As the door to the lobby slowly swung shut behind us, a single figure got up from the group in the center and headed toward us.
It was Martin Hicks.
In all my years with the company, he and I had never spoken. The hardest thing about putting today together had been the phone call I’d had to make to him. It had taken me a whole day just to work up the courage to dial the number. And now here he was, standing beside me, gripping my shoulder as if we were old friends.
“Zoe,” he said. “And Olivia.” He looked into our eyes as he said our names. “I’m so glad you could come watch today.” He was wearing his signature outfit: a black turtleneck and a pair of Levi’s 501s. I always forgot this, but he was almost exactly my height.
In my memory, he was seven feet tall.
“It was so nice of you to let us come,” I said. I’d played the cancer card hard with Mr. Hicks. He hadn’t even returned my first two calls.
“It was an honor to be asked.” He put his hand to his chest gently as if indicating we had literally touched his heart.
I knew for a fact he had basically no idea who we were, but he acted so moved that it was impossible not to believe he was sincere.
A voice from up near the stage called, “Martin!” and he excused himself. Olivia was still smiling a phony smile when she turned to me.
“Okay,” she said through her teeth, “he still terrifies me.”
“Duh. He terrifies everyone.”
“How did you pull it off?” she asked after we’d chosen our seats. “I’ve always dreamed of going to a dress rehearsal.”
I took Livvie’s hand and looked into her eyes. “Honestly?” I asked.
“Honestly,” she said.
“I told him you were dying,” I said. Immediately we both burst out laughing. The conversation that had been going on in the middle of the theater broke off, and I could feel several pair of eyes glaring at us. Livvie and I both slid down low in our seats, still giggling.
“Okay,” announced Mr. Hicks. “Let’s get this started.”
For a couple of minutes there was silence, and then the sounds of The Nutcracker’s overture—bright staccato notes jabbing the air—filled the theater. Something in my throat got tight as the music played. It had been less than two years since I’d heard it, yet so much had happened since the last time Olivia and I had danced The Nutcracker that this tune seemed to come at me from a different world.
The curtain rose on the party scene, Clara and Fritz and all their friends playing in the Stahlbaum living room, the beautiful tree shimmering stage right. Neither Olivia nor I had ever played Clara, but we had danced in this scene. In the darkness I felt Livvie’s hand wrap around my own, and I remembered how before we’d gone on, we’d often held hands—damp, sweaty palm against damp, sweaty palm—barely able to make out anything in the chaos of backstage except each other.
I’d picked the restaurant because of its roof deck. Even though it was only five thirty, I was afraid that the restaurant would be crowded and Olivia would end up sitting next to someone incubating a cold. As long as we could sit outside, we were safe. The hostess I’d spoken to had assured me that the heating lamps would make it perfectly warm, and though Olivia shivered slightly as we made our way to our table, as soon as we sat down, she took off her coat in the toastiness of the giant lamps above us. Good for energy conservation? No. Good for a friend with a compromised immune system? Yes.
“This view is amazing,” said Olivia.
I’d been so focused on the health benefits of the outdoor seating that I hadn’t paid much attention to the whole view thing, but Olivia was right: the view was incredible. All of Manhattan was stretched out at our feet, fifty stories below us.
The waiter came and took our drink order, and as we sat sipping the virgin whiskey sours that he’d brought us, Livvie demanded, “Okay, be honest. Was it torture?”
I shook my head and put my drink down. “You know what I remembered?”
“What?”
“My mantra.” I twirled my maraschino cherry through the foam at the top of my drink, unable to meet Livvie’s eyes.
“You had a mantra?” she shrieked. A woman at the next table glanced over at us, and Livvie lowered her voice. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
Instead of answering her question, I asked my own. “Do you want to know what it was?”
“Sure,” she said, my tone making her slightly less enthusiastic.
“It was . . .” I looked at a spot just above her head and recited in a robotic voice: “Let me be good enough. Let me be good enough. Let me be good enough.”
