Away We Go (17 page)

THE LAST DAYS BEFORE THE CATACLYSMIC, FIERY, KIND OF CLICHÉD END OF ALL THINGS (OR NOT)

MOTOR CONTROL IS THE FIRST TO GO

The last days before Apep are the kind of hot that makes your clothes stick to your body while sweat runs rivulets across your skin. One afternoon, I return from an orientation leader meeting to find Alice sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, her leg bent at an unnatural angle.

“Thanks for carrying me.” She keeps saying that. “Thanks for carrying me.” I deposit her as lightly as I can on the sofa, give her a quick kiss. She brushes a hand through my hair. “You're all wet,” she says, and I think of Zach, his quest for pneumonia.

I call the Wellness Center from our kitchen phone. They redirect me to EMS. The EMS operator lady speaks in soft tones, assuring me someone will be right over.

“Did you call EMS?” Alice asks from the living room.

“No. I called the petting zoo. They're sending a goat.” The joke is automatic, out of my mouth before I can stop to think.

I stay in the kitchen with the phone to my ear, listening to the dial tone, until I hear a knock on the door. They carry Alice out, into the EMS van.

I rest my hand against the back of the idling truck, the metal hot to the touch. I'm about to climb in when an emergency worker shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he says, and gives me a sympathetic smile before shutting the door in my face.

I walk.

Down toward the residential quad, where I circle the dorms:
Dorlan, Violet, Turner, Clover; Dorlan, Violet, Turner, Clover; Dorlan, Violet, Turner, Clover . . . The Wellness Center's glass facade rises up from beyond the residential quad, brilliant in the afternoon sun.

I approach Wellness. Twenty feet away from its sliding glass doors I turn around and go for a run. Because I'm a shit friend, boyfriend, human.

I circle the campus until my body burns and my breathing comes in gasps. Caloric expenditure has exceeded caloric intake, leading to a caloric deficit, and my body is protesting, responding with austerity measures like the cramp in my side.

Then it all changes. My aching body and labored breathing sink into the periphery. I push myself harder and am aware of the ground beneath my feet, the flowers wilting in the heat on the sides of the trail, the beads of sweat lining my nose, the squirrel a dozen yards away, a bird chirping in the trees. For a moment, I forget about Alice in the EMS van and my unanswered letter to Zach.

Motor control is usually the first to go—the first sign of tertiary stage.

I must keep running.

Alice's doctor is white robed and solemn. In the hallway outside her door, he gives me his best attempt at a comforting expression, which comes out as a grimace. His lips move; I'm listening and I'm not listening: They can't say anything for sure yet, but her blood work is fine. It is, however, very important that I keep an eye on her. The weekly checkups will continue, and in the meantime, if she has difficulty moving her limbs, difficulty talking or breathing, impaired eyesight or hearing, any of the tertiary stage symptoms, they need to know.

“Death is a tertiary stage symptom,” I say.

The doctor coughs, a smile frozen on his face. When he turns to leave, I enter Alice's room, shutting the door behind me. She takes my hand in hers. I raise her hand to my lips, suck on her pinky.

“That tickles,” she says, laughing. She tries to pull away, but I hold on. Can I finally be decent to her now?

“You have to be more careful,” I say.

“What's a broken ankle or two?” She pats the bed next to her, so I sit. She leans her head against my shoulder. “I'm okay, Noah Falls.
Really.
You're the one I worry about.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

I lie down beside her.

“Tell me something,” I say, still holding her pinky to my lips.

So she does.

“There were these summer days, hotter than today, and we would play under the sprinklers to stay cool. There was this boy, Richard, who had a golden retriever. Did I ever tell you about him?”

“The golden retriever?”

“Richard,” she says, pretending to be cross. “He had a pool.”

“The golden retriever?”

She nudges me gently in the ribs.

“Abuse,” I say softly.

“He would invite everyone from the neighborhood, but sometimes sprinklers were just as fun. I liked chasing the boys, their bare backs, skipping stones by the pond, marshmallows and scary stories at campfires. I went to all my brother's Boy Scout things.”

“You were a
Boy Scout
?” I asked, laughing.

