Golden's Rule. C. E. Edmonson

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СКАЧАТЬ emptying the dishwasher. Talk about feeling guilty. I mean, puh-leeeze. Emergency care? A one-time sports injury was hardly an emergency, and I liked to think that I was beyond needing care. Daycare, childcare, even caring much about the dance—all in the past.

      Independence was my thing. I took care of myself. Not that I was a drudge; I didn’t mop the floor or clean the bathroom. We had a housekeeper who came in twice a week, on Monday and Thursday. But I did make my bed, and pick up after myself, and do the occasional laundry. Now my mom would have to take a day off; maybe more than one. I mean, who knew where this was going? And all this drama over something that had already magically healed itself! If only my leg could write a medical note.

      After she gave up on bullying the answering service, Mom ordered up a thin-crust pizza and a Greek salad and we sat down to a mostly silent dinner. I could see that she was more worried than she let on, but there wasn’t much I could do about it besides assuring her that I was fine and suggesting that I go to the doctor alone, or that we make an evening appointment. I wanted to get this ordeal over with as soon as possible and get back to normal, like my leg had already decided to do. Mom wasn’t listening, though. It seemed that Nurse Cole’s nervousness was infectious.

      “Don’t worry,” she told me over nibbles of mushroom pizza. “Come tomorrow morning, I’ll get us an early appointment. I promise you.”

      I wasn’t worried. But the more the adults acted serious and strange, the more worried I was becoming.

      I went up to my room after dinner and sent a collective text message to the Mag-7s, just in case they hadn’t heard from Jasmine. The responses poured in—mostly questions I didn’t have answers for. After texting back a series of “IDK” (“I don’t know”), I suddenly discovered that my “attack” was something I didn’t want to talk about. It’s like when I’m on the basketball court and I’m knocking down shot after shot. You don’t want to jinx yourself by talking about the streak. So, I made an excuse about having homework to do and signed off.

      I guess I was expecting NBDs (“no big deal”) instead of this outpouring of concern. People break their legs or tear muscles on the court all the time. That was something we had all seen up close and personal—and let me tell you, it isn’t pretty. Really, my leg spazzing out was no big deal in comparison. So why were the kids all of a sudden acting as crazy as the adults?

      So, I did what I told them I was going to do and actually attempted to get some homework done—but I couldn’t concentrate on the math problems in my workbook. See! I told you the craziness was catching! I finally found myself staring at the photos on the wall opposite the foot of my bed: my Wall of Fame.

      President Barack Obama was there, along with singer Alicia Keys, baseball great Derek Jeter, musician Lenny Kravitz, and two of my favorite actresses, Tia and Tamara Mowry. There were dozens of other photos as well, including the author Walter Mosley, and news correspondents Soledad O’Brien and Christiane Amanpour. These were some of my favorites as well, role models for my writer ambitions. Especially Soledad and Christiane, fearless reporters who’d been covering news stories around the world for the past twenty years.

      But that wasn’t why they were up there. No, everybody on my Wall of Fame was multiracial. And my PROUD TO BE MULTIRACIAL t-shirt, long since outgrown, was tacked right in the middle of the photos.

      This was another piece of my personal puzzle. Like being independent, defiance was a shield. Montclair was like this integrated oasis. Yeah, we had our gangsta wannabes, rocker wannabes, jock wannabes, and preppy wannabes, too. But wannabes or not, we had one thing in common. We’d been prepped for success, like from the day we were born. So it wasn’t a question of whether or not we’d go to college. The issue was whether we’d get into a top-tier university like Duke or Stanford, or one of the Ivy League schools, or the big burrito in the sky, MIT.

      And my new question was whether I’d get there on a basketball scholarship or not. Because if something serious was really happening with my leg…I stopped myself from completing the thought. I really didn’t want to jinx myself. It was just that everyone’s sympathy was starting to spook me out.

      Eventually, I settled down. I actually did a few of the math problems and read a chapter in my history book about Prohibition before I went to sleep. Like, normal, okay? That’s what I wanted. It was scary while it lasted but now it was over—all except getting a doctor’s note. A pure technicality. Students came to school with those things all the time, waving them in the air like they were get-out-of-gym-free cards. And there was never anything wrong with any of those kids.

      I told myself it was time to get back to worrying about more important issues, like a date for the spring dance, and should I go to basketball camp or try to catch on with a local summer league, and isn’t it about time I buckled down because mid-term exams were coming up in a few weeks and I hadn’t so much as looked at George Orwell’s Animal Farm? And somewhere in the midst of all of that, I managed to fall asleep.

      The next morning, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Nothing out of whack. Totally cool. It was a minor glitch, that’s all. I was ready to get my doctor’s note and move on.

      I brushed my teeth and took a shower, then dressed and went into the kitchen. Mom was pouring some kind of granola into a bowl and there was a glass of juice next to my place at the breakfast bar. I sat down, picked up the juice, brought it to my lips and—

      Passed out cold. Thwack!

      I woke up totally confused. The only thing I knew, from the omigosh expression on Mom’s face, was that something really bad had happened to me. My brain was spinning like a top and I had to wait for it to slow down before I was finally able to sit up. Then I tested my arms and legs, one at a time. Everything worked.

      “Mom, what happened?” “I think you had a seizure.”

      “What?” I heard the words, but it was like I couldn’t understand them. Not when they were being spoken about me.

      My mom took me in her arms and lifted me to my feet. She led me, stumbling, into the living room, then onto the couch.

      “I’m going to call Dr. Martin right now.”

      When my mom left the room, it was the first time I became seriously scared. A bum leg was one thing. But blackouts and seizures? Maybe Nurse Cole wasn’t just being an unreasonable dictator by making me go see a doctor. Maybe something really was wrong with me… horribly wrong.

      I counted the seconds until my mom came back into the room. One hundred and twenty-three. Alone like that, helpless, not knowing what was happening to me, they were the longest two minutes of my life.

      Before I knew it, my mother and I were on our way to the emergency room at the Essex County Medical Center, following Dr. Martin’s recommendation. I mean, given a choice, I would have gladly gone to the pediatrician instead of the ER. Emergency rooms are for really bad cases, like car crash victims or someone with an axe stuck in his head or people who accidentally cut off their fingers while chopping up carrots with a kitchen knife (something my mom always warned me about). The only other time I was rushed to an ER before was when I was little and stuck loose beads from my Barbie bracelet way up my nose and couldn’t get them out. Life or death stuff. Like, actual emergencies. Not like now. Right?

      I wanted to ask my mom, but didn’t. Instead, I fiddled with the radio and watched cars zip by in the other direction as I tried to fight off one of those Chicken-Little-was-right moments. I mean, word up, the sky was falling. Seizures? I was fourteen and this absolutely could not be happening to me.

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