Dessert First (11 page)

Beep nodded, like we'd made a deal. He had only eaten the dessert part of his hospital “dinner” and just pushed the rest around on his tray. “And can you work the nurses for more Jell-O? Tell them the Make-A-Wish lady says I can have as much as I want.”

“Sure.” I had money to buy him some in the cafeteria, but Beep's neutrophil count was so low now that they'd only let him eat stuff that came directly from the kitchen, wrapped in plastic, so no germ colony had dropped in on an air current.

“Tell 'em I want two,” Beep said. “In different colors. So when I barf, it's art.”

Gross. “Be sure to sign it then, and give it to Rachel. Tell her you want her to keep it always.”

He giggled. “You're a bad influence.”

“I try.” I went out to the nurses' station. My favorite nurse, Chestopher, was there. He's a tall, gentle African-American man with gorgeous long eyelashes and an earring. He's a Buddhist, so I asked him if some Jell-O for Beep could be in the present moment, and earned a smile.

When the Jell-O arrived twenty minutes later, Beep even ate some.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Like microwaved dog crap.” Beep pushed away the swinging tray with its quivering gelatin remains. “So—better than yesterday.”

I changed into sweatpants and a long tee shirt in the bathroom, then came back out and unfolded the visitors' chair.

“Can we talk, after lights out?” Beep asked.

“Sure.” Sometimes Beep liked chatting in the dark. I liked it too. It was like a girl sleepover then, from back in the days when I had multiple friends.

I put the sheets from home on top of the foldout bed, and set out my earplugs and sleep eye mask. Even in the middle of the night, nurses come in and out to monitor blood pressure and replace drip bags. The sleep mask sort of defeated the purpose of lying in wait for the angel of death, but I could count on Nurse Chestopher to play backup. I flipped off the light and lay down on my little foldout bed, breathing through my mouth to avoid the faint mouthwash-truck-hit-pine-forest hospital smell of disinfectant that didn't quite cover the ghost scent of stomach acid from an earlier barf.

“You know when my heart stopped and they shocked me with the paddles to restart?” Beep's voice came out of the darkness from under the red glow of the LED readouts of his heart rate and blood pressure.

“Yeah. That night somehow sticks in my mind.”

“I floated up out of my body. I could see everything. Mom pushed you guys out the door. Dr. Manning told everyone what drugs to get. Nurse Adrienne was pushing on my chest, and Chestopher was squeezing a plastic bag to put air in me.”

That was actually a good description of the code, when they were hand-ventilating him. Had someone told Beep about it?

“I drifted out into the hallway, and saw you coming back, but you went into Nathan's room instead. You told him I'd be all right, then came to my room, into the corner.”

I don't know how Beep could have known that. None of the nurses were paying attention to me then, so he didn't hear it from them.

“Then I floated through the wall out past the nurses' station, where they were bringing that cart in, and went out, along the ceiling, to where Mom and Dad were sitting across from Rachel. Mom spilled everything in her purse. Dad was patting her arm, but he was scared, and Rachel started grabbing everything that dumped out, including a quarter that rolled into the corner.” Beep was quiet for a while. “I went up this long tunnel, and it was like I could see my whole life, in fast forward. I went toward this ball of light. Like a star, out in space, a ball of light in the darkness. Except it was alive. I think it was God.”

I lay there in the dark, in rapt attention.

“It was love. Complete love. The ball of light. And it felt
so
good. Like being home, but perfect. Like it loved me, even the bad parts. All of me. It was . . .” He trailed off. “Great. But hard to explain to people who haven't seen it.”

Goosebumps. I shivered. If that was death, I guess I'd get there eventually. In the meantime, I'm not doing the original research, even for a make-up paper. Still, it felt holy, hearing about it.

“It asked, in my head, about whether I wanted to stay there, or go back. To my body.” Beep's voice was quiet. “I thought about how you looked, and Mom and Dad and Rachel. I wasn't ready to go. So I said I wanted to come back. Even though it would hurt. I was sad to leave, but then I whooshed away, and snapped back into my body. They were giving me that shock, and my heart started again.”

