Seventeen
Dear Jenny,
Winter seems to come so much earlier up here in Vermont. Thanksgiving is barely over, and already it’s freezing cold. But enough about our dumb weather. Your last letter really meant a lot to me. I don’t know why, but ever since I came home from the hospital, I’ve felt so “out of it.”
Maybe it’s because I’m being bused this year to the new high school. I swear, ninth grade isn’t at all like middle school. The other girls have their own little cliques, and I don’t feel like I fit in with a single one. I know they think I’m contaminated because I’ve had cancer. I overheard some of them talking, and they think they can catch leukemia from me. How dumb!
I heard from Noreen last week, and she sure sounds down. I don’t think she’s doing well at all. Her handwriting looks so shaky. Oh, about Christmas—I can’t come to visit. My grandparents in
California want us to fly out for the holidays. They even sent us plane tickets. We’re going to Disneyland. I don’t mind seeing Mickey Mouse, but I’ll miss being one of the Four Musketeers (or is it the Four Horsemen of Destruction?). Keep writing. Your letters mean a lot. You, Noreen, and Kimbra are the only ones who understand me. Love and stuff,
Elaine
JENNY FOLDED ELAINE’S letter thoughtfully. She too was worried about Noreen. The last time they’d talked on the phone, Noreen had sounded groggy and drugged. “It’s my pain medicine,” Noreen said. “I hurt all the time, but my doctor says I don’t need to go back to the hospital. My mom cries a lot when she doesn’t know I’m listening. Sometimes, I get the feeling that everyone’s trying to hide something from me.”
Jenny called Kimbra, caught her coming in from school, and read her Elaine’s letter.
“I understand the prejudice bit,” Kimbra said. “I get it all the time. You’re lucky you have a tutor and don’t have to face the high school rat race every day.”
Jenny didn’t feel so lucky. Because of her private tutor, she was certainly caught up with her class academically, and in some subjects, she was even ahead. But studying at home left her restless and bored. “I guess either way has its pros and cons,” she replied. “You sound angry. What’s up?”
“I never could fool you,” Kimbra admitted with a sigh. “I talked with the basketball coach yesterday and told her I wanted to go out for the team. I’m still a good shooter from the foul line, and as I told her, I wouldn’t have my hands all over the opponents and get called for fouling by the refs.”
“And?”
“And she almost fainted. It seems no high school in Maryland has ever had a one-armed ball player. Can you imagine that?”
Jenny chuckled. “If anyone can be the first, it’ll be you.”
“Over the school board’s dead bodies.”
“What do you mean?”
“They won’t let me play. They says it’s ‘too risky’ for my health.”
“But you’re perfectly healthy. No more tumors.”
“I know, but they aren’t listening. My dad’s fighting mad, and he says he’s going to get an attorney and take the whole school board to court if need be.”
Jenny wished she could console Kimbra. “I can tell my grandmother. Maybe her attorney can recommend a good lawyer to take your case.”
“That’s nice of you, but I’d rather not become a media event. It’s bad enough that I’m different from everyone else. I don’t really want my troubles aired in the newspapers and on local TV.”
“Maybe the board will change its mind.”
“I doubt it. I guess I should just give it up.”
“Don’t do that.” Jenny was surprised by the vehemence in her own voice.
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t let them push you around. Because if you don’t fight now, it’ll be harder to fight next time.”
There was a pause as Kimbra thought over what Jenny had said. Finally, she broke the quiet. “I’ll think about it. I’ll talk to my parents.”
“Good.” Jenny toyed with the phone wire. “Are we still on for Christmas?”
“As far as I know. What do you hear from Noreen?”
Jenny shared her concerns about their friend. “I wanted to go over and see her last weekend, but her mother said no, that she wasn’t up to visitors.”
“Maybe we can both go visit when I come at Christmastime.” Kimbra cleared her throat. “So, what do you hear from the hunk?”
