Rules for 50/50 Chances (15 page)

I follow Gram upstairs and into her bedroom, where she pulls a felt box out of the top shelf of her closet. It's full of old pictures, scuffed one-pound coins and envelopes of who knows what. She digs through it for a minute, muttering something to herself.

“I have homework,” I say, turning to leave.

“Hold your horses,” she shoots back, not looking up. “Found it. I knew I'd put this in here.” She holds up a DVD case, the kind you can buy in multipacks for burning your own stuff. “Sit.”

I follow orders. Gram turns on her TV and pops in the DVD. There's no music, but a picture fills the screen: my parents, circa twenty years ago, on their wedding day. I've seen their wedding pictures before, of course. Dad's in a dark gray suit with a turquoise tie, and Mom's dress is a halter with a long tie down the back and a low V-neck. It's fitted through the hips and then billows out. Her hair is loose around her shoulders.

“Their wedding film,” Gram says, clicking Play. “You haven't seen it, have you?”

I shake my head. I didn't even know it existed.

“I didn't think so,” says Gram. “Years ago your mum told me she was waiting until you were old enough to enjoy it. I imagine she's forgotten by now.”

It's surreal, watching my parents on video, practically in the flesh, when they're so much younger. I've seen footage of myself as a baby and a little kid, obviously, but usually my parents aren't in those videos. And even when they are, the focus is on me—someone's holding me up, or calling to me to walk toward them, or clapping for me when I've just finished performing one of my endless “recitals” in the living room.

In this video, Mom and Dad are just themselves. They get married outside, in the backyard of an old hotel in Maine, where we used to go every summer. Uncle Charlie walks Mom down the aisle, which is really just a narrow walkway of grass between uneven rows of folding chairs. Dad stands up at the front, under the chuppah, and cries (no surprise there). The wind howls and there are seagulls squawking loudly, which makes it a little hard to hear the vows—this video was clearly taken by a friend, not a pro—but I can more or less make out that they're not the standard religious ones.

“Ellen,” Dad says, taking Mom's hands, “having you in my life is like wearing rose-colored glasses every day. You make every day a little better, a little brighter, a little closer to perfect.”

Cheesy, Dad, but I have to hand it him—it tugs at my throat.

“That's where you get your name from, you know,” Gram says.

“What? I thought your mother's name was Rose.”

Gram laughs. “Well, it was. She was your official namesake. Your mum didn't like the idea of naming you after a dead person, but she agreed on Rose because she said it wasn't all about the dead great-grandmother. You made everything better for both of them.”

After their special vows, there are the regular ones: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. They look at each other, and repeat those words, and they have no idea. They have no idea. Gram reaches out and rests her hand on mine. Just for a moment, I let her.

“Right, we can skip this part,” Gram says then, all business again, fast-forwarding through a series of toasts. “Here we go, this is the good part.” She hits Play again for their first dance.

Dad makes a joke over the microphone about how he's marrying up, and how everyone already knows that but in case there's any doubt in the room, this dance is about to prove it. Gram, of course, wouldn't have agreed with that proposition at the time—Mom always said that Gram didn't think anyone was good enough for her baby—but I guess both my mother and my grandmother have let that go, given the nature of their current relationship. After his string of self-deprecation, Dad takes Mom in his arms and they swirl around the dance floor, her dress spilling behind her when she spins.

My mother had a natural talent for dance, great rhythm, a body that generally did what she wanted it to. Dad just lets her show off—he spins her this way and that way, dips her, but mostly I can tell that she's leading and just making it look like he is. It's hard to believe that the person in this video and the person we have now, shaking and jerking even in her sleep, are the same.

The DVD ends, and Gram and I sit there in silence for a minute. Finally, Gram pops it out of the player and puts it back in the jewel case.

“They were twenty-eight years old. More than ten years older than you are now.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“So?” Gram says.

“So?”

