“Oh,” was all she said before running out. The pain got worse and I started to cry. A doctor came in followed by the same nurse and immediately shone a light in my eye.
“Talia. I’m Doctor Navrakis. I’m going to give you something for the pain.” The nurse handed him a syringe and he injected a clear liquid into the tube that pierced the top of my hand with a needle. Almost immediately the pain receded. Not all but enough that I could calm down. The short Mediterranean looking doctor smiled at me. “Better? Don’t nod. Just blink once for me.” I did. The nurse poured a glass of water from the table beside me.
My mom came running into the room. She smiled brightly but her eyebrows were deeply furrowed. “My baby girl,” she said as she reached out and gently touched my hand. “How do you feel?”
“We won’t have her talk just yet,” the doctor insisted. “Just blinking. How is your pain? Better?” I blinked. My mom started crying and immediately turned away to hide it. Doctor Navrakis didn’t pay her any mind. The nurse delivered the water to the doctor. He held it to my mouth.
“Just little sips to start,” he said. It felt hard to simply pull my lips apart but soon the water was flowing into my mouth and down my throat. It was immediately soothing. Mom turned back to watch me. She smiled reassuringly.
“Can she talk?” she asked. The doctor gave me some more water and then looked at me, waiting.
I considered what to say. Yes. Hello. But then I remembered I wasn’t in that plane alone. “Kelly? Ashley?” I asked. My mom burst into tears. I wanted to be annoyed, to tell her I was obviously going to be fine. But then I realised the tears weren’t for me. I needed to know. “Tell me.”
She looked at the doctor, begging for an excuse not to tell me. He took the burden from her. “I’m sorry, Talia. They didn’t make it.”
I started to cry. Sobs rose from my chest. I wanted to fold into myself but I couldn’t move. I wanted to cover my eyes but my arms, in their casts, were too heavy. Doctor Navrakis must have known I wanted to hide myself because he turned away. Mom touched my hand and wiped the tears from my eyes as she cried herself. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
* * *
I’d missed the funerals. I had been in a coma for 29 days. I hated myself for missing them. I hated myself for the fact that they happened at all. Mom wanted to show me the funeral programs but I refused. I couldn’t stop my mind from picturing them and picturing all the happiest moments of our lives and picturing their faces smiling at me before I walked into that bathroom.
I’d broken one arm, one leg, and fractured the other, I had cracked ribs and seventeen stitches in my hairline.
That stupid fucking bathroom was what had saved my life. Apparently, the combination of being in the tub, being knocked out and held down by the cabinet was what had miraculously saved me after the plane dropped from the sky. It fell for a little over 7,000 metres. No one else survived.
Turbulence isn’t supposed to be dangerous. That’s what everyone tells you. But a small plane and a storm much worse than forecasted meant that one of the wings became damaged and caused an explosion which ripped a hole in the side of the plane. The cabin depressurised and Kelly, Ashley, and the flight attendant, who I learned was named Josephina, were torn out of the plane. The pilots died on impact.
We landed in bushland. The trees cushioned the fall somewhat. That helped too. But by all accounts, my survival was miraculous. That’s what Mom said to me. My immediate response was to tell her to fuck off but I bit it down. She didn’t know.
Mom told me that everyone had visited me. My whole extended family. Saffy, my other non-musical best friend and the boyfriend none of us could stand, Peter. Even Kelly and Ashley’s parents had come. I couldn’t imagine how they felt coming here.
I had been brought flowers but they had died within a few weeks. There was a semi-deflated balloon from my Aunt Linda, but it looked a little sad and Mom took it away after I woke up. There was a giant furry bear, but it arrived without a card.
“Is it from a boy?” Mom asked. “That Cole guy?”
I scoffed. “That’s not very likely.”
Cole was my first and only boyfriend. He was shorter than me and cuter than me and had always been nice to me. We had embarrassingly little in common, piss poor sex, and when school ended it become painfully obvious that the only thing keeping us together was Science, English and Physical Education.
The bear sat up on the table in front of me just staring. I could see myself, months ahead in that same room, beginning to talk to the thing like Wilson in Castaway.
A few days after I woke up, a huge display of white roses arrived from the label. They were signed by someone named Manny who assured me he would see me soon.
Dad went back to work but Mom stayed with me. Every day. She went home to sleep every second or third night.
One of the casts on my legs came off quickly and so did the ring of sponge around my neck. A nurse gave me a sponge bath and it made me cry. Not that I needed an excuse. It was how I spent the majority of my time. That and watching daytime television. I avoided the news. Because I was on it. Much less than I used to be according to my father but still every couple of days. “Private plane carrying aspiring girl group crashes killing all passengers and crew with the exception of 18 year old, Talia Shaw, who has recently awoken from a coma.” They used pictures from our Facebook pages. They spoke to people who went to school with us. People who had made fun of us for spending our lunch times in the music rooms instead of the school yard. I couldn’t watch it. It made me sick.
