Lucid Ending

“Yes. About the same chance I have of beating you in chess,” he said as the orderlies shifted him into a wheelchair.

But Karen wasn’t listening. If one man out of hundred could beat this disease, it was going to be Adrian. She knew it. * *

Eighteen year old Adrian was determined to ignore his father and his plastic wife. He had no family, he had no friends. He had no one. Hundreds of girls threw themselves at him. His chiselled body coupled with his brooding persona made him very popular. It did not hurt to be the son of a man who routinely figured in the Forbes’ top 10 list either.

One day he sat in his library contemplating taking admission to Harvard Business School. His stellar record in academics, extra-curricular brilliance (and his father’s influence) meant he would get in quite easily.

The mahogany doors creaked open, breaking him out of his reverie. He glanced over to see Karen recline into an armchair on the far side clutching two Vonneguts from the adjacent shelf. She idly twirled a strand of hair in her hand as she flipped open to her bookmark.

He considered going over to talk to his step-sister. Whereas her mother seemed unashamedly sycophantic to Victor, she kept her distance from the newlyweds. It made them friends in a strange way. The sun filtered in through the ornate window painting her flawless white skin with a red tinge. He gazed at her poetic beauty, enjoying the moment.

He gazed for an instant too long and her eyes lifted from her book and looked straight at his. She smiled in silent acknowledgement of his presence and returned to reading. Adrian blushed, but did not stop looking. Her hair was a beautiful shade of dark auburn. She had not tied it, instead letting it fall to her shoulders in silky tresses. Her sharp eyes were a picture of studied concentration as she turned a page. One of her dainty hands held a strand of hair and curled it around her finger.

They remained in that state, she blissfully oblivious to his gaze. He shook himself out of his trance and returned to his essay for Harvard. Four thousand eloquent words to try to impress someone were hard to type out. His topic was “The Importance of Competitive Environments in Modern Business”. Quoting several business gurus and entrepreneurs, he was confident he had nailed it.

“It’s too superficial.”

The words took him by surprise. He turned around to see her right behind him, gazing over his shoulder to see what he had spent the best part of four days writing.

“Excuse me?” he asked, startled at her forwardness.

“This essay. It’s too superficial. You just touch on several topics without going into it. Like this part where you quote Howard Hughes. You should then go onto to correlate it with a modern day management theory like Maslow’s theory of needs. Then analyse it with a real example of a successful company. You just mention the quote in passing, like an afterthought.”

Amazed by her insight, he made a mental note to make those changes. Turning his chair around he smiled at her. She returned his smile.

“I know you aren’t too fond of your dad and my mother, and to tell the truth, I am not thrilled by their marriage either. Knowing Mom, the only thing that she cares about are money and exotic travel. It would be nice if I had someone to talk to in this house,” she said in an earnest tone, adding, “I am not my mother.”

The wheels in his head were turning furiously. Was this an insidious ploy on Alice’s part to soften him? He looked up to see her gently biting her bottom lip, waiting for a reaction.

Taking a deep breath, he collected his words and spoke slowly.

“Sure. It would be nice to have someone to talk to. By the way, where did you learn all that?”

“Oh, I read stuff. A lot. I spent most of my childhood at home alone while my mother was on some exotic cruise or another with her latest rich fancy. Diplomats, producers, foreign royals – you name it and she has fucked them,” she said, calmly, without batting her eyelids.

Adrian was stunned by her statement and the casual way in which she said it. He stared at her, at a loss for words. Karen put her hands on her hips, bent her head to the side and gave him a smirk.

“What? I just called a spade a spade. She’s a bimbo, silicone slut who is currently fucking the brains out of Captain Viagra in Key West,” she said, adding, “Captain Viagra is your dad by the way.”

He laughed gently at this statement. At fifty-two, Victor Carmichael was the poster boy for rich sleaze-bag, addicted to Viagra and whores.

“True enough,” said Adrian, with a mirthful overtone to his voice.

“Anyway, I will be returning to college this fall so I guess we will be spending more time here preparing together,” she said with an air of genuine pleasure..”I would like to get to know my enigmatic step-brother some more.”

