by Pepper Pace
“Okay.” He climbed into bed first and then held his arms out to her. Robin snuggled up to him and tried to ignore the nagging thoughts filling her brain. Her period was officially late. She was expecting the results back on whether or not she had cancer. The anniversary of her father’s death was tomorrow. And her mother hated the man she loved. There was a lot going on right now, so maybe it wasn’t odd that she’d be late. She finally fell into a restless sleep after 2 am.
Chapter 21
Thursday was a bright and shining day but it could have been filled with storm clouds for how Robin felt that morning. She was tired, she’d dreamed about Daddy though she couldn’t remember quite what the dream had been about. It hadn’t been a dream about memories of a life that he had lived but a dream about resurrection and a restless death and it left her feeling sad.
Jason’s morning seizure was bad. He choked on his cereal and knocked over the half filled bowl and had to change out of his clothes while she sopped up the soaking mess. She ended up going to the bathroom twice before they had even left for school. Each time she checked for any sign of her period. Nothing. Then during class she had an urgent need to go again. Her IBS churned her intestines loudly and even Jason looked at her when a loud gas bubble erupted inside of her.
“I have to go to the restroom.” She whispered to him and he nodded. She hated disrupting the class to get up and leave. The professor paused in his lecture to look at her and she felt all eyes on her as she quickly walked across the crowded room to the door. She wasn’t sure how she would ever be able to rejoin the class when she was done in the bathroom.
After her visit to the restroom, Robin still didn’t feel better and she took one of the painkillers that had been prescribed when she had gone to Emergency. As she tried to quietly re-enter the room she felt her cell phone ringing. Thankfully it had been set on vibrate or she would have been very embarrassed. Back at her seat next to Jason she checked the number. It was the hospital. Then her stomach began to churn and she needed the toilet again, but there was no way she was getting up and making another trek across the room. She knew she could wait until class ended.
When the class was finally over Jason gave her a concerned look. She had sweat on her face and appeared shaky. “Are you okay?”
“The hospital called.” She said as she quickly got his items packed up so that they could leave. Jason stilled her frantically moving hands.
“Call the hospital first.”
She nodded and listened to the voice mail message. It was just a pre-recorded message.
<
Jason’s heart rose to his throat at the look on her face. “Robin?”
“I gotta make an appointment to get the results.” She absently returned the phone to her purse and quickly finished packing Jason’s items.
“Okay.” He said slowly. “Hopefully we can get an appointment today.”
She nodded. Before the next class, she made a quick visit to the restroom and then got Jason set up before heading out to the hallway in order to set an appointment for her consultation.
“Hello, this is Robin Mathena and I received a message that my test results had come back in. Can you tell me…what the results are?”
The nurse placed her on hold to check something on the computer. “We don’t actually have the results, only the doctor would have that information. Would you like to make an appointment for today?”
She sighed in frustration. “Yes.”
“Can you be here in an hour?” She rolled her eyes.
“No. I can be there any time after four.”
“We have a 4:15 available?”
“Yes.” That would give her plenty of time to get from school to the hospital. Man was she getting sick of that damned hospital.
“Okay, we have it in the computer. See you then.” She speculated on whether she should call Mama…She really wanted her Mom right now. She called her quickly.
“Mom?”
“Hi, honey. I was thinking about you. Hold on a sec, I have someone in my office.” Her mother put her on hold and Robin looked into the window of the class. Shit. The professor had already begun. She sighed and waited and then Mama returned sounding out of breath.
“Sorry about that. Did you hear from the Hospital yet?”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t give me the results over the phone.” She felt fearful tears prickling her eyes and she wiped them away quickly.
“Okay. Damn…they do that and I don’t know why they feel the need to stress people out. So you had to make an appointment?”
“Yes, today at 4:15. Can you come Mom?”
“Yes, of course I’ll be there. Where exactly?”
Robin explained where to meet her in the main part of the Hospital. “Robin, it will be okay. I love you, okay?”
“I love you to Mom.” She said, feeling better. She felt like she could just put it in Mama’s hands and allow her to take care of all the things that she couldn’t deal with…but the reality of it is that this was something that only she could handle. She’d allowed herself to have an uncontrolled ulcer and now she was afraid of the worst. She used the bathroom once again.
