“Dropping your date off at the door is not a hetero thing.” Peter makes air quotes around “hetero”.
“Yes, it is, Petey, and you two,” she slaps the compact shut and points a blood red fingernail at them, “are the straightest gay couple I know. You’re going to prom with girls, for god’s sake!”
Before Peter and Jack can lecture launch into their “we aren’t interested in being the poster children for gays at prom” speech, Susan moves on to me. Holding out her fist for a bump she says, “Blow it up for making it to senior prom without being tossed into the looney bin!”
My fist stays in my lap.
“Come on Maddie, let’s all blow it up.” Peter holds his fist up and pops it through the front seat to us in the back.
“I will not blow it up to that.” Jack throws me a sympathetic look through the rearview mirror. “By the way, I never thought you’d wind up there.”
“Uh, thanks, Jack.”
“But I will blow it up to you dumping that tool Sean!”
“Well, he isn’t a tool…we just aren’t meant to be.”
“But we are meant to be!” Peter says.
The four of us collide fists.
“To prom!” Susan cheers.
I slide over the back seat and open the door and get out. Susan follows. Peter rolls down his window, and Susan leans in. “You guys better come back.”
I lean into the open window and nudge Susan out of the way. “Yeah, I want to dance with a guy tonight. So, you have to come back.”
“Hey, no problem. I’m practically straight anyway according to love muffin over there. By the way, that dress is hot, Mad.” He leans out the window and kisses me on the mouth.
I blush.
Jack pops his head around and says, “Keep trying, honey, but trust me, you are still gay.”
More eye rolls and then Susan takes my hand, “Listen, I’m not thrilled about making my grand entrance with a chick either, but we do love each other.”
I smile and squeeze her hand. “That’s true. We do love each other.”
We walk up the red-carpeted stairs to the double doors. I smell carnations and roses, and once we step through the threshold, I see flowers and lace everywhere. I look up and see a staircase with a sign on the railing that says, “Through the years in Photographs”. Easels stand all around the foyer with bulletin boards filled with pictures of all of the class from elementary school through high school.
“This must suck for the new kids,” Susan says pulling me towards a bulletin board. A class picture of me and Peter in fourth grade. Peter’s hair is mop-top and mine is in perfect braids.
Just as we stop by the check-in and flash our school IDs, Valerie, our class president, in a long flowing pink gown, bustles up and envelopes us in an awkward three-way hug.
“So happy you both are here! Just know that we all accept you both…and think it’s brave to,” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Come out this way.”
“Easy killer,” Susan untangles herself from Valerie’s small but firm grasp. Then she throws an arm around my waist and plants one on my lips. “The only lady for me is my Maddie.”
“Susan!” I’m still half entangled with Valerie, who for some reason won’t let go. “Listen, Valerie, Susan and I are here with—”
“Come on sweet cheeks.” Susan pinches my ass and then turns back to Valerie whose eyes are saucers almost floating off her face. “Hands off, Valerie. Gotta get my dirty dance on with my lady.” And with that Susan whisks us off to the dance floor.
“Susan, we are not dirty dancing.” I try to pull away from her.
She laughs and finally releases me. “I just love messing with that girl. You know, I think if anyone is in the closet, it’s her. Get a load of that butch hairdo and those man hands—”
“That is all so wrong on so many levels.”
“Come on let’s go wait for our gay husbands and look at ridiculous pictures of us with braces and crimped hair.”
. . . . .
We go back to the foyer with the flowers and lace and there’s another wall covered with blown up pictures of our class.
“Oh my God look at that!” Susan screeches pointing to one of the pictures.
There we are: Peter, Susan, Justin, and me with our arms around each other, flashing our braces for the camera, sitting on a catamaran. This was the eighth-grade school field trip, “bonding” before high school started. The entire class went. A camping trip on a big lake in upstate New York. Justin had weed for the first time then. Some stoner kid brought a bag of the stuff, and they smoked it behind some trees deep in the woods. I caught them, but Justin brushed it off and said he’d never do it again. Two years later, he was shipped off to military school, kicked out of Lincoln High for trying to sell pot.
Suddenly I’m aware of more people standing next to me. Tracy Jesop, Jen Smith, and Jason Richards, kids I was friends with in middle school. Kids who knew Justin.
“Hey, do you ever talk to him anymore?” Jason pops a piece of gum in his mouth. He smells like hair gel and musky cologne.
I shake my head, a lump forming in my throat.
“Bet you wish he was here.” Tracy, his date, elbows me.
Jen, Tracy’s close friend, puts her chin on Tracy’s shoulder and looks with us at the picture. “He was so cute back then. Bet he’s hot now!”
I smile and try not to cry.
“You are not going to believe this.” Susan isn’t looking at the pictures. She has her phone out now and is reading something from it.
“What?”
“Shamus. Shamus Andrews.”