Two months I spent in that hospital room. I had to be carried to the bathroom to use the toilet. My mom or a nurse had to help me shower. I couldn’t wash my hair because of the wound on my head. I could tell you what particular breakfast, lunch and dinner was served from Monday to Sunday. I could tell you how many bricks made up the wall of the other hospital building my window looked out on. I could tell you that sometimes I wanted to open that window and jump out of it. But if 8,000 metres wasn’t far enough then seven floors definitely wasn’t. I felt guilty for surviving. I felt guilty for wanting to die.
I was terrified to leave the hospital and go home and start living a life without my two best friends. I thought about walking into my room and seeing the pictures of us all over the walls. The band posters, a reminder of something all three of us lost in the crash. Most of the things in that room, we picked out together. Bed spreads and fairy lights. We always shopped together. We did most things together. Maybe we were co-dependent. Or just best friends. But from now on it would be just me. And, my parents. And, Saffy.
Saffy was in pain, too. She didn’t act like everything was fine when she visited. We didn’t do much talking because there wasn’t much to say. She just cried with me. She was in the room when Doctor Navrakis told me I could go home. She didn’t smile because she knew I was dreading it.
* * *
I went home with just the one casted leg. My arm was still wrapped up but my stitches were out. Apparently, there had been photographers and reporters camped outside our house over the first few days. When they realised I wasn’t leaving the hospital for a while they moved there. After a couple weeks they’d all dispersed. A politician was caught sexting his opponent’s wife and it overtook my news. Dad helped me inside and up the stairs while Mom fussed ahead of us to make way. I hated her fussing. She started to open my door.
“Don’t!” I shouted. I couldn’t help myself. She looked back at me, terrified.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Dad shifted a little, under my weight.
“I don’t want to sleep in there,” I answered.
“I put fresh sheets…”
Something in my expression made her stop. She nodded and closed the door. “The spare room doesn’t have sheets. Let me quickly make it up.” She ran down the stairs.
Dad began to turn us around. “Sorry, Dad.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He patted my hand as he helped
me down the stairs.
The spare room was painted a faded yellow colour. Mom had made up the timber bed with white sheets and a white bedspread. It had a small desk acting as a bedside table and a tallboy of drawers, both made from the same wood as the bed. A wicker basket sat by the door with rolled up towels placed uniformly inside for guests. Mom liked to make things nice. She hated my bedroom with hastily cut out pictures pinned to the walls and clothes everywhere. Ashley used to write messages in lipstick on the mirrored wardrobe.
I got into the bed and Mom tucked me in. Dad considered the space and then left.
“I’ll go get some of your things,” Mom said before she left. They were both back quickly, Mom with some of my clothes and shoes and Dad with the TV from his office.
“I don’t need that, Dad.” He didn’t listen, just went out dragging the desk to the wall opposite the bed and setting up the TV on top of it. Then he was gone. Mom was setting up toiletries in the bathroom when he returned with a DVD player and my favourite movie.
“Are you kidding me, Rowan?” she berated him.
“It’s her favourite,” he said matter-of-factly.
“It’s not appropriate,” she argued. The DVD menu came up and the sound soothed me.
“Mom, I want to watch it,”
“But…”
She wanted to say the Titanic crashes. Like my plane crashed. “It’s a whole different method of transportation,” I insisted. Dad laughed. Mom took a defeated breath.
“Where’s my bear?” I asked her.
“I’ll get it from the car. Are you hungry?” she asked. I nodded and soon enough I had Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream in my hand, she put up more of an argument for that one, and the bear sitting beside me.
* * *
So, that’s what I did for the next month and a half. In between getting the last cast off and my ribs checked, I watched sad movies, mostly ones starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and ate junk. Sometimes with Saffy, sometimes with Mom or Dad but mostly on my own. That’s what I was doing at the exact moment that Manny arrived.
Two
Manny was dressed very casually for a label executive. I expected a suit. Or Gucci loafers or something. He wore jeans and a checked button-down shirt with black Nikes. I thought he was probably in his late thirties or very early forties. His hair was speckled with grey and he wore clear rim glasses over his black eyes. He carried a Blackberry tightly in his hand.
Mom helped me out of bed as Dad made tea and coffee. He was standing at the dining room table, waiting to sit down.
“Sugar, Mr…?” Dad asked.
“Ruiz. Just Manny is fine. No sugar.” He had the barest hint of a Spanish accent. He saw me round the corner and smiled brightly. “There she is.”
Dad pulled out my chair and I sat down. Manny did the same. Mom sat beside me. She was tense, defensive. I wasn’t sure why. Dad delivered the tea and coffee. Peppermint for me. And, took a seat at the head of the table.
“How did you like the flowers?” he asked.
“They were beautiful,” I answered honestly. Mom had shown me a photo.
“Allow me to offer my sincerest condolences, on behalf of the whole label, for your fellow band members.” He sounded genuine but I hated to hear it put like that. ‘Band members.’
“They were my best friends.” Now I was defensive. Mom touched my arm.
“Of course,” he nodded. “And, I’m sure it’s been very hard for you. Especially for it to have happened in such a traumatic way. The things you must’ve seen.”
“I didn’t see anything. I was knocked out.”
“Well, perhaps that’s for the best.”
