Secret for a Song (14 page)

F
ive
days passed, five days in which I didn’t talk to my mother and during which she
didn’t talk to me. I couldn’t tell if it’d been a conscious attempt on her part
to avoid me, or an unconscious attempt on mine.

Zee
and Drew had set things up with Jack’s mom so we were supposed to get to
Prescott Park at three p.m. for his birthday party. It was supposed to be an
unseasonably pleasant day for mid-March, near fifty degrees Fahrenheit and
sunny. The perfect weather for a bunch of sick people—and I included myself in
that category—to have a party to celebrate life.

At
eleven a.m., my doorbell rang. Dad was at work and Mum was at her alcohol
education class; I had no idea who it could be. I peeked out the peephole.

Zee,
in a trendy black bob.

I
opened the door. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

She
gestured behind her, where her car stood with its back passenger door open. “I
need help.”

Frowning,
I stepped outside into the cold in my slippered feet and followed her to her
car. She had two cardboard boxes on her backseat, filled with what looked like
brightly-colored party supplies.

I
looked up at her. “You do realize Jack is turning
twenty
-five, not
five?”

She
stuck out her tongue. “I have a thing about birthday celebrations.” When I
raised my eyebrow, she explained, “I like them to be
big
. And Jack said
no presents. So you have to help me.”

“Help
you do what?”

“Blow
these up!” She rummaged in a box and pulled out two giant bags of balloons. “I
have the lung capacity of a ninety-year-old man with no lungs. If he doesn’t
want presents, he’s going to at least get a dolled-up community center, damn
it.”

I
laughed. “Okay, fine. But you know what you could do? Buy a balloon pump.”

She
threw her hands up in the air. “Do I look like I could carry a balloon pump
from the store to the car? As it was I had to bribe the neighbor kid to put these
boxes in when Mom was out grocery shopping. She totally freaks out about me
overdoing anything.”

I
picked up the box nearest to me. “All right, well, let’s get you inside where
it’s warmer. I’ve got a fire going.”

But
she was already making her way up the driveway.

Inside,
I handed Zee a mug of hot cocoa and handed her a throw blanket for her legs.
“Thanks,” she said, flexing her feet and looking around. “You’ve got a nice
place.”

“Can’t
take any credit for it,” I said, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to one
of the boxes. I pulled out the pack of balloons and ripped open the package.
“My mum’s the decorator.”

“Your
parents at work?” Zee asked, sipping her hot cocoa.

I
paused for a second while I considered how to answer. Pulling out a white
balloon, I said, “My dad is. My mum’s just at a class.” I began to blow up the
balloon to preempt any more questions.

Zee
sighed. “You’re lucky. You’re not at the stage yet when your parents begin to
do the hovering, hummingbird thing.”

I
looked at her over the swell of the growing balloon. How could I explain that
I’d
kill
for the “hovering, hummingbird thing”? That even a “good
morning” from Mum was a hard-won comment, one I’d hug to my chest like a
sparkling jewel only to be brought out and examined when no one else was
around? I settled for tying the top of the balloon and batting it over to her,
a white rubber cloud.

Her
eyes lit up. “Look at how fast you did that! Lucky bitch.”

I
laughed, shook my head. There was something about Zee. Even while she was
insulting you, you were just glad she’d taken the time to compliment you first.

“So,”
she said, leaning her head back against the couch. I could see the strain on
her thin face from the exertion of being here, of sitting up, of holding her
mug of cocoa. “What’s going on with you and Drew?”

I
kept blowing air into the balloon, afraid of what I’d say if I stopped. We’d
been talking on the phone almost non-stop since our time at the hotel, but I
hadn’t had a chance to see him again. He’d been busy with practicing his music
with some guys he knew. Finally, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I tied off
the balloon and looked at her. “That’s a nebulous question.”

She
raised her eyebrow. “And that was a nebulous answer.” Setting her mug on the
coffee table, she leaned back again and pulled the throw up to her chin. “All I
know is, every time he said your name these past couple of days, he grinned. Like
an idiot. Over nothing.”

I
found my own mouth smiling in response. “Really?”

“Really,
really.”

I
rummaged in the packet for another balloon and pulled out a red one, studiously
avoiding Zee’s eye. “So, like, what did he say?”

“That
you two fucked long and hard.”

I
jerked my head up, my mouth falling open.

Zee
burst out laughing, her narrow chest heaving with the effort. “God, I’m just
kidding! But you should see your face right now. It’s priceless.”

I
snapped my mouth shut. “Fuck you,” I muttered, pulling the balloon tight. It
looked like a long red tongue between my fingers.

“Someone’s
touchy.” Zee grinned. “Hit a little close to home, did I?”

I
glared at her and began to blow up the balloon.

