From downstairs we heard Becca’s mom yell, “Ten minutes!”
“Damn, woman. She’s probably got her stopwatch ticking. Okay, we need to focus. I don’t know how much of the list I can do by myself in a short amount of time, so I had the idea that maybe you could help me out with some things on it and I could live vicariously through you.”
I grabbed the list and skimmed through the scribbles written over every possible inch of the worn paper. “No way in hell am I sending my bra to Zac Efron.” I gagged.
“Shut up. I was like twelve when I wrote that.”
“Did you even have boobs?”
“I had a training bra. I think SpongeBob was on it. Anyway, you don’t have to do everything, but, like, here, number thirteen.” She pointed to a line written in pink pen. “Sleep on a beach to watch the sunset and sunrise. You could definitely manage that.”
“So could you! Come on!” I prodded. It was hard for me to imagine Becca being so sick, or maybe not even here to do something so simple.
“Alex, humor me. Things on this list need to start getting done, so I can feel like I accomplished something just in case I do die. And don’t give me that shit that I’ll be dead so I won’t know whether or not I accomplished anything because now you will know and you’ll have to live with it weighing on your lightly existing conscience.”
“Geez, fine. No need to bring my conscience into this. I’ll sleep on a beach. I’ll be a regular beach bum. I’ll bring you back a grain of sand and everything.”
“This is serious, Alex. You can’t just do it half-assed. Do everything like it’s your last night on Earth.”
“Are you going to quote Ke$ha again? Fine. Two grains of sand.” Becca smacked my shoulder. “Isn’t there anything on here we could take care of now? So you can do some of it?” I scanned the page. Numbers and sentences in various colored pens and markers were strewn every which way. “Here! I found one. Number eight: Crank call Adam Levitz.”
“That’s on the list? God, I was such a douchey nine-year-old.”
Adam Levitz was a crush gone wrong in fourth grade. He invited Becca to the Fun Fair at our elementary school, but when he didn’t pick her up at her house she and I went to the school in hopes of meeting him there. Turned out it was all a trick masterminded by Queen Bitch Mara Radnor. Apparently, Becca hadn’t gotten over it.
“It’s on the list. Let’s do it.” I reached for Becca’s phone and punched in *67, so her number would show up as private.
“Give me that.” Becca grabbed the phone out of my hands and dialed some numbers.
“Why do you still know his phone number?” I was incredulous.
“I tried calling him so many times that night he ditched me, it stayed in my head. Ssshhh—” Becca held up a finger to quiet me. In a hilariously sexy, breathy voice, Becca asked, “Is Adam there? No? Well, can you tell him Cassandra called, and I just wanted to let him know he gave me chlamydia. Thanks.”
We both started giggling when she hung up. “That was weird,” I told her.
“I know. Cassandra’s such a tramp.”
“Cross it off.” I pushed the list at her along with a pen from her nightstand. “Let’s do one more,” I suggested. “We have five minutes. Is there a quick one? Like where we make out or something?” I asked.
“What? That’s not on there, is it?” Becca scanned the list. “How about this one?” Number fifteen: Flash the homeschool boy next door.”
Becca lived next to a family with six girls and one boy, all homeschooled. We knew nothing about them except that the boy was our age, ridiculously hot, and his bedroom window lined up perfectly with Becca’s.
“You little whore. You have to do this one.” I nudged her.
“I don’t know. Is it too skanky?”
“It’s not like your list said to give the homeschool boy a handjob. Unless that’s further down. Ha. Get it? Further down?”
“Alex! Time to go!” Becca’s mom called once again from downstairs.
“Your mom is insane, by the way,” I told her.
Becca wasted no time answering me. Before I finished my sentence, she was on her feet and heading to her window.
“Oh my god. He’s there. At his little homeschool desk facing his little homeschool window. He looked up. He sees me.”
“No time like the present for a nip slip,” I advised.
“I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it,” Becca chanted. She threw her t-shirt to the floor. “I’m totally doing it. He’s looking! I’m going to take off my bra. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it.”
