by Brea Brown
“You’ve already seen it all, so what’s the point?” I grump.
“You still have the right to some privacy,” she explains but opens her eyes.
Despite my big-talking, I keep the towel on until both my underwear and pajama bottoms are fully covering my best friend and his boysenberries. To let her know there are no hard feelings, though, I blindly toss the towel in her direction when I’m finished with it, as I pull my UW-Milwaukee t-shirt from the hotel dresser.
She catches and clutches the damp towel to her chest but doesn’t even try to hide her staring at me.
“What?” I ask self-consciously, hurrying to put on the shirt. I remember her laughing at the bachelor party pictures of Nick, declaring him, “so hairy!” and wonder if she’s thinking the same thing about me. My blushing makes my head pound harder. “Where’s the bottle of acetaminophen we got from the hospital pharmacy?” I ask to cover my embarrassment.
Turning off the TV and hopping from the bed, she says, “I’ll get it. Just… get comfortable.”
“I’m fine,” I insist but make a beeline for the bed anyway, where I pull back the covers to unearth the pillows. While I’m arranging them against the headboard so I can sit propped up, she returns to the bed and takes over the job for me, practically pushing me aside.
“I can fluff my own pillows,” I assure her, taking the rattling bottle of non-prescription pain medication from her.
“No, I’m going to take care of you.”
“But I don’t need—”
“I know it feels weird, but you’re going to be the patient for once.”
“I’m a horrible patient,” I warn.
“I can tell that already. Your glass of water is right there, on the table next to you.” She jerks the pillow away from me while I’m distracted and gives it a good, stiff beating before placing it exactly where I had it before. “There. Now take your medication—you’re allowed to have four at a time—and get comfortable. Room service should be here any minute.”
“I know the correct dosage,” I mutter, shaking the tablets into my hand and tossing them into my mouth. I wash them down with most of the water in the glass, so Betty intercepts it before I can set it down again on the table.
“I’ll take that. Looks like you need a refill.”
Her fingers brush against mine as she pulls the glass away from me. I want to grab her hand or wrist to keep her from leaving, but my reflexes are too slow, so I settle for saying to her back while she pours more water from the pitcher on the dresser, “I’m not going to be able to relax if you’re fluttering around me like… like… a mom!”
As soon as the words tumble from me, I want more than anything to take them back. Since I can’t, I verbally backpedal with, “My mom, I mean. I don’t need to be mothered,” I finish weakly, closing my eyes and standing next to the bed with my hands in fists at my sides.
After a few tense, silent seconds, I feel her cool hands wrap around the fist closest to her. Calmly, quietly, and gently, she says, “I’ll stop ‘fluttering around’ as soon as you do as you’re told and get in bed, Goose Egg.”
I nod my cooperation and start to do exactly that when we hear a knock on the door, followed by, “Room service!”
She bustles away from me, and I settle myself without an audience. When she returns with a tray full of food, she inquires, “Don’t you want to get under the covers?”
“No, I’m about to eat.”
Her shrug says, “Suit yourself,” and she hands across a large glass bowl with a napkin-and-cutlery bundle balanced on top of its plastic wrap. “Your salad.”
“Thank you.”
I’m still not hungry, but at least eating will keep us too busy to talk. I hope.
I slit the paper ring holding my utensils and tuck my napkin into the collar of my t-shirt. Betty purses her lips at me but doesn’t make a comment, so I pretend I don’t notice. I don’t want to give her an opening to offer to feed me herself, which is where I’m afraid this is headed.
I pick at my food, shuffling the lettuce leaves and taking tiny bites of turkey and egg when I notice Betty watching me as if waiting for me to put the fork to my lips, but eventually the act is too exhausting. “I’m tired,” I declare, ripping the napkin from my shirt and moving the bowl from my lap to the bedside table.
Without missing a beat, Betty pulls her phone from her pocket. It clicks as she taps on its screen. “Okay… Setting an alarm for an hour from now, when I’ll need to wake you up to check your pupils.”