“A lot can happen in a decade or two, that's all I'm saying.” She puts the box back in her closet and leaves me there, perched on her bed.

She's right, obviously. My mother was dancing at her wedding when she was twenty-eight. She had real love. Then she had me. And she didn't get diagnosed with Huntington's for more than a decade after that.

 

 

I tiptoe down the hallway to my parents' bedroom. Cracking the door just slightly, I see that Mom is in bed with her earbuds in, eyes closed but clearly awake. I knock hard on the door frame, but it doesn't catch her attention, so I go closer. She only notices me when I sit next to her and she feels my weight on the bed.

“What are you listening to?”

Mom pulls out the earbuds. “M-m-mystery. Not v-v-very well written.” She wrinkles her nose. I wonder if it's not good because it's not good, or it's not good because she can't follow the story. I don't ask; I know she won't be able to tell the difference.

“I wanted to tell you. About the other night. It's fine. Caleb wasn't upset or anything.”

She smiles at me. “Who's C-c-caleb?”

I lie down next to her, with my head on Dad's pillows. “He's just my friend.”

“A b-b-boyfriend?” she asks. I think of Lena and her mother, sharing secrets. But nothing I tell my mother will stick. Maybe that makes her the best kind of secret-keeper.

“Just a friend,” I repeat. “But I'm worried that I might…” I trail off. I don't know what.

Mom raises a hand unsteadily to my cheek and rests it there. “You m-m-might love h-h-him?”

“Not love, but … something.”

Mom's audio book is still on. I can't hear the words but I can make out the muffled ups and downs of the narrator's voice. I find her phone caught in the folds of the comforter and press pause on the recording.

“How did you know you loved Dad?” I ask, when it's quiet again.

She focuses hard on my face and blinks forcefully a few times. “B-b-because I d-d-didn't have to be anyone b-b-but myself with him.”

I scrunch up in the bed and lean against the headboard. How can she remember what it felt like to fall in love with my father more than twenty years ago but not remember throwing around the term “jungle fever” over dinner with Caleb just the other night? Her memory loss is painful, but in some ways it's also perfect. Every day now she lives completely fresh, except for the things that really matter.

Twelve

Backstage before the Saturday matinee, I'm more nervous about a
Nutcracker
performance that I've been since my first year dancing a solo. What has become so routine, almost mundane, is suddenly an actual thing that I have to mentally prepare for. A series of neurotic thoughts are rushing through my head on a loop but I seem to be powerless to stop them.
Caleb is going to see me dance. This is the first time he is going to see me dance. I have to dance my best, or he will think I am a jackass.

So I put on a
Nutcracker
like I've never done it before. Every time I step onstage, I picture all my energy going directly out to the audience. I'm extra careful with all the little details that are easy enough to let slide during a regular matinee. Somehow, having him there, looking for just me in the crowd, reminds me of how much I love being onstage. It's easy to forget that during
Nutcracker
season. But I really do love the rush that comes with the lights fading up and the music bounding in, and seeing the other dancers sweat and push and work so hard to make it all look effortless for the audience. The truth is, I never feel quite as home, quite as secure and content, as I do when I'm dancing.

At intermission, I peek out through the wings, the heavy black velvet curtains that sweep the sides of the stage and keep us hidden from the audience while we're running around like chickens (in tutus) with our heads cut off. From stage left, where I'm situated, I should be able to see the seats where I think Caleb and the girls are sitting, just right of house center. But they're not where I expect them to be, and I can't crane my neck far enough to see if they're farther over to the right. They're probably waiting in line for the bathroom. Little girls always have to go to the bathroom at intermission.

 

 

After the show, I take a few extra minutes to make sure I don't look like a sweaty mess when I leave the dressing room. Eloise notices me putting on lip gloss. She crosses her arms and stares me down.

“Going somewhere?” Normally on a Saturday, with another performance at eight o'clock, we mostly just hang out in our sweats and listen to music for the couple hours in between.

