Positively Beautiful

by Wendy Mills

  “I’m scared,” she says, clutching me. I am all she has. Jill has come for weeks at a time, and the fridge is stuffed with casseroles from friends and neighbors, but in the end it is her and me, swirling slowly in a sinking life raft.

  “I know,” I say. “But it’s going to be fine. We’re going to beat this thing. Look how hard you’re fighting. You are a warrior.”

  She is silent, because she doesn’t like it when I talk like this. But I believe if I stay positive the good vibes will zap at least some of those creepy-crawly cancer cells that just ache to pack up their wagons and set off for new, unexplored territory.

  I hear there’s wide-open spaces out there in the femur. Pack it up, Martha, we’re going to find us a new home!

  “No,” she says, and I am surprised by the ferocity in her voice. “I am scared for you.”

  “I’m fine, Momma. I know I fell apart last year, but I’m different now. I will be here for you. I can do this. I want to do this. And when we get you well, we can go to Dino’s and get our manis and pedis and laugh about all this.”

  “I need to know you will be okay when I’m gone,” she says.

  “Don’t talk like that,” I say. “You are not going to die. The tumor board is meeting about your case, and with that many doctors putting their heads together you know they’ll figure something out. You’re starting that stronger regimen of chemo, and even if that doesn’t work, there’re tons of clinical trials and those are working wonders. Don’t give up hope, Mom, please. You can do this. You can do this for yourself, and you can do this for me. I need you. I need you here with me. I need you to tell me what to do about Jason. We haven’t talked since I left after Christmas break, and there is this big hole in me nothing seems to fill. I need you to see me graduate. I need you, Momma, every day, so please, please don’t leave me.”

  She hugs me as hard as her frail arms can and I hug her back, feeling her smooth bald head against my cheek.

  “I’m trying, I’m trying,” she whispers.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The next day is Saturday, and I go to the airport. It’s a blue-sky April day, the air warming gently, the trees sporting their fresh, green leaves.

  It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve come to the airport, and the first thing I notice is that Tweety Bird is gone. My heart sinks. Stew must have sold her. She must have been more damaged than I realized. Maybe he had to scrap her out.

  Then I catch a glimpse of yellow in the hangar and realize with relief that Stew moved her inside. Does that mean he’s working on her?

  I sit for a while, enjoying the tiny glow of happiness. But heavy, dark thoughts keep intruding and it’s like a cloud has moved across the sun even though the air is still bright and clear. I pull out my phone and go to one of the breast cancer websites because I can’t stop thinking about it, no matter how hard I try. My finger hovers over the “Stage IV” forum, but I can’t bear it right now. Instead, I choose one of the preventive mastectomy forums, and I spend ten minutes reading about chest expanders, nipple tattoos, and silicone vs. saline breast implants. These women are determined to rebuild something from scratch, and I admire them for it.

  I just don’t know if I can do it.

  I answer a post, and comment on someone else’s post. I’ve been doing this a lot lately; it helps to have someone to talk to who understands what it’s like to face these choices. Miriam will be telling Ashley about the possibility she may have the BRCA mutation in a week. While I’m dreading Ashley finding out, because she’s become a friend, at least we’ll be able to talk about it. It’s been the elephant in the room in all of our conversations, and she doesn’t even know it.

  I read a text from Trina asking if they are picking me up for our Excap excursion this evening. I hesitate on that one, because I really don’t want to go. I’m not in the mood for fun and games.

  While I’m thinking about it, someone knocks sharply on my window.

  I jump and stifle a scream.

  Stew is standing beside the car, tapping a wrench into the palm of his hand. I hesitate and then roll down the window.

  “You ready to help fix the mess you made?” he asks. This is the first time we’ve talked since he brought me home.

  “Uh … yes?”

  “Come on, then,” he says.

  I scramble out of the car and follow him into the hangar. Tweety Bird is supported by cables attached to the ceiling and she’s missing the strut I bent when I landed in the field.

