You Take It From Here (8 page)

Because of her reasons for not wanting to live even in the same state of the union that I was going to be in, she had me concerned that the citizens of Louisiana were restricted to ultrasnobby ladies with abusive husbands, men unironically named Bubba, and people who still owned slaves.

The first time I did meet an actual man named Bubba, I was heartbroken my mother had been at least slightly correct.

I was all alone, thrust into this small Southern town, attending a school filled with people who talked like words
were made out of taffy. They pulled and squished their sentences into any old form they wanted. These people said “might could.” As in, “You might could find a more podunk town than this one. But I sure do doubt it.”

I was so far out of my element, I was positive I’d never meet anyone who could understand me, who would want to be my friend.

That’s when I plopped down into the desk next to Smidge’s on my first day of biology.

I remember her eyes as she gave me the once-over, how big and wide her pupils looked. She was wearing blue mascara, which I’d never seen anyone actually use before. She looked famous, important. Smidge had a way about her that could make you feel extremely self-conscious. When she’s in front of you, you don’t see her; you see her looking at you. People are always tugging at their hair when they’re under her gaze, fixing themselves, straightening their shirts, surreptitiously wiping their noses, adjusting their necklaces. You don’t know what she’s thinking, but you have a feeling it can’t be good. Her stare bores right into your secret shame and gets your brain screaming,
“She knows!
She sees my lies! I knew I shouldn’t have worn this padded bra!”

Smidge was barely fourteen the day I met her. She always looked younger than everybody else. Did you know she had a fake ID before she was sixteen?

She was chewing gum with her front teeth. The pink wad crackled briefly before disappearing somewhere into her surprisingly large mouth so she could ask, “What’s your name, new girl?”

“Danielle.” I remember the word barely made a sound, I was so nervous. “I’m Danielle Meyers.”

“Well, Danielle Meyers, if you are going to be my friend, we have
got
to do something about this hair.”

Coming out of her mouth, the word
hair
had two syllables.
Hay-ir.
She grinned, leaned over, and held my sad strands in her left fist as she shook her head in pity. “Poor hayir.”

She was always bold when talking to a stranger. It never occurred to her to have a boundary, or attempt something that resembled a tactful approach.

“If you had toilet paper stuck to your shoe, you’d want me to tell you, right?” she once asked me. “Even if I didn’t know you, you’d want me to say something. Well, imagine your hair was that toilet paper. Because it was.”

Not much changed about our relationship after that first exchange. Smidge fixed my hair that afternoon and became my self-declared guardian forevermore.

I was smart enough to know not to contradict her about that. It’s a lot like having a lion for a best friend—everything is really fun and exciting until the lion is unhappy.

Did you know your mother once stopped a woman in a mall and told her she should get a mole on her face checked? “That thing is ugly,” she said. “And God wouldn’t have made it so hideous if he didn’t want people to come up to you and tell you to do something about it.” I was there that day, hiding behind a sunglasses kiosk, mortified down to my very last blood cell.

And do you know, one year later that woman with the mole showed up on your doorstep with a homemade sheet
cake and a dozen roses, thanking your mother for saving her life?

Nobody ever stopped Smidge from talking, because she somehow had the ability to always end up being some kind of right. It was maddening.

I was sliding a dark walnut bar stool out from under the bar for Smidge when she gently pushed me aside.

“I’m not dying
today
, Danielle. You can cool it on the coddling.”

I tried to cover. “I just assumed you were too short to reach the bar without some help.”

“I’m not buying that,” she said. “But I
will
buy your first drink.”

In the hours after Smidge dropped the bomb on me, we had silently driven to Atlanta, quietly checked into a hotel, robotically changed outfits, and then practically sprinted to a rather swanky, dark bar in midtown. We didn’t have to say why; I knew neither of us could handle whatever we were about to discuss without a drink. I’m glad we found a quieter spot in a corner, pressed up against the bar near a mirrored wall, watching the place grow crowded.

The regular patrons were standing together in easy-to-recognize groups. There were the overly boisterous office workers who’d been here since happy hour, ties loosened and pumps off. The young married women early into a girls’ night that would end badly, their shot glasses aloft as they focused on temporarily forgetting all the young children they’d left at home in the shaky care of their husbands. Awkward body language
gave away the couples on first dates, unsure how close they could sit despite—or because of—the noise level.

The walls around the bar were glassy and black, twinkling with ever-rotating dots of lights, making everyone look just a little more glamorous. For a second I was homesick. The upscale atmosphere reminded me of a place James and I would have gone to in Los Angeles after a movie or for celebratory drinks with friends.

I studied Smidge’s face, thinking maybe I could find a sign, some hint as to how advanced her cancer was. What would I do if I were faced with the knowledge that my time was quickly coming up? Would I want to sit here with my friend at this trendy bar in Atlanta, ordering a martini? Wouldn’t I want to be home with my family?

It might seem wrong that I could think of my own life, my own decisions, as I was waiting to find out the details of Smidge’s illness. But everyone sees this disease through their own mortality, looking back over their shoulders, wondering,
Would I be ready for this?

Cancer is selfish. It rips through its victim’s body without the slightest hint of remorse. Then it spreads, jumping to anyone who hears the victim’s story, infecting those people with fear, guilt. Cancer is at its most selfish when it comes to the spouses, the families, the friends. Because that’s when it mutates again. For them, it’s not their cells it destroys. It’s their dreams.

“Okay, so I’m just going to start talking,” Smidge said, smacking the bar with an open palm like a contestant on a game show. “I can’t take it anymore, Danny. You have
got
to get that look off your face. I am not a pound puppy.”

