Lovely, Dark, and Deep, Page 2

  Aminta: ARE YOU OKAY?!?!

  Me: Where’s Roz?

  Me: And how’s the bake sale?!

  “Could your mom have forgotten someone?” Dr. Anderson asks, looking up with his finger on the lupus question, then frowns at the sight of me with my phone. I quickly pocket it. “Somewhere in your family?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Hunh.”

  Obviously, the good doctor has zero clue who my parents are: the principals and cofounders of Lee & Li Communications, who can transform the very worst crises into media-darling gold. All questions are locked down, checked off, and sealed shut with solid answers. So if Mom says there’s no lupus in the family, then that is as indisputable as the fact that the sun will always rise from the east.

  My phone buzzes.

  “Maybe it’s my parents,” I say. The doctor nods. But it’s Aminta again.

  Aminta: I took Roz to Bumbershoot.

  Aminta: WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!

  Aminta: LITERALLY! WHO CARES ABOUT A STUPID BAKE SALE.

  I do, because it’s never just a stupid bake sale, not to me, anyway. As Lee & Li have intoned through the years, we speak for the speechless. They view their corporate clients as their waiter job to pay for all of their pro bono work for nonprofit humanitarian groups. Well, I bake for the powerless and homeless and everyone in between. But just to make sure that I’m not dying, I ask the doctor, “Lupus isn’t fatal, is it?”

  “Hmm. Lupus is a possibility, not a diagnosis. Oh, wait!” Dr. Anderson grins as he holds up a finger as if that is good bedside manner and says almost gleefully, “I’ve got an idea. I’ll be right back.”

  Even before he’s safely out of the room, I begin to research my symptoms with the intensity of a scientist on the verge of a major breakthrough, pecking blurry fast on my phone. (BBC reported that cell phones don’t really interfere—much—with medical equipment.)

  Too soon, the doctor returns; I tuck my phone to my side.

  “I don’t have any of the classic signs of lupus. No butterfly rash on my face,” I tell him and hope I’m right since I didn’t have time to fact-check with the mirror.

  “Perhaps,” Dr. Anderson concedes reluctantly, yet I can see his jaw tighten with frustration, the same way Dad’s does when he can’t resolve a client’s problem. “But being sensitive to the sun is a common sign of lupus.” Emphatic tap on the iPad screen he’s holding up to me now. “Photosensitivity, which can also be caused by vitiligo, porphyria, maybe xeroderma pigmentosa.”

  None of these sound particularly benign. What’s worse, I’m back to being scared, flailing around without concrete information. So I ask, “Okay, worst-case scenario. Am I dying?”

  Just then, a blur of navy blue and motorcycle boots sweeps into the room and stops at my hospital bed. It’s Auntie Ruth with her distinctive scent of motor oil and cedar and risk.

  “Viola! No, you’re not dying,” she says immediately, her brown eyes snapping with conviction. It is a very good thing that my skin no longer burns since she wraps her arm tight around me, then glares at the doctor. “Did you tell her she’s dying?”

  The doctor audibly gulps. How could he not be in awe? Auntie Ruth’s wearing her usual uniform: custom-made mechanic’s coveralls from Tokyo. She’s got one in every color of the rainbow. Today’s front pocket is embroidered with her first name in hot pink, and the back features the winged logo of her auto repair shop. The waist is cinched in to accentuate her curves, and the pant legs are rolled up so you can see her beat-up boots that are scuffed gray from overuse on a real Harley, not distressed at some factory. The uniform is so sexy-utilitarian-cute that Aminta has been coveting one, but Auntie Ruth believes it’s important that every woman create her own signature look.

  “Sorry, I got here as soon as I could after Roz called,” Auntie Ruth says to me before turning her attention back to the doctor. “I’m Viola’s aunt. So what’s next?”

  “We need to run tests,” Dr. Anderson says, all clinical efficiency now, not a hmm or hunh in hearing range.

  I eye him suspiciously because what tests could possibly remain? Or more likely, is he trying to impress my aunt? (Yes.) Was decisiveness a doctor’s way of flirting? (Apparently.) Was it working? (Hardly.)

  “I wish your dad was here. He’d know why you’d fainted and what’s up with your skin,” mutters Auntie Ruth, completely missing how the doctor looks more crushed than offended.