  For the next two hours, Stew says nothing to me except to ask for tools, which I give to him. The silence isn’t as fierce as it was on the ride home, though, and I’m glad for it. I don’t want Stew to hate me.

  “You going to appeal the FAA decision?” He wipes the grease off his hands and reaches for a stick of gum.

  “What? Wait a minute. They decided?” How did I miss that? I’ve been paying our bills, as well as grocery shopping, but it’s hard to keep up with everything. I realize it’s been more than a week since I checked the mailbox.

  “I heard the FAA made their decision on you. You didn’t know? They revoked your certificate. Permanently.”

  My head is spinning. The FAA thought I was so messed up that I shouldn’t be allowed to fly again? Ever?

  “And … and … what about you?” My voice is so low it might as well be a whisper.

  “Me? I got cleared a couple weeks ago. Damn bureaucrats,” he grumbles. “Takes ’em forever to make any fool decision.”

  I close my eyes, feeling a wave of relief. For Stew, at least.

  “Thank God,” I breathe.

  Stew eyes me, and his expression is unreadable.

  “Good for me, but what about you?” he says.

  “So …” I gulp. “They say I can’t get my pilot certificate? For … the rest of my life?”

  Stew shrugs. “That’s what they’re saying. But you can appeal it. You’ll have to go to a hearing and convince a judge that the FAA was wrong, that you should be allowed to continue your flight instruction.”

  “I’ll have to talk? Like at a trial?” I can’t imagine it. I really can’t.

  “What, you think they read minds? Of course you’ll have to talk. You’ll have to stand up and talk damn good to convince them to give you another chance. The judge will want to know why you did it in the first place, and why he should give you another chance.”

  My stomach drops. I can’t imagine standing up in front of strangers and baring my soul like that.

  “I don’t know if …” I trail off.

  “You’re telling me you can take an airplane three hundred miles by yourself and land in a field, but you can’t get up in front of a few people and convince them to let you keep training for your pilot’s license?”

  “It’s different.” As crazy as it sounds, flying was easier than all the other things in my life. It’s the closest I came to feeling like my dad, to touch a little of his bravery.

  He shakes his head, making a sound of disgust. “I don’t see how.”

  He hands the rag to me, and even though it’s dirtier than my hands, I use it anyway.

  “Look, Stew, I wanted to say again how sorry I am about everything. If I’d known I would be jeopardizing your instructor’s license I never would have done it. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry.”

  He stares at me for a long moment, and then reaches over and takes the rag from me. “If you decide to appeal the decision, I’ll come to the hearing. I’ll tell the judge you’re dumb as a box of rocks for doing what you did, but keeping you out of the air would be a crying shame.”

  “Thank you,” I say, but he’s already turned his back on me and walked away.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I go home and check on Mom, but she’s sleeping. I refill her water glass and make her a salad, because that’s the only thing she wants to eat anymore, when she can eat at all. I stand for a minute and watch her sleep. She has lost so much weight she looks like one of the concentration-camp v
ictims I read about in World History. Her head is as smooth as an egg, and her eyelids are purple as they rest above her pale cheeks.

  A horn blows outside, and I check to make sure her phone is in easy reach before I go.

  When I get into Chaz’s car, it’s like déjà vu. Michael is in the backseat and he nods at me as I slide in.

  “Hey, girlie,” Trina says brightly. “Michael decided at the last minute he wanted to come.”

  She gives me a wink, but because Trina is incapable of winking, she gives me a squinched-up blink and it’s a sure bet Michael saw. She knows all about Jason, and has loyally declared him a total wangchop. For the past several months she’s been trying to set me up with Chaz’s friends—“Wouldn’t it be a blast if we could double date?”—but so far I’ve managed to avoid her matchmaking.

  Not this time.

  “Hey.” Michael takes a long swig from a beer he’s got between his knees. Straight black hair and dark glowing eyes, he’s wearing faded jeans and a soft white T-shirt. He’s drawn what looks like an eyeball on the back of one of his hands. It’s an intricate drawing with a lot of detail and it’s like the eye is watching me as I put my seat belt on.

