After Ever After Page 9

  Thanks for saying that, Mother. It didn’t make me too uncomfortable.

  Luckily, Lindsey called me right then, which allowed me to flee to my room. I swear, if my parents had started kissing or something, I would have had to rip my own eyes out of my head to make the pain stop.

  The next Monday I said something I shouldn’t have. I was talking with Lindsey during a science lab. We were measuring water, then boiling it for a while, then measuring it again, then boiling it again, et cetera. Lindsey was the boiling-and-measuring person, and I was the timer. Again.

  I don’t know why the spacey kid is always the timer. And then Mr. Laurenzano wonders why our results don’t make sense.

  But anyway, the boiling took a few minutes each time, so we had long stretches with nothing to do. Lindsey was filling me in on what was going on with her friends back in California. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t keep all the Tiffanys and Alexises straight from the Ferns and Topangas, but I tried really hard to nod at the right times.

  I must have messed up, though, because all of a sudden, Lindsey was stomping her foot and looking mad, but I had no idea what we were discussing. “Isn’t that, like, so wrong?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s, like, super-wrong. Ultra-wrong, even.”

  Then she laughed. “I just told you that Brittany-with-a-y has a cat, and it just had new kittens. I knew you weren’t listening, you big goofball!”

  I don’t know how she can stand me sometimes. She just shrugged it off and continued, though. “No, really, I did get a little upset about one thing that happened. Remember I told you about Brittanie-with-an-i-e, and her ecology project?”

  “Uh, maybe?” I said hopefully.

  She elbowed me in the gut, but smiled so I knew it wasn’t an angry elbowing. “She’s the one who watched the toads in the pond on that vacant lot? And that company was going to build six hundred condos right over the pond?”

  “I totally knew that, Linds.”

  She snorted. “Anyway — ooh, the water is boiling! Quick, write down the time!”

  While I was writing and she was measuring, she said, “Well, it turns out that those toads are endangered, and that the pond qualifies as a protected wetland. And Brittanie-with-an-i-e’s dad is this high-powered lawyer. So he filed an injunction at the county courthouse, and now the developers can’t build anything there! She’s, like, an environmentalist hero. Oops, watch that burner!”

  “Yikes!” I said, yanking my sleeve away from the open flame.

  “So I was thinking about it, and I just got a little bummed.”

  “Wait, I’m confused. Why are you bummed again? Are you, like, anti-frog or something?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not anti-frog. And they’re toads, anyway. It’s just that Brittanie did something big. She turned a school project into something that really made a difference in the world. I wish I could do that. I have this project due in May for Mrs. Delpriore’s English class — I’m supposed to make a video documentary on an issue that matters to me. I want to make it important, you know?”

  Mr. Laurenzano said, “Lindsey, that is a splendid ambition.” Geez, don’t you hate it when teachers sneak up on you? “That is, if you and Jeffrey manage to survive this experiment without setting yourselves or anyone else on fire.”

  “No problem,” Lindsey said. “Stop, drop, and roll, right?”

  If a boy had said that, Mr. L. would have probably launched into a big safety lecture. But he just gave that little teacher-pretending-he-isn’t-really-amused-by-a-student’s-joke chuckle and moved on to harass somebody else.

  As soon as he was a table away, I made my big mistake. “Lindsey,” I said, “you sound just like Tad.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah. A couple of weeks ago we had this whole big argument, because he wants to come up with some kind of grand gesture that nobody will ever forget. I told him he should just be nice, and it hurt his feelings. But the point is, Tad wants to do something important, too. Maybe you guys could — I don’t know — save a tree or something.”

  Look, it was just an innocent comment, OK? I was just attempting to show some support for my girlfriend, and maybe trying to show her that Tad cared about more than just trading insults with people. I had no idea they were going to go off on some massive holy crusade or anything.

