The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy

by B. T. Gottfred

  I don’t know if what the kid texted was romantic or poetic or dorky or maybe just super nice. Art is clearly confused and lonely. Not sure why he is latching on to me the way he is, but screw it, I like it. Who cares why I do?

  So I text back:

  ME

  sorry for calling you kid

  ART

  I’ve decided you can call me kid as long as it

  becomes your pet name for me when we make love:)

  So weird!

  Fuck it, I feel like being weird back.

  ME

  deal—what will your pet name be for me?

  He doesn’t text back right away and I feel like an idiot for playing along. But then:

  ART

  Sorry it took so long. But I had to make sure

  I thought of the perfect pet name: my queen.

  ME

  your queen?

  ART

  Tell me you love it or I’ll die.

  I want to tell him it’s stupid. That I should go back to sleep. But like everything with this kid, what I want to want and what I actually want are never the same.

  ME

  i love it

  art

  Mom drives Abigail and me to school every day, but she usually makes business calls while she drives (she’s a part-time salesperson at the Mercedes dealership in Hoffman Estates), so mostly Abigail looks at her phone in the front seat and I look into my heart for profound revelations in the backseat. I’m so interesting. I know! (Ignore me, please, I’m in a mood.)

  But today Abigail leans into the back and says, “Cam told me to tell you not to bug Zee or he’ll be mad.”

  “Zee and I are in love.”

  “Art! This is serious! Cam and Zee already are way too close and if he hates me because you harass her, then I’ll hate you forever.”

  “I promise not to bug Zee.”

  “Thank you,” she says, but she doesn’t like my answer the more she thinks about it, so then she screams, “WHEN I SAY DON’T BUG HER, THAT MEANS DON’T CONTACT HER AT ALL FOR ANY REASON!”

  “I love you, Abigail.” Which I say in a voice that makes me sound so mature and her crazy, which confuses her so much she doesn’t say anything the rest of ride.

  * * *

  Bryan is waiting for me at my locker like he always is before first period. For the record, my best friend is a horrible dresser, so anyone who thinks all gay people are fashionistas needs to meet more gay people. He’s a bit big (he says fat) and is super self-conscious about it, so he wears big baggy khakis and bigger, baggier blue sweaters (always blue!) to hide his body. I tell him he’s not overweight, he’s strong, but then he asks why I’m not attracted to him and, “Let’s move on already, Bryan!”

  “I’m sorry for not taking your new girlfriend seriously,” he says first thing today, and that is like the opposite of what I expect him to say.

  “She’s not my girlfriend yet.”

  He goes on, “But she will be when she gets to know you. Anyone who truly gets to know you and doesn’t love you is a moron.” Which is nice but also a little manipulative, so I ignore it and say, “I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

  “Me neither.” And then Bryan punches me (hard!) in the shoulder because that’s how he shows affection but also because that’s how he shows me he wishes Zee was dead.

  * * *

  I texted Zee when I woke up but she hasn’t texted back by the time first period ends so I text her again but she still hasn’t texted me by lunch so then I text her six times in a row saying how sorry I am for texting so much only to realize this is like singing, I’m sorry for singing!

  I tell myself to be patient, but then I tell myself patience is for people who didn’t meet their soul mate last night, so I go and find Cam and Abigail before they leave for Midnight Dogs.

  “Is Zee okay?” I ask.

  “I hate you,” Abigail says, but she says it under her breath because she has everyone in school convinced she’s not constantly on the edge of hysteria, which she so is.

  “Art, bud, she’s fine. I know you think you two bonded last night, but you gotta remember she’s a junior and you’re a sophomore and she’s into sports and you’re not, so you two don’t really have anything to talk about.”

  Boring. I say, “Just tell me she’s alive and not trapped under a large vehicle somewhere, and I’ll worry about what we talk about.”

  They both shake their heads and ignore me and walk away, which is fine because I am done talking to them anyway.

