The Mother's Promise(9)

Zoe bumped them toward her. “Tell me.”

“I have a date with … wait for it … Cameron Freeman!”

“Cameron Freeman?” Zoe exclaimed, hoping it came across as excited disbelief rather than the truth, which was that she thought Cameron was a jerk.

Emily nodded, her red curls bouncing. She hated those curls, but Zoe would have loved them. Her own hair, black and straight, was as bland as she was. “And it’s all because of you.”

“It is?”

“Uh-huh. The reason it all happened is because Seth wants to date you.”

Zoe paused for a beat. “He does?”

“Yes!” Emily squealed.

Seth was in several of Zoe’s classes but they’d never exchanged so much as a word. Then again, Zoe didn’t exchange words with many people. But now that she thought about it, he had sat next to her on a couple of occasions, and perhaps even smiled once or twice.

Zoe’s face fell.

“Oh come on,” Emily said. “Seth is adorkable.”

Seth was adorkable. Small and prepubescent-looking, much like Zoe herself. He and Cameron were cousins and this was most likely the only reason they came as a pair. Without a cool cousin, Seth would have been relegated to a regular nobody, just like Zoe and Emily. He probably would have been perfect for her. If she went on dates.

“You should have seen Seth just now, he was having a full-on joygasm!” Emily adopted a wide-eyed expression. “‘Do you think she’d really go out with me? You don’t think she’s out of my league?’” She crunched on an onion ring cheerfully.

Zoe tried to imagine the scenario that Emily had just described. Emily and Seth standing around, talking about her.

“I told him you’d go, but only if I came along—I played up the shy thing. Then I said it would be majorly awks with just the three of us, and then … ta da … Cameron said he’d come too. Which was what I’d been angling for all along.”

Zoe felt the blood drain from her face. “You told him I’d go?”

“Oh no, don’t do that.” Emily’s eyes narrowed.

“Do what?”

“Go all cray-cray. This is good. Seth is cute.”

Zoe tried to breathe, to act normal. But Emily was looking at her too closely. Zoe focused on uncrossing and recrossing her legs, being careful to keep one off the floor at all times.

“It’s not forevs, Zo, it’s just a date. I even suggested a movie so you don’t have to talk.”

With this last statement, Emily’s demeanor had changed a little—only slightly, but Zoe was attuned to these kinds of things. Her voice held an edge. A warning. Do this. Panic started to flood Zoe. This was it. She’d been handed an ultimatum—this date or her friendship. Except, in her case, it wasn’t an ultimatum. An ultimatum indicated choice.

“I know you hate people and generally being social,” Emily continued. “I get it. Hey, I even dig it. You’re weird-chic. But come on! This is one night. If you’re my friend, you’ll do this for me.” Emily was pleading. Zoe had never heard Emily plead. “You know I’d do it for you.”

Zoe did know that. Emily had more than proven herself. Sat with her, just the two of them, because that’s what Zoe preferred. Spent Saturday nights watching movies. Let her borrow (and then keep) the black skirt that always made Zoe feel slightly less horrible, even though it looked amazing on Emily.

“Zo, it will be fine, okay, I promise.” Emily had softened now. “I’ll be right there with you. And Seth is so crazy about you he won’t even care if you don’t speak. Think of it as a date with me. You don’t freak out when we go to the movies, right?”

“No.”

Emily smiled at her with a sense of finality that said, There, that’s settled then. And Zoe fought the tears that welled in her eyes. And, as usual, she had an immediate, sharp longing for her mother. She wondered what it said about her that, at fifteen, when things didn’t go according to plan, the first thing she wanted was her mommy.





7

Alice lay on the couch, dry-eyed and numb. Her brain ticked over the same three things in rotation—cancer, Zoe, her breakdown in front of Mrs. Featherstone and Mary. Amazingly, Mrs. Featherstone had been the one to take control, instructing Mary to find tissues and insisting that Alice head straight home.

Now Alice crossed her ankles on the coffee table, narrowly missing Kenny. Damn cat was always underfoot. Kenny had always unnerved Alice, the way he slunk around, smirking as though he knew her most guarded secret and was going to tell. Zoe said it was the cat’s “wisdom” that made him look like that. One thing to be said for the cat was that it was one of very few living things that Zoe felt comfortable with, and indeed, relaxed around. And for that, Kenny had Alice’s begrudging respect.

Next to her feet was a stack of bills, including those from her medical appointments, out-of-pocket expenses that she had to find the money for. As she flipped through them, Alice considered how her diagnosis would affect her financially. Her business was steady—in fact she had so much work that she’d recently hired two part-timers—but it wasn’t enormously profitable. She always managed to get the bills paid but there was no safety net, no additional pool of money they had to dip into, other than her salary. She allowed herself to fantasize, just for a moment, about having two salaries to rely on. Two parents. The kind of life where an illness meant an opportunity to rest, to sleep, to be cared for by loving relatives. She could concentrate on getting better and leave all the daily stresses of her life to others. She was ashamed to admit that she found that scenario somewhat appealing. As though cancer were a health spa, an opportunity for some “me” time. In that scenario, money wasn’t the concern of the sick person. She wondered if this was how it would have been had she married. Indulgently, she let herself sit with that thought for a moment. But only a moment. If she thought too hard, she’d remember why she hadn’t.