The Interview
by VATERGrrl
Boom. Boom, boom. The thudding noise seemed to be coming from far away - or was it inside my own head? I rolled over in bed, away from the large puddle of drool on my pillow, and hoped the thudding would abate.
Boom. Boomity-boom boom. Boom. The thudding grew louder, more persistent, and I forced myself into a sitting position in bed. Almost as soon as I was upright, my nose began to burn and tickle, and I pitched forward with a harsh, uncovered "Uh-shiiiih! Hashhh- oooo!"
"Oh, fug." I groped at the end table, hoping a box of tissues had magically appeared overnight. Unfortunately, the tissue fairy appeared to be on strike, if he or she even knew where I lived. As I stumbled into the bathroom and unfurled a length of toilet paper from the roll on the wall, I heard someone banging on the front door of my apartment again.
"Hold your bloody horses," I muttered to myself, pausing to blow long and hard into the tp I held. My ears popped, transforming the dull thudding I'd heard into a much louder knocking.
"Ogay, ogay!" I yelled as loud as I could, shuffling toward the door and making sure my sweatpants weren't sagging below my hips. I didn't think I'd been playing loud music last night, and I'd parked in my own, numbered parking space, so who the hell was nuts enough to bother me so early in the morning?
"Tom! Buddy!" Cory spread his arms wide when I pulled open the door, ready to hug me, but he backed away when he saw my face. "Man, you look horrible. What happened?"
"I doad dough." I sniffled, wished I'd brought the roll of toilet paper with me from the bathroom. A second later, when I had to sneeze into the crook of my bare arm to avoid hitting Cory point- blank, I amended my wish to include a long-sleeved shirt.
"Bless you." An unfamiliar, hesitant voice caught my attention, and my wish expanded again to include a paper bag to place over my head. A delicate, red-haired woman with huge green eyes was standing next to Cory, rummaging through a large, flower patterned purse. She took out a tissue and fluttered it in my direction.
"Ah, thag you." I accepted it from her outstretched fingers, folding it in half and wiping off my arm before touching it briefly to my nose.
"Uh, cub id, please." I kicked aside a stack of newspapers I'd set beside the door to recycle, backing up to let both of my visitors in. "There should be roob od the couch - just toss adythig odto the floor, if you deed to. I'll be, uh, ride back."
I fled to the privacy of my bedroom and pulled on the first thing I could find, a t-shirt advertising the 13th annual AIDS walk for Shanti House, a Seattle-area hospice. I always ran the ten kilometer race, but I'd never won it.
When I came back into the living room of my small apartment, Cory and his companion were sitting gingerly on the edge of my couch, a huge pea-green monstrosity that had come with the apartment. The damn thing was so heavy, I didn't really know how anyone had dragged it up to the third floor of the complex, but it was comfortable.
"So, you bust be, uh, Lydd, ride?"
The ethereal woman sitting next to Cory nodded her assent. "Yes."
"Thag you for cubbig over. I'b assubig Cory's told you, I'b coverig the trial for the Currid." In my haste to get back to my guests, I'd forgotten to duck into the bathroom for another strip of toilet paper, and my voice was so congested as to be nearly unintelligible.
"I'll be right back." Cory squeezed Lynn's hand gently, then got up from the couch.
"Take your time."
I excused myself, as well, following my friend toward the back of my apartment.
"You have any tissues?" Cory's head was halfway into the small linen closet near the bathroom, his voice muffled.
"Why? You doad use theb."
Cory groaned, preparing himself for the same argument we went through almost every time I caught a cold. "And you don't either, apparently. Who did you say raised you? An allergist, or a flock of ravens?"
I reached over his shoulder to grab a roll of toilet paper. That, at least, I kept on hand. "Ha, ha. I'll have you dough, I owde four haggerchiefs."
"And did you take them out of the plastic sleeve yet?"
I busied myself with tearing a long strip of tp from the roll. The amount of dust on that packet of `kerfs would have sent Cory into a five-minute long sneezing fit, guaranteed. It was actually a miracle he wasn't sneezing now, given the condition of the closet.
"Haven't hah - had to..." I folded the paper over itself, then over again. "Hiiih-ihgshooo!"
Cory jumped back, out of the line of spray, then asked, "Does `duck and cover' mean anything to you?"
"Bad probagada filbs?" I ventured, taking the hint and turning 180 degrees from him before sneezing again. "Hesshhooo! Eshhhihhh!"
