How Do I Love Thee (17 page)

amon stood so quickly that his chair tipped backward. “Forgive me, Mrs. Carson.”

“Mom! Don't yell at Ramon. He's a friend.”

Laura's mother's gaze was frosty and swept over Ramon from head to toe. “So I can see.”

He dropped Laura's hand as if he'd been burned. “I work here, and I visit with Laura whenever I can. Please don't be angry—”

“I'll be what ever I want to be.” Laura's mother cut him off. “I think you'd better leave now. Who's your supervisor, anyway?”

“Mom, stop it!” Laura said.

“It's all right,” Ramon said. “I will leave.”

He exited the room quickly, and Laura turned on her mother. “Well, thank you very much! I can't believe how rude you were to him.”

“And I can't believe I walked into your room—a bedroom, I might add—and found you holding hands with some man who's part of the hired help. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that Ramon is one of the nicest people I've ever met and you just ran him off.”

“Nice? How nice can he be if you didn't even bother to mention him to your father and me? Has he been meeting with you long? I won't tolerate it, Laura. I won't.”

Laura felt ill. Her heart had begun to thud, sending spikes along the screen of the monitor. Within seconds, Betsy rushed into the room. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Your monitor's going crazy.”

Laura couldn't catch her breath.

“I'll call your doctor.”

“No …,” she managed to say. “She was just… here. I need to … get in bed.”

Betsy helped her while her mother stood
aside, her face looking pinched and white. “I—it's my fault,” Karen Carson said. “I got her agitated.”

Betsy settled Laura, slipped the oxygen tubing into her nose, and took her pulse. “She's calming down,” Betsy said. “I'm calling Dr. Simon.”

“Yes, please,” Laura's mother said. “This is my fault. I'm so sorry,” she told Laura when Betsy had gone.

“Yes, it is,” Laura said, angry enough to let her mother take the blame. “You had no right to be so mean to Ramon. He's very nice, and he's made this hospital stay bearable for me. Don't you understand what it's like to be completely cut off from the normal world? I can't go to school. I can't do anything. It's my junior year, Mom, and I can't even sit in a classroom.”

“We've tried to make it better for you. Your father and I were going to tell you this together, but I think you need to hear it now. He's gotten permission from the school superintendent to set up Minicams in your classrooms. You can attend classes from your own
bedroom at home. You can participate in the class, even ask questions and be called upon. Isn't that wonderful? You'll be there, but still perfecdy safe at home.”

Laura was horrified. Now she had one more thing that set her apart from the real world-she was going to be placed in a bubble, a freak who viewed life through a TV monitor. “No,” she said. “It's creepy.”

Her mother looked puzzled. “But why? We thought this would please you. You're always talking about attending classes—-”

“That's right.
Attending
classes. Not watching life pass me by.”

“Laura, I just don't understand you.”

“I know,” she said. The discussion had exhausted her, and she sank into the pillows.

Betsy came in with a medicine cup. “Dr. Simon wants you to take this. It'll relax you.”

Laura didn't want any pill, but she was out of energy, too tired to argue. She took the pill, shut her eyes, and concentrated on seeing Ramon's face. Not die frightened face he'd shown when her mother had confronted him, but the smiling, gentle, adoring face he wore during their long conversations. She drifted to
sleep dreaming of his beautiful brown eyes gazing at her.

Laura awoke in the dark and saw Ramon sitting beside her bed. “You came back,” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, “I'm so glad.”

“Don't talk,” he said, taking her hand and kissing her palm tenderly.

“What… time?” Her tongue felt thick, and her brain was foggy.

“It's after midnight. I have finished my shift, but I could not leave without seeing you.”

“I'm sorry … about my mother.”

He shrugged. “She is a mother. My presence upset her. Don't think about it. Just rest.”

“She had … no right…”

“I'm a stranger. She walked in and I'm holding your hand. I understand her feelings and I don't judge her. She loves you.”

“She's … smothering me. Ever since I've been… sick, my parents are all over me. They make me… crazy.”

“You are lucky to have ones who care so much for you.”

The way he said it made her wonder about his life at home. How had he grown up? Had
his parents been uncaring? She would have asked, except the pill Betsy had given her earlier was dragging her back toward oblivion. “Please say you'll come again,” she managed to say.

He laced his fingers through hers. “Don't you know? Nothing can keep me from you, Laura. Not even angry mothers.”

“Mom told me you were upset about the cameras in your classrooms, honey. You know that's not what we intended. We really thought it would be easier for you to participate, that's all.” Laura's father was visiting the next afternoon when he broached the topic of the Mini-cams.

She sat at the table, looking out at the river winding like a long golden ribbon in the rays of the setting sun. “I overreacted. It caught me off guard, but I've had time to think about it and it's not such a terrible idea. Really.” She had decided against arguing. Ramon had been right—-they had only meant to help her.

