Something Right Behind Her (3 page)

I was about to
open the car door, when Doug kind of shot out behind me to do it for me,
reaching out and brushing his hand against the small of my back, gently guiding
me. He was playing around, being chivalrous, as if we were on some kind of
date, and not a mission to bust Eve out of town, to recapture something--her
freedom, our friendship, my sanity. It was vintage Doug. I had always prided
myself on being immune to his charms, though there was something about this
whole trip that had me off-kilter. I was glad it was Doug who was taking us. He
always played everything so cool, which was pretty much what was called for,
given the seriously uncool circumstances.

I had my hair
down and let it air dry so the curls stayed shiny. I wanted to look good, after
the rotten night’s sleep I had. I’d been having these dreams for weeks, even
over the summer, dreams that woke me up with such a start it was impossible to
fall back asleep. They were all about Eve, with small variations, though one
thing always stayed the same: Eve could walk again, not stumbling like she did
in real life, but with long strides I could barely keep pace with. In these
dreams she was always telling me something I didn’t want to hear, and I’d wake
up as she leaned her dream-face toward me. Sometimes I woke up trying to say
something. Sometimes, I couldn’t speak, but I knew the word I was struggling
for was “
no
.”

Doug paused as
he held the car door for me, looked straight at me, giving me his most sincere
preppy-asshole look, the one he used to seduce whoever he happened to want at
the moment, the one that set those baby blues on you until your insides turned
to mush, only I knew he really meant what he was saying.

“Thanks, “ he
said, sounding choked up for a second, “I think this is going to be really good
for Eve. Getting out of the house and everything.” I wanted to tell him that it
was really for me, too, that I was just a lonely, selfish girl who wanted her
life back, who wanted a decent night’s sleep, but I kept quiet and hung my
head, as if it were all true, that I was the very best friend a girl could
have.

He shook his
head slowly as he climbed in the driver’s side door. “My mom keeps her upbeat
most of time,” he said. “But we haven’t gotten a lot of good news this summer.
She, Eve, I mean, doesn’t know everything. I’m not going to betray a trust
here, but I’m sure you’ve thought the worst?” We were sitting in the car at
that point. Doug’s mouth was turned down slightly at the corners, like a
child’s picture of someone frowning.

“Yeah, I guess I
have,” I said. “But, I just get my information from Eve, and she’s been talking
about this vitamin D therapy, Dr. Brown mentioned.

“Yeah, that’s
it, good old Dr. Brown and his vitamin D. That’s what’s going to bring the old
Eve back to us, kid.” He sounded real sarcastic at that point. I got a sort of
sick feeling in my stomach then, and resolved to avoid the subject. I reminded
myself that this was supposed to be a day that would help take our minds off
Eve’s sickness. It wasn’t supposed to be a big day of reckoning. Doug seemed to
remember that too because he dropped the subject and turned up the radio. I
rolled down my window, and the air smelled cool and sweet. You could tell it
was going to warm up, and be an excellent beach day, with the slightest hint of
fall in the air.

When we got to
the O’Meara’s, Doug paused for a second before getting out of the car, looked
over at me with a serious, deep look, and then drummed out a little rhythm on
the steering wheel, before he bounded out of the car. You could see how all
those years of being a superstar athlete had affected Doug. You could see him
getting all pumped up to face Eve, and get the whole business done, as if what
we had in front of us were a particularly rough game, a battle against a rival
team. Not that I knew what we were up against, but at least I admitted it was
something unknown, something no one knew how to beat.

CHAPTER TWO

Eve was waiting
in her wheelchair by the front door. She had her hair pulled up in a high
ponytail, and lip gloss on. She and her mom must have been excited about her
getting out of the house for the day. She even had on little shell earrings and
leather flipflops with fringe around the top. She was wearing a light pink
cover-up, but you could see she already had a bathing suit on underneath. It
was kind of a funny thing, but as messed up as her one arm was, her other limbs
weren’t as scary, just too thin, and a little ropey-looking. Her torso, and
even her boobs were almost normal; you could see how she’d once rocked a
bikini. With her good side facing me, she was still pretty. The left side of
her face radiated a youthful glow, was still a flawless peachy-pink. Her left
eye was still rounded, long-lashed, the eye-movement controlled, the expression
changeable. It would be a left side day, I told myself. I told myself I could
still find Eve there, on the left.

