Anything but Ordinary (17 page)

ryce turned the camera on her parents. She selected the black-and-white feature from the photo options and told them to put their arms around each other. They rolled their eyes like two teenagers, but fell comfortably against one another, her father already in his gray sweatpanted pajamas, her mother still in jeans and a camel-hair blazer.

“No, like the picture!” Bryce said. “The one that used to be on the mantel.”

“What was it—” Bryce’s father adjusted his arm.

“We hold hands,” her mom reminded.

They found the pose from their prom picture: the two of them in profile, facing each other, their hands awkwardly entwined in front of them. Elizabeth Gergich and Mike Graham had been high school sweethearts in their small town. She was a shy church girl. He was a star swimmer. They both grew up on farms. Bryce snapped the photo.

“Did you get it?” Bryce’s mom left the pose to see the picture. She found the display. “Bryce, honey! You didn’t have to do black-and-white. They had color photography back then.”

“You guys look great,” Bryce said, admiring her handiwork.

Her mother muttered, “My hair could use some volume, but that’ll do. We don’t need another one. What do you think, Mike?”

“You’re the boss,” he said.

“Bryce’s turn again.” Her mom hustled Bryce against the dark wooden door.

“No,” Bryce said, adjusting her wrist corsage. “Wait for Carter.”

Senior prom was the final item on her list because Carter had told her to save it for last.

“Get a dress and a corsage, leave the rest to me,” he had said.

So there she was on a Saturday night, draped in a long, gold dress, her hair in a French twist, waiting for him like Christmas morning. Her parents had played their parts nicely. Her mom worried about the lily on her wrist matching Carter’s tie, and asked for his phone number so she could know exactly where they were going and when they were getting home. Her dad tried to hide his wet eyes under the guise of “allergies” when he saw her come into the hall for the first time.

Finally, a knock sounded on the door.

Carter stood in her doorway in a fitted black suit with a thin black tie. He had combed a part in his dark hair. When he saw Bryce, he took a sharp breath through his nose.

“You are breathtaking,” he said.

“So are you,” Bryce said. “You look like a secret agent.” It was true: he reminded her of a 1960s James Bond. Nothing got Bryce like men from old action movies. She bit her lip.

“Let him in, baby!” She heard her mother’s voice behind her.

Bryce opened the door farther and Carter stepped in.
Snap!
The pictures began. He took his place next to her, putting an arm around her silky waist.
Snap.
Bryce took his boutonniere from the mantel and attached the lily to his lapel with its pearl-topped pin.
Snap.
Bryce had to stop herself from snatching the camera from her mother, but she supposed if she wanted this to be a real senior prom, then having her mom take way too many pictures was entirely necessary.

After what seemed like a lifetime of frozen smiles, Carter said, “Well, we should take our leave.”

Bryce’s mother put down the camera. “One. One a.m. sharp.” She set her pale pink lips in a thin line. “I’m serious.”

“Mom—”

“No, I’m trying to get better at this. I need to practice.”

“Yes, Mother,” Bryce said with mock obedience.

“That’s better.” She took Bryce and Carter in her arms. With Bryce in heels, her mother only came up to their shoulders. “Have a good time.”

Bryce breathed a sigh of relief as they left the house, her heels clicking down the sidewalk. She took in the smooth night air and shivered with excitement. Carter’s tiny old Honda hummed at the curb.

“I wish we had more luxurious transportation, but limos are surprisingly expensive.”

Bryce smiled at the idea of her gown on the busted leather of Carter’s seats. “It’s perfect.”

“But watch this,” Carter said, holding her elbow. “Ahem!” He clapped twice.

A chubby guy in a rumpled button-down shirt came around the car, bowing slightly to Bryce.

“This is Jeffrey. He’s in my anatomy class. He will be our driver for the evening.”

Jeffrey straightened, then said out of the corner of his mouth, “You’re still giving me fifty bucks, right?”

