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| There were seven of us girls waiting in the girls locker room for Dr. Nancy to show up and give us our cheerleading physicals. Dr. Nancy had given me my tenth-grade exam at school the year before. It was particularly embarrassing as it involved, as the state form stipulated, an "external inspection of the genitalia." Prior to the examination, the dictionary had confirmed my suspicions- I had genitalia, all right. As I have mentioned, I was a patient of Dr. Nancy's, as was Chad, and so she was aware of my heart condition, or, as she put it, my "clicky ticker"- a apt and catchy phrase for my prolapsed mitral valve. Still, I was impressed that she remembered that two years after she diagnosed this rather common defect- but she was a very bright lady. I wondered if the sports physical would dispense with the below-the-waist stuff. It was hard to picture anything remotely gynecological getting checked amidst the stark bench-and-locker surroundings, but then schools aren't overly concerned with preserving an individual's dignity. The other girls seemed nervous- annoyingly giggly. I decided not to ask them anything. Wendy Abbott was there. That meant if we went in alphabetical order, she would surely be first. I would be likely to follow- unless one or both of the unfamiliar girls present had a last name that fell between "Abbott" and "Alvirdsen". Unlikely. Wendy was a stunningly attractive girl blessed with a peekaboo sine-wave crest of lemon-cake blonde hair. She had an appealing underbite, jutting chin and high forehead, giving her a distinctive crescent-like profile. She had small, wide-set almond eyes and arresting, Marilyn-like circumflex eyebrows. Quite a big girl- probably five-ten or more. Solid and high-chested; she had a bosom. Wendy was considered to be a snob, a ditz, a slut, an ice queen, a bimbo, a ballbuster, a cocksucker, you name it. These contradictory appellations were, of course, manifestations of the jealousy she inspired. Also fueling the resentment, I think, was a collective, unarticulated belief that a girl who lived in a trailer park simply had no business looking like she did- that that was a privilege reserved for the well-off. I found Wendy to be a sweet girl, though a little too hyper to take for extended periods. And she understood and accepted this. "I wish people would just tell me to shut up instead of stop being my friend," I heard her say more than once. She had a way of gripping the forearm of whomever she was speaking to that was at once endearing and unsettling. Her hands were very warm. She vibrated with vitality and spirit, and she could do a phenomenal Donald Duck imitation. Wendy had a good sense of humor, but it was coupled with a natural dippiness that made it difficult to determine when she was joking and when she was serious. She was sensitive about getting laughed at, and I had accidentally hurt her feelings on a couple of occasions when I made the wrong call. But she was a forgiving soul. Though I did not know her that well, she had asked me, on at least two separate occasions, what it was like to be smart. And it was not a rhetorical question: Wendy wanted to know. She impressed me because for almost a whole year she had gone steady with a glum, condescending, hollow-cheeked, pock-marked, self-styled social critic/apocalyptic poet when she could have dated anybody. And when he broke up with her, she was devastated. She loved Ian. You have to respect judgement that bad; it mirrors an exceptional character. The tennis coach put her boundless vigor to use and recruited her for the tennis team. She was fun to watch. She'd giggle nonstop through aces and double faults, and she chased down everything that crossed the net; she had no need to conserve energy. Her serve was a tack hammer tap that arced leisurely into the opposing court. The tennis coach had the wisdom to let her be. She kept winning. "Am I winning yet?" she'd ask, wiggling her skirted butt as she'd wait to return serve. "Not yet, Sweetie. Just play." Her one weakness was her distractible nature. Things like babies, dogs, sparrows, and butterflies tended to corrupt her focus. I liked Wendy. "Hi, Cheryl. Did you have a fun summer? Your hair is pretty like that," she cooed, stroking my hair. "Thanks, Wen. Yeah, I had a good time. I'll tell you more about it later... Look, um, Wen, are we gonna have to, like, you know, take off our panties for this physical?" I was getting more apprehensive by the moment. In spite of my stripping fixation, I was rather bashful in making the jump to reality. Even in front of Dr. Nancy- especially in front of Dr.Nancy. "Would you like some gum? It's Juicy Fruit... No, she'll look in your eyes and ears and stuff and then take your blood pressure with that squeezy thing that tickles your arm after and then listen to your tits with that cold thing. That's all- I think... It's all a plot for Dr. Nancy to get her jollies, in my opinion. This spring I'll wind up going through this again for tennis. It's so gay..." Ms. Costigan the crabby cheering advisor entered. Her sour disposition clashed with her petite build and girlish looks. She was always having man trouble. "Girls. Girls. Listen up...The doctor just called from the junior high. They're running a little late over there but he said he'll be over in about ten minutes. When he gets here I expect you to be quiet while he conducts the exams. Understood?" Wendy and I looked at each other and said the