Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Lace sat down in the “comfortable” chair the hospital provided, and the bustling nurse, space-suited up once more, came over and re-hooked her port to the meds that had made her sick, but dammit, she needed to get the fuck over her pity party.
Just because they’d found she was allergic to the anti-nausea additives that they normally mixed into her chemo-cocktail, and had discontinued those which had her puking a lot, didn’t mean she needed to be a cry-baby about it.
The chemo-poisons she was receiving, Lace reminded herself, were prolonging her life and hopefully killing all the cancer that had invaded her body.
It sucked tossing her cookies all the time, but the alternative was unthinkable.
This time, unlike others where her body had warned her of the upcoming event—pun intended—her nausea had come on so fast, she hadn’t had a chance to make a run for it. Instead, she’d spewed all over the comfortable sweats she’d worn.
Hence, the scrubs. Her own soiled clothing was now tied up tightly in a bag out at the front desk, waiting for her to collect it when she left.
If she had the energy to do anything more than drag her ass out the door.
Today was really kicking her behind. All she wanted to do was sleep.
And Lace wasn’t one for wallowing in down-time.
Just because she had today off, didn’t mean she was free for more than this brief, once-a week trek to the hospital.
Nope. It was back to work tomorrow, only to rinse and repeat the same shit for the next four months.
The only bright spot on today’s cluster-fuck-ed-ness, had been one hazel-eyed clown who’d bumped into her in the hallway. She glanced down at the pretty paper flower she still clutched.
What a goof.
A big goof, for sure, as in extra-large, but what a wonderful distraction. She was still imagining what kind of body the man rocked underneath all those polka-dots. Lace had a feeling it might be something good because of the way the guy carried himself with such ease and confidence.
She imagined what he’d look like without the wig, the face paint, and the huge red nose, but her brain was a frazzled mess, and she couldn’t quite manage to separate the man from the costume. Which was okay. She’d probably never see him again.
Lace placed the flower on her lap, and looked over at her side table, exhaustedly.
The book she’d been reading sat there, a few chapters in, but the murder mystery wasn’t quite doing it for her today.
Death and killing weren’t on her feel-good agenda.
A sweet romance novel might do the trick.
A lot of the women sitting around receiving their treatments were giving that genre a whirl, and…
Shit.
Why did romance novels have her mind traveling back to the clown?
A picture popped into Lace’s head, of trying to kiss that silly face, and she couldn’t tamp down the giggle that escaped from her throat.
A few of those sharing her space grinned in her direction because…
Yeah. Nobody was going to call her out on her unexplained giddiness.
They were all, every one of them, searching for the same elusive sunshine she’d just spontaneously displayed as they floundered in their private seas of uncertainty.
But now she was exhausted.
Maybe she’d just close her eyes and have a little nap.
Dreaming about the circus wouldn’t be a bad thing.
It must have been just under an hour later when Lace felt a gentle hand at her shoulder.
“You’re all set for today, Lace,” a kind voice told her. “Take your time. I’ve already removed the line from your port so you’re okay to go whenever you muster the energy.”
“Thanks,” Lace responded groggily to Betina, the wonderful nurse she’d come to know over the past few weeks.
“Can I get you anything to nibble on before you go?” Betina asked.
Just the thought of food made Lace want to barf again. “Uh, no thanks. I’ll wait until I get home.”
And that trip would be a struggle today.
After her infusions, Lace was always wiped out, and today she’d added losing her cookies to the mix.
The thought of walking to the bus stop, waiting there in the beating sun, then making her way down her street once she was dropped off, seemed almost insurmountable.
But dammit, she was stronger than that, and smart enough not to have driven her car to her appointment, since she’d almost driven into a tree after the first time.
Sucking in a deep breath, Lace hoisted herself out of her chair and headed for the door, swaying a little on her feet.
This was going to suck.
An hour and a half later, finally spying the small, comfortable cape style home no more than fifty paces away, Lace felt her shoulders relax.
She’d been fighting back intense fatigue, as well as bile in her throat for the past twenty minutes, and couldn’t wait to get inside where the intrinsic warmth of her house would hug her tightly as she flopped down onto her overstuffed couch.