My groan is to no avail, I know, but I let it rip anyway so she’ll be aware of my displeasure.
“Head injuries are nothing to screw around with, Nathaniel.”
“You don’t say. I never learned that… in nursing school.”
“Don’t get snippy with me, Mister. I’m helping you follow the doctor’s orders. I shudder to think what would happen if I wasn’t here.”
“I’d get lots of uninterrupted sleep.”
“And possibly fall into a coma and go missing until housekeeping got suspicious and made a grisly discovery.”
I laugh, but it hurts my head, so I stop abruptly. “Ow.”
“Exactly. Now…” She tugs at the bedspread trapped under me. “Just… Get… Under… These… Covers.”
“I’m not sleeping under this nasty thing.”
“I know. Ew. But I can’t get it off the bed with you on it.”
“I don’t need covers. I’m still hot from my shower.”
“But you’ll cool off and catch a chill while you’re sleeping.”
“What? ‘Catching a chill’ is not even remotely medically accurate.”
“Your body temperature drops when you’re asleep.”
“I’ll be fine.” Still upright, I close my eyes. “Now, shhh… Watch TV or something.”
“I don’t want to disturb you. I’ll read a book. Are you going to sleep sitting up?”
Tucking my hands under my armpits and crossing my feet at my ankles, I grunt an affirmative reply.
“That doesn’t look comfortable…” she declares, her warning tone predicting something direr than a chilly or unrestful sleep.
“It’s only for an hour, tops, so who cares? I just need to rest my eyes. And my ears.”
“Right. Message: received. Zipping my lips.”
I crack my left eyelid to shoot her a one-eyed glare, but I can’t hold a sufficiently stern expression to make the proper impact.
She laughs as I try to pull my lips downward into a frown and fail. “Sorry!” she says through her giggles. “I’m nervous. It’s like I’m holding your life in my hands, or something. I don’t know how nurses and doctors do this every day.”
Closing my eyes and adjusting my neck against the pillow again, I casually drop my hand, palm-up on the mattress between us. She correctly reads the cue and clamps it with her own.
“Don’t think so much about it,” I advise, giving her fingers a squeeze. “Everything’s going to be fine. Now… shut up.”
She so faithfully follows my half-joking command this time that I worry I’ve hurt her feelings and can’t resist peeking one more time at her in my peripheral vision. Fortunately, my check through slitted lids reveals she’s the mirror image of me, resting her eyes with an enigmatic smile playing on her full lips like a teasing kiss.
I pinch my peepers closed more tightly to shut out the vision, but it’s burned on my brain, eliciting a dangerous tingle I know is only the beginning of yet another embarrassing moment I’m powerless to prevent.
As subtly as possible, I let go of her hand and turn onto my side, facing away from her, pulling my pillow downward with me as I scoot into a fetal position.
“Told ya you wouldn’t be comfortable sitting up,” she murmurs.
At this point, I’m perfectly content to let her think she was right and have the last word.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At first, I was hyper-aware of Betty in the same bed with me, but exhaustion took ov
er, and I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. As promised, she woke me up about an hour later, looking nervous, like she wasn’t sure what she was going to find when she looked into my eyes.
To put her more at ease, I joked, “It’s a lot nicer waking up to you, not that scary EMT.”
She held back to prevent laughing in my face, so I continued, determined to get a proper response from her, “Someone needs to tell her ‘No-Shave November’ is still two months away, although I do applaud her dedication to making sure head trauma victims really know the date and aren’t working off visual clues to guess.”
At that, Betty tossed back her head and shrieked at the ceiling, and my chest swelled. When she dropped her chin again to look at me, I winked, then laughed at her chiding head-shake.
“You’re mean,” she said, covering her mouth to hide her continued amusement.
“Oh, whatever. You were thinking it.”
“I was not! I didn’t even notice! I was too worried about you.”