I gave her a
little kiss on the cheek and she smelled sweet, like strawberries. “Ready to
roll?” I asked.

“Sure am,” she
said, and she smiled her half smile, her one-eye calm, grateful-looking, the
other still, uninvolved with the rest of the face. I almost felt proud that it
didn’t scare me to look at her anymore, and I thought about the other girls
like Sharon and Gayle, who’d probably have to summon all their self-control not
to freak when they saw her. But then it occurred to me what a shit thought that
was. What self-congratulations did I deserve for being able to look my best
friend in the face?

But that was the
way things were now with us. There had to be

some pretending
on everyone’s part. Even Doug, who’d always been all about Doug now had to be
her hero. I was determined, though, to find a way to be with Eve that didn’t
feel phony, that felt like it always had. I hated the way my voice still caught
when I talked to her. I wasn’t sure if I was out to convince Eve, or myself,
that we could still have a good time together, still be Andy-and-Eve. I wasn’t
aware of it at first, but it was probably why I’d taken the opportunity when it
came, and acquired the little gift I had for her stashed inside my purse. I
wasn’t absolutely sure it was something she’d go for, but I knew I had to take
the risk. My basic rule now was to try to do what I always would have done. In
other words, be myself with her. It was hard, though, especially since my real
self could only look at one side of Eve’s face. My real self had nightmares
about the other side.

I waited until
Mrs. O’Meara, this time in a yellow and white track suit - where she got these
things I’d never know - was well out of sight, and then I bent down next to her
and opened my bag, not wanting to let Doug in on the secret yet. I flashed her
three perfectly rolled joints I had stashed in there in a Ziploc baggy.

Eve and I had
established our Things to Do Junior Year sometime back when we were sophomores,
before things got really bad, and we thought Eve had some sort of shoulder
injury. The idea was that we’d seen how the first two years of high school had
gone by really fast, so we realized if you wanted certain things to happen, you
had to be organized about it. One thing Eve wanted to do was get high. She’d
smoked before at parties, we all had, but somehow she hadn’t felt anything. She
thought maybe she hadn’t done it right, or hadn’t inhaled enough. Anyway, she’d
never had the giggly-munchies experience of being really stoned. I figured we
had nothing to lose. Cancer patients smoked the stuff, so why not Eve? My heart
beat a little faster as I let her in on it. I hoped she didn’t think I was
crazy - or bitchy, like I was ignoring her condition and acting like we were
there just to party.

But Eve seemed
impressed. “Where did you get those?” She asked. Her left eye opened wide, like
she was a little kid and I just showed her a big bag of candy.

“George the
Dirtbag,” I said. “I saw him earlier in the week, and he asked about you. I
told him I was seeing you this weekend, and he went and got these for me.
Delivered them to my homeroom Friday morning.”

“What a guy, “
she said. “Homeroom delivery and everything.”

“Yeah,” I said.
“He said it was medical marijuana. He just gave it to me, didn’t charge for
it.”

“Of course not,
Andy, you idiot, he’s always been totally in love with you.” She’d ignored the
thing about it being medicinal. I actually didn’t know if George had been
joking about that, or if that was him bragging about the quality, but I let it
pass since she had.

“Oh please,” I
said. “That’s just what I need. A Dirtbag guy.” Eve chuckled at that, like she
got a kick out of the idea of me with George, like without her around to
babysit me at school, I’d go down the tubes and start dating stoners.

“Ok, ladies
let’s hit the road before we end up spending the whole day in the car,” Doug
said. He’d just come back out onto the porch after talking to Mrs. O’Meara,
probably calming her down about the whole deal, assuring her he’d take good
care of Eve. I closed up my bag quickly, and followed him out to the car,
wheeling Eve’s chair, her ponytail bouncing, her head slightly askew. “You
better hop in back, Andy, and I’ll get Eve up in front.”