“Not in front of the lady, Jeffrey!” Carter said, winking at Bryce. “To the restaurant!”

Jeffrey rolled his eyes and opened the squeaky back door for the two of them. Carter had laid down a soft sheet over the patchy backseat, and in the center was a bucket full of ice surrounding a bottle of sparkling grape juice.

The Honda rolled forward. Carter had pinned up another sheet as a divider between them and the driver. He leaned over the bucket to give Bryce a soft kiss, just centimeters from her mouth, teasing her. “I don’t want to ruin your lipstick,” he said.

Bryce gave a small laugh, her eyelashes close enough that they brushed his cheek. She took in his handsome frame against the pinned-up sheets.

“Who cares?” she said, and their mouths connected. It felt like the last kiss in a romantic movie, but their night had just begun.

At the restaurant, Bryce tucked a napkin into the front of her strapless dress, and Carter ordered lobster for them to share.

“Special occasion?” the gum-chewing waitress asked with a twang.

“It’s my senior prom,” Bryce gushed loudly, and beamed at the other patrons, an elderly couple and a family with twins.

Carter disguised his laughter with a cough.

“Prom in August, huh?” the waitress said lazily, and then didn’t ask any more about it. They all turned back to their meals.

After dinner, in the car, as Jeffrey ate their leftovers in the front, they popped open the bubbly. Carter dusted off two plastic champagne glasses he had put under the seat.

“To us,” he said, topping the glasses with foamy white grape juice.

Bryce cleared her throat. She had thought of something to say at this moment, something better than the things she felt usually came out of her mouth.

She lifted her glass. “To a life worth reliving!” she said triumphantly, and Carter nodded.

They were holding their full glasses to their lips, ready to take a sip, when the car lurched forward, splashing fake champagne all over Bryce’s dress and Carter’s suit. They froze for a moment, taking in the damage.

“Sorry!” Jeffrey called back.

“Send back some napkins!”

Carter took a wad of napkins from Jeffrey’s disembodied hand. Bryce’s lap was soaked through and through. Carter started spreading the napkins on Bryce’s upper thighs like picnic blankets, pressing them down to soak up the moisture.

Bryce started to giggle. “Could you stop pressing on my lady parts, please?”

Carter shot up, banging his head on the roof of the car. “Ow!”

Then they both started to laugh, Carter’s eyes tearing up from hitting his head. He collapsed in her lap and she ran her hands through his gelled hair, messing it back into his usual bed head.

They were acting out the scene from
Taxi Driver
Bryce had showed him in the hospital, trying to see whose de Niro impression was better, when Jeffrey pulled up to a row of buildings.

“This is it, right?” Jeffrey called back to Carter, his mouth full of dinner roll.

“This is it,” Carter replied, and leaped around the car to open the door for Bryce.

Bryce stepped out into a street she didn’t recognize. The buildings were a mixture of old storefronts and narrow houses with wide, white porches on both levels. She could see the skyline of downtown Nashville in the near distance. Carter led her to a door next to one of the old storefronts. It stood open under a humming neon sign reading
THE JAZZ HOUSE
. A few scattered beats from a drum set filtered down a set of wooden stairs.

“Welcome to your prom,” Carter said, and took her hand.

She squeezed his hand tight as he climbed in front of her. Up the stairs a stooped old man in a beret sat on a stool. Carter placed a ten-dollar bill in his hand and led Bryce to a small table in sight of a group of unmanned instruments glowing in stage light against the rest of the dark little club. In front of the band was a semicircle dance floor.

The drummer lay down a few beats, bobbing his bald head to the rhythm. Bryce felt her mouth drop open in awe at his skill.

She looked at Carter, who smiled back at her, amused by her amazement. “They’ll start in a few minutes.”

One by one, the musicians took up their spots. A man with a big beard and gnarled hands at the piano, a tall woman all in black at the stand-up bass, a middle-aged man on trumpet. And finally the singer, a curvy girl not much older than Bryce in a tight, red dress, her hair styled in old-fashioned curls.

