by Amber Kizer
“How about pizza?”
“Awesome.” Leif smiled and Vivian’s body filled with bright violet (Pantone 19-3438).
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vivian’s mom took one look at Leif and ushered him into the guest bathroom along with a set of clean workout clothes belonging to her husband.
“Mom,” Vivian hissed in embarrassment.
“He’ll feel better cleaned up. Besides, you don’t want to kiss a stinky boy. You want a fresh and clean kiss.” Her mother’s eyes twinkled and Vivian wanted to drop through the floor. Instead, she checked on their pizza order and studied herself in the hall mirror, listening for the sound of running water to stop.
Vivian saw a garden gnome staring back at her. With a full-moon face and puffy, short stature, she annually threatened to wear a gnome costume for Halloween. She never did because she was too afraid people would then always see her wearing a red, pointed hat, an old-fashioned dress, and wooden clogs. Not the “real” her.
Her dirty-blond hair went brown in winter, and because of the new antirejection meds, grew in thicker and fuller. Almost black at the roots, and it was so curly it frizzed with the least humidity. Her eyebrows needed trimming daily, and her skin was so prone to breakouts that she’d perfected concealer application. She turned away from her reflection. There was no way Leif would see anything desirable when he looked at her. No way.
I wanted to comfort her and tell her she was wrong. But I wasn’t sure. He dated willowy, waxed, and highlighted girls with big boobs, tiny waists, and smaller IQs. Leif was such a jumble of conflicts.
Leif strode into the kitchen with a chagrined smile on his face. “Your mom was right. I needed that.”
They chatted about Art and Soul, the latest music, even the weather, as they tried to dance around meatier topics. I was both fascinated and bored with how gently they acted toward each other. When the doorbell rang and the pizza arrived, I was thrilled for a change of topic.
The University of Washington Husky grinned on Leif’s T-shirt while he piled his plate with five slices of everything pie.
“Head down into the family room. I’ll be right behind you.” Vivian pointed him off and turned her back, popping her enzyme pills and the handful of other things she had to take with dinner. Her piled plate oozed greasy cheese and hunks of spicy sausage.
“You eat as much as I do,” Leif commented, stuffing half a slice into his mouth.
Nice manners, dude.
“Oh.” Vivian set her plate down. “I’m supposed to eat like a bird, right?”
“Sh—t!” Leif’s curse sounded more like “hit” and his horrified expression said it all.
She smiled and picked up a slice while he chewed and swallowed, trying to clear his mouth. She crammed a huge wad of pizza in her mouth.
He swallowed. “God, I’m stoked you eat. I didn’t mean it bad.”
Vivian nodded, trying to force cold soda into her mouth to cool the scalding sauce. There wasn’t room. And there wasn’t a way to appear polite and mannered. My mother would have gasped and died. I grinned.
“Girls who order salad and then spend the time staring at every bite I take like they want to eat me if I get in the way? No, thank you.” Leif shook his head, then peered at Vivian’s sweaty face. “Are you okay? That’s a lot of hot pizza.”
She nodded, managing not to choke and laugh at the same time.
“Slow down some.” He handed her a napkin and another can of Mountain Dew.
They were just about finished when her mother strolled through the room. Maybe to chaperone, maybe because she really needed the roll of tape. “Vivian, when you’re finished, you should give Leif a tour of the house. Show him what you painted on your walls.”
“You’ve got paintings here too?”
“Her bedroom is very special.” Her mother nodded and swept out of the room.
“So?” Leif asked.
“You really want a tour?”
He shrugged. “I like your art. Show me more.”
“Okay.” She stood and turned toward the door, missing the expression of pain that tightened Leif’s muscles as he unfolded from the sofa. I saw it. Felt it. His knee and thigh screamed.
Vivian paused at her bedroom door. It was striped with a plaid of brights.
“Nice door. Very you.” He nodded.
“Thanks.” She pushed it open, glad she’d cleaned her room recently. She lunged forward to quickly kick a pair of dirty panties under the bed skirt.
