“Do you need anything?” Kelli asked.
Jamie answered in a low whisper as he lurched toward the bed. “Could you get me some water?”
Kelli glanced around and picked up a cup by the door. She walked out into the hallway where she heard people’s voices coming from the lounge around the corner, and suddenly recognized Will’s voice carrying over the crowd. They hadn’t seen each other since Friday, when he’d finally gone in for his move, and she’d stood up quickly, cutting the evening short, saying how exhausted she was. He hadn’t stopped by since, and she wasn’t ready to explain to him what she was doing on his floor tonight. She went over to the water fountain, filled the cup, and slipped back into the Jamie’s room. He had stripped down to a pair of boxers, and was just pulling on shirt when she walked in. The room smelled like him. It was nice. He took the water and gulped down the pills, one after the other.
“Thanks,” he said as he fell onto the bed.
There was a strange energy in the air. It was palpable, like the charge before two lovers go to bed for the first time. For a brief second, she almost thought she should take off a piece of her own clothing and climb in beside him. Jamie lay on his back, his eyes closed. She hesitated for a moment, then crouched down beside him.
“I’m going to leave now,” she said softly.
There was no response. His breathing became steady. She studied his face for a moment. His skin glistened in the dim light. Except for the tightness at the edge of his eyes, he looked peaceful. She leaned forward, hesitated, then kissed him on the corner of his mouth.
He didn’t move.
Kelli stood and went over to the door. She turned around, stealing one more look at him, then switched off the light and left.
***
His damaged eyes struggled to focus on the animal as it twirled in the air in front of him. The huge cartoon eyes opened and shut slowly, its mouth drew up in a leering, maniacal smirk. Jamie tried to scream, but his mouth would only let out a hiss of hot air. His head twisted sluggishly as he tried to move. The voices still mumbled in the background, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying; the words all melted into a low murmur. Finally, the room stopped spinning, and he lay back. He was in a hospital room. The walls around him were bright yellow. The curtains were closed over the room’s one window. He could hear a television in the hallway outside, Brian Williams was reading the news. It was nighttime. Jamie looked at the foot of the bed, where an enormous purple elephant was painted on the wall. It was an image he would never forget.
Then he heard the soft squeak of sneakers on linoleum and he turned his head. His mother stood in the doorway, her eyes red, her face streaked with tears. She didn’t move, she just stood there, teetering on uncertain legs.
***
He wasn’t in class the next day, which worried her. Kelli had arrived late, in part to avoid an uncomfortable conversation about what had happened the previous night. It wasn’t that she was afraid of what he might say, in fact, she was dying to have a moment alone with him, even if it was filled with awkward silences and uncomfortable glances. She didn’t know if he would remember the kiss, or if he even knew it had occurred, but she was still apprehensive. Despite the odd nature of the previous night’s events, it had been… exciting. She’d been fantasizing about him since that first day of class, when she’d given him that look, and even more so after she saw him at the table in Gracie’s. The fact that he was with Will and his floor mates, putting him in the range of possibility, had sparked her imagination.
He was clearly an athletic, attractive guy, and after last night her view of him had only improved. She kept picturing his gaze as he looked up at her. He never blinked. He’d just open and close his eyes in a slow, deliberate movement, never an involuntary motion, as though the effort itself took all of his concentration. It was in the moments when he was visibly forcing himself to recover that she caught a glimpse of his personality -- as though he were looking at his pain in the distance, staring it down into submission. He wasn’t a victim of the pain, he was fighting against it. Yet, the lines at the corners of his eyes, the look of consistent pressure, both told her that he’d been going through this for some time, that something in his life was slowly taking its toll on his body. He was like a young boy, holding his arm in pain after a fall from a tree, rubbing his elbow tenderly as he glared up through the enemy branches.
She understood what he felt, and she wanted to see him again.
~
He took the first bus from campus the next morning, switching on Mt. Hope and getting off at the University. He didn’t want to get his mother involved, hoping there was no cause for concern. No use getting her worked up if he could check it out himself and avoid needless maternal hysteria. He stopped at the Dunkin Donuts on the corner, grabbed a classic glazed and an orange juice, and headed for the hospital. By nine o’clock he was sitting in the waiting room, eating breakfast and flipping through a magazine. He’d read most of these issues over the last year, but he still thumbed through the worn magazines, flipping the pages with nervous energy. He wasn’t reading them, just staring through the paper, seeking distraction from the thoughts in his mind.
Beside the headaches, had he had any other symptoms? His body had never felt better. Aside from one or two episodes, he felt sharp mentally. He still found his mind racing with sexual anxiety, one of the more troublesome side effects of the meds. He still beat off constantly in the showers, but it was getting no better and no worse, and was certainly reduced from the height of his medicated periods. He was almost feeling normal again, whatever normal was these days. He might very well have had a simple migraine, no cause for alarm, but all the same, it had been off the charts. He’d only felt pain like that a handful of times in his life, and all but one of those events had been related to the damn Parkinson’s and attempts to manage its effects.
