Kiss

By Anetta Nowosielska

"Wait here," Audrey tells me. "And don't take your eyes off the luggage."

I do as I'm told, sort of.

I'm a part-time bartender and Audrey's full-time travel buddy and escape agent.

A shiny BMW pulls up, and Audrey, dressed in her finest office gear, waves me in. "Hurry, they may notice before we can get away."

She is puffing on her Gitane cigarette, as any self-respecting French woman would do. "Guy from the car rental gave me keys to this one instead of the piece of crap I paid for."

"And Miss Responsibility didn't give it back?" I ask sarcastically.

"Life is short," Audrey answers, and I notice that my dearest friend is oddly pale.

"I'm blowing off like half of Paris to do this," she says proudly, as we whiz by slower cars.

"Mighty brave of you," I say, knowing that deviating from her agenda makes her frantic.

"I have four doctor appointments tomorrow," she admits.

"Just check-ups, right?" I ask.

"Just some nonsense." She tosses her cigarette out the window.

Antwerp, Belgium, is our destination, because, as per Audrey's request, it's far from Paris, she's going through a Rubens phase, and I want some really good beer.

We rent a room in the cheapest hotel we can find and head outside.

"Museum tomorrow; tonight we get drunk," Audrey says, turning off her phone and heading through the door to a Mexican pub. Before I get a chance to order a Corona, she gets two rounds of tequila.

"One to keep us warm, second to keep us alive," she says.

"We are setting a new record," she adds, and another shot of golden liquid disappears in her red, lipsticked mouth. This is not the Audrey I know, but who am I to argue?

Too many shots to count later, Audrey is singing along to Mexican classics on top of the bar. A group of teenagers are cheering her on, and no one minds that she's making up the words.

"I'm lightheaded," Audrey says, and one of her new fans helps her down to her seat. As she leans forward, her buttondown shirt sags and I notice the all-familiar "X" penciled across her left breast. Audrey looks at me, knowing that now I know. Tears well up in my eyes and as I lean back onto my barstool I miss it by a foot. Everyone is laughing at me and I stay sitting under the table for a good five minutes — stunned.

Four years earlier, Audrey had told me she had cancer the way some announce a change in the garbage pick-up schedule — casually and without emotion.

"I'm going to beat it and we can all get on with our lives. It's a hiccup and nothing more."

I came to see her often. I held her hand and we talked about her kids and my love life without ever mentioning the "C" word. Audrey squeezed chemo sessions in between hair appointments and the piano lessons she had signed up for in order to shorten her "bucket list." Her husband threw her a "Cancer Free" party a year after the initial diagnosis, featuring paintings by an artist obsessed with death. For chuckles, Audrey wore a dress she bought at a boutique specializing in funeral gear.

"You knew I was going to make it, right?" she asked me that night.

"No I didn't," I had admitted, ashamed by my doubt.

I finally stand up and we make our way outside the bar.

***

"I think my kids will eventually forget me. Not the idea of me, but me, Audrey. Like, that I'm tall and I love chocolate milk and parrots and Rubens."

She bends over into an origami version of herself.

"I doubt it," I say, unknowingly declaring defeat.

A roar, from the deepest part of her belly turns into a frightening, window-shattering scream. I grab Audrey's hand but she pulls away, offended.

"I'm only going to say this once, for all the universe to hear. I'm dying. That is it. And all I really want to do is to live."

A mix of her tears and spit lands on my cheek. I don't dare to wipe it. I hold my breath."You are living," I say.

Audrey grabs me by my scarf and pulls me close. She presses her wet lips against mine, hard. We stay like that, hooked, until she pushes me away. This is not romantic, but the silence it offers is comforting.

"I just want to feel," and she turns around just in time to vomit all over her boots. I hold her hair back just as I have done before. Her confession is over. Audrey looks exhausted.

She no longer acknowledges me. I'm irrelevant. She lights a Gitanes and inhales deeply, eyes closed.

Her fan club from the restaurant spills out onto the street. A drunken teenager steps towards her with a swagger.

"Hey crazy dancer," he says confidently. "Got a cigarette for me?"

"I've got nothing to spare," she replies, without opening her eyes.

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