Dessert First

by Dean Gloster

  Everyone else gathered up their stuff and shuffled out to the noisy hallway, while I pretended as if it took me forever to gather up my book and notepaper. Then, when the room was empty except for Mr. Brillson at the front, I walked to his desk.

  “Do you want to sit down?” he asked.

  I crossed my arms, holding my English book over my chest, like it would protect me. “No, I’m fine.” I thought about Evan, who’d be waiting for me to have lunch with him and looked toward the door.

  “I’ll only keep you a few minutes.” Mr. Brillson pushed my latest paper across his desk. It was marked with corrections and a red A–, even though it had exactly nothing to do with Julius Caesar, which we were supposedly studying.

  What?

  “Your writing is excellent,” he said. “But always on a different topic than the one I assign.”

  I didn’t deserve an A–. “I have trouble thinking about anything except that my brother’s cancer is back.”

  He nodded.

  I looked down at his gray teacher’s desk and my paper perched there. “And I’m having a hard time.” Mr. Brillson’s class is the one I have to skip once a week to go to my therapy sessions.

  “I’m so sorry.” His voice was gentle. “But you’ve been identified as a ‘student of concern’ by your counselor. For academic progress. Because of missing assignments in other classes.”

  Meaning my almost total lack of finished homework.

  “And I understand you handed in a yogurt label for ‘French culture’?” The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

  “I totally should have got credit for that,” I said. “And I might have, if I’d only included a footnote, explaining the cultural significance.” In Mr. Brillson’s class, we’d just talked about footnotes.

  “Well,” he said. “I’m happy to continue accepting your writing from your cancer blog instead of my assignments. And I’ve talked to a couple of your other teachers, about whether they’ll give you extra credit for longer papers on the cancer treatments, to make up for some of your other missing work. Perhaps in Biology and World History?”

  I blinked at him. “What does cancer have to do with history?”

  “Disease does,” he said. “The plague. Influenza and smallpox—part of the reason European people successfully invaded the Americas. Besides, it’s not just the subject matter you’re learning. It’s how to think critically and organize your thoughts and understand the past and how it affects us. And if you write about what happened this year, it’s history.”

  I blinked at him again. I’d thought World History was just trivial pursuit on steroids, about long-dead white guys. At least so far.

  Mr. Brillson leaned back in his chair. “I could talk to Ms. Tang and Mrs. Miller about it.”

  It was widely rumored that Mrs. Miller had a giddy crush on Mr. Brillson, who was cute and maybe fifteen years younger than she was. “Uh, wow. That would be great.”

  “I think it’s probably too late for this grading period, though,” he said.

  I thought so too.

  “But maybe we could work out something going forward.”

  • • •

  Out in the hallway, I texted Evan. Teacher meeting. See you in 3. Meaning five or six minutes, really, after I hit the bathroom and my locker, but I wanted him to know I was on my way, not ditching him.

  When I found Evan at our usual spot on the concrete steps looking out at the grass and the tennis courts, he was surrounded. My former friend Amber was on one side, and my former friend Elizabeth was on the other. She was sitting really close to Evan, with her lunch tray in her lap.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Evan smiled. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” Amber said. She looked embarrassed, maybe about how they’d boxed Evan in.

  “It’s kind of cold out here,” Elizabeth said, without even “hi” to me. “Let’s go inside.” She looked brightly at Evan. “Want to come?”

  Evan looked at me. I gave him the tiniest shake of my head. I’d rather talk to him out here about the latest Mr. Brillson intervention.

  “No, I’m good,” he said.

  “Maybe some other time.” Elizabeth stood and patted his arm.

  Amber waved bye to me, and I waved to her. Elizabeth acted like she hadn’t noticed I was there at all, which felt like a claw shoved between my ribs. She’d been one of my best friends.

  Evan and I watched Amber and Elizabeth head back inside, then I sat next to Evan and pulled my sandwich and apple out of my brown bag. “Sorry. Brillson kept me late.”