"Tom?" It was Lynn's voice I heard, and I kept my hands firmly cupped around my nose and mouth in case I needed to sneeze again, then pivoted back around to face her. Rather than offer me one tissue, she had taken a full stack of them out of the pocket pack they'd come in, tossing the empty plastic wrapper back into her purse.
"Thag you," I said, accepting the tissues and shoving half of them into the pocket of my sweats before systematically unfolding three of them at a time to empty my nose into. Once I'd gone through the tissues in my hand, I took out the reserves, glad to have them when my nose began to twitch again. "Yuh-hiiih." I sniffled, turned away from Lynn, then launched into a veritable symphony of loud, textbook perfect "ah-choos." I'd doubted for a long time that anyone actually sounded like that when they sneezed, but I seemed to be the lucky person to prove it, at least on occasion.
"Enough, already." Cory growled at me, but guided me carefully toward the living room and to the overstuffed recliner I'd been sitting in five minutes earlier.
"Thags for the sybathy." I snuffled into the last of the tissues I had, noticing that Lynn had disappeared. The front door of the apartment was wide open, and I slumped against the back of the recliner. "Gread, I scared her off."
"She'll be back - she just wanted to get something out of her car."
The "something," I found out five minutes later, was a large box of powder pink tissues. Well, I thought philosophically as I snatched up a few and sneezed into them, it could be worse. Heather would have been laughing herself sick at the sight, or, worse, offering me a frilly lady's handkerchief and expecting me to use it
"Dow, aboud thad idderview." I groped to cover my discomfort by diving into a role I knew well: reporter. "I doad wad to posdpode id ady logger."
I picked up a legal pad from the floor near my recliner, finding a pen under the coffee table which sat between the couch and the recliner. "Cory tells be you're a chebistry bayjor?"
"Yes?" Her response was a question, not a statement, and I could tell she was surprised that I'd started the interview on a note so far afield from the substance of the upcoming trial. But if I'd learned anything from recording oral histories with veterans, I'd found the value of gearing up slowly, talking about non- traumatic aspects of life before getting into the painful center. It was a way of traveling through the vortex, the circling funnel which was one of the central metaphors of Vietnam War literature.
Lynn answered my questions about her major easily, confidently, even smiling a few times as she described her dreams for the future of biochemistry and pharmaceuticals. "I know I sound ridiculous, but I think there's such potential for chemists and research scientists to discover treatments, even cures, for so many diseases and disorders."
"Yeah," I joked, looking over at Cory. "Just a few years ago, everyone thought we'd never have a non-sedating antihistamine. And look at what we can do now."
Cory played to my cue, tipping his head back and snoring loudly. "Huh? What? Did I miss something?" He opened his eyes and looked around, blinking slowly as if he'd been asleep for the past half hour.
I took Cory's joke as an opportunity to capitalize on Lynn's newfound calm, and gently turned the interview toward deeper waters. "Can you tell me a little about why you decided to take your case to trial?" I knew I would hear her testimony about the actual rape in the courtroom itself, and I was interested in her motives for standing up for herself. Many, many rape victims never pressed charges, and it intrigued me that this delicate-looking woman had the chutzpah to face down her accuser in a court of law and hold him accountable for his actions.
"I didn't want the asshole to do this to anyone else."
Her blunt language was startling, but as I watched her, I could tell that she'd given a good deal of thought to her words. "I realized that I was a very naïve little girl in many ways," she plunged on, and I hesitated a little before quoting her in my notes. "He saw that, and he capitalized on it. He made me think that possessiveness was love, that he should be my one and only interest."
She paused, tears glistening in her eyes, and I watched in admiration as Cory tugged his handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and placed it delicately into her hand. If it was a possessive gesture, it was the gentlest kind, and the look of gratitude she gave him made me wish I had that sort of a relationship, being able to anticipate someone else's needs and to comfort without smothering.
"Once I got out from under his control, I understood his actions for what they were: abuse." She sniffed, draped a layer of handkerchief over her index finger and reached up to dab under her nose.
I took the opportunity to pull more tissues from the box, blowing my own nose with vigor. Getting rid of some congestion only seemed to incite more, and triggered the sort of light but persistent tickle that heralded a cascade of sneezing. As deliberately as possible, I placed my legal pad and pen on the coffee table, not wanting to risk slashing a line across the page at the first sneeze, then took a thick stack of tissues out, fanning them across my palms.
