Part 26 (2/2)
”Sounds like a plan.”
”If we could only get high school to hurry itself up and get out of our way.” Before we arrived at school, Becca had me park in a dis- creet spot on a side street. ”You were right about Caleb having some- thing for me.” She dug through her bag.
”Please tell me he did not give you his detachable p.e.n.i.s.”
”Better,” Becca said, and pulled out a joint.
”Homeschool pot, huh? Caleb's full of surprises. Maybe next he'll tell you he's really a demiG.o.d from Asgard.”
”You want to try it?” Becca lit up the joint as if she had been smoking professionally.
”No. Unlike you, I have no excuse for acting like a gla.s.sy- eyed paranoid with the munchies in homeroom.”
”Don't judge. It helps me eat.”
”I'm not judging. Just promise me that when the cancer's over you won't turn into some Phish- loving pothead. I would have to divorce you.”
”Duly noted,” she coughed.
Becca walked with her hand on my shoulder into the school. I wasn't sure if she needed help balancing or the extra a.s.surance on her big -1- day back. I chose not to ask, pretending it was all normal. Before 0-
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parting ways at my locker, I handed Becca the bag of cookies for Mr.
Cooper. ”You can be the messenger.”
”But you made them.”
”It's off your f.u.c.k- It List, Becca. And, I might add, something you could totally have done yourself. If I weren't so trusting, I'd say you were taking advantage of me.”
”I am, and you are one of the least trusting people I know.”
Becca walked off slowly with the bag, and I watched as a con- cerned and adoring crowd swarmed her. ”Let me know if you want me to call Norman Reedus and his crossbow!” I called after her.
”And try not to scarf all the cookies!”
I waited to see Leo as the hallway crowd thinned, but he didn't show at my locker. That wasn't unusual, since we weren't really the locker- meeting types. Still, we did have s.e.x Friday night and I did have a bag of cookies for him. Oh G.o.d, what if I didn't have time to explain that the bag of cookies was a consolation prize and instead he thought I baked him cookies because of the s.e.x? I set the bag inside my locker and headed to fi rst period.
Leo was nowhere to be found at lunch or art, our usual meeting times, but I was so busy fending off Becca's cancer groupies that I didn't mind. Breaking up with someone, even if we weren't techni- cally together, was unpleasant for all involved. My guilt meter was pretty much ratcheted to full. Any more, and it might overfl ow.
The end of the day came, and still no Leo. I guess I'd postpone the cookie drop until tomorrow.
But tomorrow came and went, and still no Leo. I worked Wednes- day and Thursday, and Leo didn't visit, nor did I see him in school.
I didn't want to call him or text him. First of all, he hadn't called --1 -0 -+1 15 3.
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or texted me in all this time, which wasn't very cool. But if I did, that just seemed like leading him on in some way. What if he was avoid- ing me? I was annoyed with the unknown, so I decided to do a little detective work.
Friday morning, Becca and I got to school early. I hadn't driven her since Monday, since the walking and talking and human contact seemed to knock her around more than she expected. Like a school- loving crazy person, she was determined to try again. I was glad to have her there to a.s.sist me in my Leo recon. She wore a red wig, shoulder length, with thick bangs. Apparently her mom went on a shopping spree at a costume shop and bought Becca no fewer than seventeen wigs. They didn't always help her feel well enough to stay in school all day, but at least she looked good. And gave her mom an excuse to go shopping.
We headed to the front offi ce, and when Becca entered, it was like the moment where the birthday girl enters her surprise party.
The secretaries screamed; the vice princ.i.p.al patted her back. My G.o.d.
Cancer was a strange disease. I fi nally managed to get Mrs. Novak, the oldest and most crotchety of the secretaries, to recognize there was someone else in the offi ce besides Becca.
”How can I help you, dearie?”
It may have sounded sweet, her calling me ”dearie,” but she only did so because she couldn't recall my name from the other fi fteen hundred students, no matter how many tardies I got.
”I have a friend”- even that felt odd to say-”who's been absent this week, and I was wondering if you knew why.”
”What's her name, dearie?”
-1- ”It's a he. Leo Dietz.”
0- Mrs. Novak typed briskly onto her computer keyboard. The
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