Leaving Scarlet

by J. Lynn Bailey

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when Conroy died.” She chokes back. “I know how much he meant to you.”

  I reach for her and pull her to me. Feel her body against mine. Her heart thumping against my chest. I kiss the top of her head as a need for her rips through me. I remember every inch of her body. Her freckle that sits just below her pelvis bone. A birthmark that sits on her upper left thigh. One I’ve kissed too many times to count. The scar where the port was put in when she was twelve. Her hands that held me together, even when I didn’t want them to.

  I remember.

  The rain falls.

  “What happened to us, Cash?”

  “We let the world get in the way.”

  And we stand here, holding each other, holding up our worlds just for a moment.

  25

  Scarlet: Age 12

  Dillon Creek, California

  “Just hold him, Scar. Come on. He won’t do anything. I just don’t want him to get away while I open the gate,” Cash said, trying to hand me Ed, the king snake.

  I rolled my eyes, and my stomach grew queasy. “The things I do for you, Cash.”

  I took a big gulp as Cash placed the long, scaly black-and-white snake in my hands, and immediately, I wanted to throw up. I wanted to drop the snake as it twisted and turned in my hands.

  I let out a low growl, and with my eyes closed, I counted. “One, two, three …”

  “There,” Cash said.

  I felt the weight of his hands against the reptile, and I released it.

  Immediately, I ran to the field and threw up the lunch that Laurel had made us.

  “Taste better a second time?” Cash laughed.

  “I hate you.” I threw up again.

  “Think of it this way: I’m just pushing you to get over your fears sooner than later.”

  “I’m not scared of snakes.” I glared at him and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  He walked the snake out to greener pasture. “Sure … you’re not scared of anything.”

  I followed him, mad as hell.

  The truth was, I was scared of snakes, and Cash Atwood wasn’t scared of anything.

  We walked to the tree line at the back end of the pasture.

  “All right, Ed, try to stay away from the porch,” he said as the snake slithered into the trees.

  I’d been trying to think of a way to tell him. The right words. The right time. I couldn’t tell him over the phone. But it was like a Band-Aid—the sooner I ripped off the whole thing, the better.

  “Listen”—I grabbed his hand—“I need to tell you something.”

  Cash stopped, and his big blue eyes stared back at me. He blinked. “What?”

  “Before I go back to Chicago, there’s something you need to know.”

  “What, Scar?” His face was serious.

  “My … my mom is getting a second opinion from a specialist in San Francisco, but the doctors say I have cancer.”

  Cash Atwood was the toughest kid I knew, and I’d never seen him scared of anything. Not a goddamn thing. Until now.

  “What?” was all he said.

  I told him that it was curable. “But my mom wants a second opinion, so after I leave here, we’re flying to San Francisco.”

  “What?” Cash said again as he sat down on the ground, trying to wrap his head around all of it.

  I sat down next to him and picked at the grass.

  “How long have you known?”

  I shrugged, wondering once again if it was ever okay to tell a lie. “The whole summer.”

  Cash studied my face, and I saw the anger that began to build. “You’ve been keeping this from me the whole summer?”

  He stood, unsure of what to do with himself, so he began to pace, and I began to rub my earlobe.

  “Did you hear the part where it’s curable?”

  He wasn’t hearing a word I had to say.

  “Cash, calm down. I’m not dying.”

  Cash stopped dead in his tracks. “It’s cancer, Scarlet. These things don’t end well.”

  But somewhere in his words, I found the truth that I’d pushed away from my mind the second I heard my diagnosis.

  “Well”—my voice grew to a whisper—“there’s treatment.”

  Cash dropped his hands from his face and looked up at the sky and then to me. He groaned. “I’m sorry, Scar. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be reacting like this.” He took my hand in his. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just … I’m just scared, is all.”

  “Me too.” I tried not to cry. “I’m scared too, Cash.”

  “Don’t cry, Scarlet. It’s unbecoming.”

