Positively Beautiful (14 page)

I leave through the garage, running my fingers over my dad's Mustang as I pass. I sit in my car for a few minutes, and then I just drive. I don't know where I'm going. That seems to be the story of my life lately.

Ashley: u ok?

She texted a couple of times yesterday but I didn't answer. I didn't want to talk to anybody. A couple weeks ago, I tried to find her on Facebook, but she doesn't have a page. We've been e-mailing a lot about the BRCA gene, but not about our private lives. I know she lives in Florida, on the coast, because she's always talking about the water and fishing. For all I know she could be like Faith. Or maybe she is as much of a dorkster as I am. No, not that either. She's something else completely, I think, but I don't know what.

Without thinking too much about it, I pull into a grocery store parking lot. I open an e-mail and pour it all out to her. The party. Beer bong. Kissing best friend's boyfriend. Michael. Mom throwing up. That I am alone.

I hit Send and turn up the music, watching people come in and out of the store. They are busy, harried, and none of them notice me. They push carts, fuss at children, juggle bags, and not a single one knows I'm alive.

Fifteen minutes later, I get an e-mail from Ashley:

I've got this place, a place I go to when things get too insane. I went there a lot when my mom was doing chemo. It's an island,
my
island, though I'm guessing the state would disagree. The water smells of mud and green and things living and dead, and the air is happy-bright, the way it gets when it touches the sea. When I'm there, it's not so much that I forget all the bad stuff, it's more like I remember all the good stuff. I wish you could see it. Not everybody feels the magic, but I think you would.

You need to find your good place. In your head, or an actual place. It's there.

You just have to find it.

I sit and think about that.
Can we go to the airport and see the planes fly, Daddy?

So I go to the airport and sit in the parking lot and watch the planes take off and fly. It's Monday morning, and because it's a small airport, there aren't a whole lot of planes. Still, it makes me happy to watch.

After a while, someone taps on my window and I look up, startled, to see Stew standing impatiently beside my car.

I roll down the window.

“Did we have a lesson today?” He smoothes his shirt over his big belly and taps his foot like I'm keeping him from something.

“Uh … no,” I say. “I just came to watch the planes. I used to … I used to watch with my dad.”

He doesn't say anything for a moment, absentmindedly
patting his pocket where he finds a pack of gum. “Your dad didn't want to come out and see you fly the other day?”

“He's dead,” I say. “He was a pilot too, but he died.”

He rocks back and forth on his heels as he looks at me, chewing his gum in fast, rapid chomps. Then he says, “You gonna sit out here all morning or you going to make yourself useful and help me wash my planes?”

I get out and help him wash the planes. We don't say much, and after Stew covers some ports on the planes with tape, he disappears into his office long enough for me to think he might have taken a nap, but I don't mind. Splashing the planes with water from the hose and then scrubbing them down is mindless work. Perfect. The bottoms of the planes are covered with grease and it takes all my concentration to scrub it off. Stew comes out to tell me to not clean the windows in circles but up and down to prevent glare and then he disappears again.

Once I finish washing them, Stew walks out of his office and tosses me a can of wax.

I start all over again with the wax. Stew sits in a rolling office chair and starts telling me about the planes.
This is a Cessna 172, the most popular plane in the world; over there's a Cessna 152, which we call the Land-o-Matic, it's so easy to land; that's a Piper Tomahawk, the Air Force guys love that one 'cause it's got big-airplane-style handling
… He rolls from plane to plane as he talks and at first I wish he would be quiet, as I am in a no-thought zone, but after a while I start listening. It's interesting; I bet my dad knew all this stuff.

“You want to learn to fly, you're going to need a get a
medical and a student pilot certification before you solo, and you need to study for the written test.” He goes into his office and brings out a pile of books so high it's hard to see his face over the stack. He dumps them on the workbench beside me. “You can do a ground school course, online if you want, or I can work with you on these.”

I look at the stack of books. Seriously?

He picks up the can of wax and goes to work, occasionally pointing out parts of the plane:
The ailerons turn you, the flaps slow you, the stabilizers balance you …

When we are done, Stew thanks me gruffly.

“No problem,” I say. “If you need help again, let me know.”

He nods and picks up a wrench and I head for the parking lot.

“Hey!”

I turn around.

“You're Justin Bailey's daughter, right?” he says, standing by a plane, looking at me with his hand shading his eyes.

I turn around and stare at him in disbelief. “How did you … ?”

“Last name Bailey. Dead pilot dad. Thought so,” he says and turns away without another word.

Three weeks later, Faith still hasn't posted the picture. I know, somehow I know, that she's holding on to it as ammunition. It feels like blackmail.
Stay away from him, and we'll forget the whole you-kissing-your-best-friend's-boyfriend thing, okay?

I need to tell Trina, I know it, but somehow I can't.

The doorbell rings and I hear Trina downstairs, loud and in a hurry, as always. She's talking to Mom and Jill and I want to hide under the covers and pretend to be asleep.

Jill is here because Mom starts her second round of chemo tomorrow.

Five more rounds to go.

Five. More. To. Go.

I'm happy Jill is here this time. I dread how sick Mom will get, how terrible she will feel, and that there is nothing I can do about it.

Trina comes up the stairs and I tense, preparing myself.

We haven't talked a whole lot since the night I kissed Chaz. I'm not sure she's noticed, not really, because I've been trying to act normal (
Busy, busy, busy
, my tone says whenever we meet in the hall.
I love you, I do, but I've got so much to do! Right now! See you later!
), and she's been so wrapped up in Chaz. She's invited me out with them a couple of times, but I've said no. I don't want to face Chaz.

