The Rom-Commers(54)

“All we have to do,” Charlie said, keeping his voice as smooth as chocolate milk, “is wait for help.”

But that’s when, as if to undermine all his efforts, Charlie coughed.

And then he coughed again.

I wasn’t sure if the coughing was rocking the car or if it was just my imagination, but I said, “Don’t cough, Charlie.”

In response, Charlie coughed again.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

“It’s allergies,” Charlie said.

“What are you allergic to? Plunging to our deaths?”

“We’re not going to plunge,” Charlie said, like I was being far more ridiculous than I actually was. “And we’re not going to die.”

But in the silence as we waited for him to cough again, I wondered.

Finally, I said, “I have this worried feeling like I might freak out.”

“Freak out in a still way?” Charlie asked. “Or in a way that will rock the car?”

“Unclear,” I said. “But the waiting is definitely getting to me.”

Charlie studied me for a second. And then he said, out of nowhere, “My first kiss was in the seventh grade. Did you know that?”

I frowned, like How would I know that? And then, additionally, How is this relevant?

“She was a friend of my sister’s, at her birthday sleepover,” he said, and then in a tone like just speaking the name conjured up a whole world: “Mary Marino. She had, and I say this with so much reverence, legendary boobs.”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“She left the party,” Charlie went on, “and asked me to take a walk, which I did. And we made our way to an empty park and sat side by side on a bench and talked, but I have no idea what we talked about. All I remember is that she kept leaning close to me, and looking at me, and kind of puckering up her lips. I was not getting the message. I kept wondering if her braces were bothering her. Finally she turned to face me like I was the biggest pain in the ass in the world and said, ‘Are you going to kiss me or not?’”

“I love this kid,” I said. “She’s a role model for us all.”

“So I kissed her,” Charlie said. “And then she said, ‘That’s it?’ And I could tell she was disappointed, but I had no idea how to do anything differently. And while I was thinking, she told me she was going back—and to wait ten minutes so nobody would catch on.”

“Did you ever figure out what you did wrong?”

“I think I just kissed her like you’d kiss your grandma.”

“Oof.”

“What was your first kiss?” Charlie asked.

“Second grade,” I said. “The boy across the street. I made him climb up onto the top shelf of my bedroom closet with me, pecked him on the cheek, and then swore him to secrecy forever.”

“And? Did he keep the secret?”

“Does it count if he forgot about it entirely?”

“Okay. Next question,” Charlie said. “Ask me something interesting enough to keep us distracted.”

And so I just said, “Tell me about your cancer.”

It was a wildly inappropriate question. One I never would have asked if we hadn’t been teetering above our deaths.

“Sure,” Charlie said, extracasual. “What do you want to know?”

“What happened?”

“I had a lump on my forearm, which seemed like an odd place for a lump. I asked the doc about it at a checkup—but more just making conversation than anything else. I still had that thing back at that age where you think you’re invincible. But just from his frown as he started looking at it, I knew.”

“You knew you had cancer?”

“Yeah. I’m a pessimist, though, so I didn’t trust myself, either. I always start with death in every situation and work my way backward.”

“Are you starting with death now?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re here. And you’re gonna be fine. And if you’re gonna be fine, then I’m gonna be fine. So it’s not even a question.”

“That’s the worst logic I’ve ever heard.”

“The point is, I thought for sure I was only worried because that’s just what I do. Not because there was actually something to worry about.”

“But then you turned out to be right?”

Charlie nodded. “The biopsy came back malignant. So starting with death turned out to be the right approach.”

“But you didn’t die.”

“Not yet. Give me time.”

“And that’s when your wife left you?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “On the day I got the biopsy results. But she’d been planning it for weeks, if that makes it less bad.”

“She was planning to leave you while you waited for biopsy results?”

“In her defense, I didn’t tell her about the biopsy.”

“You didn’t tell her anything? Not even about the lump? Or that you’d gone to the doctor?”

“Nothing,” Charlie said.

“Why not?”

“It just felt … personal.”