Phoenix Heart

by Carolyn Nash

  Lance had barely moved while I’d bandaged him. I stroked his forehead. “Lance, I’m going to get you out. Just hang on.” He didn’t appear to hear, or to notice my touch. I pushed around him, lifting back a shelf that looked to be what had struck him across the forehead, shuffled around until I could grab the collar of his lab coat on either side of his head. I squatted, planted my feet, and pulled backward. His body slid across the wet floor, the bandaged arm leaving a thin trail of red. The sprinklers quickly diluted it. I shifted, planted my feet and pulled again. I kept shifting and pulling, stopping to move debris out of the way, coughing painfully, blinking blindly, my hair flopping against my face, the sprinkler water dripping into my eyes and into my mouth as I panted. I could feel the panic growing, and I tugged harder, shifting frantically. I swung him around the end of the counter, down the side toward the door. He groaned as the material pulled at his armpits, but he seemed too far gone at that point to care. I bumped up against a pH meter that had been tossed onto a stack of “Cell” magazines. I shoved them aside and kept going.

  Just as I pried a piece of black counter out of the way a deafening blam! split the air. I screamed and turned to see the nearly invisible flames of an alcohol fire spread across the floor from a shattered bottle stored under the bench. The sprinklers quickly doused the flame, and I forced myself to forget all the other bottles stored in the lab, reaching critical temperature, ready to send flaming liquid and shards of glass flying through the air. I coughed steadily now, not able to hold the wet cloth to my mouth, but the smoke was not as bad as it had been, and though my eyes burned, and my mouth tasted of ash, I managed to slide Lance across the charred floor, and the last few feet of wet linoleum out the door. His wet, dead weight on the dry linoleum pulled at my arms, making the joints stretch painfully. His jeans squelched against the floor, and the hard rubber soles of his cowboy boots squeaked as his feet dragged behind him. I managed a good twenty feet down the hall before my legs and arms gave out. I fell back against the wall, gasping and choking, the air like sandpaper in my throat.

  I sent another silent prayer aloft just as the stairwell door slammed open and the sirens at last pulled up outside. Footsteps drummed down the hall toward me, but my eyes burned so badly that all I could do was squint at the blurry form coming toward me.

  “My god, my god! Are you all right?”

  Hands took me by the shoulders and I squinted up to see Andrew Richards green eyes through a swimming film of tears.

  I coughed and nodded and gestured toward Lance. The hands left me and Dr. Richards’ grey and black form moved toward the still form lying by my side.

  “Lance?” he said, his voice choking.

  Lance groaned and Dr. Richards rose and ran back toward the stairwell while I leaned back against the wall, blinking my eyes and concentrating on breathing without coughing, wincing each time the klaxon sounded. The noise and the smoke were giving me a terrific headache. But gradually, as I breathed slowly, the tightness in my chest began to ease. I heard Dr. Richards step through the door and shout, “Fourth floor. We need an ambulance!”

  I heard the rumble of an answer and felt the vibration of Dr. Richards’ steps approaching again. This time when I looked up, I could see him more clearly. “Chuck,” I croaked.

  He shook his head. “No, he’s not here. He told me he wouldn’t be.”

  “Bullseye?”

  “At home.”

  I breathed out in relief and it started another coughing fit that bent me forward, groaning between coughs as they tore at my sore throat. Dr. Richards held onto my shoulders until the fit passed and I leaned back once more against the wall, concentrating on breathing shallowly.

  “Melinda, what are you doing here? What happened?”

  I shook my head. “Melanie,” I croaked.

  “What?”

  “Melanie Brenner. Not Melinda Brennan,” I said carefully and looked at Dr. Richards, as I blinked rapidly, still trying to clear the burning.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I shrugged and looked away.

  “Melanie, do you know what happened?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I croaked. I winced when the klaxon sounded once more, and looked upward toward the source of the noise. But it turned out that it was the last blast of sound.

  “The firemen must have turned it off.” He looked at me, his face pale and drawn. “Did you see anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head again.

  “You must have seen something,” he said.

  “I heard something when I came up the stairs,” I said finding that if I whispered, I could get the words out more easily. “Thought it was an earthquake.”

  “Coming up the stairs?” he asked. “You weren’t in there when it happened?”

  I shook my head.

  He looked at me, down the hall at the door where smoke still poured out, and back to me. “You went in there after him?”

  I shrugged, embarrassed, and looked down at my hands in my lap.

  “Damn it.” He stood suddenly and looked down the hall at the grey smoke. The only sound now was that of water. “Damn it,” he said again, “I’m the only one who comes in this early.” I looked up at him just as the stairwell door crashed open, and the firemen and the paramedics raced up the hall.

  They took Lance in the ambulance to the University Medical Center. I watched them wheel him down the hall to the elevator, reluctant to let him out of my sight, feeling somewhat proprietary and responsible for the little guy. They’d wanted to take me to, but I insisted that all I suffered from was a slight sore throat.

  Dr. Richards had stood by silently as they’d taken care of Lance, and as the firemen in respirators and protective suits began the painstaking process of putting out the last of the fire and ensuring that nothing else in the lab would explode. He answered their questions concerning the stored chemicals, referred them to the office of emergency preparedness on campus which kept all the material data safety sheets on all the hazardous materials. He looked grim, his face pale, his eyes watching the door of 413, watching the firemen tearing apart the charred fragments of his lab.

