I closed my eyes, then opened them. Izzy was still standing there, clutching the bouquet. What was going on? Why had Sam done this?
“It’s a miracle,” Izzy said. Her eyes glowed feverishly. Tiny beads of perspiration covered her upper lip.
I gave her a hug. The sweet-bitter smell of the flowers, crushed between us, filled the smoky air.
“ ‘Love, Sam,’ ” she said, amazed. And then her smile went flat and her eyes rolled back in her head and she slipped through my arms to the floor.
Chapter 8
AFTER THE SCHOOL nurse and the crowds and the ambulance and the chaos, I ran to the phone in the lobby to call my mom and see if she’d drive me to the hospital. The ambulance guys had told me there was no way I could go with them. And I’d taken the bus to school that day so the car could have some carburetor work done. I was struggling to retrieve a quarter from my backpack when someone touched my shoulder.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“I thought you were gone already,” I said, too frantic to think about the flowers he’d sent Iz.
“I was just pulling out when I saw the ambulance. Some guy in the parking lot told me it was Izzy.”
“She passed out. Damn it, I always have tons of change in my purse—”
“I could take you to the hospital.”
“Good, yes, that would be good,” I said.
I kept seeing her blank face, which had been the thin blue-white color of skim milk. “Her cap fell off,” I said shakily. “You could see that awful scar. I made them put it back on her head before they took her out.”
Sam reached for my arm, and we hurried down the hall. We were almost out the door when I heard someone call my name. A hall monitor, I figured, but it was a stubby, nervous freshman carrying one white carnation.
“Are you Dumbo?” he asked.
“What? No, that’s my friend.”
He thrust the carnation at me. “Could you give this to her? We’re, like, totally screwed up on deliveries.”
I scanned the card. It was from Steve.
“Another secret admirer?” Sam asked as we headed out to his motorcycle.
I put on my helmet. “What do you mean, another?”
Sam looked a little hurt. “The … you know. The flowers.”
It took me a second, but it finally clicked.
They’d switched the flowers. Duh.
“Damn,” I said. “That’s all Izzy needs.”
Then I felt something awful: relief. The flowers had been for me after all. And I was glad.
“A simple thanks will do,” Sam said.
“Thanks,” I said. “But why couldn’t you have put my name on the front of the card?”
“What’s wrong, Alison?”
“It’s not your fault, Sam. It’s mine. Let’s go see Izzy, okay?”
As we rode to the hospital all I could think of was Izzy’s gloriously happy face as she’d clutched that bouquet.
How could I ever, ever tell her the truth now?
Lauren and Miguel were already there by the time we arrived. “She’s fine,” Lauren said. “Just too much too soon, and a reaction to the medicines she’s taking. I knew I shouldn’t have let her go back to school.”
“She insisted,” Miguel reminded her.
“Can we see her?” I asked, breathing in the smells of disinfectant and sickness.
“They’re moving her to an upstairs room,” Miguel said. “You can see her there. Room 402, I think. We’re going to talk to the doctors, then we’ll be right up.”
“But stay for just a minute,” Lauren said. She gazed at the white carnation I was still holding, then at Sam. “You’re Sam, right? We met at the party.”
He nodded.
“She said something about some flowers you … It was nice, it meant a lot to her. Thanks.”
“Actually—” Sam began, but I tugged on his arm.
“We’ll see you upstairs, okay?” I said quickly.
By the time we were out of earshot he was shaking his head. “They screwed up the flowers, didn’t they? Since you were right there in the lunchroom when I bought them, that guy said, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it, I’ll just walk them on over now.’ But then Steve came by, and I have a feeling things got messed up.”
“Look,” I said, “just play along, okay? She was so thrilled, Sam. You should have seen her face.”
“But they were for you.”
“I know.” I touched his shoulder. “I’m glad.”
We headed toward the lobby, a cheery area painted in primary colors. “I’m going to call my mom and tell her what happened and that I’ll be here for a while. Can I bum a quarter?”