  ME

  ZEE! MY LOVE! TELL ME WHAT ALIENS

  KIDNAPPED YOU AND I’LL FIND THE

  CLOSEST SPACESHIP TO COME FIND YOU!

  This is too much. Why do I always have to be too much?

  ZEE

  you’re hilarious

  She’s so in love with me, she can’t even take it.

  ZEE

  I go do CrossFit every day after school except Tuesday because on Tuesday my mom schedules her personal training clients so she always has the afternoon off. Michael has meetings (he does the church’s finances), so from like three to eight, it’s just me and her. Sometimes we do big things like go shopping downtown. (Mom tries to make me buy girly crap, but I always end up just getting another hoodie or workout thing.) Or we see a movie and get a large popcorn and dump peanut M&M’s in it. But mostly it’s low-key stuff. Her reading on the couch while I do homework on the floor. Or picking up Chinese food and then bingeing on Netflix. I like it all, the big or the small, because it’s just me and her. My life has always been best when it’s just me and her.

  Today’s going to be a special day. We’re going to do a tour at Northwestern University. She wants me to go someplace exotic like California or Portland, but there’s no way I’m going to school that far away from her. No way. Northwestern is a forty-minute drive. Plenty far for me.

  She had been talking about this tour all weekend as if I was actually leaving for college today, so I expect her to have her purse in hand, psyching me up with some of her old cheerleader ra-ra, but when I walk in through the front door, the house is weirdly quiet.

  I know she’s home because her car is in the garage, so when I enter and it’s silent, I freak out. My mom is always making noise, moving or talking or something, unless she’s sleeping and she never slept during our Tuesdays.

  And listen, I know it’s coming, I know it is, I know my mom’s going to die, but just because you know something’s going to happen doesn’t mean it can’t freak you out.

  “MOM!” I yell, and I almost never yell. When she doesn’t respond, fuck, I yell so loud I expect the house to blow apart. “MOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!” I start running from room to room. Yelling. Yelling more. The last place I go is her room because I always figure the place she would die would be her room and if she is going to be dead I want to wait as long as possible to find out. Yeah, I’m running, so maybe I should have crawled to make it last even longer, but nothing makes sense when you think your mom is dead.

  And there she is, on her bed, her eyes closed, hands crossed over her stomach. She looks pretty, but a peaceful pretty and my mom is usually a high-strung pretty. Her makeup is perfect because it’s always perfect. She is dressed in a suit for our tour. She never wears suits because she likes to be as girly as possible in dresses or spandex. The opposite of me basically. So the suit is for me, to impress whoever needs to be impressed at Northwestern.

  But my mom … right now … is still. So still.

  Too still …

  “You think I’m dead, don’t you?” she says, with her eyes still closed.

  “AAAAAH!” I scream, and then run and jump onto the bed next to her. She laughs. Thinking she’s so fucking funny. I am so pissed. And so happy. “That’s not funny, Mom!”

  “When I’m dead, you’re going to think back on this moment and say, ‘My mom was so funny.’”

  “Why are you lying down? Are you tired? Do you want to skip the tour?”

  “No! I’m fine. I
’m so, so excited for this tour. First one on their feet wins.” And damn, my mom sits up, swivels, and stands before I can even turn over. But by the time I’m up next to her, her breath gets short and she needs to sit back down on the bed.

  I sit back down next to her and rub her back. Her wheezing is rough, deep, like an overweight man instead of her frail self, and it sounds like her lungs are gurgling water, even drowning. “We’re not going,” I say.

  “We’re going,” she says.

  “You can barely breathe!”

  “I’m fine, Zee.” And she puts her head on my shoulder and closes her eyes for one second before leaping back to her feet and pretending she is invincible yet again. “You go change and I’ll meet you in the car in one minute.”

  “I’m wearing this,” I say, pointing at what I wear every day. Hoodie (black today) and cargo pants (dark khaki green every day).

  “No, you’re not. You’re wearing a dress.”