“You mean Richard?” Jenny asked with a laugh. “He’s doing great. He wrote to say that he’s in danger of making the dean’s list this semester.”
“That’s a danger?”
“If he does, his parents will expect him to make it every time.”
“Yeah, I see the problem. Will you see him at Christmas?”
“Yes. I’m over my recluse period. Besides, I almost look human again. My hair’s almost an inch long. If I slather it with gel and comb it straight up, I look like a porcupine.”
“Very funny.” Kimbra giggled into the receiver. “Why don’t you buy a wig for yourself?”
“I did, and I hate it. It’s hot and makes my scalp itch. No, either I wear the real thing or go bald. I do know one hundred and one ways to tie a scarf, however, so this experience hasn’t been a total waste.”
“You always have been able to look on the bright side.” They shared another laugh, then Kimbra asked, “How’re your maintenance treatments?”
“I go in every few weeks, but I never get used to the chemo and how sick it makes me. At least, the stuff is milder than what they dumped in me when I was in the hospital, so now I’m only sick for about a day. No new blasts in my blood work, and that’s a relief. I don’t think I could endure another stint in the hospital. Especially not without my three cellmates.”
“Well, if you’re reconfined, I’ll visit you, but there’s no way they’ll lock me up in that place again. No way.”
The next time Jenny went in for a treatment, she decided to visit the pediatric oncology floor, something she hadn’t done since checking out in September. When she stepped off the elevator, she was struck by how much the same everything looked and sounded—the gaily painted murals, the checkered linoleum, the clatter of dish carts, the hurrying nurses. She had been prepared to feel revulsion for the whole atmosphere, but was surprised to feel a sense of identification and belonging.
She peeked inside the activity room. Christmas decorations, strings of lights, and paper chains brightened the playroom. Except for a few kids playing video games and the TV blaring out cartoons, there wasn’t anything going on. A Christmas tree in the corner was lit up, and its branches looked so burdened with handmade decorations that she wondered why it hadn’t fallen over.
She recalled her art therapy sessions with her friends and smiled. In spite of it all, she had had a few good times in the hospital. But it was because of my friends, she reminded herself. If it hadn’t been for them, she would have gone stir-crazy.
Jenny thought about doing something nice for them, something to show her gratitude for their friendship, but at the moment, her mind drew a blank. Maybe when Kimbra came for her visit right after Christmas, Jenny could do something special for her. Too bad that Elaine couldn’t come. Not to mention Noreen.
She pushed aside her concerns over Noreen because she didn’t want to think about her friend’s prognosis. What did the doctors know? she asked herself. Noreen could beat their odds, their gloom-and-doom predictions. Hadn’t Kimbra? And both she and Elaine were doing fine. Everybody who got cancer didn’t automatically die from it. With the start of 1979 just around the corner, they were all going to have a good year.…
A spray of cartoon bullets from the TV set jerked Jenny out of her thoughts. She glanced at her watch and realized she was late for her chemo treatment. She dreaded it. She was guaranteed a twenty-four-hour spell of vomiting afterward. “Get moving,” she told herself under her breath.
This would be her last treatment until after New Year’s. She looked forwa
rd to the weeks of feeling human and of forgetting she was still in therapy. At the end of the week, Richard would be home. Her heart skipped a beat when she thought about seeing him. Of course, she still didn’t look like her former self, but she didn’t look like death warmed over either. The dark cliché made her smile.
Richard. Jenny hurried down to the outpatient therapy wing of the hospital, her thoughts and her heart full of hope for his homecoming.
Eighteen
“THE ANGEL’S LOPSIDED, Timothy. Straighten her up.”
Jenny sat on the floor of her grandmother’s enormous living room, sorting through boxes of ornaments and listening to Marian issue instructions to the house staff. Above her, balancing on a ladder, Timothy, one of the handymen, struggled to please her grandmother’s discerning eye.
