The elation that came from speaking Jack’s name and making up things about him was gone. So was the coolness I’d felt a moment before. It was the tone of her voice that did it. Her tone told me that no matter how far ahead of Fiona I’d always been when it came to periods and overall polish and style, no matter what we’d been through together as best friends forever, no matter if she came to visit me three times a week, minimum, I was in another category now. This made me feel so hollow and alone I couldn’t at that moment imagine anything good happening to me ever again.

“No, forget it. I’m talking crap,” she declared. “I’m just jealous. Go for it. Promise you’ll go for it.”

I stood up so fast that dark spots flashed around the room. Fiona leapt to her feet and steadied me while I groped for the bed and sat down again, bowing my head to keep away the stars. From the corner of my eye I could see Cloud sitting upright on the quilt, ousted from my lap and awaiting instructions. Fiona pretended she had come over just to pet my kitten.

“Poor girl . . .” She pressed the fur back with her thumbs until she was crooning to the face of a little wide-awake gnome. “Poor baby! Have you lost your place?”

4

“Another sip?” asked Grandma, steering the straw to my lips, her voice a wavier version of my mother’s. I sucked in without opening my eyes. Ginger ale. Essence of chemotherapy. It’s supposed to help the nausea, but now the taste itself makes me feel sick. I sipped it anyway, because it also tastes of comfort. My whole life is like that. Nothing is just one thing or the other.

I opened my eyes. My grandmother’s face was frowning down at me, her hair puffed around it in light brown scallops. My grandparents live downtown, only half an hour away, but they come and stay with us when I’m going through chemo. They were here when we got back from the hospital. I knew my grandmother had gotten a cut and perm for her visit, and this fact alone made me want to cry.