"Hahhh-ashoo! Hahhh-shooo. Arshhoo!" The sneezes came in threes, giving me just enough time to take a breath before the next group hit. Halfway through the fit, someone, I assumed it was Cory, pulled the soiled heap of tissues from my hands and replaced them with a dry bunch. I would have liked to thank him, but I couldn't choke out a reply for all the sneezing I was doing.
Finally, finally, the fit subsided, leaving me exhausted and pulling desperately for a full, deep breath. Again, Cory exchanged my clutch of tissues for a new pile, and this time I was able to thank him, if only in sign. I placed the fingertips of a flat hand at my lips, then pulled my hand out and away from my face. Thank you.
"You're welcome." He rounded his own hand from under his chin to mid- chest in a short arc.
Sorry. I rubbed my fist in a small circle over my heart.
"What's to be sorry for?"
"I fugged ub the idderview." I shivered, the air in my apartment suddenly cold.
"No, you didn't." Lynn appeared on my right, setting down a glass mug with a light-colored tea bag steeping a yellowish brew. "Chamomile. Let it steep and cool for a while. Can I bring you anything else?"
"Dough, dough thag you." I sniffled into the tissues I held. When I shivered again, Lynn made a clucking sound with her teeth and tongue, then shooed Cory off in the direction of my bedroom. He came back with the comforter off my bed, and the two of them together led me over to the couch. I sank back onto it, welcoming the opportunity to give in to my fatigue.
"Dab, Cory's a lucky guy, Lydd, havig you id his life."
"Oh, Tom, I have a feeling you'll find your someone."
The image of a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman in a blaze orange suit skittered briefly through my mind, disappearing when I shook my head. "Uh-uh, I doad thig so." I couldn't imagine Heather being so gentle, so caring, even though I recalled the fierce look in her eyes softening a little when I'd sneezed yesterday. Nah.
"Dough. You're sweed to say id, Lydd, but dough." I yawned and pulled the comforter up under my chin. My cold must have been dragging me down more than I'd thought, because the next thing I knew, I was groggily shivering under the covers and hearing snatches of conversation between two men and a woman.
"I don't like the idea of his being alone here." The woman's voice was soft, but insistent. "But I can't stay."
"And no one could ask you to, Lynn. I'll stay with him, you go on home."
A lower, more emphatic male voice responded. "No, both of you can take off. I've got this under control."
I struggled to open my eyes, only to find my father staring down at me and scowling, his arms crossed tight across his chest.
"Ah, Dad. How dice to see you here." I hesitated to sit up, knowing it would only make me sneeze, or cause my nose to run, or both, and with no tissues in hand, I didn't relish the thought.
"Cory thought it best that I come over." My father gripped my forearm and pulled me to a sitting position, a gesture I would have resisted had I not felt so weak. I clamped my free hand around my nose and sniffled, prompting Dad to cough disapprovingly while simultaneously reaching for his handkerchief. I would have preferred something bigger - a beach towel seemed about right - but desperation overrode the luxury of choice, and I covered the lower half of my face with the cloth, almost relieved when the persistent buzzing and dripping in my nose transformed itself into a loud and messy "huh-ishhkk!"
"Bless y-" I imagined that a shake of Cory's head had dissuaded Lynn from finishing her blessing, almost as he had cautioned Heather yesterday at school, but I may well have drowned her out anyway, unable to hold back a flood tide of itchy, almost comical sneezes. "Hiih-iggshh. Huchhh! Heggggfff. Hupt-shooo!" I think I could have taught Alan Hale a few things for his "Allergy Time" episode, though perhaps not Alan Alda's shouted-sneeze tour de force in "Bless You, Hawkeye," for which I was grateful.
By the time I stopped sneezing, the handkerchief was soaked, and I drew it away from my nose to toss it onto the coffee table, pulling out a handful of tissues as a replacement. I had not felt so exhausted since my chemo induction eleven years ago, and as I gathered the strength to blow my nose a few times, I wondered idly if I'd come down with some sort of early-season influenza.
"I've seen a lot of this sort of rhinovirus in the office." Dad's perception was uncanny, and I sniffled sharply in surprise. "The past week, it's just been a zoo. Had to hit Costco twice to restock tissues." Given the huge blocks they sold at the warehouse store, and my father's propensity to buy the damned things by the shipping crate, that was saying something.
