Maybe One Day (6 page)

I felt irritated that the Grecos were asking Calvin to help out and then irritated at myself for being irritated. The Grecos needed support now. If Calvin offered Jake—or any of them, really—that support, I should be happy to see him in Olivia’s hospital room.

Still, I wasn’t. And it wasn’t just because he’d teased me about Jackson. There was something about Calvin—the way every girl at school drooled over him, the way the school newspaper ran his picture on the sports page every five seconds, the way he was too important to bother to acknowledge me. Even his whole I’m-so-helpful-let-me-be-your-chauffeur-and-delivery-boy routine,
which the Grecos were clearly falling for, rubbed me the wrong way.

Why was I the only one who could see that he was a self-satisfied ass?

The door opened again. This time my mom walked in. “Hi, guys,” she said quietly, and then she used the Purell dispenser. I was surprised that she knew she had to do that.

Olivia’s mom stood up and went over to my mom. They hugged and then started talking quietly, too quietly for me to hear what they were saying. Over by the window, Calvin and Jake talked. Olivia’s dad typed on his BlackBerry. Even though there were almost half a dozen people in the room with us, I felt like we were suddenly alone together.

Olivia must have felt the same way, because when she started talking, it was clear that she was talking just to me. “I really think I’m going to be okay,” she said. Her eyes had purplish circles under them. How long had they been there? How had I not noticed? “I was freaking out before, but . . . I don’t know, I just
sense
that I’m going to be okay.”

Immediately I said, “Of
course
you’re going to be okay.” Then I regretted saying it. I hoped I didn’t sound too much like her mom.

The door to the room opened again, and this time a woman in a white lab coat came in. She was short, with gray streaks in her brown curly hair.

“Hello!” She gave a wave to the room, then pressed the
Purell dispenser and rubbed her hands together. “I’m glad to see Olivia has so much company.”

“We don’t want to tire her out, Dr. Maxwell,” said Mrs. Greco quickly.

“If you think it’s better for everyone to go, we’ll send them all home,” said Mr. Greco, getting to his feet.

The way Mr. Greco—who was a big partner at his law firm and who talked to pretty much everybody as if they were his employees—spoke to Dr. Maxwell, I could tell she was important.

Dr. Maxwell smiled at Olivia. “Are you tired?”

Olivia gave a little shrug. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” Her round tortoiseshell glasses caught the light and made it seem as if her eyes were sparkling. Under her lab coat she had on a pretty silk blouse. She came over to the bed. “You must be Zoe,” she said, and when I nodded, she went on. “Olivia told me about you. She’s really going to need her friends right now.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, like,
Just to be clear, having cancer is not something good
.

“Of course,” I said.

Dr. Maxwell slipped up the sleeve of Olivia’s hospital gown, checked something on Olivia’s chest briefly, then nodded. “It all looks good.” She glanced over her shoulder at the IV line hanging from the pole. “How are you feeling? Are you nauseated?” Her tone was the same as it had been when she’d told me Olivia would need her friends, and I started to get the
sense she was just matter-of-fact about everything.

Olivia shook her head. “Not yet. I have a funny taste in my mouth.” Livvie ran her tongue along her teeth and made a face. “It’s weird.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you with that, but if it’s making you nauseous, let me know, okay? Like I said before, it’s hard to get the horse back in the barn once he’s out.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but Olivia must have, because she nodded. Dr. Maxwell looked around the room. “Everything seems okay for now,” she said. “Olivia’s off to a good start.”

I hadn’t noticed how quiet the room had gotten while Dr. Maxwell was examining Olivia, but as soon as she gave her assessment, the buzz of conversation that started up again made me feel the silence her presence had generated. It reminded me of how it had been in a dance class when Martin Hicks, the NYBC director, would pay one of his occasional visits. You didn’t realize how tightly you’d been holding everything in—how high you’d been lifting your leg, how far you’d extended your arms—until he left and you felt the collective tension seep out of the room as everyone literally gave a sigh of relief.

Now people went back to their conversations. Dr. Maxwell stood next to the bed. “So,” she said, “Olivia and her family and I had a long talk earlier, but she asked me to come back and explain some things about her illness to you.”