“Yes … that’s better,” she heard Marian say. “Now, make sure one of the lights is positioned directly behind her. I want it to appear as if she’s glowing.”
Jenny smiled to herself. It was like this every year. Grandmother cracking the whip, the staff scurrying to do her bidding. Jenny looked up at the magnificent evergreen that filled the corner of the room and brushed the top of the ceiling with its branches. This was her grandmother’s tree, the formal one, decorated more splendidly than any Jenny had ever seen.
Yet, Jenny’s personal favorite was the tree down in the rumpus room, the one for just her and her grandmother and their gifts for one another. This was the tree that contained her handmade ornaments and those of her father, left over from when he’d been a boy. This was the tree that she took personal responsibility for decorating every year. She lifted the flap of a box and pulled out a crumpled wreath. “What’s this?” she asked, holding it up.
“I believe it’s the wreath you made while you were in the hospital last summer,” Grandmother said, coming beside her.
“You saved this dumb thing?”
“Don’t look so shocked.” Grandmother rescued it from Jenny’s grasp. “I think it’s quite charming.”
“It looks awful.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m hanging it over the mantel, where the evergreen branches meet in the center.” Grandmother gestured toward the huge brick fireplace, where Mrs. McCully was busy draping pine branches and holly sprigs across the old oak mantel. Grandmother walked the wreath over and handed it to the housekeeper. “I think it will look charming as the focal point.”
“No, it won’t,” Jenny protested. “It’s junky.”
Grandmother gave her an arching look. “This is my room to decorate, remember? You have your own.”
Jenny offered an exasperated sigh, but deep down, it touched her that her handmade wreath would have a place of honor over the mantel. By that evening, the house would be filled with people attending her grandmother’s annual Christmas party, and they would all see the wreath. “I’m going to decorate my tree,” Jenny announced, scooping up a string of bubble lights. “And if any of your guests asks where you found that old thing, please say I made it when I was ten instead of sixteen!”
That night, Jenny put on a dress of midnight blue velvet. She tied a blue silk scarf streaked with threads of gold and silver around her head and pulled wispy bangs over her forehead. “You look lovely,” Grandmother said.
“Thanks,” Jenny replied, caring only what Richard would think of her.
The doorbell rang all evening as guests arrived. Jenny smiled politely during numerous introductions, but never stopped watching the doorway for the Holloways. When she saw Dorothy sweep into the foyer, her heart wedged in her throat.
Richard stood behind his parents on the living room threshold, looking reserved. Jenny felt her knees go weak. He was even more handsome than she remembered. She longed to run forward and throw her arms around him, but she knew she couldn’t.
His gaze traveled the room, then locked on to hers. The party, the music, the noise all faded as their eyes held. Slowly, he stepped around his parents and came toward her, and she walked forward to meet him in the center of the crowded room.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, looking down at her. “How have you been?”
“I’m fine. And you? How’s your term going?” She wanted to throw herself in his arms. She wanted to hold him and never let go.
“I don’t take my exams until January, but I think I’m doing all right.”
The polite exchange had her nerves on edge. Even their letters were more personal than this. “My studies are going well too. I’m hoping to be back in regular classes when the new term begins.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “There are a lot of people here. Can we go some place more private?”
“There’s the rumpus room. I haven’t quite finished decorating down there yet, but it’s quiet.”
She led the way down the stairs into a cozy room lined with pine paneling and carpeted in bright red. Timothy had laid a fire in the fireplace, and its flames danced brightly. She crossed to the tree and fingered the needles. “The other tree’s fancier, but this one’s my favorite.”
He reached out and touched one of the decorations. “This tree’s better in a lot of ways,” he said.
Jenny’s heart was hammering hard, and because the room was so quiet, she was fearful he might hear it. “What will you be doing during the holidays?” She wanted him to ask if they could spend time together, do things with each other, no matter how trivial.