I was so confused. What was he doing here? I didn’t feel like I could ask. Thank God for protective mothers.
“Can I ask what you’re doing here? Is there something you need?” she asked.
Manny coughed a little, taken aback by her frankness. “I’m just here to check in on Talia. The label is eager to find out when you might be ready to come to Los Angeles.”
I looked at my mother and was again grateful that she knew the thing to say. “Why would she be going to Los Angeles?”
Manny nodded as if he was prepared for this conversation. My dad’s eyebrows furrowed as he began to tense up as well. “Talia’s contract is still valid. The label requires an album.”
“Are you serious?” I asked at the same time as Dad spoke, “Are you kidding me?”
“She’s one girl out of a band of three. She’s not even the singer,” Mom argued.
“We’re aware of that but her backup vocals are very promising--”
“This is absurd,” Dad said as he stood up. “That contract should be void. We’ll fight against it.”
“I understand why you would do that, Mr Shaw. But to be very honest with you, IMG is not going to give it up without a fight. We keep lawyers on retainer and a lot of people have already been paid to produce this album. A lot of money has been invested in the Betty Coopers.”
“They’re dead. The Betty Coopers are dead,” I stated, plainly.
He looked at me with pity. “I’m very sorry, Talia.”
My mom shook her head. “Please leave.”
“I’ll show you the door.” Manny nodded and stood up, following my dad out.
Mom wiped my face. I hadn’t realised I’d been crying. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We’re going to fight against it. There’s no way a judge would force you.”
She hugged me tightly. I hugged her back. They still wanted me. I shouldn’t have felt flattered, but I did. And I was disgusted by my vanity. And I was guilty. Always guilty.
Mom helped me back upstairs and I immediately texted Saffy. I’ll be right over, she texted back.
* * *
“That’s insane,” she said, after I’d gone through the whole story with her. “Why would they make you do that? Alone? Are you supposed to record the same songs?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it. How could I?”
“Is it something you would want?” she asked. I dreaded a question like that.
When it happened for the Betty Coopers, it was the most wonderful thing. I couldn’t help, all those days sitting in a hospital bed, thinking about the opportunity being gone. And I was disappointed for all of us. Now the opportunity was presented to me alone. And I couldn’t stomach it. I couldn’t do it without them. Firstly, I wasn’t a solo act. But more than that, it wasn’t fair to them.
“It doesn’t matter if I want to. I can’t do it. It’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair either way,” Saffy insisted. “Don’t you think Ashley or Kelly would’ve done it, if either of them had been the one to survive?”
How could I know the answer to that? I knew how much they both wanted it, but I couldn’t know. If they were feeling the way I was... “If you had died and either of them had lived, would you want them to do it?” Saffy rephrased her question.
“Yes, of course, if they still wanted it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, babe,” Saffy sighed and fell back on my bed. She had started calling me ‘babe’ after she started dating Peter. It’s what they called each other. None of us liked Peter because it seemed to us that he treated her badly. She was supposed to go to an art school in Melbourne but he made her stay. He made her delete her Instagram. She never came out anymore and that was likely because of him as well. On rare occasions that we would all hang out, he would act like an angel. That made us dislike him even more. But, Saffy seemed to think he hung the moon.
“I know you can sing,” Saffy said, seemingly out of nowhere. “They knew it, too. They either thought you didn’t want to sing lead or they wanted to do it themselves.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can sing. You wrote their songs.”
“They wrote the lyrics,” I insisted.
“But, you could’ve. You could write an album. You could sing. You could do it all.”
“W
hy are you saying this?”
Saffy sat back up and looked at me. “I’m not saying you have to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m just saying that you could. If you wanted to.”
I grabbed for my necklace but remembered the necklace was gone. Laurie hadn’t handed it in to the airport. Maybe he’d thrown it in the bin. Maybe he still had it.
Saffy’s phone chirped. She checked it.
“Peter?” I asked. She nodded. “You gotta go?”
She got up onto her knees and kissed my cheek. “Love you. Talk soon,” she said as she left.
* * *
I was napping when he walked in, all long dark locks and piercing green eyes. “Laurie Siler?” I asked. He nodded. He was looking at me so intensely. I struggled to sit up. “How did you get in here?”
“Your parents let me in,” he said, walking over to my bedside. I thought he had left Australia months ago. How was he here? “I wanted to see how you are,” he said, he sat down on my bed, I shifted to make room for him.
“I’m okay,” I assured him. “You didn’t have to come see me. I’m sure you’re busy.”
“Not that busy, Talia.” He knew my name. I loved the way the l rolled off his tongue. My cheeks warmed.
He quirked his head a little. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“I have something for you,” he said, taking my necklace from his pocket. He had kept it. “Can I?” he gestured to my neck. I lifted the hair from my shoulders and he leaned in close to put it on me. I felt his hair brush against my cheek. His scent was unrecognisable, not sandalwood or any of those usual men’s cologne scents, but just him. He smelled amazing. He pulled back a little. We both looked down at my necklace nestled against my chest. Laurie lifted his hand and touched the necklace where it lay. “Beautiful.”
Bright Lights: Book One of the Talia Shaw Series Page 2
