Page 20 of When I'm Gone
I got my teacher voice on and said something like, “Uh, ladies, I can smell your pot all the way out in the main hall. You might want to put it out and get to class or wherever you need to be.”
The blonde rolled her eyes, took a long drag on the joint, and blew it out in my direction. I’ll edit her profanities out because she was proficient in her use of spicy language. “So f-ing what? You might be somebody’s mom, but you’re not mine.”
A door at the top of the stairs opened and closed, and a single set of footsteps echoed through the well. The taller brunette with bleached gold tips shifted uncomfortably and tried to convince “Tiff” to go.
I pulled the door open and stepped aside. “Yeah, Tiff, you should go.”
The Tiff girl glared at me as she snuffed out the weed and put it in the pocket of her underwear shorts. But before they made a move to leave, my methods professor, Dr. Neal, came up from behind. He’s a tallish guy, and on the stairs he stood at least two heads above the crew.
You have to imagine a deep, very authoritative voice here. It echoed in the hallway and almost scared me as much as the girls.
“What’s going on here?” He put his hands in the pockets of his tweed sport coat; it even had patches on the sleeves like a perfect professor stereotype. “Do I need to remind you ladies this is a nonsmoking campus, with a zero tolerance policy for illegal drug use?”
One of the blonde’s groupies poked her in the back, nearly shoving her toward the door. She hitched her thumb at me. “Look at the scarf; bet she’s got cancer. I heard they get pot for free.”
I was appalled they tried to use my cancer as cover for their pot smoking. I wanted to tell them off or at least call their mothers and tell them what lovely “flowers” they’d raised, but instead I tried to lighten the mood by flipping the tail of my scarf over my shoulder. And saying, “Shows what you know. Baldness and scarves are hot this spring.”
Tiff did not catch on. She rolled her eyes and said something like, “God, lady, the chemo’s gone to your brain. That outfit is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Dr. Neal shook his head, and I knew Tiff had just said the wrong thing. He asked me to head to class and let them know he’d be a few minutes late. As I backed out the door, I thought I could hear Dr. Neal ask for the girls’ IDs.
I hurried to the chair I’d been studying in. My shoulder bag was still there, untouched. It had probably been a dumb idea to leave it out in the open. I took a quick inventory, and everything seemed to be intact. I had pulled the strap onto my shoulder when a hard shove came from behind, knocking me against the back of the armchair. No need for my overactive imagination here. I remember this next part word-for-word.
“Thanks a lot, bitch. I f-ing hope you die.” Tiff stood behind me. She wrapped her hand around the loose end of my black-and-gray scarf and yanked. It came off easily, sliding against my smooth scalp and falling to the floor in a pool of satin. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. Everyone in the hall stopped and stared. I could feel their stares rubbing over my bald head, hear them whisper, “She must have cancer.”
Even Tiff seemed shocked for a moment at the reality of my illness. She backed away into the crowd gathering around us when Dr. Neal broke through. He took in the scene in front of him—the scarf on the ground, the tears on my face. He grabbed the scarf and my bag, then put his arm around me, leading me through the crowd and to the nearest empty classroom.
By the time we got into the dingy old room, I was sobbing. He put my bag down and held out the scarf and asked if I was okay.
I didn’t know what to say. Physically, I was fine. Everyone is always worried about my body, but at that minute, my soul hurt. I knew the scarf wasn’t fooling anyone—they all knew why I wore it, but without it I felt naked. I couldn’t hide from what was happening inside my body.
I lied and told him I was fine. I wiped my face with the slippery material, hoping my glued-on eyelashes were waterproof.
“Don’t worry about that girl. I got her name. I promise, she will face discipline.” His face was hard, looking less like a professor and more like a vigilante. He wanted me to press charges, get the girl kicked out of school. He was furious. I told him I didn’t want to be involved. For a moment I thought he was going to fight me on it. Then he took a step back, checking the clock above the whiteboard. We were both late for class. He told me I didn’t have to go, that he’d e-mail me the notes.
I wiped my nose on my sleeve with a loud sniff and shook my head. If I went home, Tiff would win. I told him that I wanted to stay but that I needed a few minutes to try and get my scarf back on. I tried to smile as I threw the scarf over my shoulder.
Then to my surprise, Dr. Neal yanked the fabric off my shoulder and untwisted the large knot on its side. “My wife used to wear one of these ...” He trailed off without finishing the sentence and then offered to help.
I hesitated for a moment, but not long. He wanted to help, but didn’t look at me like those other people did, like a sick person. He looked at me like a real person who happened to have cancer. I nodded, and he took two steps toward me until we were nearly nose-to-nose. Hands on my shoulders, he whispered, “Turn around.”
I spun slowly on one foot, facing the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. When he first touched my shoulders I jumped, still jittery from the confrontation with Tiff. He gave them a kind squeeze, and I let out a sigh I think I’d been holding for a long time. It was nice to be with someone who’d been there before, who had wrapped bare heads and cried useless tears that changed absolutely nothing. He wound the silken fabric around my scalp and tied a simple knot under my right ear. I pulled the tail of the scarf over my shoulder like I used to when I had a ponytail.
I carefully inspected the scarf, dancing fingers over the knot and checking to be sure it fully covered my baldness. It was perfect. I thanked him and he left. A few minutes later I went back to class, and life went on like any other day.
Now I’m home. I can’t bring myself to tell you this story. First, I know I’d cry, and you already have to deal with so many of my tears, I don’t want to burden you with more. But really it’s because I know you. You’ll want to “fix” this for me. You’ll want to call Brian so we can press charges, or drive to campus, hunt those girls down, and force them to apologize. So instead, I wrote the story down for you to read later. Let’s face it: if I’m dead, then there’s nothing to fix. One thing you can do for me though. If you ever meet Dr. Neal, tell him thank you for me.
Hope you and the kids had a better day than I did. Kiss them for me. I love you all!
Love,
Natalie
The first time he’d read the letter a week ago, Luke wanted to jump in his car and hunt down underwear-pants girl and shove a picture of his dead wife in her face.
He’d gotten as far as the highway before realizing Clayton was sitting in the backseat, stuffed into his puffy blue winter coat, ready to be dropped off at Annie’s house. Luke made a tight U-turn right before the on-ramp and sped back to Annie’s, only a few minutes late.
He reread the letter obsessively for three days, unsure if he was more disturbed by the cruelty of Tiff or the gentleness of Dr. Neal. Dr. Neal. That name—it couldn’t be a coincidence. Natalie’s grad school professor showing up in three areas of her life made no sense. At least not any kind of sense he liked considering.
