Best Friends Through Eternity

by Sylvia McNicoll

  “True.” Kim just looks at me, owl-like through my glasses.

  I pull them off her and put them back on. “So I try to be a better person, and I end up making things worse?”

  She shrugs. “These things never work out all that well.”

  “Can I go back? I didn’t get a full week.”

  “But you don’t know what the outcome will be this time, either.”

  “She can’t die because of some stupid Facebook photos.” I grab Kim’s arms. “Get me back to Body Worlds. Only one extra day.”

  Kim rolls her eyes, and it’s so eerie. I saw that exact facial expression in my mother’s dresser mirror when I rolled my own eyes at something she said. I can’t process how bizarre having a doppelgänger is just at that moment. I have to concentrate on saving Jazz. “Kim, please?”

  “I’ll check.” She jogs into the water, deeper and deeper. When the waves reach her armpits, she throws her arms open into a breaststroke and disappears.

  I stare after her for a moment, then down at my feet. This time there is no castle to build, no hole to dig or parents to search for at the other end of the hole. I lift my eyes again toward those waving palm trees. I breathe in the slightly off smell of the seaweed at the edge of the beach and watch two seagulls dip and dive into the ocean. They call to each other in a high worried pitch.

  I look down to the point on the ocean where Kim disappeared.

  Still no Kim.

  It’s taking so much longer this time. All I really need to do is snatch Max’s phone from him at Body Worlds so he can’t take photos. It won’t even take the whole day. They can suck me right from the face of the planet after that moment. I wish I could tell them this myself.

  What is taking Kim so long? She isn’t a great person to argue my case. She’s always been kind of an all-logic, no-emotion kid. Just like me.

  Maybe that’s the way all babies left under lampposts grow up to be. But why does she look so much like me? Does your personality shape the way your cheeks and nose form? Or is that our Chinese heritage?

  At last, I see the air sparkle as though diamonds of sand have been tossed into it. The sparkle turns into gold and finally Kim forms. She walks toward me.

  “Okay,” she says tiredly. “You get to go back again.” She beckons with her hand, and I wade into the ocean to meet her. Then she grabs me and shoves my head under the water.

  THURSDAY:

  Third Time a Charm

  When I surface, I’m strolling through Body Worlds with Max. We’re heading to the ape cadaver, and he reaches into his pocket.

  “Don’t take a picture,” I say.

  “How did you know what I was going to do?” Max asks.

  “Well, I didn’t think you needed to make a phone call.” I put my hand on his wrist.

  His skin flushes. He smiles at me. “Fine, I won’t take a photo. I would have sent you a copy.”

  “My mother gave me some extra money. Why don’t we just go to the souvenir shop? Maybe we can buy a plastic kidney or something instead.”

  “Sure.” He slips his wrist from under my hand and grabs mine. Something really strange happens then. He leans over and kisses me. Not on the cheek, either. It isn’t a long, passionate, tonsil-hockey kind of smooch. His lips touch mine so quickly that I can almost swear it never happened.

  My second kiss from a boy, both from him. He’s just a friend, a fairly dorky-looking one at that. But he makes me want to live longer so that I can experience the real thing someday.

  He doesn’t say anything, just tugs me along to the next exhibit. Everything else pretty much happens the same way, except that, after the washroom break, we head for the gift shop and I buy a couple of postcards for us. I keep the one of the horseback rider. The other, a shot of the ape cadaver, I give to him. Nobody would bother to Photoshop Jazz’s or Cameron’s head onto either one.

  That afternoon, on the walk home from school, I feel just as tense as if I had read a Facebook plan to beat us up at the overpass. Events keep shifting. The last time, the volleyball team ambushed us three days early; maybe it would be four this time.

  Jazz and I have the conversation about organ donation with me checking over my shoulder. I walk more slowly despite the cold.

  “Jazz, have you ever talked to your mother about guys?”

  “Gawd no. As it is, my grandfather will be sending photos of suitable boys.”

