“Nice to meet you.” She smiled but I didn’t miss the slight curl to her lips. “What can I help you with?”
“Celeste is going to be volunteering with us and she’s interested in your group.”
“I see.”
“Be a doll and let her sit in on today’s group. She can get a feel for things and meet some of the regulars. I’ll see you back in the office in an hour.” Mrs. Sinclair gave me a little clap on the shoulder and left me with Claudia.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
She huffed, spinning on her heel and making a beeline for one of the tables. “You can keep Martha and Miriam company,” she said, motioning for me to sit.
I slid onto a chair and smiled at the two elderly women. “Hello, I’m Celeste.”
“I’m Martha. You’re… very pretty,” one of the women stuttered.
“Thank you.” I blushed. “Have you been coming here long?”
“Al-almost a year.”
I nodded and looked to the other woman.
“Miriam. It’s my first day,” she said.
“Then I guess we have something in common.”
“Do you go to Darling Hill High?”
“Uh, no. I actually go to Darling Academy.”
“Ah, I see.” Miriam pursed her lips. “Born and raised in Darling Row myself.”
“I have some friends who live in The Row.”
“You do?” Surprise flared in her eyes. “Well, I guess we live in a different time to when I was a young girl growing up.”
“The youth of today.” Martha smiled. “Ah, what I w-wouldn’t give.” She took a deep breath. “To do it all again.”
“It’s not for me,” Miriam huffed. “All that teenage angst and heartache.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It was exciting.”
I listened to the two of them debate the impermanence of youth, smiling to myself. Here were two elderly women suffering with an awful disease, and yet, not once did they complain or gripe.
“What about you, Celeste?”
Both looked at me expectantly and I realize I’d zoned out of the conversation.
“Sorry, what?”
“What do you want to do when you’re older?”
“I…” I hesitated.
Martha’s question caught me off guard. It had been a long time since anyone asked me that. I had been planning to go to Columbia to study medicine for as long as I could remember. It was my destiny, decided by my parents the second I showed interest in playing doctors and nurses. It only grew from there. My natural affinity for caring. Add in the early signs of my impressive IQ and Mom and Dad had my future all mapped out for me.
Celeste Rowe, daughter of Michael Rowe and Sabrina Rowe-Delacorte, would make her mark on the world as a doctor.