I looked at Olivia. “Really? You wanted her to explain
everything to me, too?”

Livvie nodded. I loved her so much right at that instant I almost cried.

“Now, what do you know about leukemia?” asked Dr. Maxwell.

“It’s got something to do with Olivia’s blood,” I answered, purposely not using the word
cancer
.

“Good,” said Dr. Maxwell, and even though we were talking about a deadly disease that my best friend had, I felt glad to have gotten the answer right. “It does have to do with blood. Specifically, it’s a cancer of the blood.”

“Actually, I was trying to avoid the
c
word,” I explained.

Olivia laughed, and even Dr. Maxwell cracked a smile. “We use the
c
word a lot around here,” Dr. Maxwell assured me. “Now, there are different types of leukemia. Most children and teens get something called acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. Olivia has acute
myeloid
leukemia, or AML. It’s a cancer more commonly associated with males in their sixties.”

Livvie turned to me. “I have old-man cancer. Isn’t that so humiliating?”

“It
is
, actually. But I won’t tell anyone,” I promised.

Dr. Maxwell was shaking her head. I couldn’t tell if she was amused or irritated by the way we were talking. “In a healthy person,” she went on, “blood is formed inside the soft, spongy part of the big bones in your body, such as your femur. You know what your femur is?” I nodded. Our first year at NYBC,
a girl in our class had had a skiing accident and broken her femur. I still remembered when one of the worst dancers in our class had pulled us aside to tell us about the accident.
She may never dance again
. Her face had been bright pink with the drama of the moment.

“Your femur’s here.” I hit my thigh as I said it.

“Correct.” Dr. Maxwell said. “So blood is born—formed—in the bone marrow. There, immature cells called blasts grow into mature blood cells: white blood cells, red blood cells, or platelets. Think of bone marrow as a school. Or a house. The kids grow up, learn a trade, then leave home and go to work at a job.

“But leukemia stops blood cells from doing that. In a person with AML, instead of making normal blasts, which grow into normal blood cells, the bone marrow starts making cancerous cells. They divide quickly and uncontrollably. They don’t do their jobs. And they fill up the bone marrow so that there’s no room for normal, healthy cells to be made or to grow. The immature cells are strong and hard to kill. They’re like child soldiers.”

Dr. Maxwell pointed behind her at the IV bag hanging on the pole beside Olivia’s bed. “The drugs we’re giving Olivia right now are drugs that target rapidly dividing cells, such as myeloblasts.”

“And hair,” Olivia said. Her voice was quieter than it had been. I patted her arm, not sure what else to do.

“And hair,” Dr. Maxwell said, and now I was grateful for how matter-of-fact she was about everything. “Because chemotherapy targets
all
rapidly dividing cells, it unfortunately doesn’t
only
get cancer cells.”

I’d always wondered why people with cancer lost their hair. “Why can’t they invent drugs that target rapidly dividing
sick
cells only?” I asked.

“Well, we’re working on it,” Dr. Maxwell said. She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “I promise you. We’re all working on it.”

I couldn’t take Dr. Maxwell’s being so nice. It made me want to cry. Instead I asked, “Will she get sick? I mean, will she throw up?” Livvie made a face. She hated throwing up. Not that anyone
likes
it, but Livvie really
really
hated it.

“She may experience nausea and vomiting,” Dr. Maxwell said. “Chemotherapy triggers a chemical response in the brain that makes some people sick to their stomach. But the good news is we have a lot of drugs to make Olivia comfortable. Hopefully she’ll only have very mild side effects.”

“That’s kind of lame good news, Dr. Maxwell,” said Olivia.

“It is,” Dr. Maxwell agreed, and she stroked Olivia’s forehead gently. I’d never seen a doctor do something like that.

“When can she come home?” I asked. If she was home by Friday, I could spend the weekend at her house with her. We could watch distracting movies all day.

Dr. Maxwell’s voice was businesslike. “Three weeks to
four weeks.”

Three to four weeks?
I tried to keep my voice neutral. “I thought . . . I thought maybe she’d be home this weekend.”

