Maybe One Day (14 page)

My mom laughed and wiped some tears off her own cheeks, then reached over and wiped my tears away. “I don’t know, honey. That’s a really good question.”

We sat without talking for a while, my parents softly rubbing my back. I tried to get my head around the idea that Olivia was okay, that she was coming home.

“Listen,” said my dad, his voice serious. “I think we all need to keep in mind that Olivia’s illness is a marathon, not a sprint.”

“What do you mean?” I pushed my bangs out of my eyes so I could look at him.

“It means,” my dad continued as my mom patted my back, “that there are going to be a lot of ups and downs as long as Olivia is sick.”

“
And
it means,” added my mom, “that it doesn’t help Olivia
and
it isn’t good for you if every time Olivia has a setback, you
spend an entire night preparing for her to die.”

I knew they were right. I knew I had to be strong, that I couldn’t collapse every time something went wrong with Olivia’s treatment. It wasn’t like Dr. Maxwell had said Olivia would need her friends during treatment because it was going to be so easy.

Still, somehow knowing that and living it were turning out to be different.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I wanted to say more than that, but my brain couldn’t form the words. My parents must have read on my face how tired I was.

“Why don’t you go up to bed?” my dad suggested.

“Yeah,” I said again. “Okay.”

Without consciously making the decision to move, I got to my feet and headed out of the kitchen and up to my room, where I escaped everything with a day of dreamless sleep.

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15

When I got Livvie’s text Monday that she was home, I didn’t even consider going to my last two classes of the day. Despite the driving rain, I was out the door and halfway to her house by the time the late bell rang for English.

Luke answered the door. Behind him, over the stairs, was a banner that read
Welcome Home, Olivia!
and, beneath that,
We love you!
I recognized the twins’ handiwork—
Welcome
was spelled with a
k
and without an
e
.

“Hey,” I said, “aren’t you supposed to be at school?” Though really, as a fellow truant, I probably shouldn’t have brought the subject up.

“We got to skip! It’s a holiday! Livvie’s home!” He took my hands and danced me around in a circle, then led me toward the back of the house, both of us laughing. Everything
around me felt different, and it wasn’t just the banner or the mouthwatering smells coming from the kitchen. The antique wallpaper in the foyer, the brightly lit chandelier in the dining room—it was as if the house itself were celebrating Olivia’s homecoming.

I followed Luke into the kitchen, expecting to find Livvie there. Instead, I saw Mr. Greco sitting at the table. His father was sitting across from him, and his mother was at the stove, cooking. I’d met Mr. Greco’s parents tons of times—they lived in Florida, but they came to New Jersey a lot.

Mr. Greco senior looked like an older version of Mr. Greco, and his mother looked a little like I could imagine Olivia looking when she got old. They had the same green eyes, and Mrs. Greco dyed her hair a color close to the blond that Olivia’s hair was naturally. To me it was always a little startling to see such bright blond hair on a seventy-five-year-old woman, but I guess she thought it looked nice.

Mrs. Greco Sr. came away from the stove and hugged me. “Zoe, honey, you’re soaked.” It was true. I’d walked over without an umbrella or a coat. She wagged her wooden spoon at me. “And you’re too thin. Both of you girls are too thin.”

“Mary,” her husband chastised her, “of course she’s thin. She’s had chemotherapy. Would you leave her alone? The poor girl can’t eat.” I went over to where he was sitting and shook his hand. The skin felt smooth, almost like paper. I was pretty sure he was older than his wife, but it might just have
been that he didn’t dye his hair.

Mrs. Greco turned on her husband. “What chemotherapy? Zoe hasn’t had chemotherapy.”

He slapped the table with impatience. “I know
Zoe
hasn’t had chemotherapy.
Olivia
had chemotherapy.”

