Fear of Missing Out

by Kate McGovern

  “Look, here’s the plan.” I point out the route marked in a meandering red line from Boston to Sedona, all 2,567 miles of it. “Chloe has it all worked out so we can do it over February vacation. It won’t take us that long. Like, three days each way if we do it straight. A day or two longer if we stop to sightsee. Don’t you want me to see the country while I still can?”

  Mom frowns at the maps. “There’s not a closer facility for this … kind of thing? Really?”

  I shake my head. “This is the one, Mom. This is where my body would be.” I see her flinch at the words. “Don’t you think I should see the real thing?”

  “I do, Astrid, I do. It’s just a long trip for you. And a lot of time for me to take off work, too.”

  I glance from Mom to Chloe and back. “Mom, see, I was thinking: you shouldn’t take off work for this.”

  “If we fly, I might not have to.” She’s distracted now, tapping on her phone—probably checking flights. She makes a face. “Yikes. I guess Arizona is a popular destination in February.”

  “Mom, listen. What if Chloe and Mo and I did the trip together?”

  “You guys can come!” Mom says. “Sure. If your parents don’t mind.”

  “No.” I sigh. “Mom, I mean, what if we did it as a friend trip? No parents. You wouldn’t have to miss any work.”

  She lets out a sharp laugh.

  “I’m serious. Don’t you want me to have, like, a typical teenage independent travel experience?”

  “So you’re telling me your version of spring break is going to be a visit to a cryopreservation facility?”

  “Technically, it’s winter break, but yes. I mean, I’m working with a narrow set of parameters here.”

  “I also factored in some fun stops along the way, Maxine,” Chloe says, holding up The Top 50 Roadside Attractions. “So it’ll be less business-trip-to-see-body-freezers and more, like, tour-of-classic-Americana-with-friends-plus-confronting-your-mortality-along-the-way. Know what I mean?”

  “That’s great, Chloe. Thanks,” Mom says dryly. She takes the book and thumbs through a few pages, an eyebrow cocked. “Astrid, I really don’t think it’s a good idea. What if something happens and you need emergency care? You’ll be so far from home, without me. I just … I can’t see it. Sorry.”

  “Mom, Dr. Klein said she saw no medical reason why I shouldn’t go, remember? I think we can safely say a week on the road is not going to be the thing that kills me at this point. And if it is, lucky me.”

  “Oh, Astrid.” Mom sighs audibly and stares at the maps. “How would you three even get there? We only have one car.”

  “My moms already said we could borrow the Tomato,” Chloe pipes up. Chloe’s mothers drive Subaru Outbacks like all the other Cambridge Ladies, but their prized possession—fired up only for special occasions like their annual summer camping trips and now languishing in the driveway because they can’t decide who gets custody of it—is a red RV affectionately known as the Sundried Tomato, for obvious reasons.

  Mom turns to me. “You decided to acquire a vehicle for this before even discussing it with me?”

  “I mean, they said they’re okay with it if you’re okay with it,” Chloe says quickly. “I’m not hearing a lot of ‘no’ these days. Divorce perk.”

  “And, Mom, Sedona’s not that far from the Ranch, either. I could visit Dad on the way.”

  “Girls, I … come on. You’re killing me here, Astrid. Seriously.”

  “Just one chance for an independent travel experience, Mom. That’s all I’m asking.”

  She puts her hands on her hips, then takes one more look at the maps on the table. I can tell I’ve put her in a corner that she can’t figure her way out of. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Fine. Okay.”

  28.

  “This is it?” Over lunch the next afternoon, Chloe scrolls through an image search of the American Institute for Cryonics Research on her phone. “I mean, it just looks like a random building in the middle of an office park. You’re sure there are frozen bodies in there?”

  Chloe’s right. The institute is just a drab cement block with what looks like very few windows and a large, half-empty parking lot out front. It hardly screams “The future of science is here!”

  “And can we come up with a better name for frozen dead bodies?” she says. “I feel like they could use better branding. Corpsicles?”

