The F- It List

by Julie Halpern

  Becca’s mom was shaken. Maybe she was holding on to the belief that God would save Becca. That if she prayed long enough and hard enough, she’d get better.

  I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Here I was, surrounded by death and sickness, guilty for the tiniest crumbs of pleasure I allowed myself: ice cream, horror movies, and the selfishly selfish act of finding happiness in making Becca laugh. Where did God fall into any of that? I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want the blame, or the hope, to be on someone else. So I carried on, waiting for whatever was to come, with or without God’s help.

  CHAPTER

  28

  I HADN’T SEEN LEO since the funeral. I told myself he needed space, that he wouldn’t have taken a semester off if he wanted to be around people. I tried to convince myself that somehow we were different; that my absence was appreciated instead of begrudged. But really, why would he want me around after the way I treated him? I went with that, but I thought about him all the time. When a movie came on TV that I thought he’d like, or I read about what celebrities were coming to Dead of Winter Con next month. I wanted to call, or at least text. Once I managed to force my fingers onto my phone.

  Got a 2nd copy of Frankenhooker. You want?

  Two painful days later, I heard back from him.

  No

  Like I said, ouch.

  Becca tried to keep things light, when she could willingly move her body. We made a list of things to do at Dead of Winter Con, and we planned on going, no matter what state she was in. I told her if she couldn’t walk, I’d push her around in a shopping cart.

  “What if I throw up?” she asked.

  “Who would know that was real and not just some realistically sick-ass costume?”

  Just one day earlier, Becca got the news everyone was waiting for: chemo was officially over, at least until after radiation and the results came back.

  Then why was she still so fucking sick? Instead of cancer being over, Becca was in total, all-consuming pain. Her joints ached, her head hurt, and the nausea was just as bad as it ever was. Whatever they used to kill the cancer was beating the shit out of her insides nonstop. Her meds made her groggy and incoherent, and she still seemed to be in so much pain.

  The last time I visited, packing Mom’s patented tuna noodle casserole, she slept most of the time, except when she woke up to whimper. I stayed out of obligation and guilt, not because I liked it. There was nothing I could do for her, and even being next to her didn’t matter when she was unconscious. Her mom came into her room every few minutes, and each time she told me, “You’re such a good friend, Alex.” It made me feel worse. Especially the fifth time she added, “God bless you.”

  The only thing that lightened my mood was reading the love notes Caleb had been writing to Becca for the last couple months. He was a smart guy and an old-fashioned romantic.

  My dearest Becca,

  Today I chose to study the films of Lillian Gish. She reminds me of you, and I envisioned you on the screen someday as bright a star as there ever was. My sister is still in her baking unit, and she made some chocolate-chip cookies using coriander. I’ll make sure to drop some off. I don’t know if you can eat them now, so she froze some for when you can.

  Looking forward to our next visit,Caleb

  If a guy wrote me a letter like that, I’d be embarrassed to the point of burning the paper. But it suited Becca. She deserved to find some joy in the shitty quagmire of her life.

  During the quietude of her bed rest, I tinkered with the idea of getting in touch with Leo again. It killed me that he ate away my brain like that. Maybe it was just the loneliness of being next to someone who couldn’t even talk to me, who had stacks of love notes tucked under her mattress. But she deserved those love notes. I deserved the loneliness. It was self-imposed, after all.

  CHAPTER

  29

  THE HOLIDAYS CAME AND WENT. They were the first without my dad, and therefore had more sadness and reflection than anticipation and celebration. Becca and I exchanged gifts aboard her bed. She gave me some hardbound classic Tales from the Crypt comics, and I bought her a Battlestar Galactica t-shirt reading, “I ♥ Fat Apollo.” It was a hilarious misstep on the part of the show’s creators, making the usually buff Apollo into a doughy mess to show the passage of time (other characters just got new hairdos). Even better was how quickly and effortlessly he got back into shape. And even better than that: A shirt was created to commemorate the gaffe.