“This play-by-play is really sexy, Becca,” I teased.
Becca reached around her back and unhooked her bra. “Here I go. I’m taking off my bra. One. Two. Three.” Becca flung her bra across her room and threw her arms up in the air. “He’s smiling!”
“Yeah. I’d imagine so.”
“I’m going to blow him a kiss.” Becca did just that. Then her bedroom door opened, and her mom barged in. Becca spun around instantly, arms crossed over her chest. “Mom! Get out!” Becca screamed. “Alex is leaving! Give us a minute, damnit!”
I don’t know if Becca’s mom left because of what Becca said or because she didn’t want to know what Becca was actually doing. We busted out laughing the second the door closed. Becca threw her shirt back on and climbed into bed.
“That was so excellent. See how good it’s going to feel when you do these things for me?” She was really serious about me doing her list.
“I’m not showing my tits to your neighbor, Becca.”
“You don’t have to. I already did!” she squealed. “Calm thyself, Becca,” she breathed, something she often did before a show to center herself. “You don’t have to do all of them. I know it’s a lot. Just some of them so you can report back to me. Really live while I can’t.”
“When you put it that way, I’m pretty much obligated to say yes, aren’t I?”
“That’s the idea.”
“I better go, or your mom might try to smoke me out. Should we hug?” Hugging now felt too infinite.
“Yes, we should, and we will.” Becca worked herself out of the bed and wrapped her arms around me. That did it. My hard candy shell melted into a puddle of chocolate in her arms. “I always knew you were a softy.”
“Careful what you say. I’ve got a shiv in my pocket.” I sniffed.
“I love you, Alex. You and your shiv.”
“Love you, too, Becca. Even if I have to sleep on a beach to prove it.”
“I hope you get sand in your undies,” Becca whispered in my ear.
CHAPTER
8
WHEN I PARKED my dad’s car in our empty garage, I knew I’d be home alone. But I didn’t want to be. A note on the kitchen table read, “The boys have soccer. Be home by 8. Pizza in the freezer. Hope you had a good first day. Love you, Mom.” The thought crossed my mind to actually watch my brothers’ soccer game, but that momentary lapse of sport dementia quickly passed. I could’ve studied Becca’s list, started my game plan, created a schedule. But maybe I didn’t want to think about it, about anything. Instead, I opted for a pint of Cherry Garcia and a viewing of my comfort film Dead Alive. Most people know Peter Jackson as the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, and rightly so because they’re brilliant. I would argue even more brilliant is his early, and finest, film about a man in New Zealand whose mom gets bitten by a plague-infected monkey at the zoo. As a result, she turns into a festering, hungry horndog along with other not-so-upstanding members of town, and her son does his best to take care of them. Possibly one of the goriest films ever made, there is even a sweet love story, a hilarious running zombie baby, and a priest who yells, “I kick ass for the Lord!” Could there be anything better?
As much ice cream as I consumed from the too-tiny pint, and as mind-bogglingly sublime as Dead Alive was, I couldn’t kick Becca out of my head. What was she doing at that moment? Was there any way to stop her from remembe
ring that she had cancer? Was it completely unfair that I was using food and film to try to forget? How could I let myself forget when she had no choice?
I stirred the last of the ice cream into a nice soup, then tipped the cup back and chugged it. I had to get out of my quiet house. With the Fuck-It List folded in my back pocket, I got into my car.
I found something heavy on my MP3 player, someone screaming punishingly into my ears. I felt I deserved it, that here I was in my dad’s car, alive when he was dead, healthy when my best friend had cancer. Who was I to be alive? Who decided? I cranked the music even louder to drown my thoughts. Admittedly, my head hurt, but I enjoyed the annoyed looks from the people pulled up next to me at stoplights. What did they know? Their lives were probably so simple. I glared at the back of a bald man’s head in the car in front of me. You deserve to be bald, bastard. Becca does not.
