Not that it matters. For all I know, my parents would’ve overreacted and taken me to the hospital, and probably back to their place after that. And like she said, the Whitmans are taking good care of me.
“What do you think? Solid food today?” Brianne asks, folding the damp towel in her hands and sitting with her back perfectly straight so anyone can tell she didn’t quit ballet like Cherish and I did. Or maybe her posture comes from playing the piano with the restrained passion and rote precision of a debutante in a Jane Austen adaptation. Either way, the sun is bathing her in warm light, and there’s a sparkle in her eye as she looks at me, awaiting my decision.
“I’m starving,” I confess. “I haven’t eaten for days.”
“Don’t be silly, of course you have. Jer or I have made sure you’ve gotten all your nutrients in liquid form, even if it took ages.” She picks up a feeding syringe from the bedside table.
A blushing warmth washes up my neck and into my cheeks.
“That must have been a lot of trouble,” I say.
“Not at all.” Her hand collapses into her lap, syringe included. “But it did bring back memories of feeding a very good-natured, but very weight-resistant little Cher-bear.”
She’s smiling wistfully. That must’ve been Baby Cherish’s nickname. I’ve never heard it before, so she must have outgrown it. I know her parents didn’t by Brianne’s sigh.
“So. How do you propose we break your solid-food fast? What do you want more than anything in the world?”
The first thing I think of is my dad’s conchiglie, but it’s involuntary. It also almost makes me dry heave despite the fact that I know it isn’t what made me sick. My brain will no doubt hold it responsible until I know what did.
“Anything but pasta,” I say through a grimace, and Brianne gives one big nod.
“No pasta. Got it. How about some thick, delicious burgers?” she asks, eyes big and knowing. Maybe burgers are a staple of Cherish’s after she’s recovered from something. “Dad can throw some on the grill, and I can get you some ginger ale, just to be safe?”
I just smile a little. She’s in Mommy mode, and talking to me like I’m Cherish.
I don’t correct her.
“Definitely burgers,” I say. “And coleslaw.”
“Oh, that is a very good choice,” she replies, wagging a finger at me. “I am on it. Okay, you get a shower and get back to your beautiful self, and I’ll text Cherish to bring home ginger ale and coleslaw fixins—and maybe something sweet, just in case!”
“Where is Cherish?” I ask, trying not to let my eyes or shoulders slip.
“Oh, she just needed to get some air. She’s been joined to you at the hip this whole time, and I insisted she get out in the summer sun for a bit,” she says as she stands and starts gathering the debris of the past several days from my nightstand. “I think she and Tariq were gonna get brunch, but don’t worry, she should be ready to eat again by now!”
And Brianne Whitman kisses the top of my head.
“I’m so glad you’re feeling better, sweetheart,” she says, before bouncing out of the room.
It’s dimmer when she’s gone, quite literally, and I can actually see the stale air hanging in the bedroom. I get up and open the windows, even though there’s hardly a breeze to feel.
Before I hop in the shower, I strip the bed, and myself, shedding what I hope is the last of this illness, and spritz some of Cherish’s rosewater room spray so that when I get back from the bathroom, everything feels a little lighter.
The shower is divine. Between being conscious and coherent enough to stand up on my own and the exfoliating gloves Cherish convinced me are far superior to a loofah, within moments I’m feeling like I’ve shed a disgusting husk and am close to reclaiming my former glory.
The shower doors frost automatically when the handle is latched from the inside, but I let steam encircle me, laying my forehead against the tile wall.
I can almost hear Cherish whimpering and crying again. I can hear her grunt and grimace as she tries to undress me from an impossible position.
I can hear Brianne snap at her, her tone cutting even if her words aren’t. The not-so-hidden message in them clear even when I was in a delirious stupor.
You are both my daughters now, and I will not choose between you.
I feel her nimble fingers detangling my hair again, and alone in the shower now, I let my head fall into the stream of water. The conditioning product she worked through my coils flushes down the length of the twists and comes out of the Bantu-knotted ends all milky white, leaving my hair feeling soft and supple. Like it was an intentional hair masque and not a result of being too out of it to rinse before now.
Once all of me is clean, I’m energized. I want to be dressed and coming down the staircase while Jerry and Brianne and Cherish look on with relief, but I also want to look my best, so I take the forty minutes to diffuse my hair once I’ve terry-cloth-dried, oiled, and applied one of my best friend’s curl smoothies. All told, it’s an hour-long process and I use most of the contents of the bamboo container—which is to be expected with hair as dense as mine—but that just means my resurrection supper should be nearly done.
Except when I come back into the bedroom to dress, it’s exactly as empty as I left it.
No Cherish.
I would have definitely waited for her, or more likely come and joined her in the bathroom while she got ready, but she might be helping out downstairs, so I text her.
Which is when I realize that I have no idea where my phone is. And since my last memory of using it was en route to the Campbell compound after dinner with my parents, half a week ago, I have no idea where to look.
I start with the drawer of the nightstand on Cherish’s side of the bed.
The inside of it is just as magazine-cover ready as the rest of the Whitman home. I know someone keeps our bedroom and bathroom in pristine working order, even if I never see them, but I’m surprised to find that there is not one single junk drawer in a house with this many rooms and pieces of furniture, and that includes the nightstand in the teenager’s bedroom.
There’s a white box inside, and beside that, a notepad that flips open and has a magnetic closure, and one of those little pencils people use to record their golf scores. It’s a little infantile, with a cartoon character I recognize from my and Cherish’s elementary school obsession with its show. Stickers overlap on every centimeter of the cover.
At first I think it might be a diary, and from the looks of it, one from early in our friendship. Back when I spent days studying a young Cherish because at first I didn’t understand what I saw. If I asked what she thought back then, she wouldn’t remember. She’d never be able to tell me factually; instead she’d tell me what she’d like to think she thought back then, overlaying nostalgia and current ideologies on the memory without meaning to.