"All right then! Give me some directions and I can be there Friday night!"
"This weekend?" She fought back the terror she felt, hoping it didn't creep into her voice somehow. "Can it wait until next weekend? I've got plans for this weekend."
"What, competition? Is he bigger than me?"
"No, I'm going to my parents."
For the next ten days, she worried about Seth's impending arrival and how it would play.
It affected her on her trip back home to see her mother, father, Molly and Bobby. Over a scrumptious roast beef dinner, her mother said "You're awfully quiet. Is everything okay?"
"Fine, mom," she replied. "I'm just enjoying hearing what you guys have to say."
That night she saw her old friends Beth and Jenny at the Outpatient Oncology Center. Jenny and the other nurses especially jumped up and down like grade schoolers when they saw her. Linda stayed long enough to relive the comings and goings of a typical Friday night at the center. Interestingly, a kind, matronly looking woman in her forties now volunteered, pushing the cart, poising the emesis pan under people's chins. "Her name's Darla," Jenny said. "She's really good with the patients, just like you."
Linda wondered if Cindy had ever made any appearances again or whether Darla had played checkers with her.
After she returned to Alexandria, she spent the next five days in the sweet agony of dread waiting for Seth to thunder into town. Tuesday night at the Dream Lab she tossed and turned, finding it more difficult than normal to strap the mask and sensors on and drift peacefully into sleep. The dashing man in the tuxedo would help calm her. She lay there hoping to will herself to sleep, to will herself into his arms.
When sleep still would not come, she considered asking Geraldine for a sleeping pill.
Neither she nor Jay liked to use them, since they interfered with REM sleep, but for oneironauts struggling to drift off into la-la land, they sometimes helped. Linda just lie there, on her back, asking her toes to relax, then her feet, then her legs. When she reached her eyelids, her breathing slowed and she felt drowsy.
Next, she found herself walking along on a bright summer day, holding hands with someone much larger. A man. The sun's rays seemed to flash down at her, pulsating.
It seemed like bits and pieces had fallen off the sun and beamed down at her. Their bright light washed out the details of the gravel road on which they walked, and tree branches that dangled over their path. She realized it was the lights tripping on in the mask and smiled inwardly. Once the lights stopped, she turned and looked up at Seth, who was smiling broadly. He wore a light blue tank shirt and jean shorts.