Tell Me Something Real Page 5

  “Let me see it,” he says. He leans toward me to identify the image. “That was a crazy ice storm. They closed all the schools. I was so psyched. Almost everything was closed. My folks didn’t go to work; the power was on and off, same with the phones. It lasted for days. Did anything like that ever happen to you?”

  Rain, wind, the threat of mudslides. My clothes soaked through. I’m terminal. I blink away the memory.

  “It doesn’t get that cold here.” I sift through the slides, plucking a handful of faded Polaroids and Technicolor snapshots from the bottom of the pile. He describes other storm photos and I gaze at the images of a younger, healthier Caleb, of his beaming smile and broad little-boy face. So this is how he looked before lymphoma turned his blood deadly. His family had cooked on a camp stove and roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. The storm turned their home into a campground. Barb, with a sheet of long, straight, dark hair, looked easy and relaxed, less in charge.

  “Why’d you bring these with you?”

  “My mom thinks it helps to bring part of home with us. She says it’s something to keep me fighting. She’s too scared to believe we already won.”

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope, just me.”

  I envy his position as an only child, a person all his own, contained and complete. Adrienne and Marie glow at such high wattage. I’m the soft light compared to their ultraviolet. Unlike me, he isn’t one of three, a constant comparison, the middle child flanked by far more intriguing sisters.

  “You don’t talk about your dad much,” I say. “He’s not in the pictures.”

  “He took them. There’s not much to say now that he’s gone. My mom says there’s nothing keeping us in Seattle anymore. She thinks the sun is good for me. She’s thinking of moving us here.”

  “Staying for good?” I pull at my powder-blue shag carpet. He could stay, maybe in one of those Easter candy–colored bungalows in Pacific Beach or Del Mar. A little house right on the ocean. Sand instead of a front lawn. He could be permanent, remaining long after summer, after New Year’s when the calendar flips to 1977. After Mom.

  He gives me that look, like the one on the beach that slows down my heart rate and allows me to take a deep breath. His intense eyes sparkle as he smiles with his lips closed, a serious smile, almost gentle in its power. Cancer strips everything away—hair, energy, laughter—and the only thing left is your true self, diminished but pure. That’s what I learned at the clinic.

  Caleb is pure. Honest and curious and calm, but more than that. Lymphoma wipes out high school bullshit. As I meet his eyes, my awkwardness slips away. How could anyone sit so still? Perfect posture with a ramrod straight spine, the kind my ballet teacher demanded, back when I thought I’d rather dance to music than create it. I see his resilience and healing. His determination to outrun this thing, but maybe that’s because he’s in remission.

  He nods his head. “Yeah. Probably.”

  Marie peeks in.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Mom’s not feeling so good and I need to take care of her and you have to help Barb in the kitchen.”

  I feel a twinge of guilt. She should be outside kicking her neglected soccer ball, not in Mom’s room—my job. At least Mom reads to her, the two of them nestled under the quilt, turning pages from the thick stack of library books.

  “Where’s Adrienne?”

  “The store.”

  “Again?” I ask. She just went.

  “Mom wants yogurt. She says it’s the only thing she can eat. We’re out.”

  “I’m okay,” Caleb says. “I kind of need to rest anyway.” He lifts himself from the floor and sits on the bed.

  I notice how he holds onto one of the slides and wonder which one he clings to, which memory.

  “See you in a while.” I close the door behind me.

  Marie disappears into Mom’s room. I watch as Mom stretches out her arms and wraps them around Marie. Barb has opened all of the curtains, cracking windows, reminding us of sunlight and breezes. I can’t remember the last time I walked down the hallway with the curtains open. I pause at one of our family photos taken at Sea World a couple of years ago. Dad must have shot it. The three of us stood in front of Mom, holding shells in our hands, oysters with pearls inside. We had spent the morning with killer whales, dolphins, and pearl divers, who retrieved the shells at the bottom of a large tank. Upon prying open the oysters’ jaws, Mom and Adrienne’s pearls were perfect iridescent spheres, while mine was black. Of all of us, I’m the only one with brown eyes, inherited from Dad’s French Canadian mom. I remember looking at the pearl and instead of appreciating the rare gem, I was overcome with a desire to throw it back at the diver. I didn’t care that she dove to the bottom of the tank, all the while wearing a mermaid costume and holding her breath, to dig through the sand just to give me that shell. It felt like a dirty trick. I drew the short straw.

