Tell Me Something Real Read online

  “It’s bullshit.”

  I want him to look away, at his thick stack of properties or line of hotels. At the wall. At anything but me.

  “I mean it,” he says. “First, it’s not true, and second, who says something like that?”

  I don’t know what to say. They’re just facts in our family, as clear as the fact that Dad is an architect and I’m a pianist and Mom is sick. Small and identifying details. Nothing more. Nothing to debate or get upset about.

  “Vanessa?”

  My eyes remain on the board. “It’s nothing,” I say. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”

  “Adrienne looks like she could breathe fire. You are nice and you’re quiet in a good way. You actually listen to people. I’ve never met anyone who listens like you do.”

  “Can we please keep playing?” I ask.

  “Yeah, in a minute. Did you hear me?”

  I nod. Of course I want him to say these things about me, but not this way, not in comparison to my sisters, not in response to something utterly and completely stupid that slipped out of my mouth. “I just want to play, though.”

  He exhales, and I can’t tell if he is annoyed with me. “Can I say one more thing?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “You’re the beautiful one.”

  I close my eyes, just for a second, and snatch the dice, tossing them with conviction. Double ones.

  He leans close. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  I’m about to land on Reading Railroad, one of my favorites. “Snake eyes,” I say.

  “I mean it,” he says.

  I tear my eyes from the game, mustering enough courage to look at him, to see exactly how much he means it. I wasn’t fishing for compliments or putting myself down. I was just talking. Babcock conversation. Nothing more. But when our eyes meet, I understand that he knows I’m not playing games. He sees me. It’s clear by his smile and the way he looks into my face, surprising and foreign and, although I didn’t know it until that second, necessary. He nudges my foot, tapping until I smile. I force myself to not look away.

  Mom is a different person with Barb around, as though our houseguest possesses supernatural healing powers. After a couple of weeks with the Dunnes, Mom now rises with the rest of us, and although she looks pale and weak—sometimes not getting dressed for a couple of days—she sits in the kitchen with Barb for hours at a time. Barb seems to steady Mom’s moods, too. She takes better care of Mom than we ever could, and Mom hasn’t snapped at us once since Barb and Caleb arrived. They talk exclusively of cancer, detailing various ailments, their language consisting of phrases like “cell’s reproductive cycles” and “white blood count.” Their conversations are constant, and they have a feverish energy between them, as though their discussions might lead to a cure. Barb says she’s fascinated with Mom’s leukemia, and Mom absorbs the remark like a flower does the sun.

  We settle into a new rhythm crossing the border; with Barb behind the wheel, our excursions are speedy and efficient. She manages the short trips to see doctors and receive test results, as well as the overnights when Mom and Caleb rest as Laetrile drips into their veins. We go for tests and infusions and to build up the arsenals of vitamins and supplements. Sometimes I stay at home with my sisters, just the three of us again, free to take Mom’s car anywhere. Other times, Barb takes Mom alone. Her treatment is more frequent and rigorous. We don’t speak of her prognosis. Barb believes positivity is essential to recovery. We don’t dare remind her that there is nothing positive about terminal cancer.

  When I attend summer music camp, time becomes arbitrary and meaningless. We practice together in the sunlight and roast marshmallows in the dark. It feels the same with Caleb. I have to check the clock and the calendar to remember the time and date. Hours blend into days. I don’t need anything but the piano—not that I’ve been practicing enough—and him, and he’s easier to touch. He helps me focus on the moment, not the future. He helps me forget that the conservatories are just a dream. With Barb managing the house, I’m more aware than ever how much work is needed to take care of Mom. Leaving is out of the question, no matter how much I long to concentrate on music.

  Caleb is more than a distraction. When he holds my hand, he reminds me that I have fingerprints and nerves have endings. A gesture, a touch, can be as important as words.

  This morning I look at the calendar: Thursday. When Barb gets ready to drive Mom to the clinic for another infusion, we all pretend the rigorous treatment isn’t linked to her declining health. They plan to stay the night, returning before breakfast to beat rush hour and border traffic. The rest of us stay home, and they promise to call to say good night. Adrienne leaves with Zach, and Dad drives Marie to camp. My only duty is to tuck her cleats into her backpack.