  It would be the perfect shirt for Becca to wear to Dead of Winter Con, where none other than Jamie Bamber, aka Lee “Apollo” Adama, would be appearing in the autographs area. That would finally give us a chance to get back to the Fuck-It List, which had fallen into obscurity soon after Leo’s brother’s death. Except for one item.

  “I did it!” Becca announced over Skype one afternoon. She was having a good day and spent almost the entire time at school “playing a norm” as she liked to call it. By the time I came home from school, she was back in her pj’s.

  “Did what?” I assumed it had something to do with one of her video games, which she had become increasingly addicted to thanks to too many hours a day in bed.

  “Number eleven on the list.”

  “Some of us don’t have the list memorized,” I reminded her.

  “Here’s a hint: It’s one of the first ones you did. By yourself. Something I had never done by myself.”

  “Ooooh. Number eleven.” I recognized it now as the masturbating number. “Mazel tov,” I congratulated her.

  “It just felt like the right time. No one was home, and Caleb left a note by my door. I imagined him sneaking in my window.”

  I interrupted her, “Becca, the beauty of number eleven is that I don’t need to know what you did or what you thought about. But I’m happy for you. See? Even cancer can’t stop you from touching yourself.”

  “Fuck cancer!” she exclaimed.

  “Fuck cancer!” I reiterated.

  A few weeks later, Becca would have the chance to accomplish number 21: Touch Jamie Bamber’s butt. I couldn’t wait. Dead of Winter Con was a decent-sized horror/sci-fi convention filled with panels of B-grade (or lower) celebrities sharing their memories of working on mostly defunct TV shows and straight-to-DVD movies, with plenty of vendors selling their gory wares. Some years there was no one I’d pay money to see, but I still loved the atmosphere. People dressed up in homespun costumes, some based on movie characters, others pulled from their sick and twisted minds. My kind of people. This year I’d wear my usual clothes, since they were already zombie-based, and I’d add some blood and dangly bits to my arms and face to make it realistic. Becca planned on wearing her Fat Apollo t-shirt, in hopes of charming the pants off Jamie Bamber. Not literally, of course, although number 21 didn’t specify whether or not his butt had to be naked.

  I hadn’t had something like this to look forward to in months. Not since the Army of Darkness showing with Leo.

  Leo.

  I wondered if he would go to Dead of Winter Con.

  I wondered if I’d see him.

  I wondered if he still loved me.

  I tried to forget he said that. It seemed unreal, a spontaneous proclamation born from ejaculation and mourning. I told myself over and over that he didn’t mean it. And then I berated myself for even thinking about it. For thinking about him. I’d catch myself, in the early morning times when I was only half awake, when I allowed myself to feel good, thinking of Leo. I remembered what it felt like to be together, how being with Leo felt better than being alone. I relived his touch with my touch, but it wasn’t the same. I’d hate myself in the shower afterward. It was just easier to hate myself.

  CHAPTER

  30

  THE WEEKS BEFORE Dead of Winter Con, Becca began feeling a little better. She was still tired, still in some pain, but her hair was sprouting the tiniest bit so nothing could get her down. She started radiation, a process not nearly as bad as chemo.

  “I sti
ll feel like shit, though,” Becca confided one afternoon from her bed while I sat in her blue chair. She wore a pair of pajamas covered in pictures of sushi, some of her cancer swag. Every time I saw her she was in a different pair of pajamas. She swore she had more pj’s than regular clothes. “And check this out.” Becca lifted her shirt to show me a pattern of black lines drawn on her chest.

  “If you wanted a tattoo, I could’ve done something cooler than that,” I told her.

  “They drew them on me at the hospital so every time I have radiation I’m lined up in the exact same spot. It seems so unmedical, like there should be more to it than just pulling out a permanent marker and some waterproof tape to cover it.”

  “What would happen if they didn’t align you correctly?” I asked, picking at a box of chocolates dropped off by her homeschool loverboy.

  “They’d burn up my organs, I guess. In the olden days they’d actually tattoo the marks on your body.”

