Kaia looked at the website again and the top goal number on the ticker. A slight frown creased her forehead. “It will be amazing if we can raise that much. Do you really think we can?”
The butterflies stopped their looping. A few might have even died. It’s not like I hadn’t wondered that myself a hundred times. I’d never raised that much money before.
“Um, of course!” I wasn’t going to think about what would happen if this didn’t work. Because it had to. We were getting that twenty thousand. I grabbed the rolled-up papers I’d stuffed in my backpack. “Yes, it’s a lot of money. But people always underestimate the importance of a good ground game.” I took the rubber band off the papers. “Sure, we’ll do all the social media stuff to get the word out, but I also made these.” I unfurled the papers. They were posters I’d designed last night and printed up in the copy room this morning. They had all the information for the Save Steve campaign on them and in the center was a picture of Steve looking, say, less than perfectly healthy. It was a great poster. Even better than the one I designed for the Straw-Free-Campus campaign. Anyone seeing it would want to help. Kaia examined the top one.
“Where’d you get this picture of Steve?”
“His Instagram feed. I think it was the morning after homecoming.” His puffy red eyes and frazzled hair hung over a tired, goofy grin.
She snorted. “Well, he does look sick.”
I tried to suppress the quick stab of joy I felt at the less than adoring expression she wore. I rocked back on my heels and tried to sound as casual as possible. “So I was thinking after school we could head over to Main Street and ask businesses if we could post them in their stores. That area gets a lot of tourist traffic as well as locals. I did it when I was volunteering for the Deaf Dog campaign and it got a great response.”
I waited for Kaia’s reaction.
“Well, I’ve got a student council meeting after sixth period.” The last few butterflies in my stomach dropped. “But can I meet you after?” And they were back! Dancing the floss and the robot and the electro shuffle.
“Yeah. Sounds great.”
With a smile, Kaia grabbed her backpack and headed out. I gathered up the posters and my laptop, barely aware of anything but the stupid grin on my face. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to spend time with Kaia Gonzales. Alone. Putting up posters to save her terrible boyfriend, but still. Not that I was hoping anything would happen. I wasn’t going to even try. Not while she was dating Steve. I wasn’t that sort of guy. And yes, I’d felt that moment of doubt over whether doing the fundraiser was wrong, but that’s all it had been—doubt. I was helping people. Lots of people. Steve. His parents. Kaia, so she’d feel less helpless. And if I was helping me a little, too, that was okay. I was doing a good thing. I was sure of that now.
I zipped up my backpack as another thought occurred to me. Actually, it was the same thought, just with new, horrible ramifications. I was going to be alone with Kaia. Yes, I’d managed to sound like a relatively cool, normal person just now, but with hours to fill? The butterflies in my stomach swarmed.
“Wow. That kid looks awful. Of course we’ll hang it up.” The owner of the antique store reached for some tape and walked over to the window of the store to hang the Save Steve poster. I felt a surge of triumph and glanced at Kaia. In the gloom of the cluttered shop, her eyes mirrored the same proud expression.
“Thanks so much, sir,” I said as the man fixed the poster next to one advertising an improv night. “You have no idea how much you are helping.”
Seconds later, we were back on the sidewalk, awash in the bright, clear sunlight with matching smiles on our faces. Kaia gave me a high five.
“Seventeen for seventeen! How many more posters do we have?” I looked down Main Street, with its mix of antique shops, cafés, and clothing stores. Every window now had a Save Steve poster clearly displayed. We’d been out for hours and the crazy thing was, I hadn’t been nervous at all. As soon as we’d met up, we’d just slipped into this rhythm like we’d been working together for ages. I never wondered what to say, we’d had a thousand things to talk about, and when we didn’t, any silences we’d had felt comfortable rather than awkward. I’d never felt this in sync with anyone.
I checked my backpack and pulled out the remaining posters. “Just these three—” There was a rip as one caught on the zipper. “Two,” I finished with a laugh. Kaia grabbed the top one.
“Okay. Last two. Let’s make ’em count.”
