The Opposite of Me

by Sarah Pekkanen

  I looked at Alex, and we both smiled.

  “Look, I know this sucks,” I said. “But your hair is already growing back. You’ll be off steroids soon. It’s going to be okay.”

  Alex nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced. Maybe it wouldn’t be the same, I realized. Maybe once you’d lost your beauty overnight, you’d realize how fleeting a thing it was, and it would always seem like a mixed blessing.

  “So about those test scores,” Alex said.

  “Weird, huh?” I said. “Not that I’m jealous or anything.”

  Alex smacked me in the arm. “I was thinking maybe I’d stop modeling. I want to keep doing the TV stuff, but by the time my hair grows back and I lose the weight . . . I don’t know, it just seems easier to stop now than to let it drag out. Quit while you’re at the bottom, right?”

  “Are you going to pursue something more in TV?” I asked.

  “Don’t laugh,” Alex said.

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  “I was thinking,” Alex said slowly, “about going back to college.”

  “Do it,” I said instantly.

  “Really?” she said. “Don’t you think I’d feel weird, going to college at twenty-nine?”

  “Nope,” I said. “What classes are you going to take?”

  She lifted a shoulder and gave a half shrug. “Business, maybe.”

  “Just do it,” I said again.

  “Thanks, Nike,” Alex said. “I figure by the fall, things will be back to normal. Maybe I could start then.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said.

  She nodded and leaned back, lost in thought about an unexpected future. Just like I’d been moments before.

  “I was just wondering,” I said casually, “if you’d thought about calling Bradley.”

  The dreamy look dropped away from Alex’s face. “Not yet,” she said in a guarded voice.

  “Alex, he wants to see you,” I said.

  Alex unfolded her legs and stood up.

  “Don’t push me,” she said.

  “C’mon,” I said. “Just call the guy. Put him out of his misery.”

  But Alex was already walking through the doorway, as though she was desperate to put space between herself and any mention of Bradley.

  “Good night,” she said, and she gently closed my door.

  Thirty-one

  “ALEXANDRA ROSE?” THE RECEPTIONIST called.

  As Alex and I stood up and crossed the threshold into the inner office, a terrible sense of déjà vu crashed over me. The last time we’d been here, the doctor had delivered the news about Alex’s tumor.

  Dr. Grayson rose from his seat behind his desk to shake our hands. His expression was perfectly bland, the facial equivalent of tapioca pudding. I could see Alex’s new scans on his desk, spread out like a hand of poker. Yesterday, a different technician, a young mother of three who’d chatted about her kids during much of the procedure, had taken those scans while Alex lay inside the MRI tube. Afterward I’d searched the woman’s eyes, but she didn’t reveal a clue about the results.

  Although during surgery Dr. Grayson had removed most of Alex’s tumor, a tiny slice—the shape of a thin crescent moon—was resting on the optic nerve, and he hadn’t been able to risk cutting away that part. If the tumor had grown, even a little bit, he’d have to bombard it with radiation to wipe it out before Alex’s vision was permanently damaged.

  Right now, radiation was the scariest word I could imagine. It meant Alex’s recovery would be delayed. It meant months of steroids, of daily visits to the hospital, of lethargy and nausea and a dozen other potential side effects. It meant the old Alex would stay hidden away where no one could see her.

  I looked down again at the scans on Dr. Grayson’s desk. Suddenly I remembered that, in poker, you never laid down your hand until you were finished gambling and the game was over.

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Grayson said, looking at Alex.

  Just those two little words. How could such small words be powerful enough to almost knock me down? I reached for Alex’s hand. It was ice-cold, like her foot had been the night she’d disappeared inside the MRI tube, the night this had all started.

  “Are you sure?” I blurted out.

  He nodded. “It grew several millimeters. Not much, but in such a short time it’s enough to send us a warning. We need radiation to kill all the cells that are producing the mass.”

