by J. M. Kelly
“Pick me up,” Nat says, and I’m only a little surprised she’s talking. “Pick me up!” she says again; this time her voice is shrill and high. “Pick me up! Pick me up! Pick me up!”
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” I say, but my voice is crushed by the pain in my throat, and then I’m on my side and Natalie’s standing in the middle of the room in one of Amber’s lacy T-shirts. She’s got long red hair, all the way to the ground, and she’s a little girl now.
“Don’t leave me!” she cries out, her arms still reaching for me. I toss around on the bed, but something invisible’s holding me down.
“I’m coming,” I say. “I’m coming.”
And then she’s not Natalie anymore, she’s Amber. She’s naked, and she’s holding her arms tightly around herself, shivering. “I’m going now, Crys.”
“No! No! Don’t leave me!” I try to say, but I can only hear the words in my head.
“I have to go,” she says. “I’m so cold. You’ll be fine without me.”
“Please, Amber?” I plead. “Please, stay.” I know if I can just get up, I can grab her and keep her warm. Keep her here. But the blankets feel heavy, like when Bonehead lies across my lap and I can’t shift him no matter how hard I try. I thrash around, but I can’t get out from under the covers.
“What about Nat?” I ask Amber as she starts to fade away. “Stay for Natalie.”
“She has you,” Amber says. Her voice is faint, and I can barely see her now.
“She needs us both. We made a pact to take care of her.” And then someone’s crying. It might be me, but it sounds like Natalie. “No, Amber! No!” I shout.
Someone is shaking me. I’m still under a heavy layer of something thick and dark, like warm water, and I want to sink back into the comfort of it. The person keeps shaking me, though, and I try to get my arm free, but whoever has it won’t let go.
“What? What d’you want?” I ask. There’s a light in the room now, and my eyes are starting to focus a little.
“Wake up, Crys,” Gil says. He’s still shaking my shoulder, and then he tosses a glass of cold water in my face, soaking me and the pillow, and I sit right up.
“I’m sick. Leave me alone.”
“I know,” he says. “But Amber don’t look right. I think she needs a doctor.”
In the other room I hear Natalie crying and a voice I can’t place trying to soothe her. I’m surfacing now and my head’s pounding, but I’m already getting up. And it’s such a relief to be able to move. My bare feet hit the cold cement floor, which wakes me up even more. In her bed, Amber’s flushed and tossing around, but her eyes are closed. Her hair’s damp with sweat, and when I touch her, she moans. My dream was so real that seeing Amber still alive sends a flood of relief through me. But she’s not okay. She won’t wake up.
“How long’s she been like this?” I ask Gil.
“Well, she’s been worse than you. She threw up all day Saturday and then more on Sunday. You mostly slept.”
“What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
I’ve been asleep for almost three days? I try to figure out what to do. I don’t know if we can move her to the car. She’s not that big, but neither am I, and Gil’s not usually very steady.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Sleeping.”
Natalie’s still shrieking in the other room, and I wonder if she’s sick too.
“Maybe we should call an ambulance.”
“The phone’s out again,” Gil tells me. “Can you drive?”
“I don’t know . . . I guess.” He lost his license years ago for drunk driving, and Mom’s never bothered to get one. It’s gonna have to be me. I pull on some jeans and a sweater over my uniform shirt, which I’m still wearing from Saturday. “But how’re we gonna get her to the car?”
“Your friend’s here,” he says.
“My friend?”
“That skinny guy with the death T-shirts?”
“Han? What’s he doing here?”
“He stopped by ’cause you weren’t in school.”
Han helps us half carry, half drag Amber to the car. By the time we get her in the front seat, I’m doubled over with dizziness, and we have to wait until things stop spinning.
“Maybe I should drive?” Han suggests.
“You know how?”
He looks at me funny. “I drive the van all the time.”
I’d totally forgotten he works with his father doing plumbing jobs. I’m not really thinking clearly. Besides, the world’s spinning again. “I guess you better,” I say, which proves how sick I am. No one’s allowed to drive the Mustang except me.