“Okay, fine. I’m sorry. But I was up-close-and-personal with her hair follicles, so it was hard for me not to notice. Maybe as a show of appreciation, I should sign her up for that Dollar Shave Club service my dad uses.”
Her warning look as she took her e-reader to one of the chairs in the tiny seating area between the bed and the wall seemed more sincere after that dig, so I quit while I was ahead and slid under the covers, where I almost immediately fell back to sleep, grinning at the memory of her laughter.
Now, after about the third check (I think), I get up, and after Betty finishes staring into my eyes at intense, close range, I use the toilet, wash my hands, take some more painkillers, splash water on my face, inspect the bump on my noggin, make myself a fresh ice pack, and return to the bed.
“Mind if I watch TV?” I ask, holding up the remote.
She shakes her head and smiles. “Go for it.”
As I channel-surf, she inquires, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” Giving up on finding something to watch when so many shows are in commercial breaks, I pull up the on-screen guide and peruse the list. Considering it’s a summer Saturday night, I don’t have high hopes for finding anything interesting.
“‘Fine,’ like, ‘all better’?” Betty digs deeper.
“Not exactly. My head hurts like a sonofabitch, but that’s to be expected, I guess. Ooh! The Notebook is on.” I push the button to take me to that channel and toss the remote onto the mattress next to me.
“So, I take it we’re not going to join the party downstairs, huh?”
“I thought we’d already established that.” I adjust the pillow between my back and the headboard. Her question reminds me of dinner, and I realize I’m hungry… finally… but the salad bowl is missing from the bedside table.
Without a word, she crosses to the mini-fridge and produces my wrapped-up dinner. “Looking for this?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
While I tuck into the wilted greens, cold meat chunks, and eggs, she perches on the foot of the bed, her right foot tucked against her left thigh, her left foot swinging off the side of the bed. “I can order something fresher for you. Or… we can go downstairs and see what’s on the buffet at the author mingly-thing.”
“Nah.” I chew and stare at the TV, then swallow and point to the screen with my fork. “Have you ever kissed someone in the rain like that?”
She looks over her shoulder. “I’ve never kissed anyone like that. Ever. Anywhere. In any weather.”
“Me neither,” I agree, transfixed by what Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling are doing to each other’s faces.
I blink and return my attention to my salad, not quite able to achieve eye contact with Betty when she twists at the waist to face me after watching that scene. I’m also suddenly thankful for the very cold, very large bowl on my lap. Frantically, I try to remember what we’ve been talking about. The formal dress Author’s Ball. Or whatever. Right. “You can go, if you want,” I offer.
“I don’t want to go alone. I’m not an author, anyway.”
“Ha! Join the club.” I push a particularly nasty piece of lettuce to the side to get to some crispier stuff underneath.
“You know what I mean, though. I’d feel out of place without you. But I dunno… I’m starting to feel bad that we’re not doing what we’re here to do, which is market and promote and network.”
I smile ruefully. “I think Frank has done enough ‘networking’ for one day.”
She sighs. “You’re right.”
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
Picking at the bedspread, she mumbles, “I’m mostly bummed I won’t get to wear the dress I bought especially for tonight. It’s smokin’.”
Seeing that dress is almost enough for me to forget every other factor in the decision and agree to go. But I hold firm. “I don’t think I’d be able to stay in character with this headache. I say we let the excitement die down and keep a low profile tonight. Tomorrow, we attend the meet-n-greet, as planned. Except… you might want to double-check where Frank’s table is in relation to Yardley’s. Could get ugly if we’re too close.” Since she still looks so dejected, tracing her finger along the outline of a flower on the ugly comforter, I nudge her with my foot. “Anyway, The Notebook is on! I can’t believe more authors aren’t skipping the party to stay in their rooms and watch this.”
I’m relieved when she laughs and seems willing to drop the debate. Finished with all the edible parts of my meal, I set the bowl aside once again and gently press the ice pack to my forehead, hissing as my bruised skin adapts to the cold.
