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Julia counted the minutes until the day was over, desperate to fall into some normalcy. She wanted the silly conversation, the inconsequential laughter over a joke that was never that funny. She wanted to hear about everything she missed and allow all of her worries to disappear behind a glass of cheap wine and bad Chinese food, just like they used to do after a hard Monday so many years ago.
They left work together and picked up dinner on the way home. They bought grocery store wine, just like they had when they were still professionally green and broke. They blared Adele over the stereo in the car, windows rolled down even though the breeze was frigid and tangling their hair. They shouted the lyrics and laughed until their stomach hurt, amused tears being wiped by damp jacket sleeves.
Once home, they each put on a pair of Julia’s sweatpants and sat on the floor around the coffee table. A Christmas Hallmark movie, way out of season, in the background as they ate with plastic forks.
“So, what was really going on?” Keegan asked, gurgling through a mouthful of beef lo mein. She twisted more noodles onto her fork and dropped them into her mouth from above. So graceful.
“I haven’t been feeling well,” Julia said once again, “honestly.”
“What triggered it?”
“I can’t just wake up one morning and not feel like?”
“Your appendix, Julia,” she argued sternly, “almost burst inside you and after being cut open, you still showed up. No, you don’t just wake up and say you’re not feeling well and call into work.” She picked up her wine and took a sip. “Ah!” she choked, coughing on the liquid. “I don’t know how we used to drink this.”
“Doesn’t it bring you back?” Julia laughed, wincing at the awful sweetness as she took a sip of her own. She paused for a moment, and let Keegan compose herself. “I found a lump under my breast.”
Keegan dropped her fork full of soggy beef to the carpet.
“Shit!” She reached for a napkin and began damage control.
“It’s okay,” Julia said, casually walking to the sink to wet a cloth. “I’ll scrub it later.”
“No, it’s not okay!” Keegan scrubbed furiously at the fluffy rug, her napkin disintegrating the harder she rubbed. Julia sat back down next to her and placed a hand over hers.
“I’ll get it later.”
“Well,” she said abruptly, whipping her head around, “did they say what it was? What’s the plan? When is the next appointment so I can get time off approved? Well, that should be easy since you’re the one who has to approve it. We need to–”
“Keegs, you’re rambling,” Julia smirked.
Anytime Keegan was nervous, which wasn’t often, she would talk and talk until there was no silence left to fill.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m still waiting to hear back about whether it is anything at all.”
“When did this all happen?” she asked, pushing her food far across the table and gulping the rest of her wine.
“This weekend,” Julia shrugged. “I had the imaging done Monday, and now it is just the waiting game.”
“That’s not right!” Keegan reached for the bottle and slopped more into her glass, almost staining another part of the rug. “They can’t just leave you in the dark about something like this! And you didn’t tell me? It’s been that long, and you didn’t tell me? How could you keep this from me?”
“There are a lot of people with a lot of different medical needs,” Julia said very diplomatically. “So, it may take a little time. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Julia wished she believed that last part, but something inside her was setting her up for bad news. Something inside her was telling her it wasn’t nothing.
“I don’t know why you kept this from me.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Julia apologetically pulled her hand to her forehead. “I just didn’t want to worry you over a little scare. It could come back as nothing, and then there would’ve been no need for alarm.”
“But even if it is nothing, you should have someone with you. Did you call anyone?”
“Who would I call?” Julia laughed. “You’re my person.”
“As much as I love to hear that,” she grinned, “there are other people who love you.”
“Like?”
