The F- It List

by Julie Halpern

I jerked away from Leo to answer. I hung up. “Hi, Mom. Just driving around. Yeah, I can come home now. See you soon.

  “I have to go.” I turned to Leo, who perched himself up on his elbow.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I looked around to find my car keys and stood up. Leo remained in his reclined position while he pulled his cigarettes out of his jacket again.

  “So, I guess I’ll see you in school,” I said. My mind had moved on to what would transpire when I got home, having to tell my mom about Becca.

  “Yep.” He lit his next cigarette and returned to his back.

  Confused but preoccupied, I left him in the grass and drove toward home as though what just happened was as imaginary as a clown in the clouds.

  CHAPTER

  9

  WHEN I ARRIVED HOME, the house was in a much more chaotic condition than when I had left. AJ and CJ marked their presence everywhere, from their cleats strewn across the doormat to the clots of dirt that made a trail to the basement, where they played an incredibly loud video game. Their stench was also noticeable.

  My mom was in the kitchen unpacking some Target bags. “Hi, Mom,” I greeted her.

  “Hi, honey. How was your day?” she asked as she added to her collection of overpriced hand soaps under the sink.

  “It was okay. I guess.” Since my dad’s death, I hated to burden my mom with anything heavy. But if I didn’t tell her about Becca and she somehow found out, then we’d have a blow-up argument about how I don’t confide in her anymore. That already happened over the summer when I hadn’t told her about me and Becca’s friendship hiatus. “Not really, actually. Can I tell you something?”

  My mom was still distracted by her unpacking, so I emphasized my need for undivided attention by taking a soap pump out of her hands.

  “Honey, what is it?” She sounded concerned, if not exhausted. Mom was a few inches taller than me, which I appreciated for its momness. I looked up at her eyes, dark brown like mine, and said, “I found out today that Becca has cancer.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. Oh.” Mom engulfed me in her arms. I wished she hadn’t. I choked, and tears started streaming down my face. By the time I was finished, my mom’s shoulder was covered in saltwater and snot. She put her hands on my cheeks after subtly wiping tears from her own eyes. “Do you know anything more? What kind? What stage?”

  It seemed ironic, using the word “stage” for cancer and Becca. I knew it wasn’t the same meaning, but Becca loved the stage. Whatever stage of cancer she had, I hoped it was a good one. “Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I don’t know what stage.”

  “Hodgkin’s. That’s a good one to have, if there is a good one. Your uncle Alan had it and beat it. Becca’s strong like you. She’ll beat it, too.”

  “I hope,” I sniffed. “We cut her hair off today.”

  “That glorious hair. It’ll grow back. You know that already. You know so much already.” Mom looked at me sadly, and I knew she was referring to my dad.

  I didn’t want her to get on that morose path, so I said, “She starts chemo tomorrow. I’m going to send her a message to wish her luck.”

  “You’re a good friend.” She tried to smile. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  “Don’t make me cry again, Mom, or I’ll rub my boogers all over your other shoulder.”

  “Then I’ll have a matching set.” She tried to laugh.

  I walked upstairs to my bedroom and shut the door. My overhead light was too bright for my mood, so I turned on my three pop-can lamps from junior high shop class. Each one illuminated a different color: a red bulb from the Strawberry Crush, a green bulb from the Mountain Dew, and a purple bulb from the Shasta. I walked over and drew my shades, then smiled at the memory of Becca flashing her neighbor. I thought about doing it myself, but my bedroom window opened to our backyard and the people in the house behind us were an elderly couple with three ratty poodles. Even if I did flash them, I didn’t know if they would still be awake at eight o’clock to see me.

  While my computer booted up, I looked at the poster above my head: a Portuguese Dead Alive movie poster that read, Mi Madre se ha comida su perro, that I bought at the Dead of Winter horror movie convention last year. Would Becca be able to go again when it came to town this winter?

  I planned on sending Becca an email, in case she was sleeping and the buzz from a text woke her, but I saw her name in my messaging list.

  You awake? I typed.

  I waited for an answer, but got none. I typed on anyway.

  Maybe you’re asleep. I hope you’re dreaming aboard Battlestar Galactica.