Han takes us to the walk-in clinic, but when he goes in and asks for someone to help carry Amber inside, they send us to the emergency room at the hospital. On the way there, I remember Natalie.
“Where is she?”
“Gil’s watching her.”
“Is she sick?”
“She’s okay, so far. That’s why I was hanging out at your house. I knew you guys couldn’t take care of her.”
“You were babysitting?”
He shrugs. “I guess.”
Han leaves me in the car in the emergency turnaround and goes inside. Pain is beating in my head like a heartbeat. The next thing I know, they’ve got Amber on a stretcher and I hear the whoosh of the doors and she disappears. A minute later, someone comes out with a wheelchair for me.
I shake my head, immediately regretting it as my brains slosh around painfully. “I’m okay.”
“The guy said you’re both sick.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but—” I try to stand, and then the ground’s coming up to meet me fast, but someone catches me and sits me down in the wheelchair. The next bit is a blur. Eventually I’m lying in a bed with bright lights shining down from the ceiling, and a doctor is standing over me asking what kind of drugs me and Amber have been doing.
“We have the flu,” I say. “Or something. A guy at work had it . . .”
A while later, I’m hooked up to a drip, and I’m actually starting to feel a bit better. “Your brother’s here to see you,” a nurse says, and Han steps into my little curtained-off area.
He’s already visited Amber and tells me she’s going to be okay, but she’s super dehydrated from throwing up so much. “That’s what’s wrong with me, too,” I say.
“I know.”
He stays with me for a while and then goes to see Amber again. Later, they tell me I can go home, but to drink lots of fluids and only eat soup until my stomach calms down. They’re keeping Amber overnight. I don’t want to leave her, but they tell me I have to. Finally, I agree to go if I can see her first. They’ve moved her to a shared room, and they let Han wheel me there.
“Two minutes,” the nurse reminds me.
Amber looks pale, which is better than flushed. She smiles, tells me it sucks that she has to stay and I get to go, and asks me to thank Han, who’s waiting in the hallway. “Is Nat okay?”
“I think so. She’s at home with Gil, but Han says she doesn’t seem sick.”
“Thank God.” I sit there in my wheelchair, holding Amber’s hand. “I thought I was gonna die,” she says.
“Me too.” I don’t tell her about the dreams. If she had the same ones, it’d be too freaky. I’m still shaky at the idea of losing my sister. My insides seem to leak out of me at the thought. I’m like a bag of skin but no bones, no organs, no nothing, my body slumped in the wheelchair. Not only would half of me die with Amber, but I know I could never raise Natalie on my own.
“What would happen to her?” Amber asks.
I shake my head. What would happen to her if we both died? We have no plan at all. We’ve never even bothered to have her baptized, so she doesn’t have any godparents. I’m sure Mom would raise Nat, but is that the kind of life we want for our baby?
“We’re gonna be fine,” I say.
“This time. But—”
“Stop it, Am.”
“There’s Aunt Ruby . . .”
“Amber? Please? Just stop.” I can’t think about Natalie being on her own. It makes my heart hurt, sharp and deep like someone’s crushing it in a vise. We might not be the best mothers—hell, most of the time we’re winging it—but we do love her. And we’re all Natalie has. I’m going to do everything in my power to be there for her. And I know Amber will too.
“We’re gonna be fine,” I say again, more to reassure myself.
Amber squeezes my hand. “You should go home and go to bed. You look like shit.”
“Yeah, okay.”
As I wheel myself out, I remember to tell her the phone’s been cut off again. “But don’t worry. Someone will come and get you tomorrow. I promise.”
“Love you.”
“Love you back.”
Han drives me home, helps me into my room, and goes out to feed Bonehead while I get undressed. A few minutes later, Han brings me a bowl of chicken noodle soup.
Me and Amber have been vegetarians since we were five and Jade told us meat was animals. “I don’t eat chicken,” I remind him.