“Just running out to see a friend.”

She eyes me suspiciously. “The same male friend you were spotted with at the BPC performance, perchance?”

And I thought I was being so careful, taking Caleb to the performance that Eloise wasn't going to. I should've known the other girls at the studio were too gossipy to let my unidentified male guest go unnoticed.

“Who are you, Harriet the Spy?”

She smiles. “Just keeping tabs. Be careful, you know.”

“Of?”

“Distractions.” She leans over and lifts one leg to crack her back. I cringe at the sound. “As soon as
Nutcracker
's over, we've got to think about the spring showcase. And there's next year. Have you even figured out what companies you're auditioning for?”

“You sound like Georgia.”

Eloise looks hurt. “I'm just trying to be helpful.”

“Sorry. I know. Thank you for your sage wisdom,” I say, zipping up my fleece and grabbing my bag. “I have to run, though.”

Before she can say anything in response, I push past her and head toward the stage door.

But Caleb and the girls aren't outside. I head back inside and up to the lobby, but it's mostly emptied out by now, just a few ushers cleaning up programs and candy wrappers, and a handful of lingering audience members. One quick 360 tells me that the Franklins are not in attendance.

I check my phone—nothing. No messages, no text saying they loved it but had to run, nothing.

“Who you lookin' for, Rose?” asks Marlie, the box office manager.

“Oh, no one,” I say, turning away from her so she won't see the tears starting to work their way out from wherever tears are made.

“You had some tickets here for someone, right?” She flips through the ticket box. “Yeah, Franklin, right? Here they are. Guess they couldn't make it.” She hands the envelope to me, but I don't take it. Instead, I thank her and hustle out into the cold. I can't go back down to the dressing room and face Eloise again, not right now.

Outside, tears almost freezing against my cheeks, I type and delete several messages to Caleb, ranging from, “Are you okay?” to “What the hell?” to “Thanks for the no-show.” But I can't settle on the right approach, so I don't send anything. Finally, after an hour of walking around the block, avoiding the girls and checking and rechecking my phone to see if he's called, I wipe my face, pretend I'm fine, and go back downstairs to get ready for another show.

 

 

“How were your shows?” Dad asks, as I tear through the front hall and up the stairs after the evening performance.

“Fine,” I call out, forcing my voice to be even, normal.

“That good, huh?”

I shut the bedroom door behind me. Something must've happened to him. Or to one of his sisters, or his mom, I'm sure. I sit on the edge of my bed, my coat still on, staring at the wall, then look back to my (not ringing) phone, then back to the wall. Something has to be wrong—or else he's just a huge jerk. That, or I did something wrong. I page back through our recent text exchanges, trying to figure out what it could've been, but I can't tell.

I turn on my laptop. There's no possible way that Caleb is going to be reachable. In my mind, he's already disappeared into the abyss. Maybe he never existed in the first place. My stomach is tied in about a million tiny, tight knots, and even though I'm exhausted, my heart is racing. I can't tell if it's more worry, hurt, or humiliation that's making me feel so sick. I just didn't expect to care this much. I thought I had this under control.

And yet, there he is, online just like it's a normal night. Probably moseying along, doing his homework, surfing the Internet, minding his own business. At least I know he's alive.

Something like fury roils up inside me while I wait for an instant message that doesn't come for the better part of an hour. Then finally, just when I'm gearing up to force myself to shut down—so he won't be able to message me even if he wants to—my computer quacks.

Caleb Franklin:
How are you, HD?

How am I? Seriously?

Me:
Um, fine?

Caleb Franklin:
Why the question mark?

The playing dumb thing pushes me over the edge. Now I'm really mad.

Me:
You seriously don't know?

He doesn't respond for a minute, and the back of my throat is starting to ache the way it does when you're about to cry but really don't want to, when my phone vibrates against the desk.

I pick up, but don't say anything.