“Careful what you say. Knitting needles make for excellent murder weapons.”
“Always looking on the bright side, you are. Oh! Speaking of bright sides, I saw Caleb as I was coming home from school today.”
“Was he naked?” I asked.
“I’ll ask the pervy questions around here,” she noted. Why wasn’t she using more ChapStick?
“So was he?”
“I wish. He was taking out the garbage. Our eyes met as my mom pulled into the driveway. He smiled.”
“Did you?”
“Barely. I was afraid I still had puke chunks in my teeth.”
“That is quite possibly the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“From you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I thought that was obvious. So when do you flash him next?”
“Try never. I look so gross now. Holes in my arms and on my chest, no hair. Did I tell you my eyelashes are starting to fall out?”
I shook my head. “Maybe we can write Caleb an anonymous note, and he can flash you back. We could add it to the Fuck-It List.”
“How’s that going, by the way?” Becca tried to adjust her position on the bed, and every movement looked strained.
I tried to remain composed. “Okay. I haven’t done anything monumental. I’m saving some things for us to do together. Like the sleep on a beach one.”
“That’s meant to be romantic, Alex.”
“Then how do you expect me to do it?”
“How about hop a train like a hobo?”
“Admittedly, that’s one of my favorites. But, alas, no. Am I failing you?”
“Not at all! You did way more on it than I ever did, and it’s my list.” Becca started coughing but managed to calm herself before Helen arrived. “What about the last number on the list? Have you done that yet? I know it hasn’t been that long, but I thought maybe you and Leo…”
I pulled the list from my pocket and reread number 23: Have sex with someone I’m in love with and who’s in love with me.
“No. We haven’t had sex yet. And we’re not in love.”
“Yet,” Becca added.
“I’ll let you believe that because you have cancer.”
“You could totally love him, Alex. He’s completely your type: big, weird, a criminal.”
“He’s not a criminal.”
“Whatever. Fall in love with him soon, please, and have sex so you can tell me all about it.” She yawned.
“Maybe I’ll just fall in love with Caleb instead so you can watch us have sex from your window. That way I won’t accidentally leave out any details.”
“You better not. He’s my homeschool boy.”
“You’ve already branded him with your boobs. There’s nothing I could do anyway.”
We both laughed, and Becca’s laugh turned into a cough again. Helen’s big butt resurfaced. When the camera was free, Becca’s newly scratchy voice said, “I have to go. Keep me posted on number twenty-three. I’m counting on you.”
“And Caleb’s counting on you. Sweet dreams.”
“If only.” She hung up.
From downstairs, I heard the garage door close and my brothers’ clumsy footsteps fill the house with life. I didn’t want to be alone, a rarity, so I headed downstairs and spent two hours splayed across the couch watching AJ and CJ destroy zombies. It wasn’t quite as good as a movie, but their aggressive banter helped me temporarily erase the vision of Becca puking that was on repeat in my head. I must have been pretty fucked up to watch horror movie after horror movie, not to mention my brothers ripping intestines out of realistic dead humans, and only be disturbed by a little puke. Forgetting about that day, and so many others, felt like a constant goal. I hoped there would come a day I would want to remember.
CHAPTER 20
TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY were regular school days in the sense that I went to class, nobody threw up near me, and Leo and I didn’t spend any time in the book closet. His creative writing teacher was annoyingly holding him accountable for whatever it was he was working on, so I ate with my lunch friends listening to them talk about stage crew and trying to win me back.
“We miss you, Alex. The catwalk isn’t nearly as creepy without you,” Brandon told me.
“Yeah, and you already own enough black to blend in,” Eliza said.
“You’re really selling it, but I have an actual job and actual, you know, stuff I have to do with my evenings.”
“Watching Dead Hags 7 isn’t ‘actual stuff,’” Brandon air-quoted.
“If only that were a real movie,” I mused.
I spent both nights working at Cellar and cramming in homework when I wasn’t filling bread with assorted meats and cheeses. I liked the busyness, the mechanical yet artful nature of building a sandwich and delivering it to a hungry person. Sometimes I felt like the patron saint of subs. There probably already was one, from what I’ve read about saints, which wasn’t much. Except that there’s one for practically everything. I could totally fill out a pair of black wings. Do saints have wings?
Near the end of my Wednesday shift, Doug called back to me in the kitchen. “Alex, you have a visitor! Clean the bathroom first.”
“I’ll get right on that, Sir Subs-a-lot.” Nobody tells the Patron Saint of Subs what to do.
I wiped my hands on my grungy jeans and stepped out to find Leo waiting for me behind the counter.
“Hey,” he smiled.
“Hey,” I repeated, not matching him in enthusiasm. I didn’t want to get razzed by the college crew.
I stayed behind the ledge where we placed the subs ready for consumption. Leo leaned on the counter with his elbows, bringing his face closer to mine. The low lighting emphasized the freckles that seemed mismatched with the rest of his tougher exterior.
“Did you want something to eat?” I asked.
“Nah. Already ate. Thanks, though. Just stopped by to say hi.”
“Picking up your comics?”
“Yeah. New Buffy and Walking Dead are out.”
“Buffy comics any good?” I asked. “I liked the show.”
“They’re really good. Most of the time. They had this totally weird plot where Angel and Buffy had sex in space. I didn’t quite get it.”
I nodded as though agreeing with something. I wasn’t sure how to respond to Buffy space sex.
“I guess I’ll let you get back to work,” Leo said as he drummed a little tune on the counter.
“Thanks, I guess,” I said. “See you tomorrow, maybe?” The question felt awkward, like what I was really saying was “Will you be sticking your hand down my pants in the book closet?” But curious minds wanted to know.
“I have to meet with my teacher every day this week for my independent study, so I won’t be able to, you know, hang out.” He had some unbuttoning on his mind, too.
“Okay.” I shrugged. No big deal.
“What about Friday night?” he asked.
“What about it?” I couldn’t remember if we had talked about something, and I forgot again.
“Do you want to hang out? Maybe watch a movie? You know I’ve never seen Basket Case 2 or 3.”