And they would get to know each other a lot more. * *

Karen sat absent-mindedly patting her fingers on the bedside table. Soon enough, they wheeled him back in and laid him on the bed. The doctor came, attached the chemotherapy bag to his arm and reattached the rest of his tubes.

As soon as the doctor left, she was there by his bedside.

“How are you feeling?”

“As good as one can feel with an extreme dose of chemicals coursing through him,” he said, in a low voice. “The fever will start in an hour or so and it will get worse from there. Much worse.”

“I will be right here to take care of you. Don’t you dare forget that. You’re going to make it,” she said, almost willing herself to believe her words.

He curled on his side, facing her. Another lock of his hair fell out. She placed it back on his head, patting it down. His lips were wrinkled, but he still managed to smile at her while she leant over and gently caressed his cheek. Her finger made a long stroke from his neck to the edge of his scalp. Her hand gently brushed his lips, feeling each crease caused by the chemo.

“Karen,” he whimpered, trembling with the beginnings of fever.

“Yes, dear,” she said, putting her head on the pillow and facing him.

“I-I-I’m scared, Karen.”

“Shh…” she said, putting her finger on his lips. “I’m right here.”

“Hold me please.”

“Of course,” she said, tearfully wrapping her arms around the pitifully weak form. She moved her hand back and looked at him in shock.

“You’re burning up. That is a very high fever.”

He didn’t respond. His eyelids fluttered.

“Adrian?” she asked warily.

He let out a pitiful moan and rolled over to his front. His face was flushed and sweat formed on his brow. There was a raging fever inside him.

“Doctor! Nurse! Anybody!” she screamed hysterically.

A doctor and two nurses frantically rushed into the room. One of them checked his temperature off a screen while the nurses began rummaging on the shelf for an anti-pyretic to cool the fever. The nurse injected it into his arm while the other one held him down. Then, they gave him a sedative to calm him for some time.

He flopped onto his side, softly groaning into his pillow as the sedatives took effect. His fever would take some time to go. Karen waited for him to close his eyes before she placed his fingers in her palm and gently squeezed them.

Even in his medicated sleep, he smiled. Her touch had a special quality. * *

Adrian’s new and improved essay blew away the recruiter from Harvard. He got a full scholarship to do his undergrad from there. Neither of his parents cared.

He and Karen started spending more time together in the library. It became their personal sanctuary, surrounded by a fortress of books. They discussed the merits and demerits of art forms, political ideologies and even their favourite football teams.

It was the perfect arrangement really; they never bothered their parents and the parents returned the favour.

One day they were together amidst all their books when she saw him looking a little too eagerly at one of his magazines.

“What’re you reading?”

Without even shifting his eyes from the magazine, he said, “Hustler.”

“Oh I see,” she said softly. “Any girls to your taste?”

Putting on his best fake look of concentration, he carefully observed the girl on the page in front of him. Tilting his head from side to side, he tried to rate her beauty. He went to the next picture and tried to do the same, but it didn’t do anything for him. Certainly the exposed bodies tickled his teenage libido, but there was something missing.

Too fake.

Too thin.

Too like a Russian diva.

After idly flipping through the pages for sometime, he looked up to see what Karen was doing. His eyes locked in on her form across the room and his heart skipped a beat. She was in the middle of untying her hair. Her eyes were closed as those lovely auburn tresses fell over her shoulder. She shook her head from side to side spreading them evenly over her back, but one strand came over the front of her face, over her left eye. She gently tucked it back behind her ear.

The best girl in his magazine would come a poor second to the gorgeous form that unfurled itself in front of him. He had always been aware of her beauty, but right then, it was all he could see. His eyes were momentarily blind to all else. It was as if Time itself had stopped to admire her.

Smoothing her hair out, she noticed his stare out of the corner of her eye. Grinning, she said in a cocky voice, “Guess that answers my last question.” Shaken out of his transfixed stare, he blurted, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Never mind,” she said and returned to her reading. Unknown to Adrian, she was smiling inwardly.

The seeds had been planted. * *

Karen almost cried when Adrian was wheeled back from his radiation the next morning. Those lovely black locks that she adored, that silky mane she ran her fingers through all the time. It was gone. All gone.