  “Don’t you wonder if your mom fell in love? I mean, do you think your dad was her choice? Or was she forced into marrying him?”

  “I try never to think about my parents in that way at all.”

  “You mean as real people?” I turn to look at her. I try to lead her very carefully. I want her to tell her mother about Cameron. Replaying today may only put off her leap in front of a train to a later moment.

  She raises her eyebrows at me and screws up her mouth.

  “Well, just think about it. If you talk to her about what you want to do with your life—say, going to university, seeing boys you like along the way—maybe, depending on how she sees her own life, she’ll be willing to compromise.”

  “Yeah, but what about Dad?”

  “I don’t know, Jazz. My mom’s definitely the boss of my father.”

  “I just don’t want to be shipped off any earlier than this summer.”

  “Talk to your mother. You know you’re taking a chance, anyway. Lying and hiding this thing with Cameron. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “You don’t want to cover for me anymore,” Jazz says sadly.

  “No! I mean, that’s not it.” I take her hands in mine. “You’re my best friend, and I don’t want you to be forced into any kind of marriage, ever.”

  We make it safely by the overpass to our corner. “Be careful, Jazz. Hurry home. Message me when you get there!” I walk the rest of the way to my house alone. Then I go on the computer, but of course Max hasn’t put any photos on Facebook this time. Instead, I get a message from him.

  Do you want to go out?

  My heart does a quick hip-hop. I know this doesn’t mean “go out” as in go to a movie or a restaurant or anything at all right this minute. He means, as in see each other as boyfriend and girlfriend, officially.

  If I say no, it may cause the end of our friendship. If I say yes, I will be going out with the geek of the century. Me, Paige Barta, second-biggest geek of the century. I smile. He’ll be good-looking someday, but I can’t wait. I type him a one-word message. Yes.

  That means, for the rest of my four-day life, I will be in a relationship with Max. Better than being all alone.

  Dad comes home, and this time I tell him straight out that I want my organs donated should anything ever happen to me.

  He can’t even talk after that so I just stand beside him, handing him the chili powder, cumin and cinnamon before he asks for it. Technically this should cause Kim’s elders to zap me back to the beach, but I don’t care. At least I did what I could to save Jasmine from jumping in front of that train.

  When Mom comes home, I don’t have to ask her about why Kim’s parents wanted donations to the Kidney Foundation. Instead, I follow her to her bedroom.

  “Mom, do we have any pictures of me and Kim together? I seem to remember you always taking them.”

  She gives me one of her electric glances, sharp and questioning. “Sure, hon. Just let me get changed.”

  I watch as she puts her Mother’s Day handprint T-shirt on. The lime color has faded. I wish I’d given her another top in these last three years. Maybe I could have tie-dyed one. My hands are so much bigger now. Then she goes into her closet and reaches up high for a heart-shaped box.

  She hands it to me and I sit down on the edge of the bed, her heart on my lap. I lift the lid and pull out a book with a large square photo in the center of the cover. A serious-looking toddler with a pouty mouth and dark brown saucer eyes. Paige’s Book, the words across it read.

  “There are lots more on the CDs in Dad’s boxes. Those are just
the best ones I put together to have something instant to look at. A memory book.”

  “But then you hid it away.” I flip the cover. There is one of Kim and me, each holding a silver, mouse-shaped balloon by a string in one hand. Our other hands are joined. “Second Gotcha Day,” the caption reads. There are some of us at Disney World and Canada’s Wonderland. “Vacation.”

  “We found the memories too painful. We thought they would be for you, too.”

  In another photo, Kim and I sit poring over a picture book. In the next photo, we must have been about five years old, hand in hand, wearing kilts and red sweaters. “After-kindergarten playdate,” it reads. We lived on opposite sides of Burlington, so unfortunately didn’t go to the same school.

  The shot of us both in our ladybug bathing suits sucks the breath out of my body. We aren’t toddlers in it; we must have been close to seven years old then.

