With This Heart (21 page)

I dubbed contestant number ten the winner. There were balloons, confetti, and a crazy light show. My head was spinning by the time I slid off the stage with Queen Bee.

“
Thanks for letting me go up there with you,” I said, walking out from behind the partition after I’d changed back into my normal clothes. My hair was still twirled in pretty waves and my make-up seemed thick enough to last a few years.

Queen Bee looked up at me from her director’s chair. “It was an honor. You’re welcome back any time. The crowd loved you.” She smiled at me, and we stood, taking each other in for a moment.

On stage, her drag queen get-up fit in so well, but now that we were back in the dressing room, I could see the glitter starting to sweat down her cheeks and one of her false eyelashes was starting to peel off at the edge.

“
Could I know your real name?” I asked boldly. I had no clue how the politics of this world worked. Was I supposed to understand that when we were in this club and when he was dressed up as a she,
she
was known as Queen Bee?

She looked at me for another second, tapping her manicured finger on her crossed knee. “Danny.”

I nodded in appreciation. It felt like he was letting me in on a little secret by revealing that to me. “My friend’s name was Caroline. I missed her death because I was in the middle of a road trip.”

I could already feel the tears fighting to fall.

Danny nodded twice slowly, letting my confession sink in. “Do you think she was upset about that?”

I thought about his question and then smiled at the memory of Caroline threatening to call in a bomb threat about me. “No. To be honest, I don’t think she was upset. I just wish I could’ve seen her one last time.”

The closure of a final goodbye seemed like it’d been ripped from my hands by fate.

“
Are you going to finish your road trip?” Danny asked, starting to unpin his pink wig.

Finish the road trip? I hadn’t even had time to consider it. Yes, we’d had fun, and the main reason for taking the journey hadn’t been even been accomplished. But I pushed the thoughts away. I couldn’t think of anything beyond dealing with Caroline’s death.

“
I’m not sure,” I answered truthfully.

After I’d collected all of my stuff, I hugged Danny, took his business card, and then bid my farewell to the best place on earth. No, not Disneyland. The Transing Pranny.

But the moment I passed through the doors, the hand clamped around my lungs once again and I struggled for breath.

Caroline was gone.

Even though I was mostly sober by the time I exited the club, I still opted to take a cab to my parent’s house. I texted my mom to tell her that I was on my way. It was late, and she hadn’t seen me in almost a week, but she didn’t seem upset when the cab pulled up. She and my dad opened the front door and enveloped me in a tight bear hug, squeezing me until my organs protested.

“
What were you thinking, going on a trip without letting us know about it? And why is your hair and makeup done like that?” my mom muttered. I knew her questions were rhetorical because she threw me into another body-squeezing hug before I even had time to formulate a response. I let her tug me closer. I was coming down from my drag queen-induced high and the security of my parents’ embrace threatened to break the seal on my tears.

My mom was still hugging me when she whispered into my ear, “Honey, I’m so sorry.” My hands, which a moment before were gently resting on her back, grasped her shirt for dear life. My fingernails dug into the thin cotton fabric. I squeezed my eyes shut, but tears still found their way down my cheeks. Hearing her say it out loud was more than I’d prepared myself for on the cab ride over. Caroline’s emaciated face melted into my thoughts. Her sunken cheeks, her sad, dark eyes. Our last conversation on the phone was too short. Had I even told her I loved her? Did she know that I would have never survived treatment without her?

She was gone.

I melted into my mom’s arms and let her hold my weight as I surrendered to the sadness. I felt all of it. I didn’t shirk away from the absolute, all-encompassing pain that threatened to bring me to my knees. I’d experienced death and dying. Some could argue that because I knew Caroline was going to pass away, that my grieving process would have been different, but it was a different kind of grief that I felt.

