Dessert First

by Dean Gloster

  “I know. I wasn’t calling bullshit on you. I said that because what your parents did was complete B.S. Trying to make everybody forget your brother.” I waved my cast around and teared up again. “I was mad, thinking how awful it would be if Mom and Dad tried to make me forget Beep. I just . . . said it in a stupid way so you didn’t understand.” I sniffed. “Which is typical.” Then I rushed on. That might be taken the wrong way. “I mean, typical that I say things in the stupidest, worst way.” I wiped my eyes with my unbroken hand.

  “Oh. I thought you meant—” Evan uncrossed his arms. “I got that wrong.” Time ticked. The pause was way too long, but then he went on. “And usually I like the way you say things. You’re funny. You say what you think.”

  “I used to be funny. Then I got angry at the whole world. Now I’m just snide. Even when I don’t want to be. Especially when I don’t want to be.” I put my face in my hands, the fresh cast rough on my wet cheek. “I’m sorry, Evan. You’re the best guy I know. Have ever known. The best guy there is.” Then I started doing one of those shoulder-shaking crying things, because once it starts, the whole miserable year comes out, and it’s water-the-yard time. I sat down on the steps, crying hard, and after a while Evan sat next to me and put his arm around me, probably because guys can’t take crying, and that might make it stop. Which, in a way, it did. “It’s been such an awful year.”

  He gave me a tissue, and I blew my nose. I looked at him. Except for chemo kids who get a million nosebleeds or are always mopping up a power burp, what guy carries tissues?

  I held it up, soggy. “You come equipped for sobbing girls?”

  He smiled. “I’m full of surprises.”

  I looked up. This was at school, over lunch break, in plain view. “Be careful, or your friends the Tracies will tease you to death for hanging out with me again.”

  “I don’t mind. I could be teased for worse.”

  I was trying to work that out, feeling his arm still around me. “Did you just compliment me or insult me?”

  “Meant as a compliment, but it came out wrong.” He started to move his arm.

  “Then you should definitely stay,” I said, and leaned back into his arm, to keep it there, because otherwise, if he moved it I’d topple backward. “I’m starting a club. For people who say things that don’t come out right at first. As long as they come out all right at the end.” His arm, around me, felt wonderful.

  “It’s hard, sometimes, to be your friend,” Evan said. “You need to give me credit for time served, and take me off friend probation.”

  “If you promise never to stop talking to me.”

  “Deal,” he said. “But only if you come over and write songs with me again.”

  “Sure,” I said. He kept his arm around me. Before I could think about it, I blurted, “I thought for months my bone marrow killed Beep and nobody would tell me. But I talked to his nurse, and it didn’t. I only failed at saving him. Not, you know, killed him. Like I thought.”

  “Oh, Kat,” Evan put both arms around me and held me while I cried, and stroked my short little hair. “Oh, Kat.”

  81

  That night, Dad was actually home, going through piles of papers in the living room and “preparing for trial,” scribbling notes on a legal pad. Rachel was upstairs. Mom was off with some couple trying to buy a house in Berkeley, writing up their offer.

  “So.” I cleared my throat. “Rachel thinks you and Mom don’t love her.”

  “What?” He peered at me.

  “She thinks you love me, but not her. She and Mom are always fighting, and you never protect her from my sarcasm. She thinks you two don’t approve. Of her. She gets hassled for hanging out with her boyfriend, but I don’t even get in trouble for beating girls up.”

  “That’s . . .” Dad paused, then just sat. He opened his mouth once, and closed it again, like a balding fish. “Ridiculous.”

  “It’s how she feels, Dad. Don’t argue with me.” Dr. Anne says your feelings are feelings, and other people can’t argue with them, you being the world’s expert on how you actually feel. “One of her online friends finishes every message to Rachel with the suicide prevention hotline number.”

  Dad’s eyebrows shot up far enough to crinkle his forehead. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, Dad. Even I don’t joke about my sister maybe killing herself.” That’s poor taste way beyond barf jokes.

  He set down the stack of papers on the little upholstered ottoman footstool. He sat there for a long time, like he was working something out. “Maybe I’d better talk to her.”