  But as soon as I said that, Lindsey started staring off into space with a disturbing gleam in her eye. In fact, if our water hadn’t boiled over onto my lab notebook at that exact moment, she might still be in the lab, brainstorming ways that she and Tad could turn my whole life upside down. But it did, and she got distracted for twenty-five whole hours, until she and Tad sat down for lunch the next day.

  And began to make plans.

  When I got home from school, the day of the boiling-water lab, I didn’t feel quite right. It got worse after dinner, and by seven o’clock, I was violently sick to my stomach in the bathroom. Repeatedly. Now, one thing you have to understand about cancer survivors is that we have a lot of experience with, shall we say, reverse digestion. The people around us might get all flipped out about it, but pretty much any illness I get isn’t a big deal compared to what I’ve already been through.

  That’s why I was calm, even when the fever and shakes started at around nine. Mom, on the other hand, was about as calm as Bambi after the forest fire. So, believe it or not, she took me to the emergency room. My dad stood in the doorway, gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder as we headed for the car, and waved stiffly from the porch until Mom and I turned the corner. Mom was sporting ragged sweatpants, some kind of horrendous do-rag on her head, and the ancient tie-dye T-shirt that she slept in when her good ancient tie-dye T-shirt was in the wash.

  As we pulled over on the highway for the second time in a mile so I could hurl in a hedgerow, I thought, Wow, this is just like old times. Except back in the day, Steven would have been around to tell me I was going to be OK.

  And then I thought, I don’t need Steven to tell me that anymore. I know I’m OK.

  Huh, how about that? It’s not often you have a major life-changing realization right in the middle of feeding the highway department’s hydrangeas. Eventually I got back in the car, we made it to the hospital, and I spent the rest of the night having all sorts of unpleasantly familiar blood work. At about six AM, when my fever had broken and I was passed out on an exam-room bed, my pediatrician, Dr. Purow, came in to tell me that — surprise — I was fine. It was just a stomach bug.

  Mom got all teary-eyed and hugged me, right in front of Dr. Purow. Sheesh, like this whole scene hadn’t happened every time I had a fever for the past eight years. Then she asked how many days of school I would have to miss. He told her the usual: no school until at least twenty-four hours after my fever went away.

  And that’s why Lindsey and Tad got to have lunch alone together, head-to-head, conspiring against me, for the next three days. For the first day, I mostly slept. My biggest adventure was in the afternoon, when I staggered downstairs to eat a plain cracker, which made me super-sick all over again. On the second day, between frantic phone calls from my mom ordering me to keep sipping Gatorade every twelve seconds, I spent a couple of hours doing math on the computer. Then I IM’d back and forth with Lindsey for a while:

  LFromCali:

  Hi. Miss U.

  Dangerous_pie:

  Me 2.

  LFromCali:

  Howya feelin’?

  Dangerous_pie:

  Still N2G. No school tmw.

  LFromCali:

  2 bad. T misses U 2.

  Dangerous_pie:

  T? T who?

  LFromCali:

  Tad, of course.

  Dangerous_pie:

  He hasn’t checked in.

  LFromCali:

  Yes. Asks me every day.

  Dangerous_pie:

  Y not check in w/me?

  LFromCali:

  IDK. U call him?

  Dangerous_pie:

  He’s
not the sick 1.

  LFromCali:

  Hm. Grumpy much?

  Dangerous_pie:

  Bored. The highlight of my day was my lunch. Blue Gatorade. Woot.

  LFromCali:

  Aww. Did U practice math? T wants 2 know.

  Dangerous_pie:

  Then he can ask. But yeah. Y?

  LFromCali:

  U have 2 pass. What would I do in HS w/o U?

  Dangerous_pie:

  Nervous breakdown?

  LFromCali:

  Ha. U need 2 B there 2 protect me from the HS boys.

  Dangerous_pie:

  But then I’ll be a HS boy.

  LFromCali:

  My HS boy. Different.

  Dangerous_pie:

  I’m practicing.

  LFromCali:

  Good. BTW, I know a secret.