“That's good.” Her father looked relieved. “Actually, the superintendent said it could act as some sort of pilot program for homebound
teaching. It could make the classroom more accessible, keep kids more a part of school life,”

“I guess it's okay if I don't have a camera aimed back at me.”

“Only if you want one. Your teachers said they'd welcome a monitor in their rooms if you were the star.” He winked. “You could see everybody, and everybody could see you.”

“Maybe later.” She hedged. Some days she didn't have the strength to sit up in bed and couldn't imagine a roomful of classmates watching her answer questions.

“It's the next best thing to being there,” her father said. “State of the art. Twenty-first-century stuff. Cutting edge.”

He was trying so hard that she had to smile. “I said it was all right to put cameras in my classrooms. Besides, this way I might be able to see what Doug Harris and his jock friends actually
do
during class. It isn't studying.”

Her dad smiled. “That's my girl. And it's temporary. As soon as the doc says you can go back to classes, the cameras go dark.”

“Maybe it's better this way. I won't have to think about what to wear every day. You guys have no idea how hard that can be.”

His smile faded as he sat straighter and cleared his throat. “I don't want to upset you like Mom did, but we have to talk about the young man who came to your room.”

She took a deep breath, knowing that sooner or later it would have to be discussed. “What about Ramon?”

“He's twenty-one, Laura.”

She hadn't known he was that old, but she kept her face expressionless. “So?”

“So, you're sixteen. That's a big age gap. Even if you were without a single health problem, we wouldn't let you see a guy that old.”

“He's not ancient, Daddy. And we're just friends. He's going to be a doctor someday.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“Yes. He has goals, and he works here. I don't see what the big deal's all about.”

Her father sat quietly, as if weighing his words. “Did he also tell you that he's a criminal? That he's been in and out of trouble with the law since he was eleven? That he's spent four years in a juvenile detention center? And that he once headed up one of most terrifying youth gangs in the city?”

aura had not known any of those things about Ramon, but she was careful to hide her shock. “I told you we were friends, Dad. I know what I need to know about him.”

“Then you must also know that he's not the kind of boy we want hanging around you. He ‘s bad news, Laura. Stay away from him.”

She held her tongue, knowing it was useless to argue, but she didn't like the way he was ordering her around, as if she were some kind of baby who had to be told what to do. She was also so shaken by the information that she wanted time to sort out her emotions. “I think
I owe him the courtesy of telling him to his face, don't you?”

“I'm not so sure—”

“Please. He's been nice to me. I can't just cut him off.”

Her father weighed her request. “I guess that would be all right. Does he make it a habit of dropping by every day? I'll get the nurses to keep him out once you've talked to him.”

“I can handle it, Dad. Please don't bring anybody else into it.”

“All right. But I mean it, Laura. I don't want him coming round again. You've got enough to think about just getting well and coming home. And speaking of home, Dr. Simon thinks she'll release you either tomorrow or the next day. Isn't that good news? “

“Yes, Dad. It's good news,” Laura said, her mind still reeling. Ramon had lied to her,
Why?

By die time Ramon showed up that night, Laura was sick with apprehension. She felt duped, betrayed. They'd had numerous conversations, flights of fancy really, where she'd told him her dreams and hopes about getting well via some miraculous new drug, going to
art school, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and having her own pottery studio one day. And he'd told her how he wanted to be a doctor, opening a clinic in the city's poorest communities to take care of children who had no other health care. She had believed him. Without question. Now she wondered if he ‘d only been feeding her a line. Why would he have kept his past such a secret?

She told him exactly what her father had said, never once taking her gaze off his face as she spoke. “Is it true, Ramon? “ she asked when she was finished. “Is all that true?”

His eyes had grown dark, and his mouth was set in a grim line. “All of it is true.”

She felt as if he'd slapped her. “Why didn't you tell me? Why did you lie to me?”

“I did not lie.”

“But you didn't tell me the truth either. The only thing you ever said to me was that it would be impossible for us to see each other once I got out of the hospital.”

“I was ashamed of my old life. I didn't want you to know. How was I to bring it up when I want so much to leave that old life behind me? When I'm trying so hard to forget who I once
was and focus now on who I want to be? Would you have still been my friend, Laura? Would you have talked to me, shared your heart with me, if you had known about die other Ramon?”

She saw anguish etched in his face, and she felt sorry for him. And for herself. “I don't know,” she answered truthfully. “But then I never had the chance, did I?”

He stood. “I will go. And I will not bother you again.”

Her heart lurched. She didn't want him to go, but her feelings about him were in turmoil. “My parents don't want me to see you anymore. I'm afraid that if I do they'll make trouble for you. I don't want you to lose your job.”

“I'm used to trouble. It's followed me all my life.” He crossed to the door, turned. “Did you like me, Laura? Even just a little? Please, be honest.”