Side Effects May Vary (2 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers

Harvey.

Now.

“W
hy can't we watch one of those reality shows about cat-hoarding old ladies?” mumbled Alice.

I laughed. “You've never even seen this movie and it's only the opening credits. Give it a chance, Al.”

She lay next to me on her bed with her head propped up on a mountain of pillows. Her eyes were closed, her skin warm and clammy, but still her lips smiled a little.

Tonight we decided to watch
A Christmas Story
, the movie with the leg lamp and the Christmas dinner at a Chinese food restaurant—the movie that everyone else in the world, except Alice, had seen a million times. I didn't know how that was even possible since it played on TV every Christmas for twenty-four hours straight. Christmas wasn't for another two weeks, and if there was one thing Alice wasn't guaranteed, it was another two weeks. It'd been a little over a year since she'd been diagnosed. I didn't know what I expected one year later to look like, but it wasn't this. It wasn't Alice lying in her bed, waiting for the cancer to eat up whatever was left, while I half-assed my way through eleventh grade, trying to pretend that stupid things like homework and my lame minimum-wage job mattered.

She hadn't been able to leave the house much for the last couple of weeks, so we started working our way through my best friend Dennis's collection of must-see movies. Dennis loved movies, pop culture, and video games, but he was smart too, like future Rhodes Scholar smart. His whole family was like that. His twin sister, Debora, was this political mastermind. When we were kids, she used to make us play Congress. It was miserable.

A Christmas Story
had been at the top of Dennis's list, and we'd tried to watch it a few times, but Al always said she hated Christmas stuff. Really, I thought Alice got off on hating all the things others were so quick to love.

In fifth grade, she came with me and Mom to pick out a small Christmas tree for the apartment. It was a warm Christmas, but it snowed a little that night. I followed the tree guy up and down the aisles with my mom behind me and Alice behind her. I found the perfect tree. I was sure I had. Alice didn't say so, but I knew she thought so too because as I circled the tree, pretending to inspect every limb, she swayed a little and hummed to herself as
Noel
played over the crackling loudspeakers and the snow melted on her cheeks.

Other than the glow of the television, her whole room was dark. We were quiet for a few minutes, so I watched the movie as Alice's breathing evened out and her body slumped against mine. She sounded sicker than normal, like she had a respiratory infection or something. When people like her—people with cancer—got sick like this, a common cold could be the thing that ended it all. It didn't seem fair.
She had cancer, but it was the flu that did her in.

I tried not to think about that because this moment felt perfect. Her lying here, next to me, her body curving into mine. It was perfect except that she was dying and I was living and I didn't know how we could do both at the same time.

She had these good days every once in a while, and those were bold-faced lies that I fell for every time. Last week she had three good days and two the week before. The closer we got to what Alice affectionately referred to as her “expiration date” the more I was fooled into believing all of this wasn't real.

I knew that I should have left so she could turn the TV off and get some rest, but I was selfish. I wanted every moment. When Alice was gone, she was going to take a giant Alice-shaped chunk out of me and it would go with her, wherever it was that she was going. I was scared to think what might be inside that chunk of me. Whatever it was—our past, our present, our never-going-to-come-true future—would die with her. Everything about the situation made me manic. But when the girl you loved was dying, it was hard not to let yourself go with her.

I shut out Alice's wheezing breaths and pretended that she was 98.6 degrees and healthy. I watched the movie all the way through the end of the credits and well on into the copyright info. Finally, the TV stereo began to buzz and I knew it was time to go home. Normally, I would have turned off the TV and snuck out of her room. Instead, I sat there next to her in her little twin bed. Her hipbones protruded through the blanket while her chest rose and fell with each jagged breath. Medicine on her nightstand was stacked high like a fortified city. The huge box of tissues too. For a little while Alice was getting these insane nosebleeds, and she would sit around for hours with a tissue stuffed up each nostril. But those had petered out and tonight she was just congested, I guessed. Or maybe this was the next step down in her declining health.

I closed my eyes and we were old and wrinkly, sitting side by side, watching reruns of
Wheel of Fortune
or something.

Shadows passed beneath her bedroom door. Alice's mom, Bernie (short for Bernice), walked down the hallway, talking on the phone in a hushed voice. “It's not a good time.” Pause. “She's already asleep, Mom.” Pause. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Bernie's family lived on the other side of the country, and as far as I knew, Bernie didn't mind. She hung up the phone and a few minutes later she and Alice's dad, Martin, flicked the hallway lights on and off, talking loudly about going to bed. A little show to let me know it was time to go home even though they would never come in and actually tell me to leave.

I swung my feet off the bed and tied the dirty laces on my sneakers. I got up and immediately sat back down and did something I had never done before. I woke up Alice to say good-bye because these bad nights reminded me that we only had so many nights left. When I squeezed her bony shoulder, she moaned in protest. Her lips were dry and cracked, the sound barely escaping her mouth. I dipped my head down next to her ear, my cheek pressed against her bare skull.

