Chapter 8
The flu returned with a vengeance.
Jamie woke up three days later, running to the toilet. For an hour she lingered, only moving when Etta finally got up to get ready for work. Jamie greeted her on the bathroom floor, hair tangled and smelling like her stomach contents.
Etta called for Beatrice, and she in turn called the doctor. By the time Etta had clothes on, Beatrice informed them that the doctor would be by at ten.
“Maybe…” Jamie clutched her girlfriend’s hand. She wished she didn’t have to go, but Etta was already grabbing her briefcase and checking for her phone.
“I’ll call you when I have lunch.”
Jamie rolled over and fell asleep until Beatrice announced that the doctor had arrived.
She was barely aware of his existence, although she was already feeling better.
This was the same man who tended to her and Etta during their first round of the flu, and he implied that Jamie might have had the strain that came and went without ever actually going away.
“Five of my other patients have had this so far this year,” said the doctor who made house calls all around the hills.
“Seems to have originated at a party somebody held back in January.”
“I don’t remember going to any parties.” She probably hadn’t. “I got this from Etta.”
“Even so,” the doctor continued, prodding this and pinching that. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
He was all up in her business. How often was she throwing up? What time of day? Did she have any other ailments? When was her last period? When was her next one due? What about family history? Her grandmother had ovarian cancer? And an aunt had lymphoma?
Jamie blocked most of this interview out, simply because she didn’t want to acknowledge it.
She felt miserable. The doctor’s job was to make her feel better.
When he left, he told Jamie that he would be back in two weeks if he hadn’t heard anything, and to call him if she got worse in the coming days.
She did not get worse but felt woozy every morning for a week.
The one-time Etta tried to initiate sex after they both felt better, Jamie put a stop to it because every time Etta touched her stomach, breasts, or her thighs, nausea consumed.
Soreness. Tenderness that had nothing to do with love.
The one-time Etta got inside her, Jamie squealed in pain.
Etta gave up while Jamie freaked out on the phone with Seena.
“Girl,” she said. “You need to take a pregnancy test.”
“Are you kidding? Etta’s a woman!” What did her friends think she did, exactly?
“Right, right. Well, he wouldn’t shut up about cancer in your family, right? Maybe he thinks you have cancer!”
“Don’t put that evil in my head!”
“I’m serious. Have you any weird lumps? Abnormal bleeding? You said it hurt during sex? Oh, my God, that’s what happened to my cousin, and they found out she had cervical cancer!”
“Stop it!”
“Whatever you say. I’ve also got some extra snot sticks if you want them.”
“Ew!”
“What?”
“Snot sticks?”
“Yeah? I’m talking about in case it’s something that’s not the flu. Did that doctor swab your nose? Calm down Lady Joy. Although now I would love to hear one of those highfalutin women from the papers call a nose swab a ‘snot stick.’”
“I would not!” Yeah, she would. A little. Mostly the uppity women from the bridal shower. At least I’m not throwing her baby shower. That fell on someone else’s shoulders.
Jamie hung up a few minutes later, and when Etta emerged from the shower, she asked Jamie how she was feeling. Gross. So gross.
It was best to put such absurd notions out of her mind.
Seena always jumped to the most ridiculous conclusions, and they almost always ended in someone being on death’s door.
Fainted? Pregnant. Feeling nauseated? Cancer.
Period a day late? Menopause. Looked at a picture of cute puppy? Congrats, it’s lupus!
So Jamie forced herself to forget about it for five more days… when her respiratory and stomach problems got better, but not much else.
Seena got to her. She arrived at the manor the next time Etta was gone, holding a brown paper bag.
“You got the stuff?” Jamie asked. When Seena popped open the bag and revealed boxes of cookies, bags of chips, and beer.
Jamie stuffed it beneath her arm. They then went on to eat a huge bowl of popcorn while playing the bloodiest video games Jamie owned.
Beatrice had to plug her ears whenever she entered the living room to tidy something up.
Jamie was ready to go deaf to drown out all the thoughts in her head.
“So, if you’ve got cancer…” Seena shouted over the sounds of machine guns and grenades exploding in the background, “Are you gonna be one of those rich bitches who gets elaborate wigs and pretends she has the same hairdo every day? You could just buy a Grandeur! Don’t they cost like ten grand or something? ”
“I don’t have to worry about that!” Jamie shouted back. “Someone will give one to me. Like the actual designer or something!”