My car led me to the parking lot of my old elementary school, Irving. The same school Becca and I attended together, where our friendship grew. Maybe if I sat there long enough, time would move backward and none of this cancer stuff would exist. Maybe even my dad would still be here. I closed my eyes and let the music consume me. My lips pursed tightly, willing my eyes not to cry.
BAM!
A loud pound on the glass shocked my eyes open, and I squinted at a figure hovering around my car window. The glare of the sun made him difficult to see, but I knew that military jacket from one too many hallway stares at Leo Dietz. He tried speaking to me, his straight lips moving but the sound drowned out by my music. I switched off the ignition, and he tried again.
“Rough day?” he asked, as he leaned slightly into my window.
“Why would you ask that? Do I look like shit or something?” I don’t know why I said that, except that I was worried I did look like shit. Then I felt guilty for worrying about how I looked when Becca was awaiting her fate. I wondered if I’d ever have a guiltless thought again.
“Nah. You don’t look like shit. I only listen to Lamb of God when I hate someone. Or myself.” That’s when I noticed a basketball tucked under his arm.
“You play basketball?” I asked with a hint of disgust in my voice. There was nothing less appealing to me than an ass-smacking member of a high school sports team.
“If you mean I know how to manipulate a basketball, then yes. But I’m not on a team or anything.” His jacket smelled of stale cigarettes.
“Well, that’s good. ’Cause I was about to ask you to leave if you said yes.”
He smiled at me, a smile I’d never been that close to. His teeth weren’t perfect. They weren’t snaggletooth or stained, but his canine teeth stuck out a little farther than his front two. I chuckled to myself at the notion of him being a vampire, something Becca and I would have had a field day with.
“You want to shoot with me?” For a quick second I thought he meant guns, but he held the basketball up with the invite.
“Really?” I didn’t know if my apprehension was because I hated sports or I didn’t want to look stupid in front of him.
“Yeah. It’s fun to play here because the baskets are so low. It makes me feel like a giant.”
“You are a giant,” I noted.
“Get out of the car already,” he commanded. I obeyed.
This close, our height difference was noticeable. I had to look up to talk to him. I was glad it wasn’t the other way around because that would make me on constant booger alert.
We walked together to the nearby basketball court, and he was right: It was kind of fun to feel superior to the baskets.
“This almost makes me want to join a basketball team,” I told him as we lay down on a grassy berm for a rest. “Like, one for six-year-olds.”
Leo laughed a small, inward laugh and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He held the pack out to me as an offer. I hesitated. “When in Rome.” I shrugged. “Or an elementary school parking lot.”
He put both cigarettes in his mouth, lighting them at the same time. He passed one over to me, and I held it between my fingers. I never imagined a cigarette would feel so light and insignificant. It seemed like such a constant crutch in so many lives, I thought it would have more substance to it. I gingerly held the cigarette up to my lips, as it had been to Leo’s, and took a tentative inhale. Then I coughed like the inexperienced asshole I was. “Damn. Why do you bother with this? My mouth tastes like I just sucked on a turd.”
He laughed his quiet laugh again and said, “It gets better once you get used to it.”
“That’s stupid. That’s like when someone tells you, ‘He seems like a prick at first, but he’s really nice once you get to know him.’ Why bother?”
“I guess because it also gets addictive once you get used to it.”
“What about”—I wished I didn’t say it—“cancer?”
“It’s just death, man. Cancer or not, I’ll die.” He lay back into the grass and puffed smoke into the sky.
I lay down next to him, my arm touching his jacket sleeve. I wondered if he could feel it. “I don’t want to talk about death right now,” I told him.
“What do you want to talk about?”
I kept the cigarette in my hand and tried flicking off the ashes as they burned in the wind. I didn’t smoke any more of it.
“Did you go to school here?” I asked Leo.
“No. We moved away before and after grade school. My older brother, Jason, went here, though.”
“He’s in Afghanistan, right?” I asked, the not-so-subtle stalker.