  “Oh, come on.” Mohit picks up his tray and piles the detritus of his lunch on top of it. “It’s not exactly a joke, is it?”

  Chloe and I watch him stomp off toward the busing station. Then she turns to me and rolls her eyes. “Mr. Good Humor these days, isn’t he?”

  “Corpsicles, though? Really?” I say.

  “You have something better?”

  I search my brain for something clever, but nothing surfaces. Mo comes back and sits down across from me, sulking.

  Chloe takes in the vague aura of hostility radiating off Mohit and mops up the last of the ketchup on her plate with a soggy oven fry. Then she wipes her hands clean on a bunched-up napkin and stands. “Uh, well, I forgot I have something very important to do. Later.”

  “What’s up with you?” I ask Mo when Chloe’s out of earshot.

  He exhales and looks at me like it’s an absurd question. “You didn’t think to talk to me about this road-trip idea before you and Chloe planned the whole thing and got your mom on board?”

  “It’s our February break. I didn’t know you had so many plans.”

  “Well, I do have plans.” He crosses his arms over his chest and lets out a huff, significant enough that a dark curl lying haphazardly across his forehead actually bounces in response.

  I take a swig of water. My head feels hazy, like it’s an overcast day with high humidity inside my skull, and what I need is a nap, not an argument. But that doesn’t seem to be in our plans at the moment.

  “What plans?”

  “It’s not vacation week at MIT, Astrid. Obviously.”

  His jazz quartet. Of course.

  “I’d have to miss a week’s worth of rehearsals. And we’re picking up extra hours starting in February to get ready for the Regattabar gig. It’s the first week of April.”

  “Okay, okay. I hear you.”

  “You’re the one who told me to do the quartet. And now you want me to bail on them.”

  “I don’t want you to bail on them, I just—”

  “And my parents are saying no. They say I made a commitment to this group, and I can’t miss that much rehearsal. Not unless it’s an emergency.”

  He sort of mutters that last sentence, as though he realizes that this parental loophole is probably code for “You can miss rehearsal if your girlfriend kicks it.”

  We sit in silence for a moment, just the white noise of the cafeteria buzzing around us. The bell sounds for fourth period.

  “I have a chemistry test,” I say, getting to my feet. “And I’m not moving that quickly today.”

  “I’ll walk you there.” He jumps up and offers me an elbow, which I take, even though my face is hot with frustration and I want to be able to stomp off by myself like a normal angsty teenager. I guess that’s my latest casualty to cancer: the ability to express my teenage angst with as much angstiness as I feel. Which makes the feelings that much more acute.

  We don’t talk on the way to the science labs, but outside the door he hovers. “I’m sorry, Astrid. I want to go with you.”

  “Do you, Mo? You have a lot of weeks to play music. This is, like, a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Literally, in my case, since if I ever go back to Sedona after this, I’ll be a corpsicle.”

  “Will you stop saying that?”

  “If you’re not coming on the road trip, you don’t get a say in the terminology.”

  The second bell sounds, and my chemistry classmates shove past us into the lab. Ms. Sikowitz comes to the doorway.

  “Astrid, is my class interrupting your social time?” She says it good-naturedly, though, because Ms. Sikowit
z is cool like that.

  “Sorry. Coming.” I turn back to Mo impatiently, waiting for him to say something that’ll make me feel better.

  But “Good luck on your test” is the best he can come up with.

  29.

  After school, I don’t bother to find Mohit or Chloe, and I muster the energy to get off campus faster than usual so I can walk home alone. It’s one of those blustery early winter days, blue sky but sharp air, and it feels surprisingly good to tromp through the cold without company. My thoughts settle as I walk. I’m annoyed at Mo, but it’s not really about the road trip. I want him to come, of course, and if he can’t, I’m not sure my mom will still let Chloe and me go alone—given that she thinks of Mo as the Responsible One among the three of us. But really, that’s not what it is.

  I’m mad because he’d said he wanted in. For all of it. And now he wants to escape to his music. I kick a pile of crusty leaves out of my path, and a sharp twinge shoots through my spine from the exertion. Then I do it again anyway, because I can.

