The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (45 page)

“Hey, you two! Long time no see,” she said with a cheery wave. “I don’t know what Risa told you, but it’s not true. It’s just a flu and she was worried about me, and so she ended up worrying you needlessly. She’s so silly.”

Tammy laughed. Nobody else did. Maybe if her hair wasn’t so short and thin and standing up on her head, maybe if she wasn’t so gaunt, or maybe if her voice wasn’t so obviously a bad, raspy simulation of her old one, they might have believed her even for a second.

But as it was, Veronica stared at her for about four long, horrified beats, before she broke down crying. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”

James came over to Tammy and drew her into his arms. “Baby sister,” he said.

I had read about the stages of grief for cancer patients in a pamphlet when I had taken Tammy to get chemo that first time: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

I had thought Tammy had gotten stuck in Depression, but now I could see that she’d been in Denial this whole time, because right before my eyes she went through three stages.

First she pushed James away and said to Veronica, “No, don’t cry. You don’t get to cry. You have a husband and a daughter, and I don’t have anything but this cancer eating me up. Why are you crying when you’re the one with everything? Stop crying.”

Veronica was so surprised that she actually stopped crying. Her younger sister, I realized, had probably never spoken to her this way.

But then Tammy reversed on herself and said to them both, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. At first I thought maybe I’d beat it. But then the doctors said it was terminal and I didn’t know how to break it to you. Maybe I thought if I didn’t tell you, I wouldn’t have it. But maybe we can still fight this. Maybe I can make it another year. I’ll try more chemo. I’ll …”

But then her eyes shuttered on that small spark of fighting spirit. “Okay, no, I’m not going to fight. Why bother? It’s terminal. I didn’t get there in time. Maybe if I had gotten it checked out a few months earlier, but now I’m dying. Okay, I just am. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but I don’t have the energy to fight with you about this. I just … don’t. I’m so tired.”

Then she crawled back into her bed and refused to leave it again.

This happened over a month ago. Since then, the Farrell family had called in all sorts of doctors, who all told them the same things: Yes, it was terminal. On television shows, there was always an experimental drug or radical course of treatment, but no, none of these were available for an African-American stage IV melanoma patient, not even a rich one. The cancer was too widespread for them to do anything but make her comfortable, which was what Tammy had already been doing before she went crazy and fired her nurse.

But the drugs couldn’t take away all of the symptoms. Eventually, Tammy had to be given an oxygen mask to assist her with what was supposed to be the basic bodily function of breathing. She started sleeping less and less, because the drugs often wore off in odd increments of time and the pain woke her up. A hospital bed was ordered. Two full-time nurses were retained. I moved back into the condo.

Ever since Tammy broke up with me that first time, I had dreamed of being invited to move back into her condo. Literally, I’d had this dream and then woken up sad because it turned out to be wishful thinking with pictures. I had imagined that one day she would see me in a new light, deem me worthy of her, and apologize profusely for how she’d treated me. But when I moved back in, the Tammy of my dreams was gone. The woman who used to greet everyone with a big smile and sunny laugh was now barely talking to me or anyone else. Davie came by several times and did her best to bring Tammy out of her fugue. But Tammy’s formerly generous reserve of optimism and goodwill had run dry.

I ended up having to take over her old role, coming into her room every morning and throwing open her windows and singing, “Wake up! Wake up!” like I was fucking Mary Poppins. I read to her from books that would have made me gag before but that seemed apropos now:
The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Love Song, Little Women … 
sentimental shit like that.

In a last ditch attempt to bring back the Tammy I knew, I got her a boxed set of Disney cartoons. I planned a festival around watching all of the Disney princess movies in their entirety, from
Snow White
to
Tangled
. This took
forever
. A whole week, because Tammy kept on falling asleep. Moreover, it didn’t work. The images flickered across her eyes, but nothing registered.

I told her that I loved her, whenever the two of us were alone. When the nurses were on break and there was no family visiting. These moments only happened once or twice a day, but I took advantage of them. “I love you,” I reminded her.

She didn’t answer.

But I persevered, because what else was I supposed to do? I had no career left. Gravestone had left me several angry messages culminating with a legal document that informed me I had been dropped from the label—just in case I was wondering if they’d take me back.

I went on ahead and gave up the lease on my apartment. I’d pretty much decided that after Tammy was gone, I would be leaving L.A. I was going to take what little money I had left from my deal and go to Merida, an artist community in Mexico. Merida was cheap as hell with a ton of expats who wouldn’t mind that despite being raised in California, I didn’t speak Spanish. I’d never been there, but I’d seen it on an episode of
House Hunters International
.

I had about thirty thousand dollars in the bank. My parents and my sister no longer spoke to me. And the only girl I’d ever truly loved was about to die. I’d never been so free. And I didn’t want to rush Tammy into death or anything, but I was almost looking forward to life after her. I could already see myself in my little Mexican apartment, busking for extra dough wherever the rich American tourists went the most. Not changing my hairstyle every six months to stay relevant. Eating whatever I wanted. Growing old and not caring.

It was going to be awesome. I was going to be awesome. After Tammy.

But then May second came around and I woke up to the sound of Tammy arguing with Veronica. Now this was strange, because Tammy hadn’t argued with anybody since the whole thirty seconds that she spent in the Anger stage back in April.

“What’s going on?” I said when I came into her bedroom.

Veronica, who was standing over Tammy’s bed, turned and glared at me. “I don’t know what your game is, or how you convinced her to leave you all of her money. But I will fight you tooth and nail before I let I take advantage of my sister.”

“What?” I asked.

Tammy took off her oxygen mask to wheeze out, “She’s not taking advantage of me. I’m giving her the condo and the money to pay her back, because I’ve been taking advantage of her.”

