by Rute Canhoto
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The clock showed 9.40a.m when it rang. Marina protested and turned it off abruptly. She didn’t want to get out of bed. Although she had slept well and felt rejuvenated, she was cranky. It was the first day of the ‘post-Lucas’ era. She suspected that she wouldn’t find him at school and tried to convince herself that it might be for the best. He was no regular student and his interests weren’t in studying, while the opposite applied to her. Finally, she left the valley of sheets, got dressed, and went to the kitchen for breakfast.
Before returning to the bedroom, Marina felt compelled to peek through the living room window. She stared across the visible extension of the river’s wall. There was no sign of Lucas. More likely, he would not return there any time soon. Marina shook her head, renouncing all ideas and thoughts about Lucas, and went to the bedroom to get her rucksack. She heard someone knocking at the door; it would be Joshua. When she opened the door, her nose almost collided with a red rose that he held out to her, smiling triumphantly.
Surprised, Marina stammered, “W-what is this?”
Joshua gazed at the rose, shrugged and replied with irony, “According to the easily observable parameters, I’d say it's a rose, correct?”
Marina blinked her eyes to be sure of what she was seeing. Joshua was offering her a red rose? Everything indicated yes, except there was something that didn’t fit right. She believed that he was a very romantic guy, capable of such gestures, however, and given how things went between them, offering roses was out of the equation. Her memory was didn’t take long to recall similar episodes related to that flower. She rolled her eyes, took the alleged offer off Joshua, and put it in the glass with the others in her room. The rose was from Lucas.
When she went out and locked the door, she said to Joshua, “Thanks, but I know it wasn’t you who brought the rose. You found it on the doorstep.”
Playing around, Joshua pretended to be offended, “My dear, do you think I’d offer you a rose? I would give you a whole bunch of them!”
Marina tried to ease her grumpiness and endeavored to accept the situation in a playful way too. She winked an eye and said, “Did you think you would get away with it, huh?”
“No,” the boy replied. “Besides, I never said it was from me. And, by the way, how did you know where I had found it?”
That sentence left Marina embarrassed and her cheeks turned red. Then she answered, “Simple. It’s not the first one. It is from... huh, a secret admirer.”
Joshua frowned, displeased. He had just gotten rid of Lucas and already another guy was hanging around his beloved? He had to get close to her quickly. He thought that he had plenty of time, but maybe he was wrong. He decided to clear the doubts hammering in his head and quizzed, “You have a secret admirer?”
Marina swallowed hard. There was no secret admirer. She knew who had left the rose there, but she would not reveal it to him. It was something that only concerned her, so she decided to lie, “I’m not the one who has a secret admirer, is my mom’s.”
“And how do you know that?” asked Joshua, feeling suspicious.
“Because the first rose came with a card, duh!”
Joshua wasn’t convinced, yet the story had slipped out of her mouth so naturally that he considered that maybe - just maybe - it could be a true explanation. He thought to himself that he should find out what her favorite flower was to offer her a bunch of them and, most importantly, face to face, as he wanted her to see who they were from.
The way to school they talked about cooking. Marina praised the pancakes he and his brother made, and Joshua was keen to tell her how, when and where he learned to cook. On another day, she would have found the topic interesting; still, she became bored. Behave yourself, Marina, she scolded herself. She was being pretty unpleasant despite Joshua’s efforts to keep her in good spirits. It seemed that the roles were constantly reversing between them, with one always trying to cheer the other.
At the school lobby, they found Ana sitting on Dennis’ lap, while a janitor scolded them to have more respect. Ana snorted and sat next to her boyfriend, while rolling her eyes. Marina and Joshua approached them, trying not to laugh.
“You don’t need to pretend that you have no desire to laugh. Don’t worry. When it happens to you, I’ll burst out laughing too! I can’t even sit on my boyfriend’s lap and give him some kisses,” retorted Ana, feeling annoyed.
Marina shuddered. She never had been caught with Lucas… except at the workshop, and there she was just sitting on the bench before him, and painting, not fondling. It had been embarrassing; she didn’t want to repeat the scene. Anyway, there was no reason to worry about that, after all Lucas was officially out of her life.
Marina reflected better on what Ana had said and realized that she was talking about her and Joshua as a couple. She decided to ignore it, but was caught by surprise by Joshua who, out of the blue, wrapped her in a hug and questioned, “What do you think, honey? Are we going to be caught by the employee?”
Marina's eyes widened and she hurried to get away from him, even because the janitor was already taking a step towards them. Laughing like crazy, the four friends ran to the corridor of classrooms, before the employee could follow them. Marina wasn't in the habit of messing with who was working there, but that lady exaggerated. At least the situation had helped her to be less grumpy.