  I swallowed my tears and put them back into my heart, pushing them as deep as I could.

  “Thank God for e-mail,” Cash said. “We can e-mail and talk on the phone. Don’t worry; we will get through this.”

  One thing was for certain: he’d get through this whether the outcome was in my favor or not.

  Marmie had said not to worry and that everything would be okay. Marmie always tried to make things lighter, softer, more digestible, even Mom’s cooking. Mom had been home more since the diagnosis, and she almost hadn’t let me come back to Dillon Creek for the summer, but I’d told her that if I was sick, I wanted to tell my friends in person.

  “When do you go for a second opinion?” Cash asked.

  “When I leave here. My mom will meet me in San Francisco.”

  Cash’s mouth fell open. “You’re flying to San Francisco by yourself?”

  “It’s no big deal, Cash. I fly here every summer from Chicago. An hour plane ride is nothing.”

  “No. No. No. I’m going with you.”

  “Cash, you can’t do that. Come on. I’ll be fine.”

  “Goddamn it, Scar! Stop making excuses for your mother! She should be taking the flight with you!” He stood and paced again.

  He was making a mountain out of a molehill.

  “Scar”—he put his hand on his face—“your mom is asking you to fly to a cancer trip by yourself. Because why? She can’t leave early to fly into Dillon Creek because she hates this fucking place? She can’t get over herself long enough to be there for you?”

  “She’s coming to the appointment, Cash. Jeez.”

  “You’re defending her?! Do me a favor and stop defending your mother who leaves you alone more than she’s home.”

  I got real mad. “You don’t have to yell. Look, I’ll do this all by myself if I have to because I don’t have time to die. I have too much to do in this world, so you, Cash Atwood, can either stick by me or leave. But yelling at me is just pissing me off.”

  He stopped pacing. His eyes reached mine, then he marched off back to the house, and I followed in his wake.

  26

  Cash: Age 13

  Dillon Creek, California

  “I just got off the phone with Erla. She was relieved Scarlet had told Cash. They’d been sick all summer about it.” My mom sighed and leaned against the counter.

  “You and Cash will go to San Francisco with Scarlet. She’ll need you,” my dad said, stared out the window, sitting at the dining room table. “And the Brockmeyers are going too?” he asked my mom.

  “Yes.”

  Dad nodded slowly, and then he looked at me. He wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure what to think. All I knew was that the life Scarlet had had yesterday didn’t exist anymore, and I was angry with God and the whole damn world.

  “I asked the Brockmeyers over for dinner tonight. They’ll be here at six,” Mom said, turning back to the sink. She stared at nothing, trying to pick up the weight of the world in her hands.

  “I’m going out to the barn,” I announced and left.

  In the barn just off the house, I walked to Conroy’s punching bag at the back side and began to throw punches and kicks until my hands bled. I swore and spit and yelled at God and anyone who was listening.

  And then, after about fifteen minutes, I fell to the ground and began to cry.

&nb
sp; “Cowboys don’t cry.” I heard Conroy’s voice say.

  He moved closer. He took a seat on the concrete floor alongside me.

  “It’s not fair, Conroy! We’re just kids. Kids don’t get cancer.” I wiped my nose against the back of my hand and dried my eyes with my fists.

  He took his hand, slid it over my back, and pulled me to him. “I know, cowboy.”

  The tears didn’t stop coming, and the sadness dripped across the barn floor.

  But he let the broken young cowboy cry.

  “Some of the toughest lessons I’ve learned in life were the most painful. And the sooner you learn this, the better,” he said in a quiet whisper. “Your job is to be there for Scarlet. It’s your duty to stand by her, even when it’s hard, because that’s what friends do. It’s not your job to cry in front of her or tell her how angry or sad you are. You aren’t the one in the battle with life or death. I know you’re tough, Cash, but now, it’s time to be tougher. Got it?”

  I absorbed my brother’s words and thought about the way she’d kept this from me the whole summer and why she had done it. She’d wanted us to have a good summer together. She didn’t want what she was going through to affect me. Probably, too, because she had known I’d react like this.

