Forever Changes (6 page)

After school, Brianna dropped the Sunfire off at home and squeezed into the back seat of Melissa’s Echo.

When they got to the party, everybody was there. Even though Brianna felt a lot farther away from all these people than she had the last time she’d gone to a party, it was just nice to be in a house filled with people who were happy, to not have to do anything but just be there and be happy.

She stood with Melissa, and even the fact that guys were buzzing around Melissa like bees did to that honeysuckle bush near the beach in the summer didn’t bother Brianna.  Since any of the guys with a brain, which was about half of them, knew that the best friend’s opinion could make or break the deal, they went out of their way to engage Brianna in the conversation.  She actually got a kick out of watching guys try to pull off this elaborate social maneuver where they showed that they liked Brianna but preferred Melissa.

Before Brianna had even reached the bottom of  her first and only foamy beer from the keg, Stephanie and Kevin started screaming at each other.  He called her a stupid bitch and she ran off crying.  Brianna locked eyes with Melissa, and they put down their drinks and went into rescue mode.

They grabbed  Stephanie, who’d managed to get completely trashed in the time it had taken Brianna to drink what she estimated was seventy-eight percent of a beer in a twelve-ounce cup, or about 9.3 ounces of beer, except that the cup had had about an inch of foam in it, which threw her calculations completely out the window.  Math was so much easier than the real world.

They pulled Stephanie out of the room while three or four guys, at least two of whom were Stephanie’s exes, started beating on Kevin, and three or four of Kevin’s friends started beating on them, and as they walked out the front door, they passed Bryan MacMahon on the cordless phone in his front yard calling the cops on his own party.

Stephanie had gone from blubbering to the occasional whimper, and then she started saying stuff like, “hope he gets his ass kicked.” Somebody had to be the bitch, but Brianna didn’t feel like she could do it, because she suddenly couldn’t stand the idea of  Steph being mad at her. She tried shooting looks at Melissa to tell her to just forget it, tonight was too precious to waste on a fight that wouldn’t change Stephanie anyway. She thought maybe Melissa got her mental messages, but Melissa said, “Steph, aren’t you tired of this bullshit yet?  ’Cause we are.”

Brianna didn’t even hear Stephanie’s response.  Possibly thanks to the beer, or the fact taht something that seeemd fun had been interrupted by something violent and sad and gross, the fear had crept out of the back of Brianna’s brain and into the front again.

I’m leaving the party early, Brianna thought, and the fact that I’m gone won’t stop the party from going on.   Mel, Steph, will you two still think about me when you and your husband are fat and you drive your four kids to soccer and gymnastics in a minivan? Will you ever even think about me being dead?  Will you think every time you have a birthday, every time you’re with a new guy, every kid you have, will you think, here’s one more thing poor Bri never got to do?  Will you?  Or will you just get on with life and say, oh well, I’ll see her when I get there?  But you’ll have other best friends by then.  You’ll have moms from playgroup, you’ll have co-workers, and you’ll be so old, so much older than I ever get to be, and you’ll say I knew this girl once, and she died.  Her picture’s in the yearbook in the attic.  You guys are the best friends I’ll ever have in my whole life, you’ll never be less than that to me, and I’m on my way to being just somebody you used to know, that poor girl.

When Melissa said, “Right, Bri?”, Brianna told Stephanie:  “Steph, I love you and you are better than this.  And Melissa loves you and she knows you’re better than this too. It’s not that we’re tired of mopping you up because we have better things to do, it’s because we love you and we hate seeing you in a puddle.”

Stephanie whispered, “Thank you.” and they all hugged in the middle of the sidewalk, until some moron driving by leaned out the window and yelled, “Hot!  Give her a kiss!”

Back at Melissa’s house, Brianna called Dad.  “Dad, I need a ride,” she said, and hoped that she wasn’t making him climb off Cindy with this call.  Who knew what he did when she was out?