“It’s not real. It’s Campbell’s.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m serious,” he says. “I read it on the Internet. It’s soy protein or something.”
We both know he’s lying, but I’m too sick to argue, and I eat the soup to make him happy.
Sorry, Chicken Little.
Han leaves after I finish, and I lie there in my cold bed. Thank God for Mom’s health insurance from her job. As long as me and Amber are still in school, we’re covered. But once we graduate, I’m not really sure what happens. Health insurance is another reason for me to go to college. I wonder if free healthcare will still be around next year for Amber? I drift off to sleep, trying not to worry about how much stuff we didn’t consider when we made our plan to get out of here and be on our own.
Chapter 13
Four days after Amber comes home from the hospital, Gil’s tossing his cookies nonstop in the bathroom. The smell’s so bad that Mom threatens to move out until we’re all better, but she doesn’t because someone has to make sure Gil doesn’t die. “I need his paycheck from Big Apple if we’re gonna eat,” she says, like she’s only half kidding. We know she’d be lost without him, though.
We miss a week of school, and when we go back, Mei-Zhen tells us she thinks Nat never got sick because she goes to daycare and is constantly bombarded by germs. Whatever the reason, we’re all super relieved to get over the worst of it. Me and Amber walk around like coughing zombies for weeks, though. Gil recovers faster. Maybe we should’ve tried beer for our “lots of fluids.”
Jimmy schedules me to work mostly in the shop or at the lottery counter so I’m not stuck outside in the cold. I guess that’s how come me and David end up kind of being friends. More like car buddies. We eat lunch together on Saturdays, and twice we go out for coffee after the SAT review. There’s nothing romantic between us. It’s all cars. Sometimes he tells me about his girlfriend, Olivia, but I think it’s his way of making sure I don’t fall for him. Believe me, that’s so not going to happen. I could never see myself with someone who carries titanium chopsticks in his glove compartment so he doesn’t have to eat sushi with wooden ones at restaurants.
Now that David’s not hovering all the time, it’s easier to tolerate him being around. Jimmy’s got him doing easy repair jobs, and I even show him how to change his brakes one afternoon. His car is so beautiful, it’s a joy to work on it. When it’s up on the lift and I’m standing under it looking at the immaculate undercarriage, I have to ask him, “How the hell do you keep it so clean?”
“I don’t drive it in the rain.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s how most car guys treat their babies, but I guess I never noticed David driving anything else. “How do you get around eight months of the year?”
“That Mini Cooper in the lot’s mine,” he says. “Well, my mom’s.”
“Oh, right. I should have known. I’ve seen it taking up two spots too.”
He laughs. “My mom’ll kill me if I ding it.”
“It’s, like, the size of a shoebox,” I say. “You could park it sideways and still only use one spot.”
He laughs again. “Yeah, okay. Point taken.”
The Sunday before Christmas, me and David are cleaning up the break room because we’re having our holiday party in there later in the day. Usually, Jimmy takes us all out for Mexican food, but his wife’s laid down the law this year, saying it’s too expensive, so we’re having a potluck at work. Me and David are talking about McPherson, and he’s totally jealous I’m applying. His parents have flat-out refused to pay for school if he goes there.
“They say on their website that there’s a lot of financial aid,” I tell him.
“Yeah, well . . .”
He lets his words hang there until I realize what he means: they don’t give financial aid to rich boys. I resist the urge to tell him that if it was me, I’d rather borrow the money than go to Stanford and study something I know I’ll hate. But I don’t want advice from him on how to run my life, so I keep my mouth shut.
“I can work on cars on the side,” he says.
“I guess.”
Suggesting that David get financial aid reminds me that Natalie’s not the only thing keeping me awake at night. There’re all those forms. I know I could go ask Ms. Spellerman for help filling them out, but she never remembers who I am and . . . I don’t know. I guess I don’t want her to think I’m totally stupid.
