How to Be Brave

by E. Katherine Kottaras

  Liss and I meet up outside the gate. They should really pass us through metal detectors as we leave, too. I wonder how many scalpels are stolen from Zitzoid’s class each year.

  We head over to Ellie’s Belly Busters, the sub shop down on Lincoln Avenue that serves the world’s best French fries. My mom used to take me here as a kid. It was a secret we kept from my dad since we were technically cheating on our own restaurant. It might have been the only secret she kept from him.

  Liss and I score the only front booth. My feet are killing me. I sit down and throw off the pumps. “First day, man.” I lather a fry in ketchup.

  “What a clusterfuck.” Liss digs into the fries. “Only one hundred and sixty-nine more days to go.”

  “Seriously? I don’t think I can hack it. That’s just too much torture.”

  “Well, except for Daniel, right? I mean, that’s all kinds of awesome.”

  “Yeah, sure.” I laugh. “If I could actually form some kind of intelligent thought beyond ‘uh-huh.’ How is it that I’m the daughter of a college instructor?” It’s the first time I’ve mentioned my mom in a while. I know it. Liss knows it. She’s always here and never here.

  She puts her palm on my hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m trying to change.”

  “Change what?”

  I wipe my fingers on a napkin and pull my mom’s letter from my bag. Even though she wrote plenty of art critiques when she was in grad school, my mom never liked to write anything personal. She saved that for her art.

  I hand Liss the worn paper that’s covered in my mom’s shaky handwriting. “Here. I made her do it those last few weeks. I made her write to me.”

  Dear Georgia,

  You put the pen and paper in my shaking hand and insisted that I write you even though you know how much I hate this kind of thing. You said you want to remember my voice after I’m gone. You left me here in the hospital room, alone with the blaring TV and the nauseating lilies and useless piles of magazines. You’re supposed to stay, to be here in case I crash again, in case I go under.

  So what can I say to you, my beautiful girl, so that you’ll remember me?

  Well, first, that I’m sorry. I wish I could have fought harder, for you. I think I’ll be able to watch you after I’m gone. I hope so. I’ve watched you for these sixteen years, and you’ve filled me with a lifetime of joy.

  But as it turns out, a lifetime is way too short.

  Just remember that you are my best friend, my most favorite person in the whole wide world. Know that I’m proud of you, just so incredibly proud—of who you are, of who you’ve become. And don’t grieve too long for me. You are young and vibrant and you sparkle with life.

  Live it. Do what I never did. I lived life too fearfully, I think. I gave up a long time ago. Don’t live that way. Go do anything you like—in fact, do everything. Try it all once.

  And when you’re out there doing everything, be brave, and think of me.

  Mom

  Liss sits back. Tears are running down her cheeks.

  She looks at me. “You have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Do everything. Be brave. Just like your mom said. You have to do this. I’ll do it with you.”

  “I don’t understand. Do what, exactly?”

  “Like a bucket list. A Do Everything Before You Die list.”

  “Except that I’m not planning on dying.”

  “No! That’s not what I meant.” Liss turns red.

  “No, I know…”

  “Shit. I’m sorry. Not at all what I meant.” She reaches across the table and places her hand on mine. “I meant like a Do Awesome Stuff list.”

  I shrug. “There’s not much I can do, though. I’m not eighteen. I can’t drive. I’m stuck in this forsaken city.” Way to think positive, Georgia.

  “Come on. There’s lots you can do.” She pulls out her phone and googles bucket lists. Most of them are pretty stupid.

  Like:

  Kiss in the rain. (Blech.)

  Stay up and watch the sunrise. (Seriously?)

  Pull an all-nighter. (Lame.)

  “Who writes this shit?” Liss laughs. “We can do so much better than any of these.”

  “Exactly.”

  We decide that we want more of a Fuck This Dork Shit list.

  More of an I Want to Live Life list.

  Fearless.

  Real.