“Yes,” she says with a shrug. “An honorary one. Do you know any scary stories, Noah?”

I thought about it. “One time my girlfriend made me go to chapel services with her—”

Alice elbows me again.

“So much domestic abuse!”

“You're a troll.”

“You've
got
to stop calling me that, Alice Witaker.”

“Only when you stop trolling, Noah Falls.”

“Okay, I've got a story.” I hesitate, gathering my thoughts.

“Well? Don't keep me waiting.”

“Sorry, your highness,” I say. “Once upon a time. . .” The way we're lying together now, how fragile she is, it reminds me of lying on Sunset Hill with Marty, watching comets streak through the sky and believing in constellations of our own making. “Once upon a time there was a boy—or a girl, if you like; it doesn't really matter—so good and decent that everyone knew he wouldn't make it. Sure, we've evolved to have some kindness, some empathy, but too much empathy, too much kindness, that's a liability. Everyone knows that.”

“This is a very
Noah
story, isn't it?”

I clear my throat. “So one day while helping a grandma cross the road he got run over by a tractor-trailer.”

I pause for dramatic effect, perhaps for a little too long, and Alice withdraws her pinky. “Is that
it
?”

“No!” I exclaim. “So he dies and finds himself face-to-face with God. And God's like, ‘Bro. You're an idiot. You got run over by a tractor-trailer while still in the flower of your youth. Who does that, bro?'”

“If you'd gone to chapel with me, you'd know He doesn't sound like that.”

I don't let her throw me off. “‘However,' God says, ‘in spite of your silliness, you're a nice bloke. In fact'—here God takes out a list, down which he runs his omnipotent index finger—‘in fact, if you must know, you're the fifteenth nicest bloke in the history of
the world. And seven of those guys haven't even been born yet. So, as a reward I'ma grant you any wish you want. Seventy-five virgins?
Done
. A nineteen seventy-six Camaro?
Done
—and if I do say so myself, that would be a fantastic choice. Hell, I can even give you a voice like Melissa Etheridge if you want. You'll be a sensation up here. Lots of Melissa Etheridge fans. We call her Melizzie.'

“And the kid says, ‘What about immortality?'

“And God says, ‘I recommend going with the Melizzie voice.'

“The kid insists: ‘Immortality.' Because he likes people, likes being around them, how they smile with their eyes and whatnot, and he wants to be around them forever, or at least till death by meteor.'”

“This
is
a very Noah story,” she says, so I turn my attention toward the end of the bed, our feet inches apart.

“God is true to his word. The kid lives forever. But while he stays young, he grows old inside. Old and tired. He starts to notice little things he never noticed before. Like how, in the year twenty-one fifty, on average, only two out of five people will thank you for holding the door open for them. Little things like that. So one day he stops holding doors open. He stops holding his friends up because you can't hold them forever, stops writing love letters, because they won't be answered anyway. Soon enough, these little things, they add up until the moment comes when he realizes he is no longer happy. So he lives on, unhappy and immortal and no longer the fifteenth most decent bloke in the history of the world, forever.”

“Noah.” She blows a strand of her out of her eyes. “Your bedside manner is to die for.”

“Oh shit,” I say, and raise my hand in a high five.

She flicks me in the ear and I laugh. “You know I don't like coarse language.”

“Did Richard never use coarse language?”

“A little. He was kind of a bad boy.”

My eyebrows arc up in surprise. “Was he now?”

She nods. “Mhm. One time he tried to steal a TV from a classroom. All the girls were crazy about him.”

“Naturally.” A couple seconds pass. “Alice?”

“Another story?” she asks, feigning wariness.

“Not exactly.” I swallow, stare up at the ceiling. “I know this—it doesn't justify it or—but I want you to know. I want to
say
it. It has nothing to do with you. The whole thing with Zach. You're the best.”

She bites her lip, nods, and in the silence that falls over us, enclosed by the sterile white walls of the room, we pretend that being the best has ever been enough for anyone.

