Dance on Your Knees Pt. 03

"I'll pay you a thousand," Elaine offered. "Hear me? I'll pay you a thousand dollars a day; just stay with me and Deidre. Deidre, she loves you, she needs you here."

"What about you? You love me?" Bobby asked, hugging her tightly.

"I think, I think I do," Elaine whispered into his chest.

"Let me let Stevie know this is my last night working there," Bobby said, kissing her.

Stevie was indignant and told Bobby he could just leave. His ranting tirade drowned out the techno beat and the dancer on the stage paused to see what the hubbub was about. A few clients also turned to see what the man was screaming about.

"It's um, it's skillet pie day," Elaine said when Bobby entered the condo.

"Hi Mr. Bobby!" Deidre cheerfully called out. "Guess what? I don't got school tomorrow."

"Well, cool!" Bobby said. "Guess what? Me neither!"

Dr. Michael Quincy earned a lot of points in Bobby's eyes. The chubby man spoke to Deidre, not over her. He did not sugar-coat the diagnosis or the seriousness of her disease.

"Am I, am I going to die?" Deidre asked, eyes filling with tears.

"I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that you don't," Dr. Quincy promised the girl. "And because your mom got you here to see me before it got too aggressive? We've got a real good chance you will have a full recovery."

"And I wouldn't have known to get her here if Bobby hadn't seen something that worried him," Elaine said, clutching Bobby's hand tightly.

Even as athletic and active an eleven year old girl as she was, the very aggressive treatment really knocked Deidre on her butt. She threw up, sobbing and coughing. Bobby held the bucket for her while Elaine rubbed the child's back, making soothing sounds.

When her beautiful long red hair started to fall out in clumps, Bobby went to a local barber and told the man to shave him bald. The man looked at Bobby's lustrous hair with a raised eyebrow.

"My friend, she's fighting cancer," Bobby said, eyes filling with tears. "And all her hair's coming out."

"You got it, buddy," the man said, wiping at his own eyes.

"Here, buddy, the haircut's on me," a grizzled old customer said, pulling out his battered old wallet.

Even though he could afford the haircut and shave, could afford to pay for a hundred of the haircuts, Bobby allowed the customer to do his part. He shook the barber's hand and the customer's hand then left the dilapidated old building, rubbing his smooth head.

"What? What did you do?" Elaine shrieked when Bobby let himself into the condo.

"Like it?" Bobby asked, rubbing his bald head.

"You look like a cue ball," Elaine giggled, hugging him fiercely. "Oh my God! Just wait, just wait until Deidre sees you!"

"Mr. Bobby! What, what happened to all your beautiful hair?" Deidre gasped when she tiredly entered the condo, heavy backpack of school books slipping from her bony shoulders.

"Well, I guess the same thing that happened to your beautiful hair," Bobby said, rubbing his head.

"Mr. Bobby, you didn't' have do that for me," Deidre cried, hugging him.

"I didn't have to, I wanted to," Bobby said, kissing the top of her head.

That night, as they made love, Elaine kept rubbing his smooth head. She would then kiss him deeply.

"So, um, how old, I mean, Bill, Bill's what? About fifty?" Bobby asked as they cuddled in the afterglow.

"Forty seven. OhmyGod, he would die if he heard you say he's fifty," Elaine giggled. "That's why he wears that ridiculous toupee."

She reached up and again rubbed Bobby's smooth scalp. She kissed him and put her head on his chest again.

"He'd never in a million years shave his head for his little girl, that's for sure," Elaine mumbled.

"Forty...you, you're not, there's no way you're forty seven," Bobby said.

"Nope. Nowhere near," Elaine agreed.

After a long moment of silence, Elaine whispered, "I'm twenty eight."

"Twenty...and Deidre's eleven," Bobby mused, doing the math in his head.

"Same old story you hear all the time," Elaine said. "Went to a party at this friend's house, someone put something in my drink, woke up later with a sore pussy and no idea what had happened or where I was."

Bobby had nothing to say to this. Elaine told him her and her mother and father had met Bill Lowry in the office of the District Attorney's office; Bill was a nadministration assistant at that time. The older man had paid much attention to the frightened teenager and had shown much respect to Elaine's mother and father.

"He really earned points with my dad, learning how to pronounce our last name correctly," Elaine shrugged. "But then, when my mom and dad were killed; five gangbangers tried to mug them outside of Salvatore's Italian Dining; they came up demanding their money and their car. My dad killed three of them and my mom killed one of them. The last one killed both my mom and my dad. He died on the way to Lowridge; Alliance Health hadn't been built yet."

"Oh my God, you, so you're an orphan," Bobby murmured.

