“Where do you think we should go for Memorial Day?” he asked. His mind briefly thought back to the hospital and the beautiful blonde woman, but there was no way Donnie would go for that. Visiting people in the hospital was something celebrities did; Donnie wanted to do something fun. “I guess we could hit up a grill in town. We don’t have to gather around it in order to enjoy it. There are plenty of restaurants around with ‘grille’ in their description if not their name.”
“Now you’re talking,” Donnie said to him with another grin. “And before we do that, we could go visit some of the sights I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Craig joined him at the table for some pancakes and they chatted for a while, happy in each other’s company. He suspected his brother felt bad about what happened last night, even if he hadn’t said anything directly about it. Donnie could be frivolous and haphazard at times, but it didn’t mean he didn’t care about others. When he’d mentioned the driver’s insurance last night, Craig had a feeling he was going to give the driver more than enough to cover the costs because the whole thing was his fault.
Once Craig was finished with his pancakes, he went off and took a shower so he’d be ready to have fun on their last day of vacation. He was going to miss Donnie but he also thought he was ready for things to return to normal.
Well, as normal as they could be. He didn’t exactly have a normal life or a normal job. But he had his own version of normal.
He put on some black dress pants and a dark blue button-up, keeping the top button undone since he wasn’t wearing a tie. Craig wasn’t sure what the dress code at STATE was, but he had a feeling they’d at least expect dress pants and button-up shirts. When he met Donnie back out in the hallway, he was pleased to see his brother had thought similarly. Donnie was wearing some steel gray pants and a black button-up with a gray tie.
“Show off,” Craig said. “Should I go and get a tie now?”
Donnie laughed, shaking his head. “I like to overdress sometimes. It keeps people on their toes.”
When they went downstairs, there was a car waiting for them. The two brothers got into the car and they were whisked away to Rockefeller Center as well as the big Nintendo store. Craig felt like a kid again, playing against Donnie in Mario Party on the store’s big screen. A pair of little boys came over but instead of trying to take over playing the game, they just wanted to watch them play. Craig felt pretty awesome about that, especially each time he beat his brother at one of the game’s many mini-games.
“I haven’t played this in so long,” Donnie said. “But I do have a Switch. Dude, next holiday, why don’t you come over to my place in Atlantic City and we’ll play games all weekend like we’re kids again?”
The thought was tempting, but Craig wondered if pretending to be young again was such a good idea. After all, he wasn’t that old yet and he had so much to feel proud of now he was an adult. “I don’t know, man. I feel like I’ve been living my best life now, not back when I was a spoiled kid playing games all day.”
Donnie smiled and shook his head at him. “This is living your best life?” he asked playfully. “Sounds boring, but okay.”
They couldn’t leave the store without Donnie buying a big, metal display of Link from Legend of Zelda even though he didn’t need it and he was never a fan of that game in the first place. Placing it into the trunk of their car reminded Donnie the car wasn’t theirs to keep for the whole night. “Let’s keep you on the clock for us tonight, okay, Joey?” he asked the driver with a wink as he stuffed some green bills into the lapel pocket of the driver’s jacket.
Joey, their driver, looked at Donnie a bit stone-faced and then nodded. “If you wish, sir. Thank you.”
The brothers got into the car and then rode off down the street to the nearby Empire State Building. Even though it had been a while since Donnie went on the tour, he and Craig bypassed it this time and they just took the elevator straight up. “This is the best view in New York that doesn’t include one of the best-known landmarks,” Craig told him. “Personally, I think going up to the top of Rockefeller Center is cooler for that reason.”
“I’m friends with more of the security guys in this building,” Donnie pointed out. “But that’s okay. We can each have our own building. Just like when we were little; we never shared toys, we just picked different favorites.”
They watched the sun set from atop the classic building, and then they went down to the restaurant inside it. They were certainly not going to be able to convene around the grill, but STATE did indeed have a grill. As Craig looked over the menu, he thought steak made the most sense. “It seems the most like a Memorial Day meal.”
