The F- It List

by Julie Halpern

  “So do you want to tell me what you were running from?” Leo leaned against the closed door. He looked almost sinister in the weak, shadowed light, like a man in a dream you’re not supposed to talk to but desperately want to touch.

  I wondered what my face was saying now.

  “Becca gave me something.” I cleared my throat, asking myself if I wanted to tell him about the list. He didn’t prod, which made me trust him. And he didn’t know Becca, which made me feel less guilty about sharing her secrets. Because now they were my secrets, too. “It’s a list of things she wants to do before she dies. We call it the Fuck-It List.” I laughed nervously, but his stoic expression remained unchanged. “And because she might, maybe, actually die, and she doesn’t know if she’ll get to do everything on the list, I said I’d help her.”

  Leo asked, “So, what, like bungee jumping and dropping acid and going on an African safari?”

  “Are those things on your bucket list?” I cringed a little. They sounded so unoriginal, and I hoped he was beyond that.

  “I don’t have a bucket list. Nor do I feel the need to pay someone to drop me off a bridge. If I wanted to, I’d do it myself.”

  “I hear that,” I concurred.

  “So what, then?” he pressed.

  “Just sort of random things that she wanted to do. Some are small, like eating a hot pepper.”

  “Quite a goal,” he said, not exactly sarcastically but definitely unimpressed.

  “Fuck you. She started the list when she was nine. And eating a hot pepper isn’t that easy.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “What are some of the bigger ones?”

  I didn’t want to get into it, all of the sexual requests and how Leo helped fulfill more than one of them, with him and by myself. “Well, like today, I was helping her with number fourteen—telling off Lottie McDaniels. Only I fucked it up and was a total cunt and said something about her camel toe.” I shook the memory loose from my head.

  Leo laughed, a hearty laugh, which pissed me off. “What?” I demanded.

  “I just like how you used the words ‘cunt’ and ‘camel toe’ in a sentence.”

  “Oh.” We were both quiet, so I pulled a Tempest from atop a pile and flipped through the pages. A dried crumble of a page withered in my hands. I returned the book to its deathbed.

  “Come here,” Leo beckoned. Maybe I was making the face again, or maybe it was the romantic nature of locked rooms and interrogation lighting, but I suspected what came next. At least the first part.

  I obeyed Leo and walked up to him at the door. He wrapped his lithe arms around my waist and pulled me against him, leaning forward to meet my lips. We kissed urgently, tongues reaching for each other’s, nibbling at one another’s lips. I rubbed my hand along the back of his hair, the short pieces tickling my palms and making them tingle. He took his hands off my back, and I felt them wrangling with the button on the front of my jeans.

  Were we about to have sex in a book closet? My body would have said yes to anything with Leo at that moment, probably most moments, but my head did the talking. I pulled away from his lips. He switched to kissing my neck, my cheek, my ear. I could hardly speak. “I don’t want to have sex right now.” When I heard the words, they sounded so unsexy, such a complete passion killer. But they were true. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Breathing in my ear, he whispered, “We don’t have to,” and gently bit my earlobe. My legs could barely stand anymore.

  We continued to kiss each other anywhere we could reach while he unzipped my jeans. I believed him when he said we didn’t have to have sex, so I didn’t stop him when he slid his hand into the top of my undies and moved a skilled finger in circles in exactly the right spot. I stopped my kisses and leaned into his soft t-shirt, inhaling his deodorant smell as I tried to command my legs to remain upright. With his free hand, he willed my face toward his again, and we kissed in rhythm with his fingers. I gripped the back of his neck to hold myself up, and his fingers moved faster. This was nothing like the poking of Davis, and I tensed my body as I had done uncountable times alone in my bed. I lost the ability to kiss, to control anything, and I bit his shirt to stop myself from screaming and calling attention to the book closet.

  We stood against each other once it was over, still but breathless. The faint sound of the school bell rang outside the metal door. Quietly, Leo said in my ear, “AP History. I have to go.” He held me by the side of my arms and gently pressed me away from him. I steadied myself against a small spot of cinderblock wall, zipped and buttoned my jeans.