“On my way.  Where are you?” Dad asked.  Brianna told him, and they hung up.  She had to give it to Dad, he was totally serious about that call-for-a-ride, no-questions-asked business.  Brianna guessed that only some tiny percentage of parents who said the same thing would actually give you a ride without asking any questions.  Probably less than five percent.  Which put Dad in the ninety-fifth percentile of parents.  Which put him only a few percentiles down from where Brianna always scored on her math tests.  We Pelletiers are a high percentile family, she thought.  What are the odds, anyway, of hooking up with somebody at a party getting a kid with CF from ten minutes in someone’s room with the coats?  Long, long odds.  She wondered briefly whether they were better or worse than her odds of living to be thirty.  Long, long odds.

Dad was covered in grease and dirt.  He’d obviously been working on that custom bike, and not Cindy.  He put a dirty hand on her shoulder as they were driving.  It was his way of saying he was glad she called, and he loved her and all of that stuff, and Brianna suddenly felt about five years old.  She started to cry.

“What’s the matter?” Dad said.

“I’m scared, Daddy,” Brianna said, and once she named it, it was just too much … “I don’t wanna die,” she cried, “I’m so scared, I’m so scared.”

Dad pulled the car over, and she looked over and saw that his eyes were all wet, too.  “I know, sweetie.  I’m so sorry,” he said, and he wrapped his arms around her as best he could.

They sat there for a while, with Brianna sobbing and Dad’s  eyes leaking.  Finally Dad said, “So, it’s only ten.  You want some ice cream?”

“Definitely,” Brianna replied.  Dad started up the car, and as they drove toward Hot Licks, which was open till midnight, they passed the houses by the beach.  One had a light on on the screen porch, and Brianna thought she saw Eccles there, sitting in a rocking chair.   Contemplating infinity, she wondered, or just contemplating why you’re all alone on Friday night?

The next morning, after Dad had gone to work, Brianna  put
Forever Changes
on the boom box in the living room.  She sat on the couch, closed her eyes, and listened.  For just a few minutes, she was able to turn her mind off and just get caught up in the music.

She put the CD on repeat, but for some reason it didn’t  work the second time.  It was only 8 o’clock, so she couldn’t even call anyone to distract her.  She got out her weekend homework and did it all, because even the Slab of Tedium was preferable to contemplating death.

At ten-thirty, Brianna hopped into the Sunfire and drove over to Ashley’s house.  When she rang the bell, Cindy answered.

“Hi, Brianna,” she said. Cindy didn’t invite Brianna in or tell her Ashley was in her room or anything.  She just stood there quietly for a minute.  Oh God, Brianna thought, she’s going to ask me if she has a chance with Dad.  She was certainly used to people asking her if they had a chance with Melissa or Stephanie, but Ashley’s married mom would be too weird, too awful.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “Ashley’s upstairs.  Ash!” She yelled toward the stairs but got no answer.  “She’s probably got headphones on.  Come on in.”

Finally Cindy moved aside, and as Brianna walked by, she did that fish-out-of-water thing where she opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but no words came out.  Brianna scooted up the stairs as quickly as possible and found Ashley in her room, listening to her iPod.

She had a flash of jealousy—having CF would probably suck less if you had all kinds of cool toys like Ashley had—but she pushed it away.

Ashley smiled and ripped the earbuds out of her ears when she saw Brianna.  “Hey!” she said.  “I am so glad you’re here!” She hopped off the bed, ran over and quietly shut her bedroom door.  “Mom’s acting really strange today. I think she’s gearing up for a meaningful talk, and I just want to shop.  You know?”

Brianna didn’t actually know what it was like to have the money to actually go shopping in the sense of going out and coming home with bags full of stuff, but she certainly knew about wanting to get the hell out of the house and do something fun and brainless when your parent decided they needed to talk about something.  Yeah, she knew that pretty well.

“Great,” Brianna replied. “Let’s do it, then.”

They all but ran down the stairs, and Ashley yelled out, “bye Mom!” as they flew out the door and into the relative safety of the Sunfire.

