Positively Beautiful (34 page)

We stand in a room with windows big enough to drive a
car through and Chaz and Trina snuggle together in a dark corner.

Michael and I watch the moon rise. It climbs quickly and loses volume and color in the process, like a balloon, big and bright in your hand but becoming small and indistinct in the sky. So much better to have it in your hand. Once you lose it, it's gone forever.

Michael brings a beer out of his coat pocket and chugs it, leaning his hip against the wall.

“I heard about your mom being sick,” he says. “That sucks.”

“It does,” I say. “I heard about your college stuff. That sucks too.”

“Yeah.” He takes another long swig from his beer, his Adam's apple working as he chugs. For a crazy minute, I want to kiss him in that soft, vulnerable spot at the base of his throat. Whatever attraction I had for Michael hasn't subsided.

And what does it matter? Jason doesn't want me.

“Should have known,” Michael says. “Should have known it wouldn't work out for me. It never does.”

“But you can't give up,” I say.

“Sure I can,” he says. “My dad did.”

I step closer to him and take his hand. He closes his fingers around mine and we stand like that for a while until Trina calls out, “Hey, I got a great idea. Why don't you guys go to prom with us this weekend?”

I know this is not out of the blue. Trina has been bugging
me about prom for weeks but it just all seems so
stupid
. Trina says I'll regret it when I'm older, but I don't care.

Even so, my heart races a little bit, and I sneak a quick look at Michael. My face is beginning to burn. I don't need any more rejection.

“Why the hell not,” he says.

On Friday, I'm sitting in the meditation room at the cancer center, waiting for Mom to be done with her radiation to ease the discomfort from growing tumors. This time it's her hip, but hopefully in a week or so, the tumor will shrink enough so she'll be able to walk again.

“There you are,” Trina says loudly, oblivious to the hush and quiet of the room. No one else is there, so I don't bother to shush her.

“Hey,” I say. It's not the first time Trina has showed up unannounced at one of these appointments, and I'm grateful for the company.

“You know,” she says, flopping down on a seat and closing one eye so she can peer at the stained glass.

“What?”

“If you squint, it kind of looks like the white dove took a big crapola. Here. You gotta squint. See what I mean?”

I squint and darned if she's not right. It makes me laugh, and then I'm clutching my stomach, rolled up on the seat, in hysterics.

“I told my mom I could be a stand-up comic if I wanted to. It was one of those you-could-be-anything-you-want-so-why-are-you-such-a-slack-ass conversations, so I told her I wanted to be a stand-up comic and she said, ‘I sure as heck don't find you funny,' and I said …” She's on a roll, talking so that neither of us have to notice that my laughter has turned to tears.

After my sobs fade to hiccups, she says, “You're still going to prom tomorrow, right? Michael said you hadn't talked to him all week so he was wondering whether he needed to rent a tux. I tend to doubt he'll find one at this late date anyway, but I figured I'd ask.”

“I'm going,” I say.

“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.” But she doesn't say it meanly, and she sits with me while I try not to think about the blasts of radiation burning into my mother's bones right now.

Mom
is excited about prom, so I guess that's good even if my excitement is nil. I've got the dress and the shoes, and Mom actually made me an appointment to go get my hair and nails done tomorrow morning with Trina. Mom's looking forward to prom, even though the chemo isn't working and it doesn't look like she's eligible for any clinical trials, and they are having to radiate her hip just so she can
walk
.

But she wants me to go, and I will.

“Wow,” I say as Michael and I walk inside the Ford Pavilion at Zoo Atlanta and see everyone we know decked out in their finest, many of them swaying to a slow song on the dance floor. Michael's hand is warm and firm on the small of my back and I try not to notice. I like Michael, but I still cry some nights holding Jason's sweatshirt.

Later, I'm sitting by myself at our table while Trina and Chaz dance and Michael has gone to the bathroom, presumably to dump more liquor into his punch. He pounded four beers on the way to the dance and has been steadily drinking since. I'm worried about him, but I don't know what I can do. His mood has gotten darker as the night wears on, and I think about Jason's open, sunshine-bright smile and my heart aches.

“Erin,” someone says, and I look up to see Faith. She's in a skintight pink dress and there's no doubt she has me beat hands down in the body department. Rumor is she came with a college boy. Rumor is she made it into Stanford. Rumor didn't mention her flushing her phone fifty times down the toilet. “Can I sit down?”

“Uh, sure. Okay,” I say.
What the … ?

She perches on the edge of the chair. “Look, I know we don't know each other very well, but I heard about your mom getting sick again. And I wanted to say I'm sorry. My grandmother just died of pancreatic cancer, and it was horrible.” She shudders, a delicate little tremor like a breeze through summer-soft petunias. “She wasted away until there was no meat left on her. It was truly awful. Sometimes I think she's the only one in the world who really loved me without expecting anything
back from me.” She looks down at her clenched fingers and swallows.

My heart is beating hard, and the loud music and flashing lights are making me sick.

“I'm sorry,” I murmur.

“I knew you would … understand,” she says. “When I heard about your mom … how sick she was … I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I really wouldn't. I hope it all turns out … okay. That's what I wanted to say.”

She leaves and I close my eyes. Michael comes back and says something to me, I don't know what, and I jump up and head blindly toward the bathroom.

I sit down on the toilet and cradle my phone in my hands. I want to call Mom, but I know she is sleeping, and it's not fair to wake her up just so I can hear her voice, to reassure myself she is still
alive
.

