No Time to Cry

by Lurlene McDaniel

  * * * * *

  In October, Rob came home for a weekend.

  “Hey, Squirt,” he said, giving her a hug. He pulled back and looked her over. “I guess I can’t call you that anymore.”

  “That’s right. I’ve added a half-inch to the four I grew over the summer,” Dawn’s chemo and radiation treatments had stunted her growth. It had taken her longer to mature in every way. All the previous year she’d felt extremely self-conscious about her lack of curves, but now, with Rob’s bone marrow working and her drug therapies greatly reduced, she was finally growing and developing again.

  “So I’ll have to come up with a new nickname.” Rob puckered his brow. “How about ‘hotshot’? You are taking Hardy High by storm, aren’t you?”

  “Not quite. There’s over a thousand students at Hardy. I’m afraid I’m just a speck on the wall.”

  “Not for long, I’ll bet.”

  Dawn wished she shared his confidence in her, but she felt so ordinary. And except for Jake, who was busy with football, classes and Sharon’s attention, she didn’t see much excitement coming her way.

  The phone rang, and her mother called, “Dawn, it’s for you.”

  She decided to take it in her room.

  “Don’t be too long,” Rob said as she started up the stairs. “I have an important call to make.”

  “Really? Anybody I know?” she teased over her shoulder, knowing full well it was Katie.

  “Just don’t gab all afternoon.”

  She was still laughing when she picked up the receiver in her room.

  “Got time for an old friend?” Brent Chandler asked.

  Both surprised and pleased to hear his voice, she sprawled across her bed eagerly. “Brent! How are you?”

  “I’m fine. And I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately.”

  “I thought college life was supposed to be exciting.”

  “Well, it is. But it’s hard, too,” he confessed. “I’ve missed everybody. My family. Friends. I’ve been thinking a lot about camp this past summer. And all the great times you and I had.”

  She couldn’t deny that being with him had made her time as a counselor extra special. “I thought you would have forgotten all about me by now.”

  “No way,” Brent answered.

  Goosebumps skittered up her arms. “I’ve missed you, too,” she said softly.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to come see you over Christmas break.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “You do?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.” His laugh warmed her. “I know it’s a bit early to be making plans, but we have a long break, and I’d really like to see you. I was thinking of coming a week before Christmas, staying a couple of days, then heading home in time to spend the holidays with the folks. What do you think? Would your parents mind?”

  Dawn knew that Sandy’s brother would be welcome anytime. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” she said. “We have a spare bedroom in our basement. I’ll ask and then email you.”

  “Good. I’ll watch my email inbox.” She heard someone in the background yell for Brent to get off the phone. “Bye for now,” he said.

  She hung up, but the sound of his soft southern voice lingered in her head. She could barely contain her excitement. Brent wanted to come see her! She wanted to see him too—very much. She bolted to the door and took the stairs two at a time. She needed to talk to her mother. And then she had to tell Rhonda.

  “Mom!” Dawn bounded into the kitchen only to see her mother, Rob, and Katie standing together in a huddle. She skidded to a stop. “Katie, you’re here! I didn’t know—” The words died on her lips as she glanced from face to face. “Something’s wrong,” Dawn said. “I can tell. What is it?”

  “Oh, honey,” Katie said, stepping forward from the group and taking both of Dawn’s hands. Katie’s big blue eyes looked troubled. “I came straight from the hospital, because I wanted to tell you the bad news myself.”

  “What bad news?” Dawn’s heart pounded and a queasy sensation filled her stomach.

  “Mrs. Hodges, Marlee’s grandmother, died this morning.”

  Six

  THE October air felt crisp and cool. The thick, green grass was clipped and neat, as orderly as the rows of bronze plaques and flower-laden vases that stretched as far as Dawn could see in the immaculate cemetery. It was the last place she wanted to be on a Saturday afternoon. But when her parents and Katie and Rob had said they should all go to Mrs. Hodges’s funeral, she couldn’t think of a way to get out of it.