  Before Leo opened the door, he walked over to me and gave me a last gentle kiss on the lips. “Feel better?” All I could manage was a nod.

  CHAPTER

  15

  BECCA WAS NOWHERE to be found online, and my texts weren’t returned until Friday morning. According to Becca’s mom’s report she was home after three days in the hospital and would get oral chemotherapy at home for several days. She wrote that nausea was her worst side effect. I emailed Becca a lite version of the Lottie McDaniels story, focusing more on the nice things Lottie said about Becca rather than the ass-eyed things I managed to say. As I was leaving for school, my phone buzzed. A text from Becca read, “I’m sorry. Just hoarked on Mr. Toad.”

  Mr. Toad was a stuffed animal I bought for Becca when my family visited Disneyland a few years ago. She had told me how Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride terrified her as a kid, so naturally I had to buy the toy.

  S’OK. U can borrow my Chuckie doll

  LOL

  How are u?

  Be thankful you cant smell over the phone When can I see u?

  Dunno. Call me after school.

  m/

  I left for school with a spring in my step, or at least more springy than my normally springless body was. Becca was alive and well enough to joke-text, and that would get me through the day. I managed to nicely avoid running into Lottie McDaniels when I saw her striking figure in the hallway and turned around, only to knock into Leo again. I smiled at him, and he looked leery.

  “Did you poison someone?” he questioned.

  “Why? Because I’m smiling? Give me some credit. My assassinations would be much more subtle than that. No, just kind of having a good morning. Are you stalking me again, by the way?”

  “Yes. Want to tell me about your morning while you escort me to gym?”

  “Wish I could, you know, be your hired escort and all, but I have to get to physics. I need to be awake during attendance so I can nod off during the movie. What about my lunch, your creative writing?” It turned out Leo’s creative writing independent study, which only required a checkin before he could head off to “write,” was at the same time as my lunch hour.

  “Fridays I actually have to talk to my IS sponsor, so I can’t do it. Can you miss art?” We talked as we navigated through the shrieking hallway crowd.

  “Not today. Critique day.”

  “Then I guess I’ll just see you tonight.” We stopped in front of the gym hallway.

  “Tonight?” I asked.

  “Bruce Campbell. Army of Darkness screening? I had an extra ticket.” He looked a mixture of annoyed and disappointed that I didn’t remember.

  “I totally forgot. A lot on my brain, I guess. I can still go.” I drummed up some enthusiasm. Not that I wasn’t excited, it was just that now Becca was home maybe I should stay by my computer in case she wanted to chat. There was always my phone, though.

  “If you’re not too busy,” he mumbled. Now I could tell he was annoyed.

  “Dude. I said I wasn’t busy. It just slipped my mind. There’s a lot of shit going on, and I just forgot. No big.”

  “If you say so. Can you drive?” The bell rang.

  “Shit. I have to go. I’ve been late every day since school started.”

  “People appreciate consistency.”

  “Teachers aren’t people!” I called to him as I sprinted down the hall. “I’ll come get you at seven!”

  “Make it
six. I want to get good seats!”

  Ms. Leff didn’t seem to notice I was late, and I managed to ask her a question before the movie began to ensure I was accounted for. When the lights dimmed, I texted Becca.

  U still puking?

  Ten minutes later, still no answer.

  Is it ok if I go to a movie with Leo Dietz tonight?

  This time, I got a response.

  Only if you two sleep on a beach after.

  Skype later?

  m/

  My mom and the twins sat at the kitchen table when I got home from school. “What’s everyone doing?” I asked, and joined them.

  “We were just looking through this box of old photos. Remember how your dad was so into Halloween?” Mom smiled sadly at the memory.

  “Remember? He was still around last Halloween,” I said.

  My mom’s smile drooped, as did her hand holding the picture. She rose from her chair and left the room.

  CJ stood up and shoved my head.

  “What the fuck?” I yelled.

  “You don’t say something like that to Mom.”

  “Like what? What kind of shitty memory would I have if I couldn’t even remember less than a year ago?” I argued.

