Rules for 50/50 Chances (20 page)

That's no longer the case, now that we have access to more information about our genes. I imagined that Roxanna would explain all my options—even though I already know what they are—and then tell me that whatever I end up doing is the right thing for me. Not the case.

In reality, Roxanna lays out all the possibilities—I take the test, I get a negative result (good); I take the test, I get a positive result (bad); I don't take the test—and then starts pretty obviously pushing her own agenda. Which is: Rose, don't be an idiot, don't take the test.

Unfortunately, I have to put up with whatever pressures Roxanna wants to apply, because more than my parents, she's the gatekeeper to my genetic information. If I want to take the test after I turn eighteen, I'll need to see Roxanna at least three more times. They make you stretch it out, presumably to give you plenty of opportunities to change your mind. And at the end of it all, I'll still need her sign-off. I have to pass her test before I can take my test.

“Rose, can I ask you something?” she says ever so earnestly, cocking her head to the left. She squints a little bit and makes one of those sort of solemn, close-lipped half smiles. I stare over her head. On the wall opposite there's a mass-produced painting of some sand dunes that I think I've seen on sale at Target. Soothing, supposedly.

“I want you to close your eyes and imagine, just for a moment, that you take the test, and you get a positive result.”

It's weird, isn't it, that getting a positive result is bad news. Why do they do that in medicine? HIV-positive. Positive biopsy. It's condescending. We're not dumb. We know bad news when we hear it.

“What's the question?”

“I'm sorry?” Roxanna cocks her head the other way.

“You asked if you could ask me a question. You didn't ask me anything.”

“I'm sorry. Imagine that you get the positive result…”

Like I don't do that every day.

“… And tell me, what do you do first? What's the first thing that happens?”

“I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're asking.”

“That's not what I'm asking.”

I think about what Lena said. I could just walk out of the doctor's office, go home, and book a train ticket. I could start with the Zephyr, Chicago to San Francisco. Then, after that, I could take all of Mom's train rides, one at a time, until I can't, just like she planned to do.

I elect not to tell Roxanna that particular plan.

“I'll join a support group,” I say instead, assuming that's the right thing to say. My mother went to a few support group meetings when she was first diagnosed. Then she quit. She decided she didn't like being around sick people.

“That's the very first thing you'll do?” Roxanna asks, incredulous.

“No, I guess not. The first thing I'll do is drive home.”

“You won't be alone. Who's with you, your dad?”

Unlikely, considering that Dad doesn't even know we're having this conversation. Again, I figure that's probably not what Roxanna wants to hear.

“I guess,” I say. “We'll go back to our house and I'll make tea.”

“You'll make tea?”

“Dad will be really upset.”

“How will you feel?”

She studies me, like I'm a specimen in a research project—which I might as well be. There's a lot of research on how much people really want to know about their health, and about their genetic health, specifically. I've Googled this, and the results mostly contradict themselves. One study I found says there are two kinds of people: people who want information and people who would rather bury their heads in the sand—which isn't a surprise, really. It depends on the kind of person? Thanks for the insight, Science.

“Rose?”

“Honestly?” I ask Roxanna. She nods a little too enthusiastically. “I think I'll feel in control.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “And if the test is negative? How do you think you'll feel then?”

When I was little and I couldn't decide something—stupid things mostly, like whether I wanted the blue Converse sneakers or the purple ones, or a birthday party with pizza or Chinese food—my mom used to tell me to flip a coin, but then as soon as it lands, to register my natural, automatic response. “Quick!” she'd say. “Are you happy or disappointed?” She'd smile knowingly (because she usually knew what I really wanted before I did) and say, “See, Rose?
That's
how you know how you really feel.”

The strange thing is, when Roxanna asks me how I'll feel if the test is negative, my natural, automatic response—only for a split second, but still, there it is—is disappointment. It only occurs to me now that maybe I've spent so much time imagining life with my mother's illness that I've never considered life without it.

 

 

As soon as I get home, I pound up the stairs and open my laptop. It's been two weeks since I sent the tape in to UVPA, and according to their Web site, I should be getting an answer about the audition today. Sure enough, there it is. My hands shake like Mom's as I go to open the e-mail.

From:
Office of Admissions, University of the Visual and Performing Arts

To:
Rose Alexander Levenson

Dear Rose,

Thank you for submitting an audition tape to the Gerald Grierson Scholarship Committee at the University of the Visual and Performing Arts. The Admissions Committee would like to invite you to audition in person on April 4. For your convenience and ours, this session will serve as your audition for both admission to the BFA program and the scholarship itself. Further information is attached.

We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco!

All best,

The Admissions Committee

This time, the first person I call is Lena.

Seventeen

“That conversation was binding, Levs,” Lena says, one hand on her hip as she surveys the insides of my closet, trying to choose an appropriately celebratory outfit for the birthday dinner she wouldn't let me out of. “Listen, you are eighteen now: You can vote, you can serve in the military, you can take ill-advised genetic tests to determine your medical future…” She pauses and shoots me a pointed look. “And you're the best dancer in the universe, and you're going for free to the best dance school in the country. We have to celebrate!” She practically sings as she prances around my bedroom, trying to get me in the going-out spirit.

“Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?” I say. “It's only an audition.”

There's no chilling Lena out right now. This dinner—Caleb's and Anders' first time meeting each other—is basically Lena's dream come true: the two of us on a much-heralded double date. But I still don't think of Caleb and me as the same kind of couple as Lena and Anders—one of those coupley-couples. Despite Lena's assertion that I'm falling in love with him, Caleb and I are just … people who sometimes kiss. And want to talk to each other all the time. And seem to be starting to care about each other.