“You think I don’t know my baby had chemotherapy?” She sighed. For all the confusion, this was actually a relatively linear, lucid conversation to be having with the Grecos. Livvie said it was because they were Italian, but whenever Mr. Greco’s family was over, there were about ten conversations going on at once, and most people were participating in several of them simultaneously. Now Mrs. Greco pointed the spoon in her hand at her son, Livvie’s father. “I still remember the day you brought her home from the hospital.” Suddenly her eyes welled up with tears. “And now this.” She started crying. “Why is this happening? And why does she have to go back for more chemotherapy? Why are they torturing her?” Mr. Greco stood up, walked over to his mother, and put his arms around her. “Come on now, Ma. Come on.”

As soon as his wife started crying, Mr. Greco senior started crying. I didn’t know where to look or what to say, so I just stared silently at the kitchen floor.

Olivia’s mom came through the swinging door from the dining room. “Zoe! Olivia thought it might be you, but I said you were still at school.”

“Oh, yeah. I got out early.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” Mrs. Greco said. I couldn’t tell if there was suspicion in her voice. “Livvie’s so excited to see you, but we need to keep it short. I don’t want her getting tired out. And you’re feeling okay? You don’t have a cold or anything?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I mean, yes, I’m feeling okay. No, I don’t have a cold.”

“Good.” She took a deep breath and actually smiled. “It’s good to have her home, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s really good.”

“Wash up in the front bathroom, okay? Dr. Maxwell suggested visitors use their own bathroom.”

“Sure,” I said. After Livvie’s fever, I had a new understanding of the word
visitor
, and I could see how as long as my house had different germs from Livvie’s house, I was one.

I headed to the bathroom in the front hall. This was totally the visitors’ bathroom; in all the years of coming to Livvie’s house, I couldn’t think of one time when I’d used it. The faucets were gold-colored, the towels were thin linen with the letter
G
embroidered on them in pale blue, and there was a tiny soap dish with little seashell-shaped soaps. The last time I’d been in there it was spring, and Livvie and I had been sent to check that it was ready for a dinner party Livvie’s parents were having.

The seashell soaps were gone, replaced with two plastic dispensers, one of antibacterial soap and one of Purell. The embroidered towels were gone too. On the shelf next to the
sink was a pile of paper towels. I washed my hands, dried them carefully, then doused them in Purell.

The light was on in Livvie’s room, and I slid the door open gently. She was sitting on her desk chair in a T-shirt and jeans, surveying her surroundings.

It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. “Hi,” I said.

She looked up at me. “Hi,” she said.

I’d been looking forward to this moment for so long, but now I wasn’t sure what to say or do. I went over to her bed and sat down at the edge of it. “I saw your grandparents,” I said.

“My grandmother keeps hugging me and crying,” said Livvie. “It’s starting to get on my nerves.”

“Yeah, I can see how that might be trying.”

Livvie gave a little smile. She was still looking around her room. My hair was damp, and I rubbed it between my palms, waiting for her to speak.

“I was just thinking . . .” She hesitated, then continued. “I was just thinking that the last time I was here, I wasn’t sick. I mean, I was
sick
,” she corrected herself quickly, “but I didn’t know I was sick. I just thought I had a virus or something.” She glanced at me. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Zoe?” Her head was down, and she seemed to be watching her toe, which she was using to trace the dark green pattern that ran through the rug’s pale green background.

“Yeah?”

She waited to close the swirl she’d been following. “Look.” Then, without raising her eyes, she put her hand on her head and ran her fingers through her hair.

When I had long hair, I was always shedding. I’d brush my hair and the brush would be full of strands, or I’d take off a sweater and find half a dozen long black hairs stuck to it.

But what I was looking at now was something completely different. In Olivia’s hand was a fistful of hair, more than I’d ever seen not on someone’s head. I thought of my haircut after we got kicked out of NYBC, how it had seemed that with all the hair on the floor, there couldn’t possibly be any left on my head.

This was like that.

I felt panicky, as if Livvie had just shown me a gaping wound that I needed to close. We looked at each other. Her eyes were glassy with tears.

Because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I just said, “It’s going to be okay.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to snatch them back.

“What is? Being bald? Oh yeah, that’s really okay.” Olivia’s voice was as close to nasty as I’d ever heard it.

