Love and First Sight Page 7

  “I might have figured out a way to make it work.”

  “You have?”

  “Ever heard of a ‘refreshable braille display’? It’s pretty cool. I mean, I’m a gadget guy. I just love stuff like this. But it’s this flat tablet that has a bunch of tiny rods in it that pop up to form braille letters in real time. When you finish reading a line of the braille, the rods reassemble to create the surface for the next line of text.”

  “Wow, that’s so cool,” says Ion.

  “I know, right?” says Whitford. “I found a way to make it all work together. I found an app that allows a teleprompter on this iPad”—I hear him tap the device—“to be controlled by an iPhone. So another host could control the script on the teleprompter by scrolling on the iPad with her finger off-camera, which controls the text on a refreshable braille terminal that Will would have on a desk in front of him.”

  “That’s tight,” says Nick.

  “Wow, cool,” I say, though I have mixed feelings. I hadn’t expected Whitford to actually think up a functioning system for this. Now I really have to audition.

  “Good luck,” says Nick. “You’ll need it. I mean, we’ll all vote for you. But you’ve got, you know, pretty steep competition. Xander Reusch-Bag has been host for, like, three years.”

  “Wait,” I say. “We have class together. Isn’t his last name just Reusch?”

  “Well, yeah, technically it’s just Reusch,” says Nick. “But, hey. If your last name rhymes with douche, you really should know better than to also act like one. Otherwise the nickname is inevitable.”

  • • •

  After Nick and Ion head home, Whitford suggests that Cecily and I try out his braille terminal.

  Cecily holds an iPhone and I have the terminal on a desk in front of me. I feel the braille and start to read.

  “It was the year 3017 and the Doctor was walking through the empty streets of a mysteriously abandoned city floating on what appeared to be a cloud…” I read. “Dude, what is this?”

  “Doctor Who fan fiction,” says Whitford, as if this should have been completely obvious. “You don’t like it? Do you think the scene should’ve started with him stepping out of the TARDIS?”

  “Wait, did you write this?” I ask. “You write fan fiction?”

  “Uh… no… I mean, my friend wrote it, I just thought he might want feedback on it,” says Whitford.

  “Right,” I say, completely unconvinced. “Your friend.”

  “Let’s keep practicing,” says Cecily. “We need to get this down for the audition.”

  As we continue through the text, the Doctor still wandering around a postapocalyptic wasteland in search of someone called his “companion,” there are times when Cecily gets a bit behind or ahead in her scrolling. After a while, though, my reading speed and her scrolling harmonize into the perfect match.

  CHAPTER 10

  On Monday, at the start of journalism class, Mrs. Everbrook asks everyone who wants to audition for the morning announcements to raise a hand.

  I raise mine, wondering if Cecily is raising hers, too. I better not be the only one challenging Xander and Victoria. Cecily better not be backing out. I’m doing this for her, after all.

  The way she spoke at that museum—the energy in her voice as she described each painting, her belief that art means something more than brushed-on oils dried and chipping on stretched canvas—that’s a voice that deserves to be heard. That needs to be shared. And if I have to audition in order for her to give it a try, then so be it.

  But then I return to panicking. I’m probably the only one raising my hand. This was a bad idea.

  “Don’t try to pull your hand down, Will. I already saw you,” says Mrs. Everbrook. “All right, so we’ve got Xander and Victoria running for reelection, I see. And they will be challenged by Will”—she pauses while scribbling my name on paper, and for a moment of dread, I am sure that I am the only one, that Cecily backed out—“as well as Tripp, Connor, and Cecily.”

  I exhale in relief. She raised her hand.

  “I’m going to go ahead and pair you off as cohosts,” says Mrs. Everbrook.

  “Tripp and Connor, you guys are buddies, right? I’ll make you the first pair. And Cecily and Will, you did great work covering that van Gogh exhibit, so I’ll put you together.”

  Mrs. Everbrook goes over some rules about the audition process, including what to wear. Then she gives us the rest of the period to work on our journalism assignments.

  I hear Cecily’s footsteps approach and listen as she slides into a desk beside me.

  “So we’ve got a problem,” she says.

  I turn my head toward her, alarmed.

  “I don’t own any button-down tops.”

  “What?” I say, not used to hearing a girl describe her wardrobe as our problem.

  “Were you listening? Mrs. Everbrook says that’s what we’re supposed to wear. Nothing else works well with a clip-on microphone.”

  “Oh, right,” I say. “Well, come to think of it, I don’t think I have any button-downs other than white dress shirts. That’s what my mom always tells me she buys. But Mrs. Everbrook said white looks bad on camera, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sigh. Shopping for clothes is basically my least favorite activity.

  “Well…” I say hesitantly. “Maybe we could go to the mall together? Help each other pick out an audition outfit?”

  I realize how absurd the phrase “help each other” sounds. Like she could use my help picking out an outfit.

  “Can you go right after school today? Might as well get it over with as soon as we can.”

  “Sure.”

  “I just have to get back for a quiz-team practice thing at five, though.”