I was enraged for Caroline’s sake. Yes, I was sad that my best friend would no longer be my best friend and that I had a gaping hole in my life, in my heart. But I was just so livid at the world for ripping Caroline’s life out of her hands. She was slow to anger, sweet and kind in every instance. If anyone deserved to
not
have cancer, it was Caroline. So I was left with this pit in my stomach that shattering a thousand urns would never fix. I was too young to be so cynical, but there was no way to avoid it when you learned that being good all year didn’t mean Santa Claus left you toys; it meant that no matter how hard you fought, the cells in your body were going to do anything they wanted. We were helpless to the mechanisms that made us humans. They controlled destiny, not us.

“
When did she pass away?” I asked once I thought I could speak without a sob breaking through.

“
Late last night,” my mom answered.

I breathed in silent sobs, inhaling whiffs of my mother’s perfume.

“
Her funeral is on Thursday,” my mom offered.

Two days. Two days to think of how I would commemorate Caroline’s life in a eulogy.

…

I fell asleep sobbing in my old room while my mom tried to console me. I’d wanted her to stay with me last night, and when I woke up, she was still by my side, sleeping peacefully on her back. I reached over to kiss her cheek before gathering all of my stuff and sneaking out of the room. The stairs creaked as I made my way down, but my dad must have still been sleeping as well because no one greeted me at the bottom. I slipped my shoes on and sent my parents a text about heading back to my apartment so they’d know where I was when they woke up.

My car was still sitting in the lot outside of the club from last night, so I took a deep breath and started my trek to get it back. I decided to take a cab most of the way, but when we were close to the street I had the driver drop my off so that I could walk the last mile. It was a pretty morning in Dallas. The summer sun had just barely risen, so it wasn’t scorching hot yet. I desperately needed a change of clothes and a shower. The awkward glances from fellow pedestrians told me how crazy I probably looked with my slept on curls and make-up.

In an effort to avoid any more judging stares, I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked the missed text I’d spied earlier. It was from Beck, sent right after midnight.

Beck
: I’m really sorry about Caroline, but don’t give up on humanity just yet.

I didn’t have much longer before I reached my car, but I still hit ‘call’. The phone rang and rang. I walked a city block and he still hadn’t answered. Before I could think of hanging up, the call dropped to voicemail and Beck’s gravelly voice filled my ears.

“
Hey, this is Beck. Leave a message.”

Short and sweet, but it felt good to hear his voice. I didn’t leave a message. Calling him had given me an idea, and when I reached my car and was in the security of my own space, I dialed Caroline’s number.

It rang, filling the silence of my car, and I wondered if maybe her parents would pick up. Did they have her phone? What happened to a person’s phone when they died? Someone had to be charging it.

Then the voicemail clicked on and my heart dropped when I heard her voice.

“
Hi! This is Caroline. I’m sorry I missed your call. Feel free to leave a message.” I sat paralyzed for a second, but then the electronic beep went off and I started to talk to her as if she would pick up any moment.

“
Caroline, it’s Abby,” I broke down, letting my head fall forward onto the steering wheel. “I miss you so much. I can’t believe you’re gone…I broke my urn in the desert when I found out you lied to me. Why’d you lie to me Caroline? Or were you hoping for the best?” I paused as a sobbing hiccup hijacked my vocal cords. “You just left me. I went on a road trip and you didn’t stop me…You should have stopped me! I would have been there in a second. You’re my best friend, what am I supposed to do without you?” I paused and ran my finger along the worn leather. “I have so much to fill you in on…”

So I sat in my car, leaving her voicemail after voicemail until the tears overpowered my vocal cords.

I had to sit in that car for an hour before my eyes cleared enough so that I could see the road on my drive home.

I was the last person to speak at Caroline’s funeral. I’d tried my best to stay composed as her parents and family recalled stories and anecdotes about her life, but it was a losing battle. I bent down to light the Donut Shop candle that was meant to smell like coffee and then stepped behind the podium. My heels sank into the soft grass as I shuffled back and forth, eying the note cards in my hands and willing my voice into submission. When I finally looked up, the sun was shining through one of the trees overhead so that I had to squint to keep my eyes from watering.

