Looking for Flowers Among the Bees

Kelly sat cross-legged at the coffee table staring at the black print of her overweight Pediatrics book. She’d read the same sentence at least twenty times and every time she reached necrotizing enterocolitis, her mind skittered off into a flight of ideas that would put a psychotic to shame. The word necrotizing made her think of necktie; the one she would like to wrap around her professor’s mouth for making this impossible reading assignment of three chapters in one night. And thinking of night, made her wonder what her two children upstairs supposedly doing their homework but suspiciously quiet for the last half hour were doing. No doubt they had discovered a new way of ordering online and soon the doorbell would ring and some UPS truck would be parked outside bearing a whole new set of funky clothes that a ten year old and a thirteen year old would die for. The imaginary doorbell reminded Kelly that her separated husband had not dropped off a check this month and she needed to go shopping tomorrow. And of course the primary thought that kept jumping into her head like a berserk jack-in-the-box, was the face of her friendly physician telling her this morning she was pregnant. It occurred to Kelly that the biggest drawback in her life right now was her inability to be all things to all people. She would settle for just being one thing to one person. She grimaced and wondered what incredible error in judgment had made her think she could go back to college and raise her children by herself without turning into a model for “The Scream” and spending the next two years of her life locked away in a psychiatric facility beating her head against a concrete wall. Actually, that last part sounded pretty good right now. The headache that had been with her since her doctor had told her she was pregnant, had refused to disappear, and maybe a good head beating would do the trick. She closed her college textbook and sat back, thinking about the emotional day she had spent. After leaving her doctor’s office in the morning she had been in a stunned state and she had sat through her twelve-noon class, remembering not one word of the lecture. Then she had spent the afternoon with Dan, her new, very occasional love interest for the last few months. Was it really only six hours ago she had been standing naked and nervous at the window of a dark motel room, staring at Dan who was calmly sleeping amid the disheveled sheets? Kelly carefully replayed the afternoon in her mind again. She remembered standing by the window with her anxiety so evident she was positive her hair was standing straight up all over her head and her eyes looked like a fawn caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler. And had she, in her nervousness, really discussed intravenous dosing in children, right after they had made love? The emotional havoc that had been clattering around in her head had been so loud; she wondered how Dan could miss it. And she was about to drop the bomb of her pregnancy on his post-coital tranquility. She had an idea he would not be clapping his hands in joy. Kelly remembered sighing and deciding right then if she ever wrote a book about her life, it would start far removed from anxiety-ridden motel rooms. Kelly had pushed at the drapes of the motel window worrying about how to broach the subject of her pregnancy with Dan. She watched a slim triangle of light break around the blackout curtains. Why did they hang blackout curtains? Were the motel owners expecting a war on the beach, she wondered? She felt like yanking them down in frustration. Or maybe she would just chew and claw on them until they were shredded. Through the opening of the drapes, she could see the hot Florida sun shimmering off the concrete walk that separated the motel from the sprawling expanse of beach. She glanced to the south and could just make out the skyline of the glitzy Miami Beach hotels, mostly empty now of tourists on this bright October afternoon. Why wasn’t she anyplace else but here? Kelly let the curtain drop out of her hand. The sliver of light disappeared, and she turned back to the king size bed intruding over the carpet. Yes, she thought distractedly, she would write a bestseller that would have people would flocking into stores to buy; a gutsy book about a tough little dandelion growing up in a ghetto corner of a meadow. Kelly wondered if she looked as awkward and clumsy as she felt, standing with her arms folded tightly around her, trying to achieve an air of casualness before she woke Dan. She kept trying to unlock her arms, but perversely they refused to obey the signals she was sending. She had difficulty keeping her body still, much less keeping her mind from jumping around. For someone newly struggling to become a self-assured independent female, she figured she was a panicky failure today. Just say it, Kelly had commanded herself. "Dan?" Kelly began, as she edged to the bed,” Dan, wake up, okay?” "Mmmmm?" One hand reached out and absently patted Kelly's thigh, while a cigarette was lit with the other hand. The smoke momentarily distracted Kelly. Another persistent irritant, she thought, in their very volatile relationship. Kelly didn't smoke.