“It looks a lot better than it did earlier,” she lies straight to my face.
I shoot her an appreciative smile but counter, “Where’s the fire extinguisher? Because your pants are going up in smoke.”
Before she can commit further to the fib, her phone rings. She winces at the display, rushing to the balcony. As soon as she closes the door behind her, I mute the TV and strain to listen. I can immediately tell by her side of the conversation that the caller is Frankie.
“…No. What do you mean…? Oh. That. Really? On an RSS feed…? Slow news day…. Well, it wasn’t like that; I’d hardly call it a ‘brawl’…. I don’t know! It just happened. He’s going to be okay, by the way, in case you’re wondering…. Nice…. No, I don’t think the other guy is going to sue; he was the one who threw the first punch…. No, no charges pressed; the police didn’t even come. And if anything, Nate would be pressing charges against that freak…. Well, that’s all just speculation…”
Then there’s such a long silence that I think maybe the call has ended, and I’ve missed the heartfelt goodbyes. I grip the remote more tightly, ready to restore the volume and pretend I’ve been watching TV the whole time, not eavesdropping. Seconds later, though, while my finger’s still hovering over the mute button, Betty snaps, “I don’t remember, okay? Maybe I did! I was worried about him…. Well, I’m sorry, but at that point, I didn’t give a shit if I called him his real name. He lost consciousness right in front of me!”
I blush at that detail. Great. The last person I want to have that information is now in smug possession of it.
“No, you can’t talk to him. He’s… he’s resting…. I know what the itinerary says, but neither of us is in a partying mood, so we’re skipping it…. No…! No…! I said, ‘no,’ Frankie… Frankie? Hello? Frankie? Sonofa…!”
The balcony door crashes open at the same time my phone sings, “Doot-dee-doo-doo-doo-dooooooot, Doot-dee-doo-doo—”
“Hello?” I answer as confidently as possible, cringing when the ice shifts and clacks in the bag in my other hand.
“You couldn’t even do this one thing right?”
“Good evening, Frankie. I’m fine, and you?”
“Cut the crap. You two have managed to make a major mess of things out there.”
“Seems so, doesn’t it?”
“Well, fix it.”
“We will. We still have t
he meet-n-greet tomorrow. Everything will be fine.”
“You’re supposed to be one of the headliners, but you’ve made a complete ass of yourself and my books.”
“Your books are probably selling better than ever. Go download a sales report and calm down.”
“You need to make an appearance at that thing tonight.”
“Not happening.”
Her frustrated growl would be funny if it weren’t so loud in my ear. I close one eye and pull the phone away from my head while she vents her anger. That’s when Betty grabs the device from me, turns it off, and tosses it in the dresser, where it lands softly on top of my clothes.
“What are you—”
“That’s enough,” she states, slamming the drawer shut, her chest heaving, her pulse thumping in her neck.
“You shouldn’t have done that. She’s going to think I hung up on her.”
“Who cares? She’s being a bitch. She doesn’t even care that you got hurt.”
“Well, that’s not surprising. And it’s not like it hurts my feelings.”
“It hurts mine.” She plops into the armchair she’s spent much of the evening occupying and rubs her fists into her eye sockets.
“Don’t do that to your eyes.” I switch off the TV, placing the remote on the bedside table.
Her hands drop, and she looks miserably at me. “I said your name—your real name—in front of everyone this morning.”
I let that information register and try to recall it for myself, but it’s no use. The day’s earlier events are mostly a blur of Yardley’s fists, physical pain, and humiliation.
Trusting she’s remembering correctly, I say, “So what? I’ve called myself my real name at appearances before. We have a cover story for that: Frank Lipton is a pen name.”
“Yeah, well… since we’ve never made that public knowledge, people are coming up with their own explanations. The most popular theory happens to be the truth.”
I transfer the ice bag to my other hand, tucking my frozen hand under my thigh. “So? That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Her eyebrows nearly touch. “Uh… I think that’s the definition of the truth: it’s true.”