same word simultaneously: "He?" Stacy Richards leaned in. "My sister said that they got a man doctor 'cause Dr. Nancy's on a love boat cruise. Says he's wicked cute!" Thinking quickly, I panicked. But I immediately recalled my father's disparaging words about Ted not being a real doctor- at this moment a source of prodigious relief. Can't be Ted, I assured myself. The concept of partial nudity in front of any man was frankly horrifying to me, but unthinkable in this context with Ted. But he was just a bone doctor. I had nothing to worry about in that regard. That was for sure. Thank God. Dr. Nancy was a tall, beady-eyed and rough-hewn woman, outspoken and opinionated, but well respected. She was on the city council. I'd never seen anyone like her- until Janet Reno became Attorney General. The consensus was that she was a lesbian, but whenever her name was mentioned in the paper, Daddy invariably commented with an insinuating slyness that she was a "hot ticket". Well, it was clear this rating wasn't an assessment of her physical appeal- she was undeniably homely. But they had gone to school together. That's all I needed to know to reach an inescapable inference: Dr. Nancy had given Daddy a blow job when they were high-school students. No question. And most likely a series of them, knowing Daddy. Just as I swept the last remaining grains of anxiety under the carpet of my well-being regarding the possible identity of the awaited examiner (still on the West Coast- can't possibly be him- silly me!), Ted entered the locker room, black bag and all. His arrival was heralded by a nervous peal of giggling and breathy whispers. My armpits instantaneously dampened with terror-scented sweat, my scalp itched with fire ants, and my captive bargain-bin heart pounded the bars of its caged cell. This would not do at all... Ms. Costigan got down to business immediately. "All right, Wendy, you're first. And then we'll have Cheryl, and then Holly. You girls take off your shoes and your blouses. The rest of you keep it down. Dr. Novak needs it quiet." Ted was wearing a tweed sport coat and chinos. Pink Izod shirt. (Ah, memories!) He set his bag on the bench. "Okay here?" he asked Ms. Costigan. She nodded. He hadn't seen me. In fact, he seemed doggedly unobservant regarding his surroundings, focusing his attention largely on the space in front of his loafers. Ill at ease. He'd had a haircut since I last saw him. It appeared to be self-inflicted. Wendy began to unbutton her white silk blouse, her long maroon nails impeding the task and increasing my tension until I wanted to scream. I chose to postpone unbuttoning my blouse until my tremors subsided. And I had not ruled out making a run for it. Ted laid out the blood pressure cuff and illuminator on the bench. The stethoscope's amber tubing seemed as nervously alive as a snake as he hung it around his neck; he rummaged in the bag and produced a jar of tongue depressors and set them on the bench. Wendy slipped off her blouse; I lost the will to live. She was gorgeous and Ted was going to examine her. In front of me. I would provide a cool-down buffer after her. I'm not knocking myself. But Wendy was that striking. Magnificent cantaloupe breasts. Jesus had set me up big time. This is what I was telling you about. So typical. My most cherished memory would not survive this absurd torture. I wanted to die. Literally. There was hope, however; this scenario had the over-the-top bathos indicative of my brand of nightmare. A bad dream and nothing more, perhaps? We cling to whatever helps us float during these times... Ms. Costigan weighed and measured Wendy. From band room I could hear some idiot pounding out the school's Indian tom-tom rally beat on a drum (our teams were known as the Chieftains- our colors maroon and yellow). It lent the bleak proceedings the atmosphere of a pagan sacrificial rite. Kinky, sort of. The drummer had what Wyomia would call an advanced case of white man's disease: no rhythm. Before she sat down on the bench in front of him, I noticed that Wendy was as tall as Ted, even in her stocking feet. She wore black corduroys that fit like skin: Marilyn hips. A white low-cut bra: Marilyn tits. She cheerfully worked her Juicy Fruit as Ted placed his hand on her head and looked into her eyes. Right. And left. Good. He snapped a fitting on to the otoscope and brushed back her light gold hair to inspect her ear canals. Seemed satisfied. He placed his finger under her chin and tilted her head up, "Say, ah..." In a moment of mutual levity, Wendy removed her wad of chewing gum and held it between her thumb and forefinger. "Ehh." He got a wooden depressor from the jar and placed it on Wendy's pink tongue; the girl even had pretty organs. He shone a penlight down her throat. An ivory arch of perfect teeth. And she smelled of Wind Song I had noticed. I felt like I had all the sex appeal of a toad pinned to a wax tray as I waited my turn in the dim locker alley. My Right Guard was reaching the limits of its effectiveness; I was beginning to stink with suppressed panic. A vague chicken-soup odor. He took Wendy's elbow and lifted her arm level and wrapped the blood pressure cuff around it. Wendy became interested in this and suspended her vigorous chewing as Ted inflated the cuff. Ted took the reading and, after the sound of rending Velcro, Ted instructed Wendy to stand up. He felt the glands along her neck and jaw line. He then placed his left fingertips against the girl's upper chest and sharply struck