Don't Even Think About It

Chapter four - October 3

Today was the day. Not that Olivia knew it was THE day. At the time, she just thought it was speech day. 

Three hours and forty-five minutes to go.

In the fifth grade, back on Long Island, Olivia had been cast as an extra in the school play. She only had one line. One single line. She practiced that line in the shower. In her room. In her backyard. But on the night of the one-liner, she stood onstage while expectant faces stared up at her, and her mind went blank. Empty. Wiped clean. She couldn’t breathe. Black spots swam in front of her eyes. The rest of the cast tried to usher her off the stage, but she couldn’t move. She’d just stood there. Frozen. Like a sad, melting Popsicle.

Clearly, there were no Tony Awards in her future.

As if she would ever voluntarily step on a stage again. Thanks, but no thanks.

She rehearsed her speech in the shower. “In Ridgefield, Connecticut, Jamie Fields was innocently walking barefoot across her lawn. Little did she know that she was about to get Lyme disease.”

Jamie Fields was a real person. A real dead-from Lyme-disease person.

Olivia had chosen Lyme disease as her topic because after years of living with and being a hypochondriac, she was a champ at researching diseases, and this was one disease she was unlikely to contract, since she lived in downtown Manhattan.

She practiced while she got dressed.

She practiced on her way to the kitchen, clutching her notes.

“Morning!” her mom called. “Are you okay, honey? You look pale.”

Her mother always thought she looked pale.

She was pale. She had straight dark brown hair and pale skin. You’d think while she was growing up, her favorite fairy-tale character would have been the similarly toned Snow White, but Olivia had never been able to relate to anyone who took food from strangers.

“I’m fine,” Olivia snapped, but then she felt bad. “I’m fine,” she said again in a softer tone.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” her mom asked. “The flu vaccine sometimes gives you symptoms.”

Olivia’s mom was a hypochondriac too. Her mom also had a not-so-mild case of OCD and severe anxiety. She washed her hands so often her knuckles bled. Olivia had inherited the hypochondria and anxiety but was thankfully still obsessive-compulsive free. She hoped it wouldn’t come with age.

Olivia contemplated telling her mom that she was sick and staying home, but then she’d get dragged to the ER. And she knew she’d have to do the speech the next day anyway. She’d have to spend another entire day with the panic spreading down her body like an unstoppable rash. “I’m fine,” Olivia said, her voice shakier than she intended.

“I poured you some juice,” her mom said. “And put some banana in your granola. And put a vitamin on your napkin.”

“Thanks,” Olivia said, even though she was afraid that anything she ate would make her vomit.

Instead, she ran through her speech. In Ridgefield, New York . . .

Oh no. Not New York. Ridgefield was in Connecticut! She had forgotten where poor Jamie lived! If she couldn’t remember where Jamie had contracted the disease, how was she going to remember the rest?

The clock said 8:02.

Two hours and fifty-eight minutes to go.

It was going to be a long morning.