The two glared at each other, the mom over a foot taller than her defiant daughter.
“Why don't you two take a break from each other for a few minutes?” Clarissa suggested, trying to lower the temperature in the room. “You'll be stuck in here together long enough, so you might as well go out and enjoy some of our most delicious heme-onc pudding. Also, Lorna Dones, I'm sure Hermione can tell me everything I'd need to know.”
“All yours,” the mom said, taking off while she could.
Clarissa waited for her to go before sitting down on a different chair in silence. Hermione ignored her, stalking around the room. She opened up her bag, threw off her T-shirt, giving a quick glimpse of the port in her chest, and pulled out another wig and a personalized hospital gown.
This wig was black with white stripes, and the gown was black and white with the words 'All American, All Anger.' Hermione fitted the wig on, adjusting it in the mirror inside the patient closet.
Actually, most of the stuff in the room was similar in color with the same branding. Clarissa stood, trying to fathom exactly what theme this encompassed. All American, All Anger was waaayyy too dark to be Harry Potter based.
“Why aren't you talking? Are you one of those weird, creepy residents who go mute after they meet me?” Hermione moved the hair back and forth over her ears.
“Well, I’ll have to examine you eventually, but I figured you could go ahead and answer the questions on the form. You've got to have them memorized.” Clarissa opted to let Hermione do her thing.
“Oh, poor little cancer girl. How do you feel today? Fucking peachy. Which medicines are you taking? Bactrim, acyclovir, and magic mouth wash. Do you take them as instructed? Yes, because mommy dearest hovers every damn second. Any fevers? Nope. Any exposures to measles or herpes? Nope, GOD I WISH because I’m still a VIRGIN.” She spun the wig around once and then moved to put a few ebony hair clips in it.
“Then 'negative' on sick contacts.” Clarissa studiously wrote it down on her signout sheet. “Before I do your exam, is there anything else I ought to ask you? Not that I make any major medical decisions.”
She wasn't lying. The real heme-onc attending managed every single ounce of the chemo. The planned cytrabine and mitazandrone treatment would last most of the week, with the goal of killing every single reproducing cell in Hermione’s body. It would wipe out her white blood cell count for weeks. The hope was that in a month or so, her white blood cells would recover, sans cancer cells. During that window of time, she'd have basically zero immune system and living in total isolation, hence her generally pissed off nature.
“Nope. Other than I believe you'd vastly improve your dating options if you got a haircut and lost like ten or forty pounds. Give or take,” Hermione said as Clarissa approached.
“All haircuts have to be approved by my roommates. Never a good hair day post-call.” Clarissa wiped down her stethoscope with alcohol and put it on Hermione's chest. “What is 'All-American-All-Anger'?”
“Are you shitting me?” Hermione brightened on this topic. “It's the first album from Valkyrie StormFlyght. The band. The five most attractive men who have ever lived. It was the best day of my LIFE when Jett almost died.”
“There was a plane crash?” Clarissa asked, guessing she probably missed that news. She had a vague knowledge of the heavy metal band because of their ubiquitous black and white face paint, and Lillian had once mentioned she had an ‘in’ with them.
“No, Jett is the lead singer. He collapsed onstage at Progressive Field in July and was brought to MetroGen. I was in the PICU for a rule-out sepsis workup, and he got put in the adult ICU at the same time. It was fate.” She faked a swoon while she took a deep breath for Clarissa’s exam.
“How romantic,” Clarissa commented. Hermione’s lungs sounded perfectly clear.
“Isn't it? I was too sick to go to the last concert in August or see the movie,” Hermione pouted between taking deep breaths.
“They have a movie?” Clarissa listened to Hermione’s heartbeat in a few places, avoiding the port—regular without murmurs.
“How clueless are you? They don't have a movie. The guitarist’s girlfriend has a movie. There was a second premiere in Cleveland in January. Sword Sorceress?” Hermione’s enthusiasm of the movie title echoed through Clarissa’s stethoscope.
“Not ringing any bells. So, Valkyrie StormFlyght is your thing and not Harry Potter?” Clarissa asked, moving to stand behind Hermione to listen to the posterior lung fields.
“Oh, fuck no,” Hermione complained. “My parents are total Harry Potter freaks. Why couldn't they have named me something normal, like Paisley or Summer or August or Christmas? But no, she's Hermionie—going to be the greatest witch of our generation.”
“Trust me, there are much worse names. I go to a lot of deliveries. You could have been named LemAngelo—spelled LemonJello,” Clarissa said sans exaggeration. “What about Sword Sorceress?”
“It was big news for a week in January. The guitarist, Gael, got his identity revealed, and then he has this whole thing with Kelsie from Magic Tiger Kitten. Who might be a big ho but might not. They filmed a reality series to release this summer.” Hermione checked over her shoulder to see if Clarissa would respond. “Nothing. Do you live under a rock?”
“Um, no. I was busy, you know, hospital.” Clarissa didn’t add constant, unresolved sexual tension with the attractive anesthesia chief.
Hermione dismissed her explanation with a hand flutter. “You have an excuse to escape, unlike me. I never get to leave. You should be doing stuff like they do on those billion doctor shows. Wild, terribly thought-out inappropriate sex with tons of people. Are orgies a regular thing in MetroGen? Have you had sex in a call room yet?”
“Not yet.” Clarissa put down her stethoscope and stood next to Hermione to check the pulses in her wrists. “You're thirteen, right?”
“Oh, are you going to be shocked that I know how to swear and I heard about sex? My mom likes to think because she turns on the parental controls I’ll decide to study astrophysics. Does she not realize that leaving me with my tablet and my Atlantis Unlimited library is the opposite? BookTok, Bookstagram, SmutTok. It’s all R and NC-17. Am I shocking you?”
“Nah, just wasn’t expecting the dating questions.”
Which she was definitely not going to answer truthfully.