Donnie went for the lamb and also ordered a serving of oysters and some grilled octopus. “I’m going to miss you, man,” he said to Craig as they ate. “I meant what I said. You should come visit me next in my swinging bachelor pad. We can play games, go to the carnival on the boardwalk. You’d have a lot of fun.”
“I just might have to take you up on that offer,” Craig said. “But only if you promise not to drive like that again.”
Donnie laughed. “Okay, it’s a deal. Hey, I’m sorry about that, you know? I just wanted to get out of there to make sure the car wasn’t going to be worse than it was. I’m sure the girl’s okay, though. She had people right there to take care of her.”
“I suppose,” Craig said, nodding slightly. He really didn’t feel right about the way they had handled the whole thing. He wanted to believe she was going to be okay, but she’d seemed so sad and shaken. Even if the doctors were able to take care of her injuries, it didn’t sit well with him. They’d taken off instead of making sure she was actually going to be okay first. He wanted to know more of her story. Especially now that he was sitting in a ritzy restaurant, eating grilled oysters and having a great old time.
“Do you ever think we could be doing more good with our money?” he asked Donnie. “I don’t mean just donating to charity, although that’s nice too. I mean directly using our money or skills to help people in need?”
Donnie looked at him as if the thought had never crossed his mind. “You mean like becoming surgeons instead of plastic surgeons?” he asked him. “Not really. I think the work we do is plenty noble.”
"You think it's noble to help people lie about their appearance?" Craig asked him. "I've been feeling like such a superficial person lately. Who cares if rich people have flaws? We all do. Why can't they embrace them?"
"Well, for one thing, because we'd be out of a job," Donnie said.
There was no denying that. Craig studied so long to become one of the best at what he did, too. But wasn't he allowed to feel remorse about it? He'd been feeling this way before the accident, too, but the look on that poor woman's face now amplified it.
“Look, it’s nice you care about that woman’s well-being or what have you,” Donnie said. “But it’s probably not wise to worry so much about the superficial aspects of our job. We make a lot of money being good at something. We make people feel better about themselves, even if only on the outside. You don’t know, for half of these people it could be their version of therapy.”
Craig decided to try and think of it that way instead. After all, he wanted to be able to sleep at night, so if he was doing right by people, he could rest easy.
Chapter Four
Headlights and street lights flashed outside of Sandy’s car window. She slowly opened her eyes, her head throbbing, and she saw blood everywhere. She realized several things at once: her nose was bleeding profusely, the Lyft she’d been riding home from the store had been in a car accident, and she was alive. Somehow, she was alive. She tried to remind herself of that important fact as she cautiously looked at her reflection in the mirror on the other side of the sun visor.
There was no doubt about it; her nose was broken. Reflexively, Sandy brought her hands to her nose as if gently touching it would help in some way. As she stared, horrified, at her reflection, she knew that she was
going to have some attractive black eyes soon as well. As a comedian, being pretty was often not her number one goal, but she was often cast in sketches as the ditzy blonde who got all the guys but couldn’t spell her own name. How was she going to perform on The Banana Peel next week if her pretty face was destroyed?
It didn’t help the driver had left her in the car either. He was standing outside, on the phone with his insurance company when she wanted him to be in there with her, comforting her. He actually hung up his phone for a moment and then called someone else. How rude! she thought. I hope he’s at least calling a hospital. I’m afraid to move in case something else is wrong with me.
Her right wrist hurt as well, but she wasn’t sure if it was broken or if she’d just aggravated her nerves. She had fairly weak wrists as it was, so this jostling around probably didn’t help. As she was sitting there in the mangled car, crying and feeling sorry for herself, Sandy saw a man peeking into the car’s windows. Instead of feeling comforted by that, she only started crying harder because he didn’t reach inside to try and help her. “Who are you?” she cried, but he’d already moved away back to the other bent and scraped car a few feet away. He had been in the car that hit her car. It dawned on her then; he’d only been looking into the Lyft in order to quickly assess the damage. She felt so alone in all of this. She looked down at her purse at her feet, knowing she should call her dad and tell him what happened, but too concerned about further injuring herself.