The first strains of music began, and Bryce felt her body melt. Carter had picked the exact right band. The notes didn’t feel random like some jazz she’d heard; they came together in harmony and a familiar rhythm. The singer began, with a voice like warm maple syrup.

Hold me close and hold me fast

A couple moved to the dance floor, a woman in a sundress and her partner, a guy with dreadlocks. Carter looked at Bryce. They stood up together, moving around the table to find each other’s hands. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he placed his hands on her waist. They swayed through the second verse.

I see
la vie en rose.

“What’s
la vie en rose
?” Bryce asked Carter.

“I think it’s just ‘life in pink,’” he replied, close to her ear. “The rosy life.”

Bryce could feel everyone’s eyes on the two of them in their formal clothes, but for the first time, she wasn’t self-conscious. She knew she looked beautiful. Surrounded by these sounds, beside the candlelight flickering on the tables, everyone looked beautiful tonight.

She met Carter’s eyes, which wrinkled at the corners as he smiled, looking her up and down. They drifted closer, and her head fell on his shoulder. She heard his voice near her ear again, his lips grazing her neck.

“I’m crazy about you,” he whispered.

In reply, Bryce lifted her head, holding up a hand to the music. “Hear that?” she asked him.

When you press me to your heart

I feel a world apart

A world where roses bloom

“That,” she said, and returned her head to rest on him.

They stayed that way until the song ended, and quite a long time after.

t Bryce’s insistence, Carter parked on a side street, far from the center of downtown, so that they could have a nice, long walk to Gabby and Greg’s rehearsal dinner.

“It’s one of the last nights we can go outside before winter,” Bryce joked as she took his arm. He had been silent the whole car ride over, and Bryce was trying to lighten the mood. Winter did come in Nashville, and sometimes there was even snow, but it was the opposite of winter this evening in early September. The humidity was almost unbearable. They might as well have been walking through a jungle.

“I guess so,” he said, his eyes ahead.

Maybe he was tired. Today they had traipsed through the home section of Bloomingdale’s, looking for Gabby’s wedding gift. A skinny girl in a crocheted dress and huge glasses had scolded them for lying on the beds, and Bryce could have sworn she overcharged them for the oak tree–shaped bookends they finally picked off the registry.

Then Carter had to put in hours at the hospital. He showed up at her door looking dashing in loafers and a sport coat with reinforced elbows.

Bryce wore a dark blue, vintage-looking dress with a low neckline and a tapered waist, the skirt flaring out just above her knees. She was starting to recognize herself in the mirror, getting to know the shape of her curves and how to wear color. She liked who she saw in navy. It made her eyes stand out in fiery hazel. She had put up her waves in a loose bun on the top of her head, and slicked on some of Sydney’s cinnamon lip gloss.

But Carter hardly looked at her.

Bryce looked at his profile. He had known her so long, and she was just starting to know him. But it was more than the start of something. So many days he had just sat next to her when she was asleep, when she was awake. He was steady, balancing her out, anchoring the other side of an always-tipping scale. She couldn’t wait for the day when he needed her. She wanted to give back to him.

“Carter,” she said, and stopped.

He took longer to stop walking, and turned around a few feet in front of Bryce.
I love you.
She could say it now. She should say it.

“Bryce,” he said, his tone even. She wrapped her arms around him. “Bryce,” he repeated, unhooking her arms, holding her hands.

“What?” she finally replied. She sniffed, trying to smile. Had things changed? They couldn’t have. They were in love this afternoon, she knew they were.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” His jaw clenched.

Bryce pulled her hands from his. He let them go.

He crossed his arms, looking at the sidewalk. “This afternoon I sat down with Dr. Warren and reviewed what we were able to salvage from your CAT scan.” He took a breath. “There were too many neurons firing at once, Bryce. Every time these neurons erupt simultaneously, there is damage to the brain.”

