13 August 2012
-TIFFANY- "Tiffany! Good to see you back! How was the Maldives?" Mrs Guy asked as soon as I walked in. "Absolutely incredible thank you!" I replied, sitting down in my seat after pulling my folder off her shelf. "Enjoying married life?" she asked, sitting down on her desk, as she always did. "Am I? It's incredible! He's just the most amazing husband I could have ever imagined ending up with" "Aww I'm glad! Now, I've heard about your request for earlier exams, not the reason but I'm hoping you'll share that with me later, but in the meantime we need to pick a text for you to study for your final. Now, as you have a few months less than everyone else, I'm happy to offer you private lessons, but I think it would be beneficial if you picked a text from this list that you've already read, or already understand, as we'd have a good head start" "Of course, can I look now?" "Sure!" she said, handing me the double sides A4 sheet, with realms and realms of book titles on it. I didn't read the list if I was honest, as my eyes made direct contact with one book in particular: one book I knew about, and an author I was well acquainted with as I studied one of his books in last year's exam. "Can I do Gatsby?" I asked, putting the paper down, knowing the answer was going to be yes. "I'm glad you picked that one actually, I know it's one of your favourites, and after you studied The Beautiful and the Damned last year, I know you're confident with Fitzgerald's texts" "I do know the story inside out" I said, remembering how much joy this book brought me. "I assume you have a copy then?" "Only, like, 5!" "Well here's mine" she said, showing me her battered copy that looked slightly ancient. "Why don't I read some quotes and you can give me an analysis to see how much you already know?" "Sure!" I said, knowing this was one of my fortes. "Umm... Okay 'mirrors that reflected a dozen suns' from chapter 4, describing Gatsby's car" "Easy. All of Gatsby's possessions are for show: to create this image of the upper class, that he hopes to portray as part of his heritage. His car is no exception, and I believe that the word 'reflect' indicates that 'copycat' lifestyle he is living. The suns, meanwhile, represent Daisy and the rest of the 'old money' families. Not only are they always surrounded by the colours white and gold, but also by natural light, which the sun emits" "Wow.. Perhaps we won't be needing that extra tuition!" she said, applauding me twice. "Why don't you write me a 2000 word essay for the rest of the lesson and hand it to me tomorrow after school? I can see that the use of colour in the novel is a certain strong point of yours, am I right?" "Symbolism in general. It's used in such a glorious manner" "Start with colour, and if you run out of things to say, then you can add in various uses of symbolism. The title is: Colour in Gatsby, and as I said, it should be roughly 2000 words. Is that alright?" "Of course, sounds pretty perfect actually!" "Do you have a copy of the book at school to use for quotes?" "I can remember most of them! But yes I do thank you" "Well you can use my copy for the rest of this lesson, then use yours. You may begin!" she said, as I pulled out my laptop, ready to type away at one subject that I knew better than any other; even better than Nate himself.
-NATE- As my lesson finished, I went back to our room, just as Tiffany and I had agreed as we had to be at the hospital at 10, and it was now 9.30. I sat there for a while, sitting on my couch and fiddling with the loose strands coming from my clothing whilst I waited for Tiffany. Where was she? She couldn't have forgotten about our appointment could she? I decided to send her a text, to remind her, and as soon as I did, she replied with 'Oh my god! Slipped my mind completely! I'll meet you by the car' I could tell she'd written it in a rush as she hadn't put any x's at the end, but I decided to run and get the car so I could have it pulled up outside her class before she left. I ran down the nearest staircase, jumping down the last two; the anticipation of finding out whether my child was alright carrying me and spurring me on. As I reached the car, I dived straight in, starting the engine and revving it twice to make sure the whole school realised my car was out and about. As predicted, a few of the younger boys popped their heads out of the windows from their lessons and gasped and ahhed at the sight of my Aston Martin. Tiffany must have heard it too, as when I was pulling up, she was already stood outside, waiting. "What happened?" I asked as she got in. "Sorry, I'm doing Gatsby and I was writing an essay! I'm sorry baby" she said, leaning in so she could kiss my cheek. "I'll forgive you. Now, we need to get into the hospital as soon as possible: I heard traffic was bad today" "Oh I'm sorry. I really am" "Shh, don't worry. Please don't worry, stay as calm as possible, leave it to me" I said, putting one hand on her knee but making sure one was on the wheel and my eyes were on the road. When we reached the hospital, at 10.05, we got out of the door as quickly as possible, and I took Tiffany's hand in mine, squeezing it tightly in support. "Sandy?" Nate said as we saw her walking down a corridor. "Nate! Darling, come straight through" she said, leading us into the all too familiar maternity ward. "Nate, I can't..." Tiffany began as we stepped back towards that doomed room. "Shh, it's okay. Just ignore it" I said, glancing into that very room and remembering back to the painful memories we shared in there: when I left her all alone, when I came back in and she was in tears, not knowing what to do or how to help her. Things moved in slow motion as we walked past, with me keeping my eyes on that room and the seating outside even after we'd walked by; but the squeeze on my hand snapped me back to life, and we continued walking, towards another, smaller room. "I didn't want to have to talk to you in there" Sandy said as she shut the door behind us. "Thank you" Tiffany whispered, emotion taking her over. "Well you'll be happy to know I've talked to lots of colleagues and they don't think that anything's wrong with the baby. It's too soon to do an ultrasound now anyway, so we'll just have to play it by ear: if you feel any twinges or have any stomach ache that's out of the ordinary then you should probably come back in and we'll do some tests, but we want to avoid that if at all possible" "Thanks Sandy" I said, smiling across at her and wrapping my arm around Tiffany, happy to know that my worst suspicions were in fact false. "But that's not the only thing I wanted to talk to you about. Tiffany, have you ever heard of the phrase 'eating for two'?" "Of course, why?" "Well I think you should be. How much do you weigh?" "7 and a half stone I think. Maybe 8. Why?" "Right. Well I think you should be eating a lot more. At the end of the day, your baby should be more important to you than your figure now, so you need to eliminate any reason that could cause you to miscarry again. That's all. It's not urgent, and I don't think you have a condition or anything, I just don't want to see you go through everything you did again because of one little reason which is easily changed" "Thanks Sandy. We should probably go now, unless there's anything else?" Tiffany asked, sounding a little annoyed. "No, give me a call if anything else happens" "Sure we will, thanks again Sandy, it means a lot" I said, hugging Sandy before chasing Tiffany down the corridor, as she'd made a beeline straight towards the exit.
Love You Too: PART NINETY THREE • Opuss № I