The Art of Adapting

by Cassandra Dunn

  “Badass enough for you?” she asked. Byron nodded. He wasn’t sure what all he was seeing, but he had no doubt this was the world for him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Magda left them to it. After a final tour Byron hugged and kissed Betsy outside the art building. He didn’t want to leave her or campus or the feeling of students here to party and make friends and fall in love and push themselves and learn about things they never even knew existed. He hated the thought of heading back to his dull old ill-fitting life of high school drama and pointless classes and, worst of all, no Betsy. But she had a class to go to and Byron had Matt, still sitting in the parking lot by the commons, waiting for him. He’d tried to send him home, but Matt had insisted on waiting. He said it was time for Byron to try freeway driving anyway.

  “You get it now, right?” she said. “You’re an artist. All the rest is part of who you are, but the art, that’s the core.”

  Byron nodded, kissed her again. “I get it,” he said. “I never would’ve known if you hadn’t shown me this.”

  “You would’ve figured it out, but I’m happy to help.”

  “I can’t believe I get to kiss you now,” he said.

  Betsy started laughing. “You’re adorable,” she said. Byron didn’t want to be adorable. But if it meant he got to kiss Betsy some more, then he’d take it.

  “When can I see you again?” he asked.

  Betsy shrugged, fluffed her hair. She picked up her backpack and smiled at him. “We’ll figure something out,” she said. Byron wasn’t sure if she was being flirty and coy, or blowing him off. He felt a surge of panic, like maybe she was already leaving him behind, ready to move on to some other project more interesting than showing a high school kid what art was.

  “Okay,” he said, hoping she couldn’t see his worries.

  She turned like she was ready to go, then looked back at him. “What’s the story with that girl? The short shorts.”

  Byron shook his head. “Chelsea. Dale’s girl. She likes to flirt with me to make him jealous, but there’s nothing between us. Just a game with him. Hopefully you put it to rest today.”

  Betsy nodded. She looked very serious. “I’m not interested in being someone’s plaything,” she said.

  “Me, either,” he said. “I don’t feel like that about you.”

  “How do you feel about me?” she asked, stepping very close to him.

  “Like I kind of love you,” he said. She blinked and her mouth fell open. He’d done it. He’d said it. He ducked and kissed her, long and hard, then backed off. “How badass is that?” he asked. He felt giddy, weightless, like he might float right up to the sun. She was blushing, holding her breath. He backed away until he ran into some guys playing hacky sack in his path, then turned and ran, full of fear and power and more exhilarated than he’d ever felt.

  When Byron made it back to Matt’s truck he was too spacey to drive. Too tired from the Rory Burger and hard workout and too high on loving Betsy and art. Matt just shrugged and agreed to drive. On the drive home, as Byron nursed a sore hamstring, Matt rattled off modifications to the route Byron had tried.

  “You’re smaller and faster than the other guys, but they’re stronger. You can’t jump as high as the blue shirt guy, but you can swing your body farther when you use your arms, like in the tree.”

  “His name’s Dale,” Byron said. “The blue shirt guy. The leader.”

  Matt shook his head. “You’re the leader now.”

  “Really, there isn’t a leader . . .”

  “There’s always a leader,” Matt said. And of course he was right. Dale had given Byron a hard time about the flip over the picnic table, saying parkour wasn’t about showboating, and flips had no place in it. But the other guys thought the flip was awesome. So maybe the other guys weren’t following Dale’s lead as much as they used to. Byron smiled and stretched his leg, massaging his pulled muscle.

  “Okay, enough about parkour. Can we talk more about art?” Byron said.

  Matt nodded. “Okay. I like art better. Can I show you the tadpoles?”

  Byron laughed. Matt was a nutty conversationalist.

  “Yeah. Tadpoles and art. Let’s do it.”

