My leader isn’t fearless, but she sure has balls. “Barf bags,” Carrigan says to the CVS employee, like she’s inquiring about dish soap. “Whereabouts?”
I roll my eyes and poke a get-well-soon balloon, watch it sway. I ask my friend if there’s anything more depressing than a drugstore balloon before I remember why we’re here.
“Of course there is,” Carrigan replies, catching her reflection in the little mirror above the janky sunglasses. “The fact that my schnoz looks like the before in a rhinoplasty ad.”
We grab the nausea bags from the digestive health aisle then nosedive to the chips, filling our arms with as many family-sized bags as we can—and the irony is not lost on me. Impending chemo and procreation don’t go hand-in-hand for anyone, let alone a baby-wanting 29-year-old.
In Carrigan’s Honda, parked like a crooked tooth in the neat row of vehicles, I take out the Cool Ranch Doritos—or CRDs, according to her—and reach inside like my hand’s a claw. I let the chips scrape my mouth and swallow hastily, in-tact edges playing bumper cars with my throat.
“Death wish?” Carrigan says, raising her wild eyebrows.
“I gotta eat the good stuff while I still can,” I say through husky coughs.
“My friend,” Carrigan starts, then inhales, then pauses. “Just slow down. We’re not going anywhere.”
“I am though.” I use my melodramatic tone reserved for special occasions—most notably our infamous fight at sleepaway camp when we were little shitheads and my neon-green hairbrush went missing.
Carrigan throws her arms above her head. “Okay, fine. I’ll play. You’re gonna ‘check out,’ right? Irish exit? Or no, your favorite: walk the plank. Is that what you’re saying?”
I wipe the CRD crumbs from my hands, sprinkling the unopened box of running shoes by my feet. “Jesus,” I say. “We’re going to West Hollywood to get corn dogs, remember?”
Carrigan adjusts the rearview and tells me I’m still a shithead. “Pass me one of those blow-chunk receptacles. We’re gonna need ‘em with the amount of fried meat I’m prepping for.”
I open the bags and hold one up carefully, like it’s an infant—so simple, so innocuous. Immediately I sense their seismic presence in my coming days, the painfully layered relationship: ill will, gratitude, resentment, loyalty. It’ll all be there, I know.
This short burst into the future gets me feeling like a drugstore balloon. Not deflated—but stifled, stuck. Like I’ll be swaying awhile. I decide that some chaos might part the clouds a bit.
“Oh no.” I exhale shakily and lean over. “It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s happening.” My hands flail. “You take the bag.”
“You haven’t started the chemo, for fuck’s sake!”
“Just take the bag!!!” It’s difficult not to break but I nail the scene.
On cue, Carrigan grabs the bag with both hands, holds it steadily at the perfect angle, and waits with her eyes open. Carrigan, the most squeamish person I know, who once screamed bloody murder at recess when poor Jerome puked out of dehydration.
Carrigan, also the one who scraped every resource clean—this book, that website, someone’s parent’s friend’s doctor—to know exactly what I’ll need for whatever’s ahead.
I touch her face like a mother would a child’s, and smile devilishly. “This was just a trial run,” I tell her. “Don’t hate me.”
Carrigan’s grin matches mine and I know it’s saying shithead. Then she pulls out of her spot, drives away from CVS, and takes me to get a hot dog on a stick.