Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

was rising as intensely as the nausea.

Josh had crashed on the couch, and there was no way Hope was going to wake him up. Gripping the radiator, she stepped out into the ocean storm.

An hour later, Bart relented, and Hope recovered her spirits, a little color blossoming again in her cheeks. Gathering her strength, she stood and went to curl up next to Josh. He opened his eyes and smiled at her.

“You look like—”

“Someone who’s been on the cruise from hell in really bad weather?” Hope interrupted.

“Like a hurricane?”

“More like a tropical storm.”

Hope had her pride, and so she chose to play down Bart’s assaults.

Josh padded over to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea. Hope didn’t believe the acupuncturist’s tea was a miracle cure, but she had to admit that the fiery ginger brew was revitalizing and soothed her nausea somewhat.

Josh put the cup down on the coffee table.

“I can’t believe how insensitive Luke was this afternoon! I just can’t . . .”

“Keeping death at bay is an unpleasant business, you know,” Hope said. “It’s like the worst kind of insomnia. There you are in your living room, asking yourself what the hell you’re doing there, while your stomach turns somersaults. And you can feel you’ve wet yourself, but you can’t move; you’re frozen with fear. Keeping death at bay is like being orphaned, because ultimately, we all know that we have to die alone. To think otherwise would be incredibly selfish, no? Everyone fights it in their own way. Luke is sometimes clumsy, but he does his best.”

“Why do you always stick up for him?”

“Because there’s nothing in your future that comforts me more than your friendship with him.”

They continued the sessions at the Center the next day.

The week was unbearable for Hope, full of tropical storms and hurricanes. On Wednesday and Thursday, she was battered by two migraines, one after the other, and on Friday, a sudden burst of tunnel vision in her left eye shot panic through her, although the effect thankfully faded a few hours later. Bart was full of cunning tricks, and Hope wondered what else he had up his sleeve.

Sam called her every other day. Their conversations were restricted to pleasantries, and as soon as her father started talking to her about the weather in San Francisco, or what Amelia had made the night before for dinner, Hope made her excuses and told him she needed to go. Then Sam would sigh and finally ask for her news. She always told him that she was doing as well as ever, and that he had no reason to worry.

One morning, Josh received a text from Hope in the middle of his class.

“Come and get me. I’m at Alberto’s. Hurry.”

Alberto owned the grocery store where Hope liked to shop. Since learning to cook, she had been upgraded in his mind from “nice polite customer” to “super-nice polite customer.”

Hope didn’t buy huge quantities from Alberto because she wasn’t always in the right frame of mind. But ever since the cookbook she’d picked up had become her Bible, she tended to rush into his grocery store, requesting spices that Alberto hadn’t even known existed. Alberto knew Hope’s story (one day her baseball cap had slipped off as she bent down to place her items in her basket), and he made it a point of pride to satisfy her every request, even if it meant spending hours online locating the right spice supply chains to do so.

When he read the text, Josh jumped up, brushing past the students in the front row and stopping in front of Luke. He asked his friend for the car keys and ran out of the amphitheater.

He drove through town at breakneck speed, double-parking the Camaro and sprinting into the grocery store.

Alberto’s sister was talking to a customer, and she nodded at him to head into the back room.

Hope was sitting on a chair, her right leg stretched out rigidly in front of her. Alberto was standing next to her, his face crumpling.

“Josh?” Hope hiccupped. “Is that you?”

He knew without asking.

“I’m sorry. I was looking at the asparagus, and I turned around to ask Alberto if there was a special offer on, and suddenly I couldn’t see him anymore. I had to turn my whole head around. I can’t see anything out of my left eye. I’ve just been sitting here like this, like an idiot . . .”

Hope broke into sobs, her sentence trailing off.

Josh kneeled down and took her in his arms.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to take you—”

“Please, not to the hospital! Please.”

“I wanted to call an ambulance right away, but the little lady didn’t want me to,” Alberto explained. “So I brought her in here, and she told me what to write to you.”

Josh thanked him, helping Hope up and taking her out to the car. Alberto led the way, and as he walked, he snatched up a bunch of asparagus and the basket Hope had been using.

Josh strapped Hope into the front seat and didn’t know what to do with the basket Alberto was holding out to him.

“It’s going to be okay; everything’s going to be all right.” He smiled sadly. “Here. Don’t worry about it. I’ll put it on her tab. Discounted, of course.”

Josh thanked him again. He placed the groceries on the back seat and slipped in behind the wheel.

“I’m begging you, don’t take me to the hospital.”

“I can’t believe you actually haggle with him for special prices,” he said, starting the car.

“Hello? It’s the most expensive grocery store in the neighborhood.”

Josh called Luke; Luke called Flinch; and Flinch called Dr. Berger.

Hope was ushered past the waiting room as soon as they arrived at the ER. She was put through a new scan, and Josh stayed by her side for the whole process, both hands wrapped around her feet. Dr. Berger saw them in his office between two other appointments.

“The tumor has compressed a part of your right-hand visual