Cellular (4 page)

I do like the music. The band is cruising along, and Billie is pouring her heart out in every bent note. That doesn't make me feel less like a jerk. Still, I feel the groove. Okay, one more song, I tell myself. Then I'm out of here.

The song changes. This one's slower, moodier.

“Mama may have…Papa may have…
But God bless the child who's got his
own…who's got his own…”

I close my eyes. Hear the pain in Billie's voice, but something more, underneath. Joy. Strength. As if to say, Life's a bitch, so what else can you do but sing?

My breathing slows. I feel my weight sink into the floor, my cheek pressing against the bedspread. It's soft and cottony and smells faintly of peppermint. I open my eyes. Lark's staring at me. Her eyes are blue-gray beams. There are tiny flecks of brown in them. A faint smile is on her lips.

This is too weird. What the hell is going on? I think. Who is Lark? What's her story? I feel like there's some kind of con going on, some trick she's pulling. I don't trust this.

But I can't resist. Billie croons,
“Willow, weep for me…”
Her voice takes me by the hand and leads me someplace quiet. My heartbeat slows, keeping time with the drum. And I realize that I haven't thought about throwing up for several minutes. It's not like I'm cured—my stomach is still unsettled— but I'm distracted. Relaxed.

“Bend your branches down upon the
ground and cover me…”

Lark's hand edges over toward mine. Our fingers touch.

I close my eyes.

Chapter Eight

Minutes, hours, days of chemo. I'm tied to my i v line like a prisoner to his chains. One after another, the bags empty. I sleep, try to read, look out the window, sleep. Try not to think about basketball, Kesh, my team.

Amazingly, the anti-nausea meds work. I still feel queasy, and I have no appetite, but I'm not barfing like I did at the beginning.

Finally my chemo is done. When they take the iv line out, I feel like a dog who's been let off the leash for the first time in days. I'm so happy I could dance— except I have no energy. Zilch. I feel like I've been flattened by a linebacker. I lie there, trying to muster the energy to get up and go to the bathroom. It's only because I'm so sick of the bedpan that I force myself to do it.

Now I have to wait several weeks for my healthy bone marrow to grow— and to see if the leukemia comes back.

I have blood tests almost every day. Of course my blood counts are really low because the chemo wiped out all my healthy cells. I have no defenses. An infection could kill me. Every time the blood test results come back, I hold my breath.

So far so good.

I don't see Lark for a couple of days. And when I think back to that day, I almost wonder if I imagined the whole thing. Lying on the floor, getting blissed out to jazz? Too weird. I wonder, half-seriously, if Lark hypnotized me. Then I tell myself not to be stupid. She showed me a way to fight nausea. End of story.

I'm coming back to my room when I notice her door's open. I haven't been inside, but I know it's her room.

I peek in. See a purple cloud over the bed. What the—?

“Brendan!”

I turn to go. “I was just—”

“Come on in.”

I hesitate, then push open the door. Wow. The purple is a kind of canopy she has made by draping gauzy scarves from poles, transforming the bed into a violet cocoon, and she's sitting in the middle of it, on the turquoise bedspread. On the night table is a blown-glass vase full of sunflowers. A peacock feather dangles from the tv knob. On the walls are pictures: a ballerina in a tutu; a pair of penguins with their chick, a ball of gray down, cradled between their feet; children's faces smeared with chocolate ice cream; a mountain stream tumbling over boulders. Some funky woven thing, in shades of red and gold, is draped over the clothes cupboard. It's like she has created her own private art gallery in here. In her hospital room.

Unaccountably, I'm angry. I make a disgusted noise.

“What?” she asks.

“What's the point?” I shout.

“W-what?”

I sweep my arm to the side. “This. All this—stuff. Why bother?”

Lark looks at me like I'm crazy.

“Because it's beautiful.”

“But it's a hospital room!”

“Yeah, that's the point.” She sits up, crossing her legs. “If I have to spend time in here, why not fill it with beauty?”

“Because—because it's a waste of time.”