“Shamus!”
“Yes…oh, god. Shit.” She rubs her wrist. I’m not the only one hanging on to the past.
“What does he want?”
“To see me…right now.”
“To see you? Do you want to see him?”
She puts on her game face. But then it changes, and she whispers, “I emailed him a few days ago because I found his Bob Marley sweatshirt stuffed into this bag in my closet...” She looks at all the pictures in front of us. “Look at us. Look at how young we are.”
I nod. Crying like a five-year-old at this point. “Never worry about your heart till it stops beating…
“What, honey? Are you okay?”
“No…yes…I mean, you have another chance, Susan to make it work with Shamus. You should go and find out.” I reach out and touch the picture of the four of us.
“Oh, Mad.” She rubs her tears away before they fall, then hugs me with one arm. “Oh, Mad. You definitely aren’t over Justin, sweetie.”
I shake my head and when I can talk I say, “I wish he were here.”
“I know.”
She wipes some tears off my face. “You need to reapply some make-up, sweetie.”
“Thanks,” I tell her. “Seriously, thank you for being such a good friend.” I take a deep breath. “Now, as for you…go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I’ll play third wheel. It’s a familiar role.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Hey, guys!”
We turn around and there’s Peter, his shirt rumpled and his bow tie crooked.
“I just dumped Jack.”
“What?” Susan and I say at the same time.
“Wait. What’s wrong with Maddie?” Peter points to my face. “You’re crying already?”
“Yes, but I’m fine. What do you mean you just dumped Jack?”
“Oh, it’s not
a big deal.” He sighs. “We were parking the car and his phone rang. God this is such a cliché, but long story short, there has been another guy, possibly this whole time.”
“No!” Susan and I put our arms around him.
“Bastard!”
“Now he is a real tool!”
Peter untangles us from him and says, “No it’s not that bad. I mean since we’ve been together I’ve considered the idea of going back to girls... Actually, it was a good excuse to end it.”
“Why do we need excuses?” I ask him.
“’Cause you bitches are too nice to people.” Susan kisses each of our cheeks. “Sorry everyone’s heart is kind of broken and everything, but I gotta run.”
“What?” Peter asks.
We fill him in. “Go for god’s sake. At least one of us will be happy tonight.”
“What are you guys gonna do?”
Peter turns to me, and he smiles slowly. “I’m gonna be straight Peter for a night.”
“Yay!” I throw my arms around him.
“Just don’t you two have sex tonight, with each other that is.” Susan flashes a wicked grin and then squeezes my arm. “I’m out.”
We watch her go.
“Would you ever have written this scene, Maddie?”
“No way. But then again, irony and awkward moments define my life.”
We look around and see that the line for the pictures is empty.
“A picture before we go in.” Peter takes my arm and loops it through his.
We stand at the velvet rope and wait for the photographer to wave us over. My hand slides out of his arm, and he laces his fingers through mine. I smile and squeeze his hand. My heart is beating fine.
Part 2
Road Trip
Chapter One
Life Happens
“It looks like you don’t have any hair!” I lean on the kitchen counter to peer closer at the picture.
“That’s why I grew it out.” Peter yanks the yearbook toward him and clucks his tongue in disgust. “How in the hell did Susan find me remotely attractive?”
“True love, baby. That’s true love.” I drink my coffee and look again at Peter’s buzz cut in ninth grade.
“Sleep over is officially over…so now, can we move on to breakfast? I’m starving!” Peter rubs his stomach.
I check my phone for the time. “Something tells me we won’t be hearing from Susan.”
Peter closes the yearbook. “Maybe you shouldn’t have given her the hotel room that you and Sean booked. “
“Somebody had to put it to good use.”
“We could have.”
“Peter, we did the same thing here we would have done there. Watch movies on cable and eat junk food.”
“But we could’ve had room service and a hot tub.”
“Oh god. Is this what it’s going to be like now that we are both single again?”
We laugh. The phone rings. I grab it from the counter.
“Maddie?”
“Bubbie! Hi. How are you?” I look at Peter and he smiles, mouthing, “I gotta pee.” I nod.
“Maddie sweetie, do you have a minute?”
“What? Oh yeah. It was prom last night and you won’t believe what happened. Sean and I broke up.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that…Right! Your prom! Gosh, I forgot…you can tell me all about it after I talk to your mom. She there?”
“Not yet. She’s on her way back from the supermarket. What’s up? Everything all right?”
Silence.
Uh, oh.
“Bubbie?” A familiar burning lump forms in my throat.
“…I need to talk to your mother.” She stops, and I can hear her cry.
Oh no. Nononono. Not again not again.
“The cancer is back.” The words come out of my mouth before it registers in my head.
“Maddie,” Mom says.
But I can’t listen. This can’t be happening now. Not again.
I drop the phone into my mom’s hands. When did she get home? How long was she standing next to me? Where’s Peter?
