“So, the girl below you was keeping you and your roommate up all night by singing at the top of her lungs?” Gifford asked Joni when he and Joe were barbecuing one day in the back of Nadirah and Joni’s house.
“She sure was,” Joni replied.
“This was when you had an apartment in Hartford?” Joe asked.
“Yup. She was on the third floor, and we were on the fourth. There were no windows within reach of anyone outside at this place. So, my roommate and I opened our kitchen window, pulled the screen out, and dangled a bottle from a string to knock on her window with. It freaked her out, alright.”
Nadirah sat on the back stoop with one of those “that’s-something-you-would-do” looks, though she was just as amused as the others.
“We heard her screaming, ‘Oh my God, someone’s knocking on my window! How can that be!’”
Gifford and Joe laughed loudly.
“I live on the third freaking floor, and someone’s knocking on my window!” Joni mocked.
“I’ll bet that put a stop to her late-night gigs,” said Gifford, still laughing.
“You bet it did.”
“I’m glad we live in a house,” Nadirah said.
“Me too,” Joni said, sitting on the stoop next to Nadirah, who gathered her into her arms lovingly.
“Wow. I never thought I’d see you two so affectionate,” said Gifford.
“Me neither,” Joni and Nadirah both said in unison. Then they laughed and kissed each other on the lips.
“Troublemaker just needs to keep staying out of trouble,” said Nadirah.
“I was going to say,” said Joe, “you sure you want to have babies with this little devil?”
Joni glanced from Nadirah to Gifford and back again. “Who said we were having babies?”
“She said she’s been thinking of having one with you,” said Gifford.
“Well, you’re fifteen years too late, boss. The older I get, the more I fancy my freedom.”
“Aw, dang!” Gifford said to Nadirah. “Isn’t it a shame things didn’t work out the first time around?”
Nadirah suddenly seemed slightly bummed out, and Joni wasn’t sure how to react.
They spent the next few hours of the humid but pleasantly warm afternoon eating burgers, dogs, and chips, and talking about work, friends, music, and whatever else came to mind. On and off, Joni would be sure to do things to get a rise out of Nadirah.
They began to argue over Joni’s hair when they went inside to get some more soda for Joni and beer for the others.
“I don’t care. Right now, I don’t want to hear that my hair’s too damn long, nobody needs so much hair on their head anyway, and you’re tired of me yelling at you at night every time you lay on it. I just don’t want to hear it right now!” Joni shouted, running out the back door with something in her hand and Nadirah close on her heels.
Gifford and Joe laughed. “What is she, high on drugs all of a sudden?”
“No,” Nadirah said with a quick, matter-of-fact smile. “Just high on PMS. Now, gimme my damn cookies, Joni.”
Joni took off giggling, thirty inches of unruly curls fluttering in the breeze behind her as she ran, with Nadirah close behind.
“I’m faster than you!” Joni called back over her shoulder as Nadirah chased her around the small house twice, Gifford and Joe laughing up a storm.
“And I’m stronger than you!” Nadirah said, finally catching Joni, who gave a startled yet playful squeal. With one arm holding her snugly around the waist, Nadirah took the cookies back with her free hand.
“Aw, she gotcha,” Gifford teased.
Nadirah sat back on the stoop, opened the package, and started munching on a cookie while Joni wished they could be alone long enough for Nadirah to get her between the sheets, too.
“I still think Rapunzel here should cut a good foot or two off her hair,” Joe said. “What do you think, Giff?”
Gifford looked at Joni thoughtfully. “I don’t know.”
“It makes for a good leash when it’s in a braid,” Nadirah said, drawing another round of laughter from Gifford and his partner. “We were at the fair the other day, and she kept getting distracted and wanting to wander off and get lost, so I wrapped the end around my wrist to keep her in tow. The fairgoers got a real kick out of it.”
Proving that she was indeed the faster one, Joni quickly snatched the bag of cookies away from Nadirah and once again took off running.
But Nadirah eventually caught her again, too.
Joni knocked on the bathroom door again.
“Joni, will you just get out of here and wait!”
“But you’ve been in there so long. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine for the thousandth time. Now go away.”
Joni went into the other room and sat on the bed. Then she jumped back up and ran to Nadirah when she finally heard her emerge from the bathroom. Nadirah appeared to have been eating and was swallowing the last of the food.
“You were in there eating all this time?” Joni asked.
“Yes. Now get into bed.”
Joni hopped into bed, and Nadirah came around to the other side to join her.
“But why?”
“Because the doctor said no eating after midnight on surgery day, and I didn’t want to tempt you.”
“Oh, that’s sweet of you,” said Joni, hugging Nadirah after she turned the lights out, “but I’m not hungry.”
They lay quietly in each other’s arms for a few minutes, and then Nadirah asked, “Are you nervous?”
“No. Why should I be?”
Joni heard Nadirah snort.
“I’m going to be out cold, so there’s no reason to be scared. I ain’t gonna have an ounce of awareness as to what’s going on.”