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Apparently, I’m a ‘student of concern,’ counselor-speak for about to flunk out. Brillson wants to help.” I was kind of stunned about that. Ever since Beep got sick, it was unusual that someone was going out of his way to try to take care of me. I told Evan about the conversation.

  “You’re exaggerating, right?” he asked at the end. “About the flunking-out part?”

  I shook my head. “No. Apparently, there’s some weird notion around here that we have to do the homework.”

  “You want to study French together?”

  “Is that a euphemism for tongue-tag?” my mouth said, before I could stop it.

  He laughed. “No. Unless you want it to be?”

  Dangerous territory, and after a heart-flutter, I could feel myself closing up. “It’s not fair, Evan, when you flirt with multiple girls like this. Gives us the wrong idea.” I waved my sandwich in the direction of the disappeared Amber and Elizabeth, then took a bite.

  “Who says I flirt with multiple girls?”

  “My online friend Cipher says you flirt with her outrageously.” Which he totally did.

  “That’s different,” he said.

  “Because I know about it?”

  “No.” He didn’t elaborate.

  And I didn’t really want to talk about Cipher, because I didn’t want anything to slip that suggested Cipher was my secret identity. Cipher flirted outrageously with Evan, too. Instead, I blurted out, “Tracie claims she could have you back at the snap of her finger.”

  “Well, she can’t.” Evan’s voice was steely.

  Good. “Then don’t tell me what other body parts Tracie would have to use, and how, to get you back.”

  He laughed again. “There’s zero chance I’ll ever get back together with Tracie. You know why she broke up with me? The third time?”

  I sighed. Great. Here we were, talking about Evan and Tracie’s relationship, my least favorite topic.

  “Because I was about to break up with her,” Evan said. “That girl has issues. She has to be the one to break up with the guy first.”

  Evan looked earnest, like always, but the reason for their third breakup was news to me. Both prior times Tracie had broken up with him, Evan had been a crushed mess of moaning romantic angst. For weeks. By the time of his final breakup last year, I hadn’t been talking to him anymore. I figured he’d cried on some other girl’s shoulder—there would have been lots of volunteers, including my former friend Elizabeth—or done the guy thing and obsessively played videogames, or the musician thing, writing a bunch of angry emo songs to channel the tears.

  “If we ever do write songs together again,” I said, “don’t even try to get me to help you write an ‘I’m so sad after my breakup with Tracie.’ I’ll throw up my entire head.”

  Evan laughed again, which made me three for three. Score. Then he turned serious. “You and I could write songs. About something else. We could hang out at my house. Or yours.” He casually leaned back and put his arm on the step behind me, so it was almost around me.

  It would be so nice to lean back onto that arm. And so scary. I had almost no other friends anymore. Instead of leaning back, I hunched forward, and wrapped my arms around myself, across my chest. “I’m barely holding together, Evan.”

  “What?”

  The concrete in front of us was marked by black dirt spots of ancient gum. “Sometime
s it feels like all it would take is one more tap, and I’ll break into a hundred pieces.” I didn’t want him to be that hammer tap.

  “Oh,” he said.

  I put my head in my hands, and rocked forward and back, like that was somehow going to comfort me. “I’m pretty messed up.”

  “No you’re not,” Evan said. “You’re just dealing with hard stuff.”

  That made me want to hug him, and there were sudden tears in my eyes.

  “So why don’t we study French together?” he said. “I can help. A little.”

  That was complicated. Mom had rules about no boys over at our house without “adult supervision” and with Beep and Mom at the hospital and Dad at work all the time, there was no supervision. And if I went to Evan’s house, he’d eventually pull out his guitar and try to make me write songs with him again. Which I didn’t feel ready for, and besides—I didn’t want to be just the girl who was good at helping write Evan’s songs. I jammed my forehead into my hands.

  “Tuesday nights,” I said. “At Tyler’s. His mom feeds me dinner.” That was the new arrangement, for as long as Beep was back in the hospital. Rachel was eating dinner on Tuesday with her boyfriend Brian and his parents, which seemed weird to me. Supposedly she and Brian would spend the rest of the evening “studying” together. Rachel still had the sniffles, so Mom had accused her of passing a cold back and forth with Brian.