Dr. Maxwell shook her head. “The chemotherapy itself only lasts for about a week, but it destroys so many blood cells that a person is very vulnerable to infection. We keep her here until her blood counts go up.”

My head spun. How could Livvie be in the hospital for an entire
month
?

They were both staring at me. I had to say something, but my panic had parched my lips and my tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth. “Well . . .” I cleared my throat, hoping to make my voice more normal. “And then . . . that’s it, right? She’s done?”

Livvie shook her head. “That’s just the first round. Then I have to do it three more times.”

“
Three more times?
” It came out like a wail, which I immediately regretted.

My response triggered something in Livvie, who suddenly looked distraught. “And I might not be able to go to school between treatments
at all
.”

“Wait, you’re going to miss
months
of school? I—” I bit my tongue. Literally. Because here’s what your best friend doesn’t need to hear you say when she’s just found out she has cancer:
I can’t deal with that
.

“This is a lot to take all at once, I know,” said Dr. Maxwell.
She furrowed her forehead in a way that somehow managed to be concerned and not pitying. “And it’s not the last time you’ll be able to ask me questions.” Dr. Maxwell put her hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow, but if something comes up during the night, they’ll page me.”

“Okay,” said Olivia. “Thanks, Dr. Maxwell.”

“Yes,” I said, trying to capture an optimistic tone. “Thanks for explaining all of this to me.”

She smiled at me. “Olivia is very lucky to have a friend like you.”

Dr. Maxwell said good-bye to everyone, and when the door had closed behind her, Mrs. Greco clapped her hands together once. “Now I’m sending everyone home. Our girl needs to get her rest.”

I was surprised that Olivia didn’t object, but when I looked at her face, she seemed tired, and I thought maybe she was relieved that everyone was leaving.

My mom came over and gave Olivia a long hug, then touched me lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll meet you outside.”

Calvin and Jake said good-bye. When Calvin was hugging Livvie, she gave me a little wink and a thumbs-up behind his back, and I actually laughed.

I got off the bed and stood over Olivia. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but she looked somehow frailer than she had when I’d first walked in, as if she’d gotten smaller over the past thirty minutes.

Not wanting her to read my thoughts, I bent down and hugged her. She squeezed me back. There was nothing frail about her hug, and the strength in her arms made me feel better.

“This is going to be okay,” I whispered into her shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.” She gave a tiny squeak, and I could tell from the way her body shook that she was crying. It was hard to believe that just a minute ago she’d given me the thumbs-up about Calvin Taylor’s hugging her.

Remembering how my getting upset earlier had made
her
get upset, I forced myself not to cry as I pulled away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, ’kay?”

“Thanks, Zoe,” she said. She wiped the tears off her cheeks, and no new ones fell. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Liv.”

The whole way home, my mom talked. She talked about how Mrs. Greco was going to arrange for Olivia to Skype her classes. She talked about how the doctors felt there was every reason to be optimistic. She talked about how Olivia was getting the best medical treatment there was. She told me she’d called my dad, who was on his way home. Every once in a while, she turned to me and patted me on the knee or stroked my hair.

“You okay, honey?” she asked about twenty times.

“I’m . . . yeah. I’m okay,” I said each time. I couldn’t find the
words to describe the tight feeling that had disappeared for a little while when I was with Olivia but had come back again now that we were in the car.
Months
. She was going to be out of school for months. She had to go through round after round of chemotherapy. My mind danced from one detail to another, skittishly skimming the surface of the situation. I would picture Dr. Maxwell’s glasses, then the dark circles under Olivia’s eyes. I felt Olivia’s shoulders shaking as I hugged her. I lowered my window all the way, hoping the chilly night air would focus my thoughts, but it did nothing except make my face cold.

Since I’d gotten my permit, every time we got in the car I begged my mom to let me drive, but even if we hadn’t been driving in Manhattan (where out-of-state residents can’t drive until they’re eighteen), I was way too distracted to even contemplate operating a motor vehicle. I kept thinking about how on the way to school I’d been pissed because on B days after lunch I have history, then physics, and then math. And I’d thought,
I hope Livvie’s in school, because if she’s not, this day is going to suck even worse than it will if she’s not in school, which is a lot
.