Kaia handed her poster to the woman draped in turquoise jewelry at the candle and crystal shop. “. . . and he’s really great, and funny, and smart,” she pleaded. My stomach tightened. I told myself it was the ten thousand scents assaulting my nose right now and not how Kaia’s voice softened when she talked about Steve. I examined the Sea Breeze triple-wick candle next to me. It smelled like soap. Honestly, everything in here did. “. . . so if you could just hang up the poster, that would be a real help,” Kaia finished.
The lady looked at the poster and recoiled. “Oh my goodness, of course I will, honey. Are you his girlfriend?”
Kaia glanced down. “Yeah.”
Nope. I wasn’t going to look at how Kaia’s cheeks just turned pink. I picked up another candle—Sage and Sunlight—and sniffed. Still soap. There must be something here that didn’t smell like laundry detergent.
“And you must be his best friend.” I looked up, startled, my nose buried in Moonlight and Magnolias.
“Uh . . .”
“Actually, he’s not friends with Steve at all,” Kaia answered. “He’s just the sort of person who’s always willing to help out.” She beamed at me. Moonlight and Magnolias slipped a bit in my hands. I shoved it back on the shelf. I didn’t trust myself with a fifty-three-dollar piece of soap-scented wax when Kaia was looking at me like that.
It was too bad we only had one poster left, because this day was turning out to be pretty perfect.
The old man glared at us from across the chipped Formica of the liquor store counter. “No. No way. Not that fake ID motherfucker.” He slammed the poster down. The dusty glass bottles behind him shook. Kaia took a step closer to me, alarmed. “Do you know how much liquor he and his friends have stolen from me? He’s banned.”
“Oh . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . . ,” Kaia stuttered.
The man wasn’t finished. He reached under the counter. “I have a poster of him, too,” he said with a scowl, and held up a laminated picture of Steve taken by a security camera. In bold letters it said, “DO NOT SELL.” I stifled a snort of laughter. Kaia looked horrified.
“Maybe we should try the thrift store,” she said under her breath.
“But this is the busiest corner on the whole street,” I muttered.
“Yeah . . . but . . .” Her eyes darted to the angry old man.
“Let me try,” I said, and pasted on my best friendly but respectful smile, which I usually saved for adults who didn’t believe in climate change.
“You know, I totally get it,” I said, putting my hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. There was a flicker of surprise on the man’s face. I continued. “When we tried to raise money for a straw-free campus at my high school, Steve drew penises all over the posters and changed the motto to ‘DON’T stop sucking.’”
Kaia’s eyes widened in surprise. “That was Steve?”
I shrugged nonchalantly and carried on. “I worked hard on those posters. And Steve ruined them. But I’m here because, well, no one deserves cancer.” The owner stared at me, unimpressed. Kaia looked nervous. But I wasn’t done. “Look, I’m not saying you have to like him. I’m not saying you have to forgive him. But think of his family. Think of his girlfriend.” I motioned to Kaia. She gave him an apologetic smile. “They are good people. And they are hurting, too.”
The old man’s scowl softened a fraction. “I don’t know. . . .”
I pushed the poster toward him. Steve’s face looked up at us. “Think of it as being against canc
er, not for Steve.”
A moment later, we watched from the sidewalk as the old man carefully taped the poster of Steve to his window.
“I can’t believe you flipped him!” Kaia cheered. “That was crazy.”
“Thanks. Having you there helps.” Shit. Did that sound too flirty? It just kind of slipped out. It was true. Working by her side filled me with a crazy confidence I’d never experienced before, but I didn’t want her to think I was hitting on her. “Uh, I mean, as a visual reference.” Okay, that also wasn’t great. I’d just made her sound like a pie chart.
But Kaia didn’t seem to notice. “Was Steve really the one who drew all those penises?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Um, yeah. But, I mean, that was a while ago. I got over it. I wasn’t bringing it up to, you know . . . It’s just easier to convince people of stuff when you use something personal. I figured you knew.”
“Oh . . . um . . . no.”
