“Hi,” she said. “I’m guessing I fell asleep?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “Right before Arnie ruined the cake.” She smiled at that.
“That’s good, I hate that part. Gilbert smacks him around then, right?”
I nodded and she said, “What part did you fall asleep during?” She was testing me. She wanted to know how long after she fell asleep that I did. If I said right away, she wouldn’t believe me. But if I said I finished the entire movie then she would wonder why I didn’t just wake her up and take her home.
“Right after Gilbert smacks him around,” I told her. It was the truth.
She moved her neck back and forth and smoothed down her hair. I wanted to tell her that she’s gorgeous in the morning, but that sounded more like a boyfriend and less like a friend. I had no problems admitting that I wanted to be her boyfriend, but I was so afraid of scaring her away now and having no relationship with her at all.
“Want coffee?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Please. I’m going to use your bathroom.”
While she was in the bathroom, I put the coffee on. Then I started making my juice drink. I have a combination of vitamins I put in it, so I was doing that when she walked back in. I sat a cup and the creamer next to the coffee pot. She poured herself a cup, left it black and took a big sip of it without even making a bitter face. Awesome girl!
“What are you making?” she asked me as she took a seat at the counter.
“It’s a juice drink. I put some vitamins and herbs into it. It gives me energy.”
She was nodding. She didn’t seem to think it was too weird. “What kind of vitamins?” she asked.
“Um…there’s B12, Vitamins C and E, and some electrolytes too, magnesium and potassium.”
“What’s in the powder stuff?”
“It’s protein.”
“For muscle?” she said.
“Something like that,” I told her. Actually Molly, I imagined myself saying. I have a tumor in my brain. Because of that, my body doesn’t absorb vitamins and minerals the way it should and I get sick. The increased protein helps my body to do what it should just naturally do. I didn’t say it out loud. If she wasn’t ready for a kiss, she wasn’t ready for that. I poured some in a glass and said, “Would you like to try it?”
She took it and smelled it. It reminded me of Jake saying it smelled nasty.
“How does it smell?” I asked her.
“Good,” she said, “Fruity.” I knew she was smarter than Jake. She took a sip and said, “Hmm, it’s really good.”
“You want a bagel to go with it? I think I’m going to have one.”
“Sure,” she said. “By the way, I’m sorry for falling asleep on you last night.”
I smiled and said, “Are you sorry for falling asleep on me in the middle of the movie, or literally falling asleep on me.”
She shook her head and then with a smile she said, “Both, I suppose.”
“Don’t be,” I told her. “It was the best night’s sleep I got in a while. Do you want cream cheese on your bagel?”
She smiled. “No thanks,” she said.
After our bagels were done, we took them out on my little balcony. It overlooked the back lawn of a dilapidated, should-have-been-torn-down-years-ago house and across the street from one of those fortune teller places with the big neon palm out front. Needless to say, the view is not what we’re paying for here. While we ate I asked her, “So how long have you known Megan?”
“We met in kindergarten and bonded over our first haircut.”
“Your first haircut?”
“Yeah, you know she cut my bangs, I cut hers. All kindergarteners do it. Didn’t you?”
I thought about it for a minute. Part of what my cancer treatments have done to me is mess with some of my memories. I don’t really have short term, or long term problems, per se. It’s just harder to remember things then it used to be. Good old radiation zap to the head about thirty times will do that.
“I don’t remember doing it,” I said. It was as honest an answer as I could come up with.
“How about you and Jake?” she asked.
“Jake moved into the neighborhood when I was eight and he was seven. I acted like I didn’t know him at school, but at home we played together almost every day.”
“Why did you act like you didn’t know him at school? Was he already a little weird?”
I laughed at that. I loved the fact that she liked Jake, yet she also loved to pick on him. She never did it in a mean way, just funny.
“I was eight,” I told her. “I had just started third grade. Third grade is a big step up from second. It was about my image, my reputation. I couldn’t be seen running around the playground with a seven-year-old.”