  “HA!” I haven’t worn a dress in, man, I don’t even. Long fucking time.

  “Then at least a blouse and nice jeans. And no gym shoes or boots.”

  “This is a tour, Mom, not an interview.”

  “This is a chance to make an impression, no matter how small. Go.” She pushes me out and closes her bedroom door behind me.

  Fine. I’ll do it. For her. Listen, no way was I getting in a dress—did I even own one that fit anymore?—but if she’d put on a suit, I could do jeans and that white cashmere-y sweater from Banana Republic she got me. Fine.

  I change fast. Feel stupid, like I’m pretending to be someone else, but whatever. I haven’t heard my mom open her door, so I fling it open and say, “Look how much your daughter loves you.”

  She is still again. So still.

  But this time crumpled on the floor.

  art

  After Zee tells me I am hilarious, I text her back that we should elope, and she sends me a wink back, which means she isn’t taking me seriously. I mean, I was joking. Mostly anyway. But, oh, I can just feel in my heart that Zee is going to be my escape superjet out of this terribly boring and ill-fitting life I’m stuck in. I just know it! So I decide no more Zee texts until tomorrow. Or at least tonight. Or at least an hour from now.

  * * *

  Walking into the house after school, I find Abigail crying on the front stairs and I think, Yay, Cam broke up with her! But then I think if Cam had really broken up with her, she would be doing her overdramatic spectacle in front of everyone and not this small sob hidden away from my parents.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, because maybe, just maybe, something really is wrong.

  “Dad got fired,” she says, and I’m not even sure my brain thought what she said was English. It was like she’d said, Dad is a lizard and he just molted his human skin off.

  But then my head slowly deciphers the words, so I ask, “Where is he?”

  “Watching TV.” She sobs an epic sob, and I hug her to make sure her body doesn’t come apart at the seams. Abigail hugs me back, and for a moment, we seem like siblings who actually like each other. When she seems to solidify, I tell her I’m going to check on Dad.

  ZEE

  I drop to my knees, turn my mom over on her back. I have gotten certified in CPR and I am ready.

  But she doesn’t need it.

  Breathing … she is breathing … barely … but enough. It’s that same gurgling from before, except this time it is fast, shallow, faint. Super-fucking faint. Stage four cancer basically means her breast cancer has spread to other parts of her body. For my mom, the tumors in her chest wall are causing malignant fluid to fill the cavity around her lungs. Awesome, right? Yeah, right. So breast cancer in her lungs. It doesn’t even make sense. She told me a few months ago—in her “isn’t this funny?” way—that eventually she’d suffocate but not really know she was suffocating because of the pain medication. That can’t be now, right? She isn’t even on any pain meds right now, so it can’t be. It just can’t.

  My phone is dialing 911 while my free hand strokes her hair and tells her it’s going to be okay. I always wanted to be that person who didn’t tell people it was going to be okay when I knew it wasn’t.…

  But she’s my mom and I want her to be okay so much, I’d be any person anyone wanted me to be if she’d just be okay for a little while longer.

  It doesn’t get worse as we wait for the ambulance, but she can’t talk, so we just lie on the floor next to each other. I stare in her eyes, memorizing every flicker inside of them. Every tiny movement. I convince myself as long as I look at her, she’ll stay alive. Like a watched pot never boils. She tries to stare back but keeps losing focus. As if her eyes can’t decide to look at this life or the next. So any time I see her pupils drift, I whisper, “I love you, Mom,” and she’ll be able to concentrate on me for a moment or two. Then she smiles at me, just a bit, and squeezes my arm.

  art

  My dad is in his usual corner of the couch, feet propped on the coffee table, a beer in his hand and a bag of Doritos in his lap. His mouth and hands are pasted in that neon cheese. SportsCenter is on because SportsCenter is always on if no actual games are. Dad has this far-off gaze thing that makes me think his soul has left his body and all that’s left is this empty shell.

  “How are you doing?” I ask.