The driver opened the door and smiled at her in a way he most likely thought was comforting, but wasn’t really. “An ambulance will be here in a few minutes,” he said to her. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”
She thought it was crazy of him to say such a thing when she was sitting in his car, covered in blood. Sandy didn’t know what she’d hit her head against, but then the matching blood on the dashboard told her everything she needed to know. “Are you okay?” she asked the driver, feeling it would be rude to assume and not even ask.
He nodded. “Oh yeah, I’m fine. I’m annoyed, but I’m fine. Thanks for asking. We’re gonna get you taken care of, all right? No one’s going to die on my watch.”
What a weird thing for him to say.
“Can you please do me a favor?” Sandy asked him, gesturing a nod towards her purse on the floor. “Can you get out my phone and call my dad for me? He’s in my contacts, right at the top under ‘Dad.’ Tell him—” Oh shoot. She started crying again, blubbering out the last few words. “Tell him what happened and that I’m okay!”
The driver gave her a sympathetic look and carefully reached down, grabbing her purse and doing everything she asked without saying anything else about it or trying to get her to calm down. She appreciated that. He didn’t make her feel like a crazy, emotional female even if she thought she was one.
Suddenly, some red and blue lights flashed, signaling the arrival of the ambulance. Sandy wasn’t thrilled about needing to ride in one – and who was going to pay for that?! – but she was relieved to get medical assistance so she could make sure she wasn’t going to die or anything. Aside from her nose, she really did believe she was fine now.
“We’re going to get you out of the car now, ma’am, okay?” one of the EMTs told her, opening her car door and kneeling down to unbuckle her seatbelt. He asked her to turn her head and she was happy to find her neck didn’t hurt. She had a bit of whiplash, but that was to be expected. She followed a light with her eyes and then the EMT carefully lifted her out of the car and onto a wheeled gurney.
The paramedics transported her into the ambulance and Sandy noticed with some disdain the other car wasn’t there anymore. The drivers had scampered away without even apologizing to her or checking to make sure she was going to be alright. Jerks.
When she rode in the ambulance, she mostly tried to close her eyes and steady her breathing through her nose. It hurt, so she mainly breathed through her mouth, which she was sure was attractive. She was grateful none of her loved ones had to see her like this. Hopefully she’d get cleaned up some before her father or Annie came to see her.
She didn’t want to assume Annie or any of her friends would visit. They probably had plenty of other things to do for the holiday weekend. Sandy felt so sorry to be ruining her dad’s visit with this now, but the accident hadn’t been her or her driver’s fault.
She told herself to stop feeling sorry for herself, because she didn’t want to start bawling in the ambulance. The EMTs took the Lyft driver along with her, for observation mainly, just in case she had some internal injury like a concussion.
As soon as the ambulance was at the hospital, Sandy was wheeled into an examination room and a more comfortable bed. She was relieved she didn’t need surgery or any of the traumatic things she’d seen on doctor dramas. The doctor came in to see her and confirmed her fears, though. “You have a broken nose and a fractured wrist,” he told her. “You’re very lucky, though. Don’t forget that. This accident could’ve been a lot worse for everyone involved.”
That’s true, she thought. Except why is it I’m the only one with broken bones? The only thing she could think was fate had decided to knock her down for some reason. She hoped perhaps some good would come from it.
“I can set your nose for you so it heals correctly and hopefully you won’t have any noticeable scars or bumps,” the doctor told her with a smile. “And your wrist will have to be in a cast so it can heal up nicely as well, all right?”