  So I pull out a sheet of paper and start writing.

  This is what we draft:

  The Do Everything Be Brave List

  In no particular order

  Dedicated to Diana Askeridis

  ……(with duly noted feedback from Liss Ehler)

  1. I can’t run downhill very well.

  (Oh, come on, you can do better.)

  2. Do a handstand in the middle of the room.

  (More.)

  3. Jump out a plane.

  (Um, like your dad’s going to approve?)

  4. Trapeze school?

  (Aren’t you afraid of heights?)

  5. Skinny-dipping.

  (Yes!)

  6. Learn how to draw, like Mom.

  (Love.)

  7. Try out for cheerleading.

  (Really?)

  8. Learn how to fish.

  (I’ll ask my dad.)

  9. Flambé.

  (You ask your dad.)

  10. Tribal dancing.

  (Hot!)

  11. Cut class.

  (No prob.)

  12. Smoke pot.

  (No prob.)

  13. Ask him out.

  (She smiles.)

  14. Kiss him.

  (She smiles again.)

  15. See what happens from there.

  I look up from my list. “What about ‘Lose weight’?”

  “Eh.” Liss grabs a handful of fries and stuffs them in her mouth. “You don’t really need to be brave to do that.”

  That’s what best friends are for.

  I put down the pen.

  “I love the dress, by the way,” Liss says.

  “Thanks. It’s the only cute thing I own. I feel like I’ve set a precedent, though. And now, with this list, I have to live up to a certain standard, you know?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Liss replies, munching on fries.

  “So what the hell am I going to wear tomorrow?”

  “Hm, well, nothing involving drapes.” Liss smiles.

  “Yeah, well, there’s not much else, then.” I think about the remaining two outfits hanging on my closet door: black and boring. “And I have, like, fifty dollars left over from working for my dad this summer.”

  Liss licks the salt off a fry and throws it back in the basket. “Let’s get out of here, shall we? A bit of thrift diving, perhaps?”

  I nod, and we toss the rest of the fries and head down to the Salvation Army, where I score a bunch of good stuff that Liss picked out for me. A sleek pair of dark red jeggings (Power Pants, Liss calls them), three ridiculously cute (fitted!) shirts, a denim pencil skirt (crazy mustard yellow), and a green striped shirtdress that I’ll cinch with a belt. All for $48.92. Jackpot.

  I absolutely love living in No-Woman’s-Land with her.

  I head home buoyant. Elated. Ready.

  I go to bed early, eager for tomorrow, for whatever might happen.

  * * *

  This is also what it was like sometimes:

  I’d wake to the sounds of beeps and clicks and whirrs,

  her dialysis machine churning and sputtering and moving the fluids

  in and out, in and out,

  it would be four A.M. maybe,

  or barely dawn, the first light of morning crept in through the curtains.

  She could only sleep on the couch.

  She said the bedroom was too small for that damn giant box and the tangled mess of wires.

  It stretched from her bloody catheter site

  low under the folds of her abdomen.

  She would plug in each nigh
t,

  and try to sleep, though the rhythm of the machine

  would keep her awake.

  Except sometimes, I’d find her in a rare deep slumber.

  I’d crawl on the floor beside her,

  trace my fingers through her hair,

  lay my head on the pillow next to hers,

  and feel her steady breath.

  This is what I remember tonight.

  2

  Welcome to Webster High School Club Week, fall semester. School Spirit, U.S.A. The quad is filled with fifty-four tables, each one dedicated to Spanish or French or chess or photography or paintball or premed or fencing or computers or the earth or films or chemistry or fashion.

  “And out of all this shit, you pick cheer?” Liss elbows me.

  “Haha. Very funny.”

  “No, seriously, Georgia,” Liss says. “Why cheerleading?”

  I think of my mom and start to tear up. I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about her right now.

  “You’re still going to do it, even though Avery and Chloe are involved?”

