Dany
When you think about your bucket list, all the things in life you want to do before you die, what’s on it?
I can’t think of a list of things to do so much as emotions to experience. I’ve not let myself experience the full range of emotions life has to offer. At six, I put on a mask of placid charm and I never took it off again. I worked at being polite and unobtrusive so hard, that I became those things and nothing else.
I’ve forgotten what the real me looks like.
Am I wild? Geeky? Boring? Funny? I don’t know, because I’ve never let myself be anything but…but grass. Muted. Utilitarian. Walked all over. Anytime grass reaches or tries to grow it’s mowed down.
That’s me. Any time I felt or wanted to do something out of the bounds of “proper” I mowed the urge down.
I’m grass.
I stop walking. I made it to the hospital lobby. The exit is ahead. I look around the lobby at the people walking through. I can only see the bustle. The nurse rushing across the hall with a coffee. The mother carrying a crying child. There are a lot of stories here, moving through. I look more closely. There’s an older man sitting in a wheelchair. He’s facing the window, looking out over the parking lot. Everyone is moving and hurrying, except him.
He turns toward me. He catches me watching him and stares back.
I shift under his look.
Usually, if someone catches me staring I quickly turn away. It’s embarrassing. But, hey, I’m ready to experience embarrassment in all its shining glory.
“What’s your name?” he asks. He has an interesting accent, a mix of British, American and something else. I can’t put my finger on it, except to say, it sounds like adventure.
“Dany,” I say.
“I’m Dave. Stuck in this purgatory. Got a spare kidney by any chance?”
“What?” I squeak.
“I’m looking for a kidney. Figured I’d ask. Never hurts.”
I laugh and step closer. “You wouldn’t want my kidney. It’s chock full of chemotherapy drugs.”
He holds up his hands and shrugs. His skin is yellow and papery fine. His hair is wispy. But he still has a sort of roguish air. A dapper old man. He’s dressed in a gray three-piece suit under a silk robe and has a blue silk handkerchief. He uses it to wipe his forehead.
I smile and am about to say goodbye when he continues.
“At this point, I’d take a kidney from a plague-infested yeti. I saw one in the Himalayas back in ’74.”
I’m shocked. “A plague-infested yeti?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Yetis aren’t real,” he says in a loud stage whisper.
“But you said—”
“I saw a kidney.”
“Oh,” I say. I’m not sure how to respond. “How nice.”
He nods. “Lamb kidneys are a real delicacy.”
“Oh.”
He winces. “Looking back, I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as I should have. The symbolism. I turned down the fried brain in China, though. Thankfully.”
“You’re a really interesting person,” I say. Hospitals are chock full of interesting people. Gerry, Cleopatra. Dave.
He hums under his breath. “People are interesting. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes you have to look close.”
I look out at the parking lot and the low, scraggly grass sticking out of the cracks in the pavement. Grass.
“I’d like to be more interesting.” I’m embarrassed to admit it.
He turns to me and looks me up and down.
“What’s stopping you?” he asks.
The music over the speakers starts to play the eighties rock song about time running out again. My body flinches in response.
“Nothing,” I say. “There’s nothing stopping me.”
Then I start to tap my foot.
Usually, I’d stop myself. I don’t dance to music. Ever.
But then, I nod my head back and forth. What if I do? What could happen? I decide that I’m going to dance. I’m going to dance to this freaking awful song.
I’m going to live.
“I like that,” says Dave. He wheels his chair forward and backward.
My cheeks burn red. Hesitantly, I start to sway my hips and dance to the music. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can beat this. Maybe I can dance.
Dave laughs. He wipes at his eyes.
“Mommy, what’s that lady doing?” a young girl in pigtails lisps.
“Ignore them,” her mom says. They hurry by.
I look around, people are staring.
I cringe and my steps falter.
Maybe I can’t do this.
The hospital security guard walks up and taps me on the shoulder. “Ma’am. This is a hospital, not a dance party,” he says.
“Oh. Okay. I’m sorry.” I stare at the collar of his uniform. Not able to meet his eyes. “Sorry, sir,” I say.
Mortification fills me. I can feel people watching. The security guard walks back to his station at the revolving doors.
The burn in my cheeks spreads over me. Embarrassment is a hot wave. My shoulders hunch.
Maybe the list was a bad idea. Dancing was definitely a bad idea.
“I haven’t danced like this since that rain dance ceremony in ’82,” says Dave. He starts to chortle then he laughs, long and happy.
I look up in surprise. Dave wasn’t afraid.
That laughter. It unlocks something in me. I feel it click open in my chest.
I can do this. I can step into my life and survive and thrive.
I can.
Confidence, that’s what I feel. My shoulders push back again. I don’t have to be afraid.
“Dave, it has been an absolute pleasure,” I say. I mean it.
He takes my hand and shakes it. “Good luck, kiddo. Let me know if you run across a kidney.”
“I’ll be on the lookout,” I say.
I wave goodbye.