I froze. “Tammy, no, you don’t have to leave me anything. It’s okay.”

Veronica totally cosigned on this. “Yes, there’s nothing that she could have possibly done that would make her deserving of twenty million dollars. Listen to me, Tammy.”

Tammy took the mask off again. “I want her to have it. All of it.”

Veronica smoothed a hand over her sister’s shorn hair. “Tammy, you’re not thinking straight. The drugs, the cancer, they have you addled. I’m going to speak to our family lawyer tomorrow about giving me power of attorney.”

Tammy took several inhalations from the mask before taking it off and saying, “Ronnie, I’m gay. Risa has been my girlfriend off and on for the last ten years. And the only reason—”

“You’re not gay,” Veronica said, cutting her off. “Risa’s gay, but you’re not. You’re just friends.”

“I’m gay, Ronnie. And the only reason Risa and I ever broke up was that I was too chicken to tell you. I wasted my life trying to be who you and Mama and the world wanted me to be. That’s why I couldn’t tell people about the cancer, because I didn’t want anybody to see me like this, not even my family. I wasted so much time worrying about what other people thought.”

Tammy had to stop because she’d run out of breath. She put the oxygen mask back on.

“No, you’re confused. I know I kissed a girl once or twice in college myself. But I’m not going to let you throw away your entire fortune on some woman who has obviously been taking advantage of you if she’s convinced you to will her everything you have.”

Wow, Veronica sounded so sure of her negative assessment of me, I had to wonder if I was just imagining I’d been in love with Tammy this whole time.

But Tammy ripped the oxygen mask from her face and said, “Listen to me: I have let you boss me around all my life, Ronnie. All my life. But she is not ‘some woman.’ She is the love of my life. And she will get every fucking dime of my money, and if you don’t let it happen, I will haunt you from my grave and make your life miserable. I swear to God, Veronica.”

Having wheezed that, she put the oxygen mask back on and stared at Veronica angrily, sealing the threat.

Veronica was the first to break their glare-off. “I …”

She looked at me. “I …”

She looked back at Tammy. “I … fine. Whatever you say.” Then she grabbed her Chanel purse and clicked out of the room in her stiletto heels. A few moments later we heard the condo’s front door slam.

“Seriously,” I said after Veronica was gone. “I don’t want your money. I don’t need it. Just hearing you tell you sister off is enough to sustain me for the rest of my life. I don’t need food, water, or shelter. All I need to get by is that moment.”

Tammy didn’t laugh. Just took off the mask again and said, “You’ve got to stop smoking.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. I will one of these days.”

“Lisa.” She called me by my real name. “Lisa, look at me.”

I looked at her.

“You’ve got to stop smoking.”

And though I’d been chain-smoking like a mofo out on the guest room’s balcony to get myself through this grim shit, at that moment I somehow knew that I might as well flush the full pack of Parliaments I picked up last night down the toilet, because I was never going to touch a cigarette again.

“I don’t want your money,” I told her again. This was the truth.

“It’s my penance,” she said. “It’s the only way I know how to make sure that everybody knows how much I really did love you. I’m sorry that it had to be this way for us, Lisa. I know it’s all my fault.”

I shrugged, the biggest rock star in the room. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’m all about the forgiveness.”

She nodded, and I think she might have been smiling behind her oxygen mask as she closed her eyes. Finally coming out of the closet had been exhausting for her. I let her sleep.

The plan was to call Thursday, because how could I not gossip about something like this? But when Thursday said hello … when my best friend, who in this crappy story’s biggest twist was now in love with Tammy’s expretend-boyfriend, said hello, I found myself unable to talk around the salt rivers flooding out of my eyes and into my mouth.

“Risa,” she said. “I’m going to the airport right now and I will book the first flight I find to L.A. I’m coming, okay? I’m coming.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

About an hour later, Sharita showed up. She said that Thursday called, so she took the rest of the day off from work to come be with me. She held me like my mother used to hold me before I confessed that I was gay. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“She left me all of her money,” I answered, sobbing.

And that was when I realized that Tammy hadn’t been the only one in denial. In a way, her finally coming out sealed it. She was going to die. The One was going to die and there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do about it.

“Okay, we’re going to pray on this,” Sharita said.

And I loved Sharita so fucking much, because that was exactly what my mother would have said. I lay my head in her lap and let her pray over me. And I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up, it was dark and I was alone on the couch.

I stood up and stretched. The apartment smelled like food again, but in a good way. Sharita must have been making something for lunch, or maybe dinner, since it was dark.

My hunch proved true when I went into the kitchen and discovered a pot of black-eyed peas simmering on the stove and a pan of cornbread in the oven. But Sharita was not in the kitchen.

I found her in Tammy’s room. She was there with Thursday, who was holding Tammy’s hand. Thursday, who had claimed to hate Tammy the last time we talked about her at length.

EVERYBODY

T
he truth was more emotional than good breeding would allow. The truth was exhilarating. After years of hiding it, Tammy finally told her sister the truth, then she all but passed out, physically and emotionally spent. The truth, as it turns out, was also exhausting.

She dreamed of her first home in Houston, of large backyards, and afternoon teas, and pretty dresses, and seeing girls other than her sister naked as they changed in her room and then jumped into the pool she was lucky to have. So lucky, that Tammy’s mother insisted Tammy throw at least three pool parties the summer before her freshman year of high school, inviting fellow teens from a list carefully pruned and added to by her mother with a blue-ink fountain pen. One of the girls at the first pool party, the daughter of a black Republican judge, who was said to be on the short list for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court, said that she also wanted to try out for the cheerleading team at the private school they were both scheduled to start attending in the fall. Would Tammy like to practice with her? Maybe she could come over, when there wasn’t a pool party.