Chapter 57

Dan walked into the room and took a seat in one of the chairs. Shocked at seeing him, Pat asked, “How did you find me?”

“Sally saw you, yesterday,” Dan answered. Sally had been walking down the hall to treat one of her patients and spotted Pat in the hospital room. Rather than confront Pat, she had asked one of the nurses about her. The story that came back was not good.

Upset, Pat looked away and said, “Go away.”

“No,” Dan replied calmly. He looked at the big woman lying in the hospital bed. She looked like a fragile little doll about to break into a thousand pieces. He could see that she’d already had the surgery to remove a breast.

With tears in her eyes, she said, “Please go away! I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

“Sorry, but you’re stuck with me,” Dan said with a smile. Seeing that she was on the verge of breaking down into tears, Dan said, “My friends will not go through tough times without me being there for them. I consider you to be one of my very dear friends.”

As Pat broke down into tears, Dan went over to her bed. He grabbed a tissue and handed it to her. He said, “There is no reason for you to go through this alone.”

Pat sobbed. She hated crying in front of other people. Big tough lesbians didn’t cry like little girls afraid of a storm. She blew her nose and tried to fight back the tears. She looked up at Dan and saw that there were tears in his eyes.

Chin quivering, she asked, “Why are you crying?”

“It hurts to see you in such pain,” Dan said taking her hand.

She needed a human touch more than drugs or treatments. She didn’t try to pull her hand away from him.

“The drugs are keeping the pain away,” Pat said not looking at him. She knew that wasn’t what he meant.

Shaking his head, Dan said, “That’s not the pain that I’m talking about.”

“I know,” Pat said swallowing heavily.

Her entire self image had taken a major battering over the past week. She knew that she’d be able to drive anyone else away with harsh words, but not Dan. He’d stand there looking down at her with puppy dog eyes until she stopped. Then he’d hug her and tell her that he loved her. She didn’t know if she’d survive that.

Still holding her hand, Dan said, “Tell me about it.”

“They found it too late,” Pat said. She looked over at him waiting for him to say that she was wrong. She didn’t want to hear platitudes.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dan said.

Pat gave him a weak smile and asked, “Aren’t you going to try and convince me that it isn’t so bad?”

Frowning, Dan said, “You know your condition better than I do.”

One of the things that Pat had come to appreciate about Dan was his recognition that trying to deny the reality of the situation did no good. Unless you accepted things as they really were, you couldn’t plan effective actions.

She said, “Yes, I guess I do.”

Dan let go of her hand and pulled a chair over to the side of the bed. Taking a seat, he took her hand in his.

“Tell me about it.”

For the next hour, Pat and Dan talked about her health. For the most part, she talked and he listened. Pat vented months of worry and anxiety. She had known for a long time that there was something wrong with her. She didn’t follow up when she started losing weight. It wasn’t until her back started hurting that she finally went to the doctor. When it was hard for her to talk, he squeezed her hand to let her know that he was there for her.

A nurse came to check on her condition, but left without interrupting them. This was the first visitor that her patient had had since checking into the hospital. She felt that her patient was better served by having a close friend visit her. It was obvious that she looked better now than at any time previously.

Tom raised his plastic bottle of root beer and said, “Here’s to long summer days at the lake.”

“Here’s to long, lazy summer days at the lake,” Dan said, emphasizing the word lazy.

They tapped their plastic bottles together. with Tom. The sound produced wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying as tapping mugs together.

“Terry is really excited about the project that you gave her,” Tom said.

He had come home from work one day and found Terry buried in books looking up information on making the transition from one size of business to the next. It seemed that in the course of one discussion, she had become convinced that Dan was a business genius.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Dan said.

He had been rather surprised at the energy with which Terry had put into coming up with a plan for growing the pizzeria. There were a lot of little details that had to be addressed before the summer ended.

“I understand she’s been spending a lot of time with Mr. Harrison,” Tom said.

It seemed to him that Terry talked about that guy as much as she talked about Amanda. In a way, it was rather scary.

“That’s true. The two of them are planning on taking my pizzeria nationwide,” Dan said.

He felt like he was an anchor trying to hold the pair of them back from their grandiose plans.

“How do you feel about that?” Tom asked looking over at his friend.

Dan laughed and said, “I don’t have the heart to tell them that I’m not interested in being a nationwide business. I just want to be little old Dan Parker who lives surrounded by friends and family.”

“What are you going to do?” Tom asked.

He was thinking that he was going to have to spend a little time working on managing Terry’s expectations. He’d seen the hunger in her to accomplish something significant. She looked at the chance to grow Dan’s business the same way that a fat woman looked at a chocolate cake.

“I don’t know,” Dan answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

He was thinking that once he grew the company large enough that he’d sell it to someone interested in growing it even further. He’d keep a nice little share in it, but he’d step out of the day to day running of it.

“Somehow that surprises me,” Tom said with a grin. Dan never let anything develop too long without making plans on how to deal with it. He leaned over and whispered, “You’re thinking of selling out when it gets too big, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Dan said fully aware that Tom knew him better than anyone.

