Cover Her Face

COVER HER FACE

"Hey Lara, get over here!" Lara Jenkins could hear her boyfriend Kris
calling her. She blocked out the sound of his voice and carried on
swimming up and down the pool.

It had turned out to be a glorious summer. Lara and Kris had managed
to persuade their parents to let them go to Kris's Parents beach house
for the week. They had in-vited Vel, Jame, Sal and Adam to come as
well. It had given the six teenagers a free-dom they would never
forget.

"Lara, come on! We've only got one more day before we go home on
Monday. Let's make the most of it." Lara rolled over onto her back
lazily and opened her eyes to see Kris standing by the side of the
pool.

"What's up Kris?" asked Lara.

"Come on Lara, I've been calling you for the last fifteen minutes!
Hurry up and get dressed so that we can go to the beach disco"

Lara apologised and went up the stairs to the balcony that was
connected to her bedroom. As she walked up she was getting dressed in
her mind. She had mentally chosen her short black dress, white crop top
and red shirt. She'd be wearing her black sandals of course. She hadn't
worn anything else all summer when she went out.

Lara put her clothes on and went to see if Vel and Sal were ready yet.
They were just putting the finishing touches to their make-up and hair.
As Lara waited for them to finish she found herself seeing the future
yet again.

Lara hadn't told anyone about her 'gift' because she was scared of it
and what might happen if she did tell anyone. She remembered the first
time it had happened and how everyone thought that she had somehow made
it happen herself.

That first time Lara had known what was going to happen in the future
she didn't know what was going on and fainted. She was taken to
hospital with concussion and was kept in for a couple of days. When
Kris came to see her she told him what had happened and he thought that
Lara was just having a laugh. When it actually happened a few days
later Kris thought that Lara had somehow made it happen so that she
wouldn't be laughed at. Lara however, knew that she hadn't done
anything and realised what had happened. She could see what was going
to happen in the future.

This time was different, she could see the whole gang. They were all
having a great time, laughing and joking in the sea. Then she saw a
hospital room, she couldn't tell what kind of room it was but she
thought it was the hospital mortuary. Kris, Vel, Sal, Jame and Adam
walked in through the door. Lara started to get worried, where was
she?

Suddenly Lara was jolted back to reality by Vel and Sal standing up
and shaking her. "Come on Lara, we'll be late if we don't hurry up.
Anyway, I thought you and Kris were going to ......." Vel stopped short
as Sal kicked her. "OUCH. Sal what did you do that for you stupid old
......." Vel stopped again looking at Sal. She suddenly realised that
she wasn't supposed to tell Lara that Kris was taking her out for a
meal and was going to propose to her.

"Come on Lara." Kris was calling her again. "The taxi's here!" Lara
raced down the stairs wondering "what taxi? What on earth is going on?"
"After you" Kris said. Lara noticed that Kris actually had a suit on.
OK, so he wasn't wearing a tie, but he did look smart.

After a twenty minute journey the taxi turned off in front of a
restaurant called 'Bluebeckers'. It was really posh and the moment Lara
stepped into the foyer she was hit by the sparkling glare of the
chandelier.

"Good Evening Sir, Madam" said the waiter. He showed Lara and Kris to
a quiet table in the corner of the third room they went through. After
Lara and Kris had or-dered their meal Kris started to say something.
Unfortunately just at that moment the band started to play and Lara
wanted to dance until their starters arrived.

After about five minutes Lara and Kris were tired of dancing, and
anyway their starters had come. When Lara had finished her main course
Kris had just gone to the loo - or so she thought. A few minutes later
Kris was up on the stage tapping on the microphone,

"Ladies and Gentlemen. Hi, my name is Kris Sutchins and I've got a
very special reason for coming here tonight." Every single head in the
restaurant turned to look at Kris. It took Lara a few seconds to
register what was going on, but when she realised that it was her Kris
up on the stage she went bright red. Kris continued. "I'm going to
start off by singing a song that I wrote for my girlfriend Lara. She's
sitting over there in the corner." Everybody turned to look at Lara.
Kris started singing the song. At the end of it he received thunderous
applause from everybody, including Lara.

Kris's face drew deadly serious. "I'd like Lara to come up here on the
stage with me." Lara self-consciously walked up, aware of every single
person's eyes on her. She was sure that she was going to trip up or
make an idiot of herself in some other way. She accepted Kris's hand to
help her up onto the stage and soon was standing in front of the
restaurant.

Kris began talking. "Lara, I know that we've only been going out for a
year and that we are both still young. You're only 16 and I'm 18. I've
got something I want to ask you and I want everybody in this restaurant
to witness it." Every pair of eyes was riv-eted on Kris and Lara.

Kris got down on one knee and reached into his pocket and drew out a
small velvet covered box. As he opened it, Kris looked deep into Lara's
eyes and started to speak again.

"Lara, I would be very happy indeed if you would marry me." He said
this in a steady calm voice and was looking into Lara's eyes the whole
time.

Lara could tell that everyone was holding their breath waiting for her
answer. She had become so overwhelmed by her love for Kris that she
found she couldn't speak. Suddenly her voice came back.

