Chapter 7

A nurse came into the room to check Jamie's IV. She said, "Just a couple of minutes," and sat down on the bottom of the bed, careful not to disturb the three girls.

"Did you know that Rita and Jamie have been taking the bus and walking for a couple of blocks in the dark to get home after Jamie's treatments?" John asked her.

"No Sir, I wasn't aware of that."

"We're taking them home tonight, but it bothers me that after tonight they'll be right back to walking home in the dark. I'd really appreciate it if you could ask around and get some volunteers to take them home after the rest of the treatments. What is it, Rita? Two or three left?

"Two. But really, we're fine. I don't want anybody going to a lot of trouble for us."

"It's no trouble at all, is it?" he said, looking back at the nurse.

"I guess I could ask around."

"There you go," he said, handing her one of his cards. "Call my office and let me know when you arrange something."

She shot him a look that made it clear she was aware that she'd been out-maneuvered but was willing to go along with him. I was beginning to understand how he was able to talk the hospital and the drug manufacturer into donating Jamie's treatments.

She checked the IV again and pulled the needle out of Jamie's arm, covering it with a piece of cotton and some tape.

"You OK, Hon?" she said to Jaimie.

"Uh huh. I'm fine." The way she bent her arm to hold the cotton against her bicep made it clear she been through all this before.

The nurse got ready to leave and John said, "What's your name?"

"Barbara."

"Thank you, Barbara. You'll be doing a good thing."

She glanced at Jamie, smiled and said, "I know."

After Barbara was gone, John said, "Billy, wasn't there something you wanted to ask your mother?"

He left his truck alone and crawled over to me on his knees and said "Uh huh." He held up a Sharpie, then looked at my cast, then in my eyes.

"I didn't know you knew how to write, Billy," I said.

"We've been practicing," John told me.

I've never seen my son concentrate so hard. It probably took him three or four minutes to write the five letters that made up his name. He was confused at first but John got down on his knees and put both hands on his shoulders, whispering about the one with the two balls, then Billy carefully drew something approximating a "B". John had to remind him to put the dot over the "I", which led to another demonstration of concentration. The two "L"s needed to be made taller and the "Y" ended up being a capital letter, all above the baseline. I don't think I've ever been prouder of him. I gave him a big hug and thanked him for being the first person to sign my cast.

Annette was up next. The tip of her tongue protruded out the side of her mouth as she wrote her name very neatly in cursive. I hadn't even known she could do that. She told me she'd been practicing at Jack and Jill's while I was out running errands.

Laurie also did a very good job. She told me her mommy taught her how to print her name but she'd learned how to do it in cursive while Mary was watching her during the day.

Jamie looked like she wanted to join in but was afraid to say anything.

"Would you like to sign my cast?"

Her eyes lit up and she said, "Yes, please." She printed her name very neatly.

After I thanked her, she turned to her grandmother. "Gran, could you teach me to do it the way Annette and Laurie do?"

"Sure, Honey."

"We'd better get going or they're going to charge us for the whole night," said John. He pushed my wheelchair back to the Emergency Room while Billy held my good hand. Jamie was in the middle of the other two, all three of them holding hands while Rita brought up the rear. When we got back to where we'd come in, John set the brake, said "Wait here while I go get the car," then went through the automatic doors and into the parking lot.

Of course, Billy had to imitate the "whiissh" of the doors as soon as they opened.

A minute later, the car pulled up and the doors whiisshed open again.

We had the appropriate seats for our three but there was nothing for Jamie. Rita ended up sitting in the back, her seat belt holding her to the seat and her arms holding Jamie to her.

John drove carefully around the hospital parking lot, then into another parking lot and up to the medical office building on the far side. With a "Hang on, I'll be right back," he took off and went to the front door. He entered a code in a keypad and went inside.

He came back a few minutes later with a car seat in his hand. He opened up Rita's door and Laurie said, "That's my old car seat."

"Yes, it is. Do you mind if we let Jamie use it?"

"Can we give it to her? I don't need it any more."

"I'll tell you what. Why don't I keep it for when Jamie goes someplace with us. Her grandma doesn't have a car so that means they don't really have a place for it."

Laurie agreed with the plan and John told Rita to get in the front. Soon, all four of them were safely buckled in the proper government mandated seats and we were on our way.

I ended up sitting next to John when Rita got in the front seat. I said, "That was rather impressive, the way you got Barbara to look for a ride for these two."

