Sunday's on the Phone to Monday (18 page)

She'd made a terrible mistake. Now all Carly could think about was the future. Her future self talking to somebody. -
I was immature. In some web. My sister was sick. I was all mixed up. -

After Carly arrived home, she washed herself with a paper towel. Her soap was gingerbread-scented. -
I'm a baby, -
she thought in neither an optimistic nor a distressing way. Then she logged onto her social media accounts and found Stephen online. She looked through his profiles, trying to find a movie he liked that she hated, a book she thought was in poor taste, a reason for his being hopelessly wrong for her. She clicked through all 634 of his childish, mildly endearing photographs, trying to find an unattractive one. Stephen skiing. With braces. At camp. With a girl (??). There weren't many, but there were a couple. She saved them to her computer, labeling the folder
HORRIBLE PICTURES OF STEPHEN
. She didn't want to like him. She had never planned on that happening.

She clicked back to his general information. His birthday would be in fourteen days. She smiled.
- Maybe this was his birthday present. -
Her eyes trickled.

There were hard people out there, and there were the people soft as pullovers. Hard people seemed like they had power. But really, Carly knew, it was the soft people who were at an advantage. Soft people never had to pretend to be strong; people would always want to mind and nurture the soft.

Carly was the soft. Hard was impossible to defy: wishbones, violently hot baths, the unapologetic way of a monochromatic outlook. Hard was something she respected, something she'd never be. Carly, who tried to be the sister who could bear anything, was becoming the most libertine, the most colloidal. Strength and wildness were not synonymous—they could even be at odds. What else was Carly?

-
I'm not my family's color. -

Every year, Erica Woo had been placed in Carly's class. It was the same for Joey Bates and Majustice Miller and Sloan Ludmila, the two and a half black boys in their grade. Studies showed that children performed better, academically and emotionally, when they were placed in a class with at least one other person who looked like them. Carly always pictured a faculty meeting with teachers passing around student name cards and putting them into class boxes. Racial poker. And so, it was better to group the children of color together. Had her parents known about this when they decided to love Carly, to take her into their home?

In Wyoming, everyone had been white. In Wyoming, there'd also been more cows than people. On their final day of vacation, her family had stopped at a local farm to pet and stare at these heavy, drowsy animals. One, the color of tobacco, stood wholly still. Her nose flapped open like the inside of a flower, sobbing brassy bubbles, spattering in the Heart of her face, into her mouth, her isthmus of muddy hide.

She has a cold,
Lucy noted.
Poor gal.

Doesn't matter,
Carly said,
she'll be a hamburger soon,
picturing cuts of meat—prime rib or skirt steak, grinded into hamburger with some food coloring added, sickeningly pretty, left out well past the date it should have expired.

N
atasha dropped the sandwich bag on the coffee table, laughing loosely. Her college applications and high school career were done. Natasha spent her afternoons babysitting and the rest of her days reading library books, doing household chores, and watching documentaries on her computer. She was bound for college after this gap year, and her sister was dying. So why not?

Can I join?
Carly asked.

Um, no. You're too little.

I've done it before.
As a matter of fact, Carly and Stephen were already smoking weed together Fridays after school in his car. Stephen had a New York Knicks lighter and glass bowl. They'd play Air or Moby and drive to the convenience store two blocks away, where they'd pick out snacks. Once Carly cried because she counted over twelve different kinds of Oreos.

Really? I had no idea.

With a friend of mine.
Carly's voice sailed.

A dude?

I said he's a friend.
Carly chewed a shirtsleeve.

And you say he's just a friend, but you say he's just a friend,
sang Lucy.

It doesn't mean a thing,
said Carly.

Guys and girls can't be friends,
explained Natasha.
Unless one or both is gay.

Just because you don't have any friends doesn't mean other people don't,
said Carly.

I'm sorry, did you say many friends or any friends?
Natasha asked in a treacly-sweet voice.
Just tell me, he's not like a pothead or anything, right?

He wants to be a veterinarian. He's a good human. Do you trust me?

Have you got it bad!

Leave Carly alone,
said Lucy.
If she wants to tell us about him, she'll tell us about him.
She'd never tried pot before, though she recognized its feverish smell from parties.

Natasha had tried it a couple of times with the friends she used to have. They were all away at college now, but her connection with them even began to fade the previous May, when Lucy had first been diagnosed. It was the way they'd stop all of their conversation to talk about Lucy's Heart, as though Natasha couldn't enjoy conversation about movies or eyebrow shapes any longer.

Her final month of school consisted of cumbersome lunches, Natasha sitting down in the cafeteria next to a group of girls whom she used to feel easy calling her friends.
Hola. Sorry I'm late. What were you just talking about?

Nothing,
said Keila. She was wearing too much lipstick.
We miss you!

- Girls miss each other too much
, - Natasha thought. They said such shiny words all the time. How could they really miss one another after just one class period or one vacation? Nothing they said made sense.
You were talking about something. Was it a secret?

No way,
said Molly, her throat blushing.
Secret? Natasha, you're so random! How is Lucy?

She's fine.

Did they find a donor yet?
asked Jaclyn. Natasha glimpsed Jaclyn's hands, Jaclyn's fun nails that looked like miniature checkerboards.

Wouldn't I have told you about it if they did?
Natasha shook her
head with her wrists folded on her thighbones.
Tell me what you were talking about.

It's not really important,
said Christina, whom they all called Tina.

The white noise of the cafeteria took over. High schoolers yelling, high-fiving, paying for food, and making flimflam negotiations. Everybody was young and could afford to waste her or his own time.

TV,
Molly finally said. Mad Men
. Who's a hotter old dude, Don Draper or Roger Sterling?

For the rest of the lunch period, Natasha found herself gauging an internal battle about how to participate in the conversation.

