I skate for at least an hour to clear my head, then arrive at the urgent care clinic at five o’clock. The sign on the door tells me they’re open for another few hours. That should be enough time. I pull the bottom of my shirt up to wipe the sweat from my forehead and go to the front desk, not exactly sure what to do. My insurance card is in my mom’s wallet. And I don’t have any money.
The door to the hallway where the nurse took my vitals a few weeks ago is over my left shoulder, but the L-shaped check-in counter has one half in the waiting room and one half in the hallway. I can see the shut doors of exam rooms inside the hallway, which means those rooms are full and I might have to wait a while.
“I need to talk to someone,” I say.
A guy looks up from his computer and pushes the clipboard on the counter toward me. “Sign-in sheet’s right there.”
“Can I get shots here?”
“A flu shot?”
“Shots. Plural. All of them.”
He squints at me. “What do you mean? Are you traveling out of the country?”
“Nope. But I’ve never had any vaccinations, and I want all of them. How do I do that?” He looks at me like I’m kidding. “I’m serious.”
He finally pulls away from his keyboard and really looks at me. “Are you eighteen?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Do you have a parent or guardian here with you?”
“They’ll say no. I need to take care of this by myself.”
He puts his elbows up on the desk. Leans forward. “No vaccinations ever? MMR? Tetanus? Chicken pox?”
“None of them.”
He leans back in his chair, hands behind his head like a cradle. “Wow.”
I’m a freak. An anomaly to someone in the medical field.
Coming up on the right, Juniper Jade, nocturnal and not vaccinated. Don’t feed the bears. Don’t vaccinate the children.
A patient and a doctor exit an exam room and walk up to the hallway counter. It’s him. Dr. Soap Opera. With the cheekbones and the judgment. He’s exactly who I need to talk to. I wait as he sends his patient’s prescription into the pharmacy electronically and promises she’ll be feeling better soon.
“Hey,” I say, leaning over the counter. “It’s me. Do you remember?” I groan to sound sick and help his recall.
He looks up, and I can see the recognition dawn on him. “Measles?”
“Yep.”
“Fully recovered?”
“I am.”
“Good. What was your name again?”
“Juniper. What’s yours?”
He sticks his hand out. “Dr. Villapando.” We shake hands.
“Look, the measles was awful, and I never want to go through something like that again. I’m here because I want every other shot I should have. I was reading up on polio. I need that one first. Then what else? Mumps. Rubella.” I count on my fingers. “I’m trying to remember them all.”
He puts up his hand to stop me. “You’re a minor. I wouldn’t feel comfortable vaccinating you without at least one of your parents present.”
“You met my mom. Do you think she’s going to do that?”
“Have you tried discussing it with her?”
“I have.”
He leans across the counter to check out the waiting room full of patients expecting to be seen next. Still, he motions for me to come through the door and into the hallway where he’s standing. “Two minutes.”
Two minutes doesn’t seem like enough time for a dozen shots, but if that’s how it has to be, at least it’ll be over quickly. I’ll close my eyes and visualize myself in the ocean to get through it.
I twist the door handle to the hallway, and a woman in the waiting room lets out an annoyed sigh as I go in before her. Whatever. I follow Dr. Soap Opera into the empty exam room the last patient was in. I prop my skateboard up against the wall, and sit on the paper-covered table with my arm out. He slides over to me on a stool with wheels on it.
“Talk to me,” he says.
Damn. No shots. Only chatting. I let out a nervous laugh. It’s hitting me now. Saying the words out loud to him makes this real. I’m defying my mom and dad. I’m taking care of myself.
“I think I’m smarter than my parents. I know they think they’re making the best choices, but messing around with the measles is no joke.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I did some reading,” I say. “It scared me.”
“Rightly so.”
“I could’ve died.”
“True. But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. And Poppy and Sequoia didn’t.” He looks at me quizzically. “My siblings.”
