Ashley Bell - Dean Koontz

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recent assignment had been to choose someone in the writing program, student or instructor, someone you knew but whose residence—whether dorm room or apartment or home—you had never visited, and then to create as vividly as possible a credible living environment that grew from what you had observed about that person.

      “But, Dr. St. Croix, you put yourself forward as a subject.”

      “And you know perfectly well it’s not what you’ve written that is outrageous. It’s what you’ve done.”

      “I don’t understand. What have I done?”

      Bibi recoiled when she saw that her claim of puzzlement angered Solange St. Croix beyond all reason. The woman’s posture was that of righteous indignation. Something worse than vexation and barely less than wrath drew her face into leaner lines.

      “What you think is clever, Miss Blair, is only low cunning. I have no patience for you. I won’t dignify your behavior by discussing it.” Her face flushed, and she seemed no less embarrassed than she was furious. “If you don’t drop out, I will see that you’re expelled, which will complicate any academic future you may have and be a stain on you as a writer, in the unlikely event you have a future as one.”

      Even then, people didn’t push Bibi around without consequences. She stood up for herself when she was in the right. She leaned in to trouble. She was likewise practical, however, and she knew that she was outgunned in this inexplicable conflict. If she stayed, she would be struggling forward with a sworn enemy who was the founder of the writing program. She had no future here. Besides, while it was true that she had learned much in the past few months, it was also true that she entertained serious doubts about the program.

      When Bibi reached for her manuscript, Solange St. Croix drew it back. “This is my evidence. Now get out.”

      Beyond the hospital window, the seagulls sailed westward in a loose formation and out of sight.

      Bibi didn’t know why the birds triggered the memory of Dr. St. Croix instead of recalling to mind one of the hundreds of memorable experiences she’d had involving surfing and the beach, where gulls were omnipresent. Unless perhaps it was blind hope that had made the link between then and now. Leaving the writing program had turned out to be a good thing, had led to her becoming a published author much faster than otherwise would have been the case. And so perhaps death from brain cancer was no more inevitable than had been the ruination of her writing career.

      That made a kind of sense. But she knew intuitively that it was not the correct explanation.

      She never had figured out what had so incensed the professor. And now she wondered if the offense of which she had never been properly accused was in some mysterious way related to the death by brain cancer that she now faced.

       17

       In the Hours Before the Crisis

      BIBI WAS SITTING ON THE EDGE OF HER BED, making a list in the spiral-bound notebook, when her parents arrived with the intention of lifting her spirits as best they could, although they did not succeed in this. The moment that they walked through the door, the stricken look in their eyes was poorly synchronized with their smiles.

      They didn’t fail her; they never could. Only she could keep her spirits up. Anyway, she wasn’t depressed, certainly not despairing. She didn’t have time for that. Or the inclination. Even as grim as it sounded, her prognosis was a challenge, and the only reasonable way to respond to a challenge was to rise to it.

      She was still the girl whose mind was always spinning, and now it spun out tasks for her mother, which she added to the list in the notebook. “They’re keeping me here until tomorrow, maybe even till the day after. Dr. Chandra needs to do a few more tests to plan a course of chemo and radiation. The choice is mine, and I’m going to fight. I need you to go to my apartment, bring my laptop. I’m going to research the crap out of this. I need changes of underwear. And socks. My feet get cold. Some of my nice soft towels. The ones here are scratchy. And all my vitamins. My iPod with the headphones. I’ll have to use headphones in here.” Because she maintained a post-office box, she needed her mail to be collected and brought to her. She described a few other errands as she appended them to the list, and then she tore off two pages and handed them to her mother.

      Grateful to have something to do other than dwell on his daughter’s situation, Murphy said, “We’ll split up the work, Nancy. You take the apartment stuff. I’ll do the other running around.”

      Bibi said, “No, Dad. Let Mom take care of it. You get back to business.”

      He looked perplexed, as if he had forgotten that he was anything other than her father. “What business?”

      “The one Pogo is this very minute running into the ground.”

      He shook his head. “But I can’t—”

      “You can. You must. If I’m going to devote all my time to this battle, I won’t be writing. My income will dry up. Mom’s commissions will probably go to hell while we’re fighting this. You’ll have to support me as if I were ten years old again. You have to, Daddy.”

      Hugs and kisses. Declarations of love. Clumsily expressed covenants to face the future together with resolution, to win in spite of the terrible odds. And then her parents were gone.

      After using the bathroom, while washing her hands at the sink, Bibi studied her reflection in the mirror—until her vision blurred and one face became two, smeary and distorted. Vision problems were a symptom of gliomatosis cerebri. She gripped the sink with both hands, taking slow deep breaths, wondering if she would go blind. Not yet. Her vision cleared.

       18

       Something Bad and Something Worse

      BIBI TOOK HER LUNCH BY THE WINDOW. SHE ATE every bite. Other than surgery, treatments for cancer often caused prolonged bouts of nausea and a depressed appetite. She needed to forget about being svelte and pack on several pounds of reserves to get her through the coming battle. She supposed that eventually she should shave her head instead of waiting for her hair to fall out in a mangy fashion. The more she took control of her appearance, the better.

      Poor Paxton would come home from war to find that his fiancée had morphed into a bald sumo wrestler. Well, he said he would always love her, through the bad times no less than the good, and she believed him. If she had him all wrong—which she didn’t, but if she did—then she was better off knowing the truth sooner than later. The only plus to having brain cancer might be that it provided the ultimate test of your guy’s true intentions. Given a choice between putting herself through gliomatosis cerebri and putting Paxton through a lie-detector test, she would of course have chosen the latter; but she hadn’t been given a choice.

      A perky blond volunteer in a candy-striper uniform, smelling of a lemony perfume, came to collect the lunch tray. Bibi arranged for the girl to go to the cafeteria and buy a supply of PowerBars in various flavors. “I want to look like John Goodman by next week.”

      “Who’s John Goodman?”

      “A large actor. He played Roseanne Barr’s husband on TV.”

      “Oh, yeah. He’s in lots of movies. He’s cute.”

      A nurse arrived to get a urine sample. A phlebotomist drew five vials of blood. A woman “from legal” had papers to be signed.

      Bibi engaged in only minimal small talk with them, though for most of her life she had been a fountain of words. Everything in this world amazed and fascinated

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