Breathing Room Chapter Seven

At the end of the day, when the Hollywood Arts students were back in their own parking lot, Evie turned to Tori. "So, I'm thinking we'll probably need a lot of time to work on our collaboration."

"Yeah, totally," Tori said. The arts presented at the museum had been great, but complex. Finishing one in time for parents' night was going to be hard.

"Um, well, I was wondering if you'd like to sleep over at my house tomorrow night, and work on our project." Evie flushed as she asked the question. "I mean, if you want to."

"I'd love to," Tori said. "It'll be the perfect time to work on our stuff."

"And plus, you probably want to see what Jade's like at home, right?" Evie asked with a grin.

"Yes, that excites me as well," Tori confessed, and laughed.

"She and Beck will be out for part of the evening, so we can snoop through her things," Evie said.

"Perfect!" Tori said, and they both giggled.

Feeling a little less courageous than the previous day on the bus, Tori rang the Wests' doorbell shortly before six o'clock the next night. There was a short silence, and then she could hear yelling: "Jadey, can you get the door?"

"Mom, I'm getting in the shower!"

"Where's your father?"

"He went to the hardware store!"

"For what?"

"Some tubing for Evie's compressor! Mom, just get the door!"

"Oh!"

Footsteps, and then the door was opened by a smiling woman with light brown hair. She was casually dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt that read "Excuse me, I have to go beat my daughter."

Tori was a bit shocked by the shirt, so shocked that for a moment she couldn't remember what she was doing. Then she recovered. "Um, hi, I'm Tori Vega. I'm here to work on a project with Evie."

"Hello, pleased to meet you," the woman said. "I'm Annie West. Would you like to come in?"

"Uh, yes." Tori stepped into the front foyer and allowed the door to be closed behind her.

"You're wondering about the shirt," Annie West said, smiling at Tori's confused look.

"Maybe just a little."

"We made them for a fundraiser," Annie said. "It refers to chest percussion, which we do on Evie every day so she can cough up a bunch of junk. It's a joke that only CF parents understand. Sometimes we like a little dark humor."

"Oh," Tori said.

From the other room she heard what sounded like Evie's voice, if the girl was riding over a road full of potholes. "Mom! Was that Tori?"

"Right this way," Annie said, and led Tori through a dining room to an attached living room, where Evie sat on one of two flowered couches. The tiny girl wore a heavy black vest over her T-shirt; the vest was connected to a box on the floor by the means of two big tubes, and the entire thing seemed to be shaking.

"Hi, Tori!" Evie said, smiling.

"Hi," Tori said, looking with some interest and confusion at the device on the floor.

"It's a vest," Evie said, her voice still vibrating. "Shakes up my chest wall, gets junk out. I've only got a few more minutes."

"Did you do your nebulizers?" Annie asked.

"Yeah," Evie said.

"I'll be in the kitchen."

Evie grabbed the TV remote and switched off "Golden Girls." She turned to Tori. "I thought up some great ideas for our collaboration," she said.

At that moment the box on the floor beeped. Tori jumped.

Evie laughed, and leaned over to hit the "off" switch on the box. She undid the Velcro and shrugged off the heavy vest. "I hate that thing," she said with her normal voice. Tori could see for the first time that she wore a T-shirt similar to Annie's; hers read "My mom beats me."

She grabbed her oxygen backpack and swung it over her shoulder. "I left my sketchbook upstairs."

"Evie, what time did you want dinner?" Annie called from the kitchen.

Evie looked at Tori. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah."

"Twenty minutes, Mom!" Evie called.

"Sure thing!"

"Come on," Evie said to Tori.

They headed upstairs, walking past the bathroom where the shower was running. Evie pointed to the door. "The demon is getting ready for her date."

"I heard that!" Jade's voice rang out from behind the door.

"How?" Evie demanded.

"The demon has super hearing!"

Evie laughed and the laugh became a cough. It was the most gut-wrenching cough Tori had ever heard, and it went on for several long seconds. Finally Evie got her breath back. "Sorry," she panted.

"It's okay," Tori said.