  “Especially because Avery and Chloe are involved.” It’s time to face my fears. “Anyway, it’s on the list.” I shrug. “And that list is sacred. What are you going to sign up for?”

  “Nada, my friend.” Liss throws her hands up.

  “Do Everything Be Brave, my friend.”

  “Aw, shit. Fine.” We pass by the WHS Go-Karting Club table, and Liss grabs a brochure.

  “Go-karting? Seriously?”

  Liss smiles. She would choose go-karting. I bet she’ll even go.

  Liss has always been feisty and unpredictable. When I first met her, she had supershort fire-red hair. We were only in the eighth grade, but she would wear bright red lipstick, and her translucent skin was thick with powder. She was almost as thin as Avery Trenholm but much more badass and unforgiving. She refused to play the game, to follow the pack of animals.

  When she first transferred from the suburbs, we didn’t speak for the entire year. I was somewhat of a loner, trying my darndest to be nice to everyone but friends with no one in particular, and she was new and messy and bowlegged and she limps a little when she walks for no other reason except that it’s how she was made, and it was reason enough to displace her in No-Woman’s-Land with me. That, and perhaps her choice.

  But the last week of June, we somehow ended up walking the parameter of the playground every day for the fifty minutes of lunch, munching on our sandwiches and dropping crumbs for the birds and the squirrels. We bonded over music and movies and TV and whatever else mattered most that year. We confided our life stories. She told me that her parents divorced when she was five. When they fell in love they were both free-spirited potheads, and Liss was most likely an accidental product of a drug-induced haze. But then after college, her dad went corporate (tax attorney), and her mom (a medical social worker) finally drew the line when he bought a BMW. Liss has since split her weeks between them. She described her parents as young and lenient; I said mine were older and overprotective. I think we both wanted what the other had.

  We traded numbers and e-mail and ended up spending the whole summer together, my mom carting us around town, shopping and movies and the beach and whatever else we wanted. We stayed side by side as much as possible once we started at Webster, choosing the same electives and languages (photo, culinary arts, French) and deciding not to join anything beyond that, until today.

  Bodies swarm around us. “Do you see cheerleading?” I’m really ready to do this.

  “No…” Liss strains her head over the bustling crowd. Her hair has since grown out past her shoulders, and today it’s tied in two French braids with wisps escaping in every direction. “But I see Soccer Club.”

  “They have a club? Aren’t they just a team?”

  “Technicalities, my friend. I think they’re like fans, not players. Anyway, what I do know”—she eyes the members—“is that they are some of the most scrumptious young men. And it looks like they’ve all been caught in one net. Rawr.”

  “Eh. They’re okay.…”

  “What? Okay? Come on, let’s go over there. Look at them. They’re really hot. Like all of them.”

  “They’re no Daniel Antell.…”

  “You’re obsessed.”

  “You go. I’ll meet up with you. I want to find the cheerleading squad.”

  “Okay, but be careful out there.”

  I make my way through the traffic down to where Avery is sitting in her tiny little skirt surrounded by other tiny skirts. I stop at the Earth Club table two doors down and pretend to read a pamphlet about global warming. I spy the cheer table. A gaggle of skirts are all smiling coldly at the passing crowd, with Avery Trenholm leading the brigade. What am I doing?

  I have a plan, though. I’m going to be the most real cheerleader they’ve ever seen. I’m going to draw energy from my mom, and I’m going to smile and trust and beam with as much joy as I can muster, just like she used to do.

  And I’m going to do a cartwheel.

  I love cartwheels. I love the sensation of hurtling through the air, upside down, an unstoppable wheelbarrow of motion, armslegsfeet out of control, defying gravity, if ever so briefly, blood tossed through veins, a shock to the heart.

  When I was twelve, I made the commitment to do one cartwheel every day for a year. It was part of my very first diet plan. I took the Special K Challenge: Eat Special K for breakfast, Special K for lunch, and a low-fat dinner. They said: Lose six pounds in two weeks! I figured if I could quadruple it, I could lose twenty-four pounds in eight weeks. Plus, I decided to start running. And do a cartwheel every day for a year.