“So?” she said petulantly. She felt childish, but she couldn’t match the cold, flatness in his voice.

He cleared his throat. “The more damage the brain receives, the more it swells. The skull restricts the brain from expanding, and this leads to a rise in pressure within the brain. This rise in pressure quickly equals the arterial pressure, limiting the blood flow to the brain.”

“What does that
mean
,
Carter?” Every time he avoided her eyes, her insides felt like they were being ripped out. “Can you speak English?”

“I’m sorry, Bryce.” He put his hands up to his face. His voice shook. “Your brain won’t survive the lack of oxygen.”

Bryce’s angry heart stopped pumping. Her furious breaths were caught in her throat. The whole world was frozen.

“What are you saying?” she said, her words almost a gasp.

“You have less than a month to live.”

Bryce closed her eyes. This wasn’t happening. Maybe none of this was happening. Maybe this was another one of her visions. Maybe she was actually somewhere else. Her mind went to the morning of the CAT scan. She wished she had gone calmly into the machine and lain there peacefully as she listened to the radio. She would emerge from the scan without ceremony. Everything would be normal.

Bryce’s eyes opened. Carter was still standing in front of her. It was real.

She had woken up a ghost of who she had been five years ago, and she was just starting to materialize now. She was just starting to live. How could she be dying?

He brought his hands down. His face was red, streaked with tears. “I think you should come in. To the hospital.”

Immediately Bryce shook her head, backing away. She wouldn’t go back there.

“Maybe there’s something we can do. We can figure something out. We can study you. Bring in as many experts as it takes.”

“Study me? Like one of your classes? No.” If she was going to die, she wasn’t going to do it between those walls. She would do it on her own terms.

“Medical observation, Bryce.” He sounded aggravated, hurt.

“Get away from me,” she said, and her breath came back. The beating heart came back, reminding her she was alive.

Bryce turned from Carter and walked away, her hand on her chest. She felt the wild thumping of her heart, the warmth of her skin beneath her dress.

“Bryce!”

He started to follow her, but she whirled around and shouted, “I need to be alone!”

His arm fell, his face fell.

Bryce turned to the stretching sidewalk and strode as quickly as her legs would allow. Soon, she no longer felt him behind her.

Good. She walked quicker. If all he was to her was a doctor, she didn’t need him anymore. He couldn’t save her. She thought about turning around, yelling that to his back, but what would be the point? She thought about yelling after him, telling him to come back. But he was gone.

Die, die, die. The word took a different meaning now.
I am
going to die
.
Die
was a place just as much as a verb. A place she was going to, no matter which direction she went.

A wave of heat shot through her, pain coursing from her skull down her neck, her back, her spinal cord. The city turned on itself, the sidewalks rising before her.

Tall green grasses.

She was in her backyard. Her limbs came flopping out from under her, skinny and tanned. She was seven. Sydney came running up, her dark curls flying. “Got ya!” she shrieked, her fingers cocked in a gun. “Bang! Bang!” Instinctively Bryce’s hand went to her bony chest, and she fainted to the ground.

She hit the ground, rolling around in the tall, sweet grass, letting the blades tickle her face.

“I’m dead,” she said, and with a blink Bryce was back on the streets of downtown Nashville, her hand still on her chest. She lowered it, and her fingers touched cement. She was on her hands and knees again. Her head rebounded in pain with every heartbeat. She tried to take deep breaths, to calm herself, taking in the grainy sidewalk. A red spot landed on the rough gray. Another. She lifted her hand to her face. Blood was dripping from her nose.

Just need to walk it off
. She stood up and wiped her nostrils with a Kleenex from her purse.

She looked up. The restaurant rose in front of her. She stuffed the tissue in her purse and opened the sleek glass doors to a warm room full of chattering people. They looked at her with smiles. A few said hello and waved at her to sit down next to them. She knew everybody, and everybody knew her.

But as Bryce stood there, shivering, she had never felt more alone.