“Ah.”
“But a baby died.”
He sits up straight. “What baby?”
“A baby in town. Her name was Katherine St. Pierre. I was around her when I didn’t know I was contagious.”
His eyebrows draw in. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I look back at him just as seriously. “She died because of me.”
“That is…” He shakes his head. “That’s terrible.” His eyes focus on mine. Soft. Sympathetic. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“Not really.”
He nods. “I can see how you think it’s your fault, but you didn’t know you were sick when you were around her.”
“That’s what my parents keep saying.” I shift, and the paper cover on the exam table crinkles underneath my legs.
“Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”
I shake my head. A tear falls down my cheek. He scoots his stool over, grabs a box of tissues from the counter, and angles it to me so I can grab a few.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“I wish I could make it all go away. I think the hardest part about being a doctor is not being able to make everything better every time.”
“I bet.”
“Look”—he rubs at the stubble on his chin—“as much as I’d like to help, you can’t simply walk in here and get all your vaccinations, for a number of reasons. Parental permission being one of them. But also, I’m not even sure what the exact vaccination schedule would be, because I’ve never dealt with this. I’d have to do some research.” He shakes his head at me, smiling. “I do admire your gumption, but can I give you a piece of advice?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
“Wait until you’re eighteen. It’s not that far off. And then you’ll be in charge of making your own medical decisions.”
I want to stomp my foot like Sequoia when he doesn’t get his way, but my feet can’t touch the ground when I’m sitting on this exam table. “I don’t want to wait. Why should my parents be able to make choices for me when their choices could’ve killed me? It’s irresponsible. You said it yourself.”
“I get it. I really do. But they’re your parents, and that’s how the world and the law are going to see it. They’ll say that their choice not to vaccinate you wasn’t done to deliberately endanger you. That they thought they were acting in your best interest.” He furrows his brow. “It’s frustrating. I’m frustrated, too. I do find it irresponsible. But I’m also saying you’re making a headache for yourself. You had the measles. You got better.”
“That baby didn’t get better.”
“Please don’t misunderstand me. What happened with the baby you met is tragic and awful, but the likelihood of you, Juniper, contracting another rare disease is extremely unlikely. It’s okay to wait another what? Two years?”
“One year, nine months.”
“See? Not even a whole two years. I know that might seem like an eternity to you, but to an old guy like me, it’s not that long.”
“But it isn’t only that. I want to go to a real high school. My dad homeschools us in the kitchen.” I shudder just thinking about it. “If I wait until I’m eighteen, it’ll be too late.” I don’t even get into the fact that convincing my parents to allow me to attend public school is a battle that will go way beyond my vaccinations, but fulfilling a school’s vaccination requirement would be a starting point.
“You’re talking outside my area of expertise now. While I’m sympathetic to your situation, I don’t have any say in what school you go to, vaccines or no vaccines.”
“What if I want to get a job? Do they check this stuff, too?”
“Not vaccines, necessarily. But some food service jobs could require a TB test.”
“Would you want me to have parental permission for a TB test?”
He sighs. “Yes.”
“How do I get around this?”
“Hire a good attorney,” he snorts. He stands, and his stool glides across the floor and lands near the wall. “And for the record, I understand your concern with polio, but I’d push for a meningitis vaccination. Tetanus. Whooping cough. Honestly, those are more likely threats than polio.”
“Great. That’s good to know. Maybe I’ll go step on a rusty nail so my parents will have to get me a tetanus shot so I don’t die.”
“I’d advise against that, obviously.”
“I’m not going to do it. Obviously.”
“Listen, I need to get to these other patients. They’ve been waiting. But I wish you the best of luck, Juniper.” He puts his hand into the front pocket of his lab coat. “Here’s my card. You can contact me if you have more questions.” I take his card and study it.
“Okay.”
I grab my skateboard, and it bangs against my hip as I hurry through the waiting room and out into the street.