The F- It List

by Julie Halpern

“You want to try it?” Becca lit up the joint as if she had been smoking professionally.

  “No. Unlike you, I have no excuse for acting like a glassy-eyed paranoid with the munchies in homeroom.”

  “Don’t judge. It helps me eat.”

  “I’m not judging. Just promise me that when the cancer’s over you won’t turn into some Phish-loving pothead. I would have to divorce you.”

  “Duly noted,” she coughed.

  *

  Becca walked with her hand on my shoulder into the school. I wasn’t sure if she needed help balancing or the extra assurance on her big day back. I chose not to ask, pretending it was all normal. Before parting ways at my locker, I handed Becca the bag of cookies for Mr. Cooper. “You can be the messenger.”

  “But you made them.”

  “It’s off your Fuck-It List, Becca. And, I might add, something you totally could have done yourself. If I weren’t so trusting, I’d say you were taking advantage of me.”

  “I am, and you are one of the least trusting people I know.”

  Becca walked off slowly with the bag, and I watched as a concerned and adoring crowd swarmed her. “Let me know if you want me to call Norman Reedus and his crossbow!” I called after her. “And try not to scarf all the cookies!”

  I waited to see Leo as the hallway crowd thinned, but he didn’t show at my locker. That wasn’t unusual, since we weren’t really the locker-meeting types. Still, we did have sex Friday night and I did have a bag of cookies for him. Oh god, what if I didn’t have time to explain that the bag of cookies was a consolation prize and instead he thought I baked him cookies because of the sex? I set the bag inside my locker and headed to first period.

  Leo was nowhere to be found at lunch or art, our usual meeting times, but I was so busy fending off Becca’s cancer groupies that I didn’t mind. Breaking up with someone, even if we weren’t technically together, was unpleasant for all involved. My guilt meter was pretty much ratcheted to full. Any more, and it might overflow.

  The end of the day came, and still no Leo. I guess I’d postpone the cookie drop until tomorrow.

  But tomorrow came and went, and still no Leo. I worked Wednesday and Thursday, and Leo didn’t visit, nor did I see him in school.

  I didn’t want to call him or text him. First of all, he hadn’t called or texted me in all this time, which wasn’t very cool. But if I did, that just seemed like leading him on in some way. What if he was avoiding me? I was annoyed with the unknown, so I decided to do a little detective work.

  Friday morning, Becca and I got to school early. I hadn’t driven her since Monday, when the walking and talking and human contact seemed to knock her around more than she expected. Like a school-loving crazy person, she was determined to try again. I was glad to have her there to assist me in my Leo recon. She wore a red wig, shoulder length, with thick bangs. Apparently her mom went on a shopping spree at a costume shop and bought Becca no fewer than seventeen wigs. They didn’t always help her feel well enough to stay in school all day, but at least she looked good. And gave her mom an excuse to go shopping.

  We headed to the front office, and when Becca entered, it was like the moment where the birthday girl enters her surprise party. The secretaries screamed; the vice principal patted her back. My god. Cancer was a strange disease. I finally managed to get Mrs. Novak, the oldest and most crotchety of the secretaries, to recognize there was someone else in the office besides Becca.

  “How can I help you, dearie?”

  It may have sounded sweet, her calling me “dearie,” but she only did so because she couldn’t recall my name from the other fifteen hundred students, no matter how many tardies I got.

  “I have a friend”—even that felt odd to say—“who’s been absent this week, and I was wondering if you knew why.”

  “What’s her name, dearie?”

  “It’s a he. Leo Dietz.”

  Mrs. Novak typed briskly onto her computer keyboard. The juxtaposition of a prune of a woman and the shiny new technological equipment was always funny to watch. She mastered it a lot better than my parents could. Mom was always afraid that she was going to click some button that would make the computer implode. As if they actually built computers with a panic button.

  Mrs. Novak’s expression read that she found what she was looking for, and she looked up at me with sympathetic eyes. “I’m sorry, dear, but it looks like there’s been a death in the family.”