  “The olden days before Sharpie?”

  “Yes. The Sharpieless days of yore.”

  It was fun hanging out with Becca like that, but everything was different. Just looking at her was a constant reminder of the past four months. Her hair, of course, but even when she lifted up her shirt I could see how thin she’d gotten. So many months of nausea killed her appetite, and the combination of the illness, drugs, and malnutrition zapped her energy. Nearly every time we watched a movie together, Becca fell asleep. I didn’t know how she—how we—would make it through Dead of Winter Con. Becca’s mom rented a wheelchair a month ago, but Becca refused to use it. It was funny to watch Becca’s vanity randomly show its pretty little head. She didn’t seem to mind the baldness and wig wearing, but when it came to her standing on her own two feet she was adamant. “I don’t mind leaning on someone if I’m having trouble,” she told me. “In fact, I have to admit I love the attention. One day at school, Edgar Abbott practically carried me out of French and down the hall.”

  “Who’s Edgar Abbott?” I asked.

  “He’s on the football team. I think he may be a quarterback. Or a halfback.”

  “It’s all jock to me,” I said.

  “He smelled surprisingly good,” she mused.

  “Don’t let Caleb hear you,” I warned her.

  “Caleb could crush Edgar Abbott. Not that he would. Caleb’s a pacifist. Next year he’s thinking about joining the Peace Corps,” Becca said wistfully. “I might join him.”

  “Say what? Is this your cancer brain talking?” I walked over to her and spoke loudly into her ear. “Becca, are you in there? This person says she wants to join the Peace Corps.”

  Becca shoved me with a frail hand. “I didn’t say it was definite, but he got me thinking. The cancer got me thinking, too. If I live, maybe I should do something more important with my life than pretending to be someone else for buttloads of money.”

  “(A) You mean when you survive, and (B) there is nothing more important than starring in one of my horror masterpieces. It’s on your Fuck-It List, remember? I didn’t see anything about saving other people’s lives.”

  “Your capacity for empathy never ceases to amaze me.”

  I knew Becca was joking, making fun of me for sounding callous. But part of me knew she was absolutely right. The one thing I rarely expressed was empathy.

  Which brought me back to Leo.

  “I was thinking of inviting Leo to Dead of Winter Con. Well, maybe not inviting him, but seeing if he was going.”

  “I think that would be a fine idea.” Becca pursed her lips, holding in words she didn’t think she could say.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Nothing. I said I thought it was a fine idea, and I do. You should do it right now.”

  “Like, right now?” I asked as though it were Becca’s decision.

  “I’m not getting any younger.”

  “I can tell. You’re starting to talk like an old broad.”

  “This old broad says you need to call him ASAP. My bunions are killing me.”

  “Would you settle for a text, Madame Bunions?”

  “Only if I get to read it.”

  “I’ll get your bifocals.”

  I stared at my phone for a minute before I concocted this brilliant work of art: Hi. Are u going to Dead of Winter Con? If so, I’ll see u there. This is Alex, btw.

  I stupidly hit send before I showed it to Becca, and when she read it afterward she berated me for it.

  “Really? You haven’t talked with the guy in months—after you had sex with him AND his brother died AND he loves you, and that’s your reconciliation text?”

  “I texted him another time, too.” I shrugged. “I didn’t think it was so bad.”

  “You could have at least asked him how he was doing.”

  “That was implied,” I explained.

  “I fail to see where that implication was.”

  “Now I’m on CSI? I said hi. No one ever bothers with that in a text.”

  “Now I see. How could I have missed all the concern and love hidden in those two little letters?” Becca started laughing, which started her coughing.

  “You totally deserve that cough. The text wasn’t that bad.” I scowled.

  “You’re right.” She sipped from a cup near her bed, and her cough eventually subsided. “You could have asked, ‘How’s your dead brother?’”

  “If I’m that awful, why are you even friends with me?” I stood up, hurt by the implication of my coldness.

  “Hey, Alex, sorry. You don’t usually seem to care about being a coldhearted bitch.”

