Waltz of Her Life

"I've missed you so much!" Linda went on, as they walked, arm in arm.

Lauren nodded, a shadow of sadness crossing her face for a moment. "Yeah, that really sucked, didn't it?"

Linda also nodded, her throat tightening as if she was going to cry.

Lauren poked her, for levity. "We didn't even get to see the fucking concert!"

Linda laughed. "How's Jeannie?"

"Oh, she's good. We really don't even see each other much. It's so big, and so many…well it's hard to explain. And it's really hard for me to do this shit."

"What shit?"

"Come see you."

Linda felt suddenly exhilarated. She also knew that if she asked too many questions, it could break lucidity. "What's it like?"

Lauren gave the same smug, cat-that-got-the-canary smile that Linda remembered so well from her time on earth. "Better than your wildest dream. But I shouldn't tell you more."

"You mean you can't? They won't let you?"

"You'll see. But it's really hard for me to do this shit. It's like taking a vacation around the world where you have to pay thousands of dollars and get passports for every fucking country. But it's a million times more complicated. It would take days to explain."

Linda laughed. "Then I won't make you." She stopped, to turn and study Lauren's face again, while she still could. She was so beautiful. "It's just so wonderful to see you."

"And it's fucking fantastic to see you, too," Lauren said. "I'll try to come again sometime."

Linda woke up not long after that.

Seth nudged her out of her daydream. "Let's go back to your place," he said. For the next couple of hours they sat together and watched "Three's Company" and a couple of other sitcom reruns on her little portable TV. She thought, that since Seth had drunk a few at the bar, that he would pester her to drop the bed down so they could cuddle together, or whatever. Instead, still early in the evening he announced he was going home.

December 3, 1979 had really changed him, Linda thought, as she watched him buzz away on the motorcycle.

When Linda first learned about the openings in the Oncology department at Jewish Hospital, she expected that a new nurse would have to work overnights. During the last two years of her nursing program at Little Egyptian, many of the instructors even prepared them for this. "You're going to be the low person on the totem pole," was something she heard over and over again.