Love and Other Unknown Variables (15 page)

4.3

“
I
’m going to tell Charlotte to clear out of her house tomorrow night,” I tell Greta and James Sunday morning at Krispy Kreme. We’ve got our laptops and papers spread all over the table, doing homework and practicing our presentation for Ms. Finch tomorrow. “I think we’ve done enough ass kissing for a while.”

James holds up a fist for me to pound. “What’s the plan?”

I pull a scrap of paper from my back pocket and hand it to Greta.

She glances over it and pierces me with a look. “Are you serious?”

“As cancer.” I scowl at the girl behind the counter who keeps gaping at my bruised face.

Greta folds and unfolds the paper. “Chuck, you know I’m not afraid of Whiting—”

“Even though you should be,” James interjects, pointing his pen at her like a light saber. Greta shoots him a dirty look before continuing.

“But there’s no cute explanation for this.” She rattles the paper on the last word.

I rub my sweaty palms down the thighs of my pants. “It’s just a stink bomb.”

“Just?”

I shrug. “It’s only chemistry, Gret.”

James peers over Greta’s shoulder. “No way, man. Finch could have us arrested.”

I nod. “Only if someone gets caught.” Somehow, I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Mrs. Dunwitty meant when she told me to man up, but it’s the best I can come up with on short notice. “Which is why I’ll do it alone.”

“Chuck,” Greta says, her voice mournful. “This is between the Finch sisters. You shouldn’t get involved. This isn’t your battle.”

I’m stretched out on my side of the booth, my feet up on the bench. I study my shoes, the way the laces are fraying and the fabric is worn soft after so many years. These shoes could outlast Charlotte. That’s the most depressing thought I’ve had all day, and I’ve had nothing but sad-ass thoughts.

“Maybe not,” I finally admit, because even I know this is insane. I knew getting involved with Charlotte would be a deviation to my arrow straight life, but this, this is like following a line in a completely different reality. “But people get caught in things they can’t escape. Things like cancer. Charlotte didn’t ask for that, just like I didn’t ask for this. This is supposed to be a war, right? I can’t cure Charlotte’s cancer.” These words sound so loud in my head. I’d have thought I’d shouted them if James and Greta weren’t still leaning across the table to hear me. “This is all I can do for her. If I’m a casualty of war, then so be it.”

“You sure you’re up for the sacrifice?” James asks.

I look from him to Greta, sitting side-by-side, unaware they’re so close their shoulders are touching, drawn together by the magnetic pull of emotions. I want that closeness, too.

“Well, good thing we staked out Finch’s house last night,” Greta says, ignoring my non-answer. She passes the paper to me over the table. “At least we know what we’re up against. I, for one, am not about to get busted for this prank no matter how irresistible Charlotte Finch is.”

My ears flush, but one look at the twisted smirk on Greta’s face, and I know she understands. I know she’s figured me out.

---

B
ecca stops me that night on my way out. Her brown hair is falling out of her ponytail in chunks just the right size for twirling around a finger.

She holds her black wool cap out for me. “You may want this,” she says.

“For what?”

“For whatever you and your friends are planning tonight. I know you’re up to something, and I think I want to say thanks. Thanks for helping Charlotte.”

I take the cap and turn it around and around in my fingers. “You think?”

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

“I want her to be happy.”

“Me too,” she says, her hand brushing mine before she drifts back into her room.

We’re taking James’s two littlest sisters trick-or-treating as adorable decoys, so we meet at his house at dusk Sunday night. They run around the kitchen in their costumes. Ella is a black cat. Her curly hair is tied in two poufs on top of her head and Greta has drawn a cat nose and whiskers on her using eyeliner. Melody is a witch with a tall pointy hat that flops at the tip since it got crushed when the girls were wrestling.

Greta is stress eating Mrs. Thomas’s Halloween candy. James grabs the Tootsie Roll she’s just unwrapped and jams it in his mouth.

“Look, Gret,” he says. “We aren’t going to do any permanent damage to Finch’s house. We’re just going to make it smell like a jock’s junk.” He’s trying to convince himself as much as her. We’re all feeling jittery.