Sam fished in his jeans pocket. “Here. Alison, I can’t just let Izzy think I’m interested in her—”
I held up a finger, then called the clinic and told Janet, the receptionist, what had happened. Sam leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking distracted and a little annoyed.
Just as I hung up, Steve and Gail bolted into the lobby. “She’s upstairs,” I said. “She’s okay, just a reaction to her medication.”
“Thank God,” Gail said.
“Who’s the flower from?” Steve asked as we herded into the elevator.
“Flower? Oh. You.” I thrust the carnation at Steve.
“Misdelivered. They’re as bad as the post office.”
When we got to the fourth floor I pulled Sam aside. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but trust me, okay? If Izzy brings up the flowers, just go along with it. Shrug and say ‘Aw, shucks’ or something.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alison. She’ll get the wrong picture.”
“I know that. But this is the wrong time to give her the right picture. You didn’t see her lying there on the floor, Sam.”
Sam stared at the ceiling.
“Look, she’s bald, she’s got a mile-long gash in her head, she just passed out, and to top it all off, she had the tuna supreme at lunch. Give the girl a break.”
He grinned reluctantly. “I’m a lousy liar.”
“Yeah, but you’re good at keeping your mouth shut, and that’s the next-best thing.”
“You are one very interesting girl, Alison,” he said. “A little weird, but very interesting.” He reached over and gently caressed my cheek. I wanted to kiss him, but instead I made myself move away.
Izzy was sitting up in bed, with Steve and Gail on either side. She looked pale in her yellow-bunnied hospital gown, but otherwise unscathed. “Well, well, the gang’s all here,” she said.
Steve thrust the carnation at her. “It got side-tracked,” he explained.
Izzy read the card, laughed, and gave him a hug. She smiled shyly at Sam. “And speaking of flowers …”
Sam looked at me for guidance. “Yeah, well—”
“You have to admit, fainting was a bit of an overreaction, Iz,” I said quickly.
“Time out. What am I missing here?” Gail asked.
Lauren and Miguel entered. “Okay, enough socializing,” Lauren scolded.
“Bye,” Izzy said reluctantly. “Next time I’ll try to time it better. Maybe faint during an English test.”
As we filed out Izzy grabbed Sam’s hand. I pretended not to notice, leaving him to fend for himself.
I said good-bye to everyone else and waited in the hall for Sam.
“What did she say?” I asked when he emerged.
He cast me a worried look. “She said she felt the same way,” he said.
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Take care.’ ”
“Good, good, this is good.”
Sam shook his head. “Let’s go. We need to talk.”
I gave Sam directions to Turtle Beach. It was still nice and hot, and we sat on the sand and let the water play over our bare feet. Sam was very quiet, which was good, because it gave me time to fine-tune an idea that was percolating in my brain.
“A lot of loggerhead turtles nest ar
ound here,” I said at last. “Izzy and I monitored a nest up there late last spring. The mother turtle comes from thousands of miles away to the beach where she was born. She lays her eggs, and then when they hatch about sixty days later, the baby turtles head straight for the water. It’s incredible to watch.” I paused. “This year, Izzy may not … she may be, you know, too sick.”
Sam scooped up a handful of sand and let it rain down softly on my toes. “Alison, you can’t let Izzy believe something that isn’t true. It isn’t right—not for her, not for any of us.”
“Just hear me out,” I said. “What if you—just for a little while, I mean; you don’t have to marry her—what if you pretended you were interested in Iz, maybe went out with her a few times? It’s not like it would take a lot of acting skill, Sam. After all, she’s funny and brilliant—did you know she was a Westinghouse semifinalist? And you have to admit, she is beautiful.”
“Well, she’s no you.”
I laughed. “Yeah, she’s the beautiful swan, and I’m more, say, gerbilesque.”