  Needless to say, I lost the cereal challenge, but not the weight. (And I lasted only four days. I was freakin’ hungry.) After pulling my hamstrings during my one wild attempt to be a marathoner, I made a new commitment to run only if being chased by a bear or some other frothing wild animal. However, I’m extremely proud to say that I kept my promise to the cartwheel.

  I can still do it, even today. And a round-off. There’s a tiny courtyard behind our apartment building where there’s just enough room for one full gymnastic move. Every few days, I hoist my one-hundred-and-blah-de-blah-pound self (the exact number is irrelevant and supersecret) across the concrete.

  But really, what I can’t say aloud to Liss for fear of breaking down completely is that I want to try cheer first to honor my mom. She used to show me pictures of her with her friends when they were in high school—she said it was the best time of her life. She was actually a cheerleader, which I couldn’t believe when she first told me. Last year, when she came home from the hospital after her last stent procedure, we’d flipped through the faded Polaroids and laughed at how short their skirts were, how they’d feathered their hair so stiff. She said that even though her best friends were all sizes 4 and 6 (and she clearly wasn’t) and that she secretly felt self-conscious most of the time, they still accepted her. They still let her stand in front of the entire school with pom-poms and a short skirt, and she absolutely loved it. She said she loved doing cartwheels every day with people, for people. She loved pumping the crowds with joy and energy.

  She talked about everything that came after—how the art world was so tough. How there was no money and little gratification in it. How owning a restaurant with my dad was even harder. She described the miscarriages and endless fertility treatments when she was trying to have me.

  She held the photos and said that second to being a mom, this had been the best time of her life.

  I like to imagine her that way, how she was long before I was born, before the interminable rejections got to her.

  But at the end, she told me to be brave—to try anything and everything.

  And now, when I think about it, I think maybe she was the one who was the most confident, even more than her friends. She was the one who demanded attention, and because she never let on that she was secretly nervous, secretly afraid, no one else knew.

>   I’m going to do my best to demand their attention, to show them what I’ve got.

  I step over to the table.

  “Georgia?” Avery looks up from her post, cracks some gum, and snickers. “Are you thinking about trying out for cheer?”

  Ugh. I just don’t understand. Why is she so mean?

  “Maybe,” I mutter. “Can I? I mean, if I’m a senior?”

  Avery’s about to say no when Chloe whispers in her ear, “That could work for Junior Varsity. Miss Rawls said we have to, you know, diversify.” She’s not very good at whispering.

  “I don’t think she meant that.…”

  “When you say ‘that,’ you mean my weight, right? You don’t think I can be a cheerleader because I’m a senior, or because I’m fat?” The words pour forth from my mouth, but I can’t believe it’s my voice I hear. Where did that come from?

  Chloe’s eyes widen. Avery flips her hair and stumbles over her words. “What? No—I didn’t mean—”

  “You can try out for the Junior Varsity squad,” Chloe finally says.

  Avery looks away. The last thing she wants is me associating with her circle of friends. Especially after Liss’s jab last week. I catch her eye. “Great,” I say, as bubbly as ever. I even flip my hair. It’s heavy with curls, so it doesn’t have quite the same effect as Avery’s smooth princess locks. “So when are tryouts?”

  “Oh, well, you’ll have to dedicate a lot of time and money—” She struggles to find a loophole to keep me from coming.

  Chloe interrupts her. “Come to practice next Monday three P.M., and we’ll teach you the routines. Tryouts start Wednesday. You have to sign up for your slot here.” Huh. She seems nice enough. Maybe I’ve been too hard on Chloe. Maybe I have a snowball’s chance in hell, after all. She holds out a pen and a clipboard and issues me a gigantic smile. It might even be genuine.