“Oh,” said Livvie quietly. When I finally looked her in the eye, the expression on her face showed we were thinking the same thing.
“I know,” I said, even though she hadn’t said anything. “It is depressing.”
Livvie reached across the table and gently placed her hand on my arm. “No, it’s not—”
“No, it is,” I interrupted her. “It’s awful.” Hearing my own mantra, forgotten all this time, had conjured for me all the other things I’d forgotten about those last months and even years of dancing—how frightened I’d been all the time, how desperate to prove I deserved to stay in the company, how insecure and pathetic I’d felt.
“It was stressful,” Livvie said gently. “We were all stressed out.”
There was a pause, and then I said, “I hated it.”
“No you didn’t,” Livvie said automatically.
But I stared across the table at her, and she didn’t argue anymore.
“I don’t get it,” said Livvie finally. “If you hated it so much, why didn’t you quit?”
“Grrr.” I dropped my head into my hands and yanked on my hair. “I don’t know. I don’t think I realized that I hated it. I mean, I thought I just hated myself for not being good enough. I hated that I wasn’t a better dancer.”
“You were an amazing dancer,” said Livvie.
“Thanks.”
I raised my head, and when our eyes met, hers were sad. “What?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I feel bad. I didn’t know you were so unhappy. I’m your best friend. How could I not have known?”
“I don’t think I knew,” I said after a pause. “I don’t think I knew until just now.”
A few tables away a couple laughed.
“I understand,” said Olivia. She dropped her chin into her hand. “I don’t know if I hated it, exactly. But it definitely stopped being fun. Except when we were messing around in your basement, I don’t think I liked dancing much by the end.” Cocking her head to the side, she asked, “Why did it stop being fun?”
“For me . . .” I looked at the Empire State Building, sparkling in the distance. “I think it stopped being fun when I started wanting to be the best.”
I turned back to her. Livvie’s eyes were bright. “Sometimes I wish we were still little again,” she said. “Just dancing at Madame Durand’s. Getting all excited for those stupid recitals.”
Neither of us said anything about Livvie’s being sick, but we were both thinking about it. “Me too,” I said, my eyes stinging.
Olivia sniffled, but she didn’t cry. “You know,” she said after a minute, “it’s dumb to be sad. I mean, we can still have the awesome apartment in Manhattan.”
“Snazzy jobs.” I snapped my fingers and did a little dance in my seat to emphasize the point. “Sexy boyfriends. Weekends in the Hamptons.”
“Day-into-evening wear,” she added. When we were younger, we read this article in some magazine about how every woman should have day-into-evening wear, and we’d thought it was the most hilarious concept ever. For months, it was pretty much the punch line of every joke we made. I’d be sitting in her den in sweats and a T-shirt and I’d go, Hey, do you think this qualifies as day-into-evening wear? And she’d go, Oh, totally.
“Day-into-evening wear,” I repeated.
“It’s going to be amazing,” she said, taking my hand across
the white tablecloth and holding it tightly. “We’re not going to be dancers, but one day our lives are going to be amazing, Zoe. Totally amazing.”
I pictured the two of us sitting here in five years, ten years. Twenty years from now, we would still be less than forty years old. There was so much time for things to happen to us. Fabulous things. Things we’d never dreamed of because we were so busy dreaming of being ballerinas.
“Hey,” I said suddenly, “we have to start planning your birthday now.”
“It’s not until June,” Olivia pointed out, as if I’d somehow forgotten when her birthday was. “I think we have a little time.”
“Okay,” I said. “But we’ve got to plan something really really great.”
She looked around, taking in the view and the restaurant, then looking across the table at me. “It’s going to be hard to beat today.”
“Yeah,” I said, “today was pretty fun, wasn’t it?”
“It was better than pretty fun, Zoe. It was perfect.” She squeezed my fingers. “Except for one thing.”
