"You didn't know Valerie had cancer?" my mom took a sip of her coffee. "I could have told you that."
"Well you didn't tell me, so I never knew," I watched a blue-haired waitress struggle to balance a tray full of pancakes and maple syrup on her shoulder. She stumbled past our booth to the table behind us. My mom never picks the Perkins for dinner when she comes down from Connecticut, but it's my favorite. She always complains that the service is too slow. My stomach rumbled and I thought she might be right for once.
"Her mother told me around the time Grandma O'Shaughnessy came to live with us," my mom set down her coffee cup. I cringed as it clattered against its saucer. "You went through your grandma's entire illness and Valerie never brought up her own cancer once?"
"I said I never knew." When I think about it, it does seem strange that Valerie wouldn't have mentioned it back then. I talked a lot about Grandma O'Shaughnessy. I still do, from time to time. About her soft black hair that she only got to keep through one round of chemo. She wouldn't let me see her without her hat after that. About how she remembered Ireland. The dampness there was inescapable, worse than any Pennsylvanian April. One day she left her bedroom window open too long and when she returned she found the pages of her favorite Madeline book curled up at the edges, ruined by the wet air. How warm her mother's socks were on her feet, and how you couldn't find that quality of wool anywhere anymore, not least in shiny, clean America. About the way that she talked, the morbid fear of saying the Lord's name in vain, and how some of that seeped into my speech. Janey Mac, and Gosh, and Darn. I took a sip of my lemonade and missed the lilt of my grandmother's voice.
"She probably didn't want to give you false hope," my mom hypothesized. "Your grandma was terminal from diagnosis."
The sharpness of that sentence made me wince.
"That would require too much foresight," I said. "Valerie's all about hope, false or otherwise."
"People will surprise you," my mom ran her fingers around the rim of her cup. "Like your father, getting an annulment after all these years. What's the point?"
"He wants to date again." I took another sip of my lemonade.
"Then date," my mom picked up the straw wrapper I had discarded on the tabletop, "it's not like there's a gun to his head, you must follow the law of the Church to the letter," she chuckled. "If I did that, I'd want to kill myself too."
"Dad doesn't want to kill himself," I mumbled. "The Church tells you not to kill yourself."
I thought about how Grandma O'Shaughnessy prayed. I saw her purple rosary beads, spun between the swollen joints of each finger. Even before she got sick, and we lived up in Boston, I remember hearing her knees popping as she knelt beside her bed. She used to tell me the lore of family I never got to meet; a sister in a nunnery, with enough education to have multiple PhDs and a keen appreciation for comparative religion, who devoted herself to Christ after a pair of rubber soled shoes saved her from a lightning strike. An uncle who ended up working in the ports in London, who'd be pelted with apple cores and empty sardine tins by his Anglican coworkers in the canteen every time he'd bow his head to pray. It had seemed to me, then, that the stories of those long dead ancestors were strung together as if bead by rosary bead. And that each prayer I said was a way to keep their hearts beating- with each offering and intention, I'd seek for them that eternal life you read about in John 3:16. That's what kept me on my knees after Grandma O'Shaughnessy died and I thought my faith would have come tumbling down. My father is his mother's son. The Church has some meaning to him, even if all logic in his life - every screw up, every failure, every tragedy- tells him otherwise. Maybe, I thought, that was something I could understand now too.
"It's more complicated than just dating," I added. "Everybody's different."
"It's bullshit, Stevie," my mom tied my straw wrapper into a bunch of knots. "All this Church stuff, it's a way of keeping people in line."
"Maybe it is," I admitted, "and maybe when you die all the afterlife is the hallucinatory effect of your brain shutting down, I don't know. But that's not what I want to believe."
My mom chortled.
It stung.
I wiped the condensation off my glass with my fingers. I could feel my mom's gaze on my cheeks. I looked up. There was a sudden softness in her eyes, as if she were looking at a baby bunny or little child. Then she said this:
"Oh, honey," she squeezed my wrist, "I only want you to take control of your life. Be happy. Have you thought about getting a boyfriend?"
I choked on the irony.
***
It was 2:12 PM, Friday, October 13th. Almost exactly seven days into my post-Valerie life. I was sick of it, but I didn't know what to do to make it better.
It was also the day of our homecoming game. And so, we had the first of the two pep rallies scheduled for the year (the other one is held on the day of the Central Linden/East Linden game in November). The band was piled into one area of the bleachers in the commons building's basketball court, while the rest of the student body filled in all around us. There had to have been over three-thousand teenagers packed on those bleachers. The walls were wet. We played our typical repertoire, on-and-off for the first thirty minutes. Now, with fifteen minutes left in the day, we got a small breather while our school's principal, Mrs. Durante, announced the homecoming court. Most of the kids I hadn't met before. They were part of a small clique of basics that actually cared about things like football games and homecoming dresses. Don't get me wrong, everybody had a chance to vote for homecoming court. The ballots boxes were in the cafeteria all week, out in the open. But the only person I saw filling out a ballot was Jan. And he wrote in "John Mulaney" for every position.
"And now, the King and Queen of the homecoming court," Mrs. Durante shook an envelope in the air. "Drum roll please!"
