Yolk(108)

I roll my eyes and get up.

“Don’t drink from it first,” she calls out.

I hand it to her.

“Thank you,” she says, and drinks thirstily and sets it down next to the ashtray. “You want to know why I really got fired?”

“Yeah.”

“This.” She holds the white ashtray up. “I stole this from my boss.” She shakes her head, smiling at the memory. “He was such a sexist, racist asshole. I knew layoffs were coming and it wasn’t a secret that he hated me.” June shrugs. “So, I took it. He searched everywhere. He was so fucking pissed. He knew I had it but couldn’t prove it. And you know what? It was fucking worth it.”

I stare at the ceramic prize. June is the strangest person I know and quickly becoming my favorite.

“It’s why they call me Selina,” she says proudly. “As in, Selina Kyle. Catwoman. Nobody could figure out how I did it. I’m a fucking legend.”





chapter 48


The day of the surgery, I get up before her. It’s the middle of the night, but I eat a quick breakfast of rice with hot water poured over the top and pickles. That’s what Cruella told me to do, make an action plan to eat and follow it. June can’t eat, and I don’t want to be hungry and distracted if I need to pay attention while she’s under. She can’t worry about me.

We take a car over to the hospital in silence.

“How are you feeling?” I ask her. She’s watching the predawn city through the window.

“I’m fucking sad,” she says.

I squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.

We check in at a desk that’s called the concierge, and it doesn’t feel like a hotel no matter how state-of-the-art fancy the cancer building is. The overhead lighting is a buzzkill. And you’ll never get rid of that smell. That sanitized, deloused smell. We’re told that we’ll be going to the pre-surgical center for examination and that I’m not allowed to be in the surgery, which makes sense, and frankly, I’m a little relieved.

We’re reminded that the surgery would take only three hours, but that my sister can stay the night if she wants. As long as she’s out ten minutes before her twenty-four hours is up, we won’t be charged thousands more.

Every time I glance over at her, I’m struck with the thought that I might never see her again. That we’re arriving together, but that she might not leave. I have her overnight bag by my side, along with her ugly fuzzy pajamas from Mom. We’ve been shown pictures of the room she’ll stay in. It’s decorated to look like a decent-to-nice motel for business travelers with this ash-colored fake-wood paneling covering a wall, but I still can’t imagine her there. June doesn’t make sense in hospitals.

We’re led to a changing area. It looks, unnervingly, like any old dressing room in a strip mall store. She’s told to remove any jewelry.

“Will you stay?” she asks me in a small voice. I nod. “Of course.”

She’s given two paper gowns and a box for her possessions. She hands me her phone. I put it in my pocket. This is the wrongest part by far. My sister sleeps with her phone under her pillow. That she won’t have it with her is so unnatural and scary.

I open up my phone, and when I see her face icon hovering over mine in the exact location of the hospital, the squeezing in my chest gets tighter.

We don’t talk as I wait for her to change.

“These are pretty cool,” she says, wriggling her feet in socks with little rubber grips. “They’re probably like two hundred bucks a pop.” She grins, but when we’re told she has to have an IV put in, we both stop smiling.

We’re taken to a waiting area in what seems like a warren of different waiting areas. There’s a stretcher in there, but she’s told she can wait in the recliner for the moment.

I concentrate so as not to look down at my own name on her tag. I’m trying so hard to be chill, which means I’m smiling often and unnaturally. They keep calling her Jayne.

I can’t bring myself to look at the stretcher. I hate it so much.

Her vitals are taken. Blood drawn. She’s being hammy, in that June way. Cracking jokes and being affable, putting everyone at ease, and I almost want to strangle her. To demand that she pay attention to what’s going on. To understand what a big deal this is. That it’s November 19. That it’s finally happening.

A super-short, smooth-skinned Black woman with wide-set eyes and distractingly good brows comes to see us, immediately followed by an equally diminutive Asian woman with freckles. They’re both wearing thick-framed tortoiseshell glasses, and I wonder if there’s a story behind the matching eyewear.

“Jayne,” says the first woman to my sister. “How are you feeling?”

June exhales and says, “Okay.”

The doctor extends her hand to me. Her palm is cold but soft. “I’m Dr. Ellington, Jayne’s surgical oncologist. Your sister tells me that I’ll be coming to speak to you afterward.”

“Yes,” I croak, and then clear my throat. “Yes,” I repeat. I’m already feeling like a disappointment. That she was expecting a real adult, a more convincing advocate for a person undergoing surgery.

“It’s good to meet you,” she says warmly, turning to the woman beside her. “This is Sandy Chee, our nurse liaison, who’ll be updating you throughout the surgery.”