“Alice,” I breathed. The buzzing TV cast a blue light over her. “Alice, don't leave, okay? I'll come here every day, just don't leave.” A single tear cut a path down my cheek, and I wiped it away before it felt real. This seemed like good-bye, not good night.

But then she opened her eyes. “Hi.”

I tried to smile.

“That movie sucked.”

I laughed. “Yeah. It sort of did.”

Her eyes crinkled a little and her lips curved upward, like she'd remembered something funny from a time that wasn't now. “I'll miss you most, Harvey.” She sat up on her elbows. “I don't know what it will feel like after, but I know I'll miss you most.”

We'd gone through so much shit together, but this was the first time she'd ever told me that I was important. And that I mattered to her. I wanted this. I wanted to keep it forever. But you don't ever get what you want how you want it.

I cleared my throat. “Alice, I—”

“Don't.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Save that for someone who's not about to bite it.”

I nodded. I loved Alice. It was so obvious that I didn't even need to say so out loud. I stood and opened her bedroom door.

“Harvey,” she said.

I turned.

“Me too.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers

Alice.

Now.

B
efore I could stop myself, I reached for my hair, my fingers smoothing over my naked scalp. Gone, it was all gone. Even now, over a year later, it still came as a shock. I did this several times a day, like clockwork. It was a phantom limb, my hair.

My oncologist for the last year or so, Dr. Meredith, bustled through his office door. Noise from the hallway bled through for a moment before the door shut behind him, sealing us in. My mom drummed her fingers on her leg, a nervous habit. Dad reached over and took her hand in his, absorbing her tension.

Dr. Meredith was a large, robust man, and jolly too, with rosy cheeks and this perpetual baby-powder smell. I always thought he would be better suited as a Santa Claus at the Green Oaks Mall rather than a doctor charged with the duty of delivering earth-shattering news. Maybe his appearance was supposed to soften the blow.
The bad news is you have cancer. The good news is Santa Claus is your doctor. Peppermint stick for your trouble?

I almost laughed out loud, remembering that stupid Christmas movie I'd watched with Harvey last night. Well, he watched it and I slept through it. But that wasn't all that happened. I always knew how he felt about me, and I finally told him that I felt the same. Telling him that felt like my final task—well, almost. There was one item left on my list. From where I stood, it was likely to remain my only unfinished business.

My dad spoke up first. “What is it, Dr. Meredith?” Then, a little quieter, almost to himself, he said, “I thought we'd heard the worst of it.”

 

Dr. Meredith squeezed behind his desk, sweat gathering at his brow, huffing between labored breaths. My parents occupied the two chairs directly in front of his desk. I sat in the middle of the small loveseat in the corner of the office, stacks of folders and papers sat on either side of me. Dr. Meredith had been my specialist for over a year and neither of these stacks had moved an inch. The couch was stiff and, I suspected, rarely used. It was one of those deceiving couches that looked like it should be much more comfortable than it really was. Typical doctor's office furniture, something I was all too familiar with.

Dr. Meredith looked at me directly while I stretched my long legs out in front of me, pointing my toes hard, like I would in my pointe shoes. (Now stuffed away in the back of my closet along with some old recital costumes.) Long out of practice, the backs of my calves stung.

All the news Dr. Meredith had given us has been delivered to my parents. I had always been in the room, but not
really
, not to them. It must have been easier for him to say those things to my mom and dad. It removed me from the situation. But whatever it was he had to say this time, it was me he wanted to say it to. He'd called us early this morning and told us we needed to come in as soon as possible. In my experience, phone calls made outside of office hours never led to anything good.

Flipping through my charts, Dr. Meredith said, “I see your temperature's a little high.”

Instinctively, my hand flew to my forehead. Still clammy, but not as bad as last night when Harvey had come over. I'd gotten so used to being ill that now I had trouble telling the difference between being sick and being Sick.

My dad cleared his throat, loudly.

Dr. Meredith took a deep breath. “Alice.” His brown eyes found mine, and it was only me and him. He exhaled. “You're in remission.”

For a moment, it was quiet and everything felt okay. But then my mother began to sob, her entire body shaking in response. It was a horrible noise that made the room feel too small. Dad coughed, trying to bite back his tears. He pinched the bridge of his nose, like his fingers might absorb his tears, but instead they rolled down his hand and into the cuff of his jacket.

Oh shit
.

This, I did not expect. This was not on my list.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers

Harvey.

Now.

M
y eyelids hung heavy from staying too late at Alice's last night, again. I jogged down Aisle 9 (soup, canned vegetables, and dressing) toward the employee break room, with the Christmas Muzak crackling over the speakers. Pushing the door open with my back, I called to Dennis as he restocked the prepackaged lunchmeats. “I'm out early, man. Heading to Alice's. We're watching your favorite,
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
!” One of Dennis's life goals was not to be
like
Bill Murray, but to
be
Bill Murray.

A couple nights ago we'd watched
Jaws
, and afterward Alice said movies about the ocean were “lame,” but I promised
The Life Aquatic
would be different. Even if she would never say it, she had always been scared of the ocean or any other un-chlorinated body of water. It was the one thing I ever knew Alice to be scared of, and not even she realized that I knew.