“My father’s dragging me down to the Bahamas on a weeklong fishing trip the day after Christmas.”
“You’re leaving?” She averted her eyes, hoping to hide her disappointment. He’d gone off and left her last Christmas.
“The trip has a purpose,” he said with a sigh. “These fishing buddies of Dad’s are prominent attorneys, and he thinks that my meeting them will give me an edge in getting into law school when I apply. Getting into one of the top Ivy League schools isn’t easy.”
“Law school? Last summer, you said you hated the idea of being a lawyer. When did you change your mind?”
“Later in the summer.” He lifted her chin with his forefinger, and his gaze burned into hers. “After I worked at the firm, I saw that some aspects of law interested me. I can become a good lawyer if I put my mind to it.”
Staring into the green depths of his eyes, having him so close, smelling of bayberry and fresh pine, was almost making her crazy. “You never told me that in your letters.”
“There was a lot I couldn’t say in my letters.”
“Are you angry with me because I wouldn’t let you come see me when I was in the hospital going through chemo? That I insisted on using the mail?”
“Yes.” He said the word flatly, causing her stomach to constrict. “You hurt me.”
“I never meant to hurt you. I was so sick. I was out of it for so much of the time. In ICU, I remember being afraid I would never see you again, and the feeling was horrible. By the time I got well enough to return to my room, you’d gone back to school.”
“We’ve been friends for years, Jenny. You shouldn’t have kept me away.”
“Will you forgive me? Can we still be friends?” She saw the muscles working in his jaw. He lowered his hand, but her skin couldn’t forget where his touch had lain.
“I’ll always be your friend. But friends don’t leave friends out. Friends share … good and bad.”
His lecture stung. She must seem more like a child to him than ever before. All at once, the age difference between them loomed like a gulf. “Well, if I relapse, I’ll let you come up for a visit.”
“Don’t even tease about that happening.” His eyes were serious, his tone hard.
She realized he’d never find her dark humor amusing the way Kimbra, Noreen, and Elaine had. Why should he? she thought. Richard was healthy and had never known the inside of her world. “I didn’t mean it literally. I was only trying to tell you I’m sorry I acted so weird while I was hospitalized.”
Richard reached out and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Please,
don’t shut me out again.”
Her heart fairly leapt out of her chest. “It’s a promise.” She allowed herself to look up into his face, and for an instant, she saw something there she couldn’t read. Was it longing? Concern? Pity? She didn’t want his pity. She took a step backward. “So you’ll be out in the Atlantic Ocean on New Year’s Eve. Sounds like a nice place to welcome 1979.”
“It would be better if I were on the Triple H with a beautiful girl instead of with a bunch of old guys smelling like fish.” He walked to the fireplace, and with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, he stared into the flames. “What will you do?” he asked. “Didn’t you write that one of your hospital roommates was coming for a visit?”
“Kimbra was supposed to come, but now she can’t.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s sit down,” Jenny said, “and I’ll tell you.”
Nineteen
RICHARD SAT ON the sofa with Jenny, making certain that he kept to one far end. He was afraid of getting any closer. If he did, he might not be able to control his impulses. All he wanted to do, all he’d wanted the whole evening, was to pull her into his arms. She looked fragile to him, her skin pale as ivory. And she was thin, as delicate as fine crystal. “Tell me about your friend,” he said.
“It’s good news really.” Jenny tucked her feet under herself on the sofa. “The school board was giving Kimbra a hard time about playing basketball. They didn’t want a one-armed girl on the team, but that’s discrimination, you know.”
Jenny looked so offended on Kimbra’s behalf that Richard grinned. “I know. I worked in a law firm.”
She smiled sheepishly. “Anyway, her parents had a fit and threatened a lawsuit, so the board put a bunch of restrictions on Kimbra. They wouldn’t tell her no, but they wanted to make it so difficult that she’d give up.”
“But she didn’t?”
The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True Page 9