As the bell rang, the English teacher arrived and showed a charming smile to Joshua. Grinning, Marina whispered ‘Joshuette’ in jest.
Unlike usual, the boy didn’t laugh. Instead, he turned to Ana and asked her, “Can I borrow Marina today?”
Ana agreed and winked her eye in response. Marina didn’t understand what was going on. ‘Borrow’? How could Ana lend her to the boy? And what for? Ana entered the room and, instead of sitting beside her, she switched places with Joshua.
“Hey!” protested Marina, even more confused.
Joshua made her a sign to shut up and whispered, “I've been thinking and I guess it's time for me to become just another student in English class. Help me out.”
An exchange of places – that was the so called ‘loan’ he had asked of Ana. Marina knew that he had mapped out some plan, but was unaware of its intricacies. She suspected it might not please her. Even so, she agreed to Joshua’s request; that’s what friends were for.
The teacher asked students to open their books on page 49, since they would read the text and answer some questions. Joshua put his manual between them, took Marina’s hand and dragged it under the desk. Marina wanted to protest, but Joshua nodded for her to trust him, and she decided not to discuss it. As expected, the professor went to the desk where Joshua was and asked him to begin reading aloud. The boy smiled amiably in response. With no hurry, he made his hand emerge from under the table, entwined in Marina’s. He gave her a gentle kiss near the wrist, as he looked marveled at her, and began reading while he curled both hands tight on his chest. The teacher seemed to be horrified at the scene and, as soon as he read the first paragraph, she asked another student at the other end of the room to continue.
Marina pulled her hand back hastily, but Joshua asked her, “Hide it under the table and I’ll do the same. I want her to think we're still holding hands.”
Marina sighed, infuriated, but relented. She knew that she was doing the best for the teacher and her friend. However, she feared that she had just won a new enemy and that it would reflect on her grades of the subject by the end of the period.
During the rest of the class, the educator didn’t ask whatever it was to Joshua, ignoring him in fact. For the class, now that Joshua had fallen from the altar of the teacher’s favorites, things were back to normal. When the lesson ended, the pedagogue was the first to leave the room, asking the last one out to shut the door.
As they were having Philosophy next, they decided to camp at the classroom door. Settling beside Marina, Joshua gazed at her with an uncertain expression and questioned, “Everything is alright between us? You’r
e not upset about what I did, are you? Sorry. It had to be this way or it would never end.”
“No, I’m not upset, though you could have explained your plan beforehand. My only fear is that she will revenge me for supposedly having broken your charm.”
Joshua giggled. It was good to know that someone thought he was charming, but he'd rather it not be a teacher. It was hard enough to be the ‘new boy’ in class; he didn’t need his classmates to turn on him for having a couple of professors amazed by him.
Out of the blue, Ana released an exclamation. “Ouch! I forgot to do the homework. I left Dennis’ house so distracted the other night that I never remembered this detail. Manelito will slay me, literally.”
Marina thought of suggesting that she copied the answers from her notebook, but she didn’t have the time, since the teacher arrived. They rose from the tiles and stepped away so that Manelito could open the door. Ignoring them as if they were a plague of mosquitoes, Manelito passed the doorway into the interior space followed by them. As they sat, the classmates began to arrive
The teacher wrote the summary on the blackboard, starting with the topic that made Ana Shudder: correction of the homework.
"The dog barks.
The cat is not a dog,
Therefore, the cat doesn’t bark.”
Manelito pointed his finger at the third student of the second row, and asked her if the syllogism was correct, why, and if it was wrong, how she would fix it. The student gulped and admitted in a low voice that she hadn’t done the homework. The teacher promptly got cantankerous, and launched himself into a sermon about the importance of doing their duties. His irritation tone rose as his face became redder. He ended up verifying all the students’ diaries to determine who had done what he had requested.
After he passed her row, Marina felt a strange vibration on her right leg. She remembered that she had her phone in her pocket on silent and vibrating mode. With discretion, she put her hand to the pocket and pulled out the device. She looked at the display and found it awkward - it was her mother who was calling her. Would something have happened? Maybe she wasn’t feeling well, because of her migraine, and was calling her to say she was going to the hospital. Marina hung up the call and wrote a text at the speed of light asking her mom to call later, or the teacher would send her out. To her amazement, her mother tried to phone her once again. She knew it was Philosophy lesson time; something really serious should be going on for her to keep pushing it. She raised her hand in the air and waited for the teacher to give her the word.
“Yes, Marina? Do you know the answer to the homework question?”