  I jump in to explain, to smooth things over with him. “My parents specialize in crisis management for humanitarian organizations. You know, tsunamis, earthquakes, famine, endangered animals. They always know what to do and say in an emergency.”

  But Dr. Anderson has found his own way to resuscitate his authority and says to Auntie Ruth, “Wait. It says here she was on malaria meds.”

  “Yeah, for a trip to Ghana,” I answer, even though he’s addressing my aunt, not me. “And Tanzania.”

  “With me,” Auntie Ruth says.

  “Really?” Dr. Anderson asks her, interested, as if that fact has anything to do with my current condition. “I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. What brought you there?”

  Auntie Ruth tells him, “A college friend of mine was filming a documentary on child trafficking, then we went on a short safari.”

  “That is so cool!” Dr. Anderson’s eyes grow appraising, until they drop to the wedding ring Auntie Ruth still wears five years after Uncle Amos died. Under any other normal conditions, I’d shove her number at him myself—“She’s single!”—since she looks clueless as ever, her man radar at a permanent loss. But now, I need info.

  “I took Doxy for a month,” I blurt out, “and finished two weeks ago.”

  Dr. Anderson blinks as if finally realizing that he’s not at a club. I feel at a distinct disadvantage, prone, so I scoot up and swing my legs off the bed.

  “Was it the meds?” Auntie Ruth demands, her hands knotting together.

  “It’s possible she may have had a phototoxic reaction from the meds,” Dr. Anderson grants. At Auntie Ruth’s alarmed gasp, he adds quickly, “It’s one of the known side effects. But two weeks after stopping the meds? That’d be highly unusual, almost impossible.”

  “Phototoxic?” No matter what anyone could say now, that word sounds ominous. Deadly. Something you’d read in an obituary. My legs stop swinging.

  “Generally, not fatal,” Dr. Anderson says.

  My heart goes into double time. Fatal? Fatal as in lethal fatal? Fatal as in death fatal?

  “Fatal! Oh, my Lord. This is all my fault!” Auntie Ruth says, folding her arms across her chest. “Why didn’t I just listen to your dad? Mick was totally right. As usual. I shouldn’t have taken you with me.” Her eyes well with tears. “I can’t believe I did this to you.”

  “There’s only about a one in a million chance that it’s the meds.” Dr. Anderson soothes her as if she’s the patient with the generally, not fatal diagnosis. “In fact, the half-life of Doxy is no more than twenty-two hours. So it’d be out of her system in two weeks, which means the chances of it leading to death are even more infinitesimally small.”

  Leading to death!

  Auntie Ruth vows, “We are so not going on your graduation trip anymore.”

  “What?” I ask, startled, because I’ve been counting on that white-water rafting trip and all the other ones we’ve planned.

  “I’m not putting you in danger ever again.” Her intense expression looks eerily like Dad’s when he’s about to issue a nonnegotiable Parental Veto. My stomach churns in a familiar, doomsday way.

  Auntie Ruth can’t nix our plans to take clandestine trips (Jordan! Mongolia!) to prep me for my clandestine career (foreign correspondent) after I attend my clandestine college, New York University (in Abu Dhabi) (for four years). That’s where I’ve planned to fulfill my journalistic destiny, since the campus is strategically located so I can travel as fast as breaking news anywhere in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Kiss good-bye to embedding myself
in Abu Dhabi, learning Arabic, and reporting on that part of the world, if I can’t even get into a tiny, little rubberized boat.

  “Probably a good idea to stay out of the sun as much as you can until we know for sure what’s going on,” Dr. Anderson advises. “Wear sunscreen whenever you go out. You’re stabilized enough to go home now. We’ll get you scheduled for some phototests next week.”

  “Home,” Auntie Ruth echoes, nodding, key fob already clasped in her hand.

  Home?

  People, people, I want to say, I have baos to sell out, a cause to champion, the exhibit of my lifetime to see, a Thor to avoid.

  Thor.

  Did I really faint in front of Thor?

  My cheeks burn, but my self-respect doesn’t matter. “I have to go back to MoPOP.” It’s true. Thor or no Thor, my bake sale calls.

  “Oh, honey, I don’t think so,” says Auntie Ruth, shaking her head.

  Dr. Anderson agrees. “You really want to stay out of the sun for the next couple of days.” A lanky nurse comes in with a sheet of paper that he hands to me while Dr. Anderson explains, “That’s some info on photosensitivity. I’ll give you a call tomorrow to check in on you, especially if you have any questions.”