“Restock aisle six for me?” I didn't wait for him to agree. “I owe you!” He waved me on and said something under his breath.

I slid my time card into the clock and punched out. Only an hour and a half today. Shit. These short after-school shifts were killing me. Normally, I worked five to six hours, four days a week after school. Lately I had been leaving early and sometimes not even coming in at all.

Grocery Emporium was the last family-owned grocery store in Hughley. They had a strong local following, but in order to keep the big supergrocery stores at bay there were some modern conveniences we went without—like a new time clock. And vending machines, digital produce scales, working barcode scanners . . . You know, all the things necessary to actually run a modern grocery store. I couldn't complain. They worked with my fucked-up schedule, and given all that was going on with Alice they'd been cutting me a lot of slack lately.

Alice. She would miss me. She said she would. And now it was all I could think about. And she loved me. At least, I thought she did. She didn't really say so. The whole thing gave me these bursts of stupid happy, which were always followed by guilt because it didn't feel right to be happy.

 

I was thirteen years old when it changed.

Alice's birthday was in eleven days, making it the middle of January.

I remembered playing some Chopin for the intermediate class at my mom's dance studio. All Mom's studio rooms had these old beat-up stereos, but the main studio where the intermediate class usually met had a piano. We'd bought it off one of my piano teacher's friends a long time ago. Mom had always hated dancing or instructing to anything but a live accompaniment. So, a piano-playing son had been no accident.

I never knew who my dad was, but I always thought he must have been a piano player since pianos were the only thing my mom loved more than ballet.

Warm-ups had wrapped, and each student took turns with a forty-five-second solo in preparation for spring auditions. My mother was handing out a ballet solo, which Celeste and Alice were the top contenders for. The tension between them had always been a continuous competitive cycle that only escalated with age.

Celeste stood with her arms spread and a smug expression on her face, waiting for some kind of praise. Ever since we were kids, she would show up to dance with her portfolio of sheet music and monologues tucked beneath her arm, ready for voice and acting class too. For Celeste, dance was one piece of the puzzle. She wanted to be famous and I don't even know that she cared what for.

My mother, Miss Natalie to her pupils, clapped to the beat and said, “To appear effortless requires much effort! Alice, next!” There was no way to tell if that was meant as a compliment or a criticism of Celeste's form. Knowing my mother, silence would have been more positive feedback.

Like Celeste, Alice wasn't en pointe that night. Being the youngest in the class, the two of them didn't always practice with their stiff-toed ballet shoes for the sake of preserving their still-growing feet. I always preferred to watch Alice when she wasn't en pointe anyways.

On a typical day, she wore her hair slicked back into a bun, an impeccable ballet bun. But Fridays had become my favorite day of the week, because it was the only school day Alice didn't have dance classes, which meant she wore her hair down. With our last names so close in the alphabet—hers, Richardson, and mine, Poppovicci—we always sat near each other in class. When Alice's light brown, wavy hair hung loose, it hit the middle of her back, the place where her leotard usually met her ivory skin. She almost never wore it down, but when she did, it was the single thing about her that ever looked out of control. It would swish between her shoulder blades, calling to me. And I would have followed her too, anywhere. On Fridays, during class, she would constantly massage her scalp, and more than once I had to stop myself from running my fingers through her hair.

She was tall and slender, with just a whisper of curves. We were the same height, and I hoped I'd be able to keep up. Her nose was small and sloped a little too far out, squaring off at the tip. Her pale blue eyes, they always swallowed me whole. They'd always been my road map. Alice's lips were full and pouty and she rarely smiled, but when she did it was worth all the eye rolls, bossy demands, and sharp words combined. It was worth it because her smile was genuine, and if you made Alice smile, then you'd earned it. Everything with Alice was earned. But her scowls were more easily earned than anything else. I'd learned the language of each of her expressions.

Still, I thought she was perfect in every way, but en pointe her perfection was a blinding sun. If I stared at her long enough, the piano keys would play themselves, fueled by her. En pointe she was a force, a tornado: safe to look at from a distance, but in close proximity, you risked being just another piece of her debris. Some days I thought I could only be so lucky.

Her toes bent at the balls of her feet as she rose nearer to the ceiling. She wore lyrical dance shoes in black. They reminded me of gladiator shoes. Thin leather straps wrapped around her feet. Her unpolished toes were red and bulbous; her feet calloused. Most people would say they were ugly, even disgusting. But she wore them proudly, like a badge, a display of her hard work. Without her stiff satin pointe shoes with their stubby toes, she was closer to earth. Closer to me, a little more in reach.

She was in a class of fourteen other students, all by herself.

I'd known her my whole life. Other girls didn't exist for me in the same way she did. They had been there all along, these feelings; the only thing that had changed was my understanding of them. My whole body finally connected the dots, and I realized that even if we were never together, she'd ruined me and I'd never feel that way about anyone again.

On that cold night in January it all slipped into place for me and she became my everything and my everyone. My music, my sun, my words, my hope, my logic, my confusion, my flaw.

I was thirteen years old, and she was all these things to me.

And I was her friend.