  “Mom, we look so much alike.”

  “Yes.” Mom isn’t looking at me when she answers. Something is wrong.

  Next shot Kim and I are sitting on a beach digging a hole for China, hoping to find our “real” parents. “Mom, we aren’t just a couple of babies that happen to look alike. We look exactly the same.”

  “The similarity is uncanny.” She nods. “Beverly Ellis and I met at a Red Thread gathering. You and Kim found each other immediately and started playing together.”

  “Red Thread,” I repeat. But I already know this part of the story.

  “It was the support group for Chinese adoption families. Once we found Bev and Kim, we didn’t need anyone else. We dropped out.” Mom smiles.

  “And we even came from the same orphanage and everything.” Something is nagging at me, a detail I need to fully form in my brain.

  Mom nods. “We only realized that after we met.”

  I frown and look at the other photographs.

  In the last one, we wear party hats and blow at seven candles on a cake. “Happy seventh Gotcha Day,” it reads.

  Only it can’t have been happy because Kim became infected with E. coli at that celebration. The detail finally shapes itself in my thoughts.

  “Mom, we’re sisters, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.” She turns to me, her eyes shining. “Neither family knew that when we adopted you.”

  “But even sisters don’t look that much alike.” I pause, rubbing at my eyes. “We’re identical.”

  Mom stays quiet for a few more heartbeats. “We had your DNA tested.”

  “Kim and I are twins?” I ask it as a question, but in my heart I know the answer.

  Mom nods. “But we didn’t realize that till after we met at the Red Thread meeting. You two were given to us independently. Had they kept you together as twins, neither of us would have qualified to adopt you.”

  “But you never told us.”

  “Because we couldn’t raise you as sisters. We did the next best thing.”

  “Vacations and playdates together.” I shake my head, feeling cheated. “Mom, why wouldn’t you let me visit my own sister in the hospital?”

  “I … we couldn’t.” Mom brushes her fingers down my hair.

  “Why not?” I can feel a fist squeezing my heart. I just know the answer will be really hard to take.

  “Because … because Bev wanted to try for a kidney transplant.”

  I drop my head to my hands. “And I would have been the perfect match.”

  “Yes.” Mom circles me with her arms, and we stay that way for a few minutes while I cry. She cries, too, but finally she pulls away and speaks. “She was so weak. Giving up one of your kidneys might not have saved Kim.”

  “I would have liked to try.”

  “You have the same DNA. You could have been ill from the next hamburger.”

  “But we stopped eating meat.”

  “It doesn’t need to be a hamburger. It could be a bad case of strep throat. You’d have extra risks if you ever became pregnant. You’d have to live your whole life differently if you had only one kidney.”

  “I would have done it for my sister.”

  “It wasn’t your choice to make. You were too young. And we couldn’t make it for you, either. The doctors wouldn’t allow it.”

  “All these years, I thought my best friend had just left me. Now I know I was the one who abandoned her.”

  “Bev couldn’t have us around. She didn’t want to see us after. Look at me, Paige.”

  I raise my eyes to hers.

  “She would have done the same had you been the one with the infection.”

  I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter!” But I find I can’t cry anymore. “Mom, I already told Dad, but I need you to know, too. If something happens to me, I want you to donate all my organs.” Don’t hold on to a brain-dead body forever, I silently plead. I can’t tell her that out loud; I can only hope the organ donation idea will take her to the right decision.

  She nods, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.

  It’s my turn to hug and comfort her, but I just can’t. I’m still mad at her. For not helping me fight to keep Kim alive, for not taking me to see her and for hiding it all. In a couple of days, at best, I won’t see my mother for a long, long time. I’ll have Kim again and we’ll be sisters forever. For that reason, I should be able to let the past go. I lift one hand for a moment and touch her shoulder. Then I drop it again. I just can’t take that first step and forgive her.