Have you been keeping up this season?
asked Tina.

Not really,
said Natasha.

Girl,
said Molly softly. A mammoth silence followed—never before had Natasha felt the spindling tornado of clamor and anticlamor this strappingly.

About to get high with her sisters, Natasha thought about Molly, who was only a senior in high school, since she was a year younger than Natasha, but who might as well have been going to the University of Siberia, considering the frequency with which they'd kept in touch. When she had been in high school, they'd discuss for hours particulars that Natasha would normally pay no attention to, like flirting etiquette or bralettes or Britney Spears. When she was with Molly, Natasha had opinions on certain subjects she'd never contemplated before. Where would these opinions go? It was the tree-falling-in-forest quandary—would she lose the opinions, or were they in her forever? And what about the opinions she carried within her but had yet to realize she had, since she never would confer with Molly?

They'd been the type of friends who touched unconsciously and constantly, while they were talking or doing homework. It was foundational to their amity: Molly's lovely hand on Natasha's arm, tickling itsy circles. A perky foot plopped on
the other's. Molly's calf crashing on Natasha's until Natasha's cramped. Cheap and kind communication. Natasha was really only comfortable touching with Molly, since Molly's touchiness was bossy, almost vulturine. Natasha had to let her—how she loved that flaccid but still personal sensation.

Molly's new best friend was her boyfriend, Matt, who played drums and had a little sterling silver earring. Matt was on the shorter side, with the kind of dreamboat face you want to take a hard look at. With fleecy chest hair stretching NW and NE out of his shirts, like somebody reached down to pull them out. When he lifted his drumming arms during their high school's Talent Night last year, Natasha could see the same tiny tresses growing in sprigs below his belly button. Matt and Molly would walk down the halls of school with Matt's body trailing behind hers and his fingers in her front pockets. Natasha wasn't jealous, but all throughout her senior year she had caught herself looking at them more and more. Sometimes she wanted to be Molly. Sometimes she wanted to be Matt. She wanted something, that was for damn sure.

Natasha and her sisters brought the bag of pot to the kitchen. Lucy feared for her drowsy lung, so instead of smoking they baked banana bread, mixing the greens in with the butter. The kitchen reeked.
It smells nature-y,
said Lucy.

Their parents worked late. Lucy thought of her father with a stirring of weepiness, picturing him in his store, hurting to sell a few more albums. When she and her sisters were kids, her father gave them lessons in rock and roll after school, teaching them about how to seal and care for vinyls.

Money had been more of a hot topic before their grandmother's inheritance took care of most of the hospital bills, but how long could that money pile last? To Lucy's knowledge, a desperate time calling for a desperate measure hadn't arrived yet, but how would she ever know? Family funds were a taboo topic, the way her parents never spoke to their daughters about
it. The other day, she witnessed her father eat an entire pan of blondies after the hospital bill arrived.
What was in that pan?

Money makes me hungry
was all her father had to say to her.

Is something wrong?

No, no way. It's nothing you ever have to be concerned with, Peanut. I worked hard my whole life just to be sure my children wouldn't spend a minute stressing about money. It's just not my favorite subject to think about is all.

That afternoon, LJ had given Natasha the weed. LJ, which stood for Leonardo John, had blond hair and brown eyes, a diver on the swim team at school. He lived down the street, harboring a consistent crush on Lucy since he was five.
For Lucy,
LJ said as he gave the bag without charge,
the best.
LJ's parents were both doctors, well-to-do but rarely home, unaware of LJ's after-school job as a drug peddler.

Sometimes Lucy, Natasha, and Carly went to his meets. Once they made a sign on poster board with Magic Markers.
WE LOVE LJ,
with one
L
,
ove
longitudal and
J
latitudal. When he came out of the water, stripping the goggles off his face, pressing his chlorinated eyes, he smiled so widely it looked like his mouth was going to fall off his face. He came in first place.

I'm hungry,
said Lucy, about forty-five minutes after they ate the banana bread.

Let's eat.

Something French. Toast, or fries.
Lucy twisted her body into a pretzel, her cheeks papaya and glistening, illusively nourished. Natasha thought of Lucy's blood working inside of her, her good lung and how it pushed the drowsy one. They were all working for her. And then Natasha thought of the word
casualty
. Natasha felt in control with the meaning, being that she read the newspaper every day. The word pertained to a world different from hers. Places where boys and girls hoisted ammunition over their shoulders.
Casualty
signified death and hurt in quantities. Often the word
casualty
was used involving statistics.

Let's call LJ,
said Carly.

Fuck that,
said Lucy, starting to feel the humid sense of delay in her responses. Carly had already dialed LJ's number on her cell phone.

Hey. It's Carly. Oh, you know. Yeah, we tried it. Hid it in banana bread.
She laughed.
Lucy was wondering if you'd like to hang out . . . Statistics test? Come on, tool. What's more important?
She hung up.
Come over, he says.

Lucy Febreezed the house and left a note for their parents.
We're at LJ's. Love Lucy.
As an afterthought, she scribbled
and her sisters.

Ladies,
said LJ to the three of them as he answered the door of his family's palatial, corner house. Predictably, LJ was the only one home. He was shirtless, a towel around his slippery waist. Poreless skin. A pubescent Adonis.

Pete jumped on Natasha and licked her cheek. Pete, a tow-bodied golden retriever, belonged to LJ.

The pool's open 'til whenever a.m.

They played Marco Polo, which gave LJ an excuse to make Lucy his, wrapping his arms around her until she said
cut it out!
They relay-raced. After an hour, LJ gave them bathrobes. -
The host with the most,
- he thought as he opened a bottle of Pinot Noir and put on EDM music, sparkly and weird ribbons of sound.