Cary
I actually
felt nervous sitting down in the hotel bar, nursing a margarita and wondering
what was going on upstairs. I knew I had
done the right thing in leaving Nick on his own to tell the guys, but I was
still dying to know how it had gone. I
just hoped he had actually gone through with it.
I knew he
must have when AJ came barreling in and threw himself onto a stool at the end
of the bar. “Gimme a shot of Jack,” he
told the bartender. “Actually, make it a
double.”
My stomach
lurched as I watch the bartender fill a whiskey glass and slide it across the bar
to AJ, who downed it quickly and shoved it back for a refill. Not
good, I thought, wondering if I should intervene. I was down at the other end of the bar; he
hadn’t noticed me yet, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch him drown his
sorrows in whiskey. Taking a deep
breath, I slid off my stool, picked up my margarita glass, and walked over to
him. “Hey, AJ.”
AJ looked
up. “Oh, hey, Cary.” He sounded amazingly composed, even though it
was obvious he was falling apart inside.
“You feelin’ better?”
“I… uh,
yeah… thanks.” My mind was racing. He has
to know, doesn’t he? Why else would he
be down here drinking? Maybe he just
hasn’t heard the whole story yet.
Even if that was the case, I was astonished that he hadn’t pieced it
together and realized that I wasn’t sick, that it had been Nick all along. He wasn’t thinking clearly. “Did you talk to Nick?” I asked hesitantly.
He threw
down the rest of his second glass of Jack Daniels and wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand before answering. “Yeah.”
He looked at me, his eyes dark and accusing. “You already knew, didn’t you?” I nodded.
“How long have you known?”
So he
hadn’t heard the whole story. I really
didn’t want to be the one to have to tell him, but now that he had asked, I
didn’t have much of a choice. “Awhile,”
I admitted. “I’ve been taking care of
him.”
AJ looked
at me in disgust. “So you knew about
this all along, and you didn’t think you should tell us?”
As his
voice rose, I felt my face heat up. “It
wasn’t my place,” I said in a small voice.
“I tried to get Nick to tell you, but he had his reasons for wanting to
keep it a secret.”
“Bullshit,”
AJ spat. He was practically shouting
now, and I looked around nervously, expecting to find fans lurking nearby,
hanging on to our every word. There were
a few other people in the bar, but I couldn’t tell if they were fans or
not. “We’re like his brothers,” AJ was
ranting on. “We’ve known him over half
his life. He’s only known you, what, a
month? Two? I can’t believe he’d tell his girlfriend
before he told us. That is fucked up, man…”
He really
didn’t get it. And his F-bomb had
attracted a lot of attention. The other
bar patrons – who may or may not have been fans – were starting to stare at us. I leaned down closer to him and said in a low
voice, “Can we not discuss this right in front of everyone? Come here…”
I dragged him off to a small table in the far, back corner, away from
listening ears. I sat down across from
him, set my glass down in front of me, and said, “Listen… I’m not his
girlfriend. He let you guys think that
because it was convenient. We haven’t
been sleeping together. I’m his nurse.”
That
stopped AJ in his tracks. “You… what?”
“He’s doing
chemotherapy. I’ve been giving him his
treatments on the road, so he could keep touring with you,” I explained
patiently, once AJ had backed off enough to hear me out. “That’s all he wanted; it’s the whole reason
he hid it. He thought you guys would
cancel the tour if you knew he was sick.”
AJ frowned,
blinking, while he let everything I’d said soak in. “We probably would have postponed it, yeah…”
he said slowly, “but we could have toured later, once he got better. I mean, he is gonna get better, right? He’s not, like, dying, is he?” He looked up at me, and I saw the sheer
terror in his eyes. The anger couldn’t
fully mask his fear.
I swallowed
hard. “I don’t know. It’s not good. His disease is in stage IV. That’s… that’s the last stage. It’s an aggressive kind of cancer. But,” I added quickly, maybe even a little
desperately, “it’s responding to treatment.
The chemo has helped. So he could
get better…” I trailed off, adding
silently in my head, “… but he might
not.” The thought made me feel sick
to my stomach.