  Alex nodded, like it made perfect sense. “When do I start?” she asked. Her voice was as calm as if she were asking when her favorite television program would begin, or when an airline flight would be taking off.

  “I’m hoping we can schedule you to start Monday,” the doctor said. His voice was grave, his expression reassuring yet concerned. Did they teach that in medical school? Did they have a course in how to look sorrowful yet optimistic? Suddenly I wanted to leap up and grab his shoulders and violently shake him. This was all his fault; he hadn’t gotten out the whole tumor. Suddenly I hated this doctor with his steepled fingers and fancy diplomas. What good were all those degrees if he hadn’t been able to help Alex, damn it?

  “I’d like a six-week course of radiation,” Dr. Grayson said, oblivious to my raging thoughts. “The treatment itself will be relatively straightforward. You won’t experience any pain, if you’re concerned about that.”

  “I’ve read all about it,” Alex said. “I know what to expect.”

  Something was terribly wrong. She should be yelling and screaming about the unfairness of this all, of being forced to battle a brain tumor at the age of twenty-nine. She should be crying and fighting. Why was Alex so calm?

  She was slipping away, I realized as fear gripped my stomach. She was going back to the place of endless television and dull eyes. Alex was disappearing again, maybe so far that this time I wouldn’t ever be able to reach her.

  “Radiology will need to mold a mask for you, so that the beams hit only the mass and the rest of your brain is protected,” the doctor said.

  “I see,” Alex said, as unemotionally as if he’d just offered her a glass of water.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said inanely, squeezing her hand. Stay with me, I pleaded silently. But Alex’s hand lay limply in my own.

  “Do you have any other questions?” the doctor asked. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear today, but the good news is I’m confident we’ll be able to knock this out with radiation.”

  “I thought you were going to say the tumor hadn’t grown,” Alex said. “My vision is still good, so I was hoping that meant . . .” She swallowed and continued. “That nothing had changed.”

  “The change is small,” the doctor said. “But there is a change.”

  Alex nodded. “Then let’s get on with it,” she said simply.

  The last time we’d been in this room, she’d gripped her armrests until her fingertips turned white, then she’d cracked jokes and burst into tears. Now she was completely numb. I almost wanted her to make a joke, to do something to show that she wasn’t going to spend the next three months sitting on the living room couch, staring into space.

  The doctor rose from his desk. “You can call me with any questions,” he said. “If you want to wait outside, I’ll see if they can squeeze you in for the fitting today.”

  A few months ago, Alex was being fitted for clothes she’d model on the pages of magazines. Now she was being fitted for a plastic face mask that would cover her skull and protect her brain from the devastating radiation rays. It was so terribly unfair.

  “I’m so sorry, Alex,” I said, squeezing her hand again as we walked into the waiting room. I’d never felt more helpless.

  “Do you really want to do this today?” I whispered as Alex and I sat down on a cracked brown leather couch. “We can wait if you’re not ready.”

  “It’s fine,” Alex said. She picked up a dog-eared golfing magazine and flipped through it so quickly I knew she wasn’t reading a word.

  “Talk to me,” I begged. “Pl
ease.”

  She shook her head, her blue-green eyes—the one feature her tumor hadn’t changed—averted from mine. “Just let me get through this and go home.”

  I lowered my head, wondering what I could say to help Alex. I was supposed to be the problem solver in the family. So why couldn’t I fix this? Why couldn’t I find a way to reach her?

  When I looked back up, a boy who appeared to be no older than ten was entering the waiting room with his parents. He was on the skinny side, with a sprinkling of freckles across his nose. His head was swathed in a fresh white bandage, and his face bore the same telltale puffiness as Alex’s.

  “. . . coach said next season for sure,” the mother was saying as they entered the room.

  “Yeah,” the boy said listlessly. His big brown eyes were echoes of his mother’s. But her eyes looked pinched and worried, and contradicted the bright tone of her voice.

  “We can shoot free throws this afternoon,” the dad said, patting the boy on the shoulder. His hand lingered there. “If you’re up to it.”