"Baybe I should just stay here, thed. I doad wad to idfegd Ebily and Briad." After years of being alone, my father had finally fallen in love with a sweet woman who worked as an elementary school librarian, and had raised her son as his own for the past seven years. I liked them both, though I'd never quite come around to calling Emily "Mom." She accepted that with the same quiet, gentle grace she accepted most things, saying that perhaps by the time we'd met, I was past my "Mom" years, and I could just consider her a friend.
"No, I don't think they run any increased risk if you're around. If they've been exposed, it was days ago, through my clothing or something I touched."
I shook my head to protest again, but weakly. The idea of being in a "home," rather than in my messy apartment, and perhaps even being waited on a little, though it normally went against my independent streak, was damn appealing just then. I could sleep all I wanted, eat bowls of my father's homemade chicken soup ("Jewish penicillin," he called it), and perhaps even play video games with Brian, though I was sure he'd trounce me every time.
"So? Shall I help you pack an overnight bag, and we'll be off?"
I nodded. "Sure. I have to talk to Cory and Lynn first, though."
"Take your time." Dad went back into my bedroom, and I could hear the faint sounds of drawers being opened and closed as Lynn and Cory sat down on the couch beside me, sandwiching me between them.
"Lynn, really, I hope I got everything right in the interview. I'm sorry we didn't get a better chance to talk about the trial."
"That's just fine. I've been talking about that nonstop for the past week with my lawyer. He wants to prepare my testimony, and make sure I can hold up to the defense questions." Once again, she looked fragile, unsure, her green eyes dark with fear. I wanted to reach out to her, maybe touch her shoulder, but I resisted, knowing that she might be shy at being touched by a large, hulking weirdo like me.
"I'b sure you'll do gread." The congestion was back, but before I could reach forward, Lynn was already handing me a tissue. I hunched over and away from her before blowing my nose, swiping slowly at each nostril as I straightened up.
"I'll be in the courtroom, as close as I can get to the front, and Cory'll be there, too, I'm sure."
"That'll be nice. Heather said she'd try to make it."
Was it just me, or did Lynn have a note of matchmaking in her voice when she mentioned her friend? I figured Cory had told her that Heather and I had met the day before, but it seemed odd that Lynn had mentioned Heather's name more than a few times.
"That's cool. I hope Heather doesn't try to jump over the railing and attack the defense counsel." I could just see her taking a running start to vault over the rail and place her hands squarely around Howard Wolfram's neck, or, the more likely scenario, take out Scott Veslen with a karate kick to the back of the knees.
"We'll duct tape her to her seat."
I snorted, then lunged for another tissue.
"Anyway," I said, holding the pink rectangle to my much pinker nose. "Thanks again for stopping by. And for these." I tapped the box with my free hand.
"Keep them. They were just sitting on the back seat of my car, anyway." It reminded me of the nonsensical habit some people had of shoving a box onto the little shelf between the back seat and the back window, where they were all but useless, and I shook my head.
"Okay, we're ready to go?" My father tossed a heavy gray sweatshirt at me, and I pulled it on over my head, tugging the neck hole over my mused hair then lifting the back of my hair up and out, letting it fan out to just below my shoulder blades.
"Yup." Cory hauled me off the couch, then extended a much gentler assistance to Lynn. "Tom, I'll call you this evening. Doctor - Jed, thanks for coming over." Cory alternated between calling my father by his professional name and his more informal given name, usually preferring "Jed" but often deferring to "Doctor" in the presence of strangers or people new to our circle.
"Feel better." Lynn's voice was a whisper, and when she offered me a small, gentle smile, I was once again struck with the slightest bit of envy that Cory had found her first. I didn't really think Lynn and I were suited to each other - I wasn't generally attracted to the wallflower/steel magnolia type -- but she seemed ideal for my best friend, and I could tell that he was positively gone on her.
"Thanks." I made a few gestures toward closing down the apartment, turning off lights and making sure the stove wasn't left on, then the four of us headed out into the crisp autumn air, Cory and Lynn hopping into her Civic and backing slowly out of the visitor's lot before my father ushered me into his dark green Camry and drove us both to the house I'd grown up in.
A leetle bunny popped into my head and this is what it compelled me to do. It's set on the Saturday afternoon between "You Give Me Fever" and "Trials (1/?)".