"What a friggin' waste of time. Doesn't the bastard think we can read?" bristled Melissa.
Thank God the insanity of graduate school would soon be over. Her residency would begin at the prestigious University Hospital in September.
But for now Melissa would have to settle for what sanity the ending of another mind-numbing day might bring. She couldn't wait to escape to the sun-drenched sanctuary she and Carol called home. Maybe she'd throw on a couple of New Age CD's while whipping up the Caesar salad. Thoughts of the melancholy cry of loons and gentle waves lapping warm white sand on some tropical beach whet her anticipation.
In only seven weeks, two days and fourteen hours she and Carol would actually be on that beach. They'd made a pact.
The jangling of the bell snapped Melissa out of her reverie. Unfolding her long legs, she snatched up her notes and strode purposefully from the room. What she really wanted was to stop and slap the self-satisfied smirk from Whitmore's ugly puss, but what was the use? There were a million others just like him. What a waste of good carbon.
Melissa was surprised to see her best friend's boyfriend standing hesitantly outside the doorway.
"What message is Carol sending through her lap dog this time?" Melissa asked herself.
The thought was unfair, in direct response to the mood brought on by Whitmore's leers, and Melissa immediately chastised herself. Jon was no lap dog and if he had been, Carol would never provide the lap. Jon was good people, real people, like Carol.
Carol smiled, remembered the first time she'd met her friend. Melissa Jilbert and Carol Lewiss had become fast friends during grade nine roll call. When Ms. Smith called her name, Melissa's covert glance found only one student who seemed to notice her bizarre name, and when that student's name was called in turn, Melissa understood why their eyes had locked. Carol's parents too, had had the audacity to name their daughter after a celebrity.
As a little girl, Melissa would curl up between her parents to watch the idealized family life of little Laura Engels but later in life when she made the connection between her name and the actress', Melissa was outraged.
Carol had been likewise outraged about her own name, so much so that she refused on principle to read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. She willingly accepted a "B-" that semester rather than compromise her principles.
As Melissa neared Jon, her first reaction was that he looked like shit. His face was pale even for a "white boy" as she and Carol teasingly called him. His collar-length brown hair was unkempt and, judging by his bloodshot eyes he had been on a rare bender last night.
"Odd," Melissa thought, "Jon is a total abstainer — his body a temple and all that."
She'd always thought of him more in terms of the TeleTubby Twinky Tink — laid-back and happy and a little bit goofy. Her half-formed suspicion that TeleTubby Twinky Tink was meant to portray a gay or bisexual character didn't extend to Jon though. She smiled, remembering how her suspicions were borne out on last night's CBC news; apparently Jerry Falwell finds the cartoon character blatantly homosexual. Twinky is a dangerous role model, Falwell asserts, created to corrupt little children into "becoming" gay.
"Good grief", she wondered, "Are all fundamentalists homophobes?"
Traces of last night's amusement tinged her voice as Melissa brought her attention back to Jon. She didn't have time in her own life for a man, but if she had, someone like Jon would definitely be her choice. Who knows? She might even let him eat the proverbial crackers in bed and all that.
"Hi Jon. What's up?" Melissa asked leaning gracefully against the white-washed cinder block wall. Jon was a long way from his native Arts Building across Campus where he reinforced his penchant for Socialism. He was definitely the kind of guy who had attended Woodstock in the sixties. But today there was no trace of Jon's usual laissez-faire attitude.
"M-Melissa," he stammered. Then the words poured out, tumbling one over the other.
"There was an accident. On the freeway. A semi. And Carol . . .O God Melissa. Carol . . ." He collapsed into Melissa's book-filled arms.
Melissa struggled to maintain her balance as the heavily-muscled six-footer fell against her.
"She's in a coma Melissa and they don't know if . . .," Jon's voice cracked and faltered, now displaced by huge racking sobs.
Melissa shook her head violently.
"No," she protested, "Carol is indestructible. She's the lucky one, always lucky — lucky in love, lucky in life. You're wrong. It's somebody else."
When Jon didn't answer, Melissa rambled on. "I broke my leg in two places when the loft collapsed in Mr. Brown's barn. Carol didn't even break a nail. She just pulled the hay out of her hair and said she'd have to change her conditioner because her hair felt like straw. See, Jon, Carol is forever. We're going to the Bahamas. We made a pact,
a pact . . ."
Melissa's knees gave way as painful reality seeped in.