and a comfy bed to shed all over.
Kristina saw a card on the table but didn’t move toward it. Conni pushed the card across the table to Kristina.
‘This is from all of us,’ Conni said, smiling open-mouthed and happy. ‘Go ahead, go ahead, open it.’ Reaching under the table, she pulled out a bottle of Southern Comfort with a red bow taped to the side of it. ‘This is a little something from all of us, too,’ Conni said. ‘We thought you might like it.’
‘Conni’s idea,’ said Albert.
‘Not!’ said Conni in a high-pitched voice, laughing. ‘Yours!’
‘Not!’ said Albert, smiling.
‘Totally yours,’ said Conni again.
Why are they squabbling over whose idea it was? thought Kristina as she stared at the bottle. ‘You guys got me a bottle of liquor?’ she said incredulously.
Albert said, ‘We thought you might like it.’
Shrugging, Kristina opened the card, wishing she hadn’t shrugged. Her left shoulder burned with pain.
‘Wow,’ Kristina said without enthusiasm. Yesterday she would have been grateful for a fifteen-dollar bottle of Southern Comfort that would keep her going through Thanksgiving. If it hadn’t been for Kristina’s turning twenty-one, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she and Albert couldn’t go to Canada, and if it weren’t for the fact that she had almost died, Kristina Kim would have been delighted to get Southern Comfort from her closest friends.
‘No, guys, really,’ she said, staring into three drawn, disappointed faces. ‘Wow. I’m sorry. It’s a great present. I’m just hurting, my body hurts, you know. I had a little to drink a while ago to dull the pain, and it’s made me seem ungrateful, but it’s fantastic, really.’
She leaned over to one side and kissed Conni on the cheek. Then she leaned over to the other side and kissed Jim on the mouth. Albert was sitting across from her at the table, and she wasn’t about to get up, and he did not move either, so she just said, ‘Thanks, Albert,’ and he said, ‘Don’t mention it. It’s our pleasure.’
Conni asked, ‘Krissy, how are you going to play basketball? Look at your arm. What are you going to do? I’d go to the hospital or the infirmary if I were you, really, something, you know? ‘Cause you don’t want to just collapse or something, I mean, I’m just trying to be helpful.’
Kristina waved dismissively with her good arm. ‘This is my dribbling arm. I don’t need the other arm.’
‘You need it to shoot the ball,’ said Albert.
‘I’ll shoot it with one hand,’ said Kristina. ‘UPenn needs a handicap.’
‘You’re not that good,’ said Jim. He had said little.
‘Oh, yes, I am,’ said Kristina, managing a small, genuine smile. She didn’t want to tell them how badly frightened she was about her injuries, about what they might mean for basketball.
Livening up a little, Kristina talked about the Christmas tree going up in the middle of the Dartmouth Green, though Jim was Jewish and didn’t care much about the tree, so they talked about Schindler’s List
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