  “It’s not about how long ago; it’s about the fact that he’s not here for this Halloween,” AJ explained.

  There goes my foot-in-mouth disease. I walked out of the kitchen to find Mom slumped on the couch. She wasn’t crying, but her expression and eyes were glassy. I sat down next to her, close but not touching.

  “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t realize what I was saying.”

  “I know. You never do.” She shook her head.

  “Um, ouch?” I said.

  “Sometimes it would be nice for you to think before you speak. Just in case what you’re thinking isn’t what everyone else is thinking.” Mom looked at me, exhausted.

  “I know. It would be easier if everyone was thinking what I was thinking, though.”

  “You’d hate that, Alex,” she sniffed with a laugh.

  “With a fiery passion from hell,” I agreed.

  “So what do you have going on tonight? Is Becca home?”

  “She is home. I got a couple of texts from her. She said she was really nauseous. I don’t know when I’m going to be able to go over there.”

  “Maybe we can send her a cookie basket.”

  Mom loved cookie baskets from this place where they make and frost cookies in all different shapes with sappy messages like, “Bee Mine,” and “Get Whale Soon.” They were pretty tasty, though.

  “I bet she’d like that,” I said because it felt like what I was supposed to say. What I was actually thinking was: Would Becca even want cookies if she was throwing up all the time? “I’m going to see if she’s on Skype. Maybe we can talk before I go out.” I pushed myself off the couch.

  “I thought you weren’t going out,” Mom said.

  “Oh yeah. Is it okay if I go see Bruce Campbell talk about Army of Darkness at the Orpheum? They’re showing the movie, too.”

  “Not by yourself, I hope.”

  “No, just with someone from school. A guy. Leo Dietz.” I paused at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for my mom’s reaction.

  “Leo? A new boyfriend?” Since Dad’s death, Mom wavered between her old, uptight self and trying to fill in for the missing, laid-back parent.

  “Not really. Just a guy who likes horror movies.” And, you know, other things we can do together. “I’m driving.”

  I thought maybe my driving would put Mom’s mind at ease; the unknown of other kids’ driving records sent her into hysterics if I was even a minute late. She seemed to trust me in the driver’s seat, since she helped train me. And she knew my seat belt worked.

  “What time will you be home?” she asked instead of told me, her attempt at cool.

  “The movie starts at eight, so maybe eleven? Twelve? I don’t know how long the Q&A will go.”

  “Call me if you’ll be later than eleven thirty.”

  “Will do,” I told her as I left for my room.

  Normally, I never kept Skype open because my aunt Judy was like a Skype vampire, waiting to suck away any time I had chatting with her. Once I even deleted her as a contact, but she called my mom within minutes to report it. I had to make up an excuse about accidentally clicking on her name instead of an ex-boyfriend I meant to delete, which would never happen since Skype asks you repeatedly if YOU ARE SURE you want to delete the contact.

  For Becca, I opened Skype. Before I had the chance to video call Becca, my computer rang. It was Aunt Judy. If I didn’t talk to her, she would call the entire time I was on with Becca. I clicked to answer.

  “Hi, Aunt Judy.”

  “Oh, Alex, so glad to see you! And on a busy Friday night, I’m sure.”

  “Yep.” I nodded casually.

  “So, any new boys in your life?”

  Aunt Judy seemed to fancy herself the young and hip aunt, which was hard to be when you sported a curly mullet without a hint of irony.

  “Aunt Judy, I can’t really talk. I have to Skype with my friend. She has cancer.” I hoped just laying it out there would clam the old lady up, but then it turned into a bloated pity fest.

  “OH MY GOD! MY POOR ALEXANDRA. WHAT CAN I DO? ARE YOU OKAY? IS SHE OKAY? OH MY GOD!”

  “Aunt Judy!” I had to yell several times until she took a break to exhale and grab a tissue from her bra. “I have to go. She’s calling me on Skype right now,” I lied.

