Positively Beautiful

by Wendy Mills

  Now she’s feeling guilty and it’s all my fault.

  “I found out I might have this gene mutation,” I say, because if not that, I’ll have to tell her about kissing Chaz.

  She listens as I tell her the entire story.

  “That’s terrible,” she says, throwing her arm around my neck and hugging me hard. “And some people cut off their breasts? Before they get cancer? Seriously, I can’t imagine.” She steps back and clutches her boobs in both hands. “Have you told Michael?”

  “I haven’t talked to Michael since the party three weeks ago.” And the fact that she doesn’t know this shows how far apart we’ve grown.

  I don’t know whether Michael’s avoiding me, or if that’s just the way he is. He nods at me in the hall, but that’s about it. Or maybe he knows what Faith is capable of, and he’s staying away from me for a reason. To protect me. I don’t know.

  And what would he think about you if you had no breasts? The thought comes unbidden. If I get tested and I am positive, chopping off my breasts is the only way to really make sure I don’t end up going through what my mom is going through.

  How cute do you think he would find you if you had no breasts?

  I shudder and Trina sees me. She climbs on the bed behind me and rubs my shoulders and then puts her arms around me. “It’s going to be okay. I know it’s terrible, but it’s going to be okay.”

  But she doesn’t know that. No one does.

  Trina stays for a while, and it’s almost like it used to be. She talks happily about Chaz and some Internet game he designed, and they’re playing it, and Chaz is a king and Trina’s a warrior princess and they’re on a mission to save the world. She stays for birthday cake—Mom made me one tonight because she’s afraid she won’t feel like it tomorrow—and we talk about going thrifting, and we almost do, but Chaz calls, and he wants to go to a movie. Trina asks if I mind and I say, “Of course I don’t care. You go on.” Then she wants me to go, like I’m going to go sit and watch them grope each other, so I say no.

  After she leaves, I e-mail Ashley.

  I told my best friend about the BRCA gene mutation and she was real sweet about it, I mean she really cared, but it didn’t help. I thought it would. For some reason I thought when I told her that it would make it less bad, that she would tell me it’s not as bad as I think it is. But she was horrified, too, so now I know it’s not just me.

  I can’t decide whether I want to get tested or not. I have the test kit, and I haven’t told my mom, because she somehow thinks I’ve forgotten about it all. I don’t want to worry her.

  I just don’t know. I’m not sure I can stand this waiting anymore. Waiting until I’m twenty-one, even eighteen, is just too freaking long.

  I go downstairs and Jill and my mom are weeping together on the couch, all curled up under one blanket. They’ve demolished the rest of my birthday cake; all that’s left is just crumbs on the coffee table.

  “What are you doing?” They are watching Beaches, an old movie about two lifelong friends who find out one of them is sick. And then she dies. And then she freaking dies. “Seriously? Why are you guys watching this?”

  “Come sit down,” Jill says, scooting over so I can sit beside them. “We were all keyed up about tomorrow, so we decided it would be better just to cry.”

  My mom nods, tears streaming down her face.

  So I sit with them while Mom strokes my hair and the woman dies, and it’s so horrible I start crying too.

  We’re all crying, and laughing at ourselves, and for some reason it makes it better.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next day it’s my seventeenth birthday, and I fail a physics test. I never fail tests. Never.

  I can’t say anything to Mom, because she had chemotherapy today and feels like crap. Jill is on the phone when I come in, twirling her long gray-streaked hair around one finger. She waves distractedly, before continuing. “She’s got a slight fever, should we be worried?”

  I sit beside Mom and hold her hand. She is sitting up, and clutching her chest: heartburn. At least she isn’t vomiting yet. The doctors promised they would adjust her medicine to reduce the nausea, and so far, so good.

  “Hey, birthday girl,” she says, and then Jill comes in with a glass of water and some hand sanitizer. They forget about me, and finally I leave.