  I watch as Dad backs the car out of the garage, marveling at how just weeks ago, such a day was inconceivable. We’d be at the clinic for the rest of the week. The kitchen would’ve had the sharp smell of a full trash can. The refrigerator empty. Dad would be scrambling to leave work, pick up a pizza, and come home before eight.

  Stacks of newspapers cover my neglected piano. Despite my promise to Mrs. Albright, I’ve barely played, stealing time when I can. My fingers long for the keys, but Caleb is sleeping and I can’t risk waking him. When I pace through the house, all I find is a clean kitchen and a refrigerator teeming with leftovers. I have nothing to do. I pass Caleb’s room—my room—to get a book. When I press my ear against his closed door, I don’t hear a thing. I wait there for a minute, wishing I had bionic superpower ears that would allow me to listen to his heart as he sleeps.

  A towering oak tree shades the front porch. In our pre-leukemia life, Jasmine and I often stretched out on a blanket there and tackled homework. I can’t remember the girl I was back then, much less the stuff I used to care about—now completely irrelevant. I don’t want to think about Jasmine and what it will be like when school starts. I haul out a kitchen chair so I won’t have to sit on a lonely blanket, a reminder of how things used to be. My feet rest on the railing and I open another Agatha Christie novel. I need the comfort of knowing the mystery will be solved, the criminal caught, and peace restored.

  Three chapters later, Caleb pads out barefoot and sleepy-eyed. He looks good except for the bruises on his arms, Laetrile track marks.

  “You okay?”

  He yawns and nods. “Hungry. I see you’re reading more fluff.”

  I shake off the criticism. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a little judgmental?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “You’re a snob,” I say as I close my book. “Agatha Christie is an international best seller. Have you even read her?”

  He shakes his head. “I’d rather spend my time talking to you about anything other than Agatha Christie.” He stretches, raising his arms above his head and touching the top of the door frame. His T-shirt rises, showing off an exposed inch of his belly. I almost reach out to touch him. Instead, I stand. “Come on. Your mom made a bunch of food.”

  He laughs. “I’d kill for a burger and fries.” He drops his arms from the door and turns the knob back and forth in a restless way, like he wants to move his body for the simple sake of moving. He has energy—extra, even.

  “I can make you a quesadilla,” I offer.

  “You mean I could have a tofu-free meal?”

  “Yes. Extra cheesy and full of fat.”

  As he follows me into the kitchen, he snatches a satsuma from the overflowing fruit bowl and liberates it from its peel. “That would be awesome. Real food. I mean, my mom does all this for me, but—”

  “You need something really unhealthy to feel human?”

  “Exactly. Have a slice of this orange.”

  He separates a piece for me and puts it in the center of my palm. We look at each other, frozen in place, just staring. His eyes hold every possible color, green with flecks of gold and aqua blue. My healthy blood pumps through my veins, filling my heart
so much that I think I’ll go into cardiac arrest. How could the body redirect everything to one organ? That’s how I feel—blood abandons my lungs, my kidneys, my liver—everything else that keeps me standing upright, here, in front of him. Bones and skin and that giant bundle of muscle, my heart, the only thing that matters, and I want to reach into my chest and hand it to him, as he handed me the orange. He makes it all worth it. Not Mom’s cancer, obviously, but the resulting collateral damage: losing Jasmine and my friends. Walking down the halls alone. Not having anyone to call when Adrienne is out with Zach. It’s like I spent sophomore year trying to take a deep breath, and I couldn’t, not really, until he walked into the clinic’s courtyard.

  “You should eat that,” he finally says as he pops the remainder of the fruit into his mouth.

  My taste buds fail me. All I feel is his finger tracing my hand. “Let me cook.” Remarkably, my voice box still functions.

  I watch him eat one quesadilla, then another, along with two more oranges.

  “You’re better.”