  Those words caused a physical reaction so quickly in my gut that I had to hold on to the counter and rest my head. I flashed back to when our principal came to my English final to pull me out with the news that there had been a death in my family. I relived that moment all summer and every time I saw him in the halls wearing one of his tweed suits and Bears ties.

  “Do you know who?” Becca came to my rescue, asking the question I couldn’t.

  “Sorry, dearie, it doesn’t say in the computer. You can ask Principal Donovan—”

  “No thank you,” I interrupted her, and fled the office.

  I found the nearest bench in the foyer, a modern, rectangular slab with no back, ensuring the least amount of comfort to discourage lollygagging and dillydallying. I sat down and cupped my head in my hands. Becca sat next to me and rubbed my back.

  “See? This is what I’m talking about. If I hadn’t gotten involved with Leo, then I wouldn’t even have known about this and had to deal with it. You should not be rubbing my back.” I ripped her hand off me.

  “Alex, you can’t seriously be mad that someone in Leo’s family died.”

  “Why not? It’s just another thing, Becca. Another layer of shit on the massive shit parfait that is life.”

  Becca snickered, and I shot her my death-ray look. “How am I not supposed to laugh when you’re talking about a shit parfait?”

  “How can you laugh right now? You have cancer! My dad is dead! Now Leo’s dad could be dead. Or his mom. Or his brother.”

  “Alex, what am I supposed to do? Sit around crying all day? That’s not how you deal with shit. You get to be all broody and mad and dark. Let me try to look on the bright side and laugh at parfaits.” She snickered again, and I remembered the homeschool joint she lit up just ten minutes prior.

  That got a smile out of me, but only a tiny one. “I have to call him.”

  “You don’t have to. But unless your heart really is a lump of coal, you should.”

  “How about a text to start with?” I bargained.

  “Sure,” she mused. “I really want a granola bar.”

  I pulled out my phone and tried typing. All that came out were idiotic things like, “Who died?” and “I heard there was a death in your family. Sucks.”

  “Help me!” I pleaded to Becca. She grabbed my phone.

  “How about, ‘You haven’t been in school. Hope everything is ok.’”

  “But I know it’s not okay.”

  “He doesn’t know you know, and maybe he wants to be the one to tell you.”

  “Hit send before I chicken out.”

  “Done.”

  I waited until the last possible second to walk into first period. No reply texts from Leo, but I couldn’t bring my phone to class to keep checking. If a teacher heard the buzz of a text, that would be an instant confiscation until the end of the day. I placed my phone in my locker on top of the bag of cookies that was becoming less edible as the week wore on. Throughout the morning, I checked my phone in my locker every chance I got. Nothing. When lunch came around, I decided the wait was too much for me. But I wasn’t ready to call Leo and sound like an asshole. Instead, I visited Mr. Esrum, Leo’s creative writing sponsor. I looked through the glass window of his office door. Head down, he graded a stack of papers on his overflowing desk. I knocked on the door. He looked up over the top of his glasses and waved me in.

  “May I help you?” he asked. He wasn’t overly friendly, but I appreciated that in a person. Leo liked him, so I guess I did, too.

  “Hi. I’m a frie
nd of Leo Dietz…” I started.

  “You must be Alex! He writes about you. I probably shouldn’t have told you that, though.” His sly smile indicated he was trying to make me feel good with this comment, but it had the opposite effect. I didn’t respond to it.

  “Do you know if Leo’s okay? They told me in the office that one of his relatives died, but they couldn’t say who. I thought you might know.”

  “Sweet of you to be so concerned.” If he only knew how sweet I really was. “I’m afraid it was his brother, Jason. He was killed trying to dismantle a roadside bomb. Horrible.” It was horrible. I wondered if Leo tried to picture the death, the explosion ripping his brother’s body apart. I knew from experience that it didn’t look anything like in our movies. “The funeral is next Wednesday. They have to wait until the body is shipped back.” Mr. Esrum cringed, as though he knew he said too much. “I’m sure you could be excused if you wanted to go.”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead that there would be a funeral. That after I talked to Leo, there would be more.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said somberly, and began backing out of the office. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

  “Alex?” He stopped me. “I’m sorry.”

