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“Barry?” Lainey says into the phone. The squiggly cord’s somehow gotten wrapped around her arm as well as the lamp sitting on her nightstand. Again.
She has to awkwardly bend at the waist and practically lay on her side to both hear and speak properly.
“Lainey? Is that you? You sound funny.” Barry calls into the phone at his end. As usual, his normal speaking voice is a bit like yelling.
“It’s because I’m sick, Bare,” Lainey says, pausing to cough into her elbow. It hurts her chest. Again. “My neighbor down the hall is a nurse. She says she thinks I have pneumonia.”
“But it’s my mid-winter break, Lainey. I’m about to come see you for the most magical, romantic winter getaway ever. You can’t have pneumonia, I won’t allow it.”
“Bare,” Lainey sighs, “no one’s more disappointed than me, but there’s no way I’ll be well enough by the time you get here.” She hears some shuffling and muffled words coming from who must be Barry’s medical school roommates for a moment before Barry comes back on.
“That’s okay, I understand,” Barry says, more subdued. “I’ll figure something else out, okay? I have a few things I have to do here first, but then I’m coming to you, girl.”
“I can’t wait to see you,” Lainey says, a confession. She’s missed him so much the past two months. They hang up and Lainey attempts to untangle the phone cord, only making it so far as to unwrap it from the lamp before putting the phone back in its cradle. She falls into another light doze, the most she’s been able to manage for the past five days.
“Lainey? Lainey? Your incredibly awesome boyfriend has arrived to spend his entire glorious winter break with you. Where you at girl?” Lainey snuffles awake, eyes opening a crack. How long has she been asleep? The light coming in through her bedroom shade is a lot dimmer than it was when Barry called.
“Lainey?” Barry’s footsteps sound outside her bedroom door seconds before it creaks open to reveal Barry himself in the light shining in from the living room. Her heart softens when she sees he’s wearing the Flyers winter hat she got him for Christmas.
“Bare?” she says. The voice coming out of her mouth hardly sounds like hers, it's so hoarse and choked-sounding.
“Lainey, my love, my sole reason for existence, how long have you been keeping your sickness from me? Tell your amazingly talented doctor boyfriend everything, I demand it,” he says, eyebrows furrowed and pointing at the ground to make his point.
Lainey gives him a bleary look before replying. “You're still in med school, honey. You’re not fully qualified yet to make diagnoses. And I was hoping I’d be better before you came to see me.”
“We’ll see who's not qualified,” Barry says, all defiance. He plops a small duffle bag on the floor next to her bookshelf before taking a seat on her bed.
"Let's sit you up first though," he says in a much softer tone as he pulls her upright, adjusting her smushed pillows and gently unwrapping the phone cord she's just now realizing has been coiled tightly around her wrist this whole time.
Barry reaches over to switch on her bedside lamp and pulls the afgan at the end of her bed up to cover her legs before opening the bag at his feet. Just then Lainey gives in to the urge to cough, pressing one hand to her chest as the coughs seem to rattle around wetly in her lungs, her other hand instinctively finding Barry's wrist and holding on. She watches Barry's eyebrows scrunch in concern as he brings his free hand up to rub circles in her back.
"Let it out baby, Barry’s here now," he says, waiting until her coughs die down. She slumps back into her pillows when they do, exhausted. She watches as Barry digs out his stethoscope from the bag and inserts the ends in his ears.
“I’m just going to have a little listen to your lungs okay,” he says, waiting until she nods at him before having her sit up straight. His fingers are warm against the chill of her bedroom when he snakes his hand under her sleep shirt, pressing the bell against her chest.
“Take a deep breath,” he says. She inhales, but not as deeply as she normally would.
“Good, another,” Barry says, moving the bell slightly. She inhales and exhales without his prompting. Barry moves the bell around, spending a few moments listening to her labored breathing in and out before pulling away.