Jason kept staring at the door, waiting for Robin to return. She finally did, looking ashen. What was she doing here trying to take care of him when she was obviously sick? They should just leave. He leaned in to whisper but she shook her head and told him not to. He had little finesse in the art of whispering. She gestured for him to type it.
Though he had little control of his fingers, he was a whiz at the two finger peck motion. He typed;
<>
She shook her head and slid the laptop to her and typed out her response.
<
He couldn’t stop his long draw of breath at that last bit of information, but he nodded his response. As the day moved on he got a text message before class ended. He showed it to her. It said, ‘The girls finished your video. Meet us in the production room at lunch.’
Robin figured it must be from Peter. Her stomach felt too iffy for food anyways, she just needed a drink; her mouth felt like a desert. So for lunch they got fountain drinks and a bag of chips for Jason. As they moved toward the Production Room, Jason watched her, noting that she was quiet and introspective today. Two years ago her father had died and he knew that could be weighing heavy on her mind. He wished that there was something that he could do to make it better. He would think on that.
Peter, Belinda and Amberly were already in the production room when they arrived. They were discussing screens of some type. Robin only partially listened, her focus was on Belinda and if she seemed unhappy about being in Peter’s presence. If she was, it wasn’t evident. She leaned against the table describing a screen and wearing a denim skirt. Wow, she had long legs and they were thick and shapely. She had artfully layered three shirts, each visible and offered a different color, the last one almost as long as the mid length skirt. She wore clogs with a clunky heel and Robin knew that the already tall girl would be well over six feet tall. The effect made her seem to own the room.
Peter was listening intently to everything she said, and when Amberly would interject, he’d nod but his eyes stayed on Belinda’s. Robin felt herself smiling. That boy was so sprung. He needed to just admit it! Her mood uplifted a bit.
They turned to the two new arrivals and greeted them happily. Amberly, especially, was all smiles. “You two are going to love this!” They joined their friends at the computer.
/> “Have you seen this yet?” Jason asked Peter.
“Nah, I just got here.”
Robin glanced at Jason as she took a drink of soda and almost sputtered it everywhere. Jason had potato chips all over him. He even had crumbs on his eyebrows. How the hell had he managed that? Robin thought as she reached down and quickly brushed off the crumbs. Of course it had happened when he had upended the empty bag of chips into his mouth to catch the last bits. Jason located a lone chip resting on his chest and ate it absently while Robin brushed off his shirt.
The other’s watched their interaction; the two of them so used to doing this that they didn’t even realize it.
“Anyways,” Belinda spoke when she was able to pull her eyes away from them. “Amberly’s been working really hard on this. It’s her baby.” She quickly pecked out something onto the computer before straightening and looking at each of them with a pleased look in her eyes. “Okay, ready?”
Robin nodded enthusiastically although she was very anxious that this was her dancing and that they would be watching and she hoped that she didn’t look totally ridiculous…
The music of Love’s End filled the room. There were a few other student’s present and they stopped what they were doing to listen. The screen was black and then stars appeared and formed into the wispy image of a person that appeared to be grooving to the sound of music; head bobbing slightly and hands snapping. The image was created from the shape of stars and the changing color of lights. It reminded Robin of Windows Media Player and the hypnotic images of lights that matched the beat of the music.
She grinned and looked at Jason who was watching very seriously. As the beat continued to get funky and soulful the image began to dance, movements flowing, body turning and shimmying as stars and light stood in her wake.
She couldn’t believe it. The movements matched the music perfectly. The song ended much too soon and there was applause from all of the people in the room.
“Amberly!” Robin said while covering her smile with her fingertips. “I can’t believe you did that!”
“Did you like it?”
“I loved it!” She turned to her silent boyfriend. “Jason?”
“I…” He was shaking his head. “That’s the best piece of work that you’ve ever done. It’s perfect for the song. I want to post it to YouTube tonight.”
Amberly beamed and bounced on her tiny feet. “Listen to our idea. We think you should play it tomorrow at the Halloween party. We can move a screen behind the stage and like…have a world premier or something!”
Belinda was nodding. “We can put all of the YouTube vids up. We can even keep the screen running and create a visualization show; you know, like on Windows Media Player. And we can program it to change the type of visualization based on what type of music you’re going to be playing.”