  I closed his office door.

  Inside I was seething. What was he sorry about? To me? I didn’t know Leo’s brother. I didn’t know what to do at all, and he was sorry?

  I ran down the hall to the only place I could think of and fumbled for my key ring to let me into the book closet. Once inside, I sat down at a desk and rested my head. The book closet felt so sad and empty without Leo. Old books that no one wanted to read, clocks telling time for no one but us, and there wouldn’t even be an us again if I went through with it. My body wanted to cry, to release the pain and sadness that consumed it, but it wasn’t my sadness. I wouldn’t allow it.

  I flipped through pages of Bradbury until I felt calmer, more focused. What would I have wanted from Leo if my brother died? I knew my answer was selfish. It was the same thing I had always wanted from Leo: to make me feel so good that I couldn’t remember why I felt bad. But Leo was better than I was, and I knew it. I could tell by the way I caught him looking at me during movies. The way he laughed at things I said. I had used him because I needed him. Now he probably needed me. I didn’t think I could be there for him, for what he needed from me. But I couldn’t not talk to him. I remembered how horrible it felt when Davis, a guy I didn’t even like that much, didn’t call me. Just to say something. To acknowledge my pain.

  The guilt had overflowed.

  I left the book room, the hallways empty, and returned to my locker. Leo still hadn’t texted me, but I couldn’t use that as an excuse. The guilt punched me in my stomach until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to say something to him, lest be devoured by my guilt. I found Leo’s name in my phone and called. Every ring brought me further into panic mode. What would I say? Could I really help?

  Leo’s voicemail picked up. I nearly hung up, the dread of leaving a message overwhelming. But it was that or call again, and the weight of my conscience would have crushed me by then.

  Beep.

  “Hey, Leo, it’s Alex. I heard what happened. To your brother. And I’m, um, really sorry. Shit. That was stupid. Never mind. I mean, let me know if you need anything. Bye.” I hung up and threw my phone into my locker with a bang. The battery exploded out of its compartment. Instead of helping, I said the least helpful thing anyone could ever say to a person whose loved one died. I wished I could erase the message, suck the word “sorry” from the English language, and hack it to pieces with a rusty ax.

  I ripped a cookie out of my locker and chomped on it, then spit it on the floor. It still tasted good. It should have tasted horrible, been filled with tiny, writhing maggots, and containing high levels of toxic sludge.

  My guilty brain couldn’t handle the rest of the school day, so I skipped out. Since the one thing that really made me forget everything—Leo—was also the reason for my pain, I opted for a gory movie brain fry. In bed with my laptop, I watched as topless girls received blades in their chests, as doppelgangers killed their good selves, as old ladies ate their grandchildren. It was sick and wrong, but it was all I could do. Once again, life had become too much to handle. The pile was too great. I pulled the covers over my head and listened to the screams.

  CHAPTER

  25

  SATURDAY I WORKED all day, and the craziness of a nearby college football game kept Cellar busy. It would have sucked dealing with the morning tailgater drunks, but I was lucky to be making subs in the back. The day moved quickly, the Patron Saint of Subs doing what she did best.

  I brought subs home for dinner, and my family ate together in the kitchen. AJ and CJ were still too young and clueless to have any plans for Saturday nights, and I needed to spend the evening with Becca before she headed for more chemo torture on Monday.

  “I’ll do the dishes,” CJ declared when dinner was over, and proceeded to crumble our sub wrappers.

  “You’re such a help,” Mom said sarcastically.

  “So you’ll raise my allowance?” CJ hinted.

  “Only if you stop raising my blood pressure.”

  I heard my phone ring from my bag in the hallway, and I ran to get it. I assumed it was Becca asking me when I’d get to her house. But it was Leo. I forced myself to answer it.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He cleared his throat. “Hey.” Silence.

  “How’s it going?” Lame. Stupid. Dumbass.

  “Pretty shitty. You?”