“Oh, Livs.” I got off her bed and walked over to the chair on my knees, then put my arms around her and waist and hugged her tightly.

“They told me it would start falling out after a few weeks,
but I didn’t believe them.” Her voice was thick with tears. “I really thought . . . I think I really thought . . .” Now she was crying too hard to speak, and for a few minutes that was the only sound in the room. I started to cry also, the tears sliding silently down my face and onto Olivia’s shirt. “I’m so embarrassed,” she sobbed.

“What? What are you embarrassed about?”

“I thought . . .” She took a deep breath. “‘Not
my
hair. My hair’s too pretty to fall out.’” On the word
out
Olivia made a sound I’d never heard a person make before. It was like a howl.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” I whispered, hugging her still more tightly. “Please don’t be embarrassed. Your hair
is
beautiful. It’s so beautiful. It’s going to grow back and it’s going to be just as beautiful as it is now.” I didn’t know what to say, but I just kept talking.

“Why is this happening to me, Zoe?” Olivia whispered, her voice hoarse. “It’s so unfair.”

I could feel a huge sob growing in my chest, and all I wanted to do was let it out, wail as loudly as Olivia just had. I swallowed hard, pushing it down, down, down, scared that if I let it out, I’d never be able to stop.

“It is unfair, Livs,” I whispered back. “I hate everything because of it.”

“You hated everything before I got sick; you know you did,” she whispered.

And then, out of nowhere, Olivia started laughing. It
wasn’t a slow buildup, like a giggle into a belly laugh. She just burst into laughter. It was slightly hysterical laughter, but it was definitely laughter. “I have no idea why I’m laughing,” said Olivia, catching her breath. “Maybe the chemo went to my brain.” The possibility must have struck her as funny because she burst out laughing again.

“This is seriously fucked up,” I said, and then I started laughing too.

“What, my having cancer or our laughing about it?” She swiped at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Zoe, what am I going to do?” she asked, and now she was crying again.

My hoodie was damp with the rain, but I used it to wipe her cheeks. “What if we braid it? I could do a long French braid, like your mom did the other day.”

“Okay.” She sniffed. “Yeah. Let’s try that.” Her eyes were shiny, but she sounded relieved.

“I’ll get a brush,” I said, jumping to my feet. Livvie directed me to her cosmetics bag, and a second later I was standing behind her chair, holding her brush in my hand, a hair band snapped around my wrist.

But it was like herding cats. Every time I ran the brush through her hair, it would fill up, and I’d have to go over to the garbage can and dump a fistful of hair into it before trying again, at which point the whole process would start over. After about three strokes, Olivia snatched the brush from my hand.

“Forget it,” she snapped. “This was a stupid idea.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” I assured her. “It was worth a try.”

From where she was sitting, she couldn’t see into the mirror on the back of her closet, so she got to her feet and walked over to it. “I shouldn’t even care, right? I mean, it’s just hair.”

In the pale light of her bedside lamp, Livvie’s beautiful blond hair glowed, as if it were its own light source. She looked away from her reflection and turned to me. “Come on,” she said. She walked over to the door of her bedroom.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Her voice only shook a little bit. “We’re going to shave it off.”

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16

When Mrs. Greco, who we passed in the hallway, found out what we were about to do, she wanted us to go to the hairdresser’s, but Livvie said absolutely not, and she reminded her mom how many people would be in the crowded public space that was Hair Today Gone Tomorrow. In the end, Mrs. Greco agreed that as long as we used Livvie’s dad’s electric razor and not a disposable one that might give Livvie a cut that could get infected, we could do it ourselves. She said she was going to leave us alone, but you could tell she was hovering outside the bathroom door. It wasn’t until Livvie shouted, “Mom, you have to go!” that she finally said, “Okay,” and went downstairs.

While that would have been a pretty mild exchange between me and my mom, it was unprecedented for Livvie to
snap at her mother that way. I didn’t comment on it, just ran a cotton swab doused with rubbing alcohol over Mr. Greco’s electric razor like Mrs. Greco had told me to.