Lex’s fingers fidgeted on her lap until Venus slapped her hand down on them. “Stop that. You’re driving me nuts.”
“You’re nuts? Think about me.”
“You are so egocentric, you know that?”
“I’m about to go into surgery. I think I’m entitled.”
“You’re going to wake up, perfectly fine and as crabby as ever. So stop making my day worse than it already is.”
“Okay, Lex, they’re ready for you now.” The nurse walked over to Lex with a wheelchair.
Lex stood and moved into the chair, surprised her legs didn’t collapse under her. She grabbed Venus’s arm. “Take my mom’s diamond earrings. I want you to have them.”
“Oh, stop.”
“And that picture frame we fought over as kids? It’s in my closet.
You should have gotten it.”
“Will you shut up?”
“But make sure I get cremated with my ratty bunny. He’s on my bed.”
Venus shoved her face in close. “I’m going to deck you so you don’t need anesthesia.”
Lex swallowed. “I need to go again.”
Lex opened her eyes. Hey, she was in a different room. She could have sworn she’d been wide awake when she counted down to eight in the surgery room. Now she felt fuzzy and she couldn’t move her leg.
Oh, no! She was paralyzed!
She would panic after she threw up.
“How are you?” A smiling nurse who was way too cheerful nudged her bed and did something with her IV. She started raising Lex into a sitting position.
“I’m going to puke.” Her mouth had weeds growing in it.
“Not quite yet.” The nurse tugged at her IV and injected something.
Another ten minutes, and Lex realized her mouth had suddenly dried up. She tried to speak but couldn’t move her tongue. “Wa…wa…”
“Juice?” The nurse shoved a straw into her mouth.
“Nnn…”
“Drink up.”
Lex shook her head. The room spun.
“Rise and shine.” The nurse bounded over with Lex’s crutches. Where’s the fire, lady? Lex’s leg started to ache with fierce, bone-deep pain.
“Let’s get you to a chair.”
“Wha -?” She could barely sit up.
“The anesthesia is still in your system. Move around and it’ll clear. Otherwise, you could sleep here all day.” She giggled. “And we’re not a hotel.”
Lex stumbled with her crutches as the room tilted around her. She could feel the fiery energy of the nurse as she practically carried her the few feet to a recliner, her IV bag trailing on a wheeled stand. A weird Igloo cooler was attached to her leg by a thick tube, making her leg freezing cold. The nurse carried that with Lex to the recliner.
She collapsed on the chair and just wanted to sleep some more.
“You’re almost ready to go home.”
Home? She couldn’t even form coherent sentences yet. Where was Venus? Who was this Pollyanna-on-steroids nurse? How could she even walk to the car with her leg bigger than a slab of mutton and frozen solid?
“Hey, Lex.” Venus appeared.
Little Miss Sunshine hovered over her shoulder, driving a wheelchair like a race car. She unhooked the tube attached to the Igloo cooler. “Time to go.”
Lex eased herself into the wheelchair. She’d barely sat down before Miss Earnhardt took off, zooming down the hallway, out a side door. She skidded the chair down a ramp and nicked the curb as she turned toward Venus’s car.
It wasn’t a hard knock, but Lex’s bones jarred like she’d been sideswiped. “Ow!” She grabbed her knee but only felt thick layers of bandages.
The NASCAR nurse screeched to a halt beside Venus’s car. Lex paused to breathe.
“Come on. If you move, the fuzzies will go bye-bye.” The nurse jiggled the wheelchair.
Was this woman for real? Lex shot to her feet and swayed as the darkening sky rotated around her like a carousel. She grabbed at the passenger door.
It took some painful hopping to turn herself around and sit in the seat. It took even more angling to get her straightened leg into Venus’s little car.
“Slide the seat back.”
“It’s already back all the way.”
Her leg hung over the edge of the bucket seat, but her heel didn’t quite touch the floor, making her knee throb. The nurse wheeled away.
Lex didn’t remember much about the long drive home from the surgery center, except for the pain that flashed through her leg every time the little sports car hit a bump in the road.
“Can’t you drive any smoother?”
“Pardon me, Your Highness.”
Venus finally eased into the carport at her apartment. Lex couldn’t open the door all the way because of the car next to her. As she angled herself out, she banged her foot against the door. “Oooh.”
Venus appeared with her crutches. Lex moved backward out of the carport, but then she discovered her mistake.
The ground sloped down from the carport, and Lex hadn’t braced herself for the change in grade. She started tipping backward.
“Venus!”
Splat. Lex landed hard on her backside. The impact sent a jolt through her leg. “Oh, my knee, my knee.”
Venus knelt at her side. “At least you landed on your butt. Lots of padding.”
“Speak for yourself, bubblebutt. My tailbone is throbbing.”
“Your Insult-o-meter spikes when you’re in pain, doesn’t it?”
“Wouldn’t yours?”
Venus hooked her arm around her waist. “Okay, one, two, three-eee. Oomph.”
Lex’s butt barely cleared the ground before it bounced right back down. “Yow!”
“Sorry.” Venus studied her. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to raise you up.”
“Hand me my crutches.”
Even with Venus’s arm around her, even with the upper body weight training Lex had been doing for Wassamattayu tryouts, she heaved and strained to get upright again.
It was going to be a long night.
TWENTY-FOUR
She needed to go to the bathroom.
Lex stared at the ceiling, wide awake after sleeping for who knows how many hours on the surgery table. Venus’s soft snores from where she sprawled in a sleeping bag matched the rhythmic whirring of the CPM machine as it bent and straightened her leg.
Poor Venus. She had collapsed, exhausted after setting everything up for Lex, not even thinking to ask about the mouse (which still hadn’t reappeared). Lex couldn’t wake her now.
The machine bent her leg, and she bumped her head against the wall. Her stupid bed. She couldn’t have known it would be too short for her to lay full out with the machine, even diagonally. She couldn’t move the bed away from the wall because there wasn’t room, what with the box Venus had dragged to the foot of the bed. They’d needed to anchor the CPM machine so it wouldn’t slide off and take Lex’s leg with it. She waited for the machine to straighten her leg and then turned it off.
Lex unhooked the ice machine – one of the reasons Venus was so tired. After discovering Lex’s tiny fridge didn’t have an ice maker, she’d gone to the grocery store for a bag of ice, which now melted slowly in the large cooler Lex used for volleyball. Venus would need to get more ice tomorrow too.
Lex had to hop sideways to squeeze out from her bed – no mean feat while clutching her crutches. She almost tripped over the extension cord – the new one Venus had gone out (again) to buy because the only other one had been two feet too short.
The bathroom seemed an ocean away. And she had to go really badly.
She bumped and hobbled to the tiny bathroom, dropping onto the toilet. At least the Novocain hadn’t worn off yet, and her knee had only a dull ache.
She’d been so mean and crabby to Venus all day. She would be better tomorrow.
At least the worst was behind her.
“Novocain’s wearing off.” With a vengeance. The dull ache from last night had turned into a thousand needles in her joint.
Venus looked up from her Star magazine. “Ready for your Vicodin?”