  But what if Thor’s still trying to offload his misogynistic comics on my bake-sale stand? I get up, grab the edge of the cot, and pretend that my legs aren’t wobbly, not at all. Then I catch my reflection in the mirror and freeze.

  The rash on my arms may be fading, but this is no ordinary blush on my cheeks. I am not a lovely, demure shade of English rose. No amount of foundation or concealer or special effects makeup artistry could camouflage this: My skin is a field of molten lava. This is “stabilized”?

  Auntie Ruth says, “Thanks, Dr. Anderson, we’ll book the phototests for next week.”

  Wait! We’re leaving? I have to go outside? I want to protest now. No, more accurately, I want to crawl into a ball, shield my head in my arms, never go out in public again. But the floor is covered in millions of microbes, and the worst thing that could happen is for me to get MRSA on top of everything. Maybe they’re right. Maybe the next best thing is to hurry home.

  Home where I’ll be out of sight.

  Home where I can plot my makeup Geeks for Good bake sale.

  Home where I can sequester myself in my bedroom while my parents parse my condition to their hearts’ content. The elevator doors ping open. Just as I break into a run straight for the parking garage, I grind to a stop.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Auntie Ruth asks, concerned.

  Do I see my parents, blazing a path across the hospital lobby to quash this crisis? Do I see Roz with Aminta and the rest of the Geeks for Good, beside themselves with worry?

  No, instead, it’s … Thor?

  “Thor? Who’s Thor?” Auntie Ruth asks, scanning the lobby until her gaze stops on the blond, broad-shouldered one hulking his way toward us. “Oh. Behold.”

  Indeed.

  Auntie Ruth nudges me. “Just how do you know him?”

  I’m still stuck on the fact that I uttered my code name for him out loud. Did photosensitivity fry brain cells along with skin cells? Apparently, not all of them because I recall my lobster skin with perfect clarity. Panicking, I turn my back on all that impending Thor.

  “Okay, time to go,” I tell my aunt, hoping she’ll ignore the squeaky high pitch of my voice, not to mention the inconvenient fact that we have to pass Thor to get to the parking garage.

  “Muscles: natural or steroids?” she asks quietly.

  “Shh.”

  Auntie Ruth sidles closers to me. “I’m just … I know you were off boys after what Darren did …” She lifts her hand to cup my cheek, but thinks better of touching me. “Oh, honey, I’m so proud of you. You’re way braver than me. Just like I told you in our tent.”

  “Auntie Ruth.”

  “But isn’t he a little old for you?”

  “Stop!” I cast an anxious glance over my shoulder.

  I swear, everyone—nurses, doctors, soccer moms, a pigtailed toddler strapped in her stroller—swivels around to watch Thor stop in front of me. Oversize muscles aren’t his only superpower, as it turns out. The mere presence of his wide blue eyes fringed with criminally long eyelashes is enough to erase a girl’s ability to form a simple hello.

  I really and truly didn’t think it was possible to embarrass myself even more. Wrong. Totally wrong. His stubbled cheeks (just how old is he?) obliterate all language skills acquired over the last eighteen years.

  I gurgle, “Uhh.”

  Auntie Ruth, unlike me, extends her hand, all poised and put together as if we’re in her auto repair shop, not the Children’s Hospital. “Ruth Peters. I’m Viola’s aunt.”

  “Josh Taylor,” Thor responds as he shakes her hand. “No steroids. Seattle Central Community College. Eighteen. We just met at MoPOP.”

  I have a vague memory of getting lost in his big sky blues before I fainted. I ask him, “Met as in: Did you break my fall?”

  Josh/Thor shrugs, shoves his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight. He mumbles, “I was closest to you.”

  “Wait. What about my baos?” I blurt out.

  He hesitates. “I’ve got them in my truck.”

  “No one stayed to sell them?”

  When Josh grimaces apologetically, it’s obvious no one wanted to buy them.

  “What am I going to do with two hundred red bean buns?” The thought of all those snubbed baos just about demolishes me, and I feel like a failure and my eyes well up, and I want to cry, but I know it’ll be ugly weeping, and I already look bad enough as it is without snot running out of my nose, and I’ve already hit my humiliation quotient for one day.

  “Hey, I can bring them to my swim practice tomorrow with your articles,” Josh tells me.