  21

  * * *

  Lana

  Between Nick, Mitch, and Abbot, Lana had realized two things about herself. One, that the sleeping romantic in her had been reawakened. And two, that she wanted to be in better shape for whoever might actually see her naked again someday. She called her friend, neighbor, and former walking pal Camilla and left a desperate message: “I’m getting fat, Camilla. I need your help.” Camilla called back laughing, promising to make Lana feel thin by wearing bright purple leggings that showed off her cellulite.

  They met at the end of the driveway. Camilla was wearing the purple leggings, but they were under a loose black skirt. When she moved in the light, the lower half of the skirt glittered with sparkles.

  “Hey, where’s the cellulite?” Lana asked.

  “I’m afraid it was too hideous even for you. I don’t know what I was thinking. Cute, though, yes?” She twirled, a scattering of sequin flashes. “Why dress my age?”

  Lana laughed. Camilla was in her early fifties, but had the heart of a twenty-year-old. “I wish I had half of your energy and spirit.”

  “And if I had those legs of yours, I’d wear the leggings without the skirt.”

  Lana laughed. “The legs aren’t what they used to be. That’s where you come in.”

  “Well, then, let’s get to it,” Camilla said. She was an all-business walker, the kind who pumped her arms even on a casual stroll. She’d put on a few pounds herself, but she hadn’t lost an ounce of drive. She pushed the two of them hard. The cherry trees were in full blossom, the ground littered in petal confetti, the air pungent with spring.

  Lana had left Abby and Matt home alone together, each in their own rooms. Byron was at Trent’s. She was surprised to return home to find Matt and Abby seated side by side in the front window, aglow in afternoon sun, eating on matching trays. It was the opening scene from The Cat in the Hat, without the rain, and Lana came inside happier than she’d felt in a long time.

  “You two are straight from a storybook. I love it,” she practically sang.

  “Abby’s eating with me,” Matt said.

  Abby took hamster bites from an apple slice. She seemed to be concentrating on gnawing the peel off one millimeter at a time.

  “Do you want anything more substantial? A sandwich? I can make it.”

  “No, thanks,” Abby said.

  “She’s starting with her favorites,” Matt said. “She’ll eat more if she likes what she’s eating.”

  “Of course,” Lana said. She wanted to press Abby to eat something with actual calories, but the memory of her mother’s diet-obsessed ways offset the urge. How could she scold a child for eating healthy food when she could still hear the sound of her own mother retching up her binges through the thin veil of memory? Not to mention her own overindulgence of sweets and carbs that she was attempting to exercise away. If Abby wasn’t a binger, with or without the purging, maybe she’d dodged the family’s unhealthy eating habits and the cycle had finally been broken.

  “What else have you two been up to while I was out?”

  “We’re not talking,” Matt explained. “Just eating.”

  Abby nibbled carefully on a cucumber round, spinning it as she devoured the outermost edge. She looked up at Lana, smiled, then turned to look back out the window.

  “Okay,” Lana whispered.

  In yoga, the instructor told the class to open their chests, inhaling deeply, visualizing their hearts expanding. During class Lana had been too busy concentrating on her posture to feel it, but sitting at the kitchen table, with Matt and Abby bonding in the next room, she felt her heart opening up like the Grinch’s on Christmas Day.

  Byron came home, sweaty and flushed, crashing through the house with the elegance of a wrecking ball. Abby and
Matt had retreated to their separate rooms again. Lana was in the kitchen wiping down spotted counters and a splattered stove. Byron made a double-decker sandwich with three slices of bread and almost an entire container of deli-sliced turkey. He shoved it into his mouth as if it were trying to get away.

  “Where have you been?” Lana asked. “You’re drenched in sweat.”

  “Mastering the awesome sport of parkour,” Byron said, glowing with happiness. He used his shoulder to wipe a trickle of sweat from his temple.

  “What’s parkour?” she asked.

  “The coolest sport ever,” he said. “I kind of need to talk to you about it. I might want to quit swimming.” He chewed, swallowed, nearly choking he was eating so fast. “And track. And just do parkour. And maybe tae kwon do again, or gymnastics? I don’t know yet. Plus, I need to take some art classes. Actually, lots of art classes.”

