Coma Girl: part 2 Read Free Page B

Tabitha to read through a section of greeting cards and choose one. But I can. Of the adults I’d tutored, she’d come the farthest, and she’d had the most to learn.
    Tabitha said goodbye, then my mother fell silent. I could picture her staring at Tabitha’s card. She had probably written my name in neat block print using a ruler.
    “Marigold, you never told me you were a literacy volunteer.”
    It simply had never come up.
    She made a pensive noise. “What else don’t I know about you?”
    And maybe it’s me, but she sounds a little… angry ?
     
     
     
     

August 7, Sunday
     
     
    I KNOW IT’S SUNDAY from the rounds of church bells ringing outside my window… and from the sound of Detective Jack Terry’s boots on my floor.
    “Hello, Marigold, it’s your favorite detective.”
    That’s true.
    “I see it’s just us today—good. I brought chili dogs from The Varsity and a couple of frosted orange shakes. If you don’t wake up in the next ten minutes or so, I’m going to have to eat your share, too.”
    This man has good taste in food.
    “Braves are in St. Louis today, are you with me? We probably don’t stand a chance, but we might get a miracle. Actually, we could use a couple of miracles today, couldn’t we? Are you about ready to get out of that bed?”
    Am I ever.
    He gave a little laugh. “If Carlotta was here, she’d make a crack about this being the first time I tried to get a woman out of bed.”
    Ah… the fashionista with the Coma Girl T-shirt had a name.
    “But,” he added under his breath, “Carlotta is not here.”
    I wondered where she was.
    “So, I’ve been looking into your background. Carpet, huh? I’ve been thinking of recarpeting Serena, so maybe when this is all over, I’ll pay you a business call.”
    He’s talking in man-shorthand, but if my mushy brain is connecting all the dots, his boat is named Serena, and she needs new carpeting. We don’t sell marine-grade stock, but Mr. Palmer could hook him up with a wholesaler. But the really interesting part of the whole spiel is his boat is not named after fashionista girl. So who was Serena?
    He dragged a chair across the floor, then set about tearing into paper bags, releasing mouth-watering smells of the four basic food groups—grease, preservatives, salt, and sugar.
    “Your older brother is a war hero, and your younger sister is in law school. That’s a lot of pressure on both ends. No offense, Marigold, but it looks like landing in this coma is the most interesting thing you’ve done.”
    With that smooth tongue, no wonder Carlotta was elsewhere.
    “Seriously though, you’re a sensation. Are you going to wake up and enjoy some of this attention… or are you going to milk it a little longer? Couldn’t blame you. How often does someone get to hide out from life?”
    A few beeps later, the tinny roar of a crowd surged into the room.
    “Game’s starting.”
    Okay, who does this philosophical cowboy think he is, crashing my coma with fast food and baseball and metaphysical questions?
    Because he’s a little bit right, darn him. As long as I’m asleep, I’m Coma Girl. But if and when I wake up, I’ll go back to being Marigold Kemp.
    And no one really cares about her.

     
     
     
     
     

August 8, Monday
     
     
    “DID YOU MISS ME?” My volunteer poet gave a little laugh. “Or were you hoping I wouldn’t come back?”
    Not at all. Now that I’m getting back into culture via the classical music looping on the iPod Dr. Jarvis left me, I’m even remembering some of the poetry I learned in school—Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath. When our teachers had made us memorize the poems and recite them in class, I thought I would die of stage fright. I was a gawky kid and did not like being on display. Every word had been torturous, but the experience must have woven the words into the fabric of my brain because as soon as the first phrases of “The Hippopotamus” came back to me, all nine stanzas had