We move Alice downstairs, into the living room. She's terribly awkward on her crutches, but categorically refuses to use her wheelchair, prefers jumping on one foot as a means of locomotion when she absolutely has to get from one place to another, hair flying in all directions, cold determination set into her soft face. Marty is always with her, fetching her juice and snacks, changing the sheets, sitting by her side. Once I saw them holding hands and my breath caught a bit.

A week after her fall, I attempt to check her temperature before running off to bring some dinner back to the apartment before the cafeteria closes. Marty's meeting me there.

“I'm fine, Noah. Really. Twice a day—it's a teeny bit overkill, isn't it?”

“Just be thankful it's an oral thermometer.”

Somehow this is what our relationship has come to.
Hey, honey. You're not dead yet, are you? Okay, good.

“Will you cook something for me sometime?” she asks from
the sofa. She looks up from this year's orientation packet, which she's been reading in preparation for welcoming the newsies when they arrive next week. “Not now, I mean—sometime. You seem to like it. Cooking.”

“Still trying to improve me, I see.”

“You know what they say about old habits.”

“They're annoying as hell?”

She smiles.

“I'm only good at scrambled eggs,” I warn. “Anything else is hit or miss. Mostly miss.”

“That's okay.”

“Tomorrow, then,” I say. “Prepare to have your mind blown.”

When I get to the cafeteria Marty's already there, wandering from station to station with this blank look on his face. “Oh,” he says, upon seeing me. “I'm not sure what I want. Alice said she was craving
pizza,
but I don't really want anything. Maybe a sandwich.”

I make a gagging noise to convey my enthusiasm for his choice of nourishment, bump him in the shoulder as I pass. “Well, I'm getting a hot dog.” But it bothers me a little, that he knows what Alice wants and I don't.

I'm being unfair, I know.

I hate myself for it.

“It's ironic,” he says. “You have this, this vendetta against sandwiches, and a hot dog is just a—”

“Martin dear. Don't you dare say what I think you're going to say.”

“It's just a sandwich, isn't it?”

I shake my head. “If I had something to throw at you . . .”

“It's good you're eating, though,” he says, with a concerned, motherly look.

“I eat,” I protest. “Here and there.”

We end up
both
getting hot dogs and I grab a couple slices of pizza for Alice. On our walk back, to prove I'm not upset with Marty, I explain to him the difference, the essential difference, between a hot dog and a sandwich, why one is an acceptable means of sustenance and the other is an abomination packed between sliced bread: “A hot dog is cooked.”

“But roast beef is cooked. And bologna. The meat's always cooked. It's not
raw
.”

“The meat is warm,” I amend.

“So, if you put a sandwich in the microwave—”

“It turns into a hot dog, yes, very good, Martin dear.”

We pass behind Galloway, the lake water dark and brooding, the outline of the Lakeside Apartments visible in the falling dusk.

“You know I read on AwayWeKnow a couple weeks ago,” he says, “a guy who was on death row, they asked him what he wanted for his last meal and he said a cheeseburger. A McDonald's cheeseburger. Do you remember McDonald's?”

“I remember the toys. They always had those toys. From movies.”

“My parents would get me Chicken McNuggets. I miss them.”

“The McNuggets?”

He laughs.

At the door to our apartment he asks, “Hey, have you thought at all about joining F.L.Y.? We could use more people. . . .”

“We?” I echo.

He shrugs. “A recent development.”

I gesture with my to-go boxes. “Hold this for me?”

“Yeah.”

I search for an objection. There are so many, it takes some
time to settle on one. “I don't want to get kicked out of here, Marty. One close call was enough, wasn't it?” I grope in my pockets for my keys. “You haven't told them about the key—” I start, and picture it lying on my nightstand.

“Of course not,” he says, reproachful.

I nod, let it go. “Martin dear, it was just a game, wasn't it?”

It comes out patronizing, so I cut myself short, don't tell him he'd go blind before he ever found so much as a McNugget. We drop the subject and eat dinner together on the living room sofa, the three of us. I let Marty and Alice talk. She's telling him about our orientation leader training. When we're done eating, Marty and I wash out the cups and utensils in the kitchen. The hot water is soothing. But Marty's not finished with our earlier conversation.