That should have been a fun party, but mostly I remembered ditching my full cup of beer on Lacie’s kitchen counter and leaving early, torque wrench dragging behind me. Yeah, that was right around the time that I had started to feel…wrong. Sick and weird.
I hadn’t drunk at the Friends-giving I’d attended at Eden and Jill’s condo, either. We’d had butternut squash squished into the vague shape of a turkey and a lot of bottles of pinot gris, courtesy of me and my job at the winery, but I hadn’t drunk it. The thought of wine had turned my stomach almost as much as the vegan brussels sprout kimchi that Eden had proudly served, right next to my plate. The smell of that dish had put me over the edge: first, I’d thrown up in their bathroom, and then later, I had fallen asleep on their couch while the party raged on. It was right in the middle of a game of strip Monopoly, too, and I had only removed my pants. In my defense, the game had been going on forever.
Christmas had also been dry for me. I had told my one remaining family member, Ellie, that I was spending it with a big group of people, but really, I didn’t want to deal with anyone after the bad Friends-giving. My roommates had gone off with their own families, and I had put on my warmest, ugliest PJs, curled up on the couch, and watched an endless stream of holiday movies while eating microwaved macaroni and cheese topped with honey and a little Worcestershire. Really, it hadn’t been the merriest thing I’d ever done. Probably not even in the top 100.
The door to the winery creaked open behind me. “There’s no one out here. Come on!” I heard a woman giggle, and I stepped out of the way, back to hide in the shadow of the overhanging eaves. “But it’s freezing,” she continued.
“Here, take my coat. I’ll keep you warm,” a man answered her. A couple stepped out into the night with me, the snow crunching under their party shoes. He wrapped his tuxedo jacket around her and they snuggled together in the moonlight.
“Marta?” he asked, and she tilted up her head to look into his eyes.
“Yes?” she answered, and waited. I waited, too. If he had brought her out here to break up with her as his first act of the new year, then he was a gigantic douche.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you for a few weeks…” he went on.
What? Spit it out! Oops, I had almost said that out loud.
He looked her in the eyes. “Marta, I love you. I want to be with you always.”
“Oh, Dax, I love you, too!” she said, her voice shaking with emotion.
Wow, this was tough to watch. Run, and run fast, I wanted to tell her. Go, now!
“My darling…”
“My love!”
“Marta!”
“Dax!”
They made out. Loudly, complete with gasps and moans and more “darlings” and “my loves.”
I watched, kind of interested, but…uh oh. “Excuse me, sorry to ruin your moment,” I said, and rushed out of the shadows to lean over the railing. Then I puked off the edge of the deck into the snow where I’d poured my sparkling wine.
∞
“Camdyn Riordan?” A woman put her head in the doorway and smiled at me. “Hi, I’m Dr. Arztin.” She stuck out her hand for me to shake. “Camdyn is an unusual name.”
I nodded, waiting for the inevitable inquiry.
“Are you from Baltimore?” she asked.
And there it was. “No, and I don’t have relatives there, and no one in my family is a baseball fan,” I said, to stave off any more of the follow-up questions that I usually got. My mom had heard the name “Camden Yards,” the baseball stadium, on TV when she was in labor and waiting to check in to give birth to me. It had struck her fancy, and since she hadn’t come up with any names before arriving at the hospital, she had gone with Camdyn. Soleil, my mom, had never been much of a planner.
Dr. Arztin nodded pleasantly at my explanations. “How can I help you today?” she asked, and sat on a stool in front of a computer.
The paper covering the examination table crinkled under my butt as I shifted, automatically putting my hands over my stomach. “I’ve been feeling nauseated. Sick. I can’t keep food down and also I’m tired, like, really, really tired.”
“Ok.” She typed. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since at least October.” I tried to pin down the exact moment in my mind, but all I had were a bunch of confused memories of puke. I put my hand over my mouth.
“Here you go,” the doctor said quickly, and handed me a plastic bin. I breathed in and out and fought it off.
“It really started to come on around Halloween,” I told her. “And I feel like crap.”
She asked me more questions, things about my symptoms and about my medical history. “It’s January,” she said, glancing at what she had typed on her screen. “You’ve been dealing with this for a long time. What made you come in today?”
“My boss is freaking out about me always hanging out in the bathroom,” I explained. “Also, I started to get worried. Soleil—my mom—died of cancer. I was afraid that I might have it, too.”
“You didn’t mention that on the intake forms about