At the mall, they spent a long time going from store to store, trying on outfits (and Brianna always had a reason why she couldn’t buy anything—doesn’t fit right, looks more like Melissa, just isn’t for me).  There probably weren’t too many other ninth graders she’d like to hang out with, but she did enjoy hanging out with Ashley.  And it wasn’t because they could talk about CF stuff—it was that they didn’t have to talk about CF stuff. Stephanie and Melissa couldn’t keep that flicker of worry off their faces whenever she coughed, and they were nice to ask about all the meds and be understanding when she got tired and stuff, but Ashley just knew.

Eventually they decided it was lunchtime.  Ashley wanted to go to Chili’s.  “Uh, can we go to the food court?” Brianna asked. Here was the awkward part.  Ashley didn’t know what it was like to have a dad who worked at Bargain Zone and no money for anything beyond gas and insurance. “I’ve only got seven bucks.”

“Well,” Ashley said, “I guess I owe you for cab fare, so I’ll pay you back with lunch.”

Brianna still felt awkward about it, but not awkward enough to say no.  After all, life was short, especially hers, and anything at Chili’s was better than the four-dollar styrofoam plate of greasy lo mein she was going to have to get at the food court.

They got seated, and their waitress was this girl Kelly from calc class.  “Hi, Brianna!” she said.

“Hey,” Brianna said, smiling.  Weird that they never greeted each other this enthusiastically in school.

“Oh My God, have you done that problem set yet?”

Yes, Brianna thought, I did it early this morning when I was trying not to think about death. She opted for a lie that sounded cooler.  “Nah, I never look at weekend homework till Sunday afternoon.”

“It’s completely impossible.  I think maybe Eccles was high when he assigned it.”

Everybody was always talking about how Eccles was this big stoner, and he certainly seemed to hint that it was true.  And probably everybody who had anything to do with
Forever Changes
must have been high.  (Is that another reason why  I like that album so much?  Brianna wondered.  Is being sick somehow like being high?) He seemed to be having a lot of trouble breathing on the beach the other day.  Maybe too much weed was his problem.

Brianna hadn’t found the math homework all that hard. “Well, I’ll be digging into it tomorrow afternoon if you want to call me.”

“That would be great!” Kelly said, and she pulled her phone out of her apron and took Brianna’s number.  Brianna wondered idly if Kelly would ever call.  Even though she was working at Chili’s, she was East Blackpool all the way, and she’d probably have a private tutor or something.  Brianna estimated the probability of Kelly calling her at about forty percent.

They ordered their food.  Brianna got the chicken fajitas and felt guilty about how much they cost, so she just had water to drink.  They talked about who Ashley thought was cute, how boring history was, and why the MCAS, which Ashley would need to pass next year in order to get a diploma, wasn’t really that big a deal even though all your teachers tried to scare you about it all the time.

Their conversation stalled out briefly, and Brianna noticed Ashley doing that same fish-out-of-water about to talk thing that her mom had been doing earlier.

“I think my Mom and Dad are going to get divorced,” she said.

“Whoa,” Brianna said.  “Why?”

“I dunno, my dad’s hardly ever around, and whenever he is, they’re fighting.  It really sucks.”

“Jeez,” Brianna said, “I’m sorry.”   Brianna knew she was supposed to say something about how Ashley should know if her folks did split up, it had nothing to do with her,  but she knew it probably did.  Which led her to Mom, which was not a subject she wanted to get into right then.  But she had to say something.  “I was too young to remember my parents fighting.”

“I’m sorry,” Ashley said. “I didn’t … I mean, I just wanted to tell somebody who knew the whole thing, you know.”

“Yeah,” Brianna said.

“I really—I’m glad I have you to talk to,” Ashley said.  “It helps a lot.  I mean, it’s pretty impossible not to feel like a freak at school, even though everybody’s wicked nice about it all the time, but it’s lonely, you know?”

“Yeah,” Brianna said.  “I do.”