  He nods. “Yeah. I feel good today. What do you want to do?”

  Nothing that would change this day, his good, energetic, pink-cheeked day. This is the best he’s looked, so much better than when I first laid eyes on him three weeks ago. “We don’t have a car to steal.”

  “Let me take a shower and think of a plan.”

  Caleb in the shower. I turn away so he won’t see me blush. “I’ll clean up.”

  “I’ll be fast.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  The bathroom is at the other end of the house. He won’t be able to hear me. I have just enough time to run through Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, one of Mrs. Albright’s more difficult pieces. I scoop up the newspaper and sit down on the piano bench, a homecoming. My fingers sweep the keys. I try to focus on the music. The piano anchors me in place, but my mind rises and falls with the piece, levitating through the music.

  “You’re so good. When do you practice?”

  I drop my hands into my lap. “I haven’t been. Not enough, anyway.”

  Water drips from his skin. He didn’t take the time to dry off. He dressed hurriedly and I finger the hem of his T-shirt, which is inside out.

  “Keep going,” he says. He pulls my hand off his shirt and moves it back onto the keys. “Come on. I want to hear.”

  I left the front door open, and a breeze rustles the sheet music. I close my eyes and concentrate on the notes. I don’t start over, back to the beginning. I pick up where I left off and play with everything I have, pouring myself into the music, to the crescendo, and finally the end. He puts his hands on my shoulders and mine remain on the keys. I feel his breath on the back of my neck. The piano and Caleb, both at once.

  I turn around. He pulls me up and kisses me. The kiss I’ve been waiting for since our doomed walk on the beach when I almost killed him. This is the kiss that I wanted when he moved in, when I go to sleep, and when I wake up. This is exactly how I imagined, the closeness of his body, the way he holds the back of my head in his palm.

  He will be fine. Just look at him, I tell myself, a promise. This is what remission looks like, the inching back to life, skin looking like skin again, not like parchment, yellowed and thin. I kiss the place where his cheek meets his throat, tickled by his stubble, and whisper, “You’re not dying.”

  “Told you so.”

  He pulls me closer and I get my wish: not just the kiss, but the sound of his heart.

  “Will you play more?”

  “Later.” I lead him back to the porch and we sit on the steps.

  He nudges his knees against mine. His skin is still warm from the shower. “Come on,” he says. “Play more. It’s just me here.”

  “Maybe in a while, okay?”

  “You’re really good, Vanessa,” he says. “I mean it. I’ve never heard someone play music like that except on a record or on the radio. No wonder you’re getting recruited.”

  I look at my bare feet, at my chipped cherry-red nail polish. “I love orchestra, but it’s a lot of traveling on weekends and events at night. My teacher wants me to do it, but I can’t bail on Adrienne like that.”

  “Yeah, but how can you bail on something you’ve worked so hard for? And you’re really good.” He looks at me, waiting for me to keep going.

  “It’s not about being good, though. Playing was the only time I could breathe at school, so I played whenever I could. Mrs. Albright knew that the only way I was getting through this was by playing. She gave me harder and harder pieces and I just blew through them. She says I need to think about my future, like transferring. But there’s no way, right? I mean, how can I do that, ask for that, when we have to take care of my mom?”

  “You don’t have to explain,” he says.

  I nod and rest my head against his shoulder. When I open my eyes, tears spill down my cheeks. “I had science last period. My favorite class after music. I’d walk into class and my teacher, he’s really cool, would tell me to go see Mrs. Albright. He’d nod his head and tell me to go. That’s it. They always knew when I needed to play. You know, on the hard days. It was hard to be away at the clinic, and it was hard coming back.”

  “Going back to your old life,” Caleb says. “Reentry sucks. Nothing’s the same, but everyone wants you to be the same. Even when I looked like this.” He rubs his scalp, but he doesn’t look like a chemo victim anymore. He is just a boy, maybe too skinny, with weird hair. “It’s ridiculous,” he says. “You’ll never be the same. No matter what.”

  I nod. “Exactly. Now I don’t have much time to play.”