  “Okay,” the boy said, again without any enthusiasm.

  They all sat down on a couch opposite ours, with each parent claiming a spot on either side of their son. Something about that spoke volumes: It was as though even here, in the safety of the waiting room, they wanted to sandwich their boy between them so they could protect him.

  I was looking at the fresh Spider-Man Band-Aid near the inside of the boy’s left elbow and realizing he must’ve just had some blood work done when someone spoke up. It took me a second to realize who the voice belonged to.

  It was Alex’s.

  “Are you a Wizards fan?” Alex asked, motioning to a hardcover book the kid was holding on his lap. I looked over at my sister in surprise. She’d dropped her magazine, and she was looking at the boy, really looking at him. The vacant expression was gone from her face.

  “Yeah,” the boy said, looking down at the book. Its cover featured a color photograph of a guy dunking.

  “I met him once, you know,” Alex said, gesturing to the star center on the cover of the book.

  “Yeah?” the kid asked, but now, for the first time, the dullness in his tone was replaced by a spark of interest. “You really met him?”

  “He told me he had a clubfoot when he was born,” Alex said. “He had to have three operations when he was a kid. And now look at him. He’s one of the best athletes around. What did he shoot last season? Eighty-nine percent in free throws?”

  “For real?” the boy said, wrinkling his little forehead. “He had three operations?”

  “He spent a lot of time in hospitals,” Alex said. “He hated it, but it made him better.”

  “Do you have a tumor?” the boy asked Alex. I’d forgotten how kids did that; they always cut to the heart of a sensitive matter without the dancing around and delicate words adults used. Somehow it was a relief.

  “Yep,” Alex said. She took off her hat. By now her hair was a bit longer; a spiky crew cut. She ran a hand over it and grimaced. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

  The boy nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

  “At first I was really scared,” Alex said. “Then I got mad.”

  “Me too,” the boy said. “I can’t play basketball this year.”

  “Wow,” Alex said. “That does suck. What position do you play?”

  “Center,” the boy said proudly.

  “Just like him,” Alex said, pointing to the book.

  “Excuse me, but aren’t you—” the mother said. “I mean, I think I’ve seen you somewhere before. And your voice is so familiar.”

  “I’m Alex,” Alex said. She didn’t say anything else—she didn’t slip into her public persona, or smile her bright TV smile, or acknowledge that yes, the woman had seen her before, probably twice a week on her television screen.

  “What else did he say?” the boy asked Alex.

  She smiled. “Guess what he ate for lunch when I was talking to him?”

  “What?” the boy asked.

  “French fries with mustard and hot sauce,” Alex said.

  The boy wrinkled his nose, then looked at his mom. “Can I try that?”

  “Sure, honey,” she said, squeezing his knee.

  I sat there in wonder, staring at my sister as she kept chatting to the boy and comforted him so subtly he didn’t realize that was what she was trying to do.

  Alex doesn’t need me to fix this for her, I suddenly thought. She’s going to figure out a way to fight through it herself.

  “Center, huh?” Alex said. She was smiling at the boy again. “You must be pretty good.”

  “I am,” the boy said proudly. His thin legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, and they began to swing back and forth.

  “Can you take your dad in free throws?” Alex asked. “He looks pretty tall.”

  “I beat him last week,” the boy said. One of his front teeth was missing, and that made me ache for him all the more. Here he was, trapped in the hospital, while the joys and milestones of childhood passed him by. How many birthdays and Halloweens and basketball games would he have to miss?

  “But I bet you won’t beat me today,” his dad said. “I’m feeling good today.”

  “I’ll still beat you,” the boy said, grinning.

  I saw the boy’s father reach into his pocket for a handkerchief and pretend to cough while surreptitiously wiping his eyes. Thank you, he mouthed to Alex.

  I didn’t care what those scans said, I thought fiercely. Because the scans were wrong. Alex was going to be just fine.

  Thirty-two

  “STOP MOVING,” I INSTRUCTED Alex.