  “Fine,” he says, not turning away from the television.

  “Can I make you a sandwich?” I ask. I don’t even know why. I have never made my dad a sandwich or any food in my life.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not much to talk about, Art.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get a better job now.”

  “Yeah,” he says, but his “yeah” is more of a my life is over.

  “Maybe the four of us should go out to dinner to make you feel better.”

  “Can’t spend more money when you have less.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Art, I just need to be left alone.”

  “Oh, okay, sorry, Dad. I’ll be in my room if you need me.” I wait for him to say something else, but he just goes back to being a soulless shell and so I leave.

  ZEE

  The paramedics arrive six minutes after I call. Which is great. But they break my eye contact with my mom—yeah, to save her, but what if it’s my staying connected to her that’s saving her?—and by the time I step up into the ambulance with her, she can’t focus on me at all. Not even for a second or two. She only looks up and off, off to that other world. Or winces from the pain in this world. Like someone is hammering big stakes through her chest every other breath.

  Should I tell her it’s okay to go? She’s fought this disease fourteen years now. All for me. I should. Listen, I’ll be alone, but isn’t that better than my mom always fighting? Always in pain?

  “Mom…” I start. Not crying. But my voice isn’t steady. “Mom … you … stay with me. Okay? I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to go.”

  I know I should’ve said she could move on. I know. But I don’t want her to move on. Isn’t that okay that I don’t want my mom to die? Ever. Someone please tell me it’s okay. Please.

  * * *

  Even at three, I didn’t smile a whole lot. Yeah, I know some kids see their parents are depressed and try to cheer them up. But I was the opposite. My mom had all this crap happening to her, all this horrible luck, and all she’d do was make jokes and say stuff like “No biggie, kiddo.” That was her favorite thing to say to me every time I got upset about her cancer coming back or some jerk guy dumping her. So I thought it was my job to be serious for her. I’d tell the doctors, “If you don’t make my mom better, I’ll kill you.” I didn’t say it cute. Said it dead fucking straight. Really. And I’d give them the best evil eye any little kid has ever given. When she was cancer free for a few years, and dating, I’d do the same to her boyfriends. “If you hurt my mom, I’ll kill you.” And evil eye them until they laughed uncomfortably and Mom told me to be nic
e. Screw being nice is what I used to think. If the world isn’t nice to you, you shouldn’t be nice back.

  When I was ten, my mom’s cancer returned for the second time. I wanted to blow up the planet. The whole fucking thing. In fact, I stomped around the house screaming, “I’M GOING TO BLOW UP THE FUCKING PLANET!” The type of screaming that turns your face purple.

  My mom waited for me to exhaust myself, then steered me over to our tiny kitchen table in our (pre-Michael) tiny one-bedroom apartment. She said, “Zee … cancer’s not fun. A lot of things that happen aren’t that fun. But you’re getting old enough now that I think you can work on not being angry all the time.”

  “I like being angry all the time!”

  “I know you do.” She laughed. She liked to defuse my rage sometimes with her chirpy fairy laugh.

  “Because things suck all the time!”

  Mom then said, “How about if I told you that you working on your anger might help me fight cancer?”

  I said nothing. Just sat there and stewed.

  “You’re right. A lot of sucky things happen. And you and I may have gotten more than our fair share.”

  “WAAAAAAAY more!” Purple face was back.

  Mom continued with her big lecture, and even though that day I barely registered what she was saying while she was actually saying it, I really didn’t forget any of it. Weird, I know. She said: “To deal with all these sucky things that happen in life, people try all sorts of things. Some work a lot or get a big hobby so they are too busy to think about the bad stuff. Church has helped me and a lot of others find peace when things become hard. And almost everyone uses things like TV or food or alcohol or drugs to distract themselves from the sucky things. Which is fine too as long as you don’t distract yourself so much that you don’t want to do anything else besides distract yourself. And you, Zee, you’re addicted to distracting yourself using anger…”