  “Good idea,” I nodded. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

  So Dad, of all people, left his papers and legal pad behind, and tramped upstairs to have an actual conversation with Rachel. Which went on for twenty minutes. I couldn’t make out the words, but Rachel yelled and cried and drawer-slammed. Then the low calm rumble of Dad’s voice would go for a shorter time, and Rachel would be loud again.

  An hour later, Mom came home, flushed with excitement that her clients had made an actual offer on a house, so she might even get a commission. Dad intercepted her near the front door. They went to the kitchen for a whispered parent conference, then both of them trooped upstairs.

  Rachel cried and yelled some more, then there was the shorter murmur of parent voices between Rachel outbursts. It was a great sign that Rachel got all the long rants: For once, Mom might actually be listening. That went on for another half hour. When Mom and Dad came back downstairs, they looked shell-shocked, but Rachel didn’t even slam the door after them.

  That night, when I logged on as Cipher, there were two emails waiting from Drowningirl. I hadn’t heard from her in months. The first was from the morning, before school.

  You’ll never guess what happened, she sent. Last night BFH apologized! Seriously. For being a constant bitch. A little late, but still. Some other girl broke BFH’s hand this week, for being so hateful. Maybe, along with mending her hand, BFH is mending her ways.

  Not exactly accurate about the reason for the hand break, but whatever. Also, since my name was only three letters long, there’d been no need all along to abbreviate it as BFH, for Brat From Hell.

  Or maybe she’s finally growing a conscience, Drowningirl went on. That lets her care about people who aren’t dying from cancer.

  Okay, ouch.

  The amazing part, she burbled on, is BFH says she’ll stop being sarcastic. My sister without sarcasm. Right. That’s like my mom without uptight insanity. She’ll become invisible.

  Ha. Ha. Quite the wit, my sis. Maybe we’re lucky she has trouble thinking this stuff up real time.

  The next message was about her letting Mom and Dad have it. She’d told them about how it felt, living in their poisonous atmosphere of disapproval. They’d listened. And apologized. Again and again. And tried to explain they did love her and they’d screwed up badly if they hadn’t shown her that, in a way she could see every day.

  The best part was the end. Email back, she typed. And, for once, no need to re-send me the prevention line phone number. Feeling so good, I don’t need it.

  82

  My next weekly depression session with Dr. Anne, I expected to talk the whole time about nearly pounding Kayla Southerland into mush and finding out Rachel was Drowningirl. But I covered that in the first ten minutes and spent the rest of the time trying to figure out what to do about Evan. Which was weird. Talking to a therapist about your crush was like paying an old person with Mom’s money to pretend they’re your friend for fifty minutes. (Which was pathetic. So it fit my life.)

  But I couldn’t understand it. I froze every time there was a chance to get closer to Evan—whether it was his saying I was cute, or his offer to hold my hand after Beep’s funeral, or when he made me brownies and I got this weird idea he wanted to kiss me, or even now. The only time I could flirt with him was when I was pretending to be somebody else, named Cipher.

  Dr. Anne went off on a therapist change-
of-subject tangent. “You said there was no chance of things ever working out with Hunter, long term?”

  “Right.” Hunter was always going to be either (1) dead or (2) the healthy, cute, 3000-miles-away, senior basketball star exception to being a possible Kat boyfriend.

  “So what did you get out of that relationship?”

  I fingered my unusual necklace. I’d put Hunter’s ring on a thin chain, and wore it like a pendant. “Some guilt?” Still, that was from bailing on him, not from the “relationship.”

  “But not an actual boyfriend. Because it would never work out, the relationship with Hunter was safe.”

  Not with the heartache when he died. I shook my head. No way. “Safe how?”

  “You wouldn’t have to open yourself to a long-term intimate relationship.”

  I frowned. Apparently, my trained therapist was suggesting I might need 3000 miles of distance, plus the gulf of approaching death, to feel “safe” enough to let a guy get close. That would work out well, long term. I gave her an annoyed look. Ph.D. my As.S.