She gives me a pitying look. “Of course it's not. Every night I drift off to purple dreams. Everywhere I look, I see things I love. What could be better?”

I shake my head. “I can't talk to you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you make me feel like crap.”

“I do? Why?” She sounds distressed.

“Because you're—a saint! Everything is so perfect with you. It's inhuman!”

I turn to go.

Behind me, I hear a peal of laughter.

I turn. She's sitting on the bed, holding herself, laughing.

Now she's making fun of me? Screw this. I turn again.

“No!” she says between giggles. “Wait, Brendan. Please. It's just— a saint!” She bursts out again.

I cross the room toward her. “Well, you are. You're in this crazy, blissed-out state. Aren't you afraid, for Christ's sake?”

“Of course I am,” she says quietly.

“Then how—?”

She pats the bed next to her. After a moment I sit down. We're both inside the purple tent. On Lark's lap is a well-worn yellow sheep with a wooly head of curls.

“Of course I want to live,” she says, looking me in the face. “More than anything. I want to have babies and travel the world and fall in love and dance and read a million books and get drunk and get old. And I know my chances are slim. And that makes me sad.”

“See? That's exactly what I mean!” I say, exasperated. “ ‘That makes me sad.' You're so calm.” I jab my finger at her. “How old are you anyway?”

“Sixteen. Why?”

I roll my eyes. “Sixteen? You seem like a wise old lady. How can you be like that? I go around practically crapping my pants, I'm so scared.”

Lark gives me a sympathetic smile.

“Don't you think I've been there too?”

“No!”

She shakes her head. “Believe me, I have. When I got diagnosed, I was a wreck. Cried for days. Weeks. I threw tantrums. I was so mad. Why me? It's not fair. I told God to go screw himself.”

I can't help but smile. “You?”

“Me. I was miserable. Made everyone around me miserable.”

Sounds familiar, I think.

She goes on. “But you know what?

After a while I got tired of it. It was like being all black inside. Who wants to be filled with blackness? So I put it down.”

“But how? You can't just—”

She shrugs. “I don't know. Maybe I just blew it out of my system.”

“But—”

“Listen, Brendan.” She takes my hands in hers. “I don't want to die. I want the transplant to work. But I decided that, however much time I have left, I don't want to spend it being angry and miserable. It's a waste of energy—and I don't have enough energy to waste.”

I listen to her words. Let them sink in. Maybe they make sense for her. But they sure as hell don't for me. I shake my head. “I couldn't—”

“Sure you could.”

I think about it. Try to imagine walking away from my fear and anger, just leaving them by the side of the road like an unwanted parcel.

No. Impossible.

“Not me.”

“You'll see,” Lark says.

I push myself to my feet. No. I don't think so. But as I walk to my room, I feel strangely comforted. At least Lark's human. Not some perfect angel.

That makes me feel better.

Chapter Nine

One day I feel a little chill. I shiver. Then I feel hot. I start running a fever.

I've got an infection.

It's like a fire alarm went off. I'm surrounded by nurses taking my temperature, sponging me down, taking blood. I'm put to bed with iv antibiotics. They're hovering over me so much, it freaks me out.

Then it hits me. I could beat the leukemia, wipe out all the bad cells, only to be killed by a freaking infection?

That really pisses me off.

I'm lucky. The antibiotics work. After a day or two, my fever comes down. The infection is beaten.

This time.

When I'm able to walk around again, I go looking for Lark. She's not in her room. I ask Harjit, and she tells me that Lark's started preparation for her bone-marrow transplant. She has to get high-dose chemotherapy and total body irradiation for a week and a half. That's to completely wipe out her immune system so her body won't reject the donor's bone marrow.

I try not to think of her with no immune system.

Next time I check, she's there. She's in black yoga pants and a lime green polo shirt. Her back's to me, and her shoulder blades stick out. There's nothing to her, and for the first time I wonder if she's strong enough to get through the operation.

