Tell Me Something Real (4 page)

“Why don't we go to a movie?”

“I'm sorry, but I don't want to overdo it.”

I look at the silverware scattered at the bottom of the sink, like silver fish flailing in a shallow pool. Maybe I should have gone with Dad. I want to be with Mom, but in this moment, I want to be out of the house, with or without her. Nothing sounds better than the cool, quiet movie theater.

“The theater isn't far. I've been practicing. I could drive with my permit.”

“I said I don't feel well enough, Vanessa.” Her voice sounds thin.

I can't turn around and look at her. “I meant I could drive myself.”

“That's out of the question.”

“Why? It's the last day of school. I want to do something fun.”

She coughs and I listen as she sips her tea. “You should have gone with one of your sisters. I'm sorry I'm not any fun.”

“You used to be.” The words fly out, and while I know
they hurt—they hurt me—I can't bring myself to stop. “Why can't you go? All you have to do is sit there. That's all you'd do here.”

“Look at me,” she says.

I feel equal parts embarrassed and angry. I collect a handful of silverware and shove it into the dishwasher. The forks clank in protest.

“You're acting like a child.”

I turn to face her. “That's because technically I
am
a child.”

I meet her eyes, which contain every possible emotion. I expect to see frustration and annoyance, but I see so much more. She looks almost angry, and that makes her look almost strong.

“I don't understand why you can't see a movie,” I say. “I don't get it.”

“We can watch TV. We have popcorn.”

I wipe my cheeks dry. “I want to go out.”

“Get your bike, then.”

“I hate your cancer!” My voice rises an octave with each word. I turn back around. This will be our last summer together, the last time she'll be here when we come home from the last day of school. Just one instance in a long series of last occasions: last Fourth of July, last daylight savings, last birthdays.

Mom is the only person who can be quieter than me.

“I really hate it.” I throw a spoon into the dishwasher, but
it hits the floor. I throw another one and then slam the dishwasher shut.

She absorbs my tantrum. A minute passes before she leaves the kitchen without a word.

I drove her to her room, probably for the rest of the day, now ruined.

I'm alone with my chores, I think, as I wipe down the counter and kitchen table, sweeping the crumbs into the palm of my hand. I leave Mom's mug of tea, still warm.

An empty box from the clinic, once filled with vitamins and medication, blocks the entrance to the family room. I kick it aside, a little too hard. Consumed by the final weeks of school, we haven't bothered to pick up after ourselves. Art supplies, a torn Twister mat, books, magazines, and at least two dozen records cover the family room floor. She is sick. She doesn't feel well. She can't help it, I remind myself as I slide the records into their assigned places, following Dad's instructions: alphabetical order by the name of the band. Even with the albums and books returned to shelves, the room looks nothing like it once did, back when Mom organized piles of clutter. Now, water stains cover the end tables, overlapping concentric circles distorting the wood, which I cover with a fan of old
Seventeen
magazines.

I look up when she clears her throat. Mom hugs her pillow, and car keys dangle from her hand.

“I'd better drive,” she says. “You haven't had enough practice.”

“I thought you didn't feel well enough,” I say.

“I'll manage. I can nap in the theater if I need to.”

I'm being selfish. A baby. Already, she looks paler than just five minutes ago. “I'm sorry, Mom.”

“It's the last day of school. You're right—we should celebrate.”

She joins me in the family room, lowering herself onto the couch as though the soft cushion will somehow hurt. “You're missing a lot because of me. I know you're disappointed about music camp.” She runs her hand through my tangled hair, liberating knots. “I know how hard you work. I know what you do for me. I forget to thank you, sweetie.”

I rest my head in her lap. “We don't have to go.”

“But I want to. You're right, a movie shouldn't be too taxing.”

I wrap my arms around her, wanting to be as close as possible, anything to keep her next to me. I want to stop thinking of today, or any day, as being numbered, a cruel countdown.

“I don't care what we see,” I say.

“Good, because I have it planned out. Now, please help me up.”

We drive for twenty minutes, away from the border, leaving San Diego and heading toward the northern part of the county. Brush replaces grass as we follow the ocean. Her fingers circle the steering wheel, and her wedding ring glints in the sunlight. When we finally pull into the parking
lot, she says, “Let's save
Bad News Bears
for Marie. How does
Carrie
sound?”

She knows I've been dying to see it, any horror movie where chaos and murder cancel class.

We sit in the middle of the crowded theater. I realize that I haven't seen a movie in months, since before Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving. Struggling to focus on the plot, I think more about the sound of her breathing. I drink a Coke as Mom sips a small 7-Up. I watch her more than the screen. She sits engrossed with the blood-soaked prom scene, raising the straw to her lips, swallowing slowly. All of her movements are delicate. I wonder if she'll fall asleep, but the pillow remains in her lap.

Last year, this would have been unremarkable. On a whim, usually when Dad was out of town, Mom would drive us to school, only to turn around midway and take us on a day trip to feed giraffes at the Wild Animal Park, ride roller coasters at Magic Mountain, or pick apples in Julian. Random and spontaneous and completely unexpected.

We emerge from the theater, squinting in the bright sunlight. I'd forgotten it was still daytime. Mom drapes an arm around my shoulders, tucking her pillow under the other, and looks at me. “One more surprise,” she says.

We drive with the radio turned up. Mom sings along, her voice quiet compared to the jangly guitar of a Beatles song. At one point, she reaches for my hand. I look at our overlapping fingers, how mine are longer than hers. Soon, I
will be taller, all of my limbs longer than my mother's, if she lives that long.

I don't ask where we're going.