"Well, it was something that had to be done. I've got too much going on and I just couldn't take care of it myself."

"I don't think anyone can fault you. It seems to me you've done more than what anyone could expect."

"I know. But there's always more that can be done, no matter what it is. One thing about Barbara is that she's going to have an easier time of it than I would because she's a lot closer to the everyday hospital workers than I am. I'm either in my office in another building or in the delivery room."

"I never even thought of that."

"I'll let you in on another little secret. Every one of us in that hospital chose our careers because we wanted to help people. Things don't always go our way and that doesn't seem to happen as much as we'd like. I just threw a gift in her lap. Everybody there knows Jamie and they all care for her. Finding someone who's willing to give up an hour or so for her will be a piece of cake. Barbara and whoever she gets to take them home are going to win for once, accomplishing what they originally signed up for. It's no big deal but it's amazing how a little thing like that can improve your morale."

"Well," I said, "I guess Jill never stood a chance with you being so good at manipulating people."

He snickered. "You've got to be kidding. She taught me everything I know about manipulation. She's had me wrapped around her little finger since the first time I held her and she smiled at me. And she's been studying and improving ever since." He nodded toward the back seat with his head. "That one's going to be just as bad. I guess I'm just a sucker for blue-eyed blond little girls."

He flipped on his turn signal and waited for a few cars to pass, then made a left turn into a parking lot with a half dozen or so cars in it. He pulled into an empty space and said to everyone, "We're here."

We got out and worked on freeing the kids. Laurie and Annette were way ahead of us but Billy still had trouble getting out of his car seat. I was surprised when Jamie said she'd never been in one before and walked Rita through it so she knew what she was doing.

Once again the three girls held hands, each of them trying to guess where we were. Billy held onto my good hand and John walked with his arm around Rita's shoulders. It looked like he could crush her at any time. John's a big man. Not fat but what I would call beefy. He makes me feel small and Rita's a midget compared to me. I could tell she was enjoying the attention from him.

The girls got to the sidewalk and John said "To the left." All three of them just looked at him until I pointed left with my hot pink cast. We weren't far behind them. As Billy and I passed a big picture window with a neon sign that said ICE CREAM ANNEX, the girls were standing in front of the big glass door, waiting for further instructions.

"Go on in," John told them.

That was easier said than done. Even with all three of them pushing on it, the door only moved a couple of inches. By the time I got up to them, John had caught up with us and had his arm over my shoulder. All of us followed the motion of the door as it swung into the store.

We were greeted by a girl about Jack's age, dressed as a milk maid. White dress, white apron and a white hat. The hat fit over her head but looked to have about one and a half times as much brim as it needed, giving it a wavy effect. Both her arms were wrapped around a stack of menus. Bright red hair spilled out over her shoulders which I'm sure were as covered in freckles as her face.

She looked us over and said, "Welcome to the Ice Cream Annex. I've got just the table for you folks."

I looked around the place as we walked to our table. There was a decent crowd, ranging from a couple of teens on a date to a group of kids, probably a church youth group or something like that to a family and a couple that was probably retired. There was also a room with a sign over the door that said "Banquets & Parties" and I could see some movement inside.

She led us to a booth and put the menus on the table, then slid the table to the right until it was against the other bench. The left side bench was quite a bit narrower and a lot higher than normal.

"I think we can fit all the little ones up here," she said.

"I'm sure we can," said John. He helped all four of them get up on the tall seat as the hostess got four plastic bibs with the store's name and a picture of a punchbowl filled with scoops of ice cream and a variety of toppings, fruits and candies. She gave them to John and he handed a couple to me and one to Rita. The bibs were large enough so that the bottoms reached past the kids' laps, covering them completely. I found out just how difficult it is to tie something when you just have your fingertips to work with on one hand. John took my second bib and put it on Annette.

In the meantime, our hostess had gotten a couple of clear plastic shoe box sized boxes, filled with crayons. She put them and a stack of coloring book pages on the far side of the table from the kids. Then she handed me a stack of postcards. "Fill one of these out for each of the children and they'll get a free ice cream on their birthday."

She started to move the table back towards the kids and John dove in to help her out. The bench was perfect. It was narrow enough so they were close to the table and their legs could hang over the edge naturally and it was high enough for them to reach the table.

The hostess said, "My name's Wendy. Can I get you anything to drink?"

We ordered a pitcher of punch for the kids and me and coffee for John and Rita.

"Thank you. I'll be back with your drinks in a minute."