AJ nodded,
blissfully naive. “He will,” he said,
staring down at the table in front of him.
“You don’t know Nick like I do; he’s a stubborn son of a bitch. He does everything the hard way. He won’t go down without a fight.”
I laughed,
in spite of myself. “Oh, trust me; I’ve
figured that out about him.”
He smirked
at me briefly, before the smile dropped off his face. Looking down at the tabletop again, he said,
“So… you said he’s doing chemo?”
“Uh-huh. He’s halfway through his fifth cycle of
it. He’ll do at least six cycles, maybe eight. Either way, he’s on the final stretch.”
It made me
feel better to hear myself say that.
When I’d met Nick, he was just starting his third cycle, and now he was
nearing his sixth and maybe last. Next
week, he’d have another appointment with his oncologist in LA and another round
of testing to see how he’d responded to the last two rounds of chemo, and if
the results looked good, maybe she’d declare him in remission and move him into
the maintenance phase of treatment.
After all of the complications he’d had lately from the chemo, he could
use the good news – and a break from the toxic, high doses of drugs.
“How come
he still has his hair?” AJ wanted to know.
“I thought chemo made you bald.”
I wondered
if he was just a little bit jealous.
Smiling as I remembered Nick icing his head, I replied, “’Cause he’s a
lucky bastard.”
AJ let out
a humorless chuckle. “Some luck…
catching cancer.” He glanced back up at
me with a look of desperate hope in his eyes.
“You sure this isn’t just some fucked-up, elaborate prank he paid you to
play along with?”
Denial. I felt sorry for him. Sadly, I shook my head. “No… sorry… messed up as that would be, I
wish it was.”
AJ sighed heavily, lowering his eyes
again. “Man… this is some heavy
shit. He should’ve told us sooner. Or you should have.” He raised his chin, piercing me with that
same accusatory stare. I felt my face
get red again.
“I wanted
to,” I insisted. “But I couldn’t. It’s a confidentiality thing. He trusted me, as a nurse and as a friend, and
I couldn’t betray his confidence. I hope
you understand.”
He shook
his head. “I don’t,” he muttered, “but
whatever. It’s done. The secret’s out. What are we s’posed to do now?” He eyed my margarita glass, still half
full. “You got the right idea. I need another drink.”
“I think we
should go back upstairs,” I suggested quickly, knowing that having another
drink was not the right idea, at
least not for him. “It sounds like you
didn’t hear the whole story from Nick before you came down. You should talk to him.”
“Forget
talking to him. If he didn’t have
fucking cancer, I’d kick his ass.”
I couldn’t
help but giggle, though I wasn’t sure if he was actually joking. Picturing Nick the way he’d looked with his
nose gushing blood the other day, I said, “Yeah… probably not such a good
idea.”
“He
deserves an ass-whooping for pulling this shit over on us,” AJ growled, shaking
his head in disbelief. “Jesus, how could
he have hidden something like this from us that long?”
I
shrugged. “He’s a better actor than
people give him credit for. He knew what
he was doing. He’d thought it
through. He just kept up his stage persona
offstage and acted like he was okay, even when he didn’t feel well. And when it was too much, he hid out on his bus
or in his hotel room and kept to himself.
Brian and Howie have been so busy with their families, I don’t think
they noticed. You did, but you thought
he was on drugs.”
AJ
grimaced. “He reminded me of me, back
when I was messed up. Sneaky… moody… withdrawn. I knew he was hiding something. I just never guessed it was something like
this.”
I swallowed
hard. “I helped him hide it. I made excuses for him, too. I’m sorry.
I felt terrible doing it… I hate lying.
I’m just glad he finally told the truth.”
AJ nodded,
studying me closely. After a minute, he
said, “You don’t really have diabetes, do you?”
I blushed
and ducked my head. “No.”
“That
needle I saw you with…”
“It was a
hormone injection to get Nick’s bone marrow to make more white blood
cells. The chemo kills off healthy cells
along with the cancer cells, and when his blood cell counts get too low, he’s
more vulnerable to infection,” I explained.
“The real reason we went to the hospital today was for a blood
transfusion, to bring his counts back up.