  Dangerous_pie:

  What?

  LFromCali:

  T + a girl.

  Dangerous_pie:

  ???

  LFromCali:

  BS

  Dangerous_pie:

  What did I say?

  LFromCali:

  No, her initials are BS. Brianna Slack.

  Dangerous_pie:

  !!! How? She hates him.

  LFromCali:

  They aren’t going out or anything. But remember that whole thing U told me about her asking him all about his walking? That’s exactly what I did w/U. So I told him she must have liked him.

  Dangerous_pie:

  2 yrs ago!

  LFromCali:

  I know. But he has decided 2 be nice 2 her + see what happens.

  Dangerous_pie:

  Wow. I can’t turn my back on that kid 4 1 minute.

  LFromCali:

  G2G. Mom wants me.

  Dangerous_pie:

  Bye.

  LFromCali:

  L8r.

  On the third day, after school, I got a long e-mail from Tad. Life was just getting more and more interesting.

  TO: dangerous_pie@jerseynet.com

  FROM: nevr_sarcastic@jerseynet.com

  Hey D.A. —

  Lindsey tells me you’ve been projectile vomiting for days on end. Sorry to hear it. I would have gotten in touch sooner, but I was too busy listening to your really bad advice. Oh, and your girlfriend’s, too. Because you’ve given me such massive quantities of bad advice over the years, perhaps I should be more specific: I am referring to this ridiculous “be nice” thing. And Lindsey’s “Brianna Slack Attack Plan: Phases 1–3.”

  I have been trying to score points with Brianna for two days now, and so far the score is Humiliation: 3, Tad: 0. Yesterday, I got up my nerve as she was putting condiments on her sandwich at lunch. I wheeled my way over, cleared my throat, picked up the ketchup bottle, and said, Hey, Brianna, do you want some ketchup? Unfortunately, I couldn’t see her sandwich from my angle. She gave me the kind of look usually reserved for use against, say, a gigantic sea slug that’s swallowing one’s toes, and said, Sure, Tad. That is your name, right? I always put ketchup on my Italian hoagies. Dork!

  Then she walked away in a huff. If it’s possible to slink in a wheelchair, I slunk back to our table, where Lindsey was dying to know what happened. Brianna’s totally hot for me, I said. Although admittedly, she’s hiding it pretty well.

  Lindsey was all Be patient, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Which wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at that exact moment. Plus, who actually says that anyway?

  Anyway, L. convinced me to try again later on. So on the way out of gym, I made sure I was behind Brianna. I was trying to think of an excuse to talk to her, when she whirled around and said, What are you doing? I said, What do you mean? She said, You’re, like, stalking me. I said, What? It’s a public hallway. She said, Yeah, but you haven’t been within ten feet of me since sixth grade and now you come up to me twice in a day. What are the odds? Then she stormed into the stairwell, and I once again wheel-slunk away.

  I don’t remember Brianna being this tough in sixth grade. Do you?

  Yeah, yeah, I called her Zitzilla. But isn’t an otherwise charming guy like me allowed one slip of the tongue over the entire course of a relationship? Needless to say, Lindsey told me this morning that I should try again. According to L.’s warped thinking, Brianna’s angry reactions show how much she cares.

  You know, deep down.

  So I gave it one more shot today in English class. We were talking about Cyrano. (By the way, read Act V and write a response journal for tomorrow. OR whenever you get your head out of the bucket.) Miss Palma asked whether we felt people deserve a second chance in life. Here’s the little dialogue that followed:

  Brianna:

  I think people definitely deserve a second chance.

  Me:

  I agree. Brianna is 100 percent right.

  Brianna:

  Unless they’re sleazy, insulting idiots. Me: Which they aren’t.

  Brianna:

  (Snort)

  Me:

  No, I’m serious. What if a certain person just said one thing in anger? Are they supposed to be an outcast forever, just because of one moment of weakness?

