My Life After Now

by Jessica Verdi

  “Oh, wonderful,” I said as I attempted to push myself up to sitting. “I passed out, didn’t I?”

  Dad nodded. “Are you okay?”

  “Who even knows anymore?” I grumbled.

  As the background became clearer, I realized that Papa was arguing with someone. His voice was raised, and he was gesturing wildly.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Dad.

  “Seth is…expressing his dissatisfaction with the amount of blood they took from you.”

  Oh yeah, now I heard it.

  “She’s all of a hundred pounds!” he was shouting. “What makes you think that it’s okay to take that much blood out of her?! Of course she’s going to pass out. What kind of operation are you people running here, anyway? Don’t you know how to do your jobs? I’ll have you know that I am an attorney, and if there is even one bump on that child’s head resulting from your negligence, I’ll sue you so fast you won’t even know what hit you!”

  The technician’s face was flushed, and he was pointing an unsteady finger toward a computer screen. “Sir, please, look. The doctor ordered eight vials. I don’t make the decisions.”

  “Papa,” I called out. “Calm down, I’m fine.” I slowly stood up to prove it.

  Papa exhaled when he saw me supporting myself on my own two feet, and I saw the fight leave his body. He took my hand and led us toward the elevators. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “Best idea you’ve had all day,” I agreed.

  23

  Being Alive

  It was two-thirty in the afternoon when we finally felt the sunshine on our faces again. We’d been in that building for over four hours.

  “Why don’t we go get some lunch and you can tell us what exactly happened in there,” Dad said.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to go to that audition.”

  “Lucy, please, it’s been a long day, and you know how much pressure you put on yourself at auditions. Is that really what you need right now?” Papa said.

  “Yes, Papa, that’s exactly what I need right now.” He didn’t understand that performing, in any capacity, was far more therapeutic than any lame group meeting could ever be.

  My dads exchanged a glance.

  “Well…if you’re sure…” Dad said.

  “I am sure.” I gave them each a big hug. “You guys go home. I promise I’ll tell you everything later.”

  Five minutes later, I was on the subway, zooming downtown. The car was packed, and I had to stand near the doors. Surrounding me on three sides was a high school tourist group, all wide eyes and eager smiles, wearing matching bright orange sweatshirts that read, “I marched in the Thanksgiving Day Parade!” A guy weaved through the crowd selling self-published copies of his book of poetry. A mariachi band serenaded us all with their version of “La Cucaracha.” I closed my eyes and absorbed the organized chaos of it all, letting the sounds fill up my head, so that soon there was no room left for any lingering doctor’s office jitters.

  I found the address Roxie had texted me easily enough.

  There was only an hour left of auditions but the line was still out the door. I’d been to a few auditions in the city before, and they were always like this. Hundreds of similar-looking, similarly-dressed, non-union girls neatly lined up, shooting each other dirty looks while their own heads were filled to the brim with delusions of grandeur. I knew better. I wasn’t going to get this job, just like I hadn’t gotten any of the other professional roles I’d tried for in the past. It had nothing to do with talent—the competition was high and the odds were slim. The sight of so many hopeful faces was a reminder that this was a city filled with dreamers, most of whom would simply never see their dream realized.

  It would have been discouraging if I was actually thinking about the job. But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t focused on the end goal. All I cared about was this exact moment in time and standing in front of those casting directors, becoming a character, and leaving my own body—and everything it meant to be me—behind.

  I squeezed through the crowd and made my way to the front of the line, where Roxie was sitting behind a folding table, piling up headshots and resumes and handing out numbers.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Her face lit up. “Oh my god, yay! You made it!”

  “Yeah. So, um, should I sign in or something?”

  “No, that list is only for people with appointments. But don’t worry, I’ll get you in. Can you hang out for a while?” she asked.

  “Sure.” It’s not like I have any other friends to hang out with, I thought.

  “Great, just go have a seat and I’ll come and get you when there’s an opening.”

  As I maneuvered back through the crowd in search of a place to sit down, something occurred to me. My exact thought had been that I didn’t have any other friends to hang out with. So that must have meant that somewhere, deep in my subconscious maybe, I considered Roxie to be a friend. When had that happened? I barely even knew the girl.

  I found an empty patch of carpet and sat there, on the floor, for an hour. Occasionally I caught a few looks from the other girls as they eyed my outfit. I was the only one in jeans, and I barely had any makeup on. Whatever. Let them stare.

  At four o’clock exactly, Roxie stood up on her chair and loudly addressed the remaining girls. “The casting team is not going to be able to see anyone else today. Sorry for any inconvenience and thanks for coming!”

  An uproar of groans and complaints emerged from the crowd, and I had to stop myself from joining in. What had I waited for, then? I knew I didn’t have an appointment, so I didn’t have much of a right to be annoyed, but still. Roxie shouldn’t have told me she could get me in if she actually couldn’t.

  I went back up to the sign-in table. “Well, thanks anyway,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you next week.”

  “Wait, where are you going?” she asked.

  “Um, home?”