I gaze out the window at the long stretch of beach, flanked by an endless concrete sea wall and strip malls. An ugly cousin compared to the hills near our house, perched above the ocean, covered with Torrey pines, their twisted branches distorted by decades of wind. Mom slows when we reach the modest pier, a shaky wooden structure that I expect to fall apart like pick-up sticks, planks tumbling into the cresting waves. She parks in front of the concession stand.

“You pick,” she says. Clam strips or soft serve ice cream, our guilty pleasures. They serve the best ones here. Dad, Adrienne, and Marie insist that clams taste like deep-fried fingers. When running errands, just the two of us, Mom and I stop here. Like the movies, I haven't been in months.

“Can you eat more?” I ask, skeptical after the pizza.

“I just want a bite. Come on, you love it as much as I do.”

When Mom is happy, her Southern drawl emerges, elongating vowels, her words blending together. The voice of bedtime stories and lullabies—almost forgotten.

I order one of each from the man who has staffed the counter my entire life, regardless of the weather or height of the waves. Fishermen, he says, are always hungry.

Mom accepts the cone, and I blow on the crispy clams, too hot to touch. She turns down the music. “Wait for me, Vanessa,” she says. “I'm trying. I'm scared too. Wait for me to feel better.”

“You're not going to get better,” I say.

She doesn't look away. “I'm not giving up, Nessie. We'll have more days like this.”

She nicknamed me Nessie when I was a baby, and used it until I came to her as a teary-eyed second-grader and begged her to stop. Adrienne had told me that my pet name was shared with the Loch Ness Monster, a name for nightmares and beasts. Mom couldn't convince me otherwise, and she never said it again, not until now.

“Just wait for me.”

The boy stands in the shadow of a bougainvillea climbing the arch of the courtyard entrance. The sun diffuses through paper-thin leaves and casts a ruby hue on his Hawaiian print shirt and long, below-the-knee surfer shorts. It's as though he stands in the center of a pink spotlight. He looks healthy, sunburned, and rosy cheeked like me. It isn't until he steps through the entryway—away from the protection of the flowers—that I recognize he is one of them.

In the clear light, he is sick and gray-skinned, with half-moon shadows the color of bruised plums under his eyes. He is one of the leukemia kids, his chemo buzz cut growing out like the jarheads sprung free from Camp Pendleton. He looks tall and older than me.

Now that it's summer, the sick kids avoid the outdoors. They wither in the heat. So we litter the courtyard with nail polish bottles, back issues of
Seventeen
and
Tiger Beat
, and beach towels. We don't bother picking up.

The sick guy leans against the wall as if waiting for a bus. He tries to act casual. He may have been cute before the cancer, but his patches of hair and zombie skin ruin him. I stretch my legs on the picnic bench and apply Coppertone to my bare shoulders.

“You're not allowed out here, sick-o,” Adrienne says. “Off limits. You're trespassing. Go back inside and let the nurses take care of you.”

He ignores her and glances around the courtyard. His eyes meet mine, but I look away and screw the cap back on the suntan lotion. My nose fills with the scent of creamy coconut.

“What's the big deal if I hang out here?” he asks.

“You get the hospital. We get the courtyard.
Comprende?
” Adrienne says.

Guadalupe hollers from an upstairs window. “
Mijas
, come up to visit your
mamasita
. She's ready for you.”

I stand and wipe dust off my clothes. I'm wearing my new shorts, the ones with the seam arching rainbow-style across my butt. All I want to do is stroll down Tijuana's streets so I can turn heads and let my ears ring with whistles. Adrienne is teaching me how to walk like her, the girl everyone wants.

“You better be gone when we get back,” Adrienne says to him.

The three of us assemble a line, falling into rank according to age. Adrienne leads the way. Guadalupe cruises down
the hall toward the one open door and waves us through. My mother rests with her back against several pillows, propped up with her eyes closed.

“Iris,” Guadalupe says. “Iris, your girls are here.”

My mother blinks three times, reminding me of one of my favorite shows,
I Dream of Jeannie
. She manages a hint of a smile and waves hello. “
Gracias
, Lupe,” she says. “What have you girls done today?”

“Same as every fucking day,” Adrienne says.

“Language, Adrienne. Please at least try. Sit down, girls. I need to talk to you.”

Marie occupies the foot of Mom's bed, and Adrienne and I plop down on the vacant one. Adrienne continues to flip through her magazine. Marie, tired from the heat and still young enough for an afternoon nap, yawns and stretches out on the mattress.

“I talked to your father a little while ago,” Mom says.

That gets Adrienne's attention, and she tosses the magazine to the floor. “About what?”

“Given that the FDA's banned Laetrile in the States, a lot of people are coming to Mexico to treat their cancer. Most aren't as lucky as we are, living in San Diego so close to the border. The clinic is getting calls from people all over the country. What do you think of having people stay with us? Not a lot, but on occasion? We'd be a safe house.”

“Not in my bed,” Adrienne says.

“You'd have to share rooms,” Mom says.

“Why?” Adrienne narrows her eyes. “It's bad enough we have to hang out here all the time. Now you want to bring them home with us? I can't believe Dad said yes to this.”

“Please stop,” Mom says before coughing. Her cough grows louder as it progresses.

“Now look what you've done.” I climb off the bed to get water. I hand a plastic cup to Mom, who drinks, takes several deep breaths, drinks some more, and returns the cup to me.

“This is important,” Mom says. “Even if you can't see it, we're very lucky. There's a family who needs help right now. A teenage boy and his mom need a place to stay.”

“Must be that guy outside,” Adrienne says to me.

“You met Caleb?” Mom asks. “He's seventeen. Dark hair. Lymphoma.”