Hazel could fool herself no longer.
She was sick.
She had excused herself all yesterday. She was winded because the altitude. She was tired because she was pushing herself too hard. She had that swimmy feeling in her head because…the altitude again, yes, that had to be it. She wasn’t sick. Not on her vacation. You can’t be sick during a time of renewal!
Even when she had woken up this morning, she had still denied it. And she hadn’t been better. Not in the slightest. Her shortness of breath had become full chest congestion and her occasional sneeze had turned into completely trapped sinuses. She refused to take her temperature but she knew she had a fever. Her face was flushed but her inner arms were freezing and that was never a good sign.
But Hazel simply wasn’t having it. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t. And she had a full day planned. The Pioneer’s Museum in the morning, a big lunch at the Valley View Restaurant, and then some last minute ice skating in the afternoon. As she brushed her hair and ignored the slight sheen of sweat that popped out on her forehead, she looked at herself in the mirror and told herself the same thing she always told herself when things didn’t go quite right.
You can do this. Power through.
She’d powered through her last divorce, she could power through…whatever this was…and have a good fucking day.
On her way to the Pioneer’s Museum she stopped into the General Store on Main Street. The usual people were there. Millie, the owner, behind the counter waved to her as she came in. Her son must have been working today because her granddaughter Nicola was sitting at a little table near the wall coloring. The sheriff was sipping coffee out of a travel mug and flipping through magazines. A handful of tourists were stocking up on groceries. Hazel sneezed three times and managed to stop a fourth in the time it took her to get her coffee, a water bottle, and a box of Vitamin C powder.
In the car she dumped the powder into the bottle and shook it. A lot. Way too much. In the end, she realizing she was channeling all of her frustration and rage at (not) being sick on her renewal trip. She shook it harder, then popped the cap and chugged the entire thing. The trip across town to the Pioneer’s Museum was punctuated by belching.
Everything seemed a little better in the Museum. It was a three room house and a couple of barns. In the summer there would be teenagers dressed in recreations of pioneer garb and a petting zoo out back, but they were still in school. She’d missed them by a couple of weeks. The teenagers were stuck in their classes and the animals were in the barns. In fact, besides the proprietor and a family with a couple of kids the place was empty. Hazel always wondered how this place managed to stay open. The kids screaming could be heard from every room. The parents apologized but Hazel barely heard.
As she walked from room to room, staring at the same washtub and sewing machine and wagon wheels she had seen countless times before, she concentrated on being healthy. She stared at the harpsichord for seven entire minutes, fighting the coughing fit that was trying to escape her throat. Only when she had tamed it down to a tickle did she move on to the wardrobe. In the kitchen area she began shivering, and panic rose in her throat until she realized someone had left the back door open.
As she was leaving another family with a couple of kids pulled in. They were yelling about seeing the animals. Hazel didn’t have the heart – or the energy – to tell them they weren’t out yet.
She went to the Valley View restaurant and sat at a window seat and ordered the biggest meal on the menu, plus an appetizer, plus a desert, and an entire bottle of wine to boot. She had no appetite. None at all, even though all she’d had for breakfast was that coffee and vitamin c water. In fact, as she entered the restaurant the smells that wafted from the kitchen almost turned her stomach. But that was unacceptable. Today was the day she was supposed to eat at Valley View and that was what she was going to do.
Hazel sat at her window seat for two hours, carefully force feeding herself every bite on every plate. Valley View was a popular restaurant with both the tourists and the locals, because of the good food and their Quick-Lunch Promise which would get you in and out in half an hour. Sixty people came and went as Hazel ate, giving her occasional glances as she coughed and sneezed and sniffled over her food. She didn’t notice. She was on a mission.
Every bite. Savor it.
She left a cash tip and went back to the Lodge.
In the middle of the afternoon she finally admitted some small defeat. Ice skating was one of her favorite things to do in Juniper. She’d already been on the lake three times, each time for hours. Gently skating in circles, breathing out puffs of condensation, and watching the sun sink lower and lower toward the slopes was one of the best things for getting her mind right.
Usually. Today all she could think about was her breathing. The cold air hurt. She was wheezing within minutes. Her ears and nose were freezing but she was sweating bullets under her layers. After forcing herself upright for thirty minutes she realized if she didn’t stop, she was going to collapse on the ice. Ryan would skate over and she’d have to be revived and they’d probably send her to the medical center. Embarrassing.
“Done already?” Ryan asked as she skated past the instructor and her kids.
“Having some GI distress,” Hazel lied. It was the first thing that came to mind.
Once in her room she turned the shower on full heat and let loose the torrent of coughs that had plagued her since she had gotten on the ice. Dry at first, and then as the steam from the shower worked down her throat huge gobs of green phlegm started coming up.
No wonder I couldn’t breathe. Is green a good color?
She couldn’t remember. Hazel got in the shower and stood there for twenty minutes before she remembered she was in a hotel, not home, and the hot water would probably never run out.
After the shower she felt better. The tightness in her chest was gone and for the first time all day she could breathe through her nose.
“A cold,” she said to herself. “That’s all it was. Probably picked it up traveling.”
Hazel did not remember the man on the plane.
It was still light outside. Ryan was still on the ice with her students, now having a free skate. She could go back out. Skate for another hour or so. The thought of it made her body physically droop and she was in bed before she realized it.
A nap and I’ll have this cold licked.
Hazel was an excellent napper, always out for twenty-five minutes before waking up naturally, so she didn’t set an alarm.
It was dark when she woke up. Groggy wasn’t the right word. She felt like every cell in her body was misplaced a few micrometers in one direction or another. Her right eye was watery and her left eye felt caked shut. The mucous she had worked to get out of her lungs had been replaced, and every breath was accompanied by a high whistle and a low, ugly rattle. When she managed to sit up she held her phone in front of her. Finally she dropped the phone on the bed to read the time. Her hands were shaking so hard the numbers had only jittered in front of her.
Three hours she had slept. Nothing was fixed. Everything was worse.
Dry. So dry.
Hazel tried to step out of bed to get water. One foot on the floor and her body fell the rest of the way. How had she become so weak so fast? She crawled across the carpet to the bathroom, getting rug burn all over her knees.
How will I explain that to Darren?
But she didn’t have to.
Remember?
For a second, she hadn’t. The divorce had never happened, and she had expected to see Darren walk in any minute.
The tap water was cool against her throat. It hit her stomach like a bomb and she burbled it back up like a baby.
Maybe if I just sit for a second.
Some time later, she didn’t know how long, she realized she had been sitting on the floor under the sink, leaning back against the wall, every muscle aching like she had run a marathon.
But I didn’t run. I only crawled.
Hazel could fool herself no longer.
Crawling to the desk, coughing and sneezing the entire way, she thought about curling up on the floor once she reached the chair.
No. You can do this. Power through.
As soon as she pulled herself up the world tried to swim away. Gripping the chair with one hand and the desk with the other she kept herself in place through sheer force of will and waited for the room to stop spinning and for her vision to come back. Wheezing, she found the phone and managed to hit the zero button.
“Front desk,” Hank said on the other side.
“Hank.” Her voice was so weak. “I need an ambulance.”
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 