  I know it’s not fair to be angry at Mo for wanting to rehearse for the Regattabar. It’s easily the biggest gig of his life so far. Plus, he’s right. I did tell him he should join the quartet. He probably would’ve given up the chance if I’d asked him to. But I don’t want to be that person, either.

  The TV is on when I get home, which is totally weird. Could Mom have left in such a hurry this morning that she left the news on? She rarely even watches the news anymore, ever since, as she puts it, “our national politics became a shitshow of epic proportion.”

  I drop my stuff by the door and plod into the living room. Liam’s on the couch under a fleece blanket.

  “Hey,” he says, barely looking up from the television.

  “Um, hey?” I sit down next to him and let out a heavy breath. It feels good to be seated again. “Are you home alone?”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you want to tell me why?”

  Liam grunts and pauses the program he’s watching. “I felt sick, so Mom picked me up after lunch. But then I didn’t have a fever and she had to go back to work and no one could come stay with me, so she said I should stay right here and not move until you got home. Except to go to the bathroom. I’m allowed to move to do that.” He un-pauses the program.

  “Oh. Okay.” I watch for a minute with him. It’s some cartoon involving Hobbit-like creatures. “Are you feeling better now?”

  He ignores me.

  I take the remote from him and mute it, prompting a halfhearted protest. “Liam, are you okay?”

  This time he shrugs.

  “Were you really feeling sick?”

  Another shrug.

  “You want to tell me what’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  I drape myself over Liam so my eyes are about an inch from his. He ducks one way, but I follow him. Then he shifts the other way, and I follow him again. Finally, he tries to shove me off, but then a smile creeps across his face. “Astrid! You’re so annoying.”

  “It’s my job. Now tell me why you came home from school if you’re not really sick.”

  “I was sick,” he whines. Then he pauses. “Well, I felt sick. I had a headache.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And a stomachache.”

  “Well, which was it?”

  “Both, I swear!”

  “Okay. What are we watching?”

  He perks up considerably as he explains the intricacies of a near-future universe populated by goblins and trolls and half-humans. I try to look interested while my brain glazes over.

  “Hey, Astrid?”

  “Hey, Liam.”

  “Can you really freeze your body so you can wake up again one day? Is that real?”

  I sigh. I wondered when this question was going to come up. “Look, bud. It’s not quite that simple. It’s more … an experiment.”

  “Like a science experiment?”

  “Kind of, yeah.”

  “So, like, we could read about you in science class?”

  “I mean, not you, probably. But maybe some kids in the future. Maybe.”

  I can see his brain at work, considering all this. “Do you think you’ll be able to wake up, like, for my college graduation?”

  My brother. Possibly the only eight-year-old on the planet for whom his future college graduation is already a milestone he’s planning for. One million very small daggers poke one million very small holes in my heart.

  “Oh, Liam. It’s not really like that.” I try to put an arm around him, but it’s awkward. I can’t blame him when he kind of wiggles away. “I’m sorry, bud.”

  “Kieran’s mom says you could probably see my college graduation anyway, from heaven. So at least there’s that.”

  “You talked to Kieran’s mom about me?”

  He squirms in his seat like he’s rapidly tiring of this conversation and wants to return to the near-future of goblins and trolls.

  “I mean, it’s okay if you did. It’s just … I don’t really believe in heaven, you know? Do you?”

  “I don’t know.” He seems guarded, like he doesn’t want to embarrass himself in front of me but this heaven thing maybe doesn’t sound so bad, all things considered.

  “We don’t really know what happens after a person dies,” I say. “No one does. So whatever you believe, that’s fine. Nothing’s impossible.”

  “Okay,” he says, zoning out toward the television. “Do we have to talk about this anymore?”

  “Do we have to keep watching this weird program?”

  “Dude, it’s so good!” He launches into another explanation of what I’ve been missing. I un-pause the television and smooth out Liam’s fleece blanket so it’s covering both of us.

  I think I’m half asleep when the doorbell rings.