  Brianna:

  Totally. Especially if they’re, like, famous for saying mean things anyway. My mom always says, Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So why give a serial insulter another chance to strike?

  Me:

  Oh, like the insulter just insulted the insultee for no reason at all? It was just a random act of, um, insultment?

  Brianna:

  No, apparently the insulter did it just for fun. And THEN, to top it all off, this person didn’t apologize for two YEARS.

  Me:

  Maybe he, or SHE, should have said something sooner. But maybe he, or SHE, didn’t know how.

  Brianna:

  He doesn’t usually seem to be at a loss for words.

  Me:

  (Takes deep breath) Well, he’s sorry now.

  Brianna:

  Not accepted.

  Miss Palma:

  Um, does anyone else have a feeling we’re not exactly talking about Cyrano anymore?

  So that’s it. Three strikes and I’m out. Like I even care what old Zitzilla thinks anyway. Although I must admit, her complexion has cleared up remarkably. And she does look rather fetching when she’s furious.

  Your nice friend,

  Tad

  PS — I know the throwing-up thing is rough. Keep your chin up, old boy. Unless that causes you to choke to death.

  Needless to say, I didn’t choke to death. Instead, I staggered back into school on Friday and got swarmed by well-wishers. I guess if everyone remembers you as the town’s leukemia poster child, it only takes a three-day absence for the populace to start planning the spaghetti socials and car washes all over again. Tad snickered about “Little Saint Jeffrey’s Return to Homeroom” until I said, “People would worry about you, too.”

  He said, “No, they wouldn’t. When I was absent for the whole week, I came back and found a FOR RENT sign on the back of my seat. You’re the chosen one, Jeff.” He sounded just like Steven. Swell. You can never have too many people who resent you.

  When we got to gym, Tad could barely make it onto the treadmill, and managed only maybe a minute at one mile per hour before he hit the big, red EMERGENCY STOP button. “Dude, are you OK?” I asked as he collapsed back into his chair.

  “Totally … fine,” he wheezed. “Just … a … little … winded.”

  Yeah, and Bill Gates is a little rich. I figured Tad had goofed off during his week in the hospital, and then again while I’d been out. Well, that would have to stop ASAP. I didn’t want to nag, especially with how touchy he’d been lately, so I just said, “I guess we’ll take it easy today, but you have to promise to train harder tomorrow. I heard a rumor that Brianna likes guys with really ripped quads.”

  “So does your —” he said, then stopped to catch his breath. Wow, this wasn’t good. Tad had never been too tired to ins
ult my mother before.

  I walked over and put my hand on Tad’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he insisted. “Nothing a little quality time with your mom wouldn’t fix.”

  That was a little more like it. By the time I was done with my free weights, Tad seemed totally fine. Then after the bell rang, he wheeled out to the hallway at top speed. “Places to go, people to see,” he said. “Don’t wait up, OK?” For a second, I wasn’t sure why he’d be in such a rush, and then I remembered: Brianna.

  For the next couple of weeks, Tad gradually got his strength back. Meanwhile, I kept going to my after-school classes AND getting tutored. Tad helped me to catch up on the three days of lessons I’d missed, which was a plus, because we had a math midterm at the end of January and I got an eighty-three on it. I never mentioned to him that I’d used our tutoring time to visit Lindsey, and he never told me that he and Lindsey had a little conspiracy of their own going on.

  All the while, Tad continued to be nice to Brianna, and she continued to treat him like most people treat toe fungus. But at least Tad and I were getting along OK for a while. Things didn’t start to fall apart until Mr. McGrath gave yet another pretest for the statewide math exam.

  Did you ever take a test and think you totally aced it but then get it back and realize it had totally aced you? Well, I thought I had absolutely rocked this thing — I even finished all of the sections early. We spent two whole sessions on it, and then it took Mr. McGrath another week to grade our work. So for two weeks I walked around feeling like the King of Math. I even bragged to Tad and my parents about my newfound speed.