  “YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR—”

  I hung up on her. I hoped she’d get the hint to give me space from Skype, but it could also go the way of the concerned checkin, too. I liked Aunt Judy, though. She sent fat checks for birthdays and was actually the first person to show me a horror film when I was eight. My parents had dropped me off at her house for a dinner date, and Aunt Judy put in a tape of one of her favorite childhood movies, Heidi, so I could watch while she made dinner. Turned out it was not Heidi, but Carrie, and by the time Aunt Judy came to tell me dinner was ready, Carrie was being scolded by her psycho mom and getting her period in the shower. Such sweet, innocent times those were.

  Becca’s icon, a headshot of the gorgeous Number Six Cylon from Battlestar Galactica, showed that she was signed on to Skype, but that didn’t mean she would answer. I clicked on the video call button and let it ring. No answer.

  That gave me time to think about tonight. I didn’t want to call it a date, didn’t want to think about the attachment and attention and commitment that came with having a boyfriend. I needed all of that for Becca, not some guy I only knew in my dreams until last week. So far it had been easy enough, fun even, and definitely fulfilling in certain areas. That’s where I wanted it to stay.

  I decided not to change clothes.

  In ten minutes, I’d leave to pick Leo up at his house, a house I’d driven by dozens of time with Becca riding shotgun when I first got my license, in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. I liked those glimpses. Nothing serious about a glimpse. I didn’t need any more serious.

  Just as I was about to leave my room, my Skype rang. I thought it might be Aunt Judy checking in, but happily it was Becca. My view of her was skewed, her laptop on her stomach as she lay awkwardly on her bed with her neck propped up. I forgot for a minute that she had no hair, and her skin was almost chartreuse.

  “Hey! How are you?” I asked like a dumbass.

  “Gurgle,” was all she said, not the sound but the actual word. “I have a puke bucket next to my bed. A bucket of puke,” she slurred. I didn’t know if she was tired or pumped full of drugs or both.

  “Speaking of buckets,” I tried to sound cheery, “I’ve been working on your list. I draw the line at wearing two different shoes, though.”

  She attempted a smile but could barely hold up her head.

  “And I’m going to wait until you’re better so we can hop a train like a hobo together.”

  Was Becca asleep?

  “I better let you go.
I’m going to see Bruce Campbell tonight with Leo Dietz. Wish it was you, though.” Did I really, or did I feel obligated to add that? God, she looked like shit.

  After Becca didn’t answer, I started to say, “Well, bye. I’ll talk to you—”

  “Alex. Alex.” B came back to life and spoke urgently. “You gotta do something for me,” she breathed.

  “What? Anything.” I meant it, too.

  “Find out if he’s circumcised.” And then she definitely was asleep.

  Even sick as fuck and pumped with meds, Becca was a complete pervert. She better not die on me.

  CHAPTER

  16

  LEO WAITED OUTSIDE for me on his front porch. His house had fancy landscaping with brightly colored window boxes and rounded bushes. A huge American flag flew from a post.

  He slid into my dad’s car wearing a pair of jeans spotted with oil and a dark green t-shirt. I couldn’t remember if it was the same outfit he wore earlier. He smelled minty. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I agreed, and we drove off.

  I had NPR on the radio, a story about Damien Echols, a Southerner wrongly sent to prison for a sick crime he didn’t commit just because he was an all-black-wearing metalhead and the town needed a scapegoat. We listened intently, finishing the show as we parked at the Orpheum. A line snaked around the block.

  “Good call on getting here early,” I commended him. He placed his hand on my back to guide me toward the end of the line. It was an odd feeling. Boyfriendish, almost, and unnecessary. I scooted ahead of him to find our spot in the queue.

  Most of the people waiting were in some kind of costume: fake blood, wigs, one guy even had a disembodied hand gripping onto his shoulder. There was enough people-watching to keep us talking and laughing. I even managed to accomplish one of Becca’s early Fuck-It List items—number 3: Chew 10 pieces of gum at once and blow a quadruple bubble. It was rather hilarious to observe Leo as he watched me polish off an entire pack of his Dessert Delight gum. “This apple-pie gum is fucking gross,” I spat through strained chomps of the massive wad in my mouth.