No, he told himself, it was nothing. Just read the magazine. Read the magazine and don’t worry.
Dr. Price walked through the door and into the waiting area. He was dressed in an overcoat and carrying a briefcase, his hair blew forward with the motion of the door. He took off his glasses and was wiping them with a cloth as he raised his head to speak to the receptionist. He paused as he spotted Jamie.
“Mr. Pepper.” His jawline tightened. “How are you? Lets go into my office.”
Jamie stood and followed him past the front desk and down the hall to his large, dimly lit office. Price walked around the room, setting his briefcase on the desk in front of him, running his fingers through his hair.
“Have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thank you,” Jamie replied.
Price glided over to the door and leaned out into the hallway.
“Ms. Oliver, a cup of coffee please.”
He pulled his head back into the room, not waiting for a reply, then shrugged off his coat, hung it on the back of the door, and lurched to his desk. He stood behind his chair for a moment, hands clenched around the seat back, rocking it back and forth slowly.
Jamie noticed the white edges on the man’s knuckles. He seemed unusually agitated.
“So, have you experienced some sort of a problem?” Price asked.
“Well, I hope not a problem really,” Jamie said. “Just a concern.”
Price looked at him expectantly.
“I had another headache last night.”
“Like the ones after the surgery?”
Jamie hesitated. “Worse.”
“How long did it last?”
“Hours. I’m better today, but I’m still feeling a little...off.”
“Are you symptomatic?”
“No.”
Price’s face relaxed. “That’s good.” He sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Well then, let’s talk about it, see if we can get to the bottom of things.”
***
Kelli stopped by Jamie’s room in the afternoon. She knocked on the door and waited, then knocked again. Wh
en there was still no answer, she pulled out a pad of paper, jotted down a quick note, and ripped out the page.
Jamie-
Just wondering how you’re doing.
Gimme a call sometime X4150
-Kelli (from Media and the Mind)
She went back to the door but hesitated. For someone so brazen, she was suddenly nervous. It felt as if she was leaving a proposal under the door, but it was just a note. She was wondering how he was doing. After last night, it was a perfectly normal thing to do. ‘I’m just wondering how you’re doing. Call me.’ But it didn’t say ‘call me,’ it said ‘call me sometime.’ That was different. She knew it was. Call me meant… call me, we’ll have a perfunctory sandwich together. Call me sometime meant…call me sometime, we’ll have a good fuck and smoke cigarettes in bed. She smiled. That’s what she was going for anyway.
Her stomach tightened with excitement.
She looked up and down the hallway, and slid the note under the door.
She stood up quickly, eager to make her escape, and hurried down the hall. Around the corner, she ran into a tall guy with glasses as he came up the stairs. He looked at her and put out his hand.
“How you doing? I’m Fritz.”
***
The tests were not missed. Jamie had taken them all before, had hated them as much then as he did now. But he had to smoke out the problem. Drag it out into the open and get it over with. The bottom had fallen out of his stomach, and it made him angry. If anything came up that showed the implant was having adverse effects on his brain, or any other parts of his nervous system, it would have to be removed. Yet, as Dr. Price had pointed out so many times before, removal of the implant was unspeakably risky, and all but irreversible. The trauma to the brain was great, and the scarring involved in both implantation and removal made second and third procedures increasingly dangerous and unlikely. Price compared it to sugar in the gas tank. Once it’s in there, you can never get it out and make things run like they used to. In most cases, the machine is a junker.
Fortunately, the results were good, or seemed to be. Jamie was back on campus by five o’clock. He felt guilty letting another day go by without exercising, but he knew it was better to take it easy than risk major problems by pushing his body when it needed a breather. Price reduced his meds, told him to keep a lookout for any symptoms that might show their faces again, but as far as he could tell, the headache had simply been a benign, albeit painful, migraine.
“We’ve gotta remind ourselves,” the good doctor had said, “that not every ailment is a sign of the apocalypse. You’re still susceptible to the same run-of-the-mill ailments that face the average Joe.”
Jamie was trying very hard to believe that as he got off the bus and headed for his dorm. He still had his doubts, but he pushed them to the back of his mind as he walked up to his floor to find the usual dinner group congregating in the lounge.
Arlin looked up. “Yo man! You coming to dinner?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jamie replied.
Fritz was just stepping out into the hall as Jamie reached his room.
“Hey, some girl stopped by looking for you earlier.”
“Oh really,” Jamie asked. “What did she look like?”
“She was pretty hot. A little bit scary. I was kidding around with her and she told me to ‘go fuck myself.’”
Jamie gave him an odd look. “Oh yeah?”
“Cute though. I’ve seen her once or twice before. I think Will knows her.”
Jamie nodded. “ I know exactly who you’re talking about.”
“You hookin’ up with that girl?” Fritz said with a smirk. “Very nicely done, man.”
Jamie ignored him. “You going to dinner?”
“Yep, another Gracie’s meal. The sacrifices a resident advisor’s gotta make. I really wish your freshman meal plans let you eat at the Commons more often!”