“Before that, you sat up. Said, ‘I'm not ready. I'm just twelve.'”

“I was talking to the ball of light. It was beautiful. And perfect. There.”

It might make Mom feel better to hear this. “Did you tell Mom?”

“Tried to. She changed the subject.”

“Go figure. Talking about her son dying.”

“Yeah,” Beep laughed. “Mom's weird that way.” He paused. “Could you tell her?”

“She'll try to shush me, too.”

“You don't let people shush you. It's not your deal.”

True enough. Even
I
couldn't shush me. “Sure. I'll try.”

The next morning, I didn't have any school homework done, but I did start on one of my assignments from Beep. I got up in the dark, even before the 6
A.M.
blood-draw lady came around. Instead of heading to school on my bike from the El Cerrito BART station, I pedaled home. Mom was off meeting house-buyer clients for coffee before the morning “brokers' open” house tour, so I figured it would be a good time to ambush Rachel and ask her questions. About what was wrong.

I went through my list of suspicions. Rachel was off with her boyfriend all the time. When I said Evan might have kissed me on the top of the head, Rachel said we should have the “condom talk.” And mentioned my “pregnancy-preventing personality.” She was cranky in the morning, always insisting on getting into the bathroom by her appointed minute. Maybe because she was rushing in to throw up?

When I got upstairs, by then seriously worried, Rachel was in her room and had finished in the bathroom. It was still shower-steamy. I scuttled in to search for clues. I bent down and used the plastic hanger she left on the door to poke through the trash-can. There wasn't any discarded stick from a pregnancy test kit, but even blonde Rachel probably wasn't dumb enough to leave that evidence around. I looked at the toilet. If Rachel had thrown up in it, there'd probably still be that faint acid barf smell, even after a flush. I couldn't smell anything from up here, so—eww—I knelt down by the bowl. The tiniest, gross experimental sniff. No vomit smell.

“
What
are you doing?”

I startled at the sound of Rachel's voice and banged my head on the sink. “Ow. No idea.”

“Why are you here?” Her voice was sharp. “Why aren't you on your way to school?”

I rubbed the back of my head, where I'd sink-smacked it. “I don't have my assignment done for World History. So I'm skipping. I'll try to get Mom to write me an excused absence.” Not that I'd probably have the assignment done tomorrow, either.

“Were you throwing up?” Her perfect eyebrows scrunched together. “Or sniffing the toilet?”

“Rachel, are you okay? I mean, is anything wrong? With you? I'm worried about you.” I was.

She crossed her arms. “I'm not the one snorting toilet seats.” But there was something uncertain about her expression. Like, if I asked about the right thing, she might open up.

“Like, for example, are you pregnant?”

Whatever the right question was, that wasn't it. Her face closed and she pressed her lips into a white line. “You're the worst. Just because I have a boyfriend.” She sputtered to a stop and then blew out her breath in a disgusted snort.

“Well is there anything else?” I asked. “That you should say to someone?”

She looked from me to the toilet seat. “Yeah. Try not to be so weird and annoying, Kat. If you do donate bone marrow, I don't want Beep catching that from you.”

She muttered all the way down the hall to her room.

But she never actually said she wasn't pregnant.

• • •

I made it to school after first-period World History, and at least had lunch with Evan to look forward to. But that didn't start well either. Evan, it turned out, had invited Elizabeth and Amber and Calley Rose to join us for lunch outside. They brought their lunch trays and all gushed endlessly about Evan's show, which was, apparently, the most amazing experience in the history of sound. After his set, which was incredible, the hottest local band ever, Tranq Girl Reunion, played. (They've opened on tour with The Matches and for OZoNation. Yes, really.) Then, for their encore, TGR invited Evan back onstage, and he played two songs with them. Which makes him, officially, third-hand famous.

I apologized a bunch for missing the best gig ever, especially since Evan had dedicated his set to Beep. But mostly I sat there—not just a fifth wheel, but more like a pointless weather vane strapped to the top of a car. All the other wheels were moving the same way, pointed the same direction, going on about something impressive, while I wobbled silently, looking out of place.