  “No problem,” I say. “How long can it take?”

  • • •

  Malls are full of hazards: unimaginably large parking lots, shoulder-bumpingly dense crowds, shin-bangingly low fountains. And escalators.

  Ugh. Escalators. When it comes to motorized floor transport, elevators are pretty annoying, but escalators are much worse. They are one of those rare obstacles that make me kind of wish I had a guide dog to help. But today I don’t need one. I have Cecily.

  I tell her, “Okay, put my hand on the rail and tell me when to step forward. On a count of three.”

  She does.

  “One… two… three,” she says. I step. “Oh, no, no, no, you’re on a crack, move back, move back!”

  I step backward, only to land on the flat part of the moving floor, which is steadily sliding out from under me. I feel myself losing balance, tipping… but Cecily stops me from behind and shoves me upright.

  “There,” she says. “Now you are standing on a step. Hold still.”

  I notice the feeling of her hands against my back as I regain my balance. Her palms and fingers are small but firm against the fabric of my shirt.

  As we go up, the scrolling motion of the escalator reminds me of Whitford’s braille terminal.

  “Listen, Cecily, if you’d rather have another cohost, I can drop out of the audition,” I offer.

  “No, you can’t drop out,” she says.

  “I don’t think you need me anymore,” I say. “You can do this on your own.”

  “No,” she says. “I mean, neither of us can quit. I already tried to switch partners.”

  That feels like a slap, but before she can explain, she tells me we are at the top of the escalator, and disembarking requires both of us to concentrate.

  We go into a Forever 21—it has a small men’s section, Cecily says—and she picks out a few shirts for me to try on and finds some for herself before heading for the fitting rooms.

  “It’s a long line,” Cecily warns.

  We stand in silence for a while, stepping forward every few minutes.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “You seem upset.”

  “I’m fine.”

&nb
sp; “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “What do you care?” I snap, displaying more anger than I mean to.

  “I’m… your friend. I’d like to help.”

  “How could I not be upset? You just told me you tried to dump me as soon as you heard we were paired together today.”

  She’s quiet for a while. Synthesizer-heavy pop music pulses out of speakers above us.

  “Will, I asked to be switched to a different partner because I want you to win.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you. I’m just not the kind of person people would vote for to be on television first period every day. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Mrs. Everbrook said once we raised our hands, there was no dropping out, and once she assigned partners, there was no questioning her ‘infallible matchmaking.’”

  I say, “No way. You’re the one who would carry this team. As a blind person, I consider myself an exceptional judge of the human voice. And you, Cecily, have a lovely voice.”

  We listen to the next five tracks of ceiling music in silence. But the beats sound happier than before.

  “Jeez, it’s almost five o’clock,” says Cecily.

  “Already?”

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to be back at school in twenty minutes.”

  “We can just leave.”

  “No, we waited this long. Might as well just try these on and buy something as fast as we can. I’ll text our adviser that I might be late.”

  Even after we finally make it to the front of the line, we wait another ten minutes until one of the dressing rooms finally becomes available.

  “Thanks for your patience,” says the employee working the area. “Which of you is next?”

  Knowing we’re short on time, I turn to Cecily.

  “Tell me if this is too weird,” I say. “But want to just share a room to save time? I can’t, you know, watch you or anything.”

  She hesitates for a moment. Okay, maybe too weird.

  But the employee cuts in.

  “I’m sorry, we have a strict one-person policy.”

  “Well—I’m blind,” I say.

  “Oh,” she says. “I guess that’s all right, then.”

  People will accept blindness as the rationale for all sorts of exceptional behavior.

  “Cecily?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s a good idea. It’ll be faster, like you said.”

  From the reverb of the door clicking shut, I judge the fitting room to be about two arm lengths across.

  “I don’t need the mirror, obviously, so you can stand in front of it,” I say.

  “Okay,” she says.

  We shift around in the small space, bumping into each other.

  I listen to her slide her T-shirt over her shoulders and drop it on the floor. I’m not going to lie: I am immediately on high alert, my senses piqued.

  When referring to bikini models or whatever, I always hear that certain parts are “left up to the imagination,” and those are the parts that are especially intriguing.

  Well. Just think if it was all left up to the imagination.

  When I suggested we share a fitting room, I was just trying to save time. I didn’t anticipate I’d be so, well, turned on by the experience. After all, I can’t actually imagine what I’ve never seen. But now… the idea that I’m standing so close to this girl who is in the process of changing shirts… mere inches away from my own body…

  I try to control my quickening breath, hoping she doesn’t notice. I don’t want her to think I’m a perv or something. And I don’t want her to think I like her, you know, in that way. This is just hormones. I’d feel this way under these circumstances with any girl getting undressed mere inches from me. Wouldn’t I?

  CHAPTER 11

  The news comes the next day when Mom picks me up from school.

  “Will!” she shouts as soon as I get in the front seat of the Tesla. “I have the best news! Dr. Bianchi’s office called. Your B-scan showed you are a candidate for the surgery!”