I've spent the last three weeks taking flying lessons with Stew every chance I get and helping him out around the hangar when I'm not flying. It's been the only time I've been able to breathe without feeling as if someone's sitting on my chest.

Trina comes in, and her face is serious. My heart sinks. Did Chaz tell her?

“Hi, bee-aaatch,” she says, but it's solemn.

“Hey,” I say. “What's up?”

Because I have to know now, if she knows. I can't stand it.

She looks confused. She didn't used to need a reason to come visit.

“I thought … we haven't been hanging out as much lately. I wanted to see how you were doing. You know, with your mom and all.”

She doesn't know. Somehow I'm not relieved.

“She's got another chemo session tomorrow, but Jill's going with her this time,” I say. “And Jill is going to stay for the next couple of days, when it's bad. I'm really glad about that.”

She nods, fiddling with her phone, sneaking a quick glance at the screen. Evidently there's not a text from Chaz, but give him five minutes and he'll think of something. They text constantly. “Good.” She wanders around my room, and I hold my
breath as she picks up the glass tube on my desk, but she puts it back down without saying anything. I feel guilt about so much, about what happened with Chaz, about not telling her about the BRCA gene mutation …

“Want to do something tomorrow night? It's your big one-seven, we gotta celebrate.”

“I guess,” I say.

She looks at me for a long moment. “Are you okay? I mean … really? Things don't seem right between us anymore. I know I've been spending a lot of time with Chaz, but …”

Now
she's
feeling guilty and it's all my fault.

“I found out I might have this gene mutation,” I say, because if not that, I'll have to tell her about kissing Chaz.

She listens as I tell her the entire story.

“That's
terrible
,” she says, throwing her arm around my neck and hugging me hard. “And some people cut off their
breasts
?
Before
they get cancer? Seriously, I can't imagine.” She steps back and clutches her boobs in both hands. “Have you told Michael?”

“I haven't talked to Michael since the party three weeks ago.” And the fact that she doesn't know this shows how far apart we've grown.

I don't know whether Michael's avoiding me, or if that's just the way he is. He nods at me in the hall, but that's about it. Or maybe he knows what Faith is capable of, and he's staying away from me for a reason. To protect me. I don't know.

And what would he think about you if you had no breasts?
The thought comes unbidden. If I get tested and I am positive,
chopping off my breasts is the only way to really make sure I don't end up going through what my mom is going through.

How cute do you think he would find you if you had no breasts?

I shudder and Trina sees me. She climbs on the bed behind me and rubs my shoulders and then puts her arms around me. “It's going to be okay. I know it's terrible, but it's going to be okay.”

But she doesn't know that. No one does.

Trina stays for a while, and it's almost like it used to be. She talks happily about Chaz and some Internet game he designed, and they're playing it, and Chaz is a king and Trina's a warrior princess and they're on a mission to save the world. She stays for birthday cake—Mom made me one tonight because she's afraid she won't feel like it tomorrow—and we talk about going thrifting, and we almost do, but Chaz calls, and he wants to go to a movie. Trina asks if I mind and I say, “Of course I don't care. You go on.” Then she wants me to go, like I'm going to go sit and watch them grope each other, so I say no.

After she leaves, I e-mail Ashley.

I told my best friend about the BRCA gene mutation and she was real sweet about it, I mean she really
cared
, but it didn't help. I thought it would. For some reason I thought when I told her that it would make it less bad, that she would tell me it's not as bad as I think it is. But she was horrified, too, so now I know it's not just me.

I can't decide whether I want to get tested or not. I have the test kit, and I haven't told my mom, because she somehow thinks I've forgotten about it all. I don't want to worry her.

I just don't know. I'm not sure I can stand this waiting anymore. Waiting until I'm twenty-one, even eighteen, is just too freaking long.

I go downstairs and Jill and my mom are weeping together on the couch, all curled up under one blanket. They've demolished the rest of my birthday cake; all that's left is just crumbs on the coffee table.

“What are you
doing
?” They are watching
Beaches
, an old movie about two lifelong friends who find out one of them is sick. And then she dies.
And then she freaking dies.
“Seriously? Why are you guys watching this?”

“Come sit down,” Jill says, scooting over so I can sit beside them. “We were all keyed up about tomorrow, so we decided it would be better just to cry.”

My mom nods, tears streaming down her face.

So I sit with them while Mom strokes my hair and the woman dies, and it's so horrible I start crying too.

We're all crying, and laughing at ourselves, and for some reason it makes it better.

The next day it's my seventeenth birthday, and I fail a physics test. I never fail tests. Never.

I can't say anything to Mom, because she had chemotherapy today and feels like crap. Jill is on the phone when I come in, twirling her long gray-streaked hair around one finger. She waves distractedly, before continuing. “She's got a slight fever, should we be worried?”

I sit beside Mom and hold her hand. She is sitting up, and clutching her chest: heartburn. At least she isn't vomiting yet. The doctors promised they would adjust her medicine to reduce the nausea, and so far, so good.

“Hey, birthday girl,” she says, and then Jill comes in with a glass of water and some hand sanitizer. They forget about me, and finally I leave.

I go downstairs to the garage, singing, “Happy birthday to
me,” and pull the cover off Dad's Mustang. I've been doing this a lot lately, sitting in the car. It scares me how little I remember about my dad. If something happens to Mom, will I forget her too?