She lifted open the lip of the envelope before she realized there was no drum roll.
"DRUM ROLL PLEASE," Mrs. Durante repeated, and shot a death glare at the percussion section, set up on floor behind her. "START DRUMMING, BLONDIE," she snapped at Jesse. He pursed his lips, and shrugged apologetically, like he hadn't been paying attention. I still loved that boy, even if it were pointless. The bleachers erupted in laughter, and Jesse led the percussion section in a protracted drum roll. Mrs. Durante did not look amused.
"Your Homecoming King is," Mrs. Durante announced into the microphone, "Jorge DeJesus!"
That wasn't a surprise, to be honest. The quarterback of the football team was pre-determined the head of the homecoming court. The clique of basics who actually voted had no other choice. Their hands were tied. Jorge ran onto the floor. He threw both arms into the air and waved at all sides of the bleachers. Aside from the basics, no one cheered.
"And your Homecoming Queen is," Mrs. Durante's microphone was almost drowned out by a preemptive drum roll from the percussion section. She glared at Jesse, who dropped his sticks. "Autumn Schmidt!"
Jorge's girlfriend, no surprise there. Basics, hands tied, etc. Autumn met Jorge at the center of the basketball court, and pageant-queen waved at the student body, who, by and large, still didn't cheer.
"Oh come on," Mrs. Durante growled, "GIVE YOUR HOMECOMING COURT SOME APPLAUSE!"
The clique of basics in the first row of the bleachers went nuts as if to make up for everybody else's complete apathy. A few of the more loserly bandos also started clapping too, at least until Mr. Lang scowled disgusted at them. 'Don't cheer for football players,' he mouthed and lifted his conductor's baton. We got ready to play Central's victory march. I had just picked my trombone up off my lap when the microphone squeaked. We all looked to Mrs. Durante, who had been approached by Autumn Schmidt and Mrs. More.
"Uh, your Homecoming Queen would like to say a few words," Mrs. Durante handed the microphone to Autumn.
"Hi everybody, I'm empowered you voted me Homecoming Queen," Autumn smiled like she were on the Disney channel, "and as President of the NHS, I spend a lot of time doing community service here at Central. My latest work has opened my eyes to an issue that needs to be addressed."
Beside her, Jorge nodded. His nostrils flared. He looked like he was filled with the Holy Ghost and about to testify, or maybe speak in tongues. He pulled the microphone to his lips, even though Autumn still clutched it.
"It's a serious issue," he agreed, "tragic."
Autumn two-hand-tugged on the microphone, but Jorge kept talking: "We take so much for granted-"
Autumn now yanked so hard that she nearly fell backwards. Jorge had to relinquish control in order to catch her.
"Thank you," Autumn said to Jorge, but she didn't sound very grateful. "As you know, my dear friend Valerie DiPaolo is suffering from a debilitating condition called fibromyalgia."
SHE HAD CANCER, I dropped my trombone onto my lap and slammed my face into my palms. NOBODY KNOWS SHE HAD FREAKING CANCER.
"I did some research about the condition, and what I learned shocked me," Autumn sounded like the sensationalist narrator of a true crime documentary. "The medical community does not, and I quote," she made bunny ears out of two fingers, "'fully understand fibromyalgia.' They don't know what causes it, and they're not even looking for a cure."
"It's sickening," Jorge bent his broad torso so far down that his lips nearly touched the microphone still in Autumn's hand. "These are people's lives we're talking about! Big Pharma is a criminal racket!"
Autumn winced and took a few steps away from her boyfriend.
"That's why I'm pleased to announce that I've created a new community service initiative with the NHS," Autumn gestured to someone on the first row of the bleachers, and Christy MacDonald struggled to carry to the center of the floor a very large poster. Mrs. More jumped out from the court's sideline and rolled out the opposite side of the poster, so that the words "BLEACH FOR A CURE" were visible.
"Ginger is super popular color right now," Autumn explained, "so tomorrow afternoon, before our dance, the NHS will hold a bleach-a-thon, right here in the basketball court, and all proceeds will go to fibromyalgia research." She combed through her chestnut hair with her fingers. "I'm inviting you all to join me in bleaching for a cure."
"My girlfriend, everybody," Jorge shouted, teeming with pride. "This is my girlfriend!"
"Can we have some applause for this young lady," Mrs. More took the microphone from Autumn.
A few feeble howls came from the basics in the first row.
"Can we have some applause for Valerie, at least?" Mrs. More pleaded.
And then there was thunder all around me. People clapping, people cheering, people pounding their feet on the concrete bleacher floors.
"Where is Valerie?" Mrs. More asked. "Would she like to come down?"
"COME ON OVER, VALERIE!" Jorge bellowed. "YOU DESERVE A BIG JORGE HUG! #STOPFIBROMALGIA2k17!"
I scanned the band section for Valerie, ginger hair and clarinet.
She was nowhere to be found.
***
A/N: Fun fact! This Friday is October 13th. I had no idea when I was writing, or when I began my uploading schedule that I'd be able to line up the dates- but the next update on Friday the 13th will be covering events that happen to Val and Stevie on Friday the 13th. It's a happy accident.
Anyway, thanks for voting, reading, commenting! <3 next update Friday