“And we’ve got the cover of Halloween, a night known for hell-raising,” I say as I press a mostly-frozen steak to the bridge of my nose. It still throbs like a distant drum beat. The steak is Greta’s idea—a diversion for the hellhound. I’m supposed to lob it and run, but it feels awfully good pressed against my face.

Ella runs up to James and hands him his zombie mask. “Let’s go. Can’t we go, Jamie?” she whines, rubbing her hand across her nose and smearing the paint of her tiny black cat nose.

James looks at Greta and me. I tug on Becca’s hat. I’m ready. Greta grabs another candy bar.

“Okay, kiddos.” James pulls his mask on. “Let’s trick-or-treat.”

The little girls burst into squeals and run for the front door. They sprint from house to house, eating most of the candy before it even sees the inside of their buckets.

By the time we reach Ms. Finch’s street, the girls are tired, and Ella is feeling sick to her stomach. We’re two doors from Ms. Finch’s house when Ella begins to cry.

“Jamie, I want to go home,” she whimpers. “I’m done trick-or-treating.”

Greta and I exchange wide-eyed glances. James bends down on one knee and pats Ella’s shoulder. “We’re almost done, El. Just a few more?” Her whimpering ceases when he hands her another piece of candy.

Anything for candy.

We steer them straight to Ms. Finch’s front walk. James pulls on his mask and Greta and I disappear around the side yard. Our plan is to infiltrate the house via the doggie door. We peek into the backyard.

No sign of the dog. Still, I pull the steak out of the plastic baggie.

Greta takes it from me whispering, “We both know I’ve got better aim.”

She’s right.

She hands me the stink bomb, in a small, lidded box we nicked from the recycling bin outside Charlotte’s and Becca’s school this afternoon. The school’s name is on an address label on the lid. I’m hoping this will make it seem more like it’s one of the morons at Sandstone behind this. It’s a thin veil, but I’ve got a lot riding on it.

A tremor runs through my hands, making the box shake. Screw Dr. Whiting getting pissed. Ms. Finch will know it’s me, and she’ll either bury me in poetry or just go ahead and fail me. Either way, I’m a dead man. Well, not
dead
dead. What lit term is that again? The exaggeration one? I’m all about the exaggeration one.

“We don’t have to do this,” Greta says, noticing my wobbly hands.

The night is cool and damp, so our breath puffs around us, making our own atmosphere—physical evidence that we are alive.

“Yes,” I say, my hands calm, my jaw tense. “I do.” I don’t understand this war between sisters, but I’ve chosen my side.

I nod at Greta, and we take off running toward the lit back door. I skid to a halt in front of it and open the box. My pulse thrums in my ears.

I unscrew the lid on the jar, my eyes watering instantly. The smell is so potent Greta gags behind me. I try to shove the lid on the box, but my blurry vision makes it difficult.

“Holy stink, Batman,” I mutter.

Fatal mistake.

The stench drifts into my mouth so I can taste its foulness.

Greta is backing away from me, looking pale.

I finally manage the lid and am about to shove the thing in the doggie door, when a huge gray head pokes out from inside the house, nose aquiver.

The beast eyes me. I can hear a faint growl in its throat.

“Greta,” I choke. The fumes are making me lightheaded. “The meat. Throw the meat.”

Greta’s good arm does us no good when she’s terrified. She drops the steak and covers her eyes with her hands. Peeking between fingers, she hisses, “Run, Chuck. Leave it and run.”

I smile at the dog. The dog stares at me like I’m the last piece of kibble on earth. Its low growl shifts to a whimper as its left ear twists backward, listening to something I can’t hear inside the house.

“Nice doggie?” I say. Effective because the nice doggie pulls its head back in the door and disappears. I look at Greta and shrug before lifting the flap to peek inside. I can see Ms. Finch’s clean and empty kitchen.

Without further hesitation, I shove the putrid box through the door and I am withdrawing my head when I hear Ms. Finch’s voice coming down the hallway.

“Let me get you a towel. Oh, you poor thing,” she says.

I freeze.

James’s voice, full of panic calls, “She’s fine. Really. We’ve got to go.”

“She’s not fine. She’s covered in vomit.”

