Side Effects May Vary

He nodded and pushed off from the counter, walking to the other side of the kitchen where the postcard from Lake Quasipi sat. “Alice—” The way he said my name. It was the way you say someone’s name when you have something to say that you’ve sitting on for a while. But then he saw the postcard and held it up. “Feeling sentimental?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“You hungry?”

“I guess,” I said. “Let me get a jacket.”

I went upstairs for my maroon peacoat and a scarf. The coat was big and the scarf didn’t match, but right now, I didn’t care. I touched my fingers to my hair, which had begun to grow out into a poorly maintained pageboy cut. I took kitchen scissors to it the other night to even it out. My mom asked if I wanted her to take me for a haircut, but I declined. I had so little hair that getting a haircut would have felt like buying a picture book for a blind guy. Unnecessary.

Outside, the wind was biting and relentless. Harvey ran ahead of me and opened the passenger door.

His heater made more noise than it did heat. I didn’t ask him where we were going, but was unsurprised when we pulled up to Prespa’s. We came here every year for Harvey’s birthday. It was a little kitschy Italian place with over-buttered garlic rolls and grapes painted on the wall, not to be overshadowed by the giant mural behind the bar that showcased everything that might in some way be Italian, from people to landmarks.

Inside, we waited for a table even though every single one was available.

When we sat down, Harvey asked, “What are your specials?”

The waitress, with her short, curly, black hair peppered gray, had worked here for as long as I could remember. And because the specials never changed, she pointed to the dusty chalkboard on the wall.

“I’ll have the chicken marsala and a Coke,” he said.

“And I’ll take the spaghetti and meatballs and a water. No ice. Extra lemon.”

The waitress nodded and walked off to the bar to retrieve our drinks. After she’d brought those back with a basket of microwaved bread, Harvey said, “Question game. What do you want to be when you grow up?”

You’d think that after all these years of playing the question game there would be no questions left to ask, but that wasn’t the case. We’d asked each other this same question—What do you want to be when you grow up?—a million times, but the answer seemed to change every time.

“This time last year I might have said ‘alive.’ But I don’t know,” I said, sitting in silence for a moment, trying to mentally sort this. I’d never thought about professions or anything. I guess when I was little I wanted to be a ballerina, but no one ever does anything they plan on, so I never thought much of it. Thinking about it seemed like a waste of my now time, but I guessed there was one thing I always wanted to be. “In control,” I said.

The corner of his lip lifted and he shook his head, like he’d won a bet.

A gust of wind blew in as our waitress went outside for a smoke break; I shivered.

“What about you?” I asked.

He shook out of his jacket and tossed it to me. I used it as a blanket on my legs. The lining of the jacket was warm with Harvey.

“I think,” he said, “I think I want to do lots of things, but I want to own something. Like a business or, I don’t know. I’d like to learn to play another type of instrument. Like the guitar or something.”

His fingers traced paths on the sticky plastic tablecloth. I wondered if they missed that act of creating, like my toes did. The healthier I got, the more my feet ached to move.

It was my turn now, and I wanted to ask him about everything that had happened between us those last couple weeks before I found out I was in remission, but I didn’t know how to. So I asked, “Freeze to death or burn to death?”

“Too easy, Al. Burn. What about you?”

“I’ve already done the dying slowly thing, so burn.”

“We can burn together,” he said.

“Thick as thieves,” I mumbled. Skimming the edges of my memory were recollections of us whispering in the backseat while my dad watched us in his rearview, a smile on his lips as he muttered, “Thick as thieves.” “My turn. Was there ever a time when you actually enjoyed playing the piano?”

He leaned back in the booth. “A few times.”

“Oh, come on, Harvey. That was awfully vague.”

“Well, so was the question, and I answered it,” he replied smartly.

“No you didn’t. Now answer my question.”

“When it was for you,” he said, his voice soft. “I enjoyed playing the piano when it was for you. Are you happy now?”

His words made my rib cage hurt, like it was too big for my body, but I didn’t answer. “Why did you quit?”

“It’s not your turn anymore.”

The waitress brought our food out along with a round of refills.

I took a sip of my water.

Harvey practically face-planted into his dish, shoveling food into his mouth. “Why did you quit ballet?”

I took a deep breath and decided to be honest. “I would never have been good enough.”

“What do you mean?” His face scrunched up.