“Hmm, yes, I do,” she replied, a little ashamed. “But what I really wanted was to ask to go outside. My mother has been very sick and she doesn’t stop calling me. And I know she wouldn’t call me in class time unless it was something very important.”
“What?!” the teacher squealed. “No way! What the hell? You know that those devices are prohibited at school. Either you put it away, or else I'll have to confiscate it. And no point in nagging for it back, because I won’t return it.”
The phone kept vibrating with extreme emergency, which made her make a decision. She stood up and walked to the door.
The teacher was shocked. He opened his mouth in astonishment, and cried out, “If you dare to go out, I’ll mark you as absent.”
Marina shrugged and left. She was starting the year with a nice collection of absences, so what harm would another one make? Perhaps she could talk with the class director later about what had happened.
As soon as she walked out of the room, she answered the call. “Hello, Mom? This better be very important, because I’ve just been marked as absent in Philosophy to come outside and pick up the phone.”
Her mother's voice sounded nervous at the other end. It was really serious what she wanted to tell her. The first sentence surprised her right away.
“I'm here at the school gate. Forget about the damn absence, it doesn’t matter. Your sister has had an accident. She was taken to the hospital and I'm going to Lisbon right now to see her. You wanna come too?”
“Of course. Look, I'll pass the phone to my teacher. Explain him why I have to leave, please” she asked.
The news caught her off guard. Marina was worried about her sister, but she was also concerned about her mother driving for so long while suffering from a terrible migraine that could interfere with her skills. She returned to the classroom thundering and began throwing things into her backpack.
The professor, astounded and purple with rage, fired in all directions, “Young girl, I will write an incident report to the Executive Board and your absence will be marked in red. What bad manners! You're a brat. And, moreover, you don’t respect your classmates. Who do you think you are?”
Marina tried to swallow everything without a grumble. However, the pressure increased inside her until reaching boiling point. Eventually, she exploded, “Lack of education is a student asking to answer the phone knowing that it's indeed an emergency, and the teacher doesn't let her request, even knowing that in other circumstances she would not ask it.”
“But you shouldn’t even have a phone. Hand it over to me to confiscate it.”
The girl threw him the device, which flew through the air into his hands. “By the way, my mother is on the phone waiting to talk to you, to explain why I must leave. When you finish talking to her, please return the phone to my colleague Ana, and she will return it to me. Bye-bye.” And she left the room, leaving her colleagues behind applauding her rebellion. For a moment she pitied them, because they would have to handle the moodiness and anger of Manelito. Sadly, he had given her no choice.
Marina sprinted to the gate, where her mother was waiting in the car. She didn’t take thirty seconds to get there, but apparently the conversation with the teacher had been even less time consuming, because she was no longer on the phone.
When she entered the vehicle, her mother took off so fast that the tires screeched and skated. Marina threw the rucksack onto the back seat and put on the seat belt. Her mom was driving like crazy, therefore it was better not to forget to buckle up.
Only when they entered the highway did Marina dare to ask her, “Do you know what’s happening with my sister?”
“Not really. Your mindless father was still on his way to the hospital, and all he could tell me was that someone from school called him to report that she had fallen in the swimming lesson and had hurt her head.”
“So you don’t know if it’s serious,” assessed Marina in a low voice.
Almost offended, her mother shot, “Serious or not, I have to be with her. Plus, your father can’t handle any of this. It’s better to go there right away.”
The conversation was over and Marina didn’t dwell on the issue. Her mom was so abuzz that her anxiety could turn to anger and be directed at her. The prolonged blast of a horn intimidated Marina and made her sink in the seat. Her mother had just had a close shave overtaking, deviating at the last minute. She wanted to ask her to calm down or they would end up in hospital too, nevertheless she feared that if she opened her mouth, she would make her mom more nervous, leading her to make more mistakes.
Despite being almost 11.30, the traffic queues for Lisbon weren’t any shorter. Marina never expected them to catch so much traffic, when the ‘rush hour’ had already passed. The chaos worsened when they entered the city itself; the cars were stopped and they took a long time before moving forward.
It was nearly 12.30 when they reached the vicinity of the hospital. Her mother chose to park outside the facility perimeter to lose no more time, and they followed the rest of the way on foot.
The entrance to the ER reminded Marina of a center of loading and unloading. There were three ambulances parked at the door and fire fighters were taking out stretchers with patients. Her mother's first instinct was to look inside the emergency vehicles to find her daughter. Marina shook her head in reprove, since Sofia would have gotten th
ere at least two hours ago.
