Notes on a Near-Life Experience (16 page)

“No,” I lie, “things are the same as always.” The same as always except that now we hardly see each other, act like strangers when we do, don't really talk, and she seems kinda pissed at me when we do talk. Yep, things are great. Totally normal. I've just been hiding the fact that this boy who she might actually like (which never happens) might actually like her. Something I would probably never forgive her for if she did it to me. Only, Haley would never in a million years do anything like that to me. But yeah, we're best friends and everything is fine. I just suck, that's all.

“How does it make you feel to know that your relationship with Haley hasn't changed, even though so many other things in your life have?”

“Good,” I tell her, “like there's at least one thing I can count on, like not everything had to change or get all messed up because of the divorce.” It seems like that's what she was going for. Sometimes it's easy to read Lisz; sometimes it's more difficult, depending on her questions. Sometimes I understand what she's trying to get me to see, what she wants me to
say, and it makes sense. She wants me to see what I have, what I can do with it. She wants me to see what's changed and figure out how to deal with it.

While I wait for Allen to finish his session with Lisz, I call Haley. Her phone goes straight to voice mail: “Hi, you've reached Haley's cell phone. I try not to use this thing very much because it probably causes brain cancer, and I try to live as noncarcinogenic a life as possible. So leave a message and I'll call you back from a landline.”

“Hi, it's me.” I think about telling Haley about Mike right now, but I can't. “Where are you? I miss you. I feel like a jerk about the other day. I'm sorry for being such an idiot lately. Call me…if you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

J
ULIAN WILL WAX POETIC ON OCCASION, USUALLY WHEN HE
ponders the mysteries unfolded to him in his advanced biology class.

“We're losing pieces of ourselves, Meezer. It's the way life works.”

“What?” I ask, breathless. He likes to think about this stuff when we're kissing, I think; he has this tendency to interrupt really great make-outs with his musings on science.

“In evolution, it takes a long time, you know, for things to be lost, to disappear. Like how we're going to lose our pinky toes eventually. And we've already lost tons of teeth.”

“We're not going to have pinky toes anymore?”

“Maybe not.”

“But they're my favorite toes. Why can't we lose the freaky second toe?”

He shrugs and looks like he's ready to kiss me again.

But I'm already distracted. “It's weird how some people's second toes are longer than their big toes.”

“And the crazy thing is, that stuff doesn't come back,” he says. “Once you lose it, it's gone.”

I don't say anything.

“And that's just one example of how biology, which is life, essentially, is about losing things. Really it's about change, I guess, but for humans, for people who live in the modern world, most of our adaptations have to do with losing things, with how we don't need to be as strong anymore.”

I look at him, put my hands on his cheeks, kiss his eyelids, then the three freckles on his forehead.

“I hope we never adapt out of freckles,” I say, and I feel like crying.

M
OST GIRLS DEVELOP BREASTS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
. I didn't get boobs until I was almost fifteen. I guess that wouldn't have been that bad except for the fact that, having skipped a grade, I was already a year behind everyone else. I was a sophomore in high school by the time I really needed a bra, and I still can't even fill out a B-cup.

Kiki Nordgren has had a rack since she was twelve.

This all brings me to the realization I had today: Julian has never tried to feel me up. I wonder if he is gay. Or if he hates my boobs.

I
T'S 6:20 A.M.
I
AM SUPPOSED TO BE AT DANCE PRACTICE IN
ten minutes, but Allen is not awake and ready to take me like he's supposed to be. I knock on his door. No response. I open the door and walk quietly over to his bed, which doesn't make sense since I am about to wake him up. He's dead asleep.

“Al, wake up.” I nudge his shoulder.

He doesn't respond.

I say it again, louder, and shake him harder.

“Ow,” he croaks. “What? No. Too early.” He rolls over so his back is facing me. I shake him again. “You said you'd take me to practice this morning. I can't be late.”

“Can't, Mimoo. Too tired. Must have the flu or something,” he mumbles, turning over in the bed so that he faces me.

