leather chairs that stood beside the treatment lounges. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that could be done to beautify an IV pole. Looking in any direction reminded you of precisely why you were there.
It was just before Christmas, but the room wasn’t decorated. The only signs of the holidays were the red Santa Claus hat worn by the gum-popping duty nurse who kept watch from a desk in the corner and the blinking Christmas tree pin on the collar of Barbara Jean’s yellow hospital volunteer smock.
Barbara Jean wore her smock even though she wasn’t working that day. There was a limit of one visitor per patient during chemo, so Barbara Jean wore her volunteer outfit to look official enough to get around the rule. Clarice sometimes borrowed the smock from Barbara Jean so she could visit along with James on the days he came with Odette.
To pass the time that morning and to distract Odette during her treatment, Clarice showed the other Supremes the twelve fabric swatches Veronica had dropped off at her house the previous evening. Veronica had begged and flattered Clarice into agreeing to assist her in planning Sharon’s wedding, and she had given Clarice a list of tedious chores to perform. In spite of herself and in spite of Veronica, Clarice found that she was pleased to have this wedding-related work to do. She needed as many diversions as possible to keep her from dwelling on Odette’s health and Richmond’s errant penis. And there were only so many hours a day she could practice the piano before her knuckles complained. Her latest job was to submit her written opinion on each of the fabric swatches Veronica had brought to her. Every single one of the swatches was a subtly different shade of green crushed velvet.
Clarice said, “I’m supposed to help choose the material for the bridesmaids’ dresses from these. Can you imagine? Wrapping up Veronica’s unfortunate-looking daughters in any of these fabrics is just plain cruel. And green is Veronica’s favorite color, by the way, not Sharon’s. Sharon wanted peach, but Veronica told her nobody could tell the difference between peach and pink, so it would look like just a run-of-the-mill pink wedding. Veronica decided the wedding would be green and white, and that was that.”
Odette and Barbara Jean agreed that slapping green crushed velvet on the homeliest girls in town was an insane notion. Barbara Jean pronounced it “child abuse” and Odette, enjoying her curious-bystander-to-a-highway-pileup role, said, “I can’t wait for that wedding.” Even the duty nurse, who had been pretending not to listen in, stared at the swatches as Clarice waved them in the air. She stopped chomping her gum long enough to mouth “Pitiful.”
Clarice explained that she had to get the fabric judging out of the way quickly in order to concentrate on a more complicated chore. She was supposed to find a flock of white doves to be released as Sharon walked down the aisle.
“Veronica saw it on TV and now she just has to have it. Have you any idea how hard it is to find trained white doves? And of course it’s all because I had that bubble machine at Carolyn’s wedding. Everything’s like that with Veronica. Carolyn had bubbles; Sharon has to have white doves. Carolyn had a broom-jumping; Sharon’s going to have laser lights that spell out ‘Clifton and Sharon’ above their heads during the ceremony and then switch to read ‘Hallelujah!’ when they’re pronounced husband and wife.”
Barbara Jean said, “Lasers? Really? You’d think she’d want to steer away from special effects after that Easter pageant went so wrong.”
“I guess she feels like she’s safe since there are no plans for any of the wedding party to fly through the air. Not yet, at least.”
They were laughing so loudly at the memory of poor Reverend Biggs hovering in the rafters of First Baptist that they just barely heard the hiss of the automatic door to the infusion room announcing that someone had entered. Odette looked up and smiled. Barbara Jean and Clarice turned around and saw Chick Carlson.
Chick wore a tan overcoat with a university ID clipped to the collar. He lifted the ID in the direction of the nurse when she approached him to ask who he was there to see, and she nodded at him and let him pass. He walked toward the Supremes until he stood at the foot of Odette’s lounge. He said, “Hey, everybody,” greeting them as if it were just another day at the