Positively Beautiful (11 page)

“Erin,” I manage.

“Erin. E-r-i-n. Ten o'clock. Sharp. And if you're under eighteen, you need to have your parents sign a consent form so they won't sue my ass off if you die. Got it? Good.”

He hangs up on me.

I stare at the phone.

What have I done?

That afternoon I call Aunt Jill on my way home from school.

“Hey, Rinnie,” she says, her voice loud and cheerful as usual. Immediately I conjure her round, smiling face framed
by long, dark hair streaked with gray. Jill always smells faintly of sweat, because she uses a crystal instead of deodorant, and washes her hands so much you start wondering what kind of creepy-crawly stuff she's working on in her lab. She comes across as kooky sometimes, but she's a supersmart microbiologist who started her own successful research company.

“How're you holding up?”

“Uh … fine, I guess. Listen. I need some advice.”

“Shoot. Wait. Malcolm? Mommy needs some mommy time right now. Remember, we talked about this? Just because Mommy is on the phone doesn't mean you have to talk on the phone too.”

I hear some incoherent little-kid mumbling, and then Jill says, “Okay. What's up? I have about five minutes until he figures out how to pick the lock.”

“I want to fly!” I say. “I don't know why, but I've been thinking about it a lot, and I even registered for lessons, but I need Mom to sign some sort of parental consent form. And you know what
she's
going to say.”

“Wowie. I wondered if your dad was ever going to make an appearance in you. You know why your mom's going to say no, right?”

“Because it's dangerous.” It makes me almost sick—with dread, excitement?—just thinking about it.

Jill makes a buzzing raspberry sound. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

I frown. “Because my dad flew? I remember them fighting about it a lot before they got a divorce. After, too, when he took me up.”

“You're getting closer. Your mom … I knew her before she met your dad. She was on a mission to get away from that crappy little town where she grew up. She wanted a career—a good one, mind you, so she'd never have to worry about being poor again.”

“Mom was poor?” I frown. I guess I knew Memaw and Granddad didn't have a whole lot of money, but Mom never said anything about being
poor
, as in I'm-hungry-and-I-have-no-shoes poor.

“Yes, she was poor.” Jill's voice is firm. “She got her degree and her good job, and then she started looking around for a nice, stable husband because she wanted to have a family. She met your dad, and at first he seemed like the answer to her prayers. He was calm and steady, he had a good business, flying private charters. He seemed secure, and that's what she wanted. I've never seen two people so in love. And for a while it worked, but ultimately … your dad had something in him that needed to go fast. In the air, in his life, everything. He needed that element of danger to make him feel alive. And your mom … your mom has to feel safe. It's what makes her tick. And once your dad started taking you up in the plane … it was too much for her.”

I never thought about it, but she's right. Mom is happiest when she's in her comfort zone, which seems to include mainly watching movies at home with me and going to work. We never went anywhere on vacation, though we would do fun stuff around Atlanta like go to the zoo, or the aquarium, or the botanical gardens. Has Mom even been out of the state of Georgia? How could she have fallen in love with someone like my dad?

“She even asked him to stop flying,” Jill continues, “and he did for a while, but he was so unhappy … I think she always felt guilty she asked him to stop. And mad he couldn't, not really.

“So, here's the thing. You could have chosen about anything else, oh, say, recreational knife juggling, and she'd take it better than the flying. That's why she's going to resist. Because she still feels like flying is what took him away from her.”

“I never knew …”

“Yeah, well, I think it's time you
did
know. Malcolm, sweetie, the door is locked for a reason.” I hear an outraged howl.

“Can I ask you something, Rinnie?” Jill says over the stuck-pig screeching.

“What?”

“Why did you sign up for flying lessons? I'm proud of you, honey, I am, but I'm just wondering why you're doing it.”

I am quiet for a minute. In the background, Malcolm's rage has turned into pitiful sobbing. “Up there, it was just me and Dad and all that sky. It was like we could do anything, go anywhere. I liked that feeling.”

“
Okay
, Malcolm—gotta go, Rinnie. Good luck, girl, and I'll talk to you real soon— 
Here
I am, don't
cry
, baby, I'm right here …”

The phone goes dead.

The day before Mom starts her first round of chemotherapy I decide to talk to her about the flying lessons. If I don't do it now, I'll have to cancel the lesson on Saturday.

The last week has not been good. On the plus side, Mom is feeling better. It's been several weeks since her mastectomy, and she can't wear a prosthetic breast yet, so she's been wearing bulky sweatshirts to try to hide her uneven cleavage. She had to go earlier this week for a procedure to put a port in her chest. It's a small disc under the skin above her breast that allows the doctor to inject the chemo without running an IV every time. She said it was no big deal, but if that's not a big deal, how bad will the rest of it be?

On the minus side, school hasn't gotten any better. People aren't actively laughing as I walk by anymore, but I know the nickname Va-jay-jay Girl has stuck. Trina was horrified when she finally heard about it, but there was nothing she could do.
And it's not like I saw a whole lot of Trina this week anyway. She's trying to be fair, trying to still spend time with me, but I can see she wants to be with Chaz. It hurts. I've been avoiding her so she doesn't have to choose.