“You definitely have pneumonia,” he says, removing the stethoscope ends from his ears and slinging it over his neck. “Luckily me and the roomies stole a few experimental drugs from the lab for you in case you run low,” Barry says.
“Barry!”she coughs.
“Just kidding, but I did come prepared. Everything I took is perfectly legal and FDA approved, don’t worry,” Barry says, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Oh, I think you might have a fever too. But first things first, let’s get some food into you so you can take your medicine.”
“I'm not really hungry,” Lainey says, even though she can’t entirely remember the last time she had something.
“Not even for Beverly Goldberg’s famous Matzo ball soup?”
“Here comes the train now, choo choo,” Barry sings, lifting a spoonful of soup in front of Lainey’s lips. Cautiously she opens her mouth and Barry promptly slips the spoon inside. She has to admit Mrs. Goldberg’s soup still tastes delicious, even when it's been frozen and reheated and she feels a little like dying at the moment.
“You don’t have to do this you know,” she says after swallowing. “I’m capable of feeding myself.”
“Alright, get to work then,” Barry replies, handing the spoon to her. “Just know I’ll always be here to help feed you in your time of need. Or in old age, whichever comes first.” While Lainey slowly eats the bowl of soup Barry sets on the pillow in her lap, Barry is busy pulling various items out of his duffle bag and setting them on the bed next to him. Lainey sees a few pill bottles, contents rattling, then a pair of thick woolen socks, and finally something clunky and white which she thinks might be another medical tool. He mutters to himself as he sorts through the different pill bottles, discarding them in his bag until he holds the last one up triumphantly.
“This one right here. I’m thinking twice a day with meals for two weeks should do it. You done with your soup baby?”
“Think so,” Lainey says, setting the spoon back in the bowl before she knocks everything over with the urge to cough. She covers her mouth with her sleep shirt, not wanting to spew her germs all over Barry. He looks unfazed, however, as he moves her soup bowl over to the nightstand and fetches her a glass of water.
“Take this while I take your temperature,” Barry says shaking out a single pill into the palm of her hand and passing over the water. Lainey does so, sinking back into her pillows in relief now that she doesn’t have to be sitting up straight. Everything just feels like so much effort at the moment. Which sucks, because Barry’s right in front of her for once, and not more than two hours’ drive away.
“What is that?” she asks him, watching as he separates the tool from the base, pushing the narrow end into a compartment and withdrawing it, now with a clear plastic cap covering the end.
“It’s this sweet ear thermometer I borrowed from my clinicals lab,” Barry explains, eyes bright. “It literally measures the temperature of your brain. Isn’t it awesome.”
“I love that that’s your definition of awesome.”
“Here, let me show you,” Barry says, leaning in to insert the end of the thermometer in her ear. Lainey starts, instinctively wanting to pull away, but Barry stills her with a hand on her knee.
“It’s okay, it’s not gonna hurt,” he says, looking into her eyes. His thumb rubs up and down on her kneecap. She surrenders.
The thermometer feels only mildly uncomfortable in her right ear, but Barry’s pulling it away to check the reading on the screen sooner than she expected. Her hand flies up to her ear in his absence.
“Just as I suspected, you totally have a fever. I’ll run and get you a wet cloth for your forehead,” Barry says, pecking her forehead before bounding off the bed and down the hall to the bathroom.
“And now to get comfy,” he says, laying a damp washcloth across Lainey’s forehead before shucking off his sweatshirt and climbing into bed next to her. His hat’s been discarded somewhere else in her apartment, so she’s able to reach an arm up and run her fingers over his curls. Without her having to ask, he removes her blankets enough to get her feet free and slips on the wooly socks he packed before covering them both up.
“C’mere Lainey Lewis. I’ve missed you,” Barry says, pulling her close so her head’s propped up on his chest and his arms stay wrapped around her waist. He turns on the television, and she drifts to sleep not long after, thinking she and Barry might both enjoy his mid-winter break after all.