I tried, turning my eyes turn downward, forcing my focus
onto the bowl of wonton crispies left for us by the bartender. I picked at one, wondering how long I could waste time pretending I was deciding whether or not to eat it.

There was another pause as Smidge took a healthy gulp of her drink. She leaned back, eyes closed in boozy bliss. Finally, she said, “These taste
much
better when you’re dying.”

I tried to laugh but my breath caught in my throat. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be drinking?”

“Lord,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Here we go. I’ll tell you something funny. They say alcohol
reduces
the risk of some cancers.” She shook her head and rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand.

“If that’s true, I don’t understand how the cancer could come back. With the amount of preventive drinking you do, a relapse should be scientifically impossible.”

“That’s my girl,” Smidge said, giving my elbow a gentle squeeze between her thumb and forefinger. “That’s better. Thank you. Now drink a lot of that.” She wiggled her fingers toward my drink. “I’ve got a proposition that’ll sound better if you are nowhere near sober.”

“A proposition? I don’t recall you ever having a
proposition.
You mean I’m about to get some orders.”

Smidge had all the information and I was trying to get a foothold on the situation. Just how she liked it.

Her dark eyes sparkled in those twinkle lights as she leaned in and said, “When I die, I want you to take over my life.”

I think I laughed.

“I mean it, Danny. Consider it what I’m leaving you in my will. I’m giving you this life. You come in and finish the job.”

Then she made these jazz hands, like that was it. That’s all I needed: case closed.

I opened my mouth to say something, but filled it with a slow intake of air instead.

“Soooooo!”
she sang. “Great. I wonder if they serve food here.”

I grabbed her arm before she could raise it any higher toward the bartender. She tightened up, wrestling herself from my grip. For an allegedly sick lady, she was notably strong.

“Hey!” she shouted, outraged.

“Are you being funny?” I asked.

When Smidge knew she was trying to get away with something ridiculous, she would talk down to the person who was growing wise. This method worked especially well when she was haggling over a price tag at a flea market, or if she wanted extra work done on her kitchen for free. She had a way of making it sound like she figured all of this out a long time ago:
“Oh, let me explain where you probably got confused.”

There was the time she accidentally ran a red light and hit someone. Fifteen minutes later, the guy in the other car was
apologizing
to Smidge for not looking both ways while he was legally traveling through the intersection. He practically begged her not to file an insurance claim.

Part of her power lies in the accent. Americans think that British people just
sound
smarter. Maybe bossiness in a Southern accent comes across as
“Duh, dummy. Get on board.”

Smidge puffed out her chest, practically shining a spotlight on herself as she made a big production out of sighing, looking around for all the other people she assumed would be
sympathizing with her, as here it was, so difficult to deal with my mental incapacity.

“I am dying,” she said, emphasizing each word. “We covered this.”

It’s this next phase of the tactic—where she repeats only the parts that are emotionally heavy, getting her victim all jumbled up in empathy—that allows logic to take a backseat.

“So after I am gone, once I am dead,” she said, “once the cancer wins and I am deep in the ground, I want you to live out my life. You finish raising Jenny. You be with Henry.”

“Live out your life? Like run your errands? Raise your kid? Sleep with your husband?”

“Yes to all three.”

“Come on, is this a joke?”

“No, ma’am,” she said. “I ain’t playing. I am dead serious.” Then she laughed, having heard herself. “Okay, right now I’m
only
serious. Later, I’ll be dead serious. And then you’ll be Smidge 2.0.”

Like it was nothing, no big deal. Just take control, sliding over in the seat like the designated driver of her life. The godparent to her day planner. I still hadn’t come close to processing her being sick again and now she was asking me to do something that sounded absurd, not to mention possibly illegal.

“Don’t think about it too much,” Smidge said, waving a hand in front of my face. “Because then you’ll screw this up. It’s a smart plan. Look, you don’t have to do this forever, just a few years. Until Jenny gets to college.”

“Just live with them?” I asked. “Be a nanny, kind of?”

She shook her head. “No, that won’t be enough. Henry
needs a partner. Jenny needs a parent. They need you to fill my spot. Be a mom, be a wife, be a good woman.”

“A good
woman
?”

“Get that look off your face. You know what I mean. It’ll be like it’s me, but you’re doing it. Do it right and finish the job.”

“I think they’ll notice it’s not you as soon as I try to fit into your clothes.”

“You can get your own clothes.”

“Oh,
thanks.
”

Smidge rocked from one side to the other, a sign of discomfort. She knew she didn’t have me yet; perhaps it never occurred to her that I might have reservations.

“You’re out of your mind,” I said. “Is the cancer in your brain this time?”

Smidge cocked her head like I’d slapped her, but she was grinning. “I like that you’re getting a little angry. It means you know I’m serious.”

“You’re seriously sick. I’m not going to have sex with your husband and have Jenny call me Mom and walk around your house like your ghost is commanding me to make your lemon bars every Labor Day weekend.”

“First of all, I’m really glad you know you’ll have to keep making those lemon bars.”

“Smidge, this is the dumbest, the stupidest, the—”

“I can’t just be
missing.
I can’t just
disappear
, Danny. Too many people are counting on me.”

“And nobody’s counting on me? I have a life, too!”

I hated how sometimes when I stuck up for myself I sounded like a kid sister complaining she didn’t get as much candy as her sibling.

“Look. I’ve thought about all of this, and if you just shut up and let me talk, it’ll make sense. Just make sure they . . .”