“Of course,” she said. “What was I thinking?”
“What about high school?” I asked her. “Were you a cheerleader, prom queen or all of the above?”
She smiled one of those far away smiles that said the memories were either bad or bittersweet. Her eyes looked kind of sad as she said, “I wasn’t much of a socialite in high school. Megan did all of that our junior and senior year and I lived vicariously through her.”
“It’s hard for me to imaging that you didn’t have a hundred offers to go to the prom. Were you an emo girl, against all of the establishment and the gender and societal norms?” I was kidding, sort of. I really couldn’t wrap my head around this beautiful girl not being the most sought after, popular girl in school.
“No,” she said with a smile. She got that it was mostly a joke. I liked that about her too. She had a great sense of humor. “I was too cool,” she said. Then she grinned. I thought she was kidding, but I wasn’t sure.
She finished her bagel and we carried our dishes back inside. She washed her plate and her cup and sat them in the drainer. I needed a roommate like her. Jake lets them ferment until one of us gets home from school or whatever and can’t stand the smell any longer.
“I should head home,” she said. “I could really use a shower and my toothbrush.”
“Okay. Let me get my boots on, I’ll take you.”
“I don’t mind taking the bus.”
“I don’t mind taking you. I’ll be right back.” When I got back, she had folded the blanket we left on the couch, and straightened up the living room. It was funny how much we were alike sometimes. “You ready?” I asked her.
We rode back to her dorms on Susie, so conversation was pointless. I don’t know about her, but I was enjoying her arms around me again, even if she only did it to keep from falling off the bike. I thought about my failed kiss attempt. Then I thought about the night we danced in the rain. I think she would have kissed me that night. I was beginning to figure out that Molly’s a thinker, and if she lets herself, she can think of a reason to talk herself out of anything. I think some guy must have hurt her in the past. She tries to put up this wall around her heart. She likes me though; I can see it in her eyes and her smile. I feel it…in my heart. I’m not ready to give up on this being more than just friends. I wasn’t going to pressure her at all, but I was still hoping if we hung out enough, she might start to feel it too.
Chapter Eleven
Molly
I had just gotten out of the shower when Megan got home. “Phew!” I was really glad she hadn’t already been here; I would have never heard the end of it, having spent the night with Brock, no matter how innocent it had been.
As I dried my hair I thought about how good it had felt to wake up in his arms, with my head on his strong chest and his arm around me. If I hadn’t been so shocked to wake up there, I may have pretended to be asleep a little longer, just because it felt so right. He was already awake when I opened my eyes and I had to wonder how long he had lain still like that, just holding me and letting me sleep. Everything he did was so…caring and sweet. I wondered how a guy that good-looking wasn’t spoiled and arrogant. They were few and far between that’s for sure.
I thought about the failed kiss and wondered when….or if I was ever ready if he would want to try it again. Megan’s knocking on the door interrupted my thoughts. I turned off the blow dryer and said, “Come on in Meg.”
“Hey Molly, how was your night?” Megan said as she came in the door.
“It was fun. We just watched a movie. How was yours?”
“The car show was good, but Tim’s mom’s house was…questionable. I had serious concerns about her housekeeping methods.” Megan was kind of a clean-freak which wasn’t a bad thing, but I worry that she might have to kill Jake when they finally decide to get married or live together. From what Brock told me, he is kind of a slob.
“I have to pee,” Megan said.
I shook my head. I don’t know if it’s a psychological thing or what, but every time I go into the bathroom, Megan has to pee. I was okay with it now, though it was really hot in the bathroom. I got this sudden, overwhelming need for air. I went out into the room and opened the one and only window we have. It’s not that big, but I hung my head out of it like a dog out of a car window. As soon as the fresh air hit my lungs I became nauseated and my head started feeling a little foggy. As I stood there, clutching on to the windowsill, the room started to spin. Maybe it was the bagel….