I back away and bump into the couch. My mom wrinkles her face in concern and reaches out to steady me, but I shake my head and watch her put the phone to her ear and continue to watch as her faces changes shape and falls.
Not again…Not again…
. . . . .
Peter tells me, “I can stay.” But I say, “No…I’ll call you later.” He bites his lip. I tell him, “Stop worrying,” and rumple his hair. “I’ll be okay. Now go. I’m good.”
Once the front door is closed, I run to my room and turn on the computer.
I pull on my purple wearable blanket—Bubbie bought us each one for Hanukkah—and sit down. Pushing up the over-size sleeves, I bite my lip and then type “Colon cancer reoccurrence” in one tab. While the page loads, I glance over at the Emerson College packet I took from the college fair. My breath and the hum of the computer are the only sounds around me… I jiggle my knee up and down and glance up at the page, now fully loaded. The first two links after a few ads are “Colon cancer survival rates” and “Dealing with colon cancer.” My hands pause on the keyboard and tears fill my eyes. I let them fall but don’t make any sounds. I click on the link about the survival rates and scan the tiny text. I don’t know what I’m looking for. A statistic, hope, how to make it go away this time?
I read about previous assumptions and the need for more aggressive treatment the first time around and how the second time the rates are worse and radiation and chemotherapy and nausea and hair loss and depression and…the text mixes with my own images of Bubbie going to chemotherapy alone or sitting the bathroom shaving her own head…
I look over again at the packet, rub my nose and then pull another tab and type in Emerson College, then click on the “online application login” and punch in my user name and password. When my account loads, I click on acceptance letter. My hand hovers over the mouse, shaking a little, while my heart thumps in my chest. I do some of those ujjayi breaths I learned in those yoga classes I took with Barb. Hand finally steady, I uncheck the box for “accept” and put the mouse over the small box for “defer”. Click. I save my changes and log out.
. . . . .
“Maddie?”
The sound of Mom’s voice makes me quickly click out of WebMD. My eyes burn. I rub at them and try to brush away the traces of tears.
I turn to her standing in my doorway. Her face furrows.
“Hey, Mom.” I make my mouth smile. “Tonight is the premier of America’s Got Talent.”
She glances at the computer and looks like she’s about to lecture me on sitting in front of it for too long but instead she says, “Come here,” and then she wraps her arms around me. I inhale the powdery smell of her face cream.
“It starts in five minutes, Mom.” I close my eyes and rest into her shoulder.
“I know sweetie.” She strokes my hair. “I know.”
“I hope a magician wins this season. I love magicians. That show needs a good magician.”
She pulls away and tilts her head to one side, her eyes red and her cheeks blotchy, make-up slightly smeared. “Honey, we should talk about Bubbie.”
I busy myself with adjusting the wearable blanket, which is now draped around my waist. As I pick up my feet to avoid tripping on the bottom, I just say it: “I’ll go out there this summer and help.” The rest of the plan is not necessary to tell her right now. I cross my arms waiting for her reply.
She c
oughs and looks past me at my unmade bed and then at the clothes on my floor. I know she wants to tell me clean it up so that she can avoid responding to my statement. But she doesn’t. Finally, she looks me in the eye, “Okay. Actually, that’s a good idea. But not the whole summer because you need to get back and get ready for school. And Dad and I will come out for a few weeks too and Barb. Then in the fall…well, we can deal with that then.”
I know we are good because she isn’t shaky or crying and she is using her list-making voice, crisp and sharp.
We smile at each other satisfied that we have plan. We Hickman girls are real planners.
Of course, as Bubbie says, life happens when you are busy making plans.
Chapter Two
U Turns
My pace slows as I climb up the hill. I push myself a little harder to maintain a steady speed. My thighs and calves burn. I see It emerge slowly from behind the hill. Red brick chimney, gray sloped roof, white columns on front porch. I pump my legs even more and now the entire house is visible. I don’t pull a U-turn. As the hill plateaus, I slow down. The shock doesn’t set in right away. A “for sale” sign. If only I had let myself run by his house earlier. The cherry blossom trees and trimmed hedges don’t give me any clues about where Justin’s mother is. Did she move already? Where? Is he staying at school? Sweat drips into my mouth and I wipe it with the back of my hand. I run to the dead end of Justin’s street and then jog around the circle, back up, the soft breeze of late spring tickles my face, and I inhale the fragrant smell of the rose bushes on the side of his house.
I run back home filled with anxiety but also courage and hope, a buzz of energy. I deleted his number from my phone months ago, but somewhere I still have a handwritten piece of paper with his home phone number. I rummage through my desk in my room and ta-da!
I press the numbers with tremblely fingers.
“Hello?”
I grip the phone to my ear. “Hello, is this Mrs. Mallano?”
Till it Stops Beating Page 12