Fed Up - By Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant Page 0,19

his cell shut. “You ready?”

“Who was that?”

Josh waved a hand. “No one. Just work stuff. Oh, there’s the nurse who wants to see you.” Josh pointed to a fiftyish woman with a folder in her hand.

The nurse led me into a large room filled with medical equipment and lined with little curtained exam areas. When we reached the area assigned to me and she closed the curtains, I did my best to peek through the cracks to see whether I could see Marlee or Digger and find out how they were doing. Unfortunately, the hospital was all too effective in ensuring patient privacy—I couldn’t see anyone at all—but at least I didn’t hear any panicked calls for crash carts or loudspeaker announcements of emergency codes, so I assumed that Marlee and Digger were doing okay.

The nurse took my blood pressure and pulse, and shoved a thermometer in my mouth.“So, young lady, tell me what’s going on with you.” I didn’t like the accusatory tone in her voice. And how was I supposed to answer her with my mouth closed?

I made unintelligible sounds with my lips closed until she pulled the thermometer out. “I don’t think anything’s going on with me. But”—I started to whisper—“I was with the woman, Francie, when she died. I found her on the bathroom floor, and I, uh, I watched her take her . . . well, her last breath.”

The nurse squinted her eyes at me. “Her last breath?”

“Yes. I think I’m just unnerved.” At normal volume, I said, “I’m upset by the experience. Anyone would be! It was not a peaceful death. She looked like she was in a lot of pain.” I looked up at the nurse. “She is dead, right? I mean . . . we heard that Francie was dead.” As if the statement were somehow unclear, I said, “We heard that she’d died, but . . .”

The sour nurse stared at me before speaking. “Yes, the woman is dead.” She sat down on a stool with wheels and scooted next to me. “Tell me about this party you were at.”

“It wasn’t a party. Although it did have a celebratory feel at one point, I guess.” I briefly explained the concept of the show and told her about the food that Josh had made. “The food was really good, though. Well, except for the lamb, which tasted fine at first. But then later it tasted really bitter and strange. And that dreadful arugula pesto. Ugh.”

“So the lamb changed taste as the night went on?” She eyed me suspiciously

“I guess you could put it like that.”

“And what else did you people put into your bodies? You know, we can’t help you unless we know exactly what’s in your system, what it was that you took.”

“What I took was gnocchi and a bit of the lamb, some vegetables.”

“What substances?” She didn’t bother hiding her exasperation.

“I did not take any drugs! I don’t do drugs! I barely even drink anymore now that my best friend is pregnant. I’m supporting her by abstaining from alcohol during her pregnancy. And all the food was from Natural High.”

“Natural High, my ass,” the wretched nurse mumbled.

“The market called Natural High.”

I eventually convinced the nurse that no one had snorted, injected, inhaled, or otherwise taken or used anything except food, and I was allowed to leave.

Josh was in the waiting room. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Either I didn’t eat enough of whatever is making us sick, or it’s just my nerves that were making me queasy. I’m fine. You look better, too.”

“I am. I feel back to normal now. Well, as normal as I get,” he teased. He pulled me close for a tight hug. “I guess they’re keeping Marlee and Digger. I don’t know why exactly. It’s not clear if they are admitting them or not. They wanted to hook me up to an IV to rehydrate me, but I told them that was ridiculous. I’ll drink some water.”

I sighed. “Are you sure? There’s no reason to be stubborn about this.”

“Look, the last thing I feel like doing is lying down with a needle stuck in my arm all night. I just want to get out of here. I swear to you that I’m totally better.”

I didn’t get another chance to try to coerce Josh back into the exam room, because Robin’s voice began echoing through the room.

“I am not, I repeat, not a drug addict!” Robin stormed over to us. “Can you believe this crap? Some idiot back