As I have hinted throughout this book, Bette Elise McCoy perhaps was not born of this earth. Let’s just say Mom and Dad “brought her back from the hospital” in late February. As a baby she was mostly quiet except when she had the thing that babies get when their stomach is always upset. To this day, she will not eat these foods: bananas, lemon or anything that has lemon in it, pineapple, Ritz crackers, oranges, mango, papaya, carrots, pasta, corn, squash, baby corn, and hot dog buns.
Bette used to have an invisible parrot that she named “Barrot.” She claims she can talk to birds of every kind. I will point out that most of this claim comes from her running at any group of birds and saying, “Fly, fly.” So, yeah, sure, the birds “listen” to her.
Anyway, Bette entered the fourth grade a whiz at math. She also, as you can see, has a strong imagination and is not afraid of what people think about her. Let’s say that for many years these two skills do not mix, and maybe Bette will not make a lot of friends. I can say that with a lot of truth because I see a lot of myself in Bette and that’s probably why I am so hard on her. I hope she doesn’t just spend all her time talking to herself, like me.
But this is my book. So I say that instead of spending her teenage years cooped up studying, Bette will make friends with someone like Maddie right away, and know that she isn’t alone, and she isn’t the only one.
Let’s say her best friend is really good at playing guitar and Bette is great at the words and the math of writing great songs (because a lot of it is math, especially for more windy-long-tons-of-sounds songs, Stuart told me that) and together they form a band called BARROT. HA-HA yes.
So BARROT gets big in the Upper Valley playing gigs and soon they go to New York City. They will blow everyone’s heads off with their crazy opera pop. They will do costumes and whole huge sets like Alice in Wonderland. They will play in Canada, they will play in Europe, they will play in Africa and India and Asia. They will make music like the two Beatles guys damn damn what are their names except they never break up.
They will live two floors from each other in an apartment building. The two friends, Bette and Whoever, will raise birds of every kind on the roof, and they will write songs and albums together for the rest of their lives.
THE MIRACLE OF SCIENCE
As a tribute to an Elizabeth Warren–esque dedication to straight-talking about my disease, I went to see Dr. Clarkington again with my parents, and asked them to put the specialist on speakerphone. I told both doctors all my symptoms, and how I was writing in this book.
“That’s great,” they said. “The book is great.”
“Do crosswords, too,” the specialist said over the phone.
Crosswords. Great.
“And her symptoms?” Mom asked.
“Things sound steady,” they said, “but not great.”
Steady, but not great.
Great.
The Linds watched the kids while Mom and Dad and I went to Molly’s afterward. They told me I could get anything I wanted. This was uncommon. Molly’s was usually reserved for birthdays, and birthdays meant pizza, because pizza was cheap. I don’t think we’ve ever been to Molly’s and ordered individual dinners.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Of course,” Dad said. “Hell, let’s get a bottle of wine.”
“We don’t need to do that,” Mom said, putting her hand on Dad’s.
“I want to,” Dad said, forcing a smile at both of us. “Get anything you want, Sammie-bo-bammie.”
So I was going to get the fettuccine. Mom was going to get a burger. Dad was getting salmon. It still felt wrong. Like we were celebrating something that didn’t warrant celebration.
“Why don’t we just get pizza?”
“No,” Dad said quickly. “We already chose.”
“I was just saying,” I said, shrugging. I was just trying to tell them, Hey, we don’t have to spend extra money because Sammie’s brain doesn’t work.
“If you want pizza, we’ll get pizza,” Mom offered.
“I don’t want pizza. I was just saying that we could…”
“Let’s drop it,” Dad said to me, his voice louder.
Mom turned to him, her lips tight.
“I’m tired, Gia.” He turned to me, his Irish cheeks now tinged. He paused. “I just want us all to be grateful we’re eating a nice meal.”
By “us all,” he meant me, I was pretty sure. So I thanked him. I put my hands in a prayer position. “Thank you, Father, for this nice meal.”
“Don’t give me attitude, Sammie, not after today.”
I felt my eyes narrow, automatic, my chest tight.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, but I knew what it was supposed to mean.
He was going to say that he wished I would just shut up about it because they had to bust their ass every day to pay for my doctor visits, my prescriptions, my hospital stays, and he wanted me to be a grateful little golden angel child.
Well, me fucking too. I was trying to be grateful. I was tired, too. “I said we should get pizza! Did you not hear me?”
“That’s not the point—” he began, and I could tell he was weighing his words. “I didn’t mean…”
“Dad, like, you think I want any of this either?”
“I know, but—”
“You think I even want to be in the Upper Valley right now?”
“You want to be in New York. I know.” At this point, Dad’s eyes were in his palms.