My chest is heaving, and I'm afraid I'm having a heart attack. I lean over my knees trying to catch my breath. I cannot break down, I CANNOT break down. She needs me to be strong, and I CANNOT give up on her. I try to banish Faith's words from my mind. She wasn't being mean, the opposite in fact, but the thought that her grandmother
died
, that Mom could
die
, makes me want to throw up.

I want to call Jason so badly I actually find him on my Favorites list and put my finger on his name. But it's better this way, it's better for him not to have to go through this. This is my battle, and I need to stay strong and not give up,
never
give up, because if I don't give up on Mom, she can't give up on herself. The only thing that gets me through every day
is my belief that she can beat this, that no matter what the doctors say, she will be whole and healthy at the end of it all. If I lose that, if I picture the world without my mom, if I picture her
dying
, I think I will go insane. So I refuse,
refuse
, to think about any other alternative.

I press my hands to my eyes and breathe deep for a while. I hear toilets flushing, girls talking, whispering about being felt up, hotel rooms booked for the after-dance party, and it all seems so bizarre to me that life just keeps going on.

Finally, I put my phone back in my purse and go out to fix my makeup. I barely recognize the girl in the mirror. I have gotten taller, and the stomach pooch has disappeared. My hair is longer, past the middle of my back, and I've got it down, loose, dark curls framing my face. I am wearing a dress the color of bruised violets. It is my face that looks the most different, though. The roundness has melted away and I do not know the woman staring back at me.

“Did Faith say something to you?” Michael asks when I come back to our table. He's not quite slurring. “You can't worry about her, she doesn't mean ninety percent of the stuff she says. When she's not trying so hard to be … I don't know, a superstar at everything she does, she's really pretty okay. Her mom rides her hard, texting and calling all the time.”

I think about the pink phone in the toilet and I turn to look at Michael. Something clicks into place almost audibly in my head. “You're in love with her, aren't you? Wow. Wow.” Perhaps it should hurt, but it really doesn't. I don't feel that way about Michael. Not the way I still feel about Jason.

He's turning his steak knife over and over in his long fingers, concentrating on it. “She's going places. I'm not. It would never work.”

“What's with you guys? Give it a chance, why don't you? You don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does.”

“I'd rather know in advance,” he says. “Saves time and … pain.”

“Well, I wouldn't,” I say with feeling. “I don't want to know the future. Ignorance leaves room for hope.”
And hope is sometimes all you have left.

He turns the knife on its edge and presses the palm of his hand against the serrated blade. His face is expressionless and I can't tell if it hurts him or not.

“So, you're doing what? Hanging out with me to kill time until she notices you again?” I say.

“It's not like that. I like you. I always have. You're a cool person. I like what you have to say. I think you're brave, you know, with everything you have going on.”

Which is funny, because
brave
is the one thing I never feel.

After that, the night goes better. Michael and I are more comfortable, and I even dance some, though I know the dork in me is never far away.

“Isn't Chaz just
adorable
?” Trina says as she dances up to me. What Chaz is doing on the dance floor is a lot of things (criminal? anatomically impossible?) but adorable is not the word I would have used. But I smile, because she is happy, and I
hurt
, missing Jason, but I'm still happy for her.

She puts her arm around me and shimmies her hip into
mine. “How you doing, girl?” she whispers into my ear. “I know this is hard. But try to have fun. She wants you to have fun.”

I nod and smile, and give her a little push back toward Chaz. On my way to the punch, I run into Faith.

“You know,” I say. “I'm trying to figure out Michael.”

She looks at me sharply. “Good luck with that. I mean, no offense, I know the two of you are hot and heavy, but he's a
mess
. I couldn't care less what Michael is thinking anymore.”

But the pain in her eyes belies her words. She does love him. Whatever happened between the two of them is dark and sad on her face.

“He's down,” I say. “Real down. I think he needs a friend. One that really understands him.”

She sighs. “He talked about dying all the time after his dad killed himself. Everything changed, and I couldn't bear the thought of him … doing something to himself. But I'm never really happy when we're apart, either. It sucks. Love sucks. But … when I get him to laugh, it feels awesome. God, I don't know.” She folds one little fist into the pink, shiny fabric of her dress.

“Seriously? You made him
laugh
?” I stare at her in amazement. “I can't even make him
smile
. You two are meant to be together. Truly. Why don't you go talk to him? I'm heading to the bathroom, and I might be a while.”

“Why are you … ?” She hesitates, and looks away.

“Being nice when you were such a jerk to me?” I think about it. “Because it took courage to come say what you did to me about your grandmother. It would have been easier for you
to not say anything, and I have a lot of respect for people who don't do the easy thing.”

She looks a little taken aback, but then nods. “Thank you.”

She goes over to Michael, and I go back to the bathroom. This time I let myself cry. How easy it is for them, how impossible for me.

Monday after prom, I go to the airport. Tweety Bird is fixed, good as new, and Stew took her up yesterday for the first time. He asked me to go—not to fly, just as a passenger—but I said no.

I don't know if I'll ever fly again and I don't want to be reminded of what I'm losing.

Stew throws me a rag, and I start wiping down one of the planes, a two-seater Cessna 152 with its engine compartment open.

“You decided?” Stew asks.

“No.”

He shakes his head and goes back to doing whatever he was doing under the cowling of the Cessna.