  Weird true story: I saw Leo at the park. Tried a cigarette! Tasted like ass. Then, no shit, we made out. I think I may have imagined it. Wish you were there. Not to watch us, just to verify it happened.

  I waited again for a reply. Nothing. She must have left her messenger on.

  Well, good night then. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. Good luck tomorrow.

  I stepped away from the computer to put on my nightshirt, which was really just a t-shirt that had become too holey and yellowed in the armpits to wear in public.

  The familiar chime of a message alerted from the computer. On my screen was a message from Becca:

  You just did something off my Fuck-It List! I forgot which number. So the question is: Did his mouth taste like ass, too?

  I fished the Fuck-It List out of my crumpled jeans on the floor. There at number 12: Kiss a boy who smokes.

  I typed back, Not like ass. Like a burnt hamburger. But a sexy burnt hamburger.

  Goodnight, Alex.

  Goodnight, Becca.

  I got into bed with the Fuck-It List and crossed out number 12. Something about that action, the dragging of the pen over Becca’s words, made me feel like I was helping her. I couldn’t cure her cancer, but there were things I could do. And if they happened to be with a guy who I kind of liked, I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. After all, it’s what Becca wanted.

  CHAPTER

  10

  THAT NIGHT I SPENT over an hour reading over Becca’s Fuck-It List. It was like a window into her tween-through-present-day soul. I had no idea about some of her dreams, like number 7: Eat a hot pepper. How tiny. How insignificant. And yet, it must have seemed like a big enough deal to put it on her list. Was that one I would complete for her? Or did she want the easy ones to do on her own?

  Number 4: Write Rupert Grint a love letter.

  I remembered Becca’s Rupert Grint phase, after we first saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD. “He looks so different. So kind of manly.” I was a Seamus Finnigan gal myself, but I could understand the appeal of Rupe. I mean, the guy’s last name was Grint, and I was no stranger to the admiration of a redhead.

  Did Becca actually want me to write him a letter? I wished we had gone over some ground rules. Which ones were more important to her, which she wanted to do herself, and which were so outdated that they could be taken off the list altogether?

  What about number 1: Have a Kool-Aid stand with every Kool-Aid flavor invented.

  How did that make it to her Fuck-It List? Was it a dying-of-cancer priority? And what kind of asshole would I look like if I did set up a rainbow-flavored Kool-Aid stand?

  As the list grew, it also matured in content, hence the neighbor flashing and the smoker kissing. Toward the end, practically every item was about sex or drugs. Number 16: Smoke pot with a burnout behind the school. And number 17: Make out with a burnout behind the school.

  I knew which burnout she had in mind, too. Chad Dominguez, her lust-from-a-distance delinquent that fulfilled her bad-boy movie requirements (remedial classes, multiple suspensions, held back at least one grade, and completely edible). Did that mean I had to smoke pot and make out with Chad Dominguez? Would Becca appreciate that I fulfilled items like that or be livid with betrayal? Did Becca have her own copy of the list for reference? What if I lost the list? I vowed to scan the paper first thing in the morning, email Becca a copy, and save one to my hard driv
e. The paper was already in slightly disintegrated condition; I would hate to fail Becca by accidentally getting it wet or leaving it somewhere. During sleep, I decided to store it under a tall stack of books on my nightstand. I have always kept a stack of library books next to my bed as a lifeline. If I ever woke up in the middle of the night too scared to move or too sad to roll over, the books were my saviors. I picked up an aged copy of Stephen King’s Thinner. Not his best, but I liked it enough to read it for the third or fourth time. Three pages in, I fell asleep.

  The next morning, a half hour before my alarm was set to begin the monotony of the day, and half asleep to where I was still dreamy, I remembered my time with Leo on the grass. Even if he was only kissing me back because he thought I wanted to kiss him, I could feel he enjoyed it. Both from the hand on my ass and the stiffness in his pants. In my bed, I inched my hand down my stomach and into the band of my underwear. I relived the feeling of my body on top of Leo’s, and I rubbed my fingers between my legs, gently at first, just one finger in a circle. As Leo kissed me deeper, pressed against me harder, I added more fingers, my whole palm, faster, urgently until my entire body shuddered.