One of James’s sisters has vomited on Ms. Finch’s front porch and I’ve just shoved a stink bomb in her back door.

Half of me thinks,
Yesssss!

The other half thinks,
GET OUT, FOOL.
But it’s like I’m watching bad reality TV. I can’t turn away until I know if the country bumpkin with questionable intelligence will shoot himself in the foot.

Ms. Finch gasps and clasps her hands over her mouth and nose as she steps into her kitchen. “The hell?” she gasps behind her hands. Luna starts to howl.

Greta decides now is the time to put her good arm to use. She snatches my collar and yanks me up, dragging me through the yard and along the greenway, coming out to the street at the end of the block.

Panting, she asks, “Did she see you?”

“No.”

Greta’s body thaws with relief, but mine stays taut, each muscle pulled tight with the lie I’ve just told.

Did Ms. Finch see me?

Yes.

4.4

A
t home, I flop on my bed fully dressed. Maybe I’ll skip school tomorrow to job hunt. If I start working at Quick Chicken now, I could be an assistant manager by the time I’m thirty-five. There’s no way I’ll get into MIT with a criminal record.

MIT!

I leap from bed, ignoring the spinning sensation in my throbbing head, and open up my laptop.

“Charlie?” Becca stands at my door holding her cell phone out.

“I can’t help you with your phone now. I’m busy.” I pull up my application and begin skimming, but Becca’s long fingers dig into my shoulder.

“I don’t need your help,” she says, wiggling the phone. “Charlotte wants to talk to you.”

My stomach tangles with nerves and guilt.

She hates me.

This was not the help she was hoping for.

Becca hands me the phone.

“Charles Hanson, you little shit.” Charlotte’s voice is so light it buoys me. “That was genius. How did you get the little girl to puke simultaneously with the stink bomb?”

“You’re not mad?”

“Me?” Charlotte laughs. “Jo was so pissed she went straight to bed. After she opened all the windows, of course.”

“And threw out her shoes?” My stomach is still queasy, but Charlotte’s enthusiasm is catching.

Charlotte laughs again, a maniacal string of notes. “Her shoes. Yes. They were disgusting.”

“Glad you approved. I wasn’t sure.” I click to a new window in my browser, pulling up a blank search screen.

“It’s like you are an angel sent to watch over me. A demented, brilliant angel.”

“So everything’s okay? We’re okay?”

Charlotte’s quiet a fraction of a second longer than I’m comfortable. But her response feels warm and settling.

“Thanks, Charlie.”

She says a quick bye and I hear the
click
of her disconnecting.

I try to hold on to the sound of her voice as long as I can. She called me an angel. Demented—but brilliant.

F
reshman year, my favorite science fair project was Adam March’s exploration of tumors in rats. Adam’s dad works at a big pharmaceutical company and had access to sick rats and chemo pills. The company sponsored Adam and he went all the way to the national science fair with the project. I remember thinking it was the coolest project. I don’t remember feeling sorry for the control rat that didn’t get the cancer drugs. I don’t remember feeling bad when both the treated and untreated rats died. I do remember wishing I’d come up with such a badass project.

Other than Adam’s rats, I’ve never had any experience with cancer. It’s remarkable to not know anyone with cancer. This year, in the United States alone, there will be over 1.5 million new cases of cancer. How do I know? After Charlotte hung up, I did a little research.

Normally, I love research. I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy about it now.

There are as many kinds of brain cancers as there are types of brain cells. I don’t know which kind Charlotte has. I touch my sore nose and think that somehow that may not be a conversation I’m ready to have with her.

But not knowing means I have no idea what’s going on with her, even after three hours of research.

There are websites out there for teens with cancer. They’ve got bright colors and cool logos and look a little like ads for hipster clothes. There are stories of survival, but then there are these stories of loss. And I know I should be happy for the survivors, but I just found Charlotte. I don’t want to lose her yet.

And I hate myself for thinking the treatments, while invasive and horrible, are also beautiful and brilliant. There’s a proton treatment that’s like radiation, but with pencil point accuracy. Someone made that happen. Science made that happen.