When he does this, his breath hits me, and I know he doesn't just have the flu, if he is really even sick at all.

“Have you been
drinking
?” I ask.

“Too tired. Need to sleep. Ask Julian to take you.”

“Is he hungover, too?”

He opens his eyes and shields them with his arm. “Are you crazy? Julian? Come on. Please… turn that light off.” He rolls back over and pulls his sheet over his head.

I call Julian.

“Hey, sorry to call so early. Can you take me to dance practice? Al can't, and I don't want to have to explain why to my parents.”

“Huh?”

“I can't talk about it right now. Can you take me or not?”

“Easy, tiger. Yeah, I'll take you. Can you walk over here while I'm getting dressed?”

“Sure.”

I walk to Julian's, knock on his front door, walk into the house, and wait in the living room. He comes out with his toothbrush in his mouth. He points to it and to his watch, tries to say something. I guess he is trying to tell me that we'll leave as soon as he finishes brushing his teeth.

He disappears again. I hear him running the water in the bathroom and spitting. He reemerges, keys in hand.

“So what happened with Al?” he asks as we get into his car.

“He's hungover. Or maybe he's still drunk. I don't know. Either way, he's been drinking. Do you know anything about this?”

“Last night after the game some guys decided to go out, but usually that just means pizza. Are you sure he was drinking? Not just tired?”

“I think I know the difference between the smells of alcohol and morning breath. He's been drinking.”

“Wow. Today's Tuesday. I mean, it's not even a weekend.”

“Yeah.” I think about this for a moment. “Wait, are you saying that if it was a weekend, this would be normal?”

“Not exactly,” he says, hedging, “but it's not like your brother's partying is anything new, right?”

“It's not?” I remember the canteen in his backpack, the calls from school, the way he's always disappearing from home, driving off by himself.

“Oh. Right. Maybe it is. I'll ask him what happened.”

“Thanks.” But I don't want Julian to just ask him what happened. I want him to fix it, or I want somebody to fix it, or erase it. I don't know how to talk about real problems, much less how to resolve them, but I wish someone did.

Neither of us can find anything else to say, so we listen to a band I've never heard of sing a song about French fries and Eskimos.

When we get to the school, he kisses me quickly on the lips and says, in an effeminate voice, “You dance your little heart out, you hear me? You little dancing Eskimo, you.”

I laugh before I can stop myself, grab my bag from the backseat, and get out of the car. “Will you please try to get Al up and to school? He's already in trouble for missing so much.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

B
EFORE
J
ULIAN MOVED IN, MOST OF THE KIDS ON THE STREET
were lots older than Allen and I, so we hung out with each other a lot. We were best friends because Allen didn't know yet that it wasn't cool to hang out with your younger sister more than anyone else.

Once, we were playing with the hose in the backyard and a bee flew into Allen's ear. I ran inside to tell my mom, who ran outside, saw Allen holding his ear, and then ran back inside to call 911. While Mom panicked, I shoved the hose in Allen's ear, turned the water on full blast, and flushed the bee out. By the time she got through and had explained the situation to an annoyed operator, Allen and I were already back to spraying each other with the hose, and Allen was doing his
best to put the hose in my ear to “see if there are any bees in there.”

Later, Mom kept talking about how if the bee had stung Allen's eardrum, he could have gone deaf in one ear. I thought I had saved his life, the words
deaf
and
death
sounded so alike to me. Back then, it was that easy to rescue somebody, to make things right.

A
LLEN AND
I
ARE DRIVING TO
L
ISZ'S, TEN MINUTES LATE
because we had to push-start his car. “Have you decided who you're going to take to prom yet?”

“Prom? Meeze, are you kidding?”

“C'mon, you're supposed to go with me and Julian.”

“Well, then I guess I do know who I'm taking to prom—

you and Julian.” “You know what I mean.” “Right. Okay. I do not have a date to prom, nor do I have any desire to find one.” “Well, I was thinking you could take Haley to prom. She's hot, and you're taller than she is.” “She is somewhat hot, and I am slightly taller than she is.” “So what's the problem?”