Chapters (38)
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- epilogue
“I have friends at school with cars, Mama. One of them will give me a ride.”
five
RONNI
My throat was scratchy Friday night, so I spent the evening looking over my Violet notes and occasionally taking Mr. Sobel’s check out to examine. It didn’t look any more real than Monopoly money, and made me nervous. I moved it to three different “safe places” before settling on my underwear drawer. Victoria’s Secret, overused Spanx, granny panties, unmatched socks, faded bras and my future mingled.
Work was boring and uneventful Saturday and Sunday. Kait asked me three times where my head was, as I drifted off in thought and presented looks slightly blanker than our patients’. I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and it was entirely true. By the time I got home Sunday night, my throat was inflamed and the lymph nodes in my neck felt like ripe cherries.
You don’t go to work in a nursing home with a cough, sore throat and temperature of 101.9 degrees. Half the population can be decimated in your wake. I called Donna Monday morning, still Nyquilly, and squawked, “I can’t come in today.”
“You sound awful,” she said. “I’ll arrange coverage for your shifts until you’re better. Don’t come anywhere near this place, Ronni. Do you have chicken soup?”
“I’ll pick some up.”
“Let us know if you need anything. I have to run. Mrs. Ledbetter is screaming, and Darlene is ignoring her.”
Better Darlene than me. I was in no mood for Audrey Marie’s antics today. I fed Halle and located my keys. The drugstore offered soup, frozen pizzas, ice cream and more Nyquil. I’m a firm believer in feeding a cold.
I began typing ideas on my old laptop between naps—okay, food comas—and realized I could afford new writing equipment. This led to an hour of research on the latest technology, followed by an agonizing online book-formatting guideline quest. Information overload and confusion made me close the computer and eat as much pizza as my throat allowed. I closed my eyes and hoped to wake in a few hours with fresh ways to transform the legal pad scribbles into something people might want to read.
Halle licked my face awake and abandoned me when I coughed into her ear. I grabbed the laptop, deciding to begin with Violet at seventeen, the year when her life “truly became interesting.” I lost myself in her story, crying over Johnny the way she had when she remembered his accident and the months that followed. By midnight I’d typed thirty pages of Everybody Loved Her or whatever the title would be; I went over them and made a million corrections. It was good, I thought. I’d buy and read it.