“Food poisoning.” The doctor with a big salt and pepper mustache said, “might take a few more days to get over with. But darling, you barely have any vitamins in your body according to your blood test.”
She looked at the clean and cold tiled floor, her pale hands and brittle, dry nails were in her line of sight.
“You see those nails? Those lines on them? Ridges they are called. Look at that, dear, weak nails with ridges, and that tired look in your eyes says it all, no magnesium.” The doctor shook his head.
About five minutes later, there she was, lying on the hard bed especially popular in hospitals, with a transparent liquid being injected to her.
“She looks dead in the eyes,” she heard the nurses whisper as they closed the curtains, “she’ll be fine in like, three days. Just depressed about being hospitalized, I suppose.”
And those three days went by with a set of events too fast for her, every time she blinked a visitor would be there, alternating between Melody and random people who would mistake her for some other random loved one they were looking for, not to mention phone calls from Lily and Micheal time to time.
Or it would just be a dark room filled with soft sounds of breathing, snoring and coughing from other patients.
Slowly she was feeling better and better. She was vomiting less because of the pills she was taking, she regained her appetite and felt all the more alive.
One night, as she stared at the ceiling and let the ‘nightly thinking express’ run in her mind, she remembered her time in the bus. The promise she made to herself to be a better friend.
Then she fast forward to the past few days in the hospital. Melody, clutching her purse, holding her forehead in her hand, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants with sunglasses just to hide herself from people; and apologizing repeatedly, whispering prayers and worries as she looked on at the bag of transparent liquid hanging from the pole.
And a while later, both of them laughing at an incident recalled by Melody, talking about the different sorts of people, the different sorts of mindsets, theories on how humans feel, different cultures interact, different foodstuffs and different places they could go.
They both felt closer to each other. The conversations would just flow on without end. And she felt like she knew her friend and herself better now, after all these talks and laughter.
Once again she thought about the promise she made to herself on the bus ride, and smiled at the ceiling, ‘it’s a promise fulfilled.’
And yet with another blink of an eye, there she was standing in front of the billing department of the hospital, absolutely dumbstruck.
“What?”
The billing clerk smiled at her. “Yes, your payment is done.”
“But I haven’t paid anything yet.”
“The hoodie lady who visits you paid for it.” Said the clerk, returning back to his computer, squinting at his screen with his round glasses at the edge of his nose.
“Oh.. ok.” She nodded.
“Have a nice day then, miss.”
“Yeah, you too.” She whispered, as she left the hospital.
As soon as she sat on the bus, she took out her phone and called Melody. The call was transferred to a voicemail greeting, “Melody here! Leave a message!”
“Madeline Smith!” Susan scolded in a loud whisper, “why on earth did you pay? I have money, I could have paid it in separate months! You didn’t have to pay!…. But… but thank you… what can I do? It's already paid now…. Thank you very much, Melody. It’s a great thing you did.” She sighed and sent the voicemail.
She switched off her phone and looked outside the window.
Trees, people, buildings, institutions all passed by her in a daze. The low grumble of the engine filled her mind.
The driver began humming a tune, then a couple started laughing over a cat video, then a child begged his mother for juice, then an old man coughed and coughed and coughed, and a young woman beside him patted and stroked his back. The bus halted at a bus stop, and opened its doors. A crowd of people exited it through one door, yet another crowd entered it through the other.
While observing the mass, Susan found a familiar face sitting on one of the empty seats with earphones plugged in his ears and his head craned down to look at his phone. ‘Paul’, she smiled. She sat on the empty seat behind him and tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Paul!” She whispered.
He turned back, looking bothered and then surprised, “Susan? You’re alive?” He took off his earphones.
“Yeah, alive and well.” She laughed. Then she leaned closer and whispered, “tell me, how’s the cafe? Is everything fine? No broken stuff? No drama, right?”
“The cafe is fine, it didn’t burn down. But are you ok? I heard you got food poisoning?” Paul asked, his eyes widening under his furrowed brows.
“How did you know that?” Susan asked back. She never told anyone else about it, other than Micheal and Lily. Could Lily have told everyone about it? No, she is not Rose.
“Rose told us.” He replied, leaning on the window of the bus.
“Right… Rose.” She pursed her lips. “But how did she know?”
Paul shrugged his shoulders. “You know,” he put his leg on the seat next to him, “ever since you went, the boss went back to his old ways.”
“Old ways?” Susan asked.
“Yeah, he went back to his grumpy self, shouting and all, ‘Paul! What did I ask you to do? When I asked you to clean the floor, I didn’t mean to flood it!’” He chuckled while mimicking. “And then to Rose, ‘Rosalina Rodriguez! Would you just stop talking and do your work?’” And then he laughed more. “Rose and I, we are the main targets. And sometimes when Billy and Willy start fooling around.”
Then he narrowed his eyes at her, “only when you’re around that he becomes calm and doesn’t really care what we do. Why is that so?”
Susan didn’t really know what he meant. Sure, he does become grumpy at times, and he does seem calm at other times. But is it really based on her presence and absence? She thought about it for a moment.
Paul’s suspicion intensified in the silence and she felt forced to answer. “That is because, when I am there, I will keep you all in order.” She replied smiling and raising her eyebrows, then flipping her hair. “But when I’m not there, he has to take care of you kids too.”
“Kids? Seriously?” He narrowed his eyes again. “I am nineteen! I have been adulting for the past year.”
Susan threw her head back and laughed a hearty laugh.
When she finally reached her apartment, in the quietness of it, her thoughts resounded, ‘if the cafe is fine without me, does that mean… that I… that I’m not really needed there? That I… that I’m…. replaceable?’
Her thoughts drifted back to the job Melody offered, ‘… Should I?’
and then Add to home screen.