Anywhere but Here (17 page)

“That's tough,” she says, shaking her head.

There's a moment's pause, and I wait for them to tell me how to resolve this situation. For example, they might advise me to move out—immediately. Or to demand that my dad rent Sheri a separate apartment.

“It must have been hard on your dad too,” Greg says finally.

“Some people don't know how to be alone,” Hannah agrees.

“At least this way, once you head to Vancouver, he'll have family around.”

Worst. Friends. Ever.

Now they're yammering about decision-making processes and the differences between the ways that men and women make choices.
What the hell?

I flip my hood over my head so their voices are muffled. My life has turned into a Woody Allen film stocked with emotionally inept characters.

I flex my hand. It really would have felt good to hit that guy in Burger Barn. Just once.

During Friday's English class, Mr. Gill drops a copy of
The Stone Angel
on each desk.

“This shouldn't be on the high school curriculum,” I mumble.

Of course he hears me because English teachers have bionic ear implants, which allow them to pick up complaints about literature from two solar systems away.

“Something to say, Mr. Owens?”

“It's about an old lady.” What I don't say, because for some reason I feel I should protect the other thirty students, is that the old lady dies. You'd think they could choose a more uplifting subject for the high school reading list.

“It will teach you empathy,” Mr. Gill says, with a look down his nose.

The other thing I don't tell him is that my mother read this book the other year, right before I did. And when I see the cover, I picture her holding it while we sat in the waiting room of the hospital's outpatient ward. I drove her to the appointment that day, taking the afternoon off school so Dad didn't have to miss another day of work.

The way I remember it, she wasn't even reading the book. She was holding it while we waited, her fingers making nervous swirls along the cover. It would have made a good close-up shot, the smooth paper juxtaposed with the new lines on her hands.

We'd already seen her doctor. He'd told her the chemotherapy was no longer working. We could try another round, but there was only a small chance things would change.

“Is there something else we could try?” Mom asked, in a voice so professional she could have been discussing taxes with her accountant.

The doctor sighed, flipping papers as if a solution might flutter out. “We could do another drug if you want,” he said. “But change is unlikely.”

“If I decide against further treatment, what does that look like, exactly?” Mom asked.

This time, he at least looked her in the eye. “You'd be talking about months, not years.”

Tracy was at the desk when they finally called Mom to collect her paperwork and her new appointment card. Another close-up. Hope packaged in a palm-size card.

“Tracy,” Mom said, leaning across the desk a little. “If I was a relative of yours and I'd done all these treatments over the past few months . . . would you tell me to do one more round?”

I don't know if Mom knew that I'd followed her up to the desk. I don't know if she saw me, hovering by her shoulder. But Tracy saw me, and when she shook her head, she was looking at me as well as Mom.

“I can't answer that for you,” she said. “Some people choose to pursue every possible treatment, and some choose to enjoy the days they have left. It's a decision you have to make for yourself, with your family.”

I waited. All that afternoon, and that evening, and the next, I waited for the family discussion so I could tell her that I wanted her to do more rounds. I wanted her to do every round of chemotherapy in existence and then sign up for experimental protocols.

I wanted her to stay. I didn't want to know at what point the scales tipped, family and pain on one side, death and peace on the other. I knew that another round of chemo would mean
more weeks of nausea, of lying immobile on the couch, of mouth sores and stomach cramps. But even though there was so much for her to suffer through, part of me didn't care. I wanted her to try.

•  •  •

“Are you with us this afternoon, Mr. Owens?” my English teacher calls.

With a start, I realize he's covered the board with notes that everyone else is copying. I pull out my notebook, but I couldn't care less about the stupid stone angel.

Mom didn't discuss her decision with her family. At least, not with me. After a week had gone by and no one had mentioned new treatments, I sat in the backyard for a long time. Just sat there on a bucked log, feeling the imprint of the wood on my ass and the prickle of the night air on my arms and waiting for the tightness in my gut to disappear. I was so mad I could have chopped that log with my bare hands, but I didn't know who to be mad at.

There were no more rounds of chemotherapy.

•  •  •

I spend most of lunch hour camped outside the counseling offices. Just to be clear, this is not because I need cosmic questions about life and death answered by Ms. Gladwell.

“This is a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you, Cole?”
As she breezes down the hall, Ms. Gladwell looks as fresh and carefree as a deodorant model on TV.

“I assume you're here to see me?” She smiles widely, and her eyes seem to be laughing. If it weren't so against the course of nature for a high school counselor, I would say Ms. Gladwell has developed energy. Maybe even personality.

I manage to nod.

“How is the application going?” she asks as she unlocks her office door and ushers me in. “Have you been working on your film?”

“Like a crazy person.” Or like a person who might become crazy if he doesn't get into film school and is forced to live with his expanding so-called family next year. I've been filming and streaming and editing as if my life depends on it.

“Is it turning out well?” Ms. Gladwell asks.

“It's harder than I expected,” I admit. People didn't say what I thought they would. I really didn't get enough useful interview material, so I've been editing with a scalpel just to extract workable lines. For the first time, I understand why Robert Flaherty fudged details in
Nanook of the North
. If people would act in normal, predictable ways, you wouldn't need poetic license. But they don't.

So far, my documentary opens with a shot of Greg speeding
down the highway outside of town. I cut to the footage of the Nester bandstand, with Hannah complaining about how hard it is to make friends in Webster. Then there's a little of Lauren's sit-in-the-ditch night and some school foyer shots. In between, with guitar instrumental in the background, there's a montage of Greg, Dallas, and Tracy looking lost, with the small town shops visible behind them. Miraculous, that part. I worked in their shots without using a scrap of what they actually said. Old Flaherty would be proud.