“Will do,” I
said. I looked in the back of Doug’s crummy old Honda civic. There were a few
Budweiser cans rolling around back there and a sock, but nothing too
frightening – no jock straps or anything.

I started to
relax once we got on the highway, heading over the Tappan Zee Bridge. I felt a
weight lifting off my chest, like finally I was doing the right thing, hanging
with Eve. I suddenly couldn’t remember why I’d felt so awkward around her that
first visit after the summer. She didn’t seem to hold anything against me.
Naturally, she wanted everything as normal as possible. All I had to do was go
along with the program.

Once we got
about halfway down there, you could smell that beachy smell in the air, and the
sun felt warm with the windows open. From the backseat, I could see a few
strands of Eve’s hair getting caught in the breeze, just outside the
half-opened window. It was good to see her like that, wind in her hair.

“Doug, “ I
asked, almost yelling to be heard over the breeze. “Do you mind if I light up?”
It was his car and all and I didn’t want to be rude, but it seemed like the
right time to do it, like it’d set the right tone for the day. Doug looked at
me in the rearview mirror and shook his head the way he sometimes did, giving
me a little sideways grin.

“When did you
start hanging around with burn-outs, Eve?” He asked. “I’m gone a few weeks, and
Andy here becomes a pothead, and who even knows what badass stuff you’re
getting yourself into.” He rumpled Eve’s hair, as if she were out and about
causing who knew what kind of trouble.

“I’ll take that
as a yes,” I said, and I rummaged around in my purse for my lighter. It took me
a few tries to get the joint lit, with the breeze blowing into the back of the
car, but I cupped my hand around the flame and got it. I took a hit, then
leaned over Eve’s seat so she could take one. I could feel her take the joint
between her lips and pull deeply on it. “Whoa,” I said. “You’ve got to pace
yourself, Eve. George said this stuff was strong.” I wanted her to get good and
stoned, but I was a little worried she might not take to it too well. You never
knew with people who hadn’t ever gotten high before. You never knew with people
who had a lot of crap on their minds. She giggled, though, as I took the joint
out of her mouth, and I could feel her good mood all the way in the back seat,
or maybe it was just the smell of salt air, the warm breeze on my face.

“Don’t forget the
old man,” Doug said, and reached back for the joint. Our fingers touched and it
felt like he made a bit too much of fumbling for the joint. “Jeez, Andy, you
think you’ll make it to graduation, or are you going to turn dirtbag on us and
start hanging out with all the druggies. Kind of seems like you’re going down
the tubes.” Doug was like that, getting on some dumb line and not getting off
it, but I refused to take the bait.

“Ha, thanks a
lot. Actually, it could be in a couple of years I’ll be joining you at
Princeton,” I said, but then stopped short. Who knew where Eve would be by the
time graduation came around. It was something I wasn’t ready to think about,
and from the quiet up front, Eve and Doug didn’t want to talk that far into the
future either. Luckily, that was when the munchies hit.

“Andy, what’s
that taco place right by your house? You know, Surf’s Up? Is that it? I am
dying for that fish taco!” Eve was always, not only the girl with the best body
in the grade, but the girl with the biggest appetite, a fact that had always
struck me as completely unfair. Now I wondered if all that food, and that lean
frame of hers were somehow connected to her ALS. I had always said there was
something wrong with her, but I meant something more like a tapeworm.

“It’s Surf
Taco,” I said, “and stop talking about it, or I’ll lose my mind. We still have
twenty minutes until we get there.”

“Can you girls
handle yourselves stoned,” Doug asked, “or are you going to be an embarrassment
at this place?”

“Um,” I said, as
I took one last hit, and Eve started to laugh. She had the craziest goddamn
witch-cackle.

The girl behind
the counter was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt that said Surf Taco across the front.
She had her hair in a braid and the wholesome look of a girl who thought riding
her Hampton’s Classic without a helmet was the height of rebellion. She was
super-sweet when she saw us wheel Eve in, and she came out from behind the
counter to help us with the door.