  “Oh,” Lana said. Everything he’d listed was out of her price range, but it was the most excited she’d seen Byron about any activity in a long time. “I’d like to know a little more about parkour before we do all that. And these art classes. And we’ll have to talk to your dad about the cost.”

  Byron launched himself up, popping over the back of the chair without touching it, and landed with a grace that was new. He gave Lana a sweaty hug, lifting her off the floor for a moment. “Thanks!” he said. “I’ll call Dad right now. Get on the computer and Google parkour. You’ll love it. It’ll get me into super-good shape.”

  “I’ll do that.” Lana held on to his arm. “Just one thing. We were thinking track and swimming might earn you a college scholarship. If you’re only doing sports outside of school, does that carry the same weight?”

  Byron laughed, shaking Lana by her shoulders. “That’s the best part. It’s a college team! I’m already in, so I’ll be there three times a week. I might need a car to get there and back, once I get my license. I could also get an art scholarship, you know, because I think art is my real calling.”

  He bounded out the door, enormous puppy feet trailing behind his long, lean body, leaving Lana with her mouth hanging open. Since when did he have a calling?

  Lana was in the midst of clicking through a series of YouTube videos of death-defying parkour stunts with Byron watching eagerly over her shoulder, worrying about her child throwing his body off buildings and over walls, when the phone rang.

  “Lana Foster? This is Margie, from Dr. Tucker’s office? I’m calling because there was an irregularity on your pap smear, so we’d like you to come back in for a follow-up.”

  “Excuse me?” Lana said, hoping she’d heard wrong. Byron perked up and Lana gave him a lighthearted laugh like it was nothing. But she instinctively headed out of his hearing range.

  “You had your annual exam a few weeks ago? It appears there were some irregular cells, so we need to do another test.”

  “Irregular how? What does that mean?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. When can you come in?”

  “Uh, whenever, I guess. I have to drive my kids to and from school, but . . .”

  “We have a cancellation for tomorrow at ten,” she suggested. Lana agreed and hung up.

  To distract herself from the rattling phone call, and not with distressing parkour videos, she asked Byron if she could see some of his art. Aside from his doodles in the margins of pages, she didn’t know much about it. He’d never wanted to share it before. He escorted her up to his room and quietly flipped through one amazing sketch after another: sunlit trees, shadowy buildings, athletes midstride, midflip, and midlanding, young girls with downcast faces framed by flowing hair. He was more talented than she’d realized. A lot more talented.

  “I talked to Dad about parkour, and he was fine with it,” Byron said. “Not so much on buying a car, though.” He stopped at a watercolor of the backyard swing set she was thinking of finally getting rid of. A young Byron sat on the top of the slide, ready.

  “Oh, Byron, this is lovely,” she said, choking up as she held it. “They all are.”

  “You think I have talent?” he asked. His voice was as small as the boy in the painting.

  “Of course you do. More than talent. A calling. Like you said.”

  Byron smiled. “I didn’t tell Dad about this. He doesn’t . . .” Byron shook his head, took the watercolor from Lana’s hands, and started piling the pictures together. “He thinks art is a waste of time.”

  Lana took Byron’s hand. “This is not a waste of time,” she said in her authoritative teacher voice. “This is a gift. I’m so proud of you, that you can do this. And without training. Just imagine what you could do with some fundamentals under your belt.”

  Byron smiled, sheepish and unsure. “Thanks. Maybe you can tell Dad.”

  Damn it, Graham, Lana thought. What kind of father diminishes his son’s passion? She used her pride in Byron’s art and anger at Graham to push aside the scary scenarios that filled her mind all night long. Irregular pap smears weren’t uncommon. It had happened to Becca once. They didn’t get a clean sample. The second one had turned out fine. Surely Lana’s would be the same. But the next morning as she sat in the small, chilly exam room surrounded by fading, curling posters about breast health, pregnancy, and contraception, Lana wasn’t so sure.