Maybe that explained why she was with Steve. She didn’t really know him. He was one person to people like me and another to people like her. And while I could easily pull out more examples of the Ways of the Steve, I didn’t want to push it. We’d been having such a good time. I mean, as good a time as you should have putting up posters for someone with cancer. “I can’t believe we got all those stores to agree,” I tried.
Kaia’s expression brightened. “Right? We make a pretty good team, Webber.” She punched me on the shoulder.
Oh my god. Were we a team? I had to extend the moment. “Do you want to get a coffee? We can go to that fair-trade place down the street where I ran into you over Christmas break,” I blurted. Oh god, way too much info. Now I sounded like a stalker.
“I have a better idea.”
“You do?” My heart began to pound. Did she mean a full meal? There was that 1950s-style diner a few blocks down with the really good milkshakes where you could pick your own songs and . . .
“Let’s go tell Steve!” Kaia clapped her hands together with excitement.
Crap.
It was probably insane that I hoped we’d never have to see him at all. “Um, but, should we? He probably just wants to rest, right?”
But Kaia was already walking toward our cars. “No. No. It will totally cheer him up. Seriously. He needs it.” I tried to imagine Steve needing any sort of cheering up and utterly failed. But I hadn’t seen him since the party. He was probably really hurting. It was cancer, after all. Still, I was pretty sure me showing up on his doorstep wasn’t going to lift his spirits.
“Maybe we should wait. Then once we’ve raised all the money, we can do a big reveal. You know, like those reality shows where they make over someone’s house when they aren’t home. Boom. Big surprise! Everyone cries.”
“No way. It’s too good to hold off.”
“Maybe you should just go,” I tried desperately.
Kaia stopped and put her hands on her hips. “I see what’s happening here.”
I felt a stab of panic. “You do?”
“You listed off a ton of causes yesterday that you helped on and I’d totally forgotten that you’d been involved with half of them. You are way too modest. I’m not letting you blend into the background on this one.”
“But . . .”
“Come on.” Kaia grabbed my wrist and tugged me forward. Whatever argument I’d been about to mount was lost to the feel of her fingers wrapping around my wrist.
Even as I stood in Steve’s foyer, I searched for a way out of seeing him. Fake a phone call? Sudden allergy attack? Brain fart?
“Steve will be so happy to have some company,” Mrs. Stevenson said as she hugged Kaia. “He’s in the back resting.” Her eyes were puffy and her whole being seemed tired. I think her blouse had a stain. This was awful. We were making her put on a brave face and host us while she should just be curled up on a couch with a cup of tea and a soft blanket. I considered telling her that I had terrible stomach pain (true) and excusing myself, but she was already leading us through the house.
Our footsteps reverberated around the vaulted ceiling. Instead of pounding music, party debris, and swarms of drunk, screaming kids, there was just a bright, cavernous space like a suburban mausoleum. Vases filled with flowers were perfectly placed on every surface. People were sending them flowers. Because this was bad. Because Steve had cancer. Cancer.
“Oh god. Should we have brought something?”
“Relax,” Kaia whispered.
Photos of Steve lined the walls. Unlike his Instagram feed, they were loving family shots, and for the first time I saw Steve from his parents’ perspective. He was a sunny little kid with a big smile. Their pride. Their firstborn. Shit.
As we walked past the kitchen, Steve’s sister, who was maybe twelve or thirteen, did her homework on the white granite countertop. She nibbled absently at a bowl of pretzels and brushed her blond hair out of her face. And then . . . was that a sniff? Had she just sniffed?
What were we doing here? Or really, what was I doing here? Kaia said it was “good cancer,” but this felt more like hospice. And I was the horny vulture.
Steve’s mom slid open the moving glass wall and we followed her out toward the vast flagstone patio. I braced myself for Steve’s sickness. My only experience with cancer had been my dog, Hillary, and we had just put her to sleep. What would he look like now? Did he need extra help? A feeding tube? Was he still Steve?
“I am fucking unstoppable!” I heard a voice bellow triumphantly, and I wondered if Steve had another friend over.
Then I saw him.
