“The article’s about a bitch. Doesn’t mean you have to be one,” I’d retorted. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
This is our last hurrah before her big day. As we drive up the coast to Myrtle Beach, I phone Home Depot using the car’s Bluetooth.
“Yes. Hi. I’m looking for some caulk,” I say. “It’s for my friend. She already has white caulk at home. What she really needs is some black caulk. Do you have any black caulk?"
Liz covers her mouth.
“We have several colors,” Home Depot Guy says.
“OK, so she can just come in, point to it and say, ‘Gimme that caulk right now?’”
Silence. “Uh … sure.”
Liz erupts in laughter.
*
We check in and get dressed.
“Look how fast we can be ready when we don’t have to do our hair,” Liz remarks.
Señor Frog's is crawling with overgrown, tight-shirted college guys. About four vodka cranberries in, I look Liz in the face.
“Dump Kyle," I blurt.
“Kyle is …”
“An ASSHOLE," I yell just as the music pauses.
She shrugs. “But I need him right now.”
I return from the bar with three shots and a 6’2” ginger.
“Liz.” I smirk. “Brendan.”
“Hey.” She self-consciously touches her purple wig.
As Liz dirty dances with the underage hottie, she looks so healthy. Since she stopped the chemo, the color has returned to her cheeks.
“I’m done chasing this fucking rainbow,” she’d said.
Brendan escorts us across the street to our hotel. Liz kisses him hard but sends him on his way.
I remove my green wig—shaving my shoulder-length hair was actually kind of liberating—and hand her a gift bag. The T-shirt reads:
YES, THEY’RE FAKE.
MY REAL ONES TRIED TO KILL ME.
MY REAL ONES TRIED TO KILL ME.
“When I get out of the hospital,” Liz smiles, flinging herself on the bed. “I might just get rid of my asshole too.”
#
RAINBOW
[from the impossibility of reaching the rainbow, at whose foot a pot of gold is said to be buried] : an illusory goal or hope