  The picture was taken upon the opening of Marie’s shell, which contained twin pearls. Someone banged a drum and a group of employees hooted and clapped, the ritual when discovering twins. Dad captured the moment: Marie grinning with delight, Adrienne too distracted by her own treasure to bother looking up, Mom offering Dad a healthy smile, and me standing off to the side. In the hallway full of light, I lean toward the photo, so close that my breath fogs the frame. I want to see Mom before the cancer, but the glare is too bright and all I see is my own reflection in the glass.

  Barb bellows my name, and I find her in the kitchen with her arms full of natural foods cookbooks. She declares she’ll leave our meals to fate and beckons me near.

  “Close your eyes. I’m going to flip the pages of this cookbook and I want you to put your finger on a page, like this.” She guides my hand. “Let’s start with Vegetarian Italian Cooking,” she says. “And then we’ll move to Soups for Good Health.”

  My finger selects a main course of tofu lasagna accompanied by a thick Hungarian mushroom soup. “I haven’t had that before.”

  “Very nourishing. We’ll make a salad, too.” Barb continues to unpack the rest of her cooking supplies. Vitamins of every variety line the counters. “We’re all going to eat the vegetarian anti-cancer diet.” She holds up two pill bottles, the labels in Spanish. “Why is your mother taking both of these?”

  I scrutinize the labels, but don’t know what the bottles contain. “I’m not sure.”

  “This is a very dangerous combination. It doesn’t make any sense. Our doctor said these are never to be combined.”

  “Maybe that’s because he’s a pediatrician? Mom’s a nurse and she says that cancer is like a fingerprint. You know, different for each person.”

  A strange expression crosses Barb’s face. “Doubtful.” She pulls groceries from the refrigerator. “Dear one, what’s your family’s schedule?”

  It’s summer, so we don’t have a schedule. When we aren’t at the clinic, Dad brings home dinner and then works all night, sometimes in the dining room, and other times in his study. Mom stays in bed for days at a time. Adrienne and I handle meals and make grocery lists.

  “What do you mean? Like school?”

  She laughs. “No, what time do you all get up and eat your meals? Do you have an early dinner or a later one? What time do you kids go to bed?”

  “Whenever. It depends on how my mom’s feeling and when my dad’s home.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have the sense that life is a little too chaotic. I’m going to put you on our schedule and see if that helps.” She places a wet carrot in my hand. “Peel this for me?”

  I spend the next half hour listening to Barb’s intricate theories of nutrition’s relationship to cancer, causing me to worry about the fate of our pizza nights. I quarter mushrooms and chop spinach and endure her lecture on the exact amount of sleep a body needs to function.

  Once my final bowl brims with peeled and sliced vegetables,
Barb frees me from kitchen duty. I practically run to my room, where I find Caleb not resting in bed, but inspecting my desk. He picks up a sheet of music I keep in the top drawer. “I hear you’re a prodigy.”

  “Hardly,” I say with an edge to my voice. Another drawer hangs open, exposing pens and a notebook. Thank God I don’t keep a diary. I can’t help but glare.

  “Sorry, I was snooping. I couldn’t help it.”

  He hands me the music. Bach. Not a favorite. Somehow, a relief.

  “Please don’t do that again,” I say. Maybe I’ll make a list of rules and post them on the wall. Touch me but don’t touch my stuff. I place the music back in the drawer. I want to be the one who tells him about me, not anyone or anything else.

  “Really, Vanessa, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” He walks to the bed and sits down. I remain at my desk, feeling embarrassed and territorial. He smiles at me, trying to change the mood, giving me enough space to let the moment pass.