Sam abandoned the sand. He moved closer to me, so close I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. “You are beautiful, Alison, just for the record. Izzy is too, in a different way. But don’t ask me to lie to her. I can’t. It’s not right.”
I watched a young couple walk arm in arm down the wet brown sand. “Have you ever been in love, Sam?”
He wrapped his fingers in my hair, and an electric tingle traveled the length of my spine. “Funny you should ask,” he whispered. “As a matter of fact, I think I am right now.”
I let myself savor the sweetness of the words. Then I fixed my gaze on Sam. “Well, Izzy never has,” I said. “I don’t know why. Maybe she intimidates guys, who knows.”
Sam trailed his fingers down my arm. “I don’t want to know about Izzy. I want to know about Alison.”
“Funny you should ask,” I said softly.
Sam took my face in his hands.
“Wait, Sam. Wait. I have to tell you something. It’s about Izzy.” I felt my voice losing power. I didn’t want to say it out loud because that would make it real. “She’s going to die, Sam. Soon. She has only a couple of months. And she doesn’t … her parents won’t tell her.”
Sam pulled away and stared out at the water. “I’m sorry, Alison,” he whispered. “I’m really sorry.”
“All I’m asking is that you spend some time with her. Get to know her. She’s so great. And she deserves to know what it’s like to really care about someone. She’d know what it was like to have a boyfriend … and I know she likes you.”
I was crying. Damn, I thought. I didn’t want to cry because I wasn’t sure why I was doing it. I wanted to know it was for Izzy and not for me.
“Izzy deserves better,” Sam said. “She deserves more than a stand-in.”
“She does,” I replied, my voice hoarse. “She deserves to go to college and win a Nobel prize and have kids and travel the world and grow old. But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
Sam took in a long breath. “Why are you really doing this?”
“Because … because she’s my best friend and I love her and she’s dying.”
“So you’re willing to give up whatever it is that’s going on between us?”
“I don’t want to give you up,” I said. “I just want to share you for a while.”
Sam stared at me. His gaze was flat and impenetrable. “That’s not how it works, Alison.”
Before I could answer, Sam was already striding across the beach. The soft sand filled in each footstep as quickly as he left it, as if he’d never really been there at all.
When Sam dropped me off at my house, I eased inside the front door and paused in the hallway. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone if I could avoid it. The air was filled with the garlicky tang of my dad’s tomato sauce, and I could hear him in the kitchen, singing along (badly) with his favorite Grateful Dead CD. Loudly too, which explained why they hadn’t heard Sam’s bike.
Sara was in her bedroom, bouncing her basketball off the wall, a habit my mother had long since given up trying to break.
In the living room, my mom was sitting back on her heels, wiping up a semichewed pile of something that vaguely resembled a slipper of hers. Strands of hair had escaped from her blond braid and fell in wisps around her face.
“I clean up dog vomit all day, Jim,” she was saying. “I am a veterinarian. I live and breathe dog vomit. All I am saying is, we have too many pets.”
“Just a dog, a cat, and a horse,” my dad called from the kitchen. He danced (badly) into the living room, a wooden spoon in one hand. “Man, you’re one gorgeous hunk of woman,” he said to my mom.
She held up a piece of paper towel. “I am scraping dog vomit off your fifteen-year-old carpet with the cat pee stain we have to cover with your mother’s sewing basket, and you are actually capable of having impure thoughts?”
My father bent down to kiss her, then let her taste the tomato sauce.
“More garlic,” she said.
“No way.”
“Way.”
It was like an old, reliable sitcom I’d watched a thousand times, my very own Gilligan’s Island. Every day I would tune in and they would still be there, my father and mother and Sara, doing silly, normal, boring things. That’s what I’d always thought, anyway. But I’d always thought Izzy would be there forever too.
“Hi, guys.” I stepped out of the shadows.
“Alison, honey, how’s Izzy doing?” my mom asked. She tossed her cleaning supplies aside and sat with me on the couch.