On Sundays, Brianna and Dad got to sleep late.  The Bargain Zone people thought it was important for their employees to spend Sunday morning at the worship service of their choice.  As long as said worship service allowed them to be at work by noon, or, if you were assistant manager and had to open on Sunday morning, eleven.  What this meant for Brianna was sleeping until eight-thirty, which felt amazing, and going out to breakfast.  Halfway through his breakfast (western omelet, home fries, wheat toast), Dad put his fork down and said to Brianna, who was chewing on the second of her three enormous blueberry pancakes, “So.”

Well, here it was.  He hadn’t asked any questions on Friday night, he hadn’t asked anything on Saturday, but here, finally, was the question that accompanied the “no-questions-asked” ride.  Brianna steeled herself and said, through clenched teeth, “Yeah?”

“I’m worried about you, sweetie. I know you don’t want to go back to group, but do you think it would help to talk to somebody?”

Whoa.  This was a curveball.  It wasn’t about the ride at all.  Dad had been true to his word.  Which meant that Brianna was going to have to be true to her word about going to the MIT thing.  “Well, I talk to Melissa, and Stephanie, and Ashley—”

“I know, honey, but I mean somebody who gets all the stuff you’re dealing with, and someone you don’t have to be strong for. I know you feel like you have to be strong for Ashley, and I know you hate the social worker at the hospital, but I talked to Dr. Patel, and there are all kinds of resources—”

“You talked to Dr. Patel?”

“Well, yeah, sweetie. Like I said, I’m concerned about you.”

“She’s not allowed to tell you anything!  I’m an adult and my medical information is confidential!” The truth was that Brianna had authorized Dr. Patel to tell Dad anything, and she had filled out all the paperwork making Dad responsible for her medical decisions if she couldn’t make her own. She knew she was being stupid, but it just made her mad to think about people talking about her behind her back.

Dad rolled his eyes.  “Bri, I just asked her for some names of people I could call.”

“Well, thanks, Dad, but I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“It’s your decision, of course.  I just wanted you to know that you have the option.  You’re carrying so much right now, and you don’t need to carry it by yourself.”

Brianna softened somewhat, even though she was still annoyed.  Sunday breakfast really was the worship service of her choice, and she hated to have it ruined by thinking about therapy.  She sulked through the rest of breakfast and got sadder and sadder, and it wasn’t until after Dad left for work and she was alone in the house that she realized why she was so sad.

“I wanna talk to Molly,” she said aloud to the empty house. “She’s the one I want to talk to.  Nobody else.  Just Molly.”

She got out the other Love CD Adam had given her, which she hadn’t even listened to yet because she’d been so obsessed with
Forever Changes
. She had an idea.  She rooted around in her bag and found one of the pens she liked, grabbed her notebook from History, and turned to a blank page.

Dear Molly
, she wrote.

How’s death treating you?  I miss you a lot, but I guess I’ll probably see you soon, ha ha. 

For the next hour, Brianna wrote to Molly about everything that she would have told her if she could call her up.  It was hard at first, but it got easier, because in a weird way, it felt like Molly was alive in her mind while she was writing, and it felt good to talk to her.

When she finished, she realized the CD was over and she hadn’t listened to it at all.  She played it again while she folded her laundry, and it was disappointing.  It wasn’t bad or anything, and there was a song about waking up dead that she kind of liked, but it sounded a lot more normal than
Forever Changes
, and it didn’t seem to be about her life the way the other stuff was.

Finally it was late enough to call Melissa.  She was the only seasonal employee who seemed to be able to keep her job at Hot Licks during the school year, and she had to work all afternoon. “But you should totally come hang out,” she said.  “I’ll give you free ice cream.”

“Toppings?”

“Two dry toppings or one wet.  None of this hot fudge
and
Reese’s cups
and
 Heath bars business.”

Brianna smiled. “Okay.  Deal.”

She spent the rest of Sunday at Hot Licks.  It was boring, but it beat being home alone.