A Rose for Melinda Read Online Free Page A

up and down my legs too, probably from too much barre work. I've been putting on stage makeup to cover the purple blotches, but my bunkmate noticed them last night and said I should tell our trainer. Fat chance! I'm not about to whine and complain about a few bruises.
    Have you been to my house to visit Zorita? You said you would, so don't get too focused on Pete that you forget my poor lonely cat (who I'm sure misses me and wonders why I don't sleep in my bedroom every night).
    Well, we're heading into town to listen to Pops in the Park and watch the fireworks show over the Potomac River. I plan to sleep in the van all the way there and back! Write soon!
    Melinda (who wishes she felt better!)

    TO: Lenny
SUBJECT: 911

    Honey, I know you're 40,000 feet over the Atlantic right now, but you'll pick this up when you land. I've received a call from Washington. Melinda has collapsed and has been taken to Georgetown University Hospital. The doctors think it's exhaustion. I'm on my way to the airport and I'm frantic. I can't get to Washington fast enough. Call the hospital as soon as you get this. I don't care about the six-hour time difference. Dear God, I hope she's all right. I hate that she's alone until I get there.
    Elana

Roses
    MELINDA'S DIARY
    July 8
    This has to be the MOST embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me! One minute I was in class doing a plié, my arms arched, my back perfectly aligned: the next minute, I woke up on the floor of the dance studio. Thinking back, I did feel dizzy and light-headed, and suddenly everything went to spinning. I felt hot all over and the music sounded like it was coming through a tunnel, then my stomach felt funny, and then came the floor and people screeching and the master holding my hands and rubbing my face. Someone stuck a wadded towel under my head and someone else lifted my feet. And voices kept saying, “Call an ambulance.”
    By the time the medics arrived, I was sitting up and feeling better, but I had to go to the ER and get checked out. The hospital called Mom, who came all the way up from Atlanta, and now I'm in a hospital room and she's huddling with some doctors in the hall. She said Dad's on his way back from Paris. I'm mortified! But I'm tired too. I'll bet I'm anemic, like Patti Johnson was last year. The doctors kept asking me questions in the ER and now it occurs to me that they were trying to find out if I'm a bulimicUGH! How gross … sticking a finger down your throat to make yourself throw up just to lose weight. But I am losing weight. (I sort of fudged to the doctor when he asked my normal weight.) But I'm NOT bulimic. No way!
    And the worst part of all is that everybody's conspiring against me to make me go home! I don't want to go home! Don't they understand? If I leave the school now, I'll never get asked back! This isn't fair. I've wanted this all my life and now it's going to be snatched away all because of a little fainting spell I had during class. I CAN'T STAND IT!!!!!!

    TO: All Concerned
Subject: Melinda

    I've created a special address heading—All Concerned—to keep everyone in our circle of family and friends updated about Melinda, and either I or Elana will give you information. PLEASE DON'T CALL THE HOSPITAL. We flew home with Melinda yesterday and checked her into Emory University Hospital, where she'll undergo tests for the next few days. She's running a fever, but she doesn't seem to have an ill-ness—baffling. At the least, she's very anemic.Elana is blaming herself for not catching Melinda's weight loss, bruising and excessive tiredness before Melinda took off to Washington. But our girl's never had a sick day in her life beyond those due to the common cold, so why should we have been suspicious?
    We have great confidence in her doctors, especially her hematologist, Dr. Jan Powell, who we've been assured is one of the best in her field.
    Melinda, Elana and I appreciate your prayers and thoughts, and as soon as we know what's going