I hoped it had, but I wasn’t so sure. Nothing, not even my Calvin-Taylor-really-is-a-vampire story, had seemed to cheer her up.
“I’ve spoken to Mr. Handleman,” she went on, “and it looks like—when she’s well enough—Olivia is going to be able to Skype her classes. But if there’s work that can’t be delivered via computer, I told him you or Jake could be the point person. I hope you don’t mind.” We were standing in front of the elevator, and Mrs. Greco pushed the down button.
“Of course not. I’m glad to help.” My parents always said Olivia was a part of our family, but I didn’t know if the Grecos felt the same way about me. Like, even though Livvie had been calling my parents Ed and Cathy since the day she met them, I still called her parents Mr. and Mrs. Greco. Sometimes I worried that they thought I was a bad influence on Livvie because our family wasn’t religious, my parents let me go to R-rated movies, my dad was a freelance journalist, and my mom earned more money than he did. Meanwhile, the Grecos went to church every Sunday, Mr. Greco was a lawyer who wore suits and went into the city every day, and Mrs. Greco was a stay-at-home mom. Livvie said I was totally paranoid, but I wasn’t so sure.
I didn’t want to explain to Mrs. Greco my whole theory about her thinking my parents were agnostic lefties with no family values, but I wanted her to know how much I loved Olivia. “I really hope you’ll rely on me in any way you can.”
I had this fantasy that Mrs. Greco would hug me, ask me to call her Adriana, and tell me that to her and Mr. Greco I was like family, but she just patted me gently on the cheek. “Of course,” she said. “We know we can count on you.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Greco,” I said. The elevator doors opened and I got on. “That means a lot to me.” And even though I was the one who said it, I couldn’t decide if I was being sarcastic or not.
I missed the train to Wamasset by less than ten minutes, so I had to kill almost an hour waiting for the next one. Penn Station’s got lousy stores, but whenever Livvie and I were stuck waiting for a train, we always managed to find something fun to do, even if it was checking out a shop full of lame touristy stuff or trying on tacky clothes we would never buy. Today, though, the time dragged while I wandered from Hot & Crusty to Duane Reade to New York Inc., finally settling in the waiting area, where I just sat and stared at the board listing the train departures. I couldn’t stop thinking about how sad Livvie had been all afternoon. Not that she shouldn’t have been. I mean, if getting a diagnosis of leukemia doesn’t give you the right to be sad, what does? But the crazy thing was, she almost hadn’t seemed sad about having cancer. It was like not teaching the dance class had been the straw that broke her back.
How was she going to last through weeks of treatment—months of treatment!—with nothing to look forward to besides Skyping her classes and receiving a daily inspirational message from the cheer squad? Thinking about her squeezing her eyes shut to stop herself from crying made me furious, and when I stood up after they announced the train to Wamasset, I was actually shaking my head, as if I were having an argument with the universe about the unfairness of it all.
And the worst part was, there was nothing I could do. I chucked my empty coffee cup in the trash and headed down to the platform. Dr. Maxwell’s telling me Livvie needed her friends suddenly felt like a bad joke. What did she need her friends for—so we could bear witness to her misery?
It wasn’t until the train was almost at my stop that I had my brainstorm. If Olivia could Skype her school classes, why couldn’t she Skype other classes? My hands were practically shaking with excitement as I dialed her number.
“Hey,” she said. She sounded really tired.
My idea burst out of me. “Let’s teach the class together.”
“What?”
I realized from how fuzzy her voice was that I must have woken her up, so I repeated myself, enunciating each word carefully. “Let’s. Teach. The. Class. Together! The dance class. We can use our phones. Or I’ll bring my dad’s laptop or something.”
There was a long pause.
“You don’t have to do this,” Livvie said finally. “I know you don’t want to do this.”
Was she serious?
“Livvie, come on. It’s so nothing.” Given what Olivia was going through, the idea that teaching her dance class with her was some big sacrifice had to be a joke.
I heard a voice in the background, and Livvie said, “I’m okay, Mom. Really.”
“Do you have to go?” I asked her. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“It could be a big job, Zoe,” said Olivia, ignoring my offer. “I might … I might be pretty sick sometimes, and … I mean, you might have to do it by yourself.” It sounded like she might be crying a little.
I made my voice mock angry. “Oh, so you think I can’t run a ballet class for beginners? Thanks a lot, bi-yatch!”
Olivia laughed. Like, really laughed. “The recital’s a lot of work—” she began.
“I’m not taking no for an answer,” I interrupted her. “So just, you know, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.”
There was another long pause. I stayed quiet, watching dusk turn the sky over New Jersey a deep purple.
“Zoe, are you sure?”
“Oh my God!” I cried, slapping my hand against the seat next to me. “Will you stop already? I’m doing it and that’s final.”
And suddenly Olivia didn’t sound tired or sick at all. “The girls are so great,” she said, speaking quickly. “I mean, they’ve just had the worst lives, but they’re still really into dancing. This one girl, Imani, she’s lived with four different foster families in the past year. Can you imagine that? Four families!”
I laughed. “Zoe, you don’t have to convince me. It was my idea, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah,” she said. Then she added, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if I’d staged this whole cancer thing just to get you to teach the dance class with me?”
“Hilarious,” I said. The computerized voice announced, “The next stop is Wamasset. Wamasset is the next stop.”
I heard her mom in the background, and this time Olivia said, “I gotta go.”
“Of course,” I said right away. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Zoe.” Olivia sounded slightly out of breath.
“Love ya,” I said, and then she said, “Love ya,” and we hung up. I walked to the door of the car. Even though I hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it, I felt good. Really good. Waiting was the worst. Waiting to visit Olivia. Waiting for her to get out of the hospital. To get better. To come back to school.
Doing something—even teaching a dance class—beat the hell out of waiting.
Jake had offered to give me a ride to the rec center, but it wasn’t his car that pulled into my driveway at eight thirty on Saturday morning.
It was Calvin Taylor’s.
Even before I saw Calvin’s car, I was already in a bad mood. There was some problem with the hot water heater so my shower was freezing. Then I couldn’t find a pair of ballet slippers. That might not be weird for most people, but all my life I’d had a minimum of