Michael hasn't been at school most of the week, and when he does show up he looks tired and drawn. I wonder if he's working on his models. He's nodded at me a couple of times, but we haven't talked. Who wants to talk to Va-jay-jay Girl?

I close my physics book. Mom is stirring beef Stroganoff, my favorite, on the stove and checking her e-mail. She's been working at home for the past few weeks, but plans to go back to work as much as she can through the chemo. If she's lucky, the chemo won't be bad—it affects people differently so you never can tell.

“I miss Jill,” Mom says suddenly. “I wish she hadn't moved so far away.”

I know she is wishing Jill could be here tomorrow.

“We could have moved to Seattle,” I say. “When she started her new company. She wanted you to come.” Lately, I'd be just as happy if we lived on the other side of the country.

Mom frowns. “It's such a long way.”

“But you would have been with Jill.”

Mom says nothing. She's never even gone to Seattle to visit Jill.

“I want to learn how to fly,” I blurt out.

She stares at me in astonishment. “You want to do what?”

“I've signed up for flying lessons. I'm supposed to start Saturday. I need you to sign this parent consent form. I'm using the money I saved from working at the yogurt shop, so
you don't have to pay for it or anything, but I … want to do this.”

She closes her eyes and presses two fingers to her temple.

“I don't think it's a good idea, Rinnie. Not right now. We can talk about it later, after all this is over.” She gestures vaguely at her chest.

“No! Don't you understand? I
need
to do it now. I need … something else right now.”

“Rinnie … I understand, I do. But can't you do something else to keep your mind off all of this? Something less dangerous?”

“It's not that dangerous. I won't be doing crazy aerobatic stuff like Dad did, I just want to learn how to fly. I remember when Dad took me up when I was a kid. And he brought me home that time and you were so mad at him. It was the best day of my life, but then you two wouldn't stop arguing after that so I knew it was my fault. My fault you got a divorce.” My voice hiccups.

“Oh no, Rinnie, it wasn't your fault! I was worried about your safety. It was bad enough when he flew, but to take you … You don't know what it's like to be a mother. I wanted to protect you, to make sure you were secure and happy. I wanted you to always feel safe because I didn't when I was a little girl.”

“I'm not a little girl anymore,” I say in a low voice. “Mom, this is something I really want to do.”

She's quiet for a long time, staring at me, but she's not really looking at me, she's seeing something else.

“I'll sign,” she says, and her voice is real quiet. “I'll sign it, but you've got to understand. I can't watch you fly. I couldn't
watch your dad fly at the end, and I
won't
be able to watch you.”

The next morning, I go with my mom to her first chemo appointment. She didn't want me to go, but I could tell she didn't want to go by herself either, so she lets me.

“Oh good, you brought a chemo buddy,” says Sherry, the nurse.

Mom is poked and prodded and given last-minute instructions, all of which she has already heard.
Take your temperature often, your immune system will be compromised. Flush twice for a couple of days, the chemo drugs are toxic. Replace shower curtains, use gloves to wash dishes, change your toothbrush often, and slather on hand sanitizer—you must avoid germs. Drink water! Exercise!

We are led to the large chemotherapy room, which is filled with reclining chairs like in a dentist's office, with curtains you can draw closed if you want, though most of the curtains are open. There are figurines of angels everywhere, crowding the windowsills. A basket on a table is full of colorful yarn hats, and a sign invites patients to take one, courtesy of the Ladies Lunch Bunch.

“As you know, you'll have six rounds of chemo, three weeks apart,” Sherry says, snapping on her gloves. “You'll have at least a few days after each round where you
will not
feel good. Keep in mind that oftentimes chemo gets worse with succeeding sessions. I want to be upfront with you so you know what you're facing.” She turns back to hooking a bag on the metal stand beside my mom's chair.

It's quiet, people softly talking or lying with their eyes closed listening with earbuds in. Everyone has water bottles, and a few patients are sipping a shake or nibbling dry toast. One woman has a strange cap on, and as I watch, a younger woman opens a cooler and exchanges the cap for one from inside the cooler.

“It's called a cold cap. It's to help keep her hair from falling out,” Sherry says.

Mom's doctor has told her the type of chemo she will be taking could cause her hair to fall out. She had it cut short last week, and we've looked at wigs but she's waiting to see if she'll need one.

Mom sucks on a lemon drop as Sherry threads a catheter into the port in Mom's chest and sets up a bag. Sherry stays for a while and chats, but she's holding a medication box and she is studying Mom closely as she talks. The doctor mentioned that some people have bad allergic reactions during their first chemo treatment. After a while, Sherry seems to decide Mom is going to be fine and moves off. I'm left holding Mom's hand while the IV
drips … drips … drips …
Mom downloaded
Dirty Dancing
to watch on her tablet, but the medicine they gave her to help with the side effects of the chemo seems to have made her drowsy and she lies with her eyes closed.

At one point a bell rings and I turn to see a pale, puffy-faced woman with a scarf tied over her head pulling a rope attached to a bell mounted to the wall.

People clap, and then cheer, and Mom and I look at each other in bemusement.

“You get to ring the bell when you're done with your
chemo,” Sherry says as she drops a goody bag on the table beside Mom.