IT’S BEEN FIVE DAYS SINCE MY MOTHER FIRST went into a coma. I’ve missed school. I’ve missed shifts at the club. I’ve missed work at the restaurant. And in a week I’m going to miss out on the biggest opportunity of my life.
I stare down at a table in a cafeteria I’ve become way too familiar with. Chuckie and Scuzz sit across the table from me. I can’t bear to look at either of them.
“Damn!” Scuzz exclaims.
“Why’d you do it?” says Chuckie. “Why’d you tell Hawk he could get someone else? Fever meant everything to you.”
“I had to,” I tell them. “I need to be here for Ma. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her.”
“I don’t get it, Mar,” says Scuzz. “She’s been such a shitty mother to you. Why do you have to be such a good son to her? It just felt like for once you were getting what you deserved. You were doing big things with your music and getting away from home…. And even with all that, she still found a way to ruin everything for you. That pisses me off. I’m tired of seeing her do you like that.”
“I know you guys don’t totally understand,” I say. “But you have your mom and your sisters, Scuzz. And Chuckie, you have your mom, and your dad, and your brother…. You have real families. When my father died, I felt like I lost that. My mother’s a nightmare most of the time, but she’s the only family I’ve got. I want to see her come out of this and be okay again. She was trying really hard to fix things. She was sober for at least thirty-three days. That never happened before.”
“I don’t care,” Chuckie snaps. “Trying or not, she still blew it for you. This was your big shot, Marley. She always ruins everything. We’re your best friends. We’ve been watching her destroy your life for years now.”
“I know,” I say. “You’re right, I fucked up.” I put my head down on the table and close my eyes. “I’m just so tired of everything. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“It’s all right, Mar,” Scuzz says, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. “You’re gonna get through this. And she’s gonna be fine. She always is.”
I lift my head and look across the table at Scuzz and Chuckie. “I know you mean well,” I tell them, “and I know that you’re right about everything. But it’d really be great if we could talk about something else for a while. Anything other than my mother and her overdose and this hospital and the contest. Please.”
“We can do that,” says Scuzz.
“Sure,” says Chuckie. “We only want what’s best for you.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you tell us about your girl? About Lea.”
“There is no girl,” I say. “We didn’t even get to go on our first date.”
“She been to visit?” Scuzz asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve talked to her on the phone a couple times, but no. I can’t ask her to come to the hospital. It’s still so early on, you know? We were only starting to get to know each other.”
“Really?” says Chuckie. “Because Lea doesn’t feel that way. She told us she was coming.”
“You talked to her?”
“At school. She came over and asked how you were doing. Said she was planning to visit. She’s nice.”
“I like her too,” Scuzz agrees. “She’s not what I expected at all. And I think she really digs ya.”
I nod and try to smile. Lea made a point of talking to my friends. She even said she was going to come see me.
And she does.
She appears in the doorway of my mother’s room that very night, wearing a short blue dress over jeans and gazing steadily at the floor the same way Jewel did.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says back. “You okay?”
I nod. “Hanging in.”
Lea looks from me to my mother, then back at me again. “I hope it’s all right that I’m here. I wasn’t sure, but then I talked to your friends and they said I should come, so I did.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I love that you came. I should’ve invited you to when we talked. I just didn’t want to put you in a bad spot or anything.”
Lea forces herself to look over at Ma again. “So she’s doing the same, then?”
“Yeah. No change.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Me too.”
“I really miss seeing you at school.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I guess you have no idea when you’ll be back, huh?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have any idea about anything anymore. I’m sorry about our date and everything. I really wanted to take you out.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lea says. “You just focus on you right now, all right? You get your mom better. That’s what matters. If it’s meant to be for us it will be, you know?”
“Sure,” I agree.
Lea’s phone beeps and she pulls it out to read a text. “I have to go. Believe it or not, Melanie was my ride here.”
“Melanie Jergens?” I scoff. “You’re kidding. She brought you to the hospital to see me?”
Lea shrugs. “Not like she had a choice. But that was her texting me to hurry up.”
“Okay,” I say. “Can I walk you out at least?”
“ ’Course,” she says, smiling. “That should be interesting.”
I walk her down the hall to the elevator where Melanie, Brittany, and another snotty Have girl named Veronica are waiting, looking more annoyed than usual.
“Hey,” I say, smiling the hugest smile I can manage.
“Hey,” Brittany and Veronica mumble back unenthusiastically.
“Let’s go, Lea,” says Melanie. “Like, right now.”
“Okaaay,” Lea tells her. “Jeez.” She turns to me and winks and we both crack up laughing.
Lea reaches in her purse and pulls out a long tube with a silver bow on top. “It’s just a little something,” she says, handing it to me. “No big deal.”
“Thanks,” I tell her.
Brittany presses the Down button for the elevator to hurry things along.
“Don’t you guys want to say anything to Marley before we go?” Lea asks her friends. “You promised.”
Melanie turns to look at me. “Marley,” she says, “we just wanted to tell you that we’re really sorry. You know, about your mom and all.”
“Yeah,” says Brittany. “It really sucks.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I appreciate that.”
Lea turns to me and reaches up to hug me then. “See?” she whispers in my ear, “I’m working on them. We’ll all be hanging out together in no time.”
“Yeah right,” I say, laughing and hugging her tight. It’s the first time I’ve ever really touched her, and it feels amazing. She’s wearing that flowery perfume again, the one she had on at Spazio’s. I never want to let her go. I wish I didn’t have to. If only that elevator wouldn’t come. Ever.
But it does. We let go of each other and I have to watch helplessly as she steps inside with her friends. A bell sounds, warning the passengers that the elevator doors are about to shut and simultaneously warning me that I’m letting the most amazing girl in the world slip through my fingers.
We watch each other until the doors close.
And then she’s gone.
Just like that.
I slowly make my way back to Ma’s room, wondering how things got so screwed up.
I feel like I set up a stack of dominoes, each representing a really good thing going on in my life, and then my mother knocked her domino over and it started a chain reaction. When I reach her room I take a seat in my chair and pull the top off the cylinder Lea gave me. Inside is a rolled-up piece of paper. I pull it out and unroll it, and then I feel truly heartbroken.
It’s a painting. Sort of a side view, but I recognize my hat and my headphones right away. I also recognize Fever.
I can’t believe she did this. Lea painted me sitting across the street from Fever, watching the crowd.
In the bottom right corner of the painting in black lettering are the words Marley’s Dream, and underneath the title Lea wrote her name in pretty cursive. Her signature. Her autograph. As soon as I see it, I know—this is her dream. She wants to be an artist, a painter. She’s good too, real good. I stare at my likeness sitting on the sidewalk across from the club, at the sandwich on a bag beside me, at the can of root beer.
But how? How could she have remembered that night in so much detail? It’s the most beautiful gift anyone’s ever given me. I lean back in my chair and stare at the painting. And I know it in that moment—I’m in love with Lea Hall.
I feel like I’m floating on a cloud and sinking to the bottom of the ocean at the same time.
Because I love her. But something tells me I’ll never actually get to be with her.