Authors: Julie Halpern
When I arrived at her house, Becca’s mom answered the door. She hugged me like we hadn’t seen each other in months. The same hug she gave me after my dad died. I was lucky she didn’t gouge out my eye with the bedazzled Star of David she sported. The only reason I ever regretted being a Jew was the fact that I couldn’t wear big crosses around my neck like Buffy. Mrs. Mason’s jazzy Jewish star didn’t have quite the same vampire-repelling tendencies. It sure was big though.
I quickly retreated to Becca’s room. Becca was camped out in her bed; vases of voluminous flowers and crinkly balloons were everywhere. Wadded up balls of wrapping paper littered the floor, and boxes of shrink-wrapped DVDs were scattered over her bed.
“Holy shit. It’s cancer Christmas,” I declared.
“Even my dad sent something. Six missed birthdays, but the possibility of his kid dying and he gets sentimental. Not that this thing is very sentimental.” Becca held out a blocky stuffed animal hamster. “Watch this,” she said, and squeezed its hand. “You’re a toolbox douchecake,” she spoke at the beast. It repeated back her words five times the speed, high pitched and eerie. The worst part was the way its tiny mouth moved, as though it was really calling me a douchecake.
“This is the first time I have ever liked your dad,” I told her.
“You can have it.” She tossed it to me, but the throw was short.
“I have a younger brother to terrify with this, thank you.”
“Anytime. What do you think your dad would have gotten me?” Becca asked. The question froze me, repeated back in the chitter of the Chatimal.
“I don’t know. I mean, I never thought about it. Do you?”
Becca looked exhausted, and her initial excitement at my visit faded from her voice. “I think about how he would probably say funny things. Maybe he’d come visit me in the hospital. Buy me a viper stuffed toy instead of a talking rodent.”
It wouldn’t have felt as bad if the dead dad we were talking about weren’t mine. I was jealous. That my dead dad would bring things to my sick friend in her imagination. The subject needed changing immediately before I said the wrong thing. “What right do you have to get gifts from my dead dad?” came to mind.
“Somebody bought you Kim Kardashian’s perfume?” I noticed a bottle on her desk.
“That’s the ass of my dreams,” she sighed.
“To look at or to have?” I asked.
“Maybe just to look at. Or, like, squeeze just once.”
“You think if you squeeze Kim Kardashian’s ass, her perfume comes out?” Laughs turned to coughs, and I regretted the hilarity.
“Come sit down and share in my spoils.” Becca patted the blanket when she finished her coughing jag. I sat down next to her and looked toward the TV.
“Where are you?” I asked, regarding which season of
Battlestar
she was on.
“‘Unfinished Business.’ I just love that Lee and Kara finally have sex.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “This is a good episode. I love watching Starbuck kick Hot Dog’s ass.”
“That is good.”
“If you were a pilot, what would your call sign be?” I asked. We’d had the conversation a million times, but it was one of our favorites.
Battlestar Galactica
pilots had really cool nicknames, like Athena, or truly dorky ones, like Narcho. “I’ve got one for you: Vixen.”
“Ooh. That’s a new one. But it’s too much like Blitzen. I don’t want to sound like a reindeer.”
“What do reindeer sound like?” I joked. Becca nudged me softly. The top of her hand was poked and bruised. I willed myself not to gag. Real-life gore was so much more gory than the fake stuff. “Okay. How about Kumquat?”
“That’s horrible!” she squealed.
“No worse than Hot Dog. What about me?”
“Yours would be Blackie.”
“What?” I demanded. “That sounds kind of racist.”
“I meant because you wear black. Like the color of your heart. Geez. I’ll think of another one. How about Sleazy? Like the Ke$ha song.”
“You and your Ke$ha.” I had an epiphany. “You should totally make that your Make-A-Wish. Meeting Ke$ha.”
“That’s really good. But what about Jamie Bamber?” she mused.
“True. There’s no way he could say no to you touching his ass if that was your Make-A-Wish wish,” I claimed.
“So I should tell them my wish is to touch Jamie Bamber’s ass?” she asked.
“I wonder if people ever make wishes like that. You know there’s some twelve-year-old girl with cancer asking to flip tongues with Justin Bieber.”
“You’re sick.”
“No, you’re sick. I’m just trying to make your wishes come true.”