She headed toward the back and I reached for the menus. John put his hand over mine and looked across the table.

"What do you think, kids? You want to see if we can finish one of those?" he said, pointing at the picture on Laurie's bib.

We got a chorus of Yeahs.

He pushed the two boxes of crayons across the table, then spread out the stack of pictures so the kids could chose the ones they wanted to color. They were all based on the store we were in, from the picture on the bibs to the front window with the name on it, a family sitting at a table, all eating ice cream, and a crew of four people dressed in costume carrying a big bowl in a harness between a couple of poles that they had over their shoulders. I noticed that at the top of each page it said "Put this on your refrigerator," and it had the name, address and phone number of the store at the bottom of the page.

Very clever. Billy would ask what that said and the girls would probably sound out the words. It would be taken as an order by all of them and they'd beg to have their picture put on the refrigerator, leaving an advertisement at eye level 24/7, right where people went when they had the munchies.

Wendy came back with our drinks and started pouring punch.

John said, "Wendy, is your last name Billings?"

She looked at him and said, "Yes, it is. Do I know you?"

"I'm John O'Hara. I delivered your brother Justin."

"Really! I know my father will want to come say hello to you. He's kind of busy now, working the kitchen."

"No rush. I would like to see him before we leave, though. Just long enough to say Hi."

"I'll tell him. One of our waiters didn't come in tonight so I'll have to be your waitress as well as your hostess. Do you know what you want?"

He pointed to Laurie's bib. "Is that the Monster?"

"Yeah, it is. But I'm afraid that's a little big for you. We had a group of three high school football players and their dates in earlier today and they couldn't finish one."

"I'm assuming we could take home anything we couldn't finish."

"Of course."

"OK. Let's give it a shot."

"OK. One Monster and seven bowls. They take some time to put together. There's a lot of stuff in one of them."

"That's fine."

She left and I said, "I've never heard of this place."

"It's been here seven or eight months. The husband of one of my patients got tired of the corporate world and decided to open this place. He used to love going to an ice cream parlor called "Farrell's" when he was in high school. They had all these weird sundaes from two or three scoops up to one with close to fifty. When someone ordered a big one, they made a big production about it, playing loud drums and a siren when they delivered it to the table. They had some song they'd sing about what a pig the person who ordered it was. If you could finish one all by yourself, you got it free. They didn't have to give away a lot of ice cream..."

"What happened to them?"

"Farrell's? They sold out to some big corporation. Of course, the guys who took over knew better about how to run it and ran it into the ground. They just couldn't leave a successful franchise alone, they had to screw with it."

We were interrupted by an "Ahooga, ahooga" over the PA system, followed by a clanging bell, like you'd hear on an old fashioned fire engine. Four people ran all around the restaurant, similar to the picture, with poles over their shoulders and a big bowl suspended between the poles. The two women were dressed like Wendy while the two men had white pants, white shirts with brown armbands around their biceps and white hats that a motorman would wear in the early twentieth century. They chanted "Monster, Monster, every bite is yummy. Monster, Monster, don't upset your tummy." They ended up at a table with a guy who looked like a lineman on a high school football team, letterman's jacket and all and plopped it down in front of him, chanting "Here's your Monnnssster." He was all smiles; his date was covering her face with both hands. One of the waitresses touched her on the shoulder and said, "I'll be right back with your banana split."

John said, "That's what we're getting."

Annette turned back to the table. "That's not so big," she said.

One of the men broke away from the others and walked toward us. Now that I had my attention on him, I could see he was a lot older than the rest of the group that delivered the ice cream. I could also tell he was Wendy's father by the red hair and freckles.

He held his hand out as he got close and said, "John, how are you?"

John stood up and shook his hand. "I'm doing fine, Burt. How's business?"

"We're doing OK. Could do better, of course. It's tough to find the right way of getting your name out there. Once we get someone in here, they'll be back. It may be only once a year for the kid's birthday, though."

I said, "I notice you don't have a web address on your coloring pages."

"I've thought of using the Internet but I'm not sure what I'd do. Lord knows the phone book isn't bringing in what our ad cost us."

I held out my hand and he shook it. "My name's Myra. I work for John's daughter. She's just starting a web page design business. She's got some creative ideas and I know she wouldn't sign you up unless she thought she could make you money,"

"I'm always willing to talk with someone." He grabbed one of the coloring pages the kids hadn't gotten to yet and wrote his name and a phone number on the back. "That's my cell phone. Have her give me a call and I'll see what she has to say."