“Wow.” Leif turned in circles as if trying to take it all in.
I’d spent hours studying it before I could make sense of it all. Tiny squares of colors started in white and gradated out along the walls until it seemed as if we stood inside a rainbow.
“How long did this take?”
“I don’t know. A long time?” she answered.
“Is every color ever made here?” He stepped closer to a wall and inspected the section of oranges, everything from peach to pumpkin.
“No, but most of the Pantones.”
“What are Pantene colors?”
“Pantone.” She smiled. “They’re universal. So instead of saying tangerine and getting any orange, you can say ‘Pantone 15-1247’ and you get this tangerine color.” She laid her finger on the square.
“That’s kinda cool.” Leif looked impressed. And then he pointed to another square. “What’s that one?”
“Picante 19-1250.”
“That?”
“Tigerlily 17-1456.”
“Have you memorized all of them?”
“Most of them.” She shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time to waste.”
“Seriously.” He prowled around, looking at her photographs and trinkets.
She fidgeted, and rearranged, waiting for him to find something lacking or unacceptable.
Finally, he asked, “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. What are you talking about?” Vivian frowned.
“Your luggage. It looks full.” Leif walked toward the corner of her bedroom.
Vivian glanced at the weekender bag and small duffel. How much to share? How much to trust him? Go for it. Tell him. She paused before answering. “Those are my hospital bags.”
“For what? Are you sick?” Leif’s concern brought him steps closer, not farther away from her, and galvanized her to tell him the full truth. At least some of it.
“Before I had an organ transplant, I had to spend a lot of time in the hospital getting antibiotics, and being tested, and stuff.”
“What kind of transplant?”
“Heart and lungs.”
“Wow, but you’re better now. You don’t have to go back to the hospital.”
“Not as much.”
“How much time did you spend there?”
“If I was lucky? A couple of weeks every few months, or only a couple times a year.”
Leif frowned. “That sucks, but I don’t get it. If you’re better, why didn’t you unpack?”
Vivian shrugged. “A friend told me about keeping bags packed with everything I’d need all the time. She was older. I thought she knew everything. That way, my mom didn’t have to go through my stuff and I didn’t have to keep asking her to bring different things to me. I had it all in one place ready to go.” Vivian’s eyes welled with tears, and she sat down on her bed, hiding her face until she’d blinked them back.
“You look sad.” Leif struggled not to offer too much comfort.
Vivian nodded. “I haven’t thought about Tracy in a long time.” She scooted over so he sat down too.
He nodded. “Did you have a fight or something?”
“A fight?”
“Girls fight a lot with their friends.” He imparted this wisdom as if it was a secret.
Vivian started giggling.
“No?” Leif smiled sheepishly.
“Maybe on television, I guess. I don’t fight with my friends, but then again …” She trailed off and sobered.
“Then what?”
She inhaled and exhaled her words. “Most of my friends are dead, or sick, like me.”
“Oh.” Leif froze.
Good, Vivian, scare the boy to death. Cue fast exit on three …
“I told you about my transplant? Well, it’s because I have cystic fibrosis. It’s not curable, and a lot of people who are born with it don’t live a long a time. That’s changing, though.” She had no idea how to explain CF and the complexities of medical research in a few short sentences. She rushed her words together, feeling as though she was making things worse, with an explanation, and not better. “I mean, now the average is up to forty.”
“Forty what? People?” Leif frowned.
“No, forty years. Most CFers don’t live past the typical middle age.”
“Wow. Oh. Wow.” Leif seemed to gather himself. “But you’ve got new organs, right? That has to help.”
“Well, yes and no. I still have CF, I just don’t have lungs that are going to fail because of the CF.”
“So you’ll live a long time.” He said this as though he somehow decreed it.
I saw Vivian struggle with being honest, but not giving false hope. She didn’t want to scare him away, but she didn’t know how not to.