A light tap sounded from Becca’s bedroom window.
“What was that?” she asked. The same sound, louder next time, pinged off the glass. “Go see.”
I slid off the bed and walked over to the window. Caleb stood in his bedroom with his window open, holding an envelope in his hand and waving. I slid open Becca’s window.
“Hi?” I questioned.
“You’re not Rebecca. Is she there?” Caleb’s voice was powerfully low, his muscles so large it looked like his church retreat t-shirt could barely contain them.
“I’m Alex.” I looked back at the bed to see Becca waving her hands no at me. “Becca is … indisposed at the moment. Can I be of service to you?”
“I have something for Rebecca. Becca? If you wouldn’t mind giving it to her.”
I fumbled with the screen until it rose up, and Caleb and I leaned out our windows toward each other. His arms were long and muscularly veiny. I bet if I fell from the window, he would have easily reached down with one arm to catch me. I grabbed the white envelope and landed back on Becca’s floor. “Make sure she gets it, okay?”
“Sure. I will.”
“Thank you.” He nodded and closed his screen, then his window. I did the same, then dove onto Becca’s bed.
“Holy shit. I bet it’s a marriage proposal. He wants you to run away with him to an Amish village or something.”
“He’s not Amish, or he wouldn’t be my next-door neighbor,” Becca reminded me. “Open it. Last time I opened a letter I got a paper cut, and it’s taking forever to heal.”
I gingerly ripped open the plain envelope. On the front was written, “Rebecca.”
“I like how he called you Rebecca. So formal. I’m telling you, he’s going to ask for your hand in marriage. Wait, there would need to be some courting first.”
“The last time his mom talked to my mom was probably fifteen years ago when she insisted on calling me that. They’re not the friendliest neighbors to have, and my mom is too uptight.”
“All this makes the proposal so much more romantic.”
“Oh my god stop. Give me the letter.”
Together we read it in silence.
Dear Rebecca,
I know you don’t know me, but I have seen you coming and going from your house lately in less than your usual shape. I wanted to check in and ask if you are okay and if you need anything. As you know, I’m right next door and almost always home. Just throw something at my window.
Sincerely,
Caleb
P.S. I want to thank you for your visit to my window a few weeks ago. I hope that wasn’t a lone incident.
“Ha!” I blurted. “He totally wants to see your boobs again! ‘Lone incident.’ I bet he had a lone incident after that, if you know what I’m saying.”
“So sweet. Could he be any sweeter? I have to write him back.” A tinge of pink returned to Becca’s cheeks.
We drafted a note to Caleb on some notebook paper. “Why don’t you use your Hello Kitty stationery?” I asked.
“Please. I want to exude an air of sophistication.”
“Becca, you stripped for him in front of his window.”
“In a sophisticated manner.”
Becca thought it best to keep the note short and sweet.
Dear Caleb,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful note. I am home now with cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma to be exact. Maybe one day when I’m feeling better we can get a cup of coffee. I would be interested in hearing what homeschooling is like. I’m still hoping to finish up my senior year, so I can go to college. Will you go to college? I better go and rest now.
Fondly,
Becca
P.S. I would be glad to also give you a repeat performance when I’m better.
“I love how it goes from ‘fondly’ to ‘I’ll show you my tits again someday.’ Promise!”
“Shut up and deliver the note, please.”
“Do you have any wax you want me to seal it with? A spritz of Kardashian butt spray? A handkerchief?”
“Speedy delivery, Alex!”
I opened up the window and screen.
“What can I throw to get his attention?” I asked.
“How about a jelly bean? Someone sent me a fifty-flavor box.” I picked out a black Jelly Belly, the dreaded licorice flavor, and threw it at Caleb’s window. Within seconds, he appeared again. His shirt and face were moist with sweat, like he had been exercising. From the look of his body, I’m guessing he did that a lot.
I held up the folded paper, and he threw open his window and screen. We made the pass, he thanked me, and we closed up shop again.
I sat back on the bed. “Can I have some jelly beans?” I asked.
“Go for it. I puked a rainbow yesterday.”
“They should put that in an ad.”
We watched two episodes of
Battlestar Galactica
when Becca’s mom called through the door, “Alex, you should get going. Becca needs her rest.”
“PT scan tomorrow,” Becca told me as I shoved my shoes back on.