“Now that I've got most of the editing done, it's good,” I tell Ms. Gladwell. “It has a spooky, doomed feel to it.” As if we're all trapped, but not everyone realizes it. If I can swing it without seeming completely deranged, I'm going to try to end with the body of the deer. I have a few seconds of video with the deer in the foreground and the bent fender of the car barely visible in the background. . . .

“Interesting,” Ms. Gladwell says, one eyebrow raised.

“I wanted to talk to you about the application. The studio needs two reference letters. My boss from my summer job will write one. Could you write the other?”

“Consider it done. No problem at all,” she says.

I smile. Asking people to put your good points in writing is somewhat excruciating, and I'm relieved she said yes so easily.

“Thanks. That's great,” I say.

I'm still standing there, though. The pause grows too long.

Ms. Gladwell asks, “Anything else you'd like to talk about? What's going on in your life these days?”

Briefly, I imagine telling her.

Nothing major, I'd say, except there's a stripper due to move into my house, with a baby who will be half-related to me. And my dad mentioned a few nights ago that the stripper has a small daughter as well. My life is plot twist after warped plot twist.

“Anything else?” she'd ask.

Why yes, my sort-of girlfriend has finally forced me to agree to dinner with her family. Tonight. At her mansion. Maybe we can all make small talk about my dad and the stripper.

“Nothing I really need to talk about,” I tell Ms. Gladwell.

“All right. I'll get the letter done this afternoon.”

A terrible thought strikes me. “Could you not sign it from the school counselor? I don't want them to think I have . . . issues.”

She laughs. “I'll put it on school letterhead, and they'll assume I'm a teacher. Or I'll call myself a close personal friend.” I think she actually winks at me. Winks.

“Perfect. Thank you.”

Not perfect. I mean, I like Ms. Gladwell, but I absolutely
cannot have a school counselor as a close personal friend. She was joking, right? I have to get out of here before my world gets any more warped.

Deep breath. Soon, I can send off my application, then start the countdown until graduation. Sheri's baby is due in June, I've discovered. Which is ideal. I can leave town as soon as exams are over and let them have the house to themselves.

Ms. Gladwell ushers me out, leaving me in the glass fishbowl, surrounded by brochures: eating disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, homosexuality, unplanned pregnancy.

I should pick up a copy of that one for Sheri.

Just as I turn to leave, I see Lauren walking down the hallway on the other side of the glass. She's by herself, head down, shoulders slightly hunched. For the briefest moment, her elbow catches the fabric of her sweatshirt and the cotton is tugged back, stretching over her frame.

It doesn't stretch flat, like it should over someone as long and as lean as Lauren. It stretches over a bulge.

There's no mistaking it. I know Lauren's body. I mean, I
know
Lauren's body. And that swell of a belly—well, maybe that would be normal on some other girl, but not on her.

Lauren is pregnant. Like Sheri-the-stripper pregnant. Pregnant.

She looks up and catches me staring, but I don't say anything.
I can't breathe. Or move. I can only flick my eyes to her belly, then up again.

Lauren's face crumples, and she runs.

Pushing open the office door, I race after her.

“Lauren! Wait!”

She ducks into the girls' bathroom. With only a moment of hesitation, I follow.

Two girls are perfecting their mascara at the bathroom mirror.

“Cole! Get out!” they shriek in symphony. I don't look at them long enough to register who they are.

“We need a minute.” There must be something urgent in my voice because they pack their makeup bags and scuttle away. This leaves me facing Lauren, who is leaning against the back wall, her arms wrapped around herself.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

She shrugs. “I tried, but you were . . . busy.”

“For months? I've been busy for months?”

“You know, it's not really your problem,” she says.

Not my problem. For a minute, I have this flash of hope,
like a meteor, that the baby isn't mine. I can play the role of helpful, supportive friend. But no, Lauren isn't that kind of girl. And when I look at her again, her eyes are narrowed. She's just waiting for me to ask that question.

I created a baby. I squeeze my eyes closed for a minute. The red sundress, being hungover, waking up to find Lauren's leg, naked, over mine. I remember all of that. I remember what happened in between. And it created this.

Suddenly, it's as if everything fades to black. Hannah will never speak to me again. Lauren's parents will disown her. My dad will descend into an alcoholic stupor. As for me? I may as well go home and smash my computer and my camera and shred the studio catalog. I can physically feel my chances at film school draining away.

What about Lauren? What is she expecting out of this? Out of me?

“D-do you have plans?”

I'm not supposed to say, “What are
you
planning to do?” I know that much from after-school TV specials.

She shrugs again.

“Look, I understand if you don't want me involved.” Hell, at this moment I would
love
to not be involved. “But don't you think we should at least talk about this?”

Silence.

“Who else knows—besides Lex?” Obviously, Lex knows. Her behavior during the last few months finally makes sense.

Lauren stares at a bathroom stall.

“What did your parents say?” I can't believe they haven't called my dad. I would have expected Lauren's mom to be at our door with the police and/or the local exorcist the minute she found out.

Lauren keeps staring.

I'm getting a sinking feeling that all is not peachy in the state of Georgia. Assuming, metaphorically speaking, the state of Georgia is Lauren's brain and “peachy” refers to “sane.”

“You haven't told your parents.”

After a long pause, Lauren slowly shakes her head.

“So, who knows?”

“Lex is the only one.”

Other things are now making sense. The oversize sweatshirts. The puked pizza in Greg's car. Even the sit-in-a-ditch night, when Lauren was talking about choices and how she had choices but then she didn't have choices, and . . .

I calculate in my head. Five months, almost exactly.

“How? How have people not noticed?”

“Everyone thinks I'm depressed about the breakup. They think I'm eating too much. You should see the fridge at home—my mom's stocked it with celery sticks and low-fat yogurt.”