Because there was only one car parked in front of Dr. Washabaugh's former office building, I feared, then hoped, I was too late. The door, when I tried it, was locked. Feeling relieved because I wouldn't have to face my worst fears today, I turned to leave. At that moment the door flew open, and I heard Vesta Pennsinger's cheery voice. “Now, don't you go away, Tori. I was just getting the place redd up. What a busy day. You wouldn't believe how many people showed up.” She ushered me into the waiting room, chatting all the while. “Now, don't tell me. Let me guess why you'uns is here.”
“No games please, Vesta. You know damn well I came for the results of my biopsy.”
“I can't give it to you directly, Tori. I'm supposed to forward it to your new doctor, and then you can…”
That was the last straw! Summoning up the image of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, I grabbed Vesta by the front of her white smock and pulled her close to me.
Right in her face, I muttered, “Give me my test results, Vesta. Or I'll…” I left it to her imagination to guess, since I really had no idea of what I'd do if she wouldn't give me what I wanted.
She fell back against the divider wall when I released her and smoothed her clothes. “Okay, already. I'll get it. Hang on.”
She darted through the door, and I followed close behind, watching as she went through the papers in the top section of an in-box on the counter.
After a few minutes she waved a piece of paper at me. “Here. You can read it for yourself.”
My hand shook as I took the report from her. I focused on the page of medical terminology, wondering what it all meant. One word leaped off the page. Negative. “That's good, isn't it?” I asked. Please let it be good!
Vesta took it from me and read quickly through it. “Yo u ’re okay, Tori. It was a cyst. Nothing to be concerned about. Be sure and get a mammogram every year.”
To my great surprise, I burst into tears. “I'll get you something to drink,” Vesta said, hurrying from the room. She returned in a few seconds with a paper cup full of ice water, which I swallowed in one gulp.
Vesta pulled a couple of Kleenexes from a box on the countertop and handed them to me. I wiped my cheeks with one and blew my nose in the other. “Thanks,” I said. “I am so relieved! Don't know why I cried. Feel like an idiot.” I looked at her crumpled smock front where I'd grabbed her. “I'm sorry about that.”
“It's okay, Tori. Everybody reacts differently. One woman who came in earlier got bad news about her Pap smear. After I told her, she actually started laughing.”
“That is strange.”
“And two men and one woman threatened to sue me because of all their records being burned up. Like we set that fire on purpose. Poor Dr. Washabaugh… it was just awful. I walked in and found her lying right there with papers from our files piled up around her… and burning… and the smell…” She covered her face, and her shoulders shook as she sobbed.
I walked over to the counter to get a Kleenex for her, and noticed a report lying on the top of the stack in the in-box. It appeared to be test results. Edward Macmil-lan's name jumped out at me as if it were in neon letters. I read through it, feeling no qualms about invading his privacy; after all, he wasn't alive.
It was snatched away from me by Vesta. “You can't read that,” she snapped. “It's confidential information.”
“Look, Vesta, don't tell me about confidentiality. Not when you've spread rumors about my medical condition all around Adams and Caven counties.”
Indignantly, she said, “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Of course you do. Nobody knew about my biopsy except Dr. Washabaugh, my landlady, and you. And obviously you were the only one who knew it came back negative. Last night, I was congratulated by people I didn't even know. It had to be you who told them.”
She hung her head. “I didn't mean no harm, Tori. My mother always said my big mouth'd get me in trouble.”
I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She didn't appear to be malicious, only a woman who enjoyed being in a position where she had confidential information that nobody else knew.
I retrieved Mack Macmillan's test results from her. It was from the Gettysburg hospital, and just as the coroner's report had said, Mack Macmillan had prostate cancer.
“I guess he didn't know he had cancer, if this has come in since his death,” I said.
“He knew. This was a follow-up test. The results came in the same day as yours.”
“Was he going to have surgery?”
Vesta blew her nose as she shook her head. “The urologist Dr. Washabaugh sent him to doesn't recommend surgery for men over seventy. He said it was a slow-growing type of cancer and Mack could live ten years or more if something else didn't kill him first.”
“I imagine he was glad to hear there was no immediate danger,” I said, thinking of my own relief.
“Not really. He didn't handle it real good. Even cried. Practically had to be carried out of here. Kept saying there had to be a mistake. That's why Dr. Washabaugh ordered the second set of⊙ tests.
CHAPTER 16
IT HAS BEEN SAID REPEATEDLY BY TOURISTS DRIVING past Lickin Creek on the Interstate that one can smell the grease from Lickin Creek's dozens of fast-food restaurants for miles before the town is visible. To celebrate my good news, I stopped at one of the eateries that Lickin Creek is so well known for and purchased dinner: two hamburgers, a double order of fries, a fried apple pie, and a Diet Coke, which I ate in the car while watching the ducks from the Lickin Creek comb the parking lot for crumbs.
Back in Moon Lake, the cleaning crew had finished its work. Ethelind wasn't happy with the lingering smell of smoke, but they had assured her it would dissipate if she left all the windows open. Neither was she happy with the repairs made to her parlor floor, since the carpenters had used a wood that didn't exactly match the existing hundred-year-old planks, and she wasn't happy with me, either, on general principles. The cats took refuge under the bed in my room while I changed clothes. Although I wasn't exactly thrilled with what I had to do tonight, it was a lot better than staying home with my infuriated landlady.
When I entered the kitchen, Ethelind turned her scowl on me, stared for a moment, then burst into gales of laughter. She clutched at her chest and collapsed into a chair, straining to catch her breath. “Oh, my, Tori. I've seen you wear some god-awful outfits, but that one takes the cake!”
I stared down at the voluminous blue skirt that lay in ripples on the floor around my feet. “I didn't have time to shorten it.”
Ethelind stopped laughing long enough to say, “Please tell me that isn't the latest thing in cocktail gowns from Barney's.” Impressed with her own wit, she blew her nose into a paper napkin and laughed some more.
“I'm a nun,” I explained.
“A bloody Flying Nun, I'd say.”
I adjusted the enormous wings of my starched white cornette. “A Sister of Charity,” I said with great dignity. “You can call me Sister Camilla O'Neil. I died of blood poisoning while tending the wounded at the Lickin Creek College for Women during the Civil War.” A brief biographical sketch had been enclosed with the costume, with a note telling me how to act and what I should say whenever someone entered the attic.
With yards of navy blue cotton bunched up on my lap, I drove to the college, thinking that it was all worthwhile if my costume had brought the smile back to Ethelind's face. At the college, I was directed to a parking place behind the administration building. Thankful I wouldn't have to hike up the hill from the visitors’ lot, I got out, shook the wrinkles out of my habit, and entered the building through the back door. A group consisting of nuns, Union and Confederate soldiers, and college girls in long gowns was gathered at the foot of the stairs, listening to Helga Van Brackle give directions.