  I lay still, my hand still in my undies, my heart beating heavily. Then my eyes popped open, and my hand ejected itself from the hot seat.

  Becca had cancer, and I just fucked myself.

  Guilt consumed me, as it had since the moment I learned of her fate just the day before. The day before. Was that how long it had been? Not even really a day? And it was just the beginning. Today was Becca’s first day of treatment. She could be in the hospital for days. She could feel sick for weeks. She could even …

  No. What’s that bullshit people love to spout? The power of positive thinking. It couldn’t hurt, could it? Not as much as the pain Becca was about to go through, was probably going through already. If she can endure having every cell in her body attacked, then I could make the effort to be a more positive person.

  Fuck.

  I rolled over and looked at my alarm clock. Two minutes until the radio turned on to the only station that came in with the weak, dangly antenna: Lite FM. It always ensured I got my ass out of bed pronto lest I had to listen to Maroon 5 torment me with their mediocrity.

  Underneath the library book stack, I spied the crinkly edge of Becca’s list. I gingerly pulled it out so as not to knock over the tower of books or rip the delicate paper. I grabbed a pen from the nightstand, skimmed the list, and found what I was looking for. Number 11: Masturbate.

  Even though she wanted to do it, which now meant for me to do it, I still felt guilty. Reluctantly, I crossed it off just as the dulcet vocals of a recently tattooed male assaulted my ears. “Why?” I yelled at my alarm clock, and shut it off. I whipped off my covers and headed straight to my computer.

  While the computer booted up, I placed the list into my scanner, a birthday present last year when I was experimenting with Photoshopping old family photos. My personal favorite was one where I airbrushed my parents to look young and added wrinkles, jowls, and hunched backs to me and my brothers. I called it “Ye Olde Family Portrait.” It won second place in the county’s high school art competition. What I really hoped for someday was to win an award for my films. If I could ever actually finish one. I was really close at the end of the last school year. I thought I might have a shot at this local film contest hosted by a teen center two towns over. But then my dad died, and I couldn’t look at the movie again. Deleted the whole thing from my hard drive. Which was fucking stupid, since it starred Becca and now Becca might not be around forever and I could have had all that footage to remember her and …

  My mind spiraled to a dark place until I realized my computer was ready for me. I scanned the list, saved it as F-IT LIST, which I thought looked kind of funny. I took out the hyphen. The FIT LIST. As if I were creating some sort of exercise goals list and sharing them with my friends. I opened my email account and saw I had one new message from something called CaringBridge. I thought it might be junk, but I clicked anyway. Completely unjunk, it turned out to be a link to an online cancer journal set up by Becca’s mom. I clicked the link, which required me to set up a password, and I read the first entry. It was short, just a few sentences, and read, “We begin treatment today. Becca, newly bald, looks beautiful with or without hair. She is in decent sprits, saying this is perfect research for a future movie role. If only that’s all it were.”

  I pictured Becca’s mom typing in a hospital seat, the same kind I had sat in while awaiting the verdict on my dad’s life. So kind of hospitals to provide Wi-Fi. I meant that, too. Nothing like the inanity of the web to take one’s mind off the stench of pain and death that resides in hospitals.

  Positive thinking, Alex.

  I opened a new email, subject: The FIT LIST.

  Becca,

  I hope your morning isn’t sucking so far. I’m sure it is, and I hope it’s not annoying that I’m wishing it wasn’t. What the hell am I saying?

  Note the attached list. I hope you enjoy the exercise-motivated abbreviation. I also hope you don’t leave it open by accident on your computer. You, my dear, are a perv. I hope you will be happy to know I completed number 11 for you this morning. I will gladly complete it for you multiple times a week and whenever I manage to take a bath. I have to ask: Was that an old item that you never bothered to cross off, or have you seriously never diddled yourself? Ew. I just grossed myself out a little with the word “diddle.” I hope it’s not some weird Jewish guilt thing. Does that exist? Anyway, the deed is done and done well. Have you really never masturbated? I’ll tell you a secret, but only because you have cancer (thought I’d remind you in case you forgot): I have only had an orgasm by myself. I don’t know why. Maybe I haven’t been attracted enough to the guys I’ve screwed around with. Or maybe they all sucked in the sexual abilities department. (Don’t even try to convince me otherwise of Davis. That douche needed to cut his nails.) So maybe I need to start my own Fuck-It List. Number 1: Have an orgasm with an actual guy. Or I could just add it to your list, right after number 20: Go to school dressed like a prostitute. Seriously, Becca, you are a genuine grade-A perv. Only one of the million reasons I love you. Stay strong, my friend.