I turned around and tried to make it to my bed about the time that Megan came out of the bathroom. One look at me sent her running to my side. She grabbed my arm and helped me get to the bed and then she said, “Molly you’re as white as a sheet.”
“I’m a little light-headed,” I told her. “I just need to lie down.”
Megan helped me lay back on the bed. The room was spinning now and my ears were ringing. I suddenly felt like I needed to puke and I tried to get up but I was too off-balance to stand.
Megan grabbed her purse and said, “We’re going to the hospital.”
“No,” I protested. “I’m okay.” To prove I was a liar no doubt, I stumbled into the desk between our beds.
“Molly, you’re going with me or I’m calling an ambulance. Wait right there I’m going to get Debbie.”
Debbie was our “house-mother” at the dorms. She knew about my illness, she had to…just in case, my grandma had said. I tried to protest again, but when I opened my mouth I realized that any motion at all was going to make me puke. I sat down in the desk chair and leaned forward with my head close to the metal trash can…just in case, and waited for them to get back.
Megan and Debbie were back in five minutes. Debbie was a good choice for house-mother. She was a senior and very smart, and not prone to panic at all. She took charge right away, taking me under one arm and telling Megan to get under the other.
“Do you have her purse with her I.D. and all that?” Debbie asked Meggs. Megan grabbed it and, acting as if they were leading a rag doll, we were on our way. I tried to tell them that I would be okay, and that I didn’t want to go to the hospital, but they acted like they couldn’t hear me. For a few seconds I thought maybe I was only saying it in my head. When we got downstairs, Debbie told Megan to go get the car and pull it up to the curb. When she had gone, Debbie looked at me and said, “Should I call Grandma?” I thought about being sarcastic and telling her I didn’t care if she called her grandma, but she was being nice and there was no reason for me to be a bitch just because I felt like throwing up and passing out.
“I’m really fine, Debbie. I don’t think we need to worry her.”
Debbie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look convinced either. When Megan pulled the car up out front, Debbie tucked me into the passenger seat and told her, “Take her to the ambulance bay side. There will be wheelchairs there. If they keep her, even for a few hours, call her grandmother.”
Megan said she would and Debbie closed the door. I had a feeling that once she got inside she was going to decide to call grandma herself. It was nice of her to worry, but I hated it. I despised being the center of all of this negative attention. I closed my eyes and lay my head back against the seat and thought once again…I just want to be normal.
When I opened my eyes again, we were at the emergency entrance of the hospital. Megan parked where the ambulances go, and I was trying to tell her she wasn’t supposed to park there. She acted like she couldn’t hear me again and jumped out to grab a wheelchair. She opened the car door and was going to try and help me out, although I could have done it myself, when an orderly showed up.
“You need some help?”
“No, I can do it myself.”
“Yes, please,” Megan said.
Am I not talking out loud?
“She’s really weak; I don’t want her to fall.”
The orderly told Megan where to park the chair and once again I was treated like Ragged-Ann. He put his hands around my waist and told me to hold on around his shoulders and then he lifted me into the chair. It was really way too much of a production and I told Megan so as he pushed me inside. I guess she must have been able to hear me that time, because she finally said, “Shhh, Molly. Hush!” Now my feelings were hurt. I was sick and she was yelling at me.
The guy who had helped us pushed me up to the triage desk and then told Megan she could go move her car. I had to answer a bunch of questions and while I was doing that the nausea returned and I found myself staring at the bottom of a Pepto-Bismol pink plastic bucket. I had the dry heaves a few times, but nothing was coming out. The nurse was taking my vitals now, and she said that I was running a temperature, my pulse was high and my blood pressure low. She and I both knew what that meant, I was dehydrated.
“Have you been drinking water?” she asked.
“Does coffee count?” I asked her.