Damn. I locked my hands together and closed my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “I’m ready. Break it to me gently. What did I screw up?” Livvie kicked me under the table. “Ouch!” My eyes snapped open. “I thought you’re supposed to be all weak and shit.”
She laughed. “It’s not something you messed up. It’s something I messed up. It’s your present. By the time I figured out what I wanted to give you, I didn’t have time to make it.”
“You’re making me something?”
“Maybe,” said Livvie, holding her hands palms up and shrugging mysteriously. “Or maybe I didn’t have enough time to make it happen.” She gave me a meaningful look and then cracked up.
For some reason, her saying that made my eyes fill with tears. Only I didn’t want Livvie to see that I was about to cry, so I just said, “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”
“Well, you can’t have everything,” Livvie said. “Looks. Brains. Great sense of humor. Tragic cancer story. I’ll trade being a good liar for all of those.”
“It’s a good trade,” I agreed, my voice husky. And I think I would definitely have started bawling if right then the waiter hadn’t come over carrying menus, which he placed on the table in front of us.
“Would you like to hear the specials now?”
I sniffled and wiped at the corners of my eyes with my knuckles. It was stupid to cry. Livvie was right. Everything—from her birthday to the rest of our lives—was going to be awesome.
Totally awesome.
“Sure,” I said, smiling up at him. “I think we’re ready.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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24
I was a little surprised that Mrs. Greco said yes when Jake asked if he could have some people over to the house for his birthday, the last day of Christmas vacation. Olivia was scheduled to go back to the hospital for her third round of chemotherapy at the end of the following week, and the lead item in the news recently had been how bad the flu was this year. If Olivia had any sort of illness—even a cold—they wouldn’t start the chemo until she got better, and now that we were at the halfway mark of her treatment, Mrs. Greco was getting impatient to have it all over with. And not just Mrs. Greco. Olivia, too. We’d spent a lot of the vacation driving around in my dad’s car just the two of us, listening to cheesy music while coming up with destinations that would give us an excuse to keep driving: Let’s rent a video! Let’s get Pop-Tarts at the Kwik Mart! Let’s go to Weehawken and look at the skyline. As we’d driven and talked, I’d noticed how Livvie had started saying, When I’m better we’ll . . . or After this is over I’ll . . . It was like the cancer was already in her rearview mirror.
But between the small guest list and his promise that everyone would wear surgical masks if they were in the same room with Livvie, Jake managed to convince his mom that it was okay for him to have a few friends over. So the Sunday before we went back to school, about twenty people gathered at the Grecos’ to celebrate Jake.
Most of the guys were hanging out in the den playing Xbox, though not Calvin, who was still skiing with his family. Olivia and I had made our camp in the den with Lashanna and Mia.
I was sitting on the floor near Livvie’s chair, and even though she was the only one in the room wearing a sweater, it seemed to me that she looked totally normal. Or as normal as any of us, considering we were all wearing surgical masks.
Mia’s parents were freaking because her PSAT scores had been way lower than they’d anticipated. “It’s so dumb,” Mia said, scooping a handful of chips out of the silver bowl on the coffee table. “UCLA doesn’t even care about SAT scores. They care about the brilliant documentary I’ll be sending them.”
“Is that the thing you’re making about the rec center?” My PSAT scores had been the opposite of Mia’s—way higher than my parents expected. When they’d arrived, my dad had practically gone online to book a hotel for Yale’s parents’ weekend two years hence.
“Not exactly,” Mia started. “That’s more of a promotional thing. I’m also working on a film about how—”
“Hel-lo!” sang Stacy, coming into the living room. She was with Emma and Hailey. All three of them had their hair up in high ponytails, and they were all wearing tight low-rider jeans and tiny T-shirts in near-neon colors. They looked to me like slutty American Girl dolls. “How are we feeling today?”