He seemed to struggle with words. “You should be going on a trip. Where do you want to go?”
I wanted to kiss him for not running out the door. Who knew Leif had backbone?
“What?” Vivian leaned forward.
Leif changed the subject so fast I wasn’t surprised that she had a hard time following either. “If you get half the time, you have to do twice the stuff.” He shrugged. “Right?”
“Math isn’t my strong suit.” She gave him a small smile.
He grimaced. “Screw school. You need to spend all your time doing what you love. Painting. Pantone stuff. Whatever.”
She shook her head. “Having CF doesn’t give me license to goof off.”
“So if you died tomorrow, you’d be happy you spent your last day in chemistry with Dr. Frances? That would make your life complete?” He snorted.
Vivian’s mind’s eye filled with pictures of beaches (Pantone 18-4525), evergreen mountains (Pantone 350), kissing (Pantone 199), opening her own studio (Pantone 214), seeing her work in the Met (Pantone 605). The shiny bright colors of a fantasy future swirled through her.
“Vivian? Viv?” Leif touched her.
She blinked.
“Where’d you go?”
“I was imagining a lifetime. And no, to answer your question, I don’t think I’d miss skipping class, but my parents feel like CF isn’t an excuse to have fun all the time.”
“Speaking of parents, I should probably head home and face the music.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll call you?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Vivian walked him out and laid her head against the front door.
“He’s a nice boy. Were you studying?” her mother offered tentatively from the hall behind her.
“Yes, he is.”
“Will he be back?”
“I don’t know.” Vivian wanted to be optimistic, but nothing in her life prepared her to be anything other than certain he wouldn’t call.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Samuel wheeled his suitcase up the paved sidewalk toward the group of parents and boys gathered in camouflage and comic-book character accessories. His mother marched ahead like a tour guide, as if he might possibly miss the boy-scout-birthday extravaganza. One youngster already had orange Popsicle juice staining his T-shirt and layers of dirt streaked on his cargo shorts. Oh hell no. Samuel skidded to a stop. His was the kind of planted stance that started revolutions and government overthrows.
These kids aren’t ten, they’re maybe eight.
With an unexpected whoop of delight, Mrs. Wayland descended on Sam’s mom. “Thank you so much for talking him into chaperoning. We couldn’t do this without you.” She spoke in that stage whisper adults thought out of range of anyone under eighteen. Moron. Craptastic.
Mrs. Sabir stared stalwartly at the trailhead and not at Samuel.
So this wasn’t just a setup; it was an ambush.
Mrs. Wayland stepped toward Sam, but kept her distance, as if she was afraid to touch him or contract a disease. Mega-moron. “Samuel. How are you feeling? Tip-top shape? Good, good. We’ve got fifteen young men for this adventure.” She turned away. “Andy, stop eating the pinecones!” she shrieked. “Get that out of his hand.”
Young men? Maybe in ten years. Right now they ate their boogers in public and peed wherever they pleased. These were not Sam’s people; even I knew that.
Mrs. Wayland shoved her husband off his cell phone and whispered between clenched teeth, with angry points of a well-manicured claw.
I grimaced and cringed—at least, I wanted to. I think Samuel and I both felt sorry for her husband. Speaking of bossy-pants. She hurtled into a pileup of wrestling, or maybe fighting, boys. I had never quite understood the way boys pounded on their friends, and death hadn’t provided any revelation.
Samuel’s ma wouldn’t meet his stare. He simply turned and started back toward the car. God himself wouldn’t get Sam to stay there. You go, Sammy! I tried cheering him on, but no one noticed.
“Where are you going?” His ma sounded genuinely perplexed as she caught up with him, and moved in front to block his escape route.
He’s mad.
After a heartbeat of swallowing anger, he said softly, “I hope you packed your hiking boots and favorite pillow.”
She frowned with surprise. “I’m not staying. You are. You’ll have fun.”