“
My name is Abby Mae McAllister,” I began, and the microphone rang out a high pitched noise causing everyone to groan and cover their ears. I cleared my throat awkwardly and shifted a few inches away before trying again. “Um… I never knew Caroline when she was healthy. We met when we were both sick and staying in the hospital for treatment. She was wearing this pink bow headband the first time I met her…” I held my hand over my head to show them how high the bow had been. “We met in a group for sick teens that I had planned on skipping. My mother eventually talked me into going, but I wasn’t in a socializing mood. I remember sitting on a metal chair moping when Caroline plopped down in the seat next to me. This was a support group for kids in the hospital, mind you, so it wasn’t surprising that most of the people there had a gloom and doom attitude. But, not Caroline. She wouldn’t stop talking. She yammered on forever and eventually I had to cave and answer her for fear that she would never stop.”

“
She was an in-your-face type of person. She weaseled her way into my life and took root until one day I woke up and couldn’t go a single day without talking to her. We bonded over everything: boys, books, annoying nurses.” I half-smiled toward the nurses who’d come from the hospital. “We talked about our funerals as most sick kids do. It takes the edge off. As if by talking about death, suddenly it no longer holds power over you.” I cleared my throat and shuffled behind the podium, pleading with my tears to stay in the corner of my eyes.

“
She had a few demands for today.” I looked down at the note cards shaking in my hands so much that I couldn’t actually read the scribbled words anymore. I recalled the night in the hospital when we were supposed to be sleeping in our separate rooms, but the nurses looked the other way. We stayed up late laying out what our funerals would be like as if it was one big joke.

“
She wanted all of her old friends from school to be here.” I looked up to where a group of teenagers sat wiping tears away with tissues. I hadn’t seen any of them visit Caroline in recent months. “She wanted the service to be outside. A place she rarely got to visit in the last few weeks.” And then I smiled at the last request. “She also demanded that I bring Orlando Bloom as my date. I tried to contact his people, but I never heard back, so instead I brought this.” I motioned toward the lifeless prop next to me. I’d searched everywhere around town and could only find a cut-out of him dressed as an elf from Lord of The Rings. The top of the cardboard was bending forward so that his bow looked rather limp.

I cleared my throat and pressed on. “I told her that I would play “Sweet Caroline” as a joke. She forbid me under penalty of death,” I paused at the finality of that word before taking a deep breath and continuing, “but Caroline was my best friend. We were there to push each other’s buttons, so in one last attempt to annoy her…”

I bent down and hit play on the iPod lying next to the podium. Neil Diamond’s voice began to croon through the speakers as I took a step back. I had to stay up front while the song played so that I could take the iPod and candle off at the end. My eyes scanned the rows of people, taking in the crowd. They all held sad smiles and wet tissues. I didn’t recognize most of them. They must have been her relatives. So many of them shared her dark brown hair. My parents were up front with Caroline’s mom and dad.

My eyes kept scanning until I passed by her old high school friends. Then I looked toward the last row of seats that was occupied by a single person: Beck.

He sat with his hands folded between his legs. He was wearing a fitted black suit with a black tie that sat crooked around his neck. He looked like he was a boy on the cusp of manhood. His unruly brown hair wasn’t styled or anything, but it was still longish on top, curling at the ends. He filled out his suit perfectly, as if he’d owned it for years but only recently grown into it.

I couldn’t believe he was there. And yet I’d hoped he would be.

He was watching me with sad hazel eyes, and for the first minute of that song, our eyes never left each other. My gaze held immense grief, his held immense empathy. But then as the song kept playing and the crescendo hit, Beck sat up straight and lip-synced the words. His eyes closed and a smirk spread across his lips. He put his heart and soul into each syllable and then when the “bum, bum, bum” of the trumpet hit, he punched his hand into the air three times with the beat.

No one else could see him, but that didn’t stop me from starting to laugh. Leave it to Beck to put life back into perspective. Caroline wanted me to be happy; she wanted people to sing at her funeral, not cry. So I reached down and spiked the volume of the speakers until the sounds of sniffling were drowned out. The song’s happy tempo blasted on and Beck and I brought it home, singing loudly and pointing to each other when the lyrics called for it. We were separated by an audience of grief, but our singing pushed through it.