“No, but you will when you wake up.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be there for me,” Joni said.
“Of course I will be, but this is going to be a little different than the kind of surgery you had before. I’m just not sure you realize it.”
“Well, of course I realize it, since they’ll be working on the inside this time and not the outside.”
“Can you hear something like the wall clock tick when you’re lying on your good ear?”
“No.”
They kissed again, then Nadirah said, “Let’s get some sleep now. We’ve only got a few hours before we have to be at the hospital.”
A few hours later, Nadirah was driving a tired and cranky but still amazingly calm Joni to the hospital. The sun was just becoming visible. Nadirah parked the car in the long-term parking area of the hospital.
“You’re not going to take off somewhere for a while? I’m going to be under for three hours,” Joni reminded her.
“Nope,” Nadirah said with a smile as she put the car in park. “I’m going to be in there waiting for you the whole time.”
“Aw, you’re so sweet,” Joni said.
“Really? I thought I was a bitch.”
“That too.”
They laughed and walked hand in hand toward the out-patient section.
“I must admit you’re a brave one, Joni.”
“I thought I was crazy.”
“That too.”
They laughed again.
“I can’t believe that in a few hours, I’m going to walk out of here with an ear canal and possibly in stereo, too.”
Nadirah glanced at Joni and found her expression had become more serious and her eyes watery. “It’s getting real now, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Joni said, unable to keep her voice steady.
“It’s okay; I’m here with you,” Nadirah said cheerfully, placing an arm around Joni.
Once at the reception station, the woman asked Nadirah if Joni was her little friend.
“No, she’s my little wife,” Nadirah answered, not caring who heard her and what they thought about it.
They filled out the necessary paperwork and sat in the waiting area. Eventually, Doctor Hylan, dressed in hospital scrubs, came out to see them. “How are you this morning?” he asked.
“Okay,” said Joni.
“The surgical nurse will be out to get you soon. When you’re asleep, Dr. Jones is going to step in first to dismantle the frame as we discussed earlier, and then I’ll take over from there.” He then turned to Nadirah and said, “Would you like to be with her when she’s being prepped for surgery and put to sleep?”
Joni blinked with surprise. “You mean she can do that?”
“Sure,” said Dr. Hylan. “She can’t be in the operating room with you, but she can be in the preparation area and also the recovery area so that she can be there for you when you wake up.”
“Wow,” said Joni. “All this used to be done in the operating room.”
“Yes, but times have changed, fortunately.”
Joni turned to Nadirah. “Want to accompany me to the Land of the Unconscious, boss?”
The doctor laughed at her nickname for Nadirah.
“Sure, why not,” said Nadirah, exchanging amused smiles with the doctor.
“Okay, then, anything else?”
“No,” said both Joni and Nadirah.
“See you in a bit,” said the doctor.
Nadirah and Joni waited hand in hand, still not caring what others thought, though no one paid them much attention. They had their own surgery and loved ones to contend with.
Finally, a nurse who appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties came to fetch them. “It’s time,” she said with a smile. “Ready to go?”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” said Joni.
They were brought to an area that looked much like a hospital room where curtains could be drawn around the beds for privacy.
“I’ll leave you to get changed and will be back in a few minutes,” said the nurse.
“Okay,” said Joni, undressing and then putting on the hospital gown that was folded and sitting on the bed.
After Joni’s vitals were taken and she was hooked to an IV, the nurse pulled Nadirah aside while Joni spoke to the doctor and said, “It’s always good to distract them right as they’re being put out. That’s usually when even the bravest ones are hit with the ‘this-is-it’ syndrome.”
“Oh, okay,” said Nadirah.
“She’s only got about three seconds from the time you see me pull the plunger on the syringe I’ll be injecting into the IV.”
“Okay,” Nadirah said, getting a touch of the reality syndrome herself.
The nurse approached Joni’s left side and began to fill a syringe that she inserted into a bottle.
Nadirah was on her right side. “Now looky here, troublemaker.”
Joni looked up at Nadirah and smiled lovingly. “Thanks for being with me.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Nadirah saw the nurse raise the syringe upward to a certain point in the IV line.
“I told you I would be, didn’t I?”
The nurse looked at Nadirah and gave a slight nod as her thumb began to depress the syringe, slowly, slowly, slowly…”
“And I’ll be there when you wake up, too.”
“I love you, Nadirah, and…” She blinked once and then twice before her eyes closed.
Nadirah stepped back and watched as what was now a small team of nurses buzzed around Joni. Her eyes hadn’t fully closed, but one nurse gently reached out and shut them all the way. A tube was inserted into her mouth, wires were strapped to her chest, and her arms were strapped to her sides.
“This is just to guard against any sudden and unexpected muscle spasms that could interfere with the procedure,” a nurse said reassuringly before Joni was wheeled to the operating room.
Nadirah simply gave a quick nod. She was somewhat dazed. It wasn’t every day that she saw someone rendered unconscious in a matter of seconds.
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