  The minister spoke highly of Mrs. Hodges and of her wonderful contributions to their community. Across from her, Dawn recognized the mayor, and she realized how important Mrs. Hodges must have been. Beside him stood Mrs. Hodges’s attorney. He had surprised Dawn by knowing her name. “So, you’re Miss Rochelle,” he’d said. “Mrs. Hodges thought very highly of you.”

  Dawn swallowed hard, trying not to cry. Mrs. Hodges was very old and had been sick with a heart condition for a long time. She’d practically raised her granddaughter, Marlee, showering her with wonderful things. The two of them had lived in a mansion, and Marlee had been the only one at summer camp with designer sheets and a limo for transportation. But even though Mrs. Hodges could give Marlee anything money could buy, she couldn’t make her cancer go away.

  “. . . ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the minister said.

  Dawn kept remembering Marlee’s funeral and how Mrs. Hodges had given Dawn back her worn-out teddy bear, Mr. Ruggers, along with a farewell note from Marlee. At least now Marlee and her grandmother were both in heaven together. She tried to comfort herself with that thought.

  “Hey, Squirt, it’s over.” Rob’s voice startled Dawn out of her thoughts.

  Dawn glanced around and saw that people were beginning to disperse or gather in small groups. Her parents were talking to the minister, and Katie was talking to a fellow nurse. “Tell Mom I’ll be waiting in the car,” she said, struggling to hold back tears. She began walking toward their car, parked in a long line of cars from the funeral procession. More than anything, she just wanted to go home and forget all the sadness.

  She was almost to the car when she heard a familiar voice.

  “Dawn?”

  Jake’s voice so unnerved her that she dropped her purse on the ground. He stooped to pick it up.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked in shrill voice. Although she was standing in a wide, open space, she felt cornered and trapped. Jake wasn’t supposed to be part of this world, and his presence felt like an intrusion.

  “I work here some weekends. I help with grounds maintenance,” he explained. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied, wanting him to go away and leave her alone. Her emotions were on a rollercoaster, and she couldn’t trust herself not to burst into tears in front of him.

  “Did you . . . ,” Jake’s voice caught a little. He started again, “Did you lose someone close to you?”

  “No one. I mean, a friend. Sort of . . . ,” she stumbled. Jake smiled a kind smile, but Dawn could tell he was confused by her response. She took a deep breath, forcing her racing heart to slow its pace. “It was the grandmother of a friend. A girl I knew.”

  “Knew?”

  Dawn winced, hating her slip of the tongue. “It doesn’t matter. They’re both dead now.”

  “Listen, if you’d like to talk about it—”

  “I don’t! I don’t want to even think about it. I just want to go home!”

  Jake took a step backward, as if she’d shoved him. “Dawn, I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  Dawn felt tears brimming in her eyes. She was embarrassed by her outburst but didn’t know how to make him understand. She had to get away! She didn’t want Jake to see her cry. She didn’t want him feeling any sorrier for her than he already did. Without another word, she turned and raced to the car. Once inside, she buried her face in her hands
and sobbed.

  * * * * *

  “Come on. Dawn. It’ll be fun.” As they walked home from the bus stop on Monday, Rhonda was urging Dawn to join her on the Hardy High Christmas Dance committee. “We can help with the decorations. It’ll be a good way to meet some people—maybe even some cute guys.”

  “Don’t you ever give up?”

  Actually, helping out on the dance sounded like good idea to Dawn. It would give her something to think about besides the awful way she’d treated Jake on Saturday. She felt so embarrassed she could hardly look at him in the hall. How was she ever going to apologize? He probably thought she was nuts.

  “So I’ll tell the head of the dance committee we’ll be at the meeting,” Rhonda said cheerfully. “This is going to be just like old times. Remember in eighth grade when we did stuff like this together?”

  Dawn couldn’t believe it had been that long since she’d participated in a school project with Rhonda. Yet, when she thought back, all she could recall were days and nights in the hospital or stuck in bed at home because her medications had made her so sick.