Fritz headed down the hall as Jamie ducked into his room. He flipped on the light, pulled a new prescription bottle from his pocket, shook out a pill, and popped it in his mouth. He lined up the containers on the dresser and turned to leave. Just as he was heading out the door, he glanced down and noticed a piece of paper on the floor. He picked it up and opened it quickly. His eyes ran down the page, and his pupils dilated.
~
Kelli was in a shitty mood. She’d come back to the dorms exhausted, only to hear the sounds of Christie and Joe fucking in the next room the moment she opened the door. She had to watch a movie for her Film Language paper, and was hoping to get it out of the way tonight, but something you watched with the sounds of animal coupling going on in the background.The Apartment wasn’t
“Change of plans,” she muttered as she tossed the DVD on her bed and walked out. She grabbed the edge of the door as she left, took one big step forward, and slammed it shut as hard as she could. It was unlikely those two rabbits would hear her angry tantrum, but it made her feel the tiniest bit better.
She walked over to The Commons, where she ate dinner and tried to outline the elusive script she’d been working on. Progress was slow as always. She looked around the room now and then. Every table was filled with groups of laughing kids, or girls eating dinner with their boyfriends; all smiling, or fighting, or wrapping their arms around their companions’ necks. Aside from Will and the occasional casual friendships, she had a small circle of college friends. Dating someone long distance, dividing weekends between trips home and his visits to Rochester, hadn’t helped her make any lasting connections at the school. She chewed on the end of her pen as she stared through the windows and out across the fields.
“Why the hell haven’t I heard from him?” she thought to herself.
He probably wasn’t interested, or maybe he had class tonight. Was he shriveled up in his dorm room, dead? No, that cocky asshole she’d bumped into in the hall said he’d gone off campus for the day. She tried to ask more, but he’d just turned on that frat boy “charm.” It pissed her off. Ten seconds of his leers and sophomoric innuendo and she’d stormed out, shouting over her shoulder what he could do to himself. Now she wished she’d had a little more patience, if only to eke a bit more information out of him.
“Fuck him,” she muttered again. “Fuck both of them.”
But she didn’t mean it. Not all of it anyway.
Her mind wasn’t on the script. All she could think about was Jamie. What if he was trying to call her now while she was sitting here eating? Please, that’d be ridiculous. He obviously wasn’t gonna call her.
Besides, she had the machine.
Still, he might not want to leave a message.
She hesitated.
“This is retarded.”
She chewed on her pen, fighting to be logical.
“Screw it.”
She picked up her tray and headed for the door.
Back at the dorm… Nothing. No messages. She couldn’t tell if he had called. Thankfully, the lovebirds had gone on their way, probably in search of food to replenish their energy. She headed across the room, slipping off her shirt and jeans as she walked. The geeks across the quad were probably getting an eyeful. She knew there was a pack of computer geeks in the next tower who were constantly scanning the dorm windows for naked girls or fucking couples, but she very seldom closed the curtains. Even on the rare occasions she had a guy over, she tended to leave the windows open. Saw it as a humanitarian effort. Give em something to get their blood pumping. Tonight was different. She stuck her middle finger in the air as she walked past the window, giving an emphatic bob upwards as she pulled the curtains closed. She was just pulling on some sweats and a tank top when the main buzzer rang.
She walked out into the living room expecting Christie and Joe and some explanation of forgotten keys. Instead, she opened the door just as she was pulling on her shirt, and was greeted by Jamie, who stood there with a sexy smile on his face.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked.
She was caught off guard.
�
�Hi,” Kelli replied.
“Hi.”
God he was cute.
She brushed her hair away nervously.
Jamie looked at her, trying to seem relaxed. She had washed the makeup from her face, and her cheeks were flushed. The usual dark outlines around her eyes were gone. She was still cute though. Cuter even. Less intimidating.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked again.
“No. Not at all. Come on in.”
She stood to the side to let him past, wrapping her arms up around her chest to keep warm.
Jamie stepped inside, glancing around the common area of the suite.
“I got your room number from your friend Will. He lives on my floor.”
“Oh yeah. I thought I recognized it when I took you to your room.”
Kelli pressed her fingers into her ribs, suddenly aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She rubbed her hands up and down over her arms, the nervous energy warming her.
“I just wanted to thank you for your help last night. I really appreciate it.”
She nodded as he spoke. “No problem, I was glad I could do it.”
Jamie continued, “I thought maybe I could take you out for coffee sometime.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a headache. I get them from stress sometimes.”
Kelli cocked her head to the side. “Not to be rude, but that seemed like more than just a headache.”
Jamie shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, to be honest, that was one of the worst ones I’ve had, but I think it’s just from starting classes and getting used to things here-“
Kelli stepped backwards, toward her room, as the wind whistled outside the windows. Her skin rippled suddenly. She felt her nipples pressing against the front of her tank top.
“I’m sorry, I just need to grab a sweatshirt. Do you wanna sit down?”
On/Off - A Jekyll and Hyde Story Page 10