“Is that going to suck?” I asked.
“I hope not.” She shuddered.
“Me, too.”
“Since it probably will suck, you have to promise to do something from the Fuck-It List tomorrow and email me about it.”
“I’ll try.” I hiked on my backpack.
“You are not allowed to try; you are only allowed to do.”
“This cancer is making you sound like a Jedi.”
“If I were a Jedi, I wouldn’t have cancer,” Becca pouted.
“President Roslin had cancer.” I pointed at
Battlestar Galactica
on the TV. “And she’s pretty kick-ass.”
“Great. All I need is some chamalla extract and Cylon blood, and I’ll be cured.” Becca oozed sarcasm. That was my job.
“Shit, Becca, what do you want me to say? I don’t know what to do.”
I stood with my backpack weighing me down as Becca and I said nothing. Finally, she broke the silence. “Sorry. I guess cancer has turned me into a bitch.”
“At least you have an excuse.” I smiled. “Let me know what happens tomorrow. Try to focus on your upcoming nuptials.”
“I will.” She broke a smile.
We said good-bye, and I left Becca’s house, the guilt of the healthy friend weighing more heavily on my shoulders than the backpack.
SCHOOL FELT LIKE
an impediment to actual life. Tests, homework, fucking gym class. Did any of it really matter? I spent much of the day staring at Becca’s list. What if I died tomorrow? Would my life have been fulfilling? Would I have regrets? Would any of my thoughts or feelings matter once I died? Therefore, did anything that I did now matter?
I ran into Leo at my lunch hour, and he asked if I was still coming over that night. I told him yes, and as we parted ways I wondered why I didn’t feel more excited. I liked Leo a lot, but something about turning a fantasy into a real person took away the excitement, the sexy mystery. At the same time, Leo managed to surpass many of my fantasies with an even more satisfying reality. Is that all that mattered anymore? Satisfaction? Immediacy? One moment of pleasure to eclipse the mundane, the horrific, the tragic? I didn’t know what I wanted. Nothing felt important, not my current life, my future, my death.
Becca texted me near the end of the day.
Done w shit for a week. Maybe back at school next week. We can make out in the book closet.
Instantly my mood changed. I never knew what to expect from Becca’s cancer treatment. It seemed like a lot of up and down, sick and normal, Regular Becca and Cancer Becca. If she were to be at school next week, it would mean jokes in the hall and instant updates on ridiculously unimportant things. Things that weren’t worth typing into an email or holding for our Skype conversations. Toilet paper on shoes and whose hand grazed someone’s ass in gym or who farted in AP Spanish. Laughter at lunch and looks in the hall that spoke louder than words. That’s what I was missing from my life. Even alive, cancer took away my best friend.
*
AJ, Mom, and CJ were playing Jenga in the kitchen when I got home from school. “Whoa,” I pronounced. “Am I in the right house?” I looked around suspiciously.
“We wanted to show Mom how expert we are,” AJ explained.
“They’ve been playing at lunch in the school library,” Mom bragged, the pride of her boys spending lunchtime in a library too great not to share.
“I remember that from middle school. Is Ms. Nelson still the librarian?” I asked, sitting at the table, careful not to knock it.
“Yeah. She’s hilarious when we play Scattergories.”
“Yes! We used to play that, too. And a lot of Guess Who for some reason.” I missed that. The games. The innocence. Me and Becca in middle school.
CJ wiggled his finger into a precarious slot near the bottom of the Jenga tower and artfully slid out a block.
“Very nice move,” I commended him.
“Thanks. You want to try?”
“Sure.” I stood for better leverage and selected an easy target at the top of the tower. As I shimmied the block out of its hole, my hand twitched and the top half of the tower crumbled to the table.
“Jenga!” Mom yelled, with her hands thrown into the air. We all looked at her. “What? Aren’t I supposed to yell that when it falls?”
AJ, CJ, and I looked at one another with eye-rolling glances and busted out laughing.
“I’m so glad I amuse you.” My mom smirked. “So, pizza okay for dinner?” She stood and opened the menu drawer. AJ and CJ were all over it, but I had to decline.
“I have plans,” was all I offered.
“Yes?” Mom goaded.
“I’m going to a friend’s house to watch the Basket Case movies. He’s never seen them.”
“He?” Mom caught the slip instantly.