"Are you kidding?! I'd love to!" Kris jumped up, put the ring on her
finger and hugged her. Everyone in the restaurant was clapping. All the
women had tears in their eyes and all the men were slouching down in
their chairs ashamed of themselves for not proposing to their wives so
romantically.

As Lara and Kris walked back to their table the band started playing
Cliff Richard's 'Congratulations'. When the two young people had sat
down, the manager came rush-ing over with a waiter in tow carrying a
bottle of champagne.

Lara and Kris had trouble understanding what the French manager was
saying but when they eventually managed to, they realised that the
champagne and the meal were on the house. The manager also said that
they could borrow the restaurant car to drive them back to the beach
house.

When Lara and Kris got back to the beach house Lara suddenly realised
that she couldn't get married to anyone without her parents' consent.
She mentioned this to Kris and he told her that he had already checked
it out with her parents and that they were perfectly happy about the
whole thing. Lara started crying because she was so happy and Kris gave
her a big hug. In about five minutes they had both fallen asleep in
each others arms and that was how Sal, Jame, Vel and Adam found them
when they got back from the disco later that evening.

The next day Lara told Vel and Sal about what had happened and was
surprised to find out that they already knew all about it!

Lara, Kris and both their parents thought that it would be a good idea
if they got married on Valentine's Day. Lara's birthday was a week
later and they could use the money that Lara would inherit on her 17th
birthday to help pay for a larger wedding than could otherwise be
afforded.

All went smoothly and they had a lovely wedding and honeymoon. Later
that year they persuaded Kris's parents to let them use the beach house
for a week again in the summer. They invited Vel, Jame, Sal and Adam to
come with them but this time only three of the bedrooms were
used.

On the last day they were all in the sea having a great time playing
Water Volley-ball when Lara felt something brush past her leg. She
didn't take any notice of it as she thought it was just some seaweed.
Suddenly the lifeguard was yelling at everybody asking them to come out
of the water as he had received a report that the were some Box
jellyfish in the surrounding bays.

When the six young people had dropped onto their towels Lara looked at
her leg. It had gone a funny purple-black colour. She mentioned this to
Kris who immediately rushed over to the lifeguard and brought him over
to have a look.

When the lifeguard came over he asked Lara one question "Did you feel
something brushing against your leg that felt like seaweed?" Lara
nodded dumbly. The lifeguard told her to wait there while he and Kris
walked over to his tower. What Lara didn't know was that she had been
stung by one of the Box jellyfish and that if she didn't get to
hospital within 30 minutes after being stung there was very little
chance of her sur-viving. Kris was being told all this by the lifeguard
who was going to call an ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived Lara was put onto a drip which contained
antidote to the jellyfish sting. As Lara was carried up to the
ambulance Kris walked with her while the others collected up all their
belongings and made their way to the beach house. They were going to
get Adam's car and meet Kris at the hospital.

On the way to the hospital Lara looked at Kris and asked him to phone
her parents as soon as they got to the hospital. Not soon after that
she lapsed into a coma and was put onto an artificial respirator to
help her breathing. When they got to they hospital Lara was wheeled
into the crash room and as Kris tried to follow her in he was stopped
by a burly orderly. "But I'm her husband!" Kris protested, but it
didn't do any good. He was told to go and sit down in the relatives
waiting room where there was a phone so that he could make any calls he
needed to.

Kris phoned Lara's parents who said that they would be down as quickly
as they could. He then phoned his parents and they said exactly the
same thing. After fifteen minutes the rest of the gang turned up. They
were followed fifteen minutes later by Lara's parents and Kris's
parents. Everybody wanted to know what was happening so Kris and Lara's
dad went to see if they could find out. They returned with the news
that Lara was still in a coma and there was only a 15\% chance of her
surviving an op-eration to get the poison out of her blood stream.
Lara's mother burst into tears as did Kris's mum, Vel and Sal.

When the doctor came in to see if they had made a decision on whether
or not they wanted Lara to have the operation they had decided that it
was not a good idea to go ahead with it as it might put her through
even more pain. However they did want to turn off her artificial
respirator as she could breathe on her own and it would enable Kris and
her parents to be at her bedside when she took her last real breath.
The doctor agreed to this and they went into her cubicle. Kris stood on
one side of the bed hold-ing one hand and Lara's parents stood on the
other side stroking her other hand.

Suddenly Lara gasped opened her eyes, looked at Kris, mouthed 'I love
you', and stopped breathing, The doctor came in took her pulse and
pronounced her officially dead.

Kris ran out of the cubicle, went outside and gulped in the fresh air.
It couldn't be. They'd only been married six months and already he was
a widower. He was too young to be a widower, Lara was too young to die.
As he walked back into the hospi-tal he took hold of his emotions and
went back into Lara's cubicle to say goodbye for the first time. He
stood there telling her all the things he always wanted to tell her.
How much he loved the way she had coped when her best friend had died,
the way she always made people feel comfortable in her presence, the
way she had been the only person to be nice to him when he had first
moved here. He told her about how much he had loved her and how much
courage it had taken him to ask her parents if he could marry
her.

After half an hour the doctor came in and said that he had to take
Lara away to the mortuary. Kris nodded with tears streaming down his
face and said "It's O.K doctor. Cover her face."