  “What?” Evan said.

  “I spend Tuesdays at Tyler’s. Welcome to cancer world,” I said. “Where nothing makes sense.”

  “You spend the night at Tyler’s house?” Evan looked alarmed, which was flat annoying.

  “No. Jeez. I spend dinner time there. But if you came over, you and I could study French, while Tyler plays his videogames.” Which is what Tyler always did.

  “Okay,” Evan said. “We’ll study French.” He was friends with Tyler, so he could totally go there to study.

  “Thanks,” I said. It was probably too late to save my grade in this quarter, but it would help for the next one. And Evan was taking Algebra 2 with the same teacher, just a different period, so we could probably study that together too. I started crying, only partly out of relief. “I’m so scared.” Scared about Beep, scared about flunking. Scared about Evan. Scared about everything.

  Evan wrapped his arms around me, in a warm, perfect hug, and I dropped my sandwich on the concrete steps and hugged him back. It was the world’s greatest hug, and long, and it felt so good that it made me even more scared, while he wrapped himself around me, trying to hold me together.

  • • •

  When I got home that day, there was no sign of Rachel. I took Skippy for a long walk, and when I got back, the house felt even emptier, with just Skippy and me wandering around in it, as if it would echo forever when Skippy barked. I brought Skippy up to my room and fed him four liver treats, one by one, then rubbed his belly. He wriggled with joy. It’s nice that it’s easy to make someone happy. I looked over at my Stratocaster, sitting lonely in its stand under a layer of dust, and thought, I should play guitar. But I didn’t. I just thought about Evan, and how I’d sort of friend-zoned him for my own protection, but his hug had felt so good he’d nearly snuck right back out of the friend zone. I had a freaking zombie crush on Evan—every time I thought I’d killed it, it came back.

  I turned on my computer and opened a new, blank Word document. Maybe, with the lift from Mr. Brillson’s extra-credit idea, I could actually get some homework done. But instead of typing the World History assignment on the ancient Greeks, I just stared at the screen. If I just get started, I told myself, I’ll be on a roll and can keep going. Yeah, right. The heaviness of all the other assignments I hadn’t done weighed down my arms. What happened to kids who flunked out? Besides almost fatally disappointing their parents? I thought of a future of wearing a paper hat, asking people if they wanted fries with that.

  Ten self-punishing minutes of non-productivity later, I gave up and went on Facebook. Drowningirl wasn’t online, but Hunter was. I shot him a private message.

  Kat: Do you ever have trouble keeping girls in the friend zone?

  Hunter: Not so much. I just get cancer and lose all my hair, which kills their romantic interest.

  I didn’t believe that for a minute. Hunter was really cute, even with no hair.

  Kat: Ha. My brother Beep is adorable with no hair. Super cute.

  Hunter: Well. If you don’t mind a lack of hair, then maybe you should get a long-distance boyfriend to keep your local guys trapped in the friend zone. I know just the shiny-headed dude for the job.

  I thought about that. He was cute, and funny, and he really liked my jokes. In a way, a crush on Hunter was less scary than a crush on Evan.

  Kat: As soon as I’m taking applications, I’ll let you know.

  Hunter: Don’t wait too long. I’m funnier and more charming while I’m still alive.

  Okay, maybe Hunter wasn’t completely ideal, either.

  12

  The next Tuesday, Mom picked me up in the middle of school, to drag me to my weekly depression session with Dr. Anne. It’s mortifying, skipping English class once a week to get whisked away by Mom during the passing period, when everyone else is walking to class. They can all see me standing at the curb waiting. About the time Evan got together with Tracie last year, the word got out that the reason I’m not in class this hour every week is that I’m at an I-must-be-a-crazy-person appointment. So, as usual, I rode the whole way in Mom’s car in grumpy silence, with my arms crossed over my chest.