“I don’t blame you,” Tom said. He looked over at Terry and said, “She’s going to be disappointed.”

“No she won’t,” Dan said. By the time he sold out, Terry would have come up with her own definition of happiness. She’d see selling the business as one more step along the way.

“You might be right. She might view it as a sign of her success.”

Wanting to change the subject away from his business, Dan looked over at where the women were talking. He asked, “How’s it going with Amanda and Terry?”

Tom smiled and said, “Great. Amanda has been spending three nights a week over at my house. Terry and I are getting along better than ever. We are actually talking about our relationship.”

“That is good,” Dan said with a nod of his head.

“Amanda’s mother and father have eased off on her significantly,” Tom said. He thought that Amanda’s talk with her father had been one of the main factors.

“That’s real good,” Dan said.

“How are things going for you?” Tom asked.

“I’ve been very busy. I hope that next week is a little better,” Dan answered. Betty had been devastated to learn that Pat was seriously ill. There had been almost an entire day of drama where Betty had raged against the unfairness of Pat’s illness and her lover’s attempt to spare her the heartache of watching her get ill. As far as Dan was concerned, listening as Betty expressed her anger and heartache had been worth it. At least he had gotten them back together again.

“Rough week?” Tom asked.

“The roughest week I’ve had since I graduated high school,” Dan said.

“You should have called me,” Tom said. It seemed to him that with everyone working that there just wasn’t much time for friends.

Shrugging his shoulders, Dan said, “It wasn’t so tough for me, but for everyone around me.”

Tom grinned and said, “I might not have been able to help much, but I could have brought over a root beer for you to drink.”

Dan laughed and slapped his friend on the back. He said, “I’ll remember that.”

“You’d better,” Tom said.

Looking over at the women in their lives, Dan said, “I think we should pay a little attention to the women.”

“You’re right. I’ve got a feeling that if we don’t get over there soon they’ll be throwing us in the lake,” Tom said.

“And the downside of that is...?” Dan asked with a grin.

“Hmm, that’s a good question,” Tom answered.

The pair burst out in laughter and headed over to their girlfriends.

Dan’s cell phone went off in the middle of the afternoon. He pulled it out and looked at the caller id.

Frowning, he answered the call, “This is Dan Parker.”

“This is the emergency management notification system. There is a large business building on fire in the downtown area. We’re activating the CERT teams. All CERT team members are to meet downtown, in the staging area at Main and Elm,” the recording said.

Dan closed his phone and shouted over to Ernie, “Ernie, I’ve got to run. You’re in charge until Sandy gets here.”

“Yes, Mr. Parker,” Ernie said staring at Dan in shock. He didn’t know if he could handle the pizzeria by himself.

Dan rushed out and headed to the corner of Main and Elm. The traffic wasn’t too bad until he got near the center of town. Cars were backed up for miles. He watched as a fire truck from a nearby town drove down the shoulder of the highway. Having gone through the CERT training, he knew that it wasn’t a good sign when they started calling in resources from nearby towns.

It took Dan almost forty minutes to reach the meeting point. There were only twenty people gathered there wearing the green helmets and vests that identified them as members of CERT. It was obvious to him that he wouldn’t be the last one to show up. Dan went around to the rear of his station wagon and pulled out his CERT bag. He put on his vest and hardhat. He turned around to find Eric standing there.

He said, “Hello, Eric. Sorry I’m late.”

“Traffic was murder. I just got here myself, and I wasn’t even that far away,” Eric said.

He thought it would have been a good idea if they’d been given lights or something to let them get around the traffic.

Dan asked, “What’s happening?”

“One of the business buildings caught fire three blocks over. They’re still evacuating people and trying to contain the fire. We’ve been asked to direct traffic away from the area,” Eric answered.

“Okay,” Dan said.

“Let’s get the team together and head over there. I’ve got our assignments from Captain Dawson,” Eric said.

Dan found himself in the middle of an intersection directing cars around the incident. Most of his time was spent explaining to angry drivers why they couldn’t go where they wanted. After getting asked the same questions over and over, he was beginning to get bored. Although the work wasn’t hard, it was hot and he was sweating up a storm.

He had been there for twenty minutes when Eric pulled up riding an ATV. One of the other CERT members, Daniel Goldberg, was riding on it with him. The young man stumbled off the ATV shaking his head.

Grinning over at Dan, Eric said, “Hello, Dan. Daniel is going to take your position for you. I need your help.”

Daniel backed away from the ATV shaking his head and said, “Better you than me. He drives like a madman.”

Dan laughed at the comment and said, “Okay.”

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” Eric said impatient at the delay.

As he got on the back of the rugged little vehicle’s seat behind Eric, Dan asked, “Where did you get this?”

“I was walking around to the various locations where our people are stationed, and saw a dealership. I bought it. I bought one for you, too,” Eric said with a shrug of his shoulders. It was his job to go around to where all of the CERT members were located and make sure that there weren’t any problems. With his people spread out over eight blocks, that had been tough.

“Why?” Dan asked as Eric opened the throttle on the ATV and it charged off in a roar. He had to grab Eric to keep from falling off the seat.