I don’t think he would have made it through the show tonight without
it. He was feeling pretty bad.” I shook my head, imagining much worse it
could have been. “Being out on the road
like this, around so many people, I’m amazed he hasn’t gotten really sick. He’s lucky.”
“Or
stupid,” AJ said, deadpan.
I
laughed. “Definitely stupid.”
After all
that stuff he’d said about me to Nick, I was relieved he wasn’t giving me a
hard time for lying about having diabetes, too.
Really, that made me no better than Nick. He’d been hiding an illness, and I’d been
faking one. We made a terribly good
team.
AJ
sighed. “I guess I can’t hide down here
all night, huh? Even though I’d like
to.” He eyed the bar longingly.
“No,” I
said, taking the cue to stand up, leaving my margarita unfinished on the
table. “Let’s go back up.”
AJ
hesitated, looking like he was tempted to stay and finish my drink for me, but
finally, he got up, too. We settled our
tabs at the bar and took the elevator back up to our floor. “I don’t even know what to say to him,” AJ
mumbled, as the elevator doors slid open.
“You don’t
have to say anything profound. Let him
apologize for lying to you, and then just treat him like you normally
would. I think that’s what he wants. He doesn’t want you guys getting all weird
around him,” I replied.
“Weirder
than usual, you mean.”
I
smiled. “Exactly.”
We ran into
Howie in the hall. “I was just coming to
look for you,” he told AJ. “You okay?”
AJ
shrugged. “Not really.”
Howie caught
my eye. “We were just down in the bar,
talking,” I said, but a look of understanding passed between us that told him
AJ had also been drinking. He could
probably smell the whiskey on his breath, anyway. “We were on our way back to talk to Nick.”
Howie
nodded. “He’ll be glad you’re back,” he
said to AJ. “He feels bad, you
know. He said to tell you he’s sorry.”
“Well, he
can say it to my face then,” AJ snapped.
“He should feel bad. He’s a
fucking douche.”
Howie
smiled. “Brian used the word ‘prick.’”
“He’s that,
too,” growled AJ. But I knew he didn’t
mean it. Deep down, he loved Nick like a
brother, and even if he wouldn’t admit it, it showed in his face, in his whole
demeanor. Angry or not, he cared about
Nick, and the idea of Nick being sick was tearing him apart inside.
Of course,
Howie knew this, too. He didn’t say
anything else, just let AJ vent, as he walked with us back to Nick’s door. I had a key to the room, but I knocked
instead of using it. “Nick?” I called
softly. “It’s just us.”
Nick opened
the door, looking sheepish when he saw AJ standing there behind Howie and
me. He stood back to let us in. AJ shoved past him roughly, then rounded on
him. “You’re a stupid son of a bitch,
you know that?” he hissed.
Nick’s face
reddened, but he nodded quite calmly. “I
know. I’m sorry.”
“You should
be!”
“I am.”
“I mean,
how could you tell her-” AJ jerked his
thumb over his shoulder at me. “- and
not us? I thought we were a family.”
Nick swallowed,
his adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “We
are. I guess sometimes it’s just easier
to tell a stranger than someone you love.
I didn’t wanna upset you or make you worry or anything.”
“Gee, how
considerate of you,” AJ said sarcastically.
“It’s not like I was worried when I just thought you were snorting
cocaine again. And it’s not like I’m
upset now.”
“I’m
sorry,” Nick said again, shifting his weight uncomfortably.
“You’re
also an asshole. Tell me something…”
“What?”
AJ got
right up in Nick’s face, and even though Nick was taller, AJ looked a lot more
intimidating. “How is it that you can go
through chemotherapy… and still have way
more fucking hair on your big fat fucking head than I do? Huh?
How is that fair?”
The corners
of Nick’s lips twitched as he cracked a smile.
“Good genes, baby,” he replied, the hesitant smile turning into his
trademark smirk. “And ice,” he added,
winking at me.
I
smiled. Even AJ was smirking, unable to
keep a straight face. “You suck, dude,”
he told Nick. Then he pulled him into a
hug. Watching them together, I wasn’t
sure whether to laugh or cry.
Boys.
***