  Auntie Ruth pipes in, “That is so nice of you.” Then, to me, “Isn’t that nice of him?”

  Exhausted now, I would like to self-immolate on the spot, right here, right now, please. The second-best option is to burrow home, not deal with anyone’s curiosity, let alone become a curiosity. And in the way that hundreds of clients before me have raised the red flag—rescue me!—and had their SOS call answered, there they are, my parents, at last.

  Lee & Li burst through the sliding glass doors, straight out of a blockbuster action flick: Mom, the petite, redheaded queen of the faeries; Dad, her Mongol warrior, who prides himself on being descended from Genghis Khan. (Mom likes to point out that most people today are.)

  “Viola, honey!” Dad booms across the lobby, hurtling toward me. Luckily, just as he’s about to bear-hug me, Mom touches his arm, a swift warning. He draws back before his protectiveness can inflict damage while Mom scrutinizes me up and down, then up and down again, even as she’s digging in her leather tote bag for her water bottle. She holds it out to me, insistent. “Drink. You need to hydrate.”

  “Mom.”

  “We got here as soon as we could,” Mom says, her voice choked up, “but weekend traffic! How are you doing, honey? Drink! You need to drink.”

  Mom’s eyes may fill with tears, but Auntie Ruth is leaking them as she cries, “It was my fault! Mick, you were right! Africa was a bad idea.”

  Dad, who is the first responder for crises with just the right calming words, now sighs with nothing to say.

  As if Josh is the trained crisis manager, he introduces himself to my parents. A perfect diversion. I chime in, “Josh caught me when I fainted.”

  “Really?” Dad says, remembering his manners and extending his hand. “Michael Li.”

  “Really?” Mom says (coos). “Siobhan Lee.”

  Dad pronounces his next statement in a way that he’s never greeted a single guy who’s taken me to a school dance, not even Darren, who oozed charm, “Son, you’re coming to Souper Bowl Sunday.” Then, finally, he says to my aunt, “It’s going to be all right, Ruth. We’re going to figure this out. Okay, I’m getting answers now.” Dad gazes once more at me before stridin
g to the registration desk.

  Josh/Thor inclines his head slightly at me: Souper Bowl Sunday? Which reminds me of the raw meat condition of my face. I duck my head, wishing my hair was longer so it could shield me. I mumble, “Grab a bowl of soup. Cheer for the Seahawks on game day.”

  Mom refocuses her attention from Dad, who’s interrogating the registration nurse, back onto me. “You know, that could be too much for you, honey. We’ll cancel Souper Bowl just to be safe.”

  Somehow, I have dropped into a time-space-hellhole. Souper Bowl Sunday, Josh, the public, my face. What are these people thinking? Apparently, they aren’t.

  “Actually, I’m doing great. I should get started on the soups.” I seize on that reason to bolt. “Auntie Ruth can drive me home.”

  “No, I’ll take you,” Mom decides, overruling Auntie Ruth’s feeble protest. Our go-to babysitter whenever our parents are on a business trip or dealing with an emergency has been demoted, and now Auntie Ruth looks hurt on top of guilty.

  I can only imagine Mom’s hypervigilant hovering over me at home. So I encourage her. “Mom. You should go research with Dad. I can go with Auntie Ruth.”

  “Your dad’s got it under control, but I’ll let him know our game plan.” Then to Auntie Ruth, Mom says, “Really, Ruth, thanks for being here for Viola, but I got it from here. We’ll talk with you later.” With that dismissal, Mom sprints over to Dad at the registration desk.

  “Okay, then, I guess I’ll call you tonight,” says Auntie Ruth, hugging me ever so gently. Her sigh is grief-deep. “It’s probably a good thing I was never a mom.”

  “Auntie Ruth!”

  But she’s already racing out of the hospital, her shoulders hunched. I glance at Josh, who must have some mad superpowers because if my family is weirding him out and my raw hamburger face is disgusting him, he isn’t showing it. Instead, he’s watching my parents. Honestly, by the time my parents are fully satisfied with the entire medical community’s answers, I’ll be graduating from college, ready to make the world a more informed place. The skittish way the registration nurse jumps out of her chair to go do something (flee my parents)—one can only imagine what they said to her. Mom flutters her eyes up at Dad. And then they kiss. As in: mouth-on-mouth, my-hero kind of kiss.