  “How many sexual partners have you had in the past ten years?” Dr. Tucker asked.

  “One. My husband,” Lana said.

  “And as far as you know, you were his only sexual partner?” Prim little Dr. Tucker flipped through Lana’s chart and made some notes, as if not the least invested in her reply.

  “Um, as far as I know,” Lana said, and for the first time it occurred to her that you never really know, do you? An unhappy spouse can be capable of anything. Graham didn’t seem the type, but how often did wandering husbands look the part?

  Dr. Tucker looked up, her dark eyes magnified by her glasses. “Is it possible you weren’t?” She was a lean, compact woman, but Lana felt intimidated by her. Doctors always made Lana nervous. Some inherent fear of being judged.

  “I don’t know. We separated recently. Well, months ago. I never thought there was anyone else, but do you ever really know for sure?” Lana’s voice trembled as she spoke. When would she be able to admit marital failure without feeling wrenched open?

  Dr. Tucker remained impassive, but made a note in Lana’s chart. “Okay,” she said. It took all of Lana’s willpower not to lean forward to see what the scribble said. “So, you’re aware that HPV causes cervical cancer, and that it’s an STD?”

  “Yes,” Lana whispered. “Is that what I have?” The word cancer sent a jolt through Lana’s body. Images of Stephen, taken down swiftly from vibrant and strong to pale and weak, feigning a smile and promising to fight as he slid from sick to sicker, a rapid-fire slideshow of Lana’s worst fears.

  “Oh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Dr. Tucker laughed, touching Lana’s bare knee with her fingers. Her hands were ice-cold, like the room. “But you have tested positive for human papillomavirus, or HPV. It’s the most common STD there is, and honestly, almost all women will have it at some point. It doesn’t necessarily mean your husband cheated on you and gave it to you. Most women contract it sometime in their twenties. It can lie dormant for years, decades, before manifesting like this. Okay?”

  Lana nodded, but her entire body had gone numb. She had an STD? She was in her mid-forties, had been monogamous for two decades. It made no sense.

  “Most of the time your body resolves the infection by itself, so we’ll test you for it again in about six months, see if it’s still coming up positive. Today I want to do a colposcopy to double-check those irregular cells. Once we have the results, we’ll go from there. No worries unless we find something to worry about, okay?”

  “Yes, okay, fine,” Lana said. But of course the avalanche of worries came anyway, buried her alive. “And what if you find something?”

  “If we confirm the presence of abnormal cells, we’ll talk
about the next step. If they’re all normal cells, then there is no next step, aside from retesting for HPV.”

  “Can’t you tell me the worst-case scenario now?” Lana asked. “Just so I can . . .”

  “Obsess?” Dr. Tucker laughed. She smiled and shook her head like Lana was a charmingly testy child. She patted Lana’s shoulder, and the coolness of her small hands chilled Lana through her T-shirt. At Lana’s annual exam she’d been completely naked under the faded, worn hospital gown. Today she was pantsless beneath a crisp papery drape across her lap, but fully clothed on top. She was only half undressed yet felt significantly more exposed. Raw. Unspooling. She wished she’d listened to Becca’s meditation CD. Maybe brought it with her to tune out the slow-boil panic drumming in her ears.

  “This will hurt less if you’re relaxed,” Dr. Tucker said. “Lean back, no worries, all is fine in the world.” She laughed as she tucked a child-sized pillow behind Lana’s head.

  But how could Lana possibly relax? So every aspect of the simple exam hurt more than usual. Dr. Tucker kept up a steady stream of chatter, asking about Byron and Abby, but even as Lana answered her she was somewhere else, somewhere painful and cold and lacking in oxygen.

  By the time Lana got home she was emotionally gutted and cramping. It was just a doctor’s visit, just a follow-up for more information. Nothing had changed, really, except for her sense that she had been finally moving into an easier phase. Maybe there was no easier phase. Maybe life would just keep coming at her as ruthlessly as ever.