She's standing in the middle of the room, both arms overhead, the i v line trailing from under her shirt. She reaches up, first with one hand, then the other, her ribs lifting from side to side.

I don't want to interrupt, so I turn to go.

“Brendan!”

“Sorry, I didn't know you were—”

“No worries. Come on in.”

I go over. There's a little color in her cheeks, and her eyes are bright. “You look good,” I say.

“Feel good,” she says with a grin. “Haven't thrown up in two whole days.” She stretches again, and she's so light I think she might rise up off the floor.

“Want to meet someone amazing?” she says.

“Uh…sure.”

She walks over to the picture of the ballerina and points. “My hero.”

I go over and look. The dancer is bent over at the waist, her tutu jutting up behind her. Both arms are curving over her head as if she's pulling up a hood. There's an intense look on her face.

Pain? Sadness? I can't tell.

“Who's she?”

“Galina Romanovska.”

“Who's that?”

“A Russian ballerina. I saw her dance ‘The Dying Swan.' It's a famous piece, very short, only a few minutes long. The swan has been shot, by an arrow. It's dying.” Lark looks back at the picture, her eyes far away. “She didn't just portray the swan, she
became
the swan.” One of Lark's arms floats up, and then she makes it tremble, at first quietly, in small fluttery motions, then violently, jerking, and in that instant I know that she's a dancer. In fact, it's so obvious— her lightness, her gracefulness—that I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner.

“She was magnificent,” Lark goes on. “The audience clapped so much that she came out and did the whole piece all over again.” There are tears in Lark's eyes. “It was the most amazing thing I ever saw.”

“Wow.”

“Who's
your
hero?”

“I don't know. I guess I don't have one.”

“Come on.”

I think. Cast my mind through people I know—my dad, teachers, Coach. Then it comes to me. “Steve Nash.”

“Steve Nash,” Lark repeats. “I've heard that name…”

“You've heard that name!” I say indignantly. “He's only the greatest point guard in the game.”

“Sorry. Tell me.”

I've seen Steve Nash play maybe a hundred games on tv and even seen him live a few times. I've read about him. I've tried to copy his moves. But I've never tried to put into words what makes him great. It takes a minute. “He's just an incredible playmaker. He can, like, see the game. See the court, see where the action is going to go. Or needs to go. And then he sets it up. As if he has eyes on the sides of his head, like a bird.”

“Cool.”

“And he's a great shooter too. Just a sweet natural shot. But he's generous. Not a ball hog.”

Lark regards me. “That says something about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Admiring that about him.”

“Oh, well.” I feel myself blushing. I picture Nash in action. “He'll be coming down court,” I tell Lark, “dribbling short and hard, keeping control.” I mimic the dribbling movements. “His eyes are flicking from left to right, spotting his teammates. He makes a quick feint to the side to brush off the opposing player”—I swivel sharply to the left, then the right—“then makes a perfect pass, right into the hands of the guy under the net, who goes up and—”

My arm goes up. My wrist flicks.

Then I clench my fist and lower it, hard.

“What?” Lark says.

“The regionals,” I say tightly. I tell her about how I'm supposed to be there right now, leading my team. “I'm so pissed off. I worked so hard all season. And those guys…they get to play…and win…It's not fair!”

I hear my voice crack. My eyes sting with tears.

“Oh, Brendan,” Lark says tenderly.

That does it. All at once I'm bawling, and this stuff comes pouring out, only it's not about being mad. It's completely different. “I'm so scared…I don't want to die…”

Lark puts her arms around my waist. I'm sobbing on her shoulder, holding her, hugging her. “Oh god…oh god…”

She just holds me. I shake with sobs. In all this time I've never cried in front of anyone, not even my parents, and here I am bawling on this tiny girl. I'm choking and sniffling and my tears are mixed with snot and I can't stop.

Finally I do though. I wipe my face with my sleeve. I can't look at her.

I want to crawl in a hole.

“Sorry,” I say to the floor.

“Oh, Brendan,” she says. She takes my hands and I have to look at her. “It's okay to cry. To be afraid.”