“If you don’t stay and police those boys, I think someone will get hurt, or be stranded where Air Rescue can’t find them.” Samuel’s stony expression told me, and her, he was serious. Not that he would hurt a kid intentionally. I think.
“I—I—” she stuttered, her expression stunned and more than a little hurt.
“Ma, I am not a babysitter. I don’t camp. I don’t like the outdoors. I am sorry if I’m so disappointing to you, but I swear to you, if you leave me here with these delinquents, someone is going to get impaled on their weenie-roasting stick.”
Oh boy.
“Yoo-hoo, Samuel, they’re leaving.” Mrs. Wayland pointed at the trail and the couple of dads who looked more like pack animals. There was nothing left of the boys but dust rolling down the trailhead.
Uh-oh.
Samuel and his mom stared at each other until she blinked. “I’m so sorry, dear, but I forgot that Samuel’s medication prevents him from sleeping outdoors. He was so excited that he didn’t want to remind me. Can you take him home on your way back? I’ll stay instead.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Wayland seemed unsure what she’d walked into, or what the right answer was. She glanced back and forth as if at a Ping-Pong game.
Samuel merely handed his pillow to his mother. He kept his hand clenched around the handle of the wheeled suitcase; it was full of solar chargers and equipment. Nothing camping-related. Nothing that his mother knew how to use. Not that he’d let her touch it.
Under her breath, Mrs. Sabir promised, “We will talk about this when I get home.”
Samuel nodded. Whatever.
Without a word, she blew up the trailhead at such a speed onlookers assumed she was in a hurry to catch up. Samuel knew she was running from him. He sighed.
Mrs. Wayland reminded him to buckle up before she turned on the car. “Do you mind if we stop at the grocery store on the way back? I need to get more snacks and breakfast supplies for the campers.”
“Fine.” Samuel didn’t care. His usual style of talk-to-anyone, anywhere, at-any-time flopped flat. He didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Wayland, or the stock boy, or the cashier.
While Mrs. Wayland tried to chat him up one aisle and down the next, Samuel filled a basket with junk food. Chips. Microwave popcorn. A strawberry pie. Coke. A deli pizza loaded with preservatives and salt and meat by-products.
“
Do I need to worry about a party at your mother’s house while she’s not home?” She eyed the contents of his basket with a worried frown.
“Of course not.”
A party of one? Maybe.
She nodded but didn’t look convinced.
Dropped at his house after what felt like hours, Samuel waved good-bye, thankful that she had no idea that his medication had nothing to do with his refusal to stay and “chaperone” the toddlers.
He tossed the pizza into the oven and switched on his monitors. “Who’s out there?” Samuel pinged a couple of people, including Misty. He cracked open a can of bright red, totally artificial soda and gulped it.
S: wanna chat?
Yo, Sammy, artificial colors and sweeteners aren’t exactly a rebellion. There’s a reason “let them eat cake” wasn’t cheered.
Sam sat back and waited to see who might respond. He belched. A new member ID on the MiracleMakers’ roll caught his attention and he pinged that newbie too.
Or she. You have to quit assuming everyone is a guy.
Misty didn’t respond, but PigskinPaint messaged back almost immediately.
PP: sure
cool game
S: virgin?
PP: first time here
S: sure
Samuel grinned.
Definitely a guy. Why does everything have to do with sex?
PP: looking around
how’d you come up with this?
The long answer was the hours, upon days, Samuel spent hooked up to dialysis. He blew through new games in one session or less, until all the zombies and coin collecting felt flat and obsolete. So he began writing code, learning how to animate and create a game that did more than blow shit up. MiracleMakers put the player in terrible situations—real life-wrecking situations like fires, floods, earthquakes, mass shootings. Players faced choices to rescue victims in high-adrenaline scenarios, or rebuild towns one brick at a time as deliberate, but slower, aid. Players built their miracle banks up and, thanks to Samuel’s corporate sponsors, donated MM dollars to charities all over the world. It was playing with a purpose. He wished his mother understood.
S: seemed like a good idea
we’re all connected