In the tiny abode her grandparents had left to her, she always found peace.
Of course, it wasn’t at all the same after they’d both passed nine years ago.
There were no longer smells of Gram’s baked goods lingering in the air, nor was there the sound of two-stroke engines being worked on in the garage out back.
But in Lace’s imagination, Gram and Peepaw were still here. Still encouraging her in all she did.
Why then, had life seemed so lonely lately?
Lace had always embraced the positive, and even after her grandparents had been taken from her too soon, she’d leaned on her one close friend in town to keep her centered.
Yes. Just one good friend. Lace had lost touch with her other elementary school acquaintances long ago, having spent her middle and high school years at a regional vo-tech ten miles to the north.
The only person she’d reconnected with was Bobbie.
That wonderful woman. For all Lace’s adult years, Bobbie had been her rock. A busy, up and coming caterer for the area, her bestie had nonetheless always managed to make time for the two of them to get together, bitch about life, and toss back a few drinks.
But just last year Bobbie had met and married the man she deemed her soulmate—one of the larger-than-life Sothard brothers who were almost mythical in town—and she was now eight and a half months pregnant.
Lace didn’t begrudge her friend any of her happiness, especially with the heinous past the woman had finally escaped.
With Lace’s breast cancer diagnosis, Lace had purposely distanced herself from Bobbie, not wanting to rain on the very first joyful parade of the woman’s life, and she missed her.
Bobbie still texted Lace pretty much every day, so Lace didn’t feel completely disconnected, but she wasn’t exactly stellar company these days, so when Bobbie suggested getting together, Lace always found one excuse or another to put her off.
That, of course, wasn’t going to cut it with her intrepid friend for very much longer. Bobbie wasn’t the type to sit back and watch someone wallow in misery.
If Lace could just get through her chemotherapy…
Right.
Once she finished that, it was surgery to remove the tumor and the breast. Then, of course, radiation treatments.
It would be a lifetime of drugs and testing thereafter.
But everyone she’d talked to in a breast cancer support text-chain she’d joined, said it got much better after chemo was complete.
She was looking forward to that.
Once inside her door, Lace swept off the scrubs cap she still wore, and reached for her ubiquitous head scarf.
Yeah. She’d lost her hair just two weeks into treatment, and that had been another kick to the gut.
She’d always loved her long blonde sheen of hair, and in the first weeks of her treatment, had cried every time she’d lost handfuls of it in the shower, on her pillow, or just when she forgot about it and reached up to scratch her head.
It had been a tough decision, but after dealing with that sad mess for a week or more, Lace had finally decided to embrace a buzz cut.
What she hadn’t known, and nobody had told her, was how freaking cold her naked noggin would get.
It felt arctic when she was just sitting around, freezing when the wind blew, and her pillowcase, at night, had the temperature of block ice.
Hence, Lace always kept her bald pate covered with something.
She laughed wryly.
That had also been a challenge. Finding just the right weight of material to cover her crown.
When she bundled up too much, sweat she hadn’t known she was capable of producing would bead up on her scalp and drip down her face in riverlets.
When she attempted a wig, it slipped off her bald head, was also sweltering, and phenomenally itchy.
Lace had finally settled on wrapping her scalp with a neck warmer that kept her toasty, but had a vent at the top that let her woman-made-steam escape.
All in all, just another day fighting cancer.
Lace had just removed her shoes and flopped down on the couch when her phone chimed.
She picked it up to look at it, and saw it was from Bobbie.
How did chemo go this morning?
To lie, or not to lie…
Maybe a distraction.
Well, I puked, which is nothing new, but then I was run into by a real cutie. Or…at least I think he was, because I couldn’t really see his face.
Answering bubbles appeared.
Oooh! Was he wrapped in bandages like the invisible man? Bobbie texted back.
Her bestie’s love of old movies was epic.
Nope. Nothing quite so mysterious. He was dressed like a clown. And for some reason, I haven’t been able to get him out of my head. Do you think I secretly have a clown fetish?