  “You’ve gotten bossier lately,” she said. “And I feel compelled to tell you it’s not completely becoming.”

  “Sssh,” I said. I traced my dove gray eyeliner along her upper lash line and used my pinkie to smudge it. “Just a little more,” I murmured, almost to myself. “Damn, you have perfect eyebrows.”

  “I’d say something modestly charming, but I’m not allowed to talk,” Alex said.

  I grinned and stepped back, then reached into my makeup kit again.

  “Where’d you get all this stuff?” Alex asked. “I thought you hated makeup.”

  “A little more blush,” I decided. “Suck in your cheeks.”

  “I am sucking in,” Alex said. “Fucking steroids. I’m like a chipmunk hoarding nuts for the winter.”

  “Sorry,” I said. But after a second, she burst into laughter, and so did I. Would I have the courage to laugh at myself if I was facing my first radiation treatment tomorrow? I wondered. I was learning more about my sister every day. Learning more, and liking her more, too. Of course, some of the things she did drove me crazy. She never rinsed out the sink after she’d finished using it. And she left her shoes everywhere, instead of stacking them on the pretty little shelf I’d bought and put by the front door.

  “Slob,” I’d mutter, lining them up.

  “Anal,” she’d shoot back. “Mom, you know you potty-trained Lindsey too early, right? And now we’re all paying the price.”

  But we were talking every night now, really talking late into the night, making up for all those years of silence. We weren’t strangers anymore.

  Now I studied her face in the bathroom light and reached for my gold shimmery highlighter.

  “Remind me why I’m doing this for you?” Alex asked as I stroked it over her brow bone.

  “Because I need the practice,” I lied. “I have to make up one of my clients for a big date and I need a guinea pig.”

  “Nice,” Alex said. “Calling Steroid Girl a pig.”

  I grinned. “Keep your lips still,” I ordered her.

  I found my rose-colored liner, and I traced the outline of her lips. Her upper lip was a little fuller than her lower one, which gave her mouth a slightly exotic look. I had similar lips, I realized, only mine were a tiny bit bigger. Why had I never noticed that before? Alex and I actually had something in common
physically. When you saw us side by side, you’d never know we were related, but if you isolated that single feature, you could just barely see the resemblance.

  “Almost done,” I said. I reached into the shopping bag I’d put next to my makeup case and pulled out a scarf. It was a bold Pucci print in swirling pinks and blues and creams. When I’d seen it in Nordstrom, tied around the waist of a mannequin, it had made me think of summer. I’d picked out a half dozen scarves for Alex, but this one was the prettiest.

  “Is your client bald, too?” Alex asked drily as I tied the scarf around her head and adjusted the ends so they trailed down her back.

  I still wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing or if this would all backfire. But sometimes, like Matt says, you just have to jump.

  “You look great,” I said, tossing her another bag. “Here are some jeans and a new shirt. Go change.”

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked. She looked down at the Nordstrom bag suspiciously.

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Perfect timing.

  “Do you want to answer it or change first?” I asked. “It’s for you.”

  “I want you to tell me what’s going on,” Alex demanded. She seemed panicked.

  “Just open the door,” I said. “Come on.”

  “I’m not ready to see him yet,” Alex said. Her voice rose to a shriek. She wrapped her arms around herself, like she was trying to hide her body. “Why are you pushing me, damn it?”

  When the doorbell rang a second time, Alex ran into her room and slammed the door so loudly the sound reverberated through the house.

  I sighed and slowly walked to the front door. There he was, standing on the doorstep, his eyes full of hope.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried, but . . .” I didn’t have to finish my sentence. I’d called Bradley today and told him that Alex was emerging from her self-imposed exile, that something had changed when she’d comforted the little boy with a tumor. I’d told him I thought she was ready to finally see him.

  The hurt spreading across Bradley’s face was a terrible thing to see.

  “Can I come in?” he asked. I saw then he had his guitar case with him.