Rules for 50/50 Chances (7 page)

And then her only son, my dad, calls her up from the States one day and says, Hey, Ma, so the woman I married—you know, the not-Jewish one you didn't want me to marry in the first place—she's got this wacko genetic disease, and she's just going to keep getting worse, so can you give up your days doing crosswords and watching mysteries on the BBC and move back across the ocean to the country you thought you were done with, to play nurse/babysitter for a while? Possibly until she dies? Thanks.

I miss her sometimes—the grandmother she was before she was this person, in my space all the time, trying to take care of Mom and take her place at the same time. She used to be kind of funny. She'd come visit from London with bags of British things—P.G. Tips tea and HobNobs and huge, crispy Lion Bars. She'd say “poor yoooou” whenever I'd complain about one dance injury or another, but she didn't mean it sarcastically, the way an American would. She meant it for real: poor you.

I told Dad we could deal on our own, take care of Mom; it's a slow-moving beast, Huntington's. But Dad didn't want me to be the nurse. I was twelve when she was diagnosed; he saw adolescence looming, full of text messages and first boyfriends and AP classes. (In reality, of course, I've got the AP classes and the text messages—from Lena, anyway. Not so much the boyfriends. Of course, Dad couldn't have known that I'd be too neurotic to ever go on a date.) Anyway, about a year after the guillotine fell on Mom's head—I imagined her diagnosis like that—Dad called Gram, and she came, because that's what mothers are supposed to do.

I put another kettle on and wait for it to boil, standing guard by it so Mom won't bother trying to fix it herself. Maybe it's time to take the knobs off the stove after all.

Mom sits at the kitchen table with a wet dishrag draped over her wrist. “How's dance?” she asks after a moment—again, focused, her words almost clear.

“Fine. Usual.”

“Usual?”

I sigh. “Everyone's a little weird right now because of next year, I guess. There are a couple companies some of the girls in my year are auditioning for, with like one spot for every bijillion dancers or whatever. So maybe that's why they're all acting a little cagey.”

I say this to the tea kettle, more or less, and when I look up at Mom, I realize that I'd almost forgotten who I was really talking to. Every now and then I talk to Mom like she's still the same person she used to be. It's nice when it happens; I should do it more, that's what Dr. Howard says—he's always reminding me that she
is
the same person. I should keep acting as normal as I can with her, when I can. But it's easier said than done.

Mom's working hard at listening to me and processing my words, ignoring the dishrag that has now slipped from her wrist to the kitchen floor. This is what she does now, focuses extra hard on the tasks she really wants to do right. I pick up the dishrag and rinse it with cold water, wringing out the excess before I place it back over her hand.

“How are your c-c-college a-a-applications?” she asks slowly, chewing each word carefully before spitting it out.

We visited colleges last spring. One of them—Cunningham, in upstate New York—was sort of appealing. Their dance program is well known, at least for a liberal arts school without a conservatory program. Other than that, all the colleges blurred together. The truth is, there's only one school I've ever really imagined myself at, even though I've never visited. But it seems pretty unrealistic at this point—if I could even get in.

“Nonexistent, so far,” I confess.

“Rose—don't p-p-put this off.”

“Well, I'm guessing Dad won't like the idea of me doing a dance program. And I don't know what else I want to do.”

Mom contorts her face into a smile. She used to be a great dancer, too. She never danced professionally, but she probably could have if she'd wanted to. She took ballet for a long time growing up, and when I was ten, she started going back to class occasionally, just for fun. Of course, that didn't last long.

“Your dad has two left f-f-feet. He doesn't get it.”

I do a little impression of Dad's dance moves, an offbeat collection of disconnected twists and kicks, and Mom snorts out a laugh. She's right—I don't think Dad understands having a real passion for something creative. He's just more practical. He thinks I should learn something marketable, something I can turn into a reliable career path, like, I don't know,
real estate
. My father is a realtor. I like watching
House Hunters
with Mom, but I can't really see myself selling houses for a living.