"Mm hmm; and Bill offered to marry me; we'd found out I was pregnant by this time," Elaine concluded her tale. "Oh, I'm sure the multimillion dollar trust my grandfather had left to me had nothing to do with it, right?"

Using Elaine's laptop computer, Bobby looked up healthy foods, healthy recipes; Deidre was losing weight badly. His first few attempts at cooking failed spectacularly; they found out the smoke detectors worked, maybe a little too well. They also found out that the smoke detectors were linked to a Court Building Security office. Laughing, Elaine told the dispatcher that her boyfriend was trying to learn how to cook; there was no need to send the Oakleaf Fire Department.

When Elaine slid Bobby's first paycheck across the table as they ate a breakfast quiche he'd made, Bobby angrily tore the check into small pieces. He then threw the pieces into the toilet of the hallway's half-bath and flushed them down.

"Don't you ever, ever do that to me again," he spat, wiping his angry tears away.

"But Bobby, I, I we had a deal. We had an agreement," Elaine sputtered.

"We had. We HAD an agreement," Bobby agreed. "And it's changed. I've changed. Okay? There is no agreement anymore. I'm here because I want to be. Not because you're paying me."

Saturday morning, Bobby, Elaine and Deidre went to the Sweet Oak Ice Skating Rink. But, just tying the skates on took all of her strength. Bobby rented a pair of skates and helped Deidre onto the ice. They skated slowly around the rink, him holding her upright. After their second rotation, Deidre whispered she was too tired; her legs wouldn't hold her up anymore.

"Okay, Sweetheart," Bobby said, the lump in his throat making it difficult to speak.

"Thank you, Mr. Bobby," Deidre whispered, leaning against her mother as Bobby helped her take her skates OFF. "I love the ice."

"I know, Sweetheart. I know," Bobby said, then slipped her canvas sneakers onto her feet.

The bloodwork showed that her red and white blood cell count were at a dangerous level, so Dr. Quincy ordered that Deidre be brought to Collier Hospital in Lowridge; their pediatric oncology ward was equipped with the latest and most advanced equipment. Bobby drove Elaine's Mercedes-Benz SUV while Deidre and Elaine huddled in the rear of the car, making promises to one another.

Entering the ward, Bobby saw the white walls of the hospital were not white. Everywhere, children, patients and siblings of patients had written their own affirmations.

IN 1974, a boy had pilfered a pen from the nurse on duty and had scribbled 'My name is Johnny and I'm getting better.' An orderly moved to clean the graffiti from the wall and a doctor firmly stopped the young man. Other children, seeing the chop-block writing, added their own.

"My name is Manny Esposito and I'm a cowboy," Bobby read as Elaine filled out Deidre's paperwork and admissions forms. "My name is Robin Ford and..."

Bobby froze for a long moment as he read the message from a childhood friend. After reading '...and I am beautiful.' He moved on to another child's affirmation.

"Yeah, Charlie, I bet you are strong," Bobby mumbled.

"When can my Sweetheart add her name to this wall?" Bobby asked a nurse that was heading toward one of the open doors.

"They got to spend one night, then they can add their name," the woman smiled. "Oh, look! There's Charlie!"

"Charlie okay?" Bobby asked.

"Charlie? Yeah, he's in his second year of college," the woman smiled. "He's going be a doctor. Oncology."

"You keep up with all of them?" Bobby asked, indicating the hundreds of scribbles.

"Charlie's my brother," the nurse said before entering the ward.

Deidre's third day in the ward, Bobby and she tried to find a blank space. Bobby hoisted the feather-light girl onto his shoulders and she found a space seven feet off the ground. She wrote 'My name is Deidre Ruth Lowry and I...'

"Mr. Bobby, what should I put?" Deidre asked.

"I don't know, Sweetheart. It's your message," Bobby said.

"Well, what would you put?" Deidre asked.

"That I'm strong? Um, that I'm handsome?" Bobby said.

'My name is Deidre Ruth Lowry and I am lucky.'

"Sir! Please! Please put her down," a scandalized nurse hissed.

On the fifth day of Deidre's stay at Collier, Bobby came to Elaine with an idea. She immediately looked up a costume shop and they raced to the store.

"I feel so silly!" Elaine laughed as she and Bobby drove to Collier Hospital.

"You kidding? You are the sexiest Robin I've ever seen," Bobby smiled.

"And you're the hottest Batman I've ever seen," Elaine agreed.

Stepping off the elevator, Bobby slipped on his cape and mask and Elaine again checked her makeup. Then, Bobby and Elaine, Batman and Robin dashed into the ward where twelve children were resting.

"I'm Batman," Bobby announced as a few squeals went out.

"Holy hot dogs and hamburgers," Elaine said. "And I'm Robin!"