  “Much less shitty, I’m guessing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  Was I supposed to be talking? When my dad died, people loved to regale me with their memories of him. It bugged the hell out of me. My dad was dead, and their personal stories seemed to belittle that fact, like, “He was your dad but I knew him first.” I wish people were forced to write their stories of the dead down, so when the living were ready to hear those stories they’d be there waiting. The only story I had about Jason was from freshman year. He was a senior, and I had no idea where I was going for first period. But I really had to go to the bathroom, so I ducked into the nearest one assuming it was a girls’. It was not. One lone pee-er straddled a urinal. I gasped when I saw him, which caused Jason to turn around, still peeing. “The fuck?” he asked. I said nothing and ran out, lucky no one else saw.

  That didn’t feel like an appropriate story to share after someone’s death.

  “Could you come over?” Leo asked hesitantly.

  I didn’t know what to say. Becca was expecting me, and she’d be out of commission again soon. On the other hand, how could I say no when Leo’s brother just died and he wanted me to come over? But on the other hand—or, I don’t know, foot—my original plan was to break things off with him before his brother died. Now that death was involved, I only saw it as going one of two ways: I end it, or I become his intense, committed, we can never leave each other because we’ve survived death together girlfriend. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Still, I wasn’t yet the world’s biggest asshole, so I told Leo, “Sure. I can come now if you want.”

  “My parents are at my aunt’s house.” I didn’t know if he told me because parents being home was always awkward, especially grieving ones, or if he was telling me “my parents aren’t home.” “So can you park on the street?” he finished.

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure.” It was a parking thing. “See you soon.” We hung up, and I went upstairs to change clothes. Not that I needed to look nice, but I smelled like ham. Or maybe I wanted to look a little nice. Show respect. Instead of a printed t-shirt, I put on a plain, black t-shirt with my jeans and Chucks. Pretty much what I always wore, which didn’t make it any less appropriately somber. I grabbed a few DVDs from my collection, just in case Leo, too, liked a little gore to keep his brain at bay. I also packed the cookies originally plated for a breakup. Now they’d look like a gesture for the grieving,
which made me seem a lot nicer than I was. I called Becca to tell her of my change in plans.

  “That’s disturbingly sweet of you, Alex. Don’t break his heart tonight, okay?”

  “I’ll try not to,” I confessed.

  “That’s all I can ask.”

  “So what are you going to do now that your exciting plans fell through?”

  “I had this idea of inviting Caleb over.”

  “Really? Is he allowed to leave his house after dark?”

  “Good question. But even if he’s not allowed, he could just sneak across our windows somehow.”

  “Sorry I’ll be missing that.”

  “I’m not. I mean, I am, but not if I get Caleb in my room, if you know what I mean.”

  “You mean something sexy. That’s what you always mean. Even if you end up playing Parcheesi, it’ll be, like, strip Parcheesi.”

  “Brilliant! Now I have a plan.”

  “Details tomorrow, please. I promise not to ditch you again.”

  “You’re not ditching me. You are performing a good deed.”

  “What? I can’t hear you. The phone is breaking up.” I crackled and fizzed into the phone.

  “Be nice!” she yelled, and I hung up.

  As instructed, I parked on the street in front of Leo’s home. The house itself looked sad, the way the drapes hung, the newspapers piled on the driveway. I gathered the papers up and carried them to the door with me. Leo answered soon after I rang the bell.

  I had never seen Leo with stubble. He seemed like one of those guys who didn’t grow hair quickly, and there wasn’t much on his face. Still, he looked older, worn. I stopped myself from touching his rusty shadow, not knowing if he wanted to be touched. He answered the question for me by wrapping his long arms around me and my backpack and holding on for what felt like minutes. I awkwardly clung to the random parts of his shirt I could reach in his tight grip. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered in my ear.

  “Me, too,” I said because I felt like I should. At a loss for anything to say, I told him, “I brought cookies.”

  He finally relinquished his grip and with a weary smile said, “Thanks. That’s pretty thoughtful actually.”