  “Hey,” I say, trying for what-was-your-name-again? But the truth is he’s still hot, and I feel my pulse speed up as he reaches over and snags the cooler from under my feet.

  “Want a beer?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Trina and Chaz are talking about prom and I stare out the window. It’s getting dark and I wonder whether Mom has woken up yet. I’m wishing I hadn’t come, but it’s too late now.

  Druid Hills has, like, a gazillion parks, and we must pass every one of them before turning onto the Briarcliff Campus of Emory University. It’s a mixture of old-fashioned redbrick buildings and industrial ones as well, all shaded by trees and abandoned-looking. We park in one of the empty parking lots and shadows fall thickly over the trees. As we get out of the car, Michael chucks three beer cans into the bushes.

  “Okay,” Chaz says. “We’re going to reconnoiter. You ladies stay right here until we get back.”

  Chaz and Michael trot across the parking lot and Trina and I look at each other.

  “Reconnoiter?” Trina says.

  “Ladies?” I say.

  And we burst out laughing.

  “Isn’t he just precious?” Trina says.

  “Adorable,” I agree.

  She puts her fist up and I bump it gently with mine.

  Dorkster Twins activate.

  “So, what’s up with Michael?” I say, trying not to show how good the fist bump made me feel. That it’s us again. “Not that he’s ever been the world’s happiest individual, but he seems pretty dark tonight.”

  Trina grimaces. “Michael didn’t get into any of the colleges he wanted. His grades sucked too bad. He’s spent every free moment working on his building models and I guess he forgot to study. It’s like he’s obsessed. When he got the last rejection, Chaz said he busted all his models, and he’s been working on them for years.”

  “That’s awful.” And it is. I know how badly Michael wanted to go to college and get away from here.

  We lean back on the trunk of the Mustang. I notice Trina is wearing a black T-shirt with EXCAPS written across the back and a drawing of the abandoned school on the front. Chaz is wearing one today too. People are calling them Chazatrina.

  “What’s with your clothes?” I ask. “You stopped wearing your outfits.”

  Trina shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess it was like a disguise, somehow, and once Chaz told me he loved me for me, I stopped wanting to hide who I am.”

  Chaz comes loping back, all ungainly swinging arms and legs. “The coast is clear,” he says in a whisper. I halfway expect him to ask for a password.

  We follow him across the parking lot toward the building.

  “You have to see it from the front first,” he says. “It really is magnificent, even abandoned. The son of the cofounder of Coca-Cola built it back in the 1920s, and after he sold it, it was an addiction center, and then a mental hospital. Emory University owns it now, and it’s just sitting empty, though they sometimes use it for photo shoots.”

  Even in the dying light, the front of the building is amazing. The fading red bricks and peeling white paint and boarded-up windows don’t take away the magnificence of the large rectangular mansion with a two-story circular entrance held up by columns, and graceful half-moon windows. I take a picture, liking the way the glancing rays of the setting sun illuminate hidden parts of the house.

  We follow Chaz around the back to a window that looks boarded up, but Chaz and Michael pull down the board, which was only placed in the window, not nailed.

  “There used to be a menagerie on the grounds, with a bunch of animals, including a tiger named Jimmie Walker and elephants named Coca, Cola, Refreshing, and Delicious. One of the baboons attacked somebody and they donated all the animals to Zoo Atlanta,” Chaz says as he climbs through the window and turns to help Trina first, and then me.

  The place is unbelievable. Grand and commanding, even with the industrial touches of its mental-institute days, like the exit signs above the doors and the water fountains. As we wander the imposing rooms and the light fades, I find I’m not scared. The building feels abandoned, but somehow I can hear the tinkling of piano keys in the vaulted three-story music room, and the laughter of women in flapper dresses near the fireplace that is almost big enough for me to stand in. In the study, gold drapes still hang, and I imagine the long-dead man working on Coca-Cola figures. All the ceilings, windows, and doors are larger than normal, like the people who walked these halls were bigger than life.