  “I have lots to catch up on,” she told Rhonda. “Maybe this is a good place to start.”

  On Friday, small group of kids gathered in the gym to plan the dance. Dawn recognized several cheerleaders, including Sharon Lewis, who constantly hung around Jake.

  They voted to call the dance “The Snow-flake Ball” and to decorate with giant, glittery snowflake cutouts that would dangle from the gym ceiling. One of the girls announced, “My grandfather has an old-fashioned sleigh. We could put it in a corner and drape it with angel hair and fake snow. I think it would add atmosphere.” They all agreed.

  Dawn’s brain was buzzing with suggestions, and she busily wrote them down for when they broke into smaller groups. As she was dragging her chair to the area where the decorations committee would meet, she noticed Sharon staring at her, as if she wanted to speak to her. Sucking up her breath, Dawn asked her, “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing,” Sharon said quickly, but Dawn could tell something was definitely on the girl’s mind.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I do want to ask you something,” Sharon confessed.

  “What’s that?” Dawn tried to look friendly, but somehow she just didn’t trust Sharon.

  Sharon glanced at the two cheerleaders who had walked up to stand next to her. “I hope you won’t think this is too personal,” Sharon began, “but I’m just dying of curiosity. Is that your real hair? Or is it a wig?”

  Seven

  CAUGHT off-guard by the bluntness of Sharon’s question, Dawn fingered her hair self-consciously.

  “Your hair—is it real?” Sharon’s face was the picture of innocence, but Dawn suspected her motives weren’t innocent. “I was told you have cancer, and I thought people with cancer go bald, and so I was just wondering about your hair. If it’s a wig, it looks real. If it isn’t, then how come it didn’t fall out?”

  Dawn felt her cheeks flame red. But she held her head high, determined not to let Sharon get under her skin. “This is my ‘real’ hair. Sometimes chemotherapy makes hair fall out, but not always. Even if it does, the hair grows back.”

  “But you do have cancer?” Sharon queried.

  The other two girls were watching closely, and Dawn wasn’t sure how to answer. Saying yes would give Sharon some kind of perverse pleasure, but Dawn couldn’t lie. She felt an urge to bolt for the door, but she didn’t want to give Sharon the satisfaction. “I’m being treated for a form of leukemia,” Dawn finally replied quietly. “I’m in remission and have been for well over a year.”

  “I was just curious,” Sharon declared. “I’ve never known anyone with cancer before.”

  Dawn calmly headed toward her small group. She didn’t look back, even when one of Sharon’s friends said, “Honestly, Sharon, that was so totally rude of you.”

  “What’s rude?” Dawn heard Sharon ask innocently. “Can’t a person ask a question around here?”

  Dawn had lost her enthusiasm for the dance committee. She looked for Rhonda, but Rhonda was with a boy, staring raptly up at his face, hanging on his every word.

  She scooped up her books and walked out the door. Once she was outside, her hands began to shake, and her knees quivered. Hot tears rushed to her eyes. Now that Sharon knew about her cancer, all of Hardy High would know. And she’d acted so hateful about it—as if cancer had been something Dawn had contracted to gain attention. Was this disease going to follow her everywhere for the rest of her life?

  * * * * *

  “Why’d you run off? Good grief, Dawn, you were there one minute, and the next time I looked around, you were nowhere. Where’d you go?”

  Dawn listened patiently on the phone while Rhonda fussed at her. “I remembered something I had to do,” she replied.

  “You could have told me.”

  “You were busy talking with some guy.”

  “You could have interrupted. I would have if I had to run off. I asked everybody where you’d gone, but no one knew anything. It was like you evaporated into thin air.”

  “Well, if you must know, I got blindsided by Sharon Lewis,” Dawn confessed. Switching the phone to her other ear, she quickly told Rhonda about her run-in with Sharon.

  “What a jerk. She’s just jealous,” Rhonda declared after hearing the story.