  I go downstairs to the garage, singing, “Happy birthday to me,” and pull the cover off Dad’s Mustang. I’ve been doing this a lot lately, sitting in the car. It scares me how little I remember about my dad. If something happens to Mom, will I forget her too?

  I sit for a while, my mind a blank, silvery nothingness, and then my e-mail dings and I see it’s from Ashley.

  “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.” I have this as my screen saver where I can see it every day. Thoreau was no dummy.

  I can’t tell you whether or not you should get tested now. Nobody can, even though the experts will tell you to wait, wait, wait. I’m glad my little sister doesn’t know. I’m glad I didn’t know until I was eighteen. But seriously? We’re all going to die someday, right? I mean, I could walk in front of a bus tomorrow, and so could you. None of us knows how much longer we have.

  So, what would I tell you if you were my little sister?

  Live for today. That’s how I get through.

  Someone knocks on the side door to the garage and I look up. It’s Michael and I jump as if I’ve been Tased. I get out of the car, doing a rapid inventory of my appearance—curly hair standing on end, no makeup, hopefully no visible zits—and open the door.

  “What are you doing here?” I say stupidly.

  He looks over my shoulder at the Mustang. “I came to see that.” He walks in and stands and looks at the car for a minute. Then he walks around it, running his fingers over the rust spots, peering inside at the torn and faded upholstery. He pops the hood and looks at the engine. He pokes and prods for a while, then shakes his head and slams the hood shut. “It’s trash. Might as well sell it for parts.”

  It’s what Mom has been saying for the past couple of years but I don’t want to hear it. “I don’t really want to do that. It was my dad’s. He was going to fix it up.”

  Michael leans against the hood of the car and looks at me, his long fingers smudged with grease, his eyes serious. “You can’t hang on to memories,” he says. “When they’re gone, they’re gone.”

  “That’s why you’re determined to be an architect?” I say without thinking. “To forget your dad?”

  He doesn’t say anything and I’m afraid I’ve gone too far.

  Then, “My mom harped on my dad all the time. He didn’t make enough money. He didn’t dress well enough. She didn’t like his friends. Sometimes I get why he took a header off that building.”

  We’re quiet then. Really, what can you say to that? For some reason I think about Trina, and me kissing Chaz. Does Michael know? I don’t want him to know. What would he think about me then?

  His phone rings and he pulls it out and glances at the screen. He sort of grimaces, and then says, “Hold on,” as he turns away and answers it. “Yeah?” He listens for a minute. “I’m at … a friend’s house right now so I don’t think that’ll work.” He listens some more and kind of glances at me. “Yeah, okay, that’s where I am.” He sighs. “I guess. Fifteen minutes.”

  He slips the phone back in his pocket without saying good-bye. “Faith’s mom is onto her about her grades and Faith’s having a heart attack because she doesn’t think she’s going to get into Stanford. Always drama.”

  My heart is breaking for poor little Faith. Instead I say, “It’s nice that you guys can still be friends after you broke up. Her mom doesn’t sound too great, though.”

  “Yeah … her mom’s a real piece of work. Always pushing Faith to get ahead, to be better than everyone else. I guess she and I have crappy moms in common. I better go.”

  But he doesn’t leave, he just stands there. Af
ter a moment, he walks toward me and stands real close to me. My head is doing the ohmygod thing again and then he leans forward and brushes his lips against mine. It’s quick and light, but my lips feel as if they are on fire as he heads for the door.

  He stops with his hand on the doorknob. “Faith knows I was here,” he says, and it’s a warning, plain as day. “We all got this app so everybody knew where everybody else was. I forgot about it, or I would have turned it off.” He hesitates and then opens the door.

  “See you around.”

  He’s gone, and I feel like I’ve been punched.

  Faith has her ammunition, and now she has her reason.

  I need to talk to Trina.

  But when I go inside, my mom has a 104 temperature and Jill and I have to take her to the emergency room. Two hours later, Faith publishes the picture of me and Chaz kissing on the e-zine, titling it, “Aren’t they cute?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Mom spends the weekend in the hospital as the doctors work at getting her infection under control. She is very dehydrated, and they pour gallons of liquids into her through an IV.