  “That girl will always be worth fighting for, Cash. Always. Remember that.”

  The Brockmeyers arrived promptly at six with flowers for my mom. They took up in the kitchen with my parents while Scarlet wandered in the living room. Sat down next to me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey. What are you doing?”

  “Making a list.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of all the things you’ve been talking about doing your whole life.”

  Scarlet took the list and began to read it.

  “The Eiffel Tower is still a far-off dream, Cash.”

  “So, we add it anyway.”

  “Feet in the Atlantic Ocean,” she read. “How do you remember all this stuff?”

  “See the northern lights,” I read the next one and the next one after that. “Swim with sea turtles.”

  “Ride the Orient Express.”

  “Forgive someone.”

  Scarlet shook her head. “I can’t believe you remembered all these.”

  “That’s what friends do, Scar.”

  She handed the list back to me. “Well, add swim with sharks.”

  “You hate ocean water.”

  “I know.” And then she added, “Think it’s about time I walk through some fear.”

  Her words tumbled through my stomach and left a lump in my throat. I knew she meant this more metaphorically, and so I wrote it down and swallowed the lump.

  “All right. So, it’s settled. We’ll work on this list every summer. We’ll try to get one thing crossed off your list each summer.”

  She looked further down the list. “Send a message in a bottle. Spend the night in a tree house. Drive Route 66. Adopt an animal from a shelter.”

  “So far, you have thirteen items on the list,” I said.

  Scarlet leaned back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Or we can just sit here.” I set the notepad and pencil on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch, staring at nothing.

  The adults talked in the kitchen like Scarlet didn’t have cancer, like the world wasn’t turned off its axis while Scarlet tried to live her last few days as a kid. Because after this summer, she’d have adult worries. She’d have adult things to think about, like life and death. Treatments and side effects and losing her hair maybe.

  The air felt heavier. My lungs felt full, and I mulled over words I wanted to say to Scarlet.

  “I think you’ll still be pretty even if you lose your hair.”

  Scarlet let out a laugh, which turned into a belly laugh, which turned to tears in her eyes, and I couldn’t tell if they were from fear or from laughter. But when the silence came after the laughter, tears still streaming down her face, she was still smiling, and I started to smile too.

  When she was done laughing, she said, “Do you know who I thought of when you said that?”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Feldman, the bald music teacher, but with my face.”

  I started to laugh, too, and I realized just how much I loved Scarlet’s laugh.

  I’d realized a lot of things this summer.

  I loved the way Scarlet rubbed her earlobe when she was nervous.

  The way she laughed. It was low and slow, but she laughed with her eyes and her heart—something I’d never seen done.

  The way she could only chew gum for no more than six minutes.

  The way her eyes changed colors from a bright blue to a deep green, depending on what she was wearing.

  The way her laughter filled a black hole in my chest.

  But most of all, I realized that she was not just my best friend; she was more. And I had to figure out a way to tell her that.

  “Hey, Scar?”

  “Yeah?”

  I reached down and hesitantly took her hand.

  She looked down at our hands, rolled her eyes, and said, “Are you going to tell me that you love me now?”

  “Actually, yeah.”

  Quietly, she nodded and met my gaze. Then, she whispered, “I know, Cash. I’ve known it for a long time. But let’s skip the song and dance and pretend I don’t have cancer. Instead, we’re on the French Riviera, and we’re drinking soda and telling lies about ourselves.” She paused. “Anywhere but here.”

  “Anywhere but here,” I whispered back and looked at her. “I went skydiving with Rob Smets yesterday.”

  Rob Smets was my favorite bullfighter in the Professional Bull Riders Association.

  “I had tea with the Queen of England, and I explained to her the difference between yo and hello.”

  “I ran with the bulls in Spain.”

  “I saved the sea turtles off the coast of Peru.”

  “Sea turtles and the Queen?”

  “This is my dream, Cash.”

