So Mom and I sat there in two generic inst.i.tutional chairs in the hallway and tried to get all the crying out of our system, and eventually I was able to talk in short little bursts.

"I just w want her to w , wake up."

"Oh, honey."

"It s sucks."

"You made her very happy."

"If I m , made her h happy, then why is sn' sn't she trying to f fight. Harder."

"It's just too hard. Honey. Some things, no one can fight."

"It sucks."

"Death happens to everyone."

"HurrnNRNNNGK."

This went on for like an hour. I'll spare you the rest of it. Eventually, we stopped talking, and there was a long silence as people like Gilbert were wheeled around and doctors and nurses strode briskly past them.

Then Mom said: "I'm sorry."

I thought I knew what she was talking about.

"Well, I just wish you had asked me first."

"I did ask you first, but I guess I didn't really give you a choice."

"Mom, what are you talking about. You didn't ask me first."

"Are we talking about the same thing?"

"I'm talking about the stupid pep rally."

"Oh."

"What are you talking about."

"I'm talking about getting you to spend time with Rachel in the first place."

"The pep rally was way worse."

"That, I don't feel bad about. I do feel bad about making you deal with such a difficul-"

"You don't feel bad about the pep rally?"

"No, but I do feel bad ab-"

"The pep rally was a nightmare. It was literally like a nightmare."

"If you regret that your beautiful movie was shown to your cla.s.smates, then I really don't know how to respond to that."

"I can't believe that you still think that was a good idea. First of all, th-"

"There are some things-"

"Can I just finish?"

"First, there are some-"

"Can I just finish. Mom. Mom, let me finish. Mom. Jesus Christ."

We were both using Mom's unstoppable nonstop-stream-of-words move, and I think she was so surprised that I was using it back on her that she actually relented and let me talk.

"Fine. What."

"Mom. My cla.s.smates hated the film. And Earl and I really don't like it either. We don't think it's very good. In fact, we think it's terrible."

"If you-"

"Mom, you have to let me finish."

"Fine."

"It's not a good film. OK? Actually, it sucks. Because-Mom, chill-we had pretty good intentions, but that doesn't mean we made a good film. OK? Because it's not about her at all. It's just this embarra.s.sing thing that shows that we don't even understand anything about her. And also, you're my mom, so you're ridiculously biased, and you can't see that the film actually sucks and doesn't make any sense."

"Honey. It's so creative. It-"

"Just because something is weird and hard to understand doesn't mean it's creative. That's-that's the whole problem. If you want to pretend like something is good, even when it's not, that's when you use the stupid word 'creative.' The film sucked. Our cla.s.smates hated it."

"They just didn't understand it."

"They didn't understand it because we made a s.h.i.tty film."

"Honey."

"If it was good, they would have liked it. They would have understood it. And if it was good, maybe it would have helped."

We were quiet again. Someone a few doors down seemed to be loudly dying. It really did not help the mood.

"Well, maybe you're right."

"I am right."

"Well, I'm sorry."

"OK."

"What you don't understand is, it's hard when your children start growing up," said Mom, and all of a sudden she was crying again, way harder than before, and I had to comfort her. We were doing a Cross-Chair Hug, and physically it was extremely awkward.

Crying semi-hysterically, Mom made a number of points:

* Your friend is dying

* It's just so hard to watch a child die * And it's much harder to watch a friend's daughter die * But the hardest is watching your son watching his friend die * You have to make your own decisions now * It's so hard for me to let you make your own decisions * But I have to let you make your own decisions * I am so proud of you * Your friend is dying, and you have been so strong I wanted to argue with some of this. I hadn't been strong at all, and I definitely didn't feel like I had done anything to be proud of. But somehow I knew this was no time for an episode of Excessive Modesty Hour.

We left. I knew I wouldn't see Rachel again. I just felt kind of empty and exhausted. Mom got me some Kahlua ice cream with habaneros and bee pollen in it. It tasted OK.

That's when I knew I was going to make it.

Winter break was almost over. It hadn't snowed yet. Earl and I were in Thuyen's Saigon Flavor and it was the first time we had seen each other since I became a hermit. Thuyen's Saigon Flavor is that Vietnamese restaurant in Lawrenceville that Mr. McCarthy recommended to us the day we accidentally got stoned and told Rachel that we were filmmakers. I thought Earl would be more likely to want to meet up if it was at a place with bizarre and possibly inedible food.

Earl was already there when I showed up. I was sweating a lot under my winter coat because I had biked from my house. Also, my gla.s.ses were all fogged up, so I had to take them off and squint around like a mole-rat. Earl did not identify himself, so I wandered at random around the restaurant until I located him. He was sullenly stirring his bowl of soup.

"WELCOME WELCOME," said a blurry object who was probably Thuyen, momentarily scaring the h.e.l.l out of me.

"Hey," I said to Earl.

"Sup."

"Is that pho?"

"Yeah."

"Is it good?"

"It's got tendons in it and s.h.i.t."

"Huh."

"WHAT YOU LIKE TO ORDER," said Thuyen. He was about my height and shape, and he seemed disproportionately happy that we were there.

"Pho," I said.

"ONE PHO," bellowed Thuyen, and waddled away.

"Drug-free for once," muttered Earl.

The music was extremely smooth R&B, and it was playing kind of loud. "You're my s.e.xy love," a guy was crooning. "Se-e-exy lo-o-ove."

"So," I said. "I dunno if you heard, but Rachel died."

"Yeah, I heard."

"So, uh. Did you end up getting your DVDs back from her?"

"Yeah," said Earl, stirring.

"Can we make some copies of those?"

Earl raised his eyebrows.

"I sort of freaked out," I said. "I kind of had this freak-out and, uh, scratched all my copies up. So I don't have any copies anymore."

Earl looked at me kind of bug-eyed.

"I burnt mine," he said.

"Oh," I said. For some reason, this didn't surprise me all that much. I probably should have freaked out when I heard it.

"Yeah," he said. "I burnt em in a trash can."

"I guess there are no more copies," I said.

"You jacked yours up? They don't play no more?"

"Yeah," I said.

"d.a.m.n," Earl said.

"Ooh girl!" bleated the R&B guy. "You make me say, 'Ooh ooh ooh.'"

We were both quiet for a while. Then Earl said, "I didn't think you was gonna jack up your copies."

"Yeah," I said. "I just kind of freaked out. I dunno."

"It didn't even occur to me that you would . . . do something like that."

"I shouldn't have done it," I said, but Earl didn't seem to be trying to make me feel bad. He just seemed kind of astonished.

"ONE PHO," announced Thuyen, putting the bowl on the table. It smelled kind of great and kind of nasty. I would be smelling it and it would have this amazing kind of beefy sweet licorice smell for a while, and then suddenly there would be this hint of some other smell, which was sort of the smell of a sweaty b.u.t.t. There was also a big complicated plate with leaves and fruit and sperm-looking bean sprouts on it.