Side Effects May Vary

“Sorry I’m late,” said Alice and leaned over the table. “But better me than your period. Pregnancy scares are such a bitch, but you know what I mean, right, Mindi?”

Ouch.

Mindi’s mouth fell open, her eyes watering instantly and her nostrils flaring.

Most people were nice to Alice, especially with the whole cancer thing. But I think Alice took pleasure in the fact that no matter how sick she was, Mindi and Celeste were still so brutal with her. And because of that, Alice fed the fire between them even more intensely than before she was sick.

“Hey, guys,” called Bernie from across the church dining hall. She waved us over.

“I’ve already got you two a plate,” said Martin. “Sit down; grub up!”

From where we sat, I saw my mom talking to Mindi’s mom, Mrs. Barton, near the buffet line. My mom wore her dance clothes and her usual bun, trying her best to inch away from the grease-saturated food as if it were a cold she might catch.

Alice pushed around some scrambled eggs with her fork and ate half a pancake. I devoured my plate and the remainder of hers. As I scooped up my last bite of ketchup-covered hash browns, Alice said, “Let’s go get some more juice.”

Looping her arm through mine, she pulled me along, and I trailed behind her, my feet dragging. A few feet away from the beverage table she came to an abrupt halt, with me tripping to a stop at her side.

“Celeste,” she said sweetly, her eyes fluttering, as she swept her hand to her chest.

“Alice,” said Celeste, biting each letter.

“You were just darling in Oklahoma! Harvey,” she said, turning back to me, “she was darling, wasn’t she?”

Celeste stood there, her arms pressed to her sides, muscles twitching.

Alice paused and leaned forward, her hand cupped around her mouth like she might share a secret. “It was so nice of the costume department to, you know,” she said, motioning up and down the length of Celeste’s body, “accommodate you.”

Celeste’s cheeks flushed red.

I always knew Alice could be mean; there was nothing new there. But Celeste wasn’t even fat. I guess she was bigger than most dancers, but Alice didn’t say those things because they were true, she said those things to be hurtful. And for that moment, I didn’t really want to be associated with her. I wanted to be walking next to the girl I’d sat in the spinning teacups with and the girl who had saved Goliath from the pound and who had humiliated Luke after beating up on Tyson and had danced with me outside of the prom. Not this girl.

She didn’t notice when I took a step back.

“And how are you and Luke?” asked Alice. “How does he even keep his hands off you?”

Celeste leaned in close. “Oh, he doesn’t. That’s why you guys broke up, remember?”

I didn’t hear what else she might have said. I was halfway to the exit before I even looked back to see Alice nose to nose with Celeste, her hands on her hips. From over Celeste’s shoulder, Alice spotted me, and I walked faster. I didn’t want to be her other half to this. Not anymore.

I’d made it to my car door when I heard her call my name.

I looked up to see her walking across the parking lot as fast as her body would allow. “Wait up!” she said. “Don’t leave me in there with those assholes.” She caught up to me, her chest heaving. “Why’d you leave me?”

I shook my head and opened the car door and closed it behind me without a word.

“What the hell, Harvey?” She stood right outside my window. “Talk to me.”

She didn’t get it. She really didn’t get it.

I rolled down my window and breathed through my nose, trying to harness my anger so it wouldn’t slip away, so that she couldn’t make me forget why I was so pissed in the first place. “You can’t talk like that to people.”

She scoffed. “Oh, come on. Those girls are bitches and you know it.”

I threw my hands up. “So let them be bitches. When you say shit like that, you only make it okay for them to act the way they do.”

“Whatever. You don’t get it. Someone needs to put them in their place. And, yeah, maybe I was meaner than usual, but it’s not like I get high every day.”

I reached across the car and opened the glove box. Next to my lighter and pocket knife sat a small baggie from this little head shop outside of town called Purple Dragon. I rolled down the window, my fist clenched around the bag. “No,” I said and threw the baggie at her feet. “Alice, you’re not high. You’re just mean.”

According to the label on the baggie, what Alice and I had smoked had been completely legal pine-flavored tobacco. Honestly, I wouldn’t even have known how to get real pot.

Alice picked it up and read the label.

I didn’t wait to see the reaction on her face.

For the first time, I left Alice, and the joke was on her. I wanted to laugh, but nothing about it was funny.

Alice. Then.