“How was the night with Beep?” Evan finally asked.

I told them about Beep's description of his near-death experience.

“Wow,” Evan said.

“Anywho—” Elizabeth tugged on his sleeve. “Back to the Gilman. What was it like being onstage with Tranq Girl? Are you going to play with them again?”

Evan raised his eyebrows at me, like he was asking if there was more.

Well, yeah. “Now Beep wants me to tell Mom everything he told me. Because when he tries to tell her, she keeps shushing him.”

That led to general silence, the first of our lunch hour. I'd now successfully bummed everyone out.

“Parents are weird-wired,” Evan said. “About their kid dying. It makes them go temporarily insane.”

Where did
that
come from? Was Evan now the boy expert on everything, holding court to us cute-musician-struck girls, telling us how the world works? Plus, my mom's
always
been insane.

“You should write a song about that,” Elizabeth said to Evan. “‘Temporary Insanity' is a great title.” She grabbed his arm with both hands. The gesture was somehow
this guy is mine.

Oh. Got it. That's why Elizabeth was here, Amber in tow. Why Evan had invited her to our lunch. Why they were gushing over their time together at the gig. So amazingly amazing and also especially special. I'd been the one who used to write songs with Evan.

It was too much, and I wasn't going to sit and watch her drag him away in front of me or get teary about it in front of everyone else. “I have to go to the bathroom.” I brushed crumbs out of my lap. “Be sure to rely on Elizabeth's musical sensibilities while I'm away.”

“I can come too,” Calley Rose offered.

Right. To leave the love-birds alone.

I just fled, though, toward the baseball field, which, technically, was not in the direction of any bathrooms. I was striding so fast, I'd already reached the grass before Evan caught up with me.

“Hey.” He tugged my elbow.

I stopped and turned around.

“Your eyes are watering.”

“I'm allergic to my life.” I wiped them with my hand. “It's a problem.”

“What's wrong?”

“I'm not sure.” Was he already
together
, together with Elizabeth? “When I get it figured out, I'll let you know.” I looked down. “I'm glad your show was great. And really sorry I missed it.”

“For a little thing like talking to Beep about dying.”

But I had missed Evan's gig. And if I was an actual friend instead of a bad person, I'd be excited about him having a girlfriend who wasn't one of the evil Tracies. “I'm a bad friend, Evan. Maybe you should go talk to your other ones. Who go to your shows and hang on your arm. Who you invited.” To our lunch. When I really wanted to talk to Evan.

“What do you
want
from me?” He kicked the ground. “I invited Amber and Elizabeth so you guys could hang out. Like you used to. Before I wrecked your life.”

“You didn't wreck my life, Evan. My life was pre-wrecked. I wrecked my life. The worst you ever did was get in the way of a tow truck.”

“Then why are you mad at me?”

“I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad.” Okay, that wasn't completely true. “If Elizabeth drags you off to go make out, and you stop eating lunch with me, I'll puke on you both.”

“Why would Elizabeth—”

“Hate to spoil the surprise, Evan, but girls think you're cute.” Apparently, even Tranq Girls.

“‘Girls' think I'm cute?”

“Yes,” I said. “We do. It's your beautiful brown-eyed burden, indie-boy. But just because you're too shy to ask anyone out, doesn't mean you should let the first one who comes along drag you away by the hand. Or arm. Or the anything else.”

“Well, ‘guys' think you're cute.”

“This isn't compliment tag.” I looked up at the side of the gym in exasperation. “You don't give me one back just because I gave you one. And at least make it believable—I'm funny.”

“You're frustrating.”

“Glad we could agree on a compromise. Bargained that pretty far down from cute.”

Evan crinkled his eyebrows. “You didn't answer. What do you want from me?”

Everything. And not to be afraid of losing it. “I don't know.”

“Guess.”

“I want . . .” Now it was my turn to kick something. I booted the fence so hard it rattled. “Ouch. Just don't let me scare you away.”

“You want me not to be scared?” He raised an eyebrow. “Don't kick things.”