“You know my sister, Amber?” I ask David, proving just how stupid I am. Of course he knows her. He met her at the library.
“Yeah?”
“Well, I’m really good at fixing cars . . .” My face is heating up, not because I’m bragging but because I hate asking for help. I open the microwave and start scrubbing all the gunk off the insides so I don’t have to look at David. “And Amber . . . well, she’s really good at forms and stuff.”
“Right . . .” Out of the corner of my eye I can see he’s stopped sweeping and is staring at me.
“And I’m . . . not. I mean, I can do it if I have to, but the application for McPherson? And all the financial aid stuff? I don’t want to screw it up, you know?” My face is really hot now, and I practically stick my head in the oven to hide my blushing, like it’s a matter of life or death.
“Amber won’t help you?” he asks.
“I told you at the SAT class—she doesn’t know I’m applying.”
“I guess I thought you would’ve told her by now.”
“Not yet.”
“How come?”
I sigh. “It’s a long story.”
I’m already feeling guilty enough about the lies I’m telling Amber; I don’t want David to know about them too. I force myself to look at him. Okay, maybe not at him, but at a spot near him. “But I was thinking if you could, you know, look over my application and my essay and stuff, before I send them in, that would be really good.” I spit this last part out all in one breath.
He shrugs. “Sure. No problem.”
“I could trade you something. Show you some car stuff, or—”
“It’s not a big deal. Whenever you’ve got it ready, I’ll have a look.” He says this with an easy smile, and I realize he’s not so bad after all. Actually, I’ve known that for a while, or I wouldn’t have asked him.
“I’ve got the essay in my car,” I say.
“Great. I can help with the financial aid too, if you want.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
Some of the pressure that’s been squeezing my shoulder muscles loosens. “Thanks.”
He can see I’m embarrassed and makes a show of looking around the room. “Okay, that’s all the cobwebs. Now, what do we do with this?” He holds up a dead spider by one leg. If he thinks he’s going to make me squeal like a girl, he obviously doesn’t know me very well.
“Put it on the top of the
Christmas tree,” I say. “It’ll be the angel.”
He laughs and tosses the spider in the trash.
The more people I ask to do favors for me, the more balls I have to keep in the air. It’s one thing to juggle the SAT review class, the applications, financial aid forms, and letters of reference; it’s a whole other thing to keep Amber from noticing my new secret life. But so far, so good. She’s insisted on coming to this Christmas party, so at three thirty, I head over to the Glass Slipper to pick up her and Nat.
Amber’s inside helping Aunt Ruby decorate the tavern for the holidays, which is really not my thing, so I decide to wait in the car. For once I’m actually early, and I take the opportunity to study my SAT workbook. I missed one class when we were sick and I need to work harder if I’m going to figure this shit out.
It’s just now getting warm inside the car and I can’t bear to turn the engine off, so I leave it idling and settle into my seat. The book is open on my lap, and I start going over some vocab questions. I’m doing a half-assed job, though, because I don’t have anything to write with, and between the warmth from the heater and being up all night with Natalie, who wouldn’t stop crying for no apparent reason, the words start to swim in front of me. I try to keep my eyes open, but they blink heavily, threatening to close. It reminds me of that episode of The Flintstones (Gil loves that show when he’s stoned) where Fred’s really sleepy and so he props his eyes open with toothpicks. Only he’s so tired that they snap, breaking in half, and Fred falls asleep anyway.
The next thing I know, the passenger door’s opening and cold air swoops in. I start, looking around. “What? Oh, Amber, hey.”
“Hi, Crys.” She pushes the seat forward and loads Nat into the back, and then she climbs in front. I’m still blinking, trying to shake off the drowsiness when Amber plucks the SAT review book out of my lap. “What’s this?”
“Huh?”
She flips through it. “The SATs? What do you have this for?”
I’m not usually good at lying to my sister, even when I’m on my game. I mean, we know everything about each other, but lately I’ve been getting so much practice that a lie flies out of my mouth without me really thinking.