“You're wearing the yellow wedges, obviously,” Lena says as she begins laying clothing items out on my bed. Lena herself is already perfectly attired, looking like she always does—somehow like she didn't think about it at all, and happened to randomly throw on this just-right outfit. Tonight she's wearing tight black pants in some kind of stretchy material, a loose striped sweater that seems to always be sliding off one shoulder or the other, and high-heeled gray boots.

“Dress, or jeans?” she asks. I stare at her, already exhausted by what I know is about to turn into twenty minutes of trying things on and taking them off.

“Jeans.” I sigh. “It's freezing out.” I never understand girls who force themselves to wear tiny dresses and high-heeled shoes in the dead of winter. This is February in New England, people. It's freakin' cold out.

“We can do jeans. These,” she says, pulling my only pair of decently dressy jeans out of my bottom dresser drawer. “And … wait for it.” She wiggles her eyebrows up and down at me and goes over to the duffel bag—her stuff for spending the night—that she's tossed in the corner. Digging through it, she unearths a black V-neck shirt that looks too small for either of us. “Try,” she orders, tossing it at me.

“This is not going to fit me in any way that is appropriate.”

“Whatever. Do as your personal stylist says.”

I really don't know how she does it, but she gets me every time. I peel off the T-shirt I'm currently wearing and finagle my arms into the shirt, which is made of some kind of thick, soft, stretchy cotton and is gathered around the sides.

“Yes,” Lena says, like a proud parent, grinning at me. “Look.”

I turn and examine myself in the mirror. She's right, actually—the shirt fits surprisingly well. It's low-cut, but not inappropriately so. Once I've wriggled into the nice jeans and the wedge heels, I have to admit I look pretty good. Like an almost-normal, decent-looking eighteen-year-old human.

 

 

Dinner is at a divey Mexican place with hockey on the televisions by the bar, and a guy with a guitar coming around to serenade the diners (automatically drowning out any conversation and requiring the entire table to smile awkwardly at him for two and half minutes until he's finished).

Caleb busts out his best guy's-guy repartee with Anders. “You a Bruins fan?” he asks, nodding up at the hockey game. It's either a lucky guess, or Caleb is stereotyping about Scandinavians' love for hockey. Either way, he's right, and Anders launches into a monologue about injuries endured by the Bruins this season and why he thinks they're still on track for a Stanley Cup win.

Lena rolls her eyes at me across the table, and I smile and shrug. They can talk about hockey all night if they want—I'm happy to just sit and listen. The restaurant is warm, and Lena swore up and down that there would be no singing of “Feliz Cumplea
ñ
os” from the guy with the guitar, and the whole thing feels just about right.

I know Caleb noticed that I put a little extra effort into my ensemble tonight. When he first saw me take off my coat in the restaurant, he made an obvious “I'm impressed” face. Under the table, our knees are just barely grazing each other.

“Okay,” Lena interrupts the hockey talk with a little clap. “Before dessert, presents!”

I groan. “Seriously, guys, you didn't have to get me anything. And you especially don't have to give it to me in public,” I add, glaring at Lena. She just smiles, and pulls an envelope from her purse.

“Relax, it's nothing big to unwrap. This is from me and Caleb.”

She and Caleb went in together for a present for me? That's weird. It's hard to imagine the two of them hanging out without me, or even talking on the phone. I give her a quizzical look, and then turn to Caleb, who just grins at me.

I take the envelope, slightly apprehensive now, and slide my finger under the flap to open it. Inside there's a pamphlet from Amtrak: “California Zephyr,” it reads on the front. “Chicago—Denver—San Francisco.” Folded inside is a gray-blue paper ticket.

For an instant, it's like the very last moment of a ballet, when the music and movement stop but hover, waiting for the audience to break the spell with their applause.

I look up at both of them. “What did you do?”

“It's the Zephyr, or whatever it's called. The most beautiful train ride in the country, right?” Lena looks at me like it's totally normal that the two of them would have just handed me a four-hundred-dollar birthday present.

“You guys bought me a cross-country train ticket?” I look from Lena to Caleb and back to Lena.

“Well, it's not technically cross-country. It leaves from Chicago, so you're on your own getting there,” Lena says.

“Guys, this is nuts. This is way too expensive. I can't let you do this.”

“We're not taking it back,” Lena says, shaking her head. “Look, you keep saying how much you want to take this train, right? And you need to go to San Francisco. It's perfect.”

I look at the departure date. This train will put me in San Francisco on April 3, the day before the UVPA audition. Of course.

“Anyway,” Lena goes on. “Your dad already knows. And he helped us pay for it, so you don't need to worry that I've spent my entire college fund on your birthday. Okay?”

“Guys, this is just—this is too much. I don't even want my dad spending this much on a train ticket.” I've looked online. I know what the tickets cost.

Lena's eyes flash from me to Caleb and back to me. She leans across the table and grabs my hands. “Listen. We know how much this means to you. Trains run in your family. You're doing this. We're not letting you
not
do this.”

Hot tears spill down my cheeks. I try unsuccessfully to wipe the snot from my nose without making a disgusting mess of myself. Caleb slides a napkin toward me.

“I can't believe you're making me emote in public,” I say through the napkin. “Thanks a lot.”

Lena sits back in her seat, looking utterly thrilled with herself. “I knew this was a good birthday present. Didn't I?” She looks to Caleb, who concurs.

“I can't take credit for this,” he says. “It was all Lena.”

I blot at my eyes with the soggy napkin. “Here,” Lena says, pulling a compact from her bag. Of course Lena would think to keep a small mirror on her person at all times. I take a quick look at myself in the unforgiving light of the restaurant. My nose is bright red and my eyes are puffy. The mascara Lena made me apply earlier is now running down my face in little streams of Maybelline brownish-black. I mop them up as much as I can.

“It's more than a good birthday present, guys. It's…” I stammer. “I don't know what to say. Thank you.”