Emma and Hailey were carrying their surgical masks, but they put them on before plopping down on the couch. Stacy left hers off as she stood by the archway between the living room and the foyer to make an announcement. “You guys, this is so fun! And I just want to tell you that Jake’s having this party has totally inspired me and Emma to have a Valentine’s party. The theme is: Great Couples in History!” She gave a little squeal of joy, then put on her mask and came into the room.
“Like Beyoncé and Jay-Z,” translated Hailey, in case any of us didn’t know what great couples in history meant.
“Brad and Angelina,” added Emma.
“Bogart and Bacall,” suggested Mia.
“Who?” asked Stacy, but she didn’t wait for Mia to answer. Instead, she continued with her plans for the party. “Costumes, of course. And dancing. But not like, you know, fuck-dancing à la some people at Mack Wilson’s party.” She gave me a little wave as she quickly added, “I mean, no offense.” Then she and Hailey started laughing, and so did everyone else in the room, me included.
If you put a lobster in warm water and turn up the heat slowly, the lobster will have no idea it is being boiled to death until it is actually dead. That was what it was like for me while Stacy was talking. I listened to her talk about fuck dancing. I listened to her say “no offense.” I listened to her laugh. I laughed. And the whole time, I failed to see that I was being boiled to death.
“Wait, Zoe, is she talking about you?” Livvie’s voice was incredulous, and she was still laughing a little. “Were you seriously, you know, grinding?”
My heart was beating way too fast. “God, I don’t even . . . I mean, I hardly remember that night.”
Hailey laughed again. “That room was like the orgy room! I swear, people should have been wearing condoms.”
“It was so not that bad,” said Lashanna, stretching out over the back of the couch. “Please. I was there. People were just dancing.”
“Some people were just dancing,” said Stacy, and she started laughing again. “Some people”—she swirled her finger before pointing it at me—“were fuck-dancing.”
You could tell Stacy really thought this was completely hilarious. And that almost made it worse. Like, if she’d known what she was doing—if she’d wanted to blow some big secret—I could have hated her. But she was just gossiping. She could have been talking about anyone and anything.
The only person I had to hate in this scenario was myself.
>
I was still smiling behind my mask. “Whatever,” I said in a way I hoped ended the conversation. “It was just a stupid party.”
“Oh my God!” said Livvie. “Who were you dancing with?”
Behind my surgical mask, my smile was frozen on my face. I literally could not speak.
“It was so dark,” said Mia. I had no idea if she sensed what was happening to me and was trying to help or if she was just describing the scene as she remembered it. “I don’t see how you could see who was dancing with anyone.”
“Wait,” Livvie interrupted. She leaned forward slightly to where I was sitting by her feet. “Who were you dancing with at the party?”
“Can I just say that I thought Margaret was going to rip your eyes out when you and Calvin walked off the dance floor together,” said Hailey. She made her hands into claws, hissed, then started cracking up.
“That girl is crazy!” Stacy said. “Did you hear about what happened with her and Sean?”
“What?” Emma demanded, sounding hurt. “I didn’t hear anything.
“Oh my God, are you serious?” asked Stacy. “Well . . .”
Hailey and Emma moved over to Stacy. Even Lashanna and Mia turned in her direction to hear the story.
Olivia and I stayed where we were. Her jaw was making funny movements, as if she had something to say but hadn’t learned how to form words. “Did you . . .” She wrinkled her forehead and shook her head, then gave a tiny laugh. “Did you fool around with Calvin Taylor at that party?”
“Livvie . . . ,” I started.
“Did you?” she repeated, her voice harsher.
“Livvie, I can explain,” I whispered. She was staring at me, with a look in her eyes I had never seen before.
“Oh my God.” She said it so quietly it was almost like she was talking to herself. A second later she was on her feet, racing toward the stairs.
I leaped up. “Olivia!” I called.
I could sense all the girls on the couch staring at us, but I didn’t care. I just called her name, louder this time. “Olivia!”
Maybe One Day Page 17