  “No, silly. I told them I had a friend coming. They’re expecting you.”

  “Oh. Really?”

  “Yes!” she said. At that moment the door opened and a girl came out. “You’re up!” Roxie said to me.

  The room was empty, except for the two men and a woman sitting behind a desk, and a camcorder set up on a tripod. I was immediately thrust into audition mode.

  “Hi,” I said, a smile on my face for the first time all day. “I’m Lucy Moore.” I approached the desk and forked over my headshot.

  “Hello, Lucy,” one of the men said, handing me a sheet of paper. “Please stand on the mark and, when you’re ready, read these sides directly into the camera.”

  I quickly skimmed the lines. It was some boring copy about NYU being an exciting place to learn. But there was nothing exciting about the words at all. In a flash, I realized that I hadn’t actually known anything about this audition. I should have asked Roxie for specifics. But I understood now that they weren’t looking for an actor, they were looking for a spokesperson. A pretty face to entice people to invest four years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars into an overrated education.

  The smile fled from my face. I didn’t want to read this. I didn’t even want this job. I just wanted to get to perform for three lousy minutes. Was that too much to ask?

  I don’t remember making the decision to do it, but before I knew what I was doing, I’d tossed the paper to the floor, cleared my mind, and begun doing April’s butterfly monologue from Company.

  There may have been some murmurs of protest from the casting people, but I shut them out and continued with the little story about the cocoon and the butterfly and the cat and the boyfriend, embodying this character whose biggest problem in life is that she’s a little dumb. Maybe I was losing my mind; maybe all the pressure and distress from the last two months had finally made me snap. I didn’t care.

  When I was finished, I refocused my attention back on the befuddled casting team.

  “Well…that was…” the wo
man began.

  Best to cut her off now, while I was still riding high. “Thank you all so much for your time,” I said, and escaped from the room.

  Roxie had finished packing up and was waiting for me with an eager grin. “How’d it go?”

  I let out a chuckle. “Let’s just say that I think they’ll remember me.”

  “Awesome!”

  I hitched my bag further up onto my shoulder. “So…thanks for this. It was really nice of you.”

  “No problem. We have to stick together, right?” She gave me a meaningful look.

  “Oh, um, yeah, I guess.”

  “Wanna go grab some coffee? I don’t have to be home until six.”

  I looked at this girl who seemed to have her life so perfectly together, who seemed so happy all the time, and I suddenly needed to know how she did it. “Okay, sure,” I said.

  We found a table at a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop around the corner, and I bought us two large coffees—mine black, Roxie’s filled with cream and sugar.

  “I’m so glad this all worked out,” she said. “I usually don’t work on Saturdays but I needed the extra money.”

  The audition buzz was fading now, and I was starting to feel bad about what I’d done. “I kind of went off the rails in there,” I confessed. “I’m so sorry—I know they only saw me as a favor to you. I hope it doesn’t affect your job or anything.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. I don’t even work with those people. They work for the casting agency that NYU hired. I’d never even met any of them before today.”

  I smiled. That made me feel a lot better.

  “So what did you do?” Roxie asked, a curious glint in her eye.

  “I decided I’d rather do a monologue than read their dumb copy. It was actually really out-of-character for me, but after the day I’ve had…”

  “Oh yeah, you had a doctor appointment today, right? How did it go?”

  I grimaced and told her what had happened.

  “Ugh! I know exactly what that’s like! Some of these doctors are so arrogant, like they think that just because they’re super smart they get to treat us like garbage. I’ve been to more of them than I can count. There was this one guy, when I was ten—”

  “Wait,” I cut her off. “Ten? How long have you had…?” It was probably too personal of a question, but I couldn’t help myself.

  Roxie just looked back at me, unaffected. “Since I was born.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “My mother had it and passed it on to me,” she explained.

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  Whoa. Nineteen years with this virus in her system. “And you’re…okay?”

  She shrugged. “For now. I’m on the wonder pill, and, for the most part, it’s keeping the bad stuff at bay.”

  “For the most part?”

  “I was in the hospital last year for a few weeks. Nasty bout of pneumonia.”

  “Do you have AIDS?” I whispered.

  “Nope.” She crossed her fingers. “As far as they can figure, I have at least a few more years before getting a visit from the Big Bad.” She laughed.

  I really didn’t see what was so funny. “How can you be so cavalier about it all? Aren’t you scared?”

  “Of course. But I’ve had forever to get used to the idea. I’m not going to let it stop me from living my life.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “How’s your mom doing?”

  “Not so good. She died,” Roxie said.

  “Oh god, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, it was a long time ago.” She took a sip of her coffee. “It’s just been my brother and me for a while now.”

  I felt a heart-wrenching pang. “Your brother has it too?”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “But…how?”

  “By the time my mom was pregnant with him, she was more educated about the whole thing. Once you’re on meds, it’s a lot harder to pass it on to your baby.”

  “Oh,” was all I could say. It was beginning to dawn on me that I still had a lot to learn.