  “Check out the detail,” Michael says, standing under a chandelier with a bird’s nest in it. “Someone really cared about this house. They spent a lot of time making it this beautiful.”

  He plays his flashlight over a compass rose that has been worked into the ninety-year-old plaster. It is still gorgeous.

  I find to my surprise I’m enjoying myself. I suddenly get why people like exploring these old buildings. It’s history, long past, yes, but these forgotten buildings were once bustling with people and energy. They might be dark and scary now, but once upon a time they had a good life, one worth living. This house isn’t defined by what it looks like now, neglected and old, but what it once was: beautiful and full of life. It is a container of memories, laughter, and tears, and the ravages of time cannot take that away.

  We stand in a room with windows big enough to drive a car through and Chaz and Trina snuggle together in a dark corner.

  Michael and I watch the moon rise. It climbs quickly and loses volume and color in the process, like a balloon, big and bright in your hand but becoming small and indistinct in the sky. So much better to have it in your hand. Once you lose it, it’s gone forever.

  Michael brings a beer out of his coat pocket and chugs it, leaning his hip against the wall.

  “I heard about your mom being sick,” he says. “That sucks.”

  “It does,” I say. “I heard about your college stuff. That sucks too.”

  “Yeah.” He takes another long swig from his beer, his Adam’s apple working as he chugs. For a crazy minute, I want to kiss him in that soft, vulnerable spot at the base of his throat. Whatever attraction I had for Michael hasn’t subsided.

  And what does it matter? Jason doesn’t want me.

  “Should have known,” Michael says. “Should have known it wouldn’t work out for me. It never does.”

  “But you can’t give up,” I say.

  “Sure I can,” he says. “My dad did.”

  I step closer to him and take his hand. He closes his fingers around mine and we stand like that for a while until Trina calls out, “Hey, I got a great idea. Why don’t you guys go to prom with us this weekend?”

  I know this is not out of the blue. Trina has been bugging me about prom for weeks but it just all seems so stupid. Trina says I’ll regret it when I’
m older, but I don’t care.

  Even so, my heart races a little bit, and I sneak a quick look at Michael. My face is beginning to burn. I don’t need any more rejection.

  “Why the hell not,” he says.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  On Friday, I’m sitting in the meditation room at the cancer center, waiting for Mom to be done with her radiation to ease the discomfort from growing tumors. This time it’s her hip, but hopefully in a week or so, the tumor will shrink enough so she’ll be able to walk again.

  “There you are,” Trina says loudly, oblivious to the hush and quiet of the room. No one else is there, so I don’t bother to shush her.

  “Hey,” I say. It’s not the first time Trina has showed up unannounced at one of these appointments, and I’m grateful for the company.

  “You know,” she says, flopping down on a seat and closing one eye so she can peer at the stained glass.

  “What?”

  “If you squint, it kind of looks like the white dove took a big crapola. Here. You gotta squint. See what I mean?”

  I squint and darned if she’s not right. It makes me laugh, and then I’m clutching my stomach, rolled up on the seat, in hysterics.

  “I told my mom I could be a stand-up comic if I wanted to. It was one of those you-could-be-anything-you-want-so-why-are-you-such-a-slack-ass conversations, so I told her I wanted to be a stand-up comic and she said, ‘I sure as heck don’t find you funny,’ and I said …” She’s on a roll, talking so that neither of us have to notice that my laughter has turned to tears.

  After my sobs fade to hiccups, she says, “You’re still going to prom tomorrow, right? Michael said you hadn’t talked to him all week so he was wondering whether he needed to rent a tux. I tend to doubt he’ll find one at this late date anyway, but I figured I’d ask.”

  “I’m going,” I say.

  “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.” But she doesn’t say it meanly, and she sits with me while I try not to think about the blasts of radiation burning into my mother’s bones right now.