With so many types of cancer and so many ways to treat it and so many lives won and lost, I’m feeling overwhelmed. My head hurts, my eyes are blurry, and there is a kind of exhaustion stealing over me the likes of which I’ve never felt, all of which, I now know, are symptoms of brain tumors.

In a word, I feel hopeless.

4.5

I
roll into class looking like a Goth kid with a new tube of black eyeliner thanks to Charlotte and her right jab. At least the swelling in my nose has gone down so I no longer sound like a squeaky toy.

The tardy bell sounds, and Ms. Finch closes the book she’d been reading, tucks it into her podium and examines the class like we’re disembodied innards floating in jars of formaldehyde. “I trust everyone had an exciting Halloween?” Her gaze falls on me like an Iridium hammer.

My muscles twitch with the need to squirm in my seat.

“Mine was memorable, I assure you,” she continues.

Greta’s inhalation is as sharp as a scalpel.

“Speaking of memorable…Mr. Hanson?” Everyone turns to look at me. I try to keep breathing despite the fear squeezing my lungs. “Why doesn’t your group present first today?”

I blink twice. “Y-y-yes, ma’am.” She carries a stack of rubrics and a red pen to an open seat in the back of the classroom as we set up.

James begins our presentation by explaining how it’s possible to create an infinite number of poems. He demonstrates some wicked math to prove his point. The class nods along. It’s not hard to follow, but I catch Ms. Finch off guard when I glance at her. Her mouth is open in awe.

That’s right. Math = awesome.

Next, Greta reads a few poems we found on the concept of infinity. Most of it is lame. Poets confuse infinity with heaven, which is stupid because I can prove the existence of infinity, and I can prove an “afterlife” of sorts (matter can be neither created nor destroyed), but I can’t prove heaven. I don’t say any of this in the presentation, but wait for my cue to begin the practical demonstration.

When Greta’s done, she nods at me. “Right,” I say, clearing my throat. I pass out note cards to each person. The cards have words written on them we copied from Mom’s poetry magnets. “There are fifty words in the room. How many possible five-word poems can we create?”

Misty shouts out the answer first, which I write on the board (2,118,760 if you’ve forgotten). “How many do you estimate can be made in five minutes?” I ask, then scribble their responses on the board. Capping the marker and waving them silent, I say, “Go.”

At first, everyone is competitive, trying to get the most poems and hardly paying attention to the words. But, at 2.14 minutes, I notice a shift. Things start slowing down. People aren’t happy to shove any group of words together and call it a poem. They get picky about which words they pair up with, even if it means they end up with fewer poems at the end of five minutes.

I’m not the only one to notice. Ms. Finch catches my eye and smiles. Not a nice, teacher-y smile. More like a “suck it, math geek” smile.

At the end of five minutes I call time, and wrap up. “Well, we’re done, I guess,” I say glancing at James and Greta. They both nod. “Any questions?”

The class stays silent. Awesome. I’m about to move back to my seat when I notice one hand in the air.

Ms. Finch.

Shit.

“Yes, Ms. Finch?”

“I enjoyed your presentation,
especially
this exercise. I’m curious to hear if it went the way you planned. The class didn’t get near their estimated number of poems. What happened?”

James and Greta look blankly at each other before turning to me.

“The class miscalculated. It happens to the best of us sometimes.”

Ms. Finch nods, but presses on. “Was it the class’s miscalculation or yours?”

James, Greta, and I all say, “The class.”

Ms. Finch chuckles. When Charlotte laughs I hear music, but this sound cryogenically freezes me. Thousands of crystalline daggers stab at me from inside. Ms. Finch says, “I see.”

What does she see? The lies the poets tell her about meeting our loved ones again in
the infinite
? Does she see how miserable she’s making Charlotte? Can she see how hopeless any struggle to hold on to her is?

A surge of icy heat freezes my chest cavity, and I wonder, “What, exactly, do you
see
?”

“Noooo,” Greta moans.

I turn and blink at her. She glares at me, a silent charge to shut up.
Did I say that out loud?
Turning back to Ms. Finch, I see I did. She’s no longer smiling.

“I
see
you miscalculated the human need for poetry,” Ms. Finch answers.