The hospital reception was jammed with people who seemed like bewildered dizzy cockroaches, not knowing where they should go. Mom asked her to wait by the wall, while she went to ask where her sister was. She only went to the counter when she noticed that Marina was actually by the wall as ordered. Marina gasped and obeyed. She observed the space around her: straight ahead, in front of the entrance was the reception desk, where patients had to fill out the registration form to be attended by a doctor. A little further to the left was a small waiting room with six rows of plastic chairs next to each other. The room was filled with people who didn’t look good: some were coughing; others were clinging to their bellies, while other ones had their heads down for unknown reasons. Some people made her wonder about what could be their complaint, since they seemed to be fine, carrying only a serious expression. Looking to the right, she found a smaller room that gave access to a corridor, leading to the inner zone of the hospital. This room had several doors that corresponded to medical offices and in each was affixed a plaque with the name of the doctor on duty inside. One of the names made her laugh – ‘Dr. Boxer’. He should have a nice way to solve patients’ problems – boxing. It was better to send away that comical thought before she started laughing. It didn’t seem appropriated to express amusement in a place where people were suffering.
She sought out her mother with her eyes and found her at the same place, since the reception lady wasn’t very willing to answer her questions. If she knew how annoying mom could be when she wanted something, she would change her mind in an instant. Poor woman, she would have such a bad time.
She wondered if her sister would be okay. Her mom didn’t tell her much, but it was normal, as her dad wasn’t the best person to explain things. Thinking about her father gave her an idea. Marina went to Luísa, who soon began to scold her for leaving where she had told her to stay. I’m not a small child, I’m eighteen, her ego shouted from a hidden place. Irritated, she took the bag from her mom’s shoulder and returned to the entrance wall while her mother escorted her with her eyes. She just wanted someone to tell her how her youngest daughter was.
Marina took the phone from the purse, searched for the father's number and called him. The phone called for a few seconds, until her father replied in haste, “I can’t talk here. I gotta go.”
“Wait, dad. We’re at the reception, and mom is freaking out because no one tells her anything.”
“OK, I'll meet you there.”
Without further conversation, dad hung up. Smooth, she criticized in her mind. It was okay, anyway. When he got to them, everything would be fine: he would tell them what had happened, would say how Sofia was, and he would take them to her. It was a much faster way to solve things than to shout with the receptionist.
The image of her father stood out among the crowd. He was a tall man, in great shape. He had blue eyes, like Sofia, and wore his hair short. He didn’t like beards, so his face was shaven, which gave him a younger air. He wore light-blue jeans, a white shirt with thin vertical blue stripes, and black shoes.
Marina waved at him so that he could see her and, when he did it, he went in her direction. Before dad neared her, she went to the front desk to get her mother. Luísa was so busy vociferating with the receptionist that neither paid her any attention. Forced to take an extreme measure, Marina pinched her mom hard on her arm, making her turn in a leap while screaming in pain. As soon as her mother turned to her, Marina hastened to say aloud, “Dad’s here.”
Those magic words made her mother forget almost instantly the pinch; she ran towards her ex-husband. Marina, followed her at a normal pace, because the security guard had already made her a sign to move at a snail's pace. When she reached her parents, Marina didn’t receive a greeting kiss from her father or anything alike - it was as if she wasn’t there. Never mind, the most important is Sofia, she thought to herself. Then she paid attention to what her father was saying.
“I know nothing either. I was told that she was in swimming class, slipped, hit her head, and fell into water. The colleagues who were in the water helped her to get out immediately, but they had some difficulty waking her up, so they decided to call an ambulance. The doctor says he will run some tests to see if she has head trauma, cerebral hemorrhage or vertebrae-medulla trauma.”
Marina had no idea what those names meant, still they didn’t sound good, since they all involved the brain, spinal cord and vertebrae. Who knew if, after the examinations, they came to the conclusion that she had nothing serious and was fine? Anyway, they had to wait, which was an unknown concept for mom, who kept insisting on entering the restricted area.
Without her mother realizing it, Marina walked up to an assistant and called her, “Excuse me, miss. I don’t want to bother you, but do you think you could get some soothing pills for my mother? My sister is having some tests run, because she got hurt, but my mom is very disturbed.”
The woman, who was a friendly and approachable person, smiled and replied, “I'll talk to someone and see what we can do.”
“Thank you.”
She too was worried about her sister, yet it was useless to suffer in advance. She returned to her parents and leaned back in a chair. Her stomach growled. It was 1.15 and she was starving. It didn’t seem that they would leave the hospital soon, so it was better to find the cafeteria. As her father was calmer than her mother, she asked him, “Dad, do you know where the bar is? I'm hungry.”
Her father put a hand to his stomach and admitted, “I could use something to eat too. I think the bar is outside, next door.”