  She tried again. “Do you think you have permission to be happy?”

  More like an obligation, with my promise to Beep to have fun—which I was breaking, every day. I shrugged. “I’m not big on asking permission.”

  “Then entitled? Are you entitled to be happy? Do you deserve it?”

  That was easy. I shook my head. “I’m a screw-up. I don’t do my homework. I bailed on Hunter. I’ve been a snarky bitch to Rachel. I beat up a girl.” Even my bone marrow was useless. “No.”

  “You were there for Beep. And for your mom. You helped Hunter, when you were hurting and you never expected it to work out with him. Now you’re even trying to get along with Rachel.”

  I shrugged. In therapist school, they probably teach their little Ph.D.s-to-be that whole glass-half-full-happy-happy babble, even for their total screw-up patients. It’s unprofessional to say “Yup, gargle with drain cleaner.”

  “Have you heard of survivor’s guilt?” she asked.

  “Is that the zombie videogame sequel to Left 4 Dead 2?”

  I couldn’t even get a smile out of her. “When someone dies,” she said, “the survivors sometimes feel there’s no reason they—the survivors—should be alive. That they have no right to a happy life.” She leaned forward. “You tried your best to save Beep, but it didn’t work. And you wanted Hunter to make it, but he didn’t.”

  I blotted a tear with my hand.

  “Did Beep want you to be happy?”

  “He made me promise—” My voice broke. “—to always have fun.”

  “Did Hunter?”

  “He told me I should take better care of myself. And—” I thought back about what he’d said. “—to laugh.”

  “They died, and you survived.” Her voice was gentle. “But they gave you permission to have fun. To have a happy life. They wanted you to. You have permission. They thought you deserve it, and they knew you really well.”

  Something huge and painful broke open inside my chest. I sat and sobbed, using up a bunch of what was left of Mom and Dad’s money, while they paid a Ph.D. to sit and watch me cry.

  83

  For the record, it wasn’t the talk-and-sob with Dr. Anne that made up my mind about Evan. It was my promise to Beep. How could I keep my promise to have fun, if I desperately avoided something that might be? Was I coming down with the grownup brain-damage virus early? If I never got closer to Evan because I was afraid of hurting our friendship, that wasn’t eating dessert first—it was skipping dessert completely.

  The next morning in carpool, I climbed into the back seat next to Evan. My left—unbroken—hand was touching his leg. As we pulled away from the curb, headed for Tyler’s house, I took a deep, shaky breath and reached over and took Evan’s hand in mine. I gave it a squeeze, then our fingers naturally interlinked, and I was holding his hand.

  Evan gave me a wide-eyed really? look. I nodded. I gave his hand another squeeze. He squeezed back. I ran my thumb over the back of his hand, the smooth skin between his thumb and first finger.

  And Evan gave me the most blissed-out smile, and then leaned into me, so our shoulders rubbed too. Mmmmmmmm.

  Tyler didn’t notice the handholding when he got in, but he doesn’t notice much before 9 A.M. unless it’s waving in his face or on fire.

  When we pulled up to school, Evan announced, “This might be the best day ever.”

  His mom looked puzzled in the rearview mirror. Tyler glanced over. Evan smiled again.

  “I have to let myself out,” I wiggled our hands. I wasn’t good yet, opening doors with my hand in the cast.

  “More of this soon?” He squeezed my good hand.

  “Definitely,” I squeezed back, and then we both let go. I reached across my body and let myself out.

  After we hefted our backpacks and his mom drove away, I pulled the UA theater passes Evan gave me for my birthday out of my pocket. “I have something for you.” I showed them to him. “A great guy gave me these. If I give them to you, will you invite me to a movie?”

  He took the tickets. He swallowed. “Come here.”

  But he tugged at my sleeve instead of taking my hand. And he wasn’t talking about a movie. I followed him over past the tennis courts to where we’d had our talk about his baby brother, while I got more and more worried. The movie thing was a yes-or-no question. Was he dragging me out here to shoot me down, because of everything I’d put him through? The first bell rang. We were going to be late. Was I also going to be a complete wreck?