  I’m peeved with him, but there’s something more. That piece was on my audition tape, and suddenly I’m filled with anxiety. I want to run to the phone and ask Mrs. Albright if she’s received any letters from the conservatories. But then I remember that it’s June. School has only been out for two weeks. We won’t hear from the conservatories until early August. Two months of torture. I promised myself I wouldn’t obsess about my applications, count down the days until I’m accepted or rejected. It’s not like I can go anyway.

  I meet Caleb’s sheepish eyes. “I like how I feel when I play. No matter how many people are in the room, it’s just me and the piano. It makes me feel like I count. With my mom sick, sometimes it’s hard—” I stop, not wanting to sound selfish and not wanting to hurt my mother or offend Caleb.

  “She told my mom that you were getting recruited by conservatories.” He looks at me sideways.

  “It doesn’t make a difference. That was before my mom got so sick.” Mrs. Albright will receive the letters in just two months . . . but the conservatories are an impossible dream. Nothing more.

  He grows quiet for a moment. “I think I know what you mean about playing. That’s how I feel when I’m on my board.” He flings the skateboard to the floor and places his feet so one is in front of the other, the forward leg bent at the knee. “Like this, it’s just the board and me. Nothing else. No disease.”

  I point to the photos and slides, which he’s returned to the shoebox. “What do you miss the most? You know, when you look at those old pictures and think about everything before.”

  “Before getting sick?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stares at his sneakers. “It’s messed up because he left, but I miss my dad more than anything.” He rubs his scalp. “Even my hair.”

  The thought of losing Dad is as inconceivable as Mom’s leukemia. I close my eyes and wish I could take back my question. “I’m sorry.”

  “What about you?”

  I miss my healthy Mom, the mom in the photo, the one who smiled and led us through the amusement park, the last one wanting to leave. The mom from the movies and the pier, only cancer-free. “I want her to get better.”

  We sit on the bed until Barb shouts that dinner is ready.

  We haven’t had company since Mom got diagnosed, so imagine my surprise when I see the dinner table decorated with place mats, cloth napkins, and candles—not as many as the day of the storm, but a few.

  Mom emerges from her room, looking a little better, but not much. She’s coated her chapped lips with a soft pink lipstick, a shade I’ve never seen before, and she gives us all a tight smile, which I recognize immediately. She’s pushing herself too hard. She’s trying her best to be normal, but she’ll pay for it later with nausea and fatigue. I remind myself to give her some medicine right after dinner. Maybe a sleeping pill, too. I watch her rally. She takes a deep breath, samples the hippie food, and returns her fork to the plate. She doesn’t take another bite. I want to hijack a car and buy her clam strips, even if it just gives her the memory of something she loves. As if she reads my mind, she gives me a knowing smile.

  While the rest of us eat, Mom quizzes Barb about different natural health treatments. As she explains her own poor appetite, Mom asks what food helps which symptoms. They go on and on until Adrienne and Marie clear the table and wash the dishes. They keep out a plate for Dad, who is stuck at work again.

  Caleb and I escape to the family room to watch Wonder Woman. Halfway through the show, he puts his hand on mine. I hold my breath, not wanting anything to move. I’ve held hands with boys before. I’ve been kissed, even underwater at the public pool. I’ve had crushes, both requited and not. I may be a wallflower compared to Adrienne, with her devoted cult following, but I know that boys see something in me. Some boys—not the ones like Zach. Mine are in Model U.N. or band or orchestra.

  None of them gave me vertigo or tremors or heightened nerve sensitivity, though. Not a single one made me feel like I wasn’t so alone.

  Caleb squeezes my hand. I look up and find his eyes on me—not the crime-fighting supermodel—and he smiles. There isn’t anything bashful about him. Without thinking, I inch closer, just enough that our shoulders touch. I’m so distracted by the heat of his palm on my skin, I can’t tell you how the program ended.

  Later, after I feed Mom her pills and we have all gone to bed, I whisper to Adrienne about Caleb holding my hand.

  “Jesus Christ, Vanessa, you’re sixteen years old with a live-in boyfriend. Now you really have something to brag about when you start school.”

