Chapter 4: The BSC together at last...
I tried to absorb what the nurse had just told me. "Kristy...dying?" I asked. "Of tuberculosis? But don't you have antibiotics for that?"
"Shh" said the nurse sternly but gently. "We don't believe in that kind of stuff here. I'm afraid we're just going to let her die. It's better that way."
"How can you say that?" I raged.
"We need it for plot purposes," she explained, clearly but sternly. She led me up to a darkened private room where I could discern a wasted young woman sleeping in a narrow bed.
"Kristy," I moaned. "Oh, Kristy. Even after so many years you have those same eyes, that same hair, that same moustache. And yet everything is changed. Why, you're ten years older than me now. Isn't that, like, totally stale?"
There came a faint moan from the bed. I bowed my head. Then I was roused by a touch on my shoulder. I looked up to see the face of Bart Taylor looking at me.
"Mary Anne, is that you?" he asked tentatively? "But you disappeared, ten years ago! And you look like you haven't aged a day! Boy, the shock really did for your folks, though! Your dad wasted away and Sharon became a drug addict! And Dawn's taken to wearing combat pants, if you know what I mean."
"Oh, I figured something like that'd happen," I replied. The years hadn't treated Bart kindly. I could see the marks of his chronic gambling addiction. For one thing, he seemed to have fallen asleep on a roulette wheel, for he had the stripes printed on his face.
"Hey! Let's swing by and see em!" he shouted, cheerfully, disturbing the occupant of the bed.
"But don't you want to..." I began.
"Oh no," he said, dragging me along. "She'll hang around till the big reunion scene at the end. C'mon!