(She had almost said 'Holy Hospitals' but stopped herself; these children were well aware they were in the hospital and didn't need a superhero reminding them of that fact.)

"And we're here to capture cancer and bring it to justice," Batman said. "Do any of you know where cancer is?"

"Cancer likes to hide, it hides in healthy tissues and in your bloodstream," Robin said.

"Look! Here's Dr. Doctor! He's here to help us fight cancer," Bobby announced when a startled Dr. Quincy entered the room.

"And here's Nurse Nice," Robin said.

"Sometimes, Nurse Nice doesn't seem so nice, sometimes she has to stick us with needles," Batman said. "But those needles are full of medicine and they help us get better. Isn't that right, Medicine Boy?"

"That's right!" Anthony Bernard affirmed, nodding his five year old head with enthusiasm when Batman pointed to him.

"Come on, Robin; Dr. Doctor has it all under control here," Batman ordered. "To the Batmobiel."

"Bye Batman!" several children called out.

'My name is medsin boy and I fite leukemia.'

It brought more than one nurse to tears; the five year old boy didn't know how to spell 'medicine' or 'fight' but did know how to spell 'leukemia.' For the next four months of his life, Anthony Bernard was known to the other children in the ward as 'Medicine Boy.'

Bobby and Elaine had intended to rush into the ward to cheer Deidre up. They'd gone into the wrong room, the one with the boys under the age of eight. So, they raced into the next room, the one for the girls over the age of eight and repeated the performance. Deidre squealed with laughter, recognizing her mother and Mr. Bobby. One nine year old girl was entranced; her stupid brother had a bunch of comic books and she kept telling him Batman and Spider Man and the Incredible Hulk weren't real. But right in front of her were Batman and Robin and they were here to fight cancer and bring it to justice.

"Please, do the next room too," 'Nurse Nice' begged.

The two visited every child in Collier Hospital, even the ones that were there for tonsillectomies or broken bones. Then, dashing into an empty examination room, they changed into their regular clothes and returned to the ward to visit Deidre.

"By the way," Elaine giggled as they left the hospital. "Tonight? Batman is going to get sooo fucked by Robin, hear?"

"No, Robin is going to get fucked by Batman," Bobby smiled. "So, Robin...to the Batcave. And grab the Batjelly, hear?"

"Holy roto-rooter, Batman! The Batjelly?" Elaine gasped, trying to shake her curls out. "Any idea how long it's going take to wash this stupid gel out of my hair?"

Two weeks after being released from the hospital, Deidre begged to go to the Sweet Oak Ice Skating Rink. Again, Bobby donned a pair of rental skates. He stepped out onto the ice and followed closely behind Deidre. When she tired, he skated up and offered the girl his hand.

"See, Mr. Bobby? I'm lucky," she tiredly whispered as she clutched onto him.

"Not as lucky as I am Sweetheart," Bobby smiled even as the lump in his throat made it hard to talk.

The next time Deidre had to spend a night in Collier, Bobby hired Darren McNeese, the still quite chubby friend from high school to pull on a black body suit with a large red 'C' on the front of it. Covering half of his face with a blood red mask, Darren terrified a few of the children as he stormed into their ward, cackling merrily.

"Not so fast, Cancer!" Batman ordered, stepping into the ward.

"Batman!" Cancer cried out, acting horrified.

"That's right!" Robin said. "And we're here to bring you to justice!"

"Oh no!" Cancer sobbed as Batman 'beat him up' then led him from the room.

"By the way, Mighty Mike? All take and no give," Darren admitted when they prepared to dash into the next wing of the Pediatric Oncology Ward.

"Could have told you that," Bobby smiled, then nodded with his head for Darren to dash into the room.

"I see we're back," Dr. Quincy smirked as Batman and Robin and Cancer stepped into the hallway from their third room.

"That's right, Dr. Doctor," Batman smiled. "This is my friend, Busta-D."

"Darren McNeese," Darren smiled, shaking the handsome doctor's hand.

"Michael Quincy," Dr. Quincy said, holding onto Darren's hand a moment longer than necessary.

"And don't worry," one small boy assured his father that evening. "Batman came and he beat Cancer up and I'm going be all better."

Darren wanted to refuse the five hundred dollars Elaine held out for him, but his mother could use that money. He made Bobby and Elaine laugh when he suddenly realized, his body suit did not have any pockets. So he wadded up the bills and stuffed them into his tennis shoe.

Bill Lowry found out that one hundred thousand dollars did not last long, not with a handsome blond man that wanted everything he saw. And when Bill had to tell Emil 'no' Emil found a rich man in Houston that could afford a fat cock with expensive tastes. So Bill hired Elizabeth Dumont and tried to have the pre-nup invalidated.