  “Why don’t you play in front of us?”

  “I don’t want the noise to bother anyone.” I don’t tell him that it scares the hell out of me, to be closely observed by people I know. I need the cover of a dimly lit auditorium.

  “You have to play every day,” he says.

  “There are more important things now. It doesn’t feel right to spend all my time practicing when your mom is taking care of the house. No one should be taking care of me.” I hang my head. “I’m not sick. You’re the one who had to go back to school and have everyone stare at you, even when you were doing chemo. I can’t imagine how you felt.”

  He doesn’t let go of my hand. My veins pound and my wrist tingles. He presses his finger harder, digging deeper into my life line and heart line, making our fates permanent, intertwined. I feel his illness, his slow recovery, how it must have felt when his dad left.

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, relaxing his fingers. “I stopped going. I couldn’t take it anymore. I quit water polo. The coach waited for me to tell him. He wasn’t going to kick me off the team. Kick someone when they’re down. When I saw another guy wearing my number, I went home and told my mom I wasn’t going back to school. She tried to homeschool me, but I wouldn’t read. Then I was too sick to even try. No one made me go back, even when they told me I was in remission.”

  He squeezes my hand. “I know we’re different. Your mom’s the one who’s sick—not you. I’m not dying, but I’m not cured.”

  I nod, knowing he doesn’t want to say the obvious: Mom is dying, and she doesn’t have a chance of going into remission.

  “You’re not the one who has cancer,” he says. “But people still stare at you, right? It’s not your body, but you still have to live through it. You just know you’re going to live.”

  I kiss him softly, first on his cheek because that’s closest, and then I turn his head and meet his lips. “You’re not dying, remember?”

  “I remember,” he says.

  “Prove it.”

  He cups my chin and kisses me until I forget about everything else, even the piano.

  Six

  Adrienne’s bed is empty, a pile of rumpled blankets and sheets. I close my eyes as soon as I open them, remembering Caleb: his touch and taste and the way I exchanged the air in my lungs for his. The steady beat of his heart calming mine, racing rabbit-fa
st in my chest.

  My toes curl at the memory of his hand on the small of my back. He was still warm from the shower. His shirt, a little damp, clung to his skin. He is everything I imagined and still a mystery. I embarrass myself with a ridiculous smile that won’t go away.

  I think I knew, back on the beach just three weeks ago, that he would change me somehow. And when I walked into his hospital room the next day, watching him sit up and smile at me. The way he looked at me, the way he looked into me, isn’t that different from the way he kissed me. Like I was the only thought in his head. Like I was the only one he wanted to touch.

  I want more of him. I want all of him. He is asleep in the next room, in my bed, and I want to crawl in next to Caleb so I can hear the strength of his heart in his chest. I close my eyes and hope his heart is beating stronger because of me.

  Piano becomes a public affair. After Caleb made the error of mentioning my playing, Barb clocks my time on the piano bench. She goes as far as suggesting I play during dinner like a jazz pianist in a bar, the sort who uses a fish bowl as a tip jar.

  I refuse.

  He kissed me a week ago. Caleb’s kissed me since, quiet moments as we explore the neighborhood on his board, jumping off when we’re confident we won’t be seen. I want to hop on the board and align my body with his. I fall asleep wanting to feel his breath on my neck, his hands around my waist.

  Music consumes me. It always will. But until now, I’ve spent my days with Mom, sitting in the car or at the clinic rather than on the cool, polished wood of the piano bench. With Caleb, I have something to touch other than the keys.

  I want to be alone with Caleb and I want to be alone to play. Something shifted with our kiss. I opened myself to him, and when I did, I saw things differently. There can be more than the house and the clinic. Maybe, just maybe, we could make the conservatories work. Our lives aren’t as small as they were just last month. With her tender bossiness, Barb assumed custody of us all, putting food on the table, listening to Dad, and nursing Mom. I’m allowed to practice instead of cook. Barb, with all of her natural remedies and vegetarian cookbooks, makes our house feel like a home again.