  I laughed and then said with softer words, “I found a cure for cancer.”

  “Did I live?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we finished your list and didn’t lie to ourselves anymore.”

  She smiled and toyed with a thread from her T-shirt. “I like that ending.”

  With her hand in mine, I gave it a squeeze, and I traced my initials on her hand with my finger. “It’s just the beginning, Scar.”

  And just like that, we entered that cool summer day as best friends, and that night, I kissed her under the full moon. But it wasn’t on the mouth; it was on the forehead. I told her how much and how long I’d loved her in ways best friends shouldn’t love each other. I told her I’d fight for her and for us until I took my last breath.

  I also thought I’d never break that promise, but sometimes, we made promises we just couldn’t keep, no matter how hard and long we fought.

  27

  The Ladybugs

  Present Day 2020

  Junie stands back and looks at the sign she just hung on the window table for The Ladybugs, Club Number 227.

  THE LADYBUGS’ TABLE.

  CURRENTLY ON HIATUS.

  The first Tuesday of the month at noon sharp, the table is closed until one.

  Bo, a member of The Lunch Guys, walks up behind Junie. “What’s this?”

  She sighs, crossing her arms. “Grief.”

  Junie pats Bo’s arm and walks to the register behind the counter.

  Bo lets out a long breath between his teeth. “That’ll be a big hole to fill.” He walks back to his table. “The Ladybugs are on hiatus.”

  Lance asks, “Why?”

  Bo sits down in his usual spot at his usual table with his usual friends, takes a swig of his black coffee, and sets it down on the red-checkered tablecloth. “Taking the loss of Erla pretty hard.”

  “Who’s going to organize the toy driv
e this year?” Rue asks.

  “Guess Dillon Creek is on its own,” Archie says.

  “Never thought I’d live to see the day.” Ben throws the dice.

  “Me neither,” Bo says and stares out the window as Rue throws the dice next.

  Bo is going to pay a trip down to Carl at the Blacksmith Shop. Sure, Carl and he had their differences, and he always knew there would be a time when he needed to talk to Carl—it’s a hell of a small town. Even if he did steal Clyda Atwood right under his nose when he and Laney had gone their separate ways. But Bo is a man of faith and trusts the process even if forgiveness isn’t the first thing on his mind.

  Dillon Creek can’t live without The Ladybugs—Bo knows this to be true.

  Laura, a new employee at Dillon Creek Pizza and a high school sophomore, peeks over the back of Junie at the sign above The Ladybugs’ table. “So, it is true?”

  “Afraid so,” Junie says.

  “But The Ladybugs helped my family get back on our feet after the fire.”

  Junie sighs. “They’ve helped a lot of people, honey. It’s a damn shame.”

  “Will they ever come back?”

  “Something deep inside me says no. So, we need to let them know how much they mean to our community.” Junie shakes her head. “I’m just not sure how to do it.”

  Laura thinks on it, grabs a notepad they usually take orders on, and writes a note to The Ladybugs. She folds the note and places it on their table and walks outside to finish watering the flowers.

  But Junie knew what she was doing when she placed the sign above The Ladybugs’ table. How would anyone know that The Ladybugs were on hiatus if no one advertised it? Also, crucially important, Junie knows what The Ladybugs have done for the Dillon Creek community. All the lives they’ve touched. The difference they’ve made. If The Ladybugs don’t believe it, well, they’ve doubted business owner, Junie Bea Fields. She is going to prove to The Ladybugs, Club Number 227, that they mean a whole lot to this community.

  When Junie and her husband, Don Fields—not to be confused with Don Brockmeyer, God rest his soul—almost lost their son at birth, it was The Ladybugs who stepped up and set up a money drive for them. As Dillon Creek Pizza’s sole proprietors, they had to close the place down for a month. And with closure came loss of income. Sure, Don and Junie had a few employees, but they couldn’t run the place on their own. The Ladybugs raised more monetary donations in one month than Dillon Creek Pizza profited in six months.