  SECOND RETAKE:

  Friday Morning

  Snowflakes swirl lazily outside the window the third time through Friday morning. It’s funny to watch my parents struggle to come to the same decisions as they did the other two times through. I almost want to tell them what they will eventually decide. “With a storm on the way, it’s not worth the risk of driving all the way to the food terminal. Go with Mom to the store instead. That way if the snow continues and no one comes in to shop, you can both come home early.”

  Instead, I let them come to their same conclusions. I love them even more, watching them weigh their choices. They’re careful, considerate people. They don’t want to let their Friday customers down. I hug Dad hard and long and then Mom, more quickly, and we all head out. The weather continues the same as the last pass through, gentle snow and warm air, not a storm by our standards.

  Jasmine is late for our corner meet, so I walk to her house. When she opens her door, instead of waiting by it and enjoying the exotic atmosphere from a distance, I kick off my boots and step into the house. “Good morning, Mrs. Aggarwal,” I call. “Mmm, it smells so delicious in here.”

  She smiles at me broadly, a hint of Jasmine’s cheekbones in the roundness of her face. “Would you like to try the paratha your best friend made last night?”

  “Yes, please!”

  She holds out a plate and I take one.

  “She’s been telling me that you’ve been teaching her to make bread.” I bite into it, savoring the spicy flat dough. “It’s really good,” I tell Jazz.

  “Ah!” Mrs. Aggarwal throws up her hands. “They look like dog’s ears. She will never make a very good wife.”

  “But she’ll make a great doctor. Did she tell you about visiting Body Worlds yesterday?”

  “Yes, but you girls do not want to cut up bodies like that,” she scolds.

  “No. Jazz will heal people. And I will look for cures. We have it all planned out.”

  Mrs. Aggarwal likes that and offers me another paratha to take with me for lunch.

  “Did she tell you she got the best mark in the class on her biology test?” I ask.

  Mrs. Aggarwal turns her head to her daughter.

  “She didn’t, did she? She’s too modest. I bet she’ll beat me to all the scholarships.” If you let her continue school. I only hope Mrs. Aggarwal will come to that same conclusion.

  She offers me another paratha. “You need to eat more. You are too skinny. You won’t find a suitable husband, either.”

  “Mom! Don’t talk like that!”

  “And who
are you to be telling your own mother how to speak? The mouth on you! Doesn’t matter who I send you to, they will be sending you back.”

  Jazz makes the silent scream face at me before she picks up her backpack from the floor in the hall.

  On impulse, I hug her mother. “Thanks for the paratha.”

  She pats my back and smiles. “You are coming to the party tomorrow. Yes?”

  I nod.

  “There you will taste some of Beena’s pakoras. Lured Gurindar all the way from Mumbai. Very, very good.” She hugs Jasmine next, and I feel a pang. They look like each other—same warm brown skin and glowing green eyes—and they will have a lifetime of arguing and teasing together. If only Jasmine can get her to accept Cameron.

  Her mother walks us to the door.

  “Don’t forget, I’ll be home late. Paige and I are helping Mrs. Falkner in the library today.”

  I stop just before she shuts the door. “Mrs. Aggarwal, could we bring a couple of friends to the party?”

  She looks puzzled.

  “I’m sorry. That’s rude, isn’t it?”

  “Perfectly all right. You can’t be knowing any better unless your parents teach you.”

  “It’s only because we’re studying India in school and they’ll never get to know the real culture, not from a book and a class.”

  Her mother nods. “Most certainly you should bring them. More people will bring Gurindar and Beena good luck.”

  “Thank you. Bye.”

  Her mother waves from the window as we walk away, down the sidewalk toward school.

  At the end of the block, I look back, but she isn’t watching us anymore. It’s strange how some small details change each time I live through different parts of this week.

  “What was that about?” Jazz asks in a frazzle. “Who are you bringing?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You didn’t talk to her about Cameron, did you?” I ask.

  “A little. I didn’t come out and tell her about him. But I said I might like to choose my own husband.”

  “What did she say?”