“Oh,
all right. I’m too tired to tease.” She took a deep breath, then reached out
for the mug and took a languid sip instead of telling me what Drew had said. I
couldn’t tell if she was genuinely tired or if she was lording her power over
me. With Zee, either was equally possible. “He said he really liked you. That
you were special or made him happy or something.” She waved her hand around,
like what she said was inconsequential. Like she wasn’t holding information in
her hands that had the power to put me on top of the tallest mountain, my arms
out like I was flying, wind gusting through my hair.

I
tied the red balloon off and began to blow up a turquoise one. I didn’t trust
myself to speak just yet. The memory of him, the smell that was like snow and
fresh laundry mixed together, filled me up until I was sure I’d pop.

“So
you two going out now?” Zee looked at me over the top of her mug.

“I
guess. We didn’t really have that conversation, but...I’d like to.” I tried to
hold in a smile. I wanted to text Drew, or call him, or jump in Mum’s BMW and
race to his apartment and make love until the next morning. Possibly all three.

Zee
nodded. “You’d be good for each other. You’re healthier than he is, you know,
and he needs that. He needs to do stuff other than all the euthanasia, TIDD
group, sick-people things he usually does.” She blinked quickly, several times,
and drained her cocoa.

That’s
when it dawned on me, like a fire slowly catching, that Zee liked Drew. Maybe
she hadn’t acted on it because she wanted him to have better, to have someone
who wasn’t so ill. Maybe she felt guilty about dating him and then dying. If I
was any kind of friend, I would’ve asked her.

But
I didn’t. I didn’t want to know. It was easier—for me—that way.

A
t
two-thirty I loaded Zee’s car with her boxes and the balloons, banners, and
party bags we’d assembled. I decided to drive the BMW because I needed to pick
up Drew and Pierce. Zee would pick up Carson, and we’d meet at Prescott Park.

Pierce
was first, because he lived closer. When I pulled into his apartment complex,
he was already sitting on the curb in a heavy white coat with his white
surgical mask covering half his face as usual. I noticed immediately just how
still he was, almost preternaturally so. With the snow all around, he just
about blended in with the sidewalk. It was his shock of black hair that
attracted my eye.

I
pulled up to him and got out. “Are you okay?”

Grabbing
the hand I offered, Pierce pulled himself up. He was incredibly light, and in
his big white coat, he looked like a feather—transient, delicate.

“Fine,”
he said, his voice weak. “Just cold.”

I
helped him into the car. Once I was in my seat, I turned up the heat as high as
it would go and turned on his seat warmer. After a minute, he unfurled and
leaned back.

“Okay?”

He
nodded. “Yeah. Thanks. The seat warmer’s kick-ass.”

“You
could’ve waited for me inside,” I said.

“Yeah,
well, my mom was driving me crazy. I had to get out of there.”

“Ah.”
I kept my eyes on the road as I got on the highway. “She didn’t want you to
go?”

He
put on a strong, mocking Chinese accent. “Prescott Park in March. Bad idea,
Pierce! You stay home. You have gay disease.” Then, sighing, he said, “I’m
exaggerating. It’s not really that bad. I just...sometimes it’s hard to
understand her way of dealing with it.”

I
shook my head, tried to look sympathetic. If my mother hovered that way, would
I be tired of it? Would I feel bad that she didn’t understand who I was? I
couldn’t imagine the luxury of having an opinion about how my mother felt about
me. “Sorry.”

“She
means well, I guess.” He watched the plowed snow out of his window, a steady,
solid stream of white. “I can’t believe Jack’s turning twenty-five,” he said,
almost as if he were speaking to himself.

“Really?”
I signaled left and came to a stop at the stop light. I glanced at Pierce.
“Have you known him long?”

“Nope.”
He began to laugh this really wheezy, throaty laugh, still looking out the
window. His left hand rubbed absently at the tumor on the back of his right. “I
met him three months ago when I joined TIDD. And even back then, you know, I
was sure he was going to be the first one to die. I mean, the cancer had spread
everywhere. He was a fucking skeleton even when he was able to come to group.
And I just looked at him and thought, ‘There is no way. There is no fucking
way
that guy is going to make it to his next birthday.’ And now, yep, he’s turning
twenty-five. It’s like there’s a game of Russian roulette going on, and as long
as somebody kicks the bucket, the rest of us have some time left.” He turned to
look at me then, and I saw that he was crying, not laughing. His mask was
soaked with tears and snot. “Jack’s still here. Hanging on by a fucking thread.
And meanwhile the gun keeps spinning. It’s slowing down, but it hasn’t stopped
yet, and I have a feeling when it stops, it’s going to stop on me.” He slammed
his fist into the window, and I jumped.

The
car behind us honked—the light had turned green. I began driving again, but I
put one hand on Pierce’s arm.