the backs of these fingers with the bunched fingers of his right hand. He did this at several locations. It produced hollow thumps audible from where I stood. Wendy was solid girl. He didn't have to rub it in. Asshole. Ted slipped the stethoscope's earpieces into his ears. He paused with the chromed chestpiece in his hand and murmured a directive to Wendy. Her long eyelashes blinked once, then twice as she bit her lower lip and unhooked her bra from the back, then shrugged the thin straps from her smooth shoulders. She set the bra on the bench and straightened up. Her impressive mammaries swayed in unison then stilled as one. Freed of support, her breasts had assumed a ski-jump curvature with some folding of the flesh beneath. She had a nice tan. And no discernable tanline. The cunt. It may have been nervousness, arousal, or the dank coolness of the Spartan surroundings, or a combination of all three that extended her nipples and coned her areolas. The stethoscope zigzagged over the flat of her upper chest like a bee among flowers as Ted instructed her to breathe deep, again, again, good, fine. He had her turn around and auscultated her unblemished back- breathe, breathe, good, good. The shining disk returned to Wendy's chest, describing a close pattern of listening points bordering the breastbone. I knew from my experience with the cardiologist three years before that this constituted the examination of the heart's upper chambers. He gently guided Wendy's elbow upward and asked her to place her hands behind her head. "Yup- just like that." As the she did so, the golden-brown flesh of her torso tightened, hollowing her abdomen, ovaling her areolas and revealing the subtle fluting of her harp-like ribcage. Ted's fingers pressed the cool disk deep into the warm fold beneath the left breast. A gentle finger to the lips served to silence Wendy's absent-minded resumption of gum chewing. A girlish hand over her mouth and an abashed suggestion of a shrug- a pantomimed apology- then a prompt return to the requested position. Ted studied the ceiling duct as he listened to the young woman's heart. Wendy looked at me and flashed a reassuring smile. She was giving herself "rabbit ears" with her fingers behind her head. I think she sensed my dread and was trying to relax me. Typical Wendy. I was too nervous to give it the smile it deserved, which probably hurt her feelings. Ted listened to a ten-second sample then suddenly pulled the tips from his ears with both hands. "You're fine. You can get dressed now." Wendy had passed. "Thanks," she replied as she fished in her pocket. "Want some gum? It's Juicy Fruit," she offered, bright-eyed and bare-chested. What's it like, I wondered, to be Wendy? Ted mumbled no thanks and wrote on a clipboard as Ms. Costigan helped Wendy hook her bra. Wendy came up to me, blouse still unbuttoned, and squeezed my forearm with her hot grip and whispered thunderously into my ear: "I think I'm gonna get back in line." She fanned her face as she glided off. Ms. Costigan addressed me. "Okay, Cheryl, you can remove your blouse and boots." She turned to the girls waiting their turn on the bench. "Girls, please remove your blouse and shoes before your turn comes up. It saves time. I thought I made that clear." I felt Ted's gaze on me after he heard my name. I knew when I looked up our eyes would meet and then someone would have to say something. Here goes. I said, "Hi." Ted said, "Cheryl?" He broke eye contact when he realized I was engaged in unbuttoning my blouse. I set the blouse on a card table and pulled off my western boots. My long denim skirt would stay on. Something to be thankful for. "That should have been done before," Ms. Costigan scolded quietly, "You're making Dr. Novak wait." I chose not to contemplate the irony of that statement. She weighed and measured me. I stole a peek at Ted. He was studying his loafers and biting his thumbnail. I was five-six. One hundred eight pounds. Now for the fun part. My heart condition, mitral valve prolapse, is a common and usually inconsequential abnormality that occurs in roughly one person in twenty. It is twice as common in females than it is in males. It is typically symptomless and is most often discovered during a routine physical, as it was with Chad and myself, when the doctor listens to the heart with a stethoscope. It often manifests itself with the busying effect it bestows to the heartbeat- imparting a "lub-wooshik-dup" addenum to the normal "lub-dup" cycle. I had never heard my own murmur, but Chad and I had listened to each other's hearts back when we could still touch each other. According to Dr. Nancy we shared identical murmurs. There is frequently a psychological aspect to this affliction, which can cause an undue awareness of one's own heartbeat, particularly when under stress. This can cause increased anxiety, which can trigger an increased heart rate, which of course adds to one's anxiety- a vicious cycle which can culminate in a full-blown anxiety attack featuring tachycardia and hyperventilation. Daddy's tirades had elicited this reaction in me a few times. Very scary. I'll be honest with you; deep down, I didn't think I was going to live very long, what with my crummy pump and all... it did things I didn't dare to tell anyone about sometimes. And it was beginning to react to the stress I was currently under- and it wouldn't remain a secret much longer. http://maxpages.com/coppertone/coppertone_5 |
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