“Just m-m-make a ch-ch-choice, Rose,” Mom says, suddenly serious again. “For n-n-next year. It'll b-b-b-be okay.”

 

 

Back upstairs, I return to my laptop and open a new web page. The address comes up automatically after I type just a few letters, evidence of how many times I've visited this site. The University of the Visual and Performing Arts, San Francisco. One of the few—and certainly the best—combined ballet BFA/apprenticeship programs in the country. Here in Boston, I can dance or I can go to college, but there's no school like UVPA, where I can get that level of professional ballet training and a college degree at the same time.

I've had my eye on UVPA since probably sixth grade. As usual, I go to their admissions page and review the information one more time—not that anything has changed. They need all the standard stuff—transcripts, SAT scores, recommendations, a personal statement—plus you have to send them an audition video, or schedule an in-person audition. I haven't done either. It costs almost $50,000 a year to go there, never mind the flights back and forth. And it's on the other side of the country—from everything.

Caleb Franklin might be right: I might be overthinking the Huntington's test. Maybe my status shouldn't matter so much, and I should just continue living my life the way I was before I knew the test was a real possibility. It's just that now, when I consider how I want to spend the next years of my life—going to college, dancing, becoming a legitimate grown-up human being and whatever else that entails—I can't help but think: What if I knew?

Five

Caleb Franklin's Facebook message a week later says, “Can I lure you out for coffee? In a public place, of course.” I can't seem to shake the jittery, flushed feeling I have whenever his name pops up on my screen. Every time I remember sitting next to him on the Common, eating caramel popcorn and talking like we'd known each for years, I feel the same rush of warmth mixed with anxiety. It's almost sickening, but I can't help it. I want more.

So I agree to meet him “for coffee”—even though I don't really drink coffee—at the bookstore in Porter Square late the next Saturday afternoon. I'm rushing, of course, after a full day of dance classes, and my hair is still damp from the two-minute shower I jumped in and out of. Through the swirled purple and yellow lettering on the window advertising ginger lemonade, I spot a huge book called
Information and Ethics in the Age of Genetic Medicine
propped up, masking its reader's face. I have to laugh.

“A little light reading?” I ask, as soon as I walk through the door.

He looks up from the book and shrugs. “I like to keep up with the latest research. You know.”

“Mmm-hmmm. Okay.” I fold my arms across my chest.

“Or maybe I just find that oversize scientific textbooks with long titles impress the ladies.”

I laugh. “Oh, I see. So that's what this is. Do you really think that has the effect you're going for? I suspect most girls don't find genetics textbooks particularly impressive.”

He flips the giant textbook closed and pushes it aside. “Indeed, you make a valid point. But you're not most girls, are you, HD?”

Color and heat rush to my cheeks, and I don't know how to respond, so I just stand there, awkwardly. It's nice to see Caleb again in person, but I'm only now realizing that in spite of the fact that we've chatted about some pretty personal stuff, we barely know each other. I look him over more closely, reacquainting myself with his face. His eyes, behind his thick glasses, are pure dark brown, not flecked with gray like mine, indecisive brown.

“So, um, do you want to stay here?” he goes on. “I don't actually drink coffee.”

“Me neither,” I admit.

“Ice cream instead?” he asks, his eyes flickering hopefully. “It's not too cold for that yet, right?”

“It's never too cold for ice cream. That's one of my dad's rules.”

“He sounds like my kind of guy, then.”

We cross the parking lot of the shopping center, headed for the ice cream shop tucked in a tiny corner unit next to the drugstore. It's takeout only, so we get our orders—coffee frappe for me, mint chip in a waffle cone for him—and sit outside. The cars on Mass. Ave. rush by and the breeze serves as a chilly reminder that sitting-outside-weather won't last long.

“You go to Roosevelt?” he asks, and I nod. My school, the only public high school in the city, is sort of an institution. My mom and uncle Charlie went there, too.

“What about you?”

