comfort (3/4)

(unrevised)

Mom called me ten minutes before Stats class; we were going to take an exam today and I was cramming like mad since I had been up all night comforting my roommate Daisy, who had recently got into some kind of big fight with her best friend or boyfriend or somebody. My recollection of details on such a topic would have been clearer if I were
1) not overcaffeinated
2) to have gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before
3) not studying for statistics.
Unfortunately I was none of the three, and I ignored the phone call as I flipped pages in my lecture notes, nearly tearing the bind off. A few seconds later, I got a text message from Mom so I opened it. It said: "CALL BACK IMMEDIATELY. Thanks :)."

"I have an exam in nine minutes," I snapped when she answered, without looking up from the formula for how to calculate standard deviation.
"Wonderful! I called to wish you good luck," was her cheerful reply.
"Mom, you don't even know my major, let alone the dates I have exams."
"You're a film major," she said easily, and I was too distracted to correct her this time. "But anyhoo, Allie darl', I have great news! I've decided to visit you this weekend! Being cooped up alone in this ol' Chicago hole has really drained my youthfulness, and I need to get out!"
My mind was cloudy and half studying my notes and all, but it definitely managed to catch and process this absurd new information pretty quickly. "Really--visit me? You're pretty funny." I checked my watch. Six minutes.
"Am I? It must be because of my new psychiatrist! He's got quite the sense of humor. How 'bout you pick me up at eleven in the morning at JFK this Friday?"
By the specifics of her ramble, it was clear that Mom had already booked a plane ticket and, due to her recent obsession with being in control of her own life for once, was probably already all packed up as well. I closed my notebook and sighed, defeated. There was no reason to deny that she was more excited to see Ella than me. This past Monday, she nearly choked while popping her pills when I told her over Skype that I might have found the girl. Or woman. Whatever.
"Fine," I said, deciding that I would deal with the worries of how to pay for a cab to take me all the way to JFK and back, later. "See you then."
"Yippee, I'm so excited! Love you!" Mom yelled before I snapped my phone shut and set it on silent just in time for class. The hallways were getting crammed as students filed out of the lecture halls, and it was a miracle that I could still hear myself think.
"Sixty-three, ninty-five, ninty-nine point seven," I whispered to myself. "Ella Moy, The Stirrer...Dad."

The good thing with taking exams though, is that it isn't like in the movies when the sleep-deprived, troubled character gets too distracted by personal issues and ends up failing. Instead, the stuff on the test is all you can think about while you take it, and it's only afterward when all the problems of the world catch up to you.