  Time to go to school and pretend I give a shit.

  Love,

  Alex

  After my shower, I dressed myself in my Dead Set uniform of black t-shirt, jeans rolled up once, black high-top Chucks, and my low ponytail, and got in my dad’s car. Just as I was about to pull out of my driveway, I remembered the list resting in my scanner. It was cleaning-lady day, and who knew how nosy Paulina was when she cleaned my room? I shut off my engine, pounded up the stairs, and pulled out the note. Not wanting to leave it behind, I folded and stuffed it in my front pocket for safekeeping. A quick good-bye to my mom and brothers, who could barely manage a word through shovels of cereal, and I was on my way to school, the lump of the list a constant reminder of my best friend and her lumps.

  CHAPTER

  11

  THE SCHOOL DAY PASSED in a muddy blur. The only class that was interesting enough to help me forget about what I wished I didn’t have to forget about was English. My teacher, Ms. Norton, was a spark plug filled with energy and information. She loved the shit out of books, which I couldn’t say for all of my English teachers. Some of them liked to analyze a book to death—suck all the truth and light out of a character until they were just inanimate, dissected letters on a page. We went over the year’s reading list, and I vaguely listened.

  *

  The only interaction I had with Leo that day was through the tiny glass window of the heavy metal hallway doors. We made eye contact, but I lost him in the shuffle of the passing period. Fine with me. Now that we’d actually talked, and then some, I didn’t even know what I wanted to say, or do, with him.

  At lunch I checked my email in the library. Nothing new from Becca or her mom’s journal. I dug around online to see if I could learn anything specific about Becca’s treatment
, but Google gave me billions of hits and I didn’t know what I was looking for anyway. According to Becca, treatments and drugs are tailored to each patient, so even if I did read something it might have nothing to do with what Becca was going through.

  All my searching really did was make me puddle-on-the-floor depressed. Not only was my best friend going through this, but millions of other people’s best friends, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, fuck, even cats were going through it. I looked up at the ceiling and asked, “WHY?” I didn’t know who I was talking to. After my dad was killed, I pretty much gave up all belief in God. People loved to say “comforting” things to me, like, “It’s part of God’s plan” or “God only gives you what you can handle.” Um, fuck you? And fuck God. Seriously, if the god they believed in was giving out dead dads and cancer, I wanted nothing to do with him. And yeah, of course I can handle what was doled out to me. Because I was forced to. What were my options? Not handling it? Even that would be a choice and, therefore, the way I handled the situation.

  It’s pretty damn hard to believe in God when you’ve lost so much. I know some people go the opposite way. God can be a great being to lean on, like a falling star to make all your superstitious wishes come true. But no matter how long or hard I prayed, I knew my dad would never come back. So why bother?

  Still, as I stood up from my chair in the library, I mumbled, “Not her, too.” If there was a god, an all-seeing, all-hearing and -knowing superpower of a god, then he’d hear me and know what I was talking about. Not that he’d do anything about it.

  After school, I drove to my job at Cellar Subs, a local institution loved by college students and the monetarily impaired. I was the only high school student who worked there, and I got the job after recommending Dead Alive to the owner. He went home and watched it the night of the interview, obviously wowed by my taste, and hired me the next day. The college students I worked with were a mix of art majors, lesbians, and frat boys. As much as I loved living here, what with the excellent public library system and the selection of old-timey movie theaters, I would never stay here to go to college. Or, at least, I wouldn’t have before my dad died. Now I couldn’t even think about college, about leaving. Mom needed me here, and I didn’t want to spend my year writing sob-story college applications. The new plan was to save up some money, maybe travel, and figure it out when I was ready. Becca’s cancer solidified my idea. Mom didn’t push. Maybe she wanted me around, too.