  I stay at the hospital with her and Jill. I don’t know what I would do if Jill wasn’t here. She’s the one who talks to the doctors, she’s the one who talks to the nurses about getting Mom more pain medicine, she’s the one who helps Mom to the bathroom and sits with her in there. Mom wants us to go home at night, but both Jill and I refuse. We take turns sleeping in her room on the uncomfortable chair that pulls out into an unconvincing bed. It’s still better than the waiting room, where the chairs are all hard vinyl cushions and wood.

  I find myself almost calling Trina a dozen times to tell her where I am, but then I remember. I know she’s seen the picture of me and Chaz kissing because there’s a gazillion messages from her. I don’t listen to any of them. I can’t. I turn off my phone so I don’t have to hear the beeps as each message comes in.

  Sunday afternoon, Mom is well enough to go home. Trina must have been cruising my house, because she shows up an hour later.

  “How could you?” she says as she comes into my room.

  Trina has been crying. I feel like crying too.

  “Oh, Trina, I’m so sorry …”

  “I should have known! I should have known he wasn’t interested in me. It was you the whole time, right? He was interested in you, and he used me to get to you. How could I be so stupid? Of course he doesn’t like me. Why would I think he would?” She is whirling around the room like a broken-winged bird, pulling at her hair.

  “No, Trina, no.” I try to stop her from yanking her hair out. “It’s not like that. It was my fault. Have you talked to Chaz? It was my fault, not his. I kissed him. He was never interested in me, and he hasn’t said two words to me since it happened.”

  “You kissed him? Why? You know how much I like him. You know how hard it’s been for me to find someone. How could you do this? We both know you’re prettier than me; did you have to prove it? Why would you do this?”

  “I don’t know,” I say miserably. “It was the night of the party at the school. Michael was talking to Faith and somehow … My mom was so sick, and everybody was calling me Va-jay-jay Girl, and you and Chaz were so happy … I guess I wanted somebody to like me the way Chaz liked you. I don’t know! I was drunk, and it didn’t even make any sense then. Do you think it makes sense to me now? I was stupid. So, so stupid, and I wanted to tell you, but it seemed better not to, because you were so happy.”

  “The two of you kept this secret from me for three whole weeks? My best friend and my boyfriend? I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you, Erin. Who are you? How could you do this? I know you’ve been jealous because I’ve been spending so much time with Chaz … Is that why you did it? Were you trying to break us up? So that you would have me all to yourself again?” She stops and stares at me intently. I don’t like the expression on her face. It’s anger, but there’s … what, pity, as well?

  “No! What kind of person do you think I am? I would never try to break the two of you up. I’m happy for you, I really am.” I sit back on the edge of the bed, clutching the bedspread in both fists. “Trina, please, I know it was wrong, I know I was terrible, but … please. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You weren’t thinking about me,” she says. “What kind of friend is that? You were only thinking of yourself.”

  “No, no, no,” I say, shaking my head.

  But I feel a prickle of doubt. Could she be right? Was I so scared of losing Trina I was willing to break them up? Was I that terrible of a person?

  I put my head into my hands. I’m crying in earnest now, and so is Trina.

  “I’m so sorry.” I whisper.

  “I am too,” she says and walks out.

  Outside in the hall, I hear Jill ask Trina if she’s okay, but I don’t hear what she says.

  A knock sounds on my door and Jill comes in, carrying bottles of liquid Benadryl and Maalox that Mom is using to help with her mouth sores. Jill puts them down on my desk and sits beside me on the bed. I’m trying to stop crying and she doesn’t say anything, just pats my leg.

  “I kissed Trina’s boyfriend.” My voice hiccups. “And now she hates me.”