“Say what?”
“It’s true! Sometimes, I get random pieces of jewelry and dresses to wear to functions Etta is invited to as free advertisement for them!”
“That’s awesome!”
“You know that Prada bag I gave you for your birthday?”
“Yeah!”
“I got that for free!”
“Here I thought I was special!”
“Hey, out of all the people I could’ve given it to, I gave it to you!”
“That’s true! You gonna get a Grandeur wig and be pretentious when I take you to lunch at Denny’s?”
“Hell, yeah!” That was the most enthusiastic Jamie acted about her health woes.
Still, she knew it could be a lingering something else, and Seena admitted she had been recently sick as well with an unwelcome virus.
Jamie should really take one of those home tests. What if it was in it for the long haul?
She waited to take a “snot stick” test until long after Etta collapsed in bed, mumbling numbers into her pillow. Jamie stole into the bathroom to take a shower and test her fate.
“This is the weirdest shit ever.” She read the instructions, and not once did she feel comfortable doing the test. This will humble any woman.
Not just the reason for shoving a stick up her nostrils while she sat on the toilet.
The actual act itself. She reminded herself that plenty of those rich women who acted as if their shit didn’t stink had done this too.
The worst was waiting. Jamie dried off and groomed herself in front of her bathroom mirror while she waited, all while her cat Barbarossa insisted on barging in.
What a time for her to show up. The fat loaf had made herself scarce while Jamie was sick.
As for the year-old kittens that were left in the backyard a long time ago?
They spent most of their time in the study and Jamie’s salon.
I used to take them out with me. Rich people took their pets to high-end restaurants all the time.
Now she was stuck with her pride and joy, Barbarossa, who sat in the middle of the bathroom floor swishing her bushy tail and staring at the test balancing on the sink.
“Don’t you dare,” Jamie said. “That’s not a toy.”
Her look said, “I dare you to tell me that when I bat it around this floor and chew on it.” Because she would. Barbarossa was the most well-behaved asshole when Etta was in the room, but when it was just the cat and her inept mother, she quickly turned into a naughty toddler.
Jamie pulled out a stool from beneath the vanity and sat, gesturing for Barbarossa to hop in her lap.
The cat narrowed her eyes. “Please. We’re in a bathroom and you just snotted everywhere.
” Jamie bent over and stretched her arm as far as it could go, Barbarossa slowly inching back.
Even so, she never escaped out of the cat-wide hole in the door.
While waiting, Jamie searched for various cancer symptoms on her phone. What am I doing? Just hurting myself mentally, I see. She couldn’t help herself. Knowing that she had cancer in her family made her suddenly realize her mortality. While Etta would undoubtedly pay for whatever was necessary…
Shit. Oh, my God. Jamie’s eyes widened as she scrolled through symptoms and prognoses. She checked at least half of the major symptoms and saw something else that left a giant rock in her gut.
“This kind of cancer results in the highest rates of infertility among female patients.”
After fifteen minutes, Jamie grabbed the test off the sink. Her eyes remained closed as she held it. Come on, girl. Be brave. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
Negative.
While that was one less thing to worry about, it only made Jamie worry more.
What if I have cancer? She perched on the edge of the tub and continued her doom scrolling.
The more symptoms she checked off, including a family member having the same type of cancer, Jamie found it more difficult to breathe.
I might have cancer… The kind that, even if it was caught early, had a higher chance of rendering her infertile for the rest of her life. Never mind the other shit!
Jamie stumbled out of the bedroom, bile shooting up her throat.
The shock was too much. Her eyes clouded over.
Her feet tripped over themselves. She practically clawed at her face while Barbarossa ran beneath her feet and shot toward the bed.
“Haha. You’re a mess.” She twirled her tail before sniffing Etta’s arm flung over her face.
Barbarossa nudged it, and when Etta didn’t respond, curled up on her chest. Eventually, Etta’s other hand landed on Barbarossa and squeezed her.
The giant cat looked most pleased with herself as she glared at Jamie, who still hovered by the bathroom door.
Etta. I’ll have to tell Etta.
Not only was Jamie probably sick-sick, but she would have to fucking tell Etta!