Peter looked at them in awe. “You know how to do that?”
Amberly and Belinda both shrugged and nodded. Of course they knew how to do it; it’s what they studied in college. Amberly moved to the computer.
“There is even a morphing technique where we can have an image up and it will just morph. Which means we can put up pictures of you two and it will be like looking at you after a shot of Ecstasy…which incidentally I have no idea what it’s like.”
Jason and Peter just looked at each other in amazement. “Yeah.” Peter said. “Yeah we should definitely do it. We’ll just cut you in four ways.” Jason was surprised to hear that coming from his mouth, but he would have said it if Peter hadn’t. Though considering that this had been Peter’s reason for wanting Wheels of Steel to end, it didn’t make much sense to him to willingly offer to share the take.
Belinda glanced at him before turning back to the computer. “I’m just helping a friend; not for the money.”
“Yeah.” Amberly agreed. “It’s no biggie.”
Peter looked a little crestfallen. “Well we got to give you something. Also there is the problem with the CD’s.”
“What problem?” Jason asked.
“Who’s going to sale them at the party? I mean this is our big night. We can make thousands. We can’t lose that opportunity. I got close to a thousand made-”
“Jeez, Link! We’re going to be busy on stage.”
Amberly was already shaking her head. “I’m going to be working the computer for the light show, and I need Belinda.”
Robin shrugged. “I can do it, I guess. I don’t mind.”
Jason looked at her. “Robin, are you sure? Because if you’re selling music you aren’t going to be able to enjoy the party.”
“My boyfriend and friends are all doing something. I want something to do, too.”
He smiled. “Alright babe. But we’re paying you for-”
“No, just let me do this for you. I’m going to feel pretty stupid dressed like the Queen of Hearts with no Mad Hatter next to me and just standing there looking crazy.” Jason gave her a quick hug. They continued talking about the logistics of getting everything set up and if they didn’t get started tonight then it wouldn’t get done. Friday they would only have time enough to put together the equipment after getting dressed. Tomorrow would be chaos.
Robin both dreaded and looked forward to the end of classes. They drove to the hospital mostly in silence. She knew that her anxiety had begun to rub off on Jason. His face was pale beneath his numerous freckles and his muscles were jerkier than normal. She knew that he would be due for another seizure soon and hoped that it wouldn’t be bad because of their mutual anxiety.
Mama was already waiting for her in the small waiting area. Robin could tell that she was having a bad day as well. Her normally youthful face was lined, shadows stood out beneath her eyes. When she saw Robin she immediately stood and hugged her in greeting. She looked at Jason, greeting him as well, but Robin didn’t know if Mama had even seen him. She let the receptionist know that she had arrived and then she sat down with Mama on one side of her and Jason on the other side of her.
Betty knew that this was a sign. Today was the anniversary of her husband’s death and she had to sit in a waiting room of a hospital, waiting for results of her only child’s cancer test. On this day of all days; which is the reason that she knew the tests would come back positive. Because this would be her punishment for all of the wrong that she had done.
Her eyes moved to the boy that was nervously holding her daughter’s hand. His head turned this way and that and his arms and hands kept moving even when she could clearly see that he was trying to sit still.
Betty could read a message in his movements and they said that he was afraid, he was afraid for her daughter just in the same way that she was afraid. Betty closed her eyes and prayed that she would have more time with her daughter, she prayed that she would have more time to prove that college and the boy you dated was of little consequence in the great scheme of things. There should be dinners, and phone calls, and trips to the Bahamas, and Florida, and maybe even one day Grand babies…and there should be no dark cloud of residual anger hanging over their heads.
Betty Mathena prayed that god would give her more time with her child.
The receptionist finally called Robin’s name and she marched into the room, the others falling behind her as she uncharacteristically took the lead. Robin felt her stomach twisting and knotting and wished that she had gone to the restroom one last time before sitting down in one of the small plastic chairs. She knew that her face was shiny with sweat, her heart was already slamming in her chest.
Dr. Sarma’s expression did not seem like he would be the bearer off good news. Robin watched his mouth move, concentrating on the words but all she could hear was ‘blah blah blah abnormal cells. Blah blah cancerous…blah blah removed.’ And then Momma was squeezing one hand and Jason was squeezing the other. Sweat was rolling down her body.