Sandy nodded her head, giving him the best smile she could muster at the moment. She was wheeled into a different room and the doctor and some nurses worked with her broken bones. It hurt every time her nose was touched, but it felt good to get the blood and everything cleaned off of it. She even felt like she could breathe slightly easier.
As soon as she was done in surgery, Sandy was wheeled back to her room and moved back to her bed. Finally, she could sleep. She was still so addled by what happened, and she wanted to see her dad, but she was also exhausted. The pain medication made her feel drowsy enough and eventually sleep overcame her.
When she awoke, she had no idea how long she’d been sleeping, but it didn’t matter because her dad was sitting in a chair next to her bed. “Dad!” Sandy shouted hoarsely, trying to sit up in her excitement at seeing him.
“Whoa, careful there, kiddo,” he said to her, smiling as he tucked her back into the bed and petted her hair. The edges of his eyes were tinged with red. She could tell right away he’d been crying. That broke her heart. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, Daddy,” she said as she burst into tears. This certainly wasn’t going to help her nose feel better, but she couldn’t hold back. “I feel better but I also feel awful. I was just trying to go to the grocery store so we could make a nice Memorial Day dinner.”
“It’s okay,” he said to her soothingly. “We can make dinner some other time. There will be other Memorial Days.” A tear slid down his cheek but he continued to smile at her as if nothing was amiss. “Thank God you’re okay after an accident like that. They told me everyone made it out, not only alive but nearly uninjured.”
She knew she was the one who’d been injured. Everyone else got to move on with their lives, meanwhile she was left to pick up the pieces of herself. She hadn’t even seen her reflection and she didn’t really want to. If her face looked different, she didn’t know what she was going to do. Audiences noticed such things, as did casting directors. What if she never found work again? She continued to cry, not exactly finding comfort in her dad’s words. He was being sweet to her, but she wasn’t in a good place right now. She wanted the weekend with him to be special and now he was going to leave New York without having spent much time with her.
“Fourth of July?” she suddenly asked him, thinking it was the next holiday and maybe they could take fit a visit in even sooner than next Memorial Day.
Her dad looked at her thoughtfully, still petting her hair. “We don’t have to plan it all right now, but I think we could get tog
ether for the Fourth of July. You should rest up for it, though. There’s not a lot of time between now and then.”
He stood up from his chair and kissed her on her forehead. “I’m not the only one here to see you, you know,” he told her then. “Your friend from the show, Annie… She’s here. And a few other costars too. I’ll give them a chance to come in and say hi, but then I’m not leaving your side, okay? At least not until I have to fly back home. I need to make sure you’ll be okay before I do that.”
Sandy knew she was going to be okay, at least physically. She didn’t think her dad needed to stay in town just because she was having a horrible time mentally now. Telling her she looked okay wasn’t the same as believing it or feeling it to be true. She didn’t think she’d mentally feel better until she was out of the hospital.
Her dad left the room and a few moments later, her friends from The Banana Peel arrived. Annie was beaming at her, which confused Sandy. She didn’t think there was anything to look so happy about. But then she realized her friend was smiling so much because it was her way of fighting back tears. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” Annie said to her, enthusiastically and a bit overly loud.
Sandy partially wished she would just get it over with and cry. Maybe if Annie was crying, she could feel free to start sobbing again, too. Crying was helping her feel somewhat better for some reason. Not that it was going to help her poor face…
“What happened?” Desmond asked her. He was one of the show’s coolest, most popular members and as such Sandy hadn’t really expected him to show up in her time of need. Currently, she was too amazed by it to even be touched.
I could just be hallucinating. I am on pain killers, she thought.
“She was in a car accident, dummy,” Trish said with a scowl, but then she turned on a smile for Sandy. “I’ve been there, sweetie. You’re lucky you only broke a few bones. You shouldn’t even have to be in here for too long.”
Billionaire Hearts Club- The Complete Series Collection Page 15