The door to the bathroom flew open, and Jade stood there in a big pink fluffy towel. "Are you okay?" she demanded fiercely, seemingly unaware of Tori's presence.

"Yeah," Evie gasped. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"What are you doing here?" Jade asked, glaring at Tori.

"Back, demon," Evie said. "We're working on our project for parents' night."

Jade gave Tori and Evie a suspicious look, as though she knew exactly what they were up to. "You sound like crap," she said.

"Mom's going to beat me later," Evie said blithely, and continued into her room.

Tori gave Jade one last look.

"Vega, if this gets out, I'm going to ruin you," Jade said simply, and slammed the door to the bathroom.

Once Tori was safely in Evie's room, she let loose with a cascade of giggles. "Oh, oh, my, that was perfect!" she exclaimed.

"We aim to please," Evie said with a grin.

She grabbed her sketchbook from her desk and opened it. "So, I was thinking that we could do sort of a reverse of what they showed us at the museum. Like, they showed us actors doing sketches of things that artists had already done. But what if we did the opposite? You could do a scene, and while you were doing it, I would draw my impressions."

She showed Tori a mock-up in her sketchbook.

"You drew me?" Tori asked, vaguely flattered.

"I had a lot of time in study hall," Evie said, flushing.

"I love it. I look confident."

"You are confident."

"Thanks. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. So, would we have to write the sketches?"

"Yeah," Evie said, "but I thought we could take the majority of them from the shows we've already done this year. That way it's familiar material. Like, what's the one you're doing right now?"

"'An Afternoon to Remember,'" Tori replied.

"Oh, yeah," Evie said. "Jade's playing the nun, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

"A better role was never created," Evie declared. "So, what do you think of the plan?"

"I love it. What does this mean, though?" Tori asked, pointing to a notation in the sketchbook.

"Those are the colors I'm thinking of using," Evie answered. "I thought we'd start mostly with black and white, you know, for that one play that was set in the 20's, and then move into blues and greens for that weird environmental monologue Sikowitz made you do… followed by a lot of gold and gray for the 'Afternoon' part, and finish with the full spectrum, obviously representing 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.'"

"Awesome," Tori said.

They worked on shortening some of the monologues until Annie called up the stairs to say that dinner was ready.

Over pizza, Annie said, "So, Tori, I understand you're new to Hollywood Arts."

"Yes," Tori said. "I, um, took my sister's place in the Big Showcase."

"Oh, that was you," Annie said. "I knew you looked familiar."

"Tori's in some of Jade's classes," Evie said. "They have Sikowitz together."

"The man is a nutjob, but he's also brilliant," Annie said, pouring herself some more water. "Did I ever tell you that we went to see him in a play?"

"Really? Which one?" Evie asked.

"He had a small part in 'Guys and Dolls,'" Annie said. "It was the year your father stopped taking trombone lessons, so we had a lot of free time on Thursday evenings. He actually wasn't bad."

"Mr. Sikowitz?"

"Yeah. He played a gambler," Annie said. "And for some reason after that, your father wanted to take up the trombone again."

The back door opened and a dark-haired man came in, carrying a bag from Hudson's Hardware. "Hello, my favorite ladies."

"Hi, Dad!" Evie said.

The man gave Annie and Evie a kiss and then turned to Tori. "Hello there," he said. "I hear you're working on a project with our Evie. I'm Kent."

"Tori."

"If you girls are done, I'll clear the table," Annie said. "Honey, there's pizza in the oven."

"I'm going to change, and I'll be right back," Kent said.

Annie stood and started taking plates off the table.

"Thanks, Mom," Evie said.

"Thanks, Mrs. West," Tori added.

Jade clomped down the stairs and entered the kitchen. "I'm leaving," she said shortly.

"Have fun, sweetie," Annie said. "Will you and Beck come back here for dessert? We'd love to have you. I feel like I haven't seen him in ages."

"Yeah, we'll come back," Jade said. "The movie's over at nine."

"Are you taking the van?"

"No, Beck's coming to pick me up." Jade looked out the front window. "And there he is."

