“Cancer?”
She nodded her head as she sat across the table from me. It looked like she was fighting back tears.
“Is it bad?” I finally managed to get words out other than that nasty C word.
“It’s not very good.”
Oh god. How could this happen? How could this possibly be happening?
“Well, aren’t there, I mean, aren’t there stages or something? Now that it’s been detected, isn’t it easier to keep it from getting to the worse stages? Obviously something can be done!”
“There are only four stages, Luke.”
Oh god. For some reason the number four seemed very ominous at that moment, like the Four Horsemen of the Cancer Apocalypse were coming to unleash their collective fury. I don’t know how I had forgotten there were only four stages. I wasn’t even sure why it was such a big deal at the time, but it was. Cancer. Four stages. Oh god.
“And?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
This time she paused. She obviously didn’t want to answer as much as I didn’t want to hear it.
I am not by nature a nervous person. I don’t get fazed or rattled easily. I’ve spoken in front of large crowds, played baseball in sold-out college stadiums, drummed in venues holding thousands. But I was shaking, waiting for her to speak. My hands were clammy, a feeling I wasn’t at all familiar with and sure as hell wasn’t enjoying.
“And?” I said again.
There was another long pause, and then she spoke. “Late stage three. Maybe four.”
“Oh god.”
The first few periods flew by, and I found myself jealous of the 9th grade students that were getting to spend their morning in a room with April. They certainly couldn’t have been as appreciative of it as I would have been. But at least they weren’t causing her much trouble, as there hadn’t been any banging on the wall to beckon me. I had half a mind to pay some kid to start something so she would need my help. But, the mature side of me won out and I abstained.
Plus, once lunchtime rolled around, our classes would hit the lunchroom together and I would invite her to sit with the teachers at our table. Obviously, all she would have had to do would be to walk into the lunchroom and see that the only table not swarming with smelly teenagers was the one occupied by 9th and 10th grade faculty, but for some reason I thought an invite would be charming.
As my American Literature class walked into the room to start the third period I went back to my desk to dig out an old binder that held papers written by former students over the last few years. I copied and saved a few of the papers I liked best from the discussions we had on To Kill A Mockingbird. I planned on using them to spur on some new discussion today if the talks grew stale.
When I straightened up and turned back to the class with the binder in hand, I froze. Standing in the back of the room was April.
I flashed her a quick smile and told the class, “All right, everyone have a seat and get out your notes. Be ready to discuss them in a minute.”
I walked to where April was standing; she looked uncomfortable.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked, being as casual as possible. I was standing closer to her this time than I had earlier in the morning, and now I could smell her. She smelled like flowers. I wanted to bury my face in her neck.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” she said, mostly looking at her feet. “Is there a teacher’s lounge around here or something? It’s Robin’s free period, and I don’t exactly feel like sitting around for an hour in an empty room. I should have brought a book.”
“Hey, quiet down, class!” Just me being Mr. Authoritative again. I turned back to her.
“Yeah, actually the teacher’s lounge is downstairs. It’s in the office. You would just have to go in, get buzzed through by the desk to go back there, and it’s at the far end of the hallway on the left.”
“Oh okay. That sounds easy enough to find. Thank you.”
“No problem. If you don’t feel like walking that far, you could always go plop down on the couch back there,” I said, pointing to the couch that had been in the room for as long as I had been in the classroom. From the looks of it, the couch had probably been there since the Carter Administration.
“No, no, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your class,” she said as the bell chimed, signaling the start of the period.
“You wouldn’t be intruding. We’re going to be having a discussion about one of my favorite quotes from To Kill A Mockingbird.”
Those perfect brown eyes took their gaze up from the floor and met my eyes.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “That is one of my favorite books. Ever!” She emphasized the last word loudly and all the students looked back at us.