Cosmo, Glamour, Allure. I’ll  never understand why they never had magazine for men in these places. I'll also never understand the names of women's magazines. I've never met an Glamorous Alluring Cosmopoliatan named Marie Claire. I shuffled through my basket again when my hand reached a thin magazine with the cover ripped mostly off. Newsweek.  I looked at what appeared to be a picture of a first generation iPod and Steve Jobs knowing glance. It had to have been from at least 2004. I think the magazines in waiting rooms are like looking through a yearbook you look at what we thought was news back then and then laughing at how outdated it was. 

“Darcy ?”

My mind contemplations were interrupted by the sound of my name from an unfamiliar voice. I knew I was using the magazine wonderings as a way to ignore what was really going on around me.

“Darcy ?”

I looked up to see a young woman in bright pink scrubs holding a chart and looking out into the waiting room.   I started walking towards her our eyes met and she smiled and gave me one of the swinging arm gestures that means follow me. We started walking through a maze of rooms and well, sick people.

"I'm Shawna," she said, shaking my hand

We walked through more twists and turns and a pause insued.

“So how old are you ?” she asked

I knew it was small talk because she was holding what I assumed was my chart in her arms. We reached a room with a beach scenery painted on the wall. Like that was supposed to relax me or something.

“23,” I answered, taking a seat where she pointed.

“What seems to be the problem ?” she asked

“I feel down, slipped on ice a few weeks ago and  I’ve had this swelling on my neck that won’t go down.”

“Alright let’s check that  out.”

I removed the scarf I had been wearing --to not only hide the ugly bump but, also protect me from the New York City Winter-- and let her look.

“I don’t get it,” Noah said, “they told you, you don’t have something but you do and they aren’t going to do anything about it ?”

Noah is my older brother and while I always thought he was one of the smartest guys I knew there were somethings he didn’t get. Of course part of that could come from the fact that I suck at explaining things.

Before I could explain it to him Sadie came back with three piping hot plates,

“White pizza with bacon and spinach for Darcy” she said and placed what in my book is the  food of the gods in front of me. “And eggplant parmesan for Noah”

“Hey, babe I ordered chicken parmesan,” he complained pushing the plate aside

“Did you ?” Sadie asked innocently, “I must have misheard.”

“Misheard my ass,” He said balling up a napkin and aimed it at her head.

“Can you believe him, Darcy ?” she asked,”Is that any way for a man to treat his fiance”

“Well you deprived him of meat, you’re lucky he didn’t get all Ben Banner on you.”  I said.

Sadie took of her apron and took a seat next to Noah kissing him on the cheek and putting a fork in her own Eggplant Parmessean.

“I just want you  to be in good health, it would be very hard to marry you if you were dead,” she said.

“You’re not saying anything about the best man eating heart attack on a pizza,” he said pointing to me.

“Well, he’s replaceable,” she joked.

Noah and Sadie had been engaged for 3 months at this point. While Sadie was training to be a nutritionist she was ironically working at Bennet’s a restaurant that was anything but healthy. Bennet’s was the restaurant owned by my parent’s and served as a fall back for anyone in my family. Well, me mostly since Noah was a chef at the restaurant most days.

I was going to get back to our regurlarly scheduled conversation when I was suddenly descended on by the rest of the Bennet clan. I heard my mother complaining about the cold before she even came inside I turned around to see mom, dad, Lila my little sister, and my cousin Slate.

There was no usual conversation about something irrelevant or stupid but I knew everyone knew something was wrong as Mom and Dad immediately slid into the booth while Slate and Lila pulled up chairs.

“Now, what’s wrong, honey ?,” Mom asked immediately.

“Darcy said he has—“ Noah started but I cut him off.

“I can tell them myself,” I said, “I went  to the clinic last week and they sent me to this doctor and they did this test and they told me today that I have something called non-hodgkin lymphoma.”

“What does that mean ?” Dad asked, rubbing the tips of his fingernails against the booth table as if I was about to tell him  something he could do right away to get rid of this.

“That’s what I said,” Noah interrupted, “And they don’t want him to do anything about it”

“It just means he has an growth of cells that originated in the white blood cells but, it doesn’t have an Reed-Sternberg cell,” Lila said, knowingly.

I should tell you she just got accepted into NYU in the medical sciences field and wants to be a doctor some day. She is the family genius.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “And they said that since I don’t have any symptoms they just want to watch it. It means I have to go to the hospital and have test done like every week.” I explained. I looked up from my pizza at my family’s face for the first time.

“Growth of cells ?”my mother finally said, “So, it’s like cancer ?”

“Beer, Beer, Beer and oh wait . . . no wait nevermind more beer.” I observed as I surveyed the contents of our refrigerator.

 I decided on the classic Budweiser and sat next to Slate on the couch, I wanted to talk but he was busy watching what  I called a cartoon but he called Anime but I guess that’s what you call a cartoon with violence and nudity and that’s you know Japanese.

“Say something,” I said switching the television off and throwing the remote behind the couch. I heard it hit the kitchen table and knock over something but I decided not to look at to ruin the moment.

“It’s weird, okay,” he said, “I mean you have cancer it just seems like a disease kids get so they can go to Disney World or meet a celebrity.”

“Yeah, we need to get you a medical dictionary.” I joked

“It’s just I feel like things are going to change or something, I don’t know.” He said.

I ignored him and told him nothing had changed but, I was wrong. Things did change but, they changed for the better and to be fair for the worse too.

“Your name is Darcy Bennet ?” Dr. Shapiro asked looking at my card.

“Yep,”

“Did you know-“

“That my mother named me after a character in Pride and Prejduce ? Yes. She has a thing for naming her kids after book characters of course my older brother got a name from the Bible which  is way better than Jane Austen and my sister was almost named Lolita, thank god my dad talked her out of that one.” I explained. It was a rehearsed speech from all the smiles I'd heard over my name from English teachers.

Dr.Shapiro is a therapist I was trying to sell myself too. My parents had taught me one important thing. If you hate being told what to do be an entrprenuer. After 2 years at the Art Institute and countless hours in the Learning Annex I had made pretty good money freelancing as a web designer. And with hundreds of professionals needing personal website but, who think Java is either coffee or that large worm from Star Wars and Flash is either what drunk sorority girls do or Barry Allen, I could easily make 500 dollars a site.

I knew a big time therapist like Dr. Shapiro would be easy money but, I never knew it would also be the way I met my bro