“Poetry is not a necessity. It’s an indulgence built on lies.” My voice betrays me again.

“Lies?” she asks.

“Yes, lies. It’s mathematically impossible to reach infinity. Every step toward it gets us no closer. In the end, all we’ve done is move farther from where we began.”

I finish my rant and realize my hands are tight fists.

Ms. Finch takes a deep breath and mutters to herself, “Sisyphean.”

“What?” But I remember Mrs. Dunwitty and the story of the man and his rock.

“Yes,” I say, “It’s just like Sissy-who-sy. The top is as craptastic as the bottom. Wherever we are in the present is as far away from infinity as we can get.”

I rake my fingers through my hair feeling a strange panic in my chest. “It’s like being so close to the one thing you want, reaching out and almost grabbing it, but in the end, you come up empty. And that sucks.”

Ms. Finch has dropped the red pen she’s been holding. She’s pressing her lips together so hard they’ve lost all color. We stare at each other for what a poet might call “an infinity,” but it’s only twelve seconds before she drops her eyes to the rubric and begins marking it. Without looking up she says, “Stop by my office after school, Mr. Hanson,” before she calls the next group to present.

---

I
knock on Ms. Finch’s office door as quietly as I can.

“Come in, Mr. Hanson,” she calls from inside.

Not quietly enough.

Ms. Finch’s office is a small, windowless room. Behind her desk hangs an enormous canvas painted to look like a window. The tree outside the window is covered with fresh pink buds and leaves so green they glow yellowish in the painted sunlight. Under the tree, the shadow of a girl is reading a book. It’s Charlotte.

I freeze, watching her and fighting the urge to call out and wave hello. It’s the most remarkable painting I’ve ever seen.

Then I remember Ms. Finch sitting before me.

“How long have you two known each other?” she asks.

I steal one more glance at the painting before I focus on Ms. Finch. “Who?”

It takes a Herculean effort on her part, but she manages to smile despite her jaw being sewn together by anger. “Have a seat,” she says nodding toward a puffy reading chair.

I sink into the cushions and avoid looking at the picture behind Ms. Finch.

“How long have you and my sister been planning that little Halloween stunt?”

“Your sister?” A smile slides onto my face. “Ms. Finch, I planned it myself.” She asked the wrong question. I didn’t have to lie.

“And I suppose you were the little girl in the witch costume that puked on my porch, too?”

“Uh, no, the puking thing wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Why?”

“She ate too much candy.”

Ms. Finch closes her eyes and sighs. “No, Mr. Hanson. Why me? Why now?”

“Because you teach English at Brighton.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s nothing personal—just a Brighton thing, I guess. I can see how it’d be hard not to take it personally. The other teachers either stopped caring or outright quit after a while.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

She studies me a minute, while I keep my smile glued in place and silently count prime numbers to keep calm.

She breaks the lengthening silence with a colossal sigh. “I’m not turning you in because, despite what you say, I still think my sister is somehow involved, and I don’t need that kind of hassle. However, my kitchen smells like rotten eggs. You’ll serve detention with me until there isn’t even the faintest whiff of unpleasantness left in my home. Understood?”

“Really?”

Ms. Finch stifles a sigh. “I’ve done worse.”

Again. “Really?”

She taps her bottom lip considering. “When we were young, Charlotte fell behind in school. There was this one teacher—a math teacher—who made her cry. Called her stupid.”

A stab of anger in my gut makes me shift in my seat.

“I
may
have stink bombed her car.” She holds her hands out, shushing me before I can exclaim. “No one messes with my sister.”

I school my face, trying to reign in my surprise, awe, and respect.

“Yes, ma’am. Of course.” I spring from the cushy chair. Turning to go, I risk one last glance at the Charlotte in the painting. “Thanks, Ms. Finch.”

“Hanson.”

Damn. She saw.

I freeze, but can’t seem to make myself turn around. I hear her stand from her desk.

“I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t mess with Charley.”

When I turn around, Ms. Finch’s expression is tortured.

“I’m her big sister first. I’ll protect her to the grave. Do you understand?” Her jaw quivers and she clamps it shut with a snapping noise.

“Believe me, Ms. Finch. I understand.”