Read Online Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven? by Erica Orloff - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Erica Orloff
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the lights. He couldn’t even get to a phone to call an ambulance for himself.
Sam blacked out. His last thought was of Charlie. All he had done was fall in love with him.
13
Lily
J ustin is Tara’s first love, and she is over-the-moon crazy about him. She comes home from their dates and tells me all the details—what he said, what he wore, that he held her hand or kissed her good-night. Tara and I have always been close, but now that she is fifteen, I am also subjected to her withering glares and her mercurial displays of temper. I was certain she would feel my getting cancer was a giant inconvenience to her social schedule.
Michael said he would tell Noah. I just felt emotionally beat-up, and agreed. But I had to tell Tara.
She didn’t hear my knock on her bedroom door the first three times, so I poked my head in. The music was deafening, but I smiled as I suffered through it. At least I could make out the lyrics, and thank God she doesn’t like rap. Whatever happened to Debbie Harry and Blondie? To the Rolling Stones? I know what happened to the Stones. They got wrinkled. Poster boys for what drugs, alcohol and groupies can do to your youthful complexion. For the thousandth time, I thanked my late mother for insisting on sunscreen when all my friends were slathering on baby oil and sunning themselves. I had the least-cool mom (heredity?) in the neighborhood—and now I had been the least wrinkled woman at my high school reunion two years ago. Except for Carol Lundt, who’d already “had work” done. She’d had so much Botox injected she looked like her face was frozen.
“Tara, honey?” I cooed, poking my head in her door. Her long brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and her green eyes had just the slightest hint of mascara on the lashes. She has a runner’s build, thin and muscular. She ran the 100-meter and 200-meter for her high school this year.
“Mom! Have you heard of knocking? ” she shouted as she sat on her bed doing her nails.
“Tara, have you heard of headphones? ” I shouted back.
She rolled her eyes and turned down the music.
“How’s Justin?”
“Perfect,” she grinned, and put the top back on her nail polish. She wears blue, which I find hideous, but as a mother of a teenager, I have learned to choose my battles. Blue nail polish, belly shirts, the occasional experimentation with pink streaks in her hair, the four piercings in her ears—but not in her belly button, thank God—the messy room…these I back off on. I even stopped caring when she opts for a Diet Coke and a Pop-Tarts pastry for breakfast. But drugs…alcohol…she knows where I draw the line.
“Sometimes I wish I was your age and falling in love for the first time.” I felt myself well up. If I was fifteen, then I wouldn’t be forty with cancer.
“Tara—” my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest “—I have to tell you something.”
“What?” She waved her hands in the air to dry her nails.
“You know how I had to have that mammogram from my column and then get that cyst removed?” I sat down on her bed. It had a comforter that was the most hideous shade of deep purple with pink beading on it. “Choose your battles” was my constant mantra. The comforter matched the grape-colored walls.
“Yes…” she said slowly, warily. Maybe she was willing me not to tell her, because I am sure in that instant she knew what was going to follow as surely as I knew when Dr. Morris put his hand on mine.
“I have cancer.”
She looked away from me. I longed to take her hand, but I knew in her teenage way she would have just yelled at me for smudging her nail polish.
“Shit!”
“Don’t say shit.”
“I can say shit, Mom. My mother has cancer. ”
Choosing my battle, I just nodded. In the grand scheme of things, what’s a “shit” when you’ve got cancer? Fuck, I should let her get the tattoo and belly piercing with that reasoning.
She rolled her eyes, which were filling with
Sam blacked out. His last thought was of Charlie. All he had done was fall in love with him.
13
Lily
J ustin is Tara’s first love, and she is over-the-moon crazy about him. She comes home from their dates and tells me all the details—what he said, what he wore, that he held her hand or kissed her good-night. Tara and I have always been close, but now that she is fifteen, I am also subjected to her withering glares and her mercurial displays of temper. I was certain she would feel my getting cancer was a giant inconvenience to her social schedule.
Michael said he would tell Noah. I just felt emotionally beat-up, and agreed. But I had to tell Tara.
She didn’t hear my knock on her bedroom door the first three times, so I poked my head in. The music was deafening, but I smiled as I suffered through it. At least I could make out the lyrics, and thank God she doesn’t like rap. Whatever happened to Debbie Harry and Blondie? To the Rolling Stones? I know what happened to the Stones. They got wrinkled. Poster boys for what drugs, alcohol and groupies can do to your youthful complexion. For the thousandth time, I thanked my late mother for insisting on sunscreen when all my friends were slathering on baby oil and sunning themselves. I had the least-cool mom (heredity?) in the neighborhood—and now I had been the least wrinkled woman at my high school reunion two years ago. Except for Carol Lundt, who’d already “had work” done. She’d had so much Botox injected she looked like her face was frozen.
“Tara, honey?” I cooed, poking my head in her door. Her long brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and her green eyes had just the slightest hint of mascara on the lashes. She has a runner’s build, thin and muscular. She ran the 100-meter and 200-meter for her high school this year.
“Mom! Have you heard of knocking? ” she shouted as she sat on her bed doing her nails.
“Tara, have you heard of headphones? ” I shouted back.
She rolled her eyes and turned down the music.
“How’s Justin?”
“Perfect,” she grinned, and put the top back on her nail polish. She wears blue, which I find hideous, but as a mother of a teenager, I have learned to choose my battles. Blue nail polish, belly shirts, the occasional experimentation with pink streaks in her hair, the four piercings in her ears—but not in her belly button, thank God—the messy room…these I back off on. I even stopped caring when she opts for a Diet Coke and a Pop-Tarts pastry for breakfast. But drugs…alcohol…she knows where I draw the line.
“Sometimes I wish I was your age and falling in love for the first time.” I felt myself well up. If I was fifteen, then I wouldn’t be forty with cancer.
“Tara—” my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest “—I have to tell you something.”
“What?” She waved her hands in the air to dry her nails.
“You know how I had to have that mammogram from my column and then get that cyst removed?” I sat down on her bed. It had a comforter that was the most hideous shade of deep purple with pink beading on it. “Choose your battles” was my constant mantra. The comforter matched the grape-colored walls.
“Yes…” she said slowly, warily. Maybe she was willing me not to tell her, because I am sure in that instant she knew what was going to follow as surely as I knew when Dr. Morris put his hand on mine.
“I have cancer.”
She looked away from me. I longed to take her hand, but I knew in her teenage way she would have just yelled at me for smudging her nail polish.
“Shit!”
“Don’t say shit.”
“I can say shit, Mom. My mother has cancer. ”
Choosing my battle, I just nodded. In the grand scheme of things, what’s a “shit” when you’ve got cancer? Fuck, I should let her get the tattoo and belly piercing with that reasoning.
She rolled her eyes, which were filling with
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