  “Jealous? Of me? Get real! Why should she be?”

  “Because she can’t keep Jake Macka’s undivided attention.”

  The thought of Jake reminded Dawn of how she treated him at the cemetery. “That’s hard to believe. Maybe Jake really likes her.”

  “Not by a long shot. The word is that he’s nobody’s property and that Sharon’s making a pest of herself.”

  “How do you know these things?”

  “I keep my ear to the ground.”

  The image of Rhonda down on all fours in a Hardy hallway with her ear plastered to the floor made Dawn giggle. “Don’t get run over,” she joked.

  “And don’t you run away every time someone like Sharon acts like an idiot.”

  “You don’t understand,” Dawn started.

  “Then explain it to me.”

  Dawn knew that she couldn’t. Sandy had understood completely. But Rhonda—well, Rhonda just wasn’t Sandy.

  “I mean, you can’t get all bent out of shape whenever someone asks you about it.” Rhonda made it sound as if Dawn should put off the past like one would take off a jacket.

  “Rhonda, I actually died and got resuscitated. That sort of thing makes an impact on a person.”

  “You make it sound as if I should apologize for not having shared the experience. As if I missed out on something.”

  Rhonda’s remark stabbed at Dawn. It made her feel much the same as Sharon’s remarks had—like cancer was something she’d chosen in order to gain attention. “You missed a lot of pain. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy. And I don’t mean just having cancer. Do you know what it’s like to have your best friend die?”

  A long silence stretched between them. Dawn stared at the light from her bedside table lamp reflecting off the wall. Beyond the puddle of light, shadows loomed. Rhonda broke the tension. “I know what it’s like to be afraid my best friend would die. I told you a long time ago that I was sorry about Sandy. I didn’t know her, but I know how much you liked her.”

  Rhonda sounded hurt, which made Dawn feel bad for even bringing Sandy into the conversation. “Rhonda, this discussion is going no place. Why don’t we just drop it? I’m sorry I took off this afternoon without saying anything to you. I’m sorry I let Sharon get to me. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

  “Sure,” Rhonda said. “Let’s just forget the whole thing.”

  “So, when’s the next committee meeting?”

  “Monday. Does that mean you’ll be back?”

  “I’ll be back.” Dawn meant it, too. Sharon Lewis wasn’t going to keep her away. And althoug
h she didn’t like the idea of kids at Hardy knowing about her cancer, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. It was a part of her life, and nothing could make it go away.

  * * * * *

  By Thanksgiving week, plans for the dance were well underway, and Dawn and Rhonda had worked hard at cutting out hundreds of oversized snowflakes. Dawn stayed clear of Sharon, who let it be known that she was going to the dance with Jake. Dawn tried not to let it bother her. Jake was polite to her, acting as if the scene at the cemetery had never happened, yet he didn’t attempt to call her or offer her rides to school.

  “Don’t be greedy,” Rhonda told her. “You’ve got Brent coming to visit, and he seems much more interested in you than Jake does.” Rhonda was right, of course. Dawn really was looking forward to Brent’s visit, but still she couldn’t control the funny way her heart beat every time she saw Jake in the halls.

  The day before Thanksgiving, Dawn was in the kitchen helping her mother get a head start on the holiday meal when the phone rang. Rob, home for the weekend, grabbed the phone, then offered it to Dawn. “It’s Katie, and she says she needs to talk to you. Right now.”

  Surprised, Dawn took the phone. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “What are you doing Friday?” Katie’s voice sounded excited.

  “Hitting the mall bright and early with Rhonda to start Christmas shopping.”

  “Wrong,” Katie replied. “You’re coming with me to a special meeting of the hospital board. The administrator is making a big announcement, and he wants you to be there.”

  Eight

  “DO I look all right? Is my hair messed up?” Dawn asked. She sat in the waiting area of the offices of Dr. Marcus Douglas, Executive Director of the Columbus hospital where she’d spent so much of her last three years undergoing cancer treatments. Both Katie and her mother were with her.