Julie Halpern - The F- It List

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.”

“That’s right!” The thought of schooling a horror fan on the blinding brilliance of Basket Case had me jazzed. “So much different from Basket Case the First.”

“Basket Case the First? Is that really what it’s called?”

“No. But it makes it sound fancy. As fancy as someone with a mutant twin brother that used to be attached to his side can sound.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Want to come to my house? My parents are going to a play. We can watch on the massive screen my dad installed in the family room.”

Massive screen didn’t resonate nearly as much as his parents going to a play. Potential book closet times ten.

“Yeah, okay. Sounds fun.” We both smiled this time. “Speaking of fun, I have to go pretend to clean the bathroom, so…”

“Maybe I’ll see you in the halls. Definitely on Friday.”

“Bye.” I waved. The anticipation of Basket Case and a parent-free house made heat rise to my cheeks. Maybe we’d just watch the movies, like we did with Army of Darkness. But that was in a movie theater.

I punished my overactive imagination by actually cleaning the bathroom. I don’t know how clean it got because I didn’t technically touch anything, just sprayed all the surfaces with a disinfectant cleaner. The next person to use the toilet would get a wet awakening on her ass. Serves any freak right for not squatting above the pot in this place. I threw a new urinal cake in the men’s room and grossed myself out at the name. What sick bastard would call something you piss on a “cake”? Then my brain went into horror mode, at some psychopath’s birthday party where the birthday cake was a stack of frosted urinal cakes with a candle on top. As I left the men’s room, I laughed at myself.

“Someone’s got a boyfriend,” Ila sang.

“I was thinking about urinal birthday cakes, if you must know,” I scolded.

I didn’t have a boyfriend. I had someone to watch horror movies with while my best friend was too sick with cancer. Who somehow got me hot and bothered enough to clean a bathroom. Not a boyfriend at all.

BECCA AND I TEXTED on Thursday whenever I could get to my phone without it being confiscated.

I had only Skyped with Becca since she started her treatment, and the only time I saw her in person was for her vomitous half hour at school. She said as long as I didn’t bring any germs into her house I could come over and watch Battlestar Galactica with her. This would be my fourth time watching the series, Becca’s fourteenth. She was obsessed with the actor who played Lee “Apollo” Adama, the son of the Galactica’s admiral and number 21 on her Fuck-It List: Touch Jamie Bamber’s butt. That was one of my particular favorite numbers because of the sheer impossibility of it. I thought that’s what a bucket list was supposed to be filled with: things one could only dream of doing. Lucky for me, I guess, Becca had a more attainable list that I could help her with. Except for number 21. And maybe the one about the hobo.

When I arrived at her house, Becca’s mom answered the door. She hugged me like we hadn’t seen each other in months. The same hug she gave me after my dad died. I was lucky she didn’t gouge out my eye with the bedazzled Star of David she sported. The only reason I ever regretted being a Jew was the fact that I couldn’t wear big crosses around my neck like Buffy. Mrs. Mason’s jazzy Jewish star didn’t have quite the same vampire-repelling tendencies. It sure was big though.

I quickly retreated to Becca’s room. Becca was camped out in her bed; vases of voluminous flowers and crinkly balloons were everywhere. Wadded up balls of wrapping paper littered the floor, and boxes of shrink-wrapped DVDs were scattered over her bed.

“Holy shit. It’s cancer Christmas,” I declared.

“Even my dad sent something. Six missed birthdays, but the possibility of his kid dying and he gets sentimental. Not that this thing is very sentimental.” Becca held out a blocky stuffed animal hamster. “Watch this,” she said, and squeezed its hand. “You’re a toolbox douchecake,” she spoke at the beast. It repeated back her words five times the speed, high pitched and eerie. The worst part was the way its tiny mouth moved, as though it was really calling me a douchecake.

“This is the first time I have ever liked your dad,” I told her.

“You can have it.” She tossed it to me, but the throw was short.

“I have a younger brother to terrify with this, thank you.”

“Anytime. What do you think your dad would have gotten me?” Becca asked. The question froze me, repeated back in the chitter of the Chatimal.

“I don’t know. I mean, I never thought about it. Do you?”

Becca looked exhausted, and her initial excitement at my visit faded from her voice. “I think about how he would probably say funny things. Maybe he’d come visit me in the hospital. Buy me a viper stuffed toy instead of a talking rodent.”

It wouldn’t have felt as bad if the dead dad we were talking about weren’t mine. I was jealous. That my dead dad would bring things to my sick friend in her imagination. The subject needed changing immediately before I said the wrong thing. “What right do you have to get gifts from my dead dad?” came to mind.

“Somebody bought you Kim Kardashian’s perfume?” I noticed a bottle on her desk.

“That’s the ass of my dreams,” she sighed.

“To look at or to have?” I asked.

“Maybe just to look at. Or, like, squeeze just once.”

“You think if you squeeze Kim Kardashian’s ass, her perfume comes out?” Laughs turned to coughs, and I regretted the hilarity.

“Come sit down and share in my spoils.” Becca patted the blanket when she finished her coughing jag. I sat down next to her and looked toward the TV.

“Where are you?” I asked, regarding which season of Battlestar she was on.

“‘Unfinished Business.’ I just love that Lee and Kara finally have sex.”

“Of course you do,” I said. “This is a good episode. I love watching Starbuck kick Hot Dog’s ass.”

“That is good.”

“If you were a pilot, what would your call sign be?” I asked. We’d had the conversation a million times, but it was one of our favorites. Battlestar Galactica pilots had really cool nicknames, like Athena, or truly dorky ones, like Narcho. “I’ve got one for you: Vixen.”