“She’s okay. A reaction to the medicine, mostly.”
“I called Lauren at the hospital. She said Izzy’d be out by tomorrow.”
“We sent her some balloons,” my dad added. “Corny, but we figured it was more upbeat than flowers.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I’ve got sauce simmering,” he said. “Dinner in fifteen minutes.” He touched my hair. “You okay, sweetie?”
“I’m okay.”
My mom put her arm around me and we sat there, side by side. I leaned my head on her shoulder and tried to remember how it felt when I believed she could fix everything.
Bogey, our aging Labrador mix, sauntered in and casually nosed the site of his crime. He jumped on the couch and draped himself over our laps.
“We have too many animals,” my mom said. She sniffled and I realized she was crying. “Damn. I didn’t know what to say to Lauren. What do you say to someone who’s watching her daughter die?” She grabbed a piece of paper towel and wiped her eyes. “How’re you doing with this, baby?”
“It doesn’t feel real,” I said. “Izzy’s there at school with me, and nothing’s changed except she doesn’t have any hair. That’s how it should be. I mean, I don’t want to treat her any differently. I want everything to be just the same, because I think that’s what she wants.” I scratched Bogey’s ear, considering. “But … there’s this guy.”
“Sam, of the Harley.”
“You know?”
“I doubled your money to Sara.”
“Why didn’t you ask me about him? You were supposed to freak about the Harley. That’s the whole point, Mom.”
“Your dad did. But I gave him ten bucks.” She stroked my hair. “I knew you’d get around to telling me sooner or later. Besides, I once had a dark, mysterious man who rode a motorcycle.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but your dad sold it for a VW Beetle.”
I smiled, for the first time in what seemed like decades. “The thing is, I want Sam to date Izzy.”
“Ah, the plot thickens. And how does Sam feel about this?”
“I think maybe he thinks I’m insane. I also think maybe he thinks he loves me.”
“And is this reciprocal?”
I hesitated. “It doesn’t matter. This is about Izzy. She likes Sam too. I think she could like him a lot. And I thought maybe if they dated for a while …”
&nb
sp; “Alison, it’s not quite that simple. Maybe,” my mom said gently, “you need to think about why you’re doing this.”
“For Izzy. Who’s dying. That part is simple.”
“You know, just because she’s sick, hon, it doesn’t mean you have to put your life on hold. Just because something bad’s happened to Izzy doesn’t mean you can’t have good things happen to you. You think she’d want that?”
“This isn’t about guilt.”
“Maybe not just guilt.” She sighed. “Love is scary sometimes.”
My father reappeared, still brandishing a spoon. Tomato sauce striped his cheek like war paint.
“I rest my case,” my mom whispered. “Scary stuff, love.”
“Who’s in love?” my dad asked.
“No one,” I said, sliding out from under Bogey. “Not me, not Izzy, no one’s in love.”
“Try my sauce?” my dad asked. “It’s new and improved.”
“I don’t think so, Dad.”
He looked a little disappointed.
“Alison,” my mom said. “Just be there for Izzy. And we’ll be there for you, okay?”
“Thanks, Mom. I’m going to go clean up.”
I paused in the hall. “Dad?” I called.
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“Trust me on this,” I said with a weary smile. “It needs more garlic. It always needs more garlic.”
Chapter 9
THE CARBURETOR IN the station wagon was fixed, so I was drafted to take Sara over to a basketball scrimmage at her elementary school Saturday morning. As she climbed into the front seat, wearing her baseball cap, I suddenly thought of Izzy. If sickness could happen to Izzy, it could happen to anyone—to Sara, even. It seemed I could not look at the world anymore without seeing it through the dark lens of Izzy’s illness. If it was hard for the rest of us, I wondered how Izzy managed to get through the day.
We stopped at McDonald’s on the way. “Do you think Mom and Dad will ever die?” Sara asked between sips of her chocolate shake.