"Have fun!" Annie called as Jade left through the front door. She turned to Evie and Tori. "What are you girls going to do?"

"Well, we got a lot of work done on our project," Evie said. "I guess we could watch a movie."

"Sounds good," Tori said.

Evie's eyes went bright as she thought about it. "You know what? I've got the perfect one."

A few minutes later they were sprawled on the couches in the living room, watching a badly-shot video of five-year-old Jade at various dance recitals. Tori was laughing so hard her sides hurt.

"Isn't she precious?" Evie asked, grinning.

"She's… something," Tori said, watching raptly as Jade, in a blue leotard and tutu, performed a dance to a "Nutcracker" piece.

When the video ended Evie turned off the TV. "Jade won't be back for another hour. Do you want to go rifle through her stuff?"

"Um, yeah," Tori said.

Jade's room was a forbidding fortress from the hallway; the door had been painted black and several serious signs warned "Keep Out" and "No Admittance." Evie jiggled the door handle.

"Locked?" Tori asked.

"Yeah," Evie said, "but no worries."

She took a bobby pin out of her hair and unbent it. With swift movements she inserted the pin into the lock and wiggled it around. A satisfying click followed, and the door opened.

"Ta-da," Evie said.

"How'd you learn how to do that?" Tori asked, astonished.

"I have a lot of spare time," Evie said. "Come on."

To Tori's surprise, Jade's room was neat and perfectly ordered. It was all a bit dark for her tastes, but she could find no fault in the shelves of books, posters 0f famous plays, and a well-made bed. In fact, it was a little disappointing. She was hoping for something else – what, she didn't know. Maybe bottles of newt eyes and little voodoo dolls of Tori herself.

"I know where she keeps her diary," Evie offered, and pulled open the top drawer on Jade's desk.

"She keeps a diary?" Tori asked, eyes wide.

"Yeah," Evie said. "We both started when we were in fifth grade. I stopped 'cause I'd rather be drawing, but Jadey can't help herself. She's got a million old notebooks. I've learned so much from reading them when she's not home. Did you know she used to date Robbie?"

"Robbie?"

"Yeah," Evie said.

"The one in our grade? The one with the puppet?"

"One and the same," Evie said, and giggled. "They went out for like six months in seventh grade. And they broke up because that was when Beck moved to town."

"Makes sense."

Evie flipped open the small leather-bound book. "Let's see. This is from about four days ago. 'Dear Diary, Today Beck and I went out to the pier and got ice cream.'"

"Aww," Tori said.

" 'We sat there as the sun went down. We talked about school and boring stuff like that, and whether Cat's going to have her birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese again. We both decided that she's way too old for that, and so we're going to talk her into having it at Bella Fina – she likes their food and they have a band on Friday nights.

" 'Then Beck asked me about Evie's doctor's appointment and I just froze up. He asked if it was bad news and of course I got all sarcastic. Of course it's bad news. It's always bad news. Her lung function is down to something like 55%. Beck asked what happens when it gets lower.'"

Evie's voice trembled a little bit as she continued to read. " 'I told him there aren't a lot of options. She'll have to get a lung transplant… or she'll die. And I know this'll make me sound like a pansy, something I hate, but if Evie dies I'm going to kill myself. Evie is the reason I get up in the morning. She's everything good with the world. She's light and sweetness and I love her more than I love anything else. I want to do anything I can to keep her alive. I haven't told anyone else, but I've been spending study hall in the library, trying to find new treatments for cystic fibrosis. If it's out there, I want to find it. I've been emailing doctors at the Mayo Clinic and Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. They all say there could be a treatment in five to ten years, but I worry that won't be enough time for Evie.'"

Evie closed the diary and gently put it back into Jade's desk drawer. "Damn," she said, concern in her eyes. "I had no idea."

"It's nice she worries about you," Tori said.

"She shouldn't have to worry about me," Evie said. "She should be having fun and dating Beck and locking freshman in lockers."

From downstairs Annie called, "Girls? Would you like some ice cream? Jade's going to be home in a few minutes!"

Evie gave Tori a small, sad smile, and the two girls went back down the stairs.