  Jill puts her arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. “Wowie. Okay, calm down. Do you know how many stupid things I’ve done in my life? I can’t even count them all. We all make mistakes. It’s part of growing up. Heck, it’s part of living. Because you’re not truly living if you don’t make mistakes now and again. Trina will get over it. I promise. You are too good of friends for this not to blow over.”

  But I’m not so sure.

  Mom starts crying, the aching in her bones is so bad, and Jill goes back to her best friend. I sit and think about what Trina said. Who am I?

  I’m rolling the spit tube in my fingers.

  Who am I?

  This I know: I like the color purple. I’m afraid of the dark. I like to read, and lately I think I might like to write. My mom has breast cancer and may or may not die. I might have the gene and may or may not die because of it.

  Very few positives in my life—very few things I know for sure.

  There is one thing I can know for sure. There is one thing I can nail down in my life one way or another.

  I pop the lid off and spit in the tube.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Stew barks at me.

  I jump, and Tweety Bird jumps with me as my hands jerk back. “Uh … flying?” I answer through the headset, bringing the plane back level.

  “Is that what you call it? You’re two degrees off course, I’m getting airsick with all the overcorrecting you’re doing, and hey, look, there’s a cloud ahead of us. Were you planning on going right through it?”

  The silent blue sky is full of the big floating clouds, some as tall as castles. They sail along, glowing white and indifferent, and I feel very small next to them in the humming plane. I’m not supposed to go through the clouds, I know that. You only go through clouds once you get your instrument license, which means you can navigate solely by instruments. I steer away from them.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” I say, because I’ve figured out it annoys the crap out of him.

  It’s windy, so instead of doing touch-and-goes, we’re out at the practice area practicing stalls. The first time I did this a couple of days ago, it scared the bejesus out of me as we went up and up until the stall alarm started blaring and then there was a moment like when you’re at the very top of the roller coaster, suspended between up and down, and then the nose dropped and it felt like we were going straight down. A few times, we even began spinning around and around because I couldn’t hold the wings level, and Stew had to take the controls. That night, I wasn’t sure I would ever fly again. But the next day, I went back and practiced some more until I could do it without spinning.

  I am feeling a lot more comfortable flying. Not surprisingly, since I’ve s
pent almost every minute of the last week doing it. The school thought I was sick, Mom and Jill thought I was at school, and in reality … I’ve been flying.

  I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face everybody. Just knowing that everybody would be talking about me made me feel like curling up like a roly-poly until the end of the school year. So I called the office, pretending to be Mom, and told them Erin Bailey was very sick and wouldn’t be at school all week. Then I counted up my savings, money earned from working at the yogurt shop and some money Memaw left me, and went to see Stew.

  “I want to learn to fly,” I say. “This week.”

  “What, you mean after school?” He squints at me.

  “No, all day,” I say. “I can pay you. Here.”

  Stew never asked me why I wasn’t in school. He took my money and for the next week we did ground school in the morning, studying charts that looked like upside-down wedding cakes and learning about V-speeds and operating temperatures, and then flew the rest of the day. When Stew had another lesson, I would sit in the hangar and study.

  I pull back, sending Tweety soaring up as Stew begins patting his pocket, looking for his gum. He pulls out an empty pack and looks at it in disgust. I reach one hand into my jeans pocket and wordlessly hand him a full pack of gum. After a week spent in close quarters with Stew, I know his gum addiction masks his murderous need for a cigarette. As long as he has gum, he’s a much more pleasant person. Relatively speaking, of course.

  Stew takes the gum without saying anything, and I go back to my upward climb, turning as I do it so I can practice the stall in a bank. I feel the stall coming on even before the alarm goes off and I concentrate on using the rudder to keep the lift on the wings balanced.

  “Head on a swivel,” Stew growls, and by now I know that means I’m supposed to be looking out for other aircraft. I crane my neck around, looking for traffic, thankful for the cushion that Stew threw at me after my third flight when I was having trouble seeing out the windows. I see the helicopter in the distance, the one Stew must have heard on the radio. It’s going away, so I relax and go back to doing stalls again.