Forrest Meynard smiled genially at the older, harsh looking Elizabeth Dumont. Then, in front of a bored looking judge, Forrest eviscerated Elizabeth's client.

"There is also the matter of the minor child; Deidre Ruth Lowry," Forrest Said after the judge agreed that the pre-nuptial agreement would stand.

"She's not my kid," Bill protested bitterly. "Laney was already knocked up when..."

"Your name is on the birth certificate. You were married to my client at the time of her delivery," Forrest addressed the defeated man.

"Half of her medical bills? Jesus God Almighty, the kid's got cancer," Bill cried out.

"Sucks to be you," Bobby shrugged as Bill stormed from the courtroom.

"Batman!" Elaine chided, giggling. "That's not nice."

"Oh Robin. Quick! To the Batcave," Bobby husked into her ear and she slapped his arm.

"Busta-D, what up?" Bobby asked as he received a phone call later that evening from Darren McNeese.

"Hey, Big Bobby," Darren said cheerfully. "Listen, Mikey and I; we were hoping you and Robin could come and fight Cancer this weekend?"

Bobby heard Darren and a muffled voice arguing playfully. Elaine nodded her head in agreement as Bobby asked if they could do their Batman and Robin charade that weekend, after Deidre's ice skating.

"I am SOOO sorry," Darren said, returning his attention to the cell phone. "DOCTOR Quincy, not Mikey was wondering if you two would..."

"We'll be there after lunch," Bobby smiled.

Deidre was able to skate around the rink; she managed four times along the periphery without Mr. Bobby's help. Smiling happily, Deidre promised her mother she would be back to training for the 2028 Olympics in no time. They stopped at a Newhart's Restaurant for lunch, then drove to Collier Hospital.

"You know, in a couple of months? This outfit won't fit me anymore," Elaine admitted, smoothing down her Robin costume.

"Hmm?" Bobby asked, sticking his tongue out as Deidre laughed at his Batman costume.

"Mm hmm; I'm about three, three and a half months preggers," Elaine confessed. "It's already getting a little bit snug."

Bobby signed the pre-nup without argument. Deidre was her mother's maid of honor and Darren was Bobby's best man. The ceremony was performed in the chapel at Collier Hospital.

When Elaine's belly was too big, Deidre assumed the role of Robin. When she was unable to be Robin, due to being a patient in the ward, Marco/Kenny was happy to rent a Robin uniform. He refused Bobby's offered money, only asking that Bobby pay for the costume rental.

"That Nurse Nice..." Kenny whispered, pointing to a handsome male nurse. "You know if he's..."

"Only one way to find out," Bobby whispered back. "But come on, Robin, we've got two more rooms to visit.

Three years later, RJ watched his big sister DeeDee as she glided across the ice. Bobby held Paula as the infant slept; Elaine was busy videoing Deidre's performance.

"One, two, three..." Bobby breathed as the girl performed three leaps in a row, landing flawlessly each time. "Yes! That's it, that's it Baby Girl, that's it!"

Deidre gave Bobby a beaming smile as she swung into a spinning maneuver, coming to a stop. The patrons that were watching Deidre's performance broke into applause.

"I'm big? I'm skate," RJ declared as DeeDee clomped to where the family sat.

"I know!" Deidre agreed, kissing him. "You're almost big enough now, aren't you? Who's DeeDee's big boy, huh?"

"Come on; we need to go get your hair done," Elaine said after they watched the video of Deidre's skating routine.

"I still do not like this," Bobby said.

"Daddy, I'm the freshman Maid; I got to be there," Deidre argued.

"That's fine, but why do you need a date?" Bobby growled.

"Daddy, he's not a date; he's the freshman escort," Deidre explained again, why she had a date.

Donning a skintight muscle shirt that exposed his bulging biceps and emphasized his muscled torso, Bobby answered the chiming doorbell. He glared with open hostility at the pimple faced kid on the other side of the door.

"That? That is my baby girl," Bobby growled as Deidre made her entrance into the living room.

"Yes sir," the boy swallowed nervously.

"And, son? Anything happens to my baby girl? I'll be out of jail long before you're out of the hospital," Bobby promised.

As the door closed behind the two fourteen year olds, Bobby allowed a tear to trickle down. Marching to the bar, he poured himself a double of the St. Elizabeth's Premium Whiskey. Elaine smiled and pulled her bra cup down. Paula latched onto her Mommy's nipple and began sucking greedily.

"'I'll be out of jail long before you're out of the hospital,'" Elaine imitated her husband's deep growl.

Hush woman," Bobby smiled tightly.

While Bobby finished his drink, now safely in the back seat of his father's car, the freshman escort braved making a disparaging remark about Deidre's dad. Deidre looked at the boy then clapped her hand firmly over his mouth.