Boomer splashes around the water’s edge and gets hold of an old plastic bag.
“Let go of that!” I shout, and yank my headphones out.
He looks up at me. Laps some water. Snorts. Frolics clumsily. Comes back up on the beach and shakes himself off.
Someone is sitting at the edge of the swimming dock, her black hat pulled down low. When I look at her, she turns away, but not before I recognize her.
Lucinda. The girl who used to be Tilda’s best friend. The girl who features in so many photos on Tilda’s wall of inspiration—they’re sleeping in a bus or hugging each other at the edge of a pool. In some pictures, they’re surrounded by other people from the swim team, but there’s always an invisible bubble around the two of them. It’s like they belong together.
I only met Lucinda a couple of times at the hospital. By then, she’d already started pulling away from everyone. Even from Tilda. How many times did I console her after a call or a message went unanswered?
I look away, too, relieved that Lucinda clearly wants to ignore me. I have no idea what I’d even say to her.
Sweat drips from my head to the sand as I stretch the backs of my thighs.
When Tilda and I got together last fall, everyone was talking about Lucinda, “the cancer girl.” She had just gotten her diagnosis. The entire swim team went to visit her in the hospital. Amanda and Elin posted photos of themselves at her bedside. They called her strong and brave. Tilda hated it. She said it was like Lucinda wasn’t a real person to them, just some kind of character. The lovely, wonderful friend with the tragic destiny. Lucinda, whose mother had died of cancer. Lucinda, whose father the doctor couldn’t save either his wife or his daughter. But the months passed, and the prognoses were unclear and contradictory. Everything was so complicated, not at all like in the movies.
It’s been a long time since anyone talked about Lucinda.
I straighten slowly, shake the lactic acid out of my legs. Hear Boomer bark. When I look over, he’s already halfway along the swimming dock.
“Boomer! Come here!”
He pretends not to hear me. His tail wags as he burrows his giant head in under Lucinda’s arm. Panic rushes through me as I remember having to wear a mask when I visited her in the hospital. The slightest cold or infection could kill her.
I race to the dock, shouting for Boomer. He looks up at me happily before licking Lucinda’s cheek. She tries to push him away. I thought dogs had some kind of sixth sense for when people were sick, but that’s obviously not true with Boomer. The dock sways beneath my feet. I yank Boomer away as he playfully nips at my hand.
“Leave her alone!” I tell him sternly.
Lucinda wipes her cheek with her sleeve, and then reluctantly looks up at me.
There’s something weird about her face. It takes me a moment to realize that she doesn’t have any eyebrows. Her cheeks are hollow in the hard white daylight. Still, she looks healthier than before. More alive.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t see him run.”
“It’s okay.”
Her shoulder blades are clearly visible beneath her hoodie. And now I see that the hair poking out from the thin hat is short and downy.
I wish I could just leave. I know she wants me to. And still, I sit down next to her. I have to find out if what Boomer did is serious.
He’s still trotting happily behind us. I turn around and shout at him to lie down. Incredibly, he obeys me, shooting me an affronted look while breathing so hard, the dock shakes. I lean out over the water, splashing my face and neck before looking back at Lucinda.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I say.
“It would have been worse if a human had licked my face.”
“I’ll try not to.”
It’s a bad attempt at a joke, but she smiles faintly.
“How are you doing?” I say, and hesitate. “You look better.”
“I stopped taking CTX.”
“What’s that?”
“Chemo.”
I wince instinctively at the word and can only hope she doesn’t notice.
“Are you all right now?”
She glances at me.
“No. But the comet will probably kill me before the cancer does, so I might as well stop the treatments. So . . . yay.”
“Sorry,” I say, feeling like an idiot. “I should’ve understood.”
“No,” she says quickly and looks out over the water. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ve forgotten how to talk to people.”
I wonder how literally she means that. How lonely she’s actually been. Maybe she doesn’t know that Tilda and I broke up.
Tilda, who left me. Tilda, who Lucinda left.
She’s the only thing we have in common, and I don’t think either of us wants to talk about her.
A bird flies past us over the lake, so low it nearly dips its wings in the water.
“And how about you?” Lucinda says. “How are you doing? What happened to your eyebrow?”
“I went to watch the game last night.”
“Then you were lucky. Dad worked in the ER last night, and . . .”
She falls silent when my pocket vibrates. I pull the phone out. See that Tilda has finally replied to my message. I wipe my fingers on my shorts so I can unlock the screen.
EVERYTHING IS OK. YOU DON’T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT ME.
I try to think of something to write back, but I don’t know if there’s anything to add after last night. In the end, I send her an emoji of a koala bear.
We used to do that when we wanted the other person to know we were thinking of them. It began when Tilda said I hugged her like a koala bear in my sleep. Then we found out koalas often have chlamydia. It only got funnier after that.
I put my phone back into my pocket. Lucinda’s looking away politely. I try to think of something else to say before I leave. Something simple to make the situation less awkward.
“How are your moms?” Lucinda asks suddenly. “What are their names again?”
“Stina and Judette,” I answer, surprised. “Have you met them?”
“Don’t you remember? We were in the same class in first grade. It was only for a few months, before I moved.”
I think back, suddenly recalling the feeling of someone disappearing. A vague image of a girl with long blonde hair and watchful eyes.
“We came to your house to learn about Dominica,” Lucinda says.
I groan aloud, because I remember that day all too well.
It goes without saying that it was Stina who came up with the idea of inviting the entire class over to our place. They were going to see that we were a regular family, despite the fact that we seemed different on the surface. Judette had made food from the island. Yams and cassava, a variety of stews and homemade bread. But I didn’t want to join in. I didn’t understand other children, didn’t know how to talk to them, and I definitely didn’t want them to invade our home.
It turned out to be even worse than I’d imagined.
Lucinda must be able to imagine what I’m thinking, because she snickers.
“Stop it,” she says. “It was so much fun.”
“Not for me. Everyone kept asking how two moms could have kids together. And of course, Stina had to tell the class about it in detail. No one understood what she was talking about.”