  Five

  The house is quiet, but not in the captive way it once was. Small sounds of life fill the rooms, reassuring sounds, sounds of string beans snapping, iced tea pouring, and breezes swaying kitchen curtains. The sounds of the living.

  Over the course of two weeks, Barb has renovated our day-to-day lives. With her in charge, we wake to a warm breakfast, orange juice, and herbal tea. She bans coffee, much to Dad and Adrienne’s dismay, but they keep the complaints to themselves and frequently sneak in steaming Styrofoam cups.

  Dad built our house on a hill, with a solid foundation and good bones, filled with strong weight-bearing walls that would survive a major earthquake. Barb, with her equally solid frame, adds a layer of bedrock. By planting her feet on the floor, she strengthens the whole structure, even if she nags us a little too much, earning her the nickname Bossy Barb. After a late-night conversation with Barb, Dad insisted on meeting with the president of his firm, going over Richard’s head. He came home victorious. Mr. President granted him family leave, plus weeks of the vacation time he accrued over the years but barely ever used. He just has to finish one project, the university arts and letters hall, which shouldn’t take more than a month. Maybe two.

  In the meantime, he devotes his attention to Mom and Marie, who need him most. Marie enrolls in soccer camp and vacation bible school. As soon as Dad changes from his suit into shorts, they practice, running the length of the yard until he comes in sweaty. It isn’t until then that he can sit still, reach for Mom’s hand, and talk about the week’s medical schedule. He remains out of breath.

  Adrienne escapes to the beach with Zach. After breakfast, she packs her backpack with her magazines and sketch pad and bolts out the front door. She refuses to allow Zach to pick her up at the house, stopping him at the bottom of the hill, where she climbs into his pickup. She comes home full of stories about how they spend their days at the beach, hanging out at one of the cafés where the staff treats them like adults, serving them free coffee refills. But her giddiness wanes quickly when she asks about Mom, disappearing altogether amid talk of Mom’s appetite and energy and mood. Barb relieves us of our responsibilities as nurses, cooks, and housecleaners. We’re almost kids again. An impossibility, but we try anyway. It is worth it when Mom smiles at our daily reports of swimming, soccer, and skateboarding. The luxury of boring details.

  I’m content to stay at home with Caleb, playing cards on the front porch and taking skateb
oard lessons. The incline of the driveway functions as the beginner’s slope as I learn to balance my body on the board. I circle the driveway until I do it ten times in a row without falling. Mastering that initial skill, turning the board without crashing, takes an entire week, and Caleb instructs me on distance, on how to ride beyond the driveway, beyond a block.

  A couple of weeks ago, it was inconceivable to spend hours outside, to do anything that didn’t require caring for Mom or Marie. However fragile Caleb may be, he’s not my responsibility. Caleb is teaching me the difference between desire and obligation.

  He looks so much better, barely like the boy who nearly fainted on the beach. Swirls of dark curls sprout on his scalp, and I have to resist the urge to trace the tendrils of growing hair. He doesn’t have tons of energy, but he has enough to keep him out of bed until eight or nine at night. After dinner, we lounge in my room, door open due to Barb’s strict rules, and play one of our clinic waiting-for-Mom board games. I lose over and over again because of the close proximity of his legs against mine. I catch him looking at me as I assess the Yahtzee dice or weigh the cost of the crown jewels of Monopoly: Boardwalk and Park Place. I glance up in time to catch him, and instead of bashfully looking away, he meets my eyes.

  “You don’t have to let me win,” he says.

  “I’m not letting you win.”

  He taps my naked toe with his own. “You don’t have to be so nice.”

  Without thinking, I laugh and repeat something Mom often says: “Adrienne’s the pretty one, I’m the nice and quiet one, and Marie’s the baby.”

  He places the dice on the Monopoly board and stares at me a little too seriously. I can’t read him, which happens sometimes when he isn’t feeling well but refuses to tell me so. “What?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

  “Why would you say that? It’s totally messed up.”

  I straighten the neat piles of bills, smoothing out creases, taking my job as banker way too seriously. “It’s nothing. Just something stupid that we say.”