“How’d you know?” he asked. When I paused to answer, he continued, “I don’t want to talk about him right now.”
“So what do you want to talk about?”
“You like horror movies, right?” Smoke wafted out of Leo’s mouth as he spoke.
“Yeah. How’d you know?” Welcome to the mutual stalkers society. I tried not to sound giddy at the thought of Leo knowing something about me.
“I saw you last year at the midnight showing of Evil Dead 2.”
“You did?” I wanted to tell him that I saw him, too, but that felt too eager.
“Yep” was all he said.
“What’s your favorite?” I asked.
“Horror movie?” he checked.
“Yeah. Your absolute favorite. Which one?”
“Is it too obvious to say Evil Dead 2?” He seemed less confident when I talked to him than when he stood around looking menacing and mysterious. I didn’t know if I liked the vulnerability on him. Just like I hated it on me.
“Maybe a little predictable, but still a noble choice. Did you hear Bruce Campbell—”
“Is going to be at the Orpheum for Army of Darkness. I know. I’m stoked. Do you want to go?” I smirked at the possibility of a date until he added, “My friend Brian was supposed to go with me, but he’s going out of town now. So I’ve got an extra ticket.”
This wasn’t quite how my fantasies went, but I’d take it. Horror movies were always more fun with someone else. And I didn’t think Becca would make it. Would she be bummed that I was going out and she wasn’t? Or would she want every detail of what it was like being near Leo? I wondered if there was a horror movie out there where someone gets killed by their own guilt.
“When is it?” I asked as if I didn’t already know.
“Friday at seven. It’s okay if you’re busy. Just thought I’d ask.” Aren’t we casual?
“I planned on going, so sure. Yeah.”
“Good,” he replied.
We lay on our backs quietly for a couple of silent minutes, until Leo asked, “So what’s yours?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Your favorite.”
“Oh yeah. I like Dead Alive. I think it’s funnier than Evil Dead without trying as hard. Maybe it’s the New Zealand accents.”
“That’s a good one. The lawn mower scene is killer.”
“So good,” I agreed.
Several more minutes of silence rolled by with the clouds. I
didn’t mind. Leo’s presence, the outdoor air, even the cigarette smoke was calming. I found a whale in the clouds, a sailboat, an evil clown.
The grass rustled, and Leo rolled onto his side. I did the same and faced him. I marveled at being this close to him, finding freckles on his nose, watching the way the sunlight made his red eyelashes almost transparent. Then out of nowhere he kissed me. It was a hard kiss, a quick one. Then he pulled back and took a drag off his cigarette, turning his head to blow the smoke away from my face.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked, hiding the smile and desire that seeped from every pore in my body.
“You looked like you wanted me to,” he explained, then took another drag.
“What does that mean?” I asked, annoyed. “Was I pursing my lips? Were my tits glowing? What?” He actually laughed loudly at that one. “I’m glad my glowing tits amuse you,” I told him.
“They sound very amusing. Mind if I take a look?” he joked. I think.
“Only if you show me your balls of fire,” I deadpanned.
He fell onto his back again and looked up at the passing clouds. The sun was starting to set. Summer was definitely over. My dad was gone. My best friend had cancer. And there I was, sharing cigarettes with the boy of my sick and twisted dreams.
That kiss made me feel lit up like his cigarette. Did he want me to kiss him again? Or was that a pity kiss? Was I someone worth pity? How would he even know if I was or not?
I was tired of thinking, so I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at his mouth. Did it want to be kissed, too? There was only one way to find out, and I went for it. That time the kiss was longer, stronger, and wetter. I fell onto him, not worried at all about my insignificant weight on his substantial chest. He wrapped his hands around my back, then moved down until he squeezed my butt. It felt so good and comforting, I would have been willing to take all of my clothes off right then and there. In that moment, I understood every reason Becca did what she did last summer with Davis.
And then my phone rang. My mom’s ringtone. Quite possibly the least sexy ringtone I could have asked for, not that I would have asked for any.