  He stopped, and turned to me. We were at the exact spot he told me about his dead brother. He looked right into my eyes then slowly, slowly leaned forward toward me. Our lips were inches apart. I leaned in, instead of away.

  His lips touched mine. We kissed. Soft, slow, long. I closed my eyes. His lips were even softer than I’d imagined. He put his arms around me, his hand sliding up the back of my neck into my short hair. It was fireworks. Or a meteor shower. It was like being a kid and jumping out of a swing and flying and never landing at all. I put my arms around him, maybe so I wouldn’t fall, while I melted. Then I opened my eyes, because Evan’s brown eyes are too pretty not to look at, during a girl’s first real REAL kiss. The second bell rang. I completely did not care. Evan broke the kiss, and then kissed me again. And again.

  “You’re shaking,” he said.

  I was. Trembling. “Then kiss me,” I said in a throaty voice that didn’t sound like me at all. “Until it stops.”

  That took a long, long time.

  “Would you go to a movie with me this weekend?” he finally asked.

  “Yes. You pick.”

  “I . . .” He trailed off, then cleared his throat. “I want to change my Facebook status. To ‘In a relationship.’”

  “If you promise, no matter what happens, you’ll always be my friend.”

  “I promise.”

  “Then me too,” I said, and I gave my best friend, and now actual boyfriend, a hug. And then a long kiss. Then several more.

  84

  I’d already pounded blood out of Kayla, the day I tried to give her a cute upturned nose. Might as well improve the process, I figured, by having the Blood Centers of the Pacific collect whatever dripped out. So a few weeks later, Evan and I organized a school blood drive.

  Mr. Brillson agreed to be our faculty sponsor, and Blood Centers of the Pacific agreed to send a bloodmobile. They gave us posters and piles of forms for signing people up ahead of time. Amber and Elizabeth and Calley Rose agreed to help, and we were off.

  We set up a table near the entrance of the lunchroom, and for the whole week, it was Bring My Dead Brother to School Day. I had a poster-sized picture of Beep, in his bald cancer-kid cuteness, on an easel next to our sign-up table.

  In California, they let you donate blood without a parent’s permission if you’re 17. At school blood drives, they also let you donate if you’re at least 16 and have a form signed by a parent. Unfortunately, tha
t permission slip has all those unlikely risk factors spelled out, and getting it signed by a parent ahead of time was a stretch on the planning front, since half the students are boys.

  So we mostly concentrated on teachers, and juniors and seniors who were at least 17. To help with that, Rachel came over from Berkeley High on her lunch hour to be our gorgeous drop-in spokesmodel, to stand by my sign, attracting smitten seniors. Which, with her wearing a short sundress the first day, totally worked.

  “You’re only allowed to talk to the lovely Rachel if you first sign up to donate,” I explained to the guys who drifted over. “Be sure to put your cell phone number on the form, though, to get a personal thank-you text from her.”

  “I’m using your phone for that, Kat,” Rachel said in a short break in the crowd. “There’s no way I’m giving my phone number to, like, two hundred guys by texting them.”

  “Use my phone,” Evan said. “No way should those senior guys get Kat’s number, either.” He was holding my good hand at the time. I liked it.

  Rachel drew a crowd of the most confident senior and junior boys, and that, in turn, drew a crowd of the senior and junior girls, like antibodies swarming to protect the male half of the student body from a powerful intruder.

  Mrs. Miller, my World History teacher, tried to sneak by our table, but I called her out. “Donate! Standing in line at work to get stabbed is like having the even more exciting job of gladiator.”

  She waved me off, but did smile.

  When Coach Paulsen went by, I said, “Donate blood! The only exception to always-give-a-hundred-and-ten-percent.”

  Evan brought his acoustic twelve-string, and when things got slow, he played and we sang Jonathan Coulton’s song about corporate zombies, “Re: Your Brains,” but with changed lyrics:

  We’re not unreasonable, I mean, we’ll leave most of it still inside

  All we want to do is take your blood . . .

  Rachel joined in, harmonizing on the chorus. That girl can sing.