  “Wait. Why did you talk to them? I told you I wanted to handle this myself.”

  “I thought you would be excited,” she says coolly.

  “Don’t try to turn this around on me. We had an agreement.”

  “I haven’t even told you the best part yet.”

  I know she’s hoping I’ll take her bait—Oh, now I’m excited, Mommy, tell me the good news, please, please!—which is exactly why I say nothing.

  Eventually she gives in. “Fine, I’ll tell you anyway. They have a stem cell donor!”

  I can’t help myself. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Already?”

  “Already.”

  “How long do I have to decide?”

  “What do you mean, decide?”

  I pause as it sinks in. “Don’t tell me you already scheduled the surgery.”

  She says nothing.

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  I hear her shift uneasily.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “I’m sorry… I didn’t… Why would you need to decide anything?”

  I’m furious. This is my decision. Not Mom’s. I can’t believe she would just schedule it herself. Or actually, I can. I can totally believe it. It’s just like her.

  “We had a deal!” I say. “I’m canceling it.”

  “Will, you will do no such thing!” she snaps.

  “Try and stop me,” I say. I tell Siri to call Dr. Bianchi’s office. A receptionist answers.

  “Hi, this is William Porter,” I say.

  “Will! Stop this immediately!” Mom says.

  “My mother spoke with your office earlier to schedule an operation. I’m going to need some time to think about it first—”

  “William Porter, hang up that phone!”

  “So I would like to put that operation on hold.”

  The receptionist confirms my request and says they can give me time to decide, but that if I want to move forward with this opportunity, I need to get back to them by Monday.

  “One more thing,” I say. “Please make a note on my account that my mother, Sydney Porter, is not authorized to speak with your office on my behalf.”

  The receptionist explains that since I am a minor, I can’t prevent my mother from speaking with their office about me.

  But since Mom is hearing only one side of the conversation, I reply, “Great. Thank you for making a note of that.”

  The receptionist counters that she did not make note of that, as she said, I am a minor—

  “All right, thanks, bye!” I say, and end the call.

  The car is quiet for a while.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” says Mom eventually. She sounds more hurt than angry.

  “We had a deal. You went behind my back.”

  We ride the rest of the way home in silence, without even normal car noises to cut the tension. Teslas—making awkward car rides even more awkward since 2008.

  • • •

  Dad gets home soon after we do. There’s a knock on my door.

  “Will? Can we go for a bike ride on the tandem?”

  I know Mom sent him as a proxy to persuade me to have the operation. But a part of me wants to be talked into it. I do want to see, after all. So I agree.

  We put on our helmets and push out of the driveway. Once we are a few seconds away from the house, he says sternly from the front seat of the bike, “Your mother told me about the incident earlier.”

  “I just felt like I needed some time to think it over.”

  “I think that’s extremely wise.”

  Wait, what? This was not the talk I was expecting. “You do?”

  “That’s why I wanted to take you on a bike ride. I disagree with your mother on this, so I needed to get you alone to hear my concerns.”

  He’s right. If Mom overheard Dad disagreeing with her like this, she’d flip out. He wouldn’t get in a single word.

  Dad con
tinues, “Since we first heard of the operation, I’ve been researching the medical literature on the subject. I have to say, it doesn’t look good, Will.”

  “Is that a pun?”

  My dad is a serious man, so I know that it’s not. I just like to mess with him sometimes.

  “Um, no, sorry, no pun intended.”

  He warns me that we are going to take a left turn. After a few seconds of pedaling, I know we are passing Whitford’s house.

  He returns to his speech. “In all of recorded history, there have been fewer than twenty documented cases of early blind gaining eyesight later in life. And in those twenty cases, the outcomes were quite poor.”

  “You mean, like, it didn’t work?” I ask.

  “No, those twenty are the few on whom it did work. But they all had difficulty recognizing certain objects for the rest of their life. Some of them lost their vision again later. More important, every single patient experienced major depression as a result of gaining sight.”

  I make a point to push harder on the pedals so Dad won’t notice how unsteady and confused I’m feeling.

  “They were depressed? After they could see?”

  “Yes. Some had mental breakdowns. Many wished they could return to blindness or even considered deliberately damaging their own eyes. Most were reported to have undergone significant changes in personality, usually toward melancholy and sadness.”

  “But why?” I ask. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “The world didn’t look as good as everyone told them it would. One of the most famous cases, a man in England, was devastated to discover that both he and his wife were not as good-looking as he had always assumed they were. He was in otherwise good health, but he died just nineteen months after seeing for the first time. Apparently, he simply lost his will to live.”

  I try to reverse the dark tone of the story. “Dad, is this your way of telling me I’m really ugly?”

  He doesn’t take the bait. “No, son, I’m trying to say—”

  “I know what you’re trying to say. It was just a joke.”

  We ride in silence for a few seconds.

  “Right turn.”

  As I feel the bike lean into the turn, my mind swirls with this new information.

  I want it to work. I want to find a way to make things turn out differently for me. “But what if I—what if a person went into the operation with low expectations? About what everything looks like?”