There was a hesitation; bubbles, then nothing, then more bubbles.
Why the heck was Bobbie hedging? Did she have a clown phobia of which Lace was not aware?
Hello? Lace texted. Did I lose you? I assure you he looked nothing like Pennywise. He was more of a Bozo type.
This time, Bobbie didn’t hesitate.
I’m calling you right now, and you better pick up.
What the hell?
Lace was intrigued. As much as a few minutes earlier she’d wanted nothing more than to lay back and block the world out, her curiosity was now piqued, and when the phone rang, she quickly hit the button to connect.
“What’s going on, Bobbie? Have you secretly been attacked by a clown in a former life and wear garlic to keep them away?” Lace joked.
“That’s vampires,” Bobbie dismissed. “Now tell me what he looked like,” she demanded without missing a beat.
“Okay. Fine. He was tall. He had on a tented costume that didn’t give me even the slightest hint of what was underneath all those polka dots.
His face was slathered in white paint. He had a big, red nose, and a ratty looking red wig on his head, and…
Oh, yeah. His eyes were this stunning shade of hazel. ”
Was there anything else about him that stood out?
Uh, huh.
“He was nice. A gentleman. He bumped into me, apologized sweetly, then produced a flower out of his sleeve that he gave me.”
Lace looked at the slightly crushed item laying on the couch, and actually smiled. She’d never received a gift from a clown before.
Lace continued. “He wondered out loud how anyone could deal with the big C, and then worried he wasn’t funny enough to make the kids in the peds unit laugh.”
“Uh, huh,” Bobbie responded eagerly. “And did he give you his name?”
“Yeah. That and the clown-handle he was trying out. He was working with either Cenzo the Clown, or Enzo the Extraordinaire, since his name is Vincent. I told him both of those were lame.”
“Oh my God!” Bobbie screamed. “Buck! Buck!”
Well, that was unexpected.
“Hey! Bobbie! What’s going on? Are you okay?” Lace yelled. Was the woman having contractions? Lace worried about her friend’s health, even though her pregnancy had been uneventful so far except for a lot of morning sickness in her first trimester.
“I’m good, but…” Bobbie began laughing hysterically again. “Sorry. I… Honey. Come here.”
Clearly, she was talking to her husband Buck.
Bobbie gave one last, very loud giggle. “I’m putting you on speaker, Lace.”
“Uh, okay.”
When Lace heard the slight click, she greeted Buck. “Hi, Buck. Is Bobbie in danger of going off the deep end? Maybe a seizure or something?”
“I’m not sure, Lace, but I’m about to find out.”
Lace could almost see the big man turning to Bobbie and putting his hands on her shoulders.
“Bobbie, honey. Are you going to explain? You’re worrying me and Lace.”
“I… You…” Bobbie managed to catch her breath. “Just ask her who she met today,” she squeaked.
Buck’s sigh sounded loud over the line. “Okay. I’ll bite. Who did you meet today, Lace?” he placated.
“Uh, you know. Same old, same old. Doctors, nurses, other patients, a clown,” she added to see if he could shed any light on Bobbie’s gleefulness.
“Wait. What?”
Now she had Buck’s attention. Lace would roll with it.
“I met a clown. An honest to god, dressed up clown. And before you think I’m a lunatic, I only told Bobbie I thought he was cute under all the make-up. I didn’t try to jump his bones or anything. And… Wait, Do clowns even have bones?”
Buck had started chuckling during her monologue, and was now moving into full blown guffaws.
“Okay. What am I missing here?” Lace was beginning to get pissed.
Buck managed to get himself under control. “His name wouldn’t have been Vincent by any chance, would it?”
Lace could still hear Bobbie howling with delight in the background.
“Uh, yeah?”
“Well, how about that. The cretin took us up on our bet.”
“What cretin? What bet?”
That was her limit. She’d had it. Somebody needed to explain things, and soon, or she was going to lose her shit.
“Your clown, Lace?” Buck posited.
“I’m listening,” she responded tartly.
“That’s my big brother, Vince.”