Marina got up from her seat and asked, “Do you want to go eat something too, mom?”
“Of course not! I’m not leaving without any news of your sister,” she almost yelled.
“Don’t worry, I'll go with you,” offered Marina’s dad.
Father and daughter walked out of the ER to find the bar. Ten minutes later, they still hadn’t found anything that resembled what they were seeking, so they opted to return to the ER, where they found mom in the same place. Her father took his place beside her mother, and both remained there, waiting for news.
Marina wanted to do the same and behave herself, but she was really hungry. Why not ask someone who knows the place best? She wondered. She went to the security man at the entrance and said, “Excuse-me sir, can you tell me where the bar is? I really need to eat something.”
The security guard looked her up and down, with a suspicious air. When he concluded that she was no threat, he responded with a grave and monotone intonation, “If you’re that hungry, in the hallway after the offices there are two vending machines, one with drinks and another with things to eat.”
Marina thanked him and went to the indicated place. Arriving at the machines, she sighed in frustration: they had taken so many turns around the hospital, when there was a vending machine right next to them. She took two sandwiches, two small packets of chips and two Cokes. She returned to her parents and passed half the things to her father. Noticing that the security guard was staring at her and shaking his head in disapproval, she murmured to her dad that they should eat outside. Her father nodded and the two of them walked to the building's exterior.
The sandwich wasn’t very tasty, but at least her belly wasn’t protesting that much. Maybe she could have a decent meal for dinner.
She was questioning herself about when they would leave, when her father inquired, “So, how's school?”
Was he for real? They hadn’t seen each other for nearly two years and he wanted to know was how she was doing at school? Whatever... It was better to keep her expectations about him as low as possible.
Giving a kick to a little stone, Marina replied, “School is bad. After the accidents, I've had some difficulty concentrating; the English teacher has become my enemy, because I pretended to be the girlfriend of her favorite student to stop her harassment; and I was marked absent today at Philosophy, because the teacher wouldn't let me answer
the phone and leave class to come to the hospital. Anyway, nothing special to report.”
Her father blinked twice while rubbing one ear to make sure of what he was hearing. As a reply, he drank a sip of Coke and shrugged. Yep, what could he say? It was a situation that only she could rectify. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she was going to try.
When both finished everything, they returned to her mother, who was now more peaceful after taking a sedative brought by a helper in answer to Marina’s request. God bless that helper!
They waited another half hour until a doctor came to them. He was a tall man, sturdy, and his hair was shiny from using too much gel. His identification was tipping from the pocket of his white coat, which he seemed to wear with a lot of proud, and he held a folder in his left hand. He shook hands with her parents and glanced at her, without paying her much attention.
“Sofia has been taking several tests,” he informed. “We continue to suspect a vertebrae-medulla trauma. We’ll keep her here for two or three days, since she has to receive medication intravenously. Let's see how things go and on Sunday we’ll make a decision.”
“Can we see her?” questioned Luísa.
“I'll let you see her now, but please enter in turns and not altogether. Then, and so that she can have some rest, you must leave. ”
Mom promptly exploded, “But she’s fifteen years old, we can’t leave her alone. Shouldn’t she be in pediatrics? There we can stay with our children, they have special timing arrangements.”
Used to that kind of reaction, the doctor retorted in a neutral manner, “She could be there, but the beds are too small for her size and it’s better to keep her in a more adequate and reserved place. Now please, follow me.”
They went up two floors in the elevator, went through three hallways and finally arrived at two revolving doors that gave access to another corridor with several doors to patient rooms. Luísa was the first to follow the doctor, while dad sank in a chair and waited for his turn. Marina imitated him; it wasn’t worth standing when she was the last one to enter.
Her mother returned a few minutes later, very tearful. When she neared Marina, she asked for a tissue. Marina hastened to look inside the purse and passed one to her. It was father’s turn to disappear through the revolving doors, leaving them alone.
Marina wanted to ask mom how her sister was, but she dropped the idea for two reasons: first, mothers always worsened the scenario; and second, soon she would enter and assess the situation herself. She wrapped her arms around herself and waited. She wasn’t as hungry as before, still her stomach was complaining, demanding a decent meal. However, and by contrast, the smell of ether and other chemicals that she couldn’t identify made her a little queasy. Argh, she hated hospitals!
Ten minutes later, dad came out of the room - it was finally her turn to see her sister. She went to the revolving doors and crossed them. The nurse at the desk in the middle of the hall looked at her intently, as if inspecting her. Next, she made a strange gesture with her neck for her to keep walking, because the room she wanted to visit was further ahead. Marina continued until she got to the room pointed out to her.