluid exploded and burned off half his face.
    They took him to the mainland by helicopter. The others who were at the cookout when the accident happened—Rennie Ziegler was one of them—described the details to everyone who would listen.
    “The medics were shaking their heads when they put him on the stretcher,” Rennie said. “He kept making these gurgling noises
     like he was trying to scream and couldn’t. There’s no way he could live after that—I swear it.”
    Jeff did live. They even managed to save his eyes, thanks to the fact that he had been wearing sunglasses. He came back to
     the island at Christmas, but nobody saw him; Mr. Rankin explained that he wasn’t strong enough yet for visitors. Soon after
     that he went back to the hospital for another operation.
    The next summer he returned to the island, this time to stay. The left side of his face was fine. If you saw him at a certain
     angle, you’d have thought he was the best-looking guy you’d ever seen. But if you saw him from the right, you had to stop
     and swallow hard. That side of his face was welted and purple with the mouth pulled up at the corner like a Halloween mask.
     Everyone tried to be nice to him and act like there was nothing wrong with the way he looked, but he made it clear that he
     didn’t appreciate their efforts. He stayed in the house most of the time; his dad said he was supposed to stay out of the
     sun. When September came, we thought he’d go back to New York, but he started school with the rest of us. He had lost a year,
     which put him in my grade. None of us knew why he had decided to live on the island instead of with his mom, and nobody wanted
     to ask him.
    As Rennie put it, “You can’t talk to somebody who snarls at anything you say to him. His personality’s gotten just as messed
     up as his face.”
    Now, as I settled myself on the bench beside him, I didn’t really care what his personality was like. I was too absorbed in
     my own anger.
    “To say I’ve ‘had a fight’ with Gordon is a major understatement,” I said. “I don’t care if I never see him again. You know
     that party Nat Coleson threw last night?” Immediately, I could have cut my tongue out. You don’t discuss parties with people
     who weren’t invited.
    “Nope,” Jeff said, not making things any easier.
    “Well—she had one,” I continued lamely. “At the Inn. I didn’t go.”
    “Then you must have been sick,” Jeff commented.
    “As a matter of fact, I was. Which is what this whole thing is about.” The words came pouring out of me. I knew there was
     no reason for Jeff to be interested, but he was there next to me, a captive audience, and I had to talk to somebody or I’d
     burst. “Gordon won’t believe me,” I told him. “He swears he saw me out on the beach. He accused me of pretending to be sick
     so I could sneak off with somebody else.”
    “Gordon Ahearn thinks that?” There was a note of sarcasm in Jeff ’s voice. “That’s crazy. Everybody knows he’s got you on
     a string.”
    “He does not!” I exclaimed.
    “Yes, he does. You’re as faithful as a puppy dog. He snaps his fingers, and you jump. That’s how it’s always been with Ahearn’s
     girlfriends.”
    “You don’t know one thing about my relationship with Gordon,” I said irritably. “I do what I want to. Nobody runs my life
     for me.”
    “Then you were there making out with some other guy?”
    “No, I wasn’t!” I exploded. “I just told you, I was home sick in bed. Gordon didn’t see me on the beach.”
    “Then why does he say he did?” Jeff asked