  Liam hops up. “Yeah?” he says into the intercom.

  “Hey. It’s Mohit. Can I come up?”

  Liam presses the buzzer without replying and unlocks the front door. A minute later, we hear the elevator doors opening down the hall, and Mo lets himself in.

  “In here!” I call toward the front hall. He appears in the entryway to the living room, his cheeks flushed with cold. I don’t get up. I figure I’ll let him do the talking if he has something to say.

  Mohit puts his sax case down by his feet and rubs his hands together to warm them up. “Okay.”

  That’s it. Okay. The television keeps blaring between us.

  “Okay?” I ask.

  “Okay. The MIT guys said we could schedule some extra rehearsals the week before and after our trip.”

  “Our trip?” I try not to give away too much hope in my voice.

  “And my parents made me promise to bring my horn and practice along the way. So you’ll have to put up with that.”

  I push myself off the couch. His body is chilly when I scrunch up next to him. “I’ll put up with that.”

  Mohit leans down to kiss me, and Liam fake-chokes. “Gross, guys. Gross.”

  30.

  Inside its quirky red exterior, the Sundried Tomato is like a tiny, run-down studio apartment that has gone untouched since maybe the late seventies, based on my limited knowledge of that era of interior design. Behind the front seats, there’s a vinyl-upholstered bench seat on each side running parallel under the windows. Both sides are patched in spots with silver duct tape, a few tufts of white fluff poking out through the cracks. A small table folds down from the wall to make a dining nook. There’s a sink, a mini-fridge, and, at the back, a bathroom with an accordion door like you’d find on a Megabus, with a showerhead over the toilet.

  “We won’t be using that, will we?” Mohit asks as he surveys the bathroom doubtfully.

  “Um, no,” I say. “Hence the motel reservations. But this is pretty sweet for the road.”

  Against all my expectations, our first two vlog episodes managed to raise almost enough money to cover our motel costs, plus gas. Mom gave me a meal budget—“Consider it a per diem” were
her exact words.

  Chloe bounds up the steps into the Tomato. Her arms are full of canvas shopping bags. “Mom C sent provisions!”

  She flips down the folding table and starts unpacking one of the bags: bananas, apples, a jar of organic no-sugar-added peanut butter, veggie sticks, kale chips, single-serving Greek yogurts in an array of fruit combinations, and some Tupperware concoctions I can’t identify.

  “Veggie lasagna, leftover saag paneer,” she adds, as if reading my mind.

  “Saag paneer?” Mohit says, raising an eyebrow. “Your mother cooks Indian food?”

  Chloe scoffs. “Of course not. It’s leftover takeout from last night. We’ve only done takeout post-separation anyway.”

  I look at Mo hopefully. “Did your mom cook us anything for the road?” Mrs. Parikh is a great cook when she has the time, but she works long hours in some executive-level job having to do with clean energy production.

  “She was too busy at work this week. She did give me forty bucks, though.” He shrugs. “I guess we can see a movie on Mama Parikh when we get to wherever it is we’re stopping first?”

  “Margate, New Jersey,” Chloe says from the driver’s seat. “And we don’t need to see a movie. We’re visiting Lucy the Elephant.”

  “What the hell is that?” Mo asks.

  Chloe tosses the guidebook at him. “First sticky note.”

  He opens to the marked page and starts reading. “Lucy the Elephant is six stories high and is listed on the National Park Registry of Historical Landmarks.” He wrinkles his nose and looks up. “We’re visiting a giant elephant statue? This is not even a real elephant.”

  “Would you want to see a real elephant on a beach on the Jersey Shore? Seems a smidge cruel, doesn’t it?” I say.

  “Fine, but what is the point of this excursion? Aren’t we just wasting time on our way to Arizona?”

  “The point, Mr. Good Humor, is that we’re going on a road trip,” Chloe says. “And road trips are about kitsch!”

  “I thought this road trip was about cryopreservation.”

  “Are you going to ruin this trip with an incessant critical analysis of everything we do, or are you going to let us all enjoy ourselves?”