  Mom and Dad have basically contracted out to Dr. Anne the job of having any idea what’s really going on with me, which I guess is good, because they and I have no clue, and someone should figure it out.

  Dr. Anne’s office is in Kensington Circle, upstairs in a two-story building. She sits in a leather chair, behind her big frame glasses and little notebook, surrounded by so many ferns and plants it’s practically a forest. She has an actual couch, like shrinks do in cartoons, but I just sit on it, I don’t lie down. I start talking about something, and then we sort of blunder our way into other topics. By the end, I’m supposed to have more of a clue about what’s going on in my head, to partly make up for the weekly humiliation.

  I wanted Dr. Anne to explain the reason that I couldn’t get any of the homework done, but, as usual, it didn’t work that way. Instead, she asked me questions—like I’m supposed to explain it to her—and we went off on tangents. About halfway through, she asked, “How does Beep’s having cancer again make you feel?”

  I gave her a look. For this, Mom pays the woman one hundred and twenty dollars an hour? Which Dr. Anne always ends ten minutes early, so she can do shrink-yoga between patients. “I’m going with ‘bad.’”

  She waited, perched there behind her glasses and notebook, until the silence got so big I had to fill it with something. “I’m afraid. For Beep. Worried. He nearly died. I want him to get well. I want to save him, with my bone marrow. But everything in our family just orbits around his cancer and his blood tests. It’s like cancer is the sun, and we’re all just little separate planets being pulled around. Except Dad. He’s the comet that whooshes into our family solar system and then goes back out, into work-space.”

  “Which planet do you feel like?”

  “Mars. The angry little red one way out in the cold. Alone.” I picked at the couch. Familiar, but alien and lonely. “Mad.”

  “Besides Beep’s cancer, what makes you mad?”

  “I used to get along with Rachel, but now she hates me.” I swallowed and stopped talking for a while. Mom’s anxiety used to be something that united Rachel with me, against a common enemy. “Mom used to burp out some wacky new rule, like we had to wear sweaters when we went outside in a breeze, and I’d take Mom on, arguing with her insane grownup logic, while Rachel snuck out without a sweater. And Rachel helped explain Mom to me. And explain Dad, who’s kind of removed. We had a good team thing going until Beep got sick. Now Rachel hates on m
e full-time. And I get pissy with her.”

  “Pissy?”

  “Sarcastic.”

  “Really?” Dr. Anne smiled.

  “Hey. I’m the sarcastic one. Also, I have almost no friends anymore, and I’m mad at my ex-friends for abandoning me last time Beep was sick.” When I needed them. I looked down at her tangled vine-design carpet, in greens and gold.

  “Do you want to reconnect with them?”

  “Yeah,” I said. But then wasn’t completely sure. “Except that I already apologized. For my jokes about them. They should apologize for abandoning me. What if they do that again?”

  “So you want to connect, but you’re afraid, and you haven’t forgiven them.”

  We sat in silence for a while. The clock said we still had over ten minutes. “You make it sound like it’s my fault.”

  “Not necessarily. But if you keep finding yourself in situations you don’t like, could you do anything to change that?”

  “Beep has cancer—not my fault. Mom is crazy, crazy—probably not my fault. Rachel is boy-crazy—definitely not my fault, and I have no idea why she hates me so much.”

  “You feel powerless?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Why do you say your mom is crazy?”

  “Fine. She has ‘anxiety disorder.’” Beep’s bruises turning out to be life-threatening cancer wasn’t the best thing for Mom’s anxiety. “Beep’s cancer coming back is hard on everyone. It even interferes with Dad’s work schedule. He almost had to give me a ride home from the hospital one night.”

  “Why do you think he’s always at work?”

  “Because they pay him?” His old law firm went out of business and into bankruptcy. He only got his job now because he brought over this big patent case, and that meant he could get his whole “trial team” jobs with his new firm. “We get our health insurance through Dad’s work, which is pretty key.”

  “Umm hmm.” Dr. Anne made that sound like therapist-code for horse droppings. “Do you think he might have trouble being present? Because of Beep’s illness?”