She wasn’t in the mood for humor though. I guess because of what they see every day, nurses rarely are. I admitted that I may have forgotten to drink enough but just for the last two days. Otherwise I was usually really good about it. She didn’t give me credit for that though, and excused herself when Megan came back and went to call my oncologist. Jeez! What a tattle-tale. When I was able to lift my head out of the bucket, I looked at Meggs and said, “Now I’m going to get a lecture you know.”
My best friend looked me in the eyes and said, “Good. You need to take better care of yourself.”
“I usually do…” I wanted to defend myself, but mean or not, she was right. I stick to my diet religiously, and usually make sure to drink six bottles of water a day. I knew how prone I was to getting dehydrated. I had been a little distracted lately…maybe it was Brock. If that were the case however, then it came back to being Megan’s fault. She was the one who introduced us.
When the nurse came back, she told me that Dr. Harris wanted her to admit me. I protested again. I was fine; I would just go home and drink some more water. I them so, and again my words fell on deaf ears. As she got the paperwork ready, Megan said, “I’m going to step out in the lobby and call your grandma.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Meg. They’re going to stick an IV in me and pump me with some fluids and cut me loose. I don’t want to worry her.” She’ll come right away, and she’ll have that look she gets when her eyebrows have been drawn together in the middle too long.
“We don’t know that,” Megan was saying. “If I don’t call her, Dr. Harris will. Then I’ll be the one getting the lecture when she gets here.”
Megan was right; grandma would be pissed if they didn’t call her. “Okay, but be sure to tell her I’m okay and not to race right over here.”
“Yeah,” Megan said with a little laugh, “that’ll work.” She knew my grandma about as well as I did. Before leaving, she leaned down and hugged me real quick and said, “I’ll be right back.”
When Megan got back they were trying to start the IV. Once the ER nurses got the fluids running in me they would take me to the oncology unit. When I was really sick and getting chemo in the hospital every month I had a Meta-port. It was implanted in my chest and they would numb the spot and access my veins through my chest. It kept the veins in
my arms and hands from getting ruined from the harsh drugs, plus it was easy if I was dehydrated, or needed blood. I remember being so happy when I was in remission, and they had taken it out. Now as the nurse dug into my arm, looking for the scrawny vein that had packed up and moved away, I wished I had it back. After three tries, a male nurse finally found one in my hand.
“It’s probably not going to work if you need meds, it’s so small. Hopefully we can get enough fluids in you to pump up the other ones before they need them.”
They took me to the oncology unit then and got me checked into a room. It felt good to lie on the cool sheets of the hospital bed and I had just started to fall asleep when the nurse came in to check my vitals. After she did that, she told me that Dr. Harris wanted them to draw blood too. Great, hopefully my little skinny vein held up. I looked at poor Meg, sitting there at the bedside and told her, “Hey, thanks for bringing me. You don’t have to stay here.”
She just made a face at me. I knew that no matter what I said, she wouldn’t leave me alone. When grandma got here, and I knew too that she would come, then Meggs might leave. The nurse took the blood and left, and I finally got to drift off to sleep for a while.
I had strange dreams; it probably had something to do with not having much fluid in my brain. Brock was in all of them, and we were dancing on the rooftops of all the building at the university. He was singing to me, sometimes it was Justin Timberlake, but one time…it was Brittany Spears and I have to admit, I was embarrassed for him. Just about the time we had danced our way across the rooftops and were standing at the edge of the roof of the three story tall library, he went in for the kiss. This time I was going to do it, I couldn’t wait for our lips to meet….
“Molly…Molly wake up.” I opened one eye. It was Dr. Harris. Damn you evil oncologist! I opened the other eye, and where Megan had been in my peripheral vision before now sat Grandma.
“Hi Grandma,” I said, “Hi, Dr. Harris.” I was still mad at him for ruining the kiss, but Grandma was here so I had to be polite.
Dirty Maverick (The Maxwell Family) Page 59