Pierce
could be a scarecrow. Under my hand, I could feel the down of his jacket, the
bunched-up sleeve of his shirt. Layers and layers of clothes. But no matter how
hard I pressed, I couldn’t feel any body at all.

Drew
got in the car smiling, but when he saw Pierce’s red eyes, his smile faded. He
looked at me. I knew he had questions, but all he said was, “Thanks for the
ride.”

I
nodded and started the car back up. The drive to Prescott Park was quiet, the
only sound the hum of the tires on the street. It seemed wrong to turn on music
when Pierce was feeling so low, as if I should pay homage to him by listening
to his breathing. It was a stupid, petty thought, the kind that well people
think about the ill. Even though I hadn’t been in their midst long, I knew
that. It was as if I was picking up on bits of their culture, their language. I
knew, for instance, that there were things I thought and said and believed that
were superficial and crass and small-minded, but like any bumbling foreigner in
a strange land, I couldn’t help it.

Jack’s
dad had come early to help Zee put up the decorations. When we walked into the
little room that they’d rented for his birthday party, I saw the banner I’d
helped tape together hanging up in the doorway. The balloons were scattered all
over the room and taped to the chair I guessed would be Jack’s. There was also
a framed, poster-sized photograph of the actress Katie Henson in a silver bikini
that left little to the imagination. The photograph had been autographed to
Jack.

“Do
you think he’ll like it?” Jack’s dad asked Drew. He was a fat guy with a bright
pink face, the buttons on his shirt barely holding the fabric together. I could
see some hairy belly skin through the holes between the buttons. “We got it
last month and kept it secret.”

“Hey
man, it’s Katie Henson. What’s not to like, you know?” Drew clapped Jack’s dad
on the shoulder. He turned and winked at me, as if to show he was just humoring
Jack’s dad. Did he think I might be jealous? I realized it hadn’t even occurred
to me to be. Whatever was going on between Drew and me seemed beyond the scope
of petty things like jealousy over pretty actresses.

Pierce
and Zee were sitting at the table already, talking quietly. I couldn’t tell if
Zee was comforting him. She didn’t seem to me to the type to comfort someone
anyway, even if she knew exactly what the other person was going through.

“How’s
Jack been?” Drew asked Jack’s dad, who still hadn’t introduced himself to me.
He seemed nervous, on edge; it probably hadn’t even occurred to him.

“Oh.”
He actually wrung his hands. “You know. He has good days and bad days, of
course, just like anyone else...” His eyes shimmered, and he swallowed a few
times.

Jack
arrived then, hanging heavily on his mom’s arm. I wondered why they weren’t
using the wheelchair I’d seen beside his bed, but maybe he, like Drew, saw it
as “the chair,” something heinous to be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
When he saw the room, all done up in carnival colors with balloons floating
around his guests’ ankles, he stopped short. His face twisted into something
like a grimace. I wondered if he was smiling, but from the look on his dad’s
face, I guessed probably not.

Jack
stood there, panting, leaning heavily against his mom. When she tried to get
him to move forward, he shook his head and yanked weakly on her arm.

“What’s...all...this?”
he asked, gesturing at the banner and balloons. He wouldn’t look at any of us,
choosing instead to look at some point on the floor between him and the table.

We
were all preternaturally quiet. Finally, his dad cleared his throat. “Your
friend Zee thought it would be nice to do this room up a bit. Don’t you like
it?”

Jack
kept his eyes on the floor. “I...said no...presents.”

“These
aren’t presents,” Zee piped in, sounding cheerful in spite of the situation
clearly beginning to unravel in front of us. “It’s just decorations. You know,
‘cuz it’s a party.”

Jack’s
dad looked like he was going to cry or throw up or both. His mom kept
half-heartedly pulling on Jack’s arm, as if she thought there might still be a
chance he’d come inside, sit at the table, and eat some cake.

“It’s...not
a party,” Jack said, each word punctuated by his heavy hissing inhalations and
exhalations. “I didn’t...want anyone...rejoicing. Fuck!” He kicked at a balloon
that had bobbed up to him and almost fell over—his mother caught his elbow just
in time. His dad was openly crying now.

“It’s
okay, Jackie,” his mom said, rubbing his back.

“Don’t,”
he hissed. “Don’t call me that. I’m...a big drain...on everyone. I know...that.
No need...to...lie.”

“That’s
not true,” his mom said, trying valiantly not to cry. Her double chin quivered
with the effort. “That’s not true, and you know it.”

“Take...me
back...to the car.” He half-turned and began to tug on his mom’s arm. “Now.
Now! Now!” He began to hit his forehead with his open hand, over and over
again.

“Okay,
okay, we’re going,” his mom said, tossing a look over her shoulder at his dad.
“We’re going right home, bud.”

The
door swung shut behind them. Somewhere in the room a balloon popped, startling
us all.