  Roxie told me about growing up in foster care and being shuffled around from home to home and having to constantly fight to not be separated from her brother. The day she turned eighteen she’d filed for custody and had been working to support the two of them ever since. She’d spent most of her life in overcrowded free clinics and getting her medical care from not-for-profit organizations. It made me appreciate my own family so much more.

  “Alex is the reason I work so hard at keeping myself healthy,” she explained. “I don’t really have the luxury of moping around feeling sorry for myself. He’s only eleven—if I kick the bucket, he goes right back into the system.” She paused to take a sip of coffee. “So what’s your story?” Roxie asked.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Crap. I had to tell her now, after she’d been so honest with me. So, staring into my coffee mug, I told her everything. It was easier than telling Evan and my dads—at least Roxie already knew that I had HIV.

  “You’ve only been positive for a month?” Roxie said when I was finished.

  “Yeah. And my dads have only known for a week.”

  “Oh, Lucy. How are you doing?”

  “I don’t know. I’m a little all over the place,” I admitted.

  “Well, listen, you have to keep coming to the meetings. Trust me, they help. I started going to them in middle school. It was nice to have a place to go where there were other people like me, you know?”

  “I guess.”

  “Plus, I like having you there. We don’t get a lot of people our age.” She shrugged. “I don’t really know why.”

  “Probably because most people our age aren’t stupid enough to do what I did,” I said bitterly.

  “Lucy, come on. You’re not stupid, you just made a mistake. It happens.”

  I crossed my arms and slumped down in my chair. “Some mistake.”

  “Well, what would you call it?”

  “Off the top of my head? How about ‘perfectly karmic punishment for the most ungrateful, spoiled brat the world has ever seen’?”

  “Punishment?”

  “Yes. Punishment.”

  “So what, you’re just going to keep blaming yourself?”

  “Who else do I have to blame?”

  She pursed her lips. “You know, being stuck in this mindset is seriously not helping your—” Brriiiiiinnnnggg. Roxie’s phone. “Sorry, I have to get this,” she said, and flipped the phone open. “Hey, buddy…Yup, I’m on my way home right now. Tell Mrs. Wu I’ll be home soon…love you too…okay, bye.” She hung up and turned her attention back to me. “I have to go. I didn’t realize how late it was. My brother stays with our neighbor when I’m at work, but she gets cranky when he’s there all day.”

  “No problem,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore, anyway.

  “See you Tuesday, right?” she asked.

  I exhaled. “Yeah, see you Tuesday.”

  Roxie gathered up her stuff, took one last swig of her coffee, and dashed out the door.

  It was dark out now, and I should have started making my way home too. But I couldn’t stop thinking about my “mistake.” My own words echoed in my head: Who else do I have to blame?

  I would go home soon.

  But there was something I had to do first.

  24

  Shadowland

  The temperature had dropped considerably, and I was glad I’d stuffed my winter hat and gloves in my bag before I’d left the house this morning. I tugged my jacket snugly around myself as I walked.

  It was only a few blocks to Spring Street, but when I reached the intersection of Spring and Mercer, I had a choice to make: right or left? Most details of that drunken night and hungover morning were still foggy in my memory and I couldn’t remember the exact address, or even the cross street. All I remembered was the red door.

  I took
a chance and turned left, squinting through the dark and the strange glare the streetlights cast on shop windows, searching each doorway I passed. When I reached the eastern end of Spring, I knew I had chosen wrong. So I doubled back.

  Fifteen minutes later, I found it.

  It was smaller than I’d remembered, and the shade of red was darker and more muted than the angry burning lava it had been in my mind, but I was certain. This was Lee’s apartment building. There were ten buzzers, two for each floor.

  I did some quick math: I’d run down four flights of stairs that awful morning, so Lee’s apartment must have been on the fifth floor. Funny, the things you remember.

  The buzzers were labeled.

  5A: J. Gonzalez.

  5B: L. Harrison.

  I closed my eyes and counted to five, my stomach doing somersaults. Then I slowly reached out and pressed 5B.

  The next several seconds seemed to last an eternity, as fear hijacked my not-so-thought-out plan.

  What was I doing here?

  What was I going to say?

  What if he didn’t even remember me?

  Suddenly I knew I had to get as far away from this building as possible. I shouldn’t have come here. What was I thinking? But panic had locked my knees, and I couldn’t move.

  Maybe he wasn’t home. That would be good.

  “Hello?” a voice came through the speaker.

  It was him. My mouth went dry.

  “Hello?” he said again.

  Don’t say anything, the voice in my head commanded. Just stay quiet, and he’ll go away.

  “Um, Lee?” I heard myself say.

  Lucy, you stupid, stupid girl.

  “Yeah? Who’s there?”

  “You, um, probably don’t remember me. My name is Lucy, and we, um, met a couple of months ago…”

  There was a long pause. A trendy couple walked by, holding hands.

  “Lucy. Right. Yeah, I remember. What are you doing here?”

  “Can I come up?” I asked, not really wanting to have this conversation via building intercom.

  Another unfathomably long pause.

  “Now’s not really a good time,” he said finally.