  “Not making this better,” I noted.

  “That’s where so much of your charm is, Alex. It’s one of the reasons I love you. And probably why Leo does—” I glanced hard at her. “Did. Maybe. Well, he liked you at least, right?”

  “I guess,” I conceded.

  Could he ever again? Was that what I wanted?

  A text buzzed on my phone. Becca and I locked eyes. “Open it!” she prodded.

  It was a reply from Leo. One word.

  Going

  “What the fuck does that mean? Was he planning on writing more and sent it by accident?” I shook my phone, willing it to spit out extra words.

  “I think it means he’s going,” Becca suggested.

  “He didn’t say anything about seeing me.”

  “He didn’t say anything about your thoughtful use of the word ‘hi’ either. Maybe he was in a hurry.”

  “Maybe he was in the middle of fucking some other girl.” My brain went to a terrible place.

  “Alex, I’m sure he wouldn’t stop having sex just to answer your text. And besides, the two of you were never just fucking.”

  “I don’t feel any better,” I admitted.

  “He bothered to write you back. That’s something.”

  “You’re reaching, Becca.”

  “Maybe. But what’s wrong with that? If we don’t reach for things, think of how much we’ll miss.”

  Then Becca fell asleep.

  Her words were generically profound, like a Hallmark card I’d skim over to get to the check. But they made sense, too. How far I was willing to reach for Leo, I just didn’t know yet.

  CHAPTER

  31

  THE WEEK LEADING UP to Dead of Winter Con, Becca was up and down. Radiation every morning at 6:30, then she pushed herself to go to school. She said she wanted to feel normal, which I got and I didn’t. She was hardly normal, with her fuzzy hair and extra-special treatment from everyone around her. But it had been months of bed rest, puke, and pajamas, making school a diversion. Wednesday I was supposed to drive her home, but she had to be picked up early by her mom. Becca fell asleep on her desk in French class. Her teacher let her sleep the entire time. I was surprised at how kind everyone was to Becca. So many shitty things happen to so many people; somehow cancer is the thing that made other people change their behavior. Maybe it was that Becca’s illness had been so visible; not only in her diminished physic
al appearance, but in the gaping hole of her absence, too. I quelled the bit of jealousy I had, trying not to remember how few people acknowledged my dad’s death when I came back to school after the summer.

  Becca stayed home the rest of the week by order of her mom, who gave her the choice of going to school or Dead of Winter Con. She also offered her a home visit from Rabbi Schulman, but Becca feigned a headache to get out of it. Her mom had been spending a hell of a lot of time with Rabbi Schulman. Becca didn’t mind, since it meant her mom was out of her (minuscule) hair and Caleb could homeschool Becca on all kinds of matters. It pissed me off, though, that her mom would be gone so much. What if Becca were to die? And her mom missed out on all of that time with her, just to ask God that she live? Nothing made sense.

  Thursday afternoon, I received a text from Becca.

  #22 completed

  Becca took a bath at someone else’s house.

  So you’re breaking and entering, I texted.

  Is that what we’re calling it now? ;) Caleb’s house has very small bathtubs, FYI.

  I wanted to be happy for Becca, as jazzed about her sexual exploits as she always was for mine. But did that mean my time with the list was over? That she didn’t need me anymore? If she didn’t, who did?

  Try not to get stuck, I texted, and tried to laugh at the possibilities of misinterpretation. But nothing felt funny when I was laughing at it alone.

  Friday morning, I made another Fuck-It List attempt.

  Today is #20.

  You’re dressed like a prostitute?

  Yes.

  How?

  I’m wearing hoop earrings.

  Whore.

  At lunchtime, I wasn’t in the mood for the ultra-vapid conversation, so I took my hot pretzel and Coke and snuck my way down the quiet halls.

  Pulling my key ring out of my pocket, I gingerly inserted the key Leo had given me, my first and only present from him. The door to the book closet clicked open, and I entered the forbidden space.

  It was a shithole.