“Barrow?” he says, in that way that Harvard undergrads tell you where they go to school, with a little half question mark at the end as if you may not have heard of it. I wasn't expecting him to name a private school. I guess my face reveals my surprise.

“I know, I know,” he says. “Private school asshole, that's what you're thinking.”

“No, I mean—” I stammer. Barrow is known for being one of the snootier private schools around. It's hard to imagine him there. “How is it?”

“You know, it's not bad, honestly,” he says. “The people aren't as obnoxious as you'd think. And the teachers have been cool with sisters, with the sickle cell stuff. They take it seriously. My parents sent us there so they'd get that kind of attention, so if they were having a bad day they wouldn't just get lost in the crowd.”

I'm pretty sure no one at my high school knows about my genetic situation, except my favorite teacher, Ms. Greenberg. In English, sophomore year, she assigned us an essay on a moment that “cleaved our lives in two”—I remember her using those words exactly. She wanted us to think about a time when a single event—meeting someone, making a choice, taking a risk—changed us fundamentally. I could've written about setting foot in the dance studio for the first time, or the moment I went up on pointe, but everything I tried to write felt false, so I gave in and wrote the truth.

“Of course, half my classmates assume my whole family's on scholarship,” Caleb says. “Because hey, you know, how else would we be able to afford it?” He throws up his hands exaggeratedly, pretending to be utterly baffled.

I register that he's making a joke about race, but I don't know how to respond in a way that makes me sound smart/funny/race-conscious in a sophisticated way, so instead I overfocus on my frappe, trying not to slurp. Slurping is something I am particularly paranoid about. It's almost inevitable when drinking ice cream through a narrow straw, but it's also an early symptom of Huntington's. My mother slurps a lot these days.

“Hey, so I read this thing last week that you'd find interesting, I think,” I say.

If he notices that I've changed the subject away from his clever social commentary, he doesn't indicate it. “Tell me.” He gives me a quizzical look.

“Have you heard of the blog
Teens with Bad Genes
?”

Caleb laughs, hard. He has a big laugh, the kind that shakes his shoulders up and down. It's a good laugh. “I have not heard of that, but I've obviously been missing out. What is that?”

“It was started by some kid whose sister has Tay-Sachs. He's really funny. You wouldn't think Tay-Sachs could be funny, I know, but trust me. This kid makes it hilarious. I mean, not the disease. But like, living in his family and dealing with all this stuff. And he posts cool genetics news articles and stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” He raises an eyebrow in interest.

As I launch into a detailed explanation of the testing program in the Jewish high schools and all the fascinating questions it raises about genetic testing, it occurs to me that I am seriously nerding out on Caleb.

“Sorry,” I say, cutting myself off. “I'm kind of a dork about this stuff.”

“I already knew that, HD.”

“I'm just saying, you should read the blog because it's funny and informative.”

“Funny
and
informative, is it? Well, that must make it worth reading, then.” Caleb shoves me gently. I push him back.

“At first I suspected that the blogger kid was probably a pedo living in his mother's basement and just posing as a teenager, you know?” I say. “But then I Googled him and he's legit.”

Caleb laughs again. “Why do you think everyone is secretly a criminal? First you accuse me of plotting to lure you into the woods, and now you think this blog guy is a pedophile? I'm pretty sure most people are not murderers posing as teenagers with genetic mutations, even on the Internet.”

“Truth?” I ask, putting my frappe down.

“Truth.”

“I watched too many murder mysteries as a child. I'm damaged. Blame my parents.”

“Oh, so that's what this is? And you'll never get in a taxi because you watched that movie with Denzel and Angelina, right?”

“Exactly!” I say, cracking up. “
Never
, ever take taxis!”

When our laughter naturally trails off, we both force a few extra chuckles out, just to extend the moment a little longer. Finally, I look at him, looking at me.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing. You're funny, HD girl.”

“I do what I can,” I say, shrugging. Because you know, this is no big deal. Just me, hanging out with an attractive male, having a not completely awkward conversation. Like normal girls do.