Drifting on a giant inflatable shark in the middle of his pool, a tanned and toned Steve Stevenson reclined luxuriously with an Xbox controller in his hand and a “Cancer Is for Pussies” baseball hat on his head, his wild brown locks spilling out from underneath. At the edge of the pool was a seventy-five-inch LED TV with a Sonos soundbar blaring Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” as Steve murdered a prostitute in Grand Theft Auto.
This guy needed cheering up? I looked sicker than Steve. Kaia was right, this did seem like a “good cancer.” Steve sure seemed to be enjoying it.
“Look who’s here!” his mom called out.
Steve turned to see Kaia. “Hey, there’s my girl!” He patted the spot next to him on the shark. “Come on board and grab a controller!”
“Let me know if you guys need anything,” his mom offered, and then headed back into the house, I presumed to cry into her throw blankets.
Steve still hadn’t noticed me, and I was thankful. Maybe we could both just pretend I wasn’t here. I was pretty good at being invisible.
But then Kaia motioned to me. “This is Cam.”
Steve switched his eyes my way, crooked his head sideways, and squinted. “Cam?” Then I could see the memory of that humiliating night light up his evil synapses, and an amused grin blossomed on his face. “Oooooooh . . . Cam! Cam, my man! You’re back! In my house!” His voice lowered to underscore his confusion. “For some reason!”
Kaia slid off her shoes and sat by the side of the pool. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
Steve forgot about me for a moment and maneuvered his floatie over to Kaia. “I’m backed up like a bottle of ketchup and I’ve got a rash that looks like Gucci Mane, but otherwise I’m doing fine.”
His raft in reach, Kaia pulled it close to her. “Well, we have a big surprise for you.”
“It’s a pretty big surprise that Cam is in my backyard right now.” He oversmiled in my direction. “Did I lose a contest? Oh yeah. I did. I have cancer.” He looked back to Kaia and said as sweetly as possible, “Is Cam a side effect?”
“Cam had an amazing idea,” she gushed. I wished she were less enthusiastic about it, because Steve’s eyes became lasers trained in my direction.
“Did he?” he said, elongating each word.
Kaia nodded to me bright and encouraging. “Tell him what we’re doing.”
“Yes, Cam,” Steve agreed, and then articulated each syllable. “Tell. Me. W
hat. You. Are. Doing. I. Am. Really. In. Ter. Es. Ted. In. All. The. De. Tails.”
I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to hide the fear in my voice. “Oh, well, Kaia and I are putting a fundraiser together for you.” I gave a meek smile and looked to Kaia, hoping she would take over. But she just urged me to continue. Steve’s eyes seared deeper into me. “You know, to help you and your family with your cancer.”
Kaia unzipped her backpack. “Look! He made you a poster!” and she pulled the ripped one out with a flourish.
Oh no. He didn’t need to see his hungover photo being used as a double for cancer. I spazztically sputtered, “You don’t . . . It’s nothing . . . It’s not—”
But my stammering had the opposite effect on Steve. “Oh. I think I need to see this poster.” Kaia handed it to him and he unfolded it like a dead fish was inside. He stared at it for a moment and his face found a new level of irritation. “Fuck no.”
I thought he might pull his automatic paintball rifle out from behind him and use me for target practice. But something distracted him—the swoosh of the moving glass wall. Without another word, he crumpled up the poster and threw it into the bushes.
“Steve! Cam worked really hard on that!!” Kaia protested.
Steve’s body shifted quickly from enraged to chill. A voice behind me called out, “Heads up!” An orange Nerf football rocketed past my ear and Steve caught it casually with one hand. I turned to find Steve’s dad bounding our way. “That’s my boy!” he bragged with his chest puffed up. “Did you see this guy? Look at him. Does it look like this kid has cancer? No! It does not. He’s crushing cancer like a boss.”
His dad marched over to me and slapped me on the back. I stumbled forward just a little. “So, this is where the party is, eh? You want me to turn on the waterslide?” He thrust something into my chest. “Cheryl said you probably didn’t bring a suit, Cam.” The swim trunks had a series of pineapples wearing sunglasses on them and I knew that they must be Steve’s. I took them in the tips of my fingers, not wanting to be rude.
Save Steve Page 5