  As soon as the paramedics had wheeled Lance away, and no one seemed interested in me any longer, I pushed against the wall, struggling to rise, feeling the effects now of my fight to drag Lance’s dead weight, and the dizziness from trying to breathe smoke. Dr. Richards’ head turned and he moved over to take my hand to pull me up.

  “I’m sorry this happened,” he said. Over the noise of the activity in the hall, I don’t think anyone but me heard him.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said.

  He looked toward the lab. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think maybe it is.” He shook his head, seemed to realize what he was saying, and looked back to me with a smile of concern. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you need a lift home?”

  “No. I just live a few blocks up Madison.”

  “You shouldn’t walk. If you can wait a few minutes, I’ll give you a ride.”

  “No,” I said. “You have other things to worry about. I’m fine. The walk will do me good. Besides, I really should duck out of here before they decide to start questioning me. I have a lot to do yet before my flight.”

  “Flight? Oh, yes, your trip. You haven’t missed your plane, have you?”

  “No, no. The limo picks me up at two. The plane leaves at four. There’s plenty of time yet.”

  “Good.” His eyes went back to the thread of smoke and steam which still trailed up over the blackened top of the lab doorway to the ceiling. Something flickered in his eyes and I saw the muscle in his jaw begin to jump as he clenched his teeth rhythmically. I started to move away, but before I’d moved more than a step, his eyes came back to me. They seemed to be measuring me somehow, assessing what lay in my reddened eyes, and soot-streaked face, under my wet, filthy hair. I waited, heart thumping faster as his eyes studied me, and after a long m
oment he seemed to come to a decision. He stepped toward me.

  “Melanie,” he said, but before he could say anything else, a voice boomed up the hall from the direction of the stairwell.

  “Is there an Andrew Richards here?”

  His eyes flicked away from mine and I felt the half-terrified, half-excited buzz that his look had caused fade away.

  “Here,” he called.

  A large, grey-haired man in a fire captain’s uniform stepped away from the door toward us.

  “That’s your lab?” the man asked pointing one beefy hand toward the door with the fire hoses snaking out of it.

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to talk to you.” His voice held overtones of authoritarian menace, but it also held a sound of genuine anger. His black eyes stared unblinkingly at Dr. Richards as he stepped toward him. Only once did they break away, and that was to look at me. He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m just leaving,” I said, and headed for the stairwell, stepping over the fire hoses snaking up the hall. As I walked away I heard the fire captain say something about a phone call, but the rest of it was lost in the clatter as a couple of the firemen lifted the respirator tanks off their backs and set them down next to the wall near the stairwell. Just as I reached for the door handle, I heard Andrew Richards’ voice rise above the din. One, angry, astonished, “What?”

  I turned back. The captain had his back to me. I could see Dr. Richards’ face, eyes wide, face set in anger and incredulity, but I could hear no more of the conversation, and I stepped through the door and headed down to the street.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes,” I said, for the fourth time. Unfortunately my sister Maggie had been waiting at my apartment when I arrived, filthy, still wet, some of Lance’s blood staining the sleeve of my shirt. To put it mildly, she had freaked.

  She’d been waiting on the top step at the front door of the building. When she saw me, she flew down the steps and up the street. “Melanie! What happened? Are you all right? I told you you shouldn’t live down here by yourself.”

  “Maggie.”

  “My God, there’s blood, blood on your sleeve! You’re bleeding.”

  “Maggie.”

  She grabbed my arm and started dragging me toward her car. “We’re going to the emergency room, right now. What happened? Who did this to you?”

  “Maggie!” I yelled, and she finally stopped both walking and dragging at my arm. She stood, mouth open, staring at me. I had my back to the morning sun and she raised a hand to shade her eyes against the glare. “I’m all right,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  “There was a... small accident at the lab. The earthquake started a fire.”

  “What earthquake?”

  “This morning. It shook the whole building.”

  “There was no earthquake this morning.”

  “Oh, well, whatever it was, it was no big deal.”

  “No big deal. Have you seen yourself?”

  “Yes.” I’d seen the reactions of the other pedestrians and then caught a glimpse in a passing window. “Look, it was nothing. The fire sprinklers came on and I got doused along with everything else.”

  “What about that?” she said, pointing at the red stain on my sleeve.

  “It’s not mine,” I said, in an instant seeing Lance’s wet, pale face, the streak of scarlet just below the hairline, the sprinkler water pooling on his closed eyes. I took Maggie’s elbow and steered her toward the apartment door. “Come on. I’ll tell you while I get ready to go.”

  I’d explained little more, though. Maggie had been certain since I was eight that the instant I stepped out the front door I would be killed by a renegade Mack truck unless she was personally there to stop it. It made me extremely careful about what I told her went on in my life. So instead of telling her every grisly detail, I kept her busy helping me pack while I showered and washed my hair. It was nearly one before Cheryl showed up and opened her big mouth.

  “Did you hear?” she said, stepping through the door and walking over to the radio. “Your lab blew up.”

  “Blew up!” came Maggie’s cry from the bedroom. She stormed into the living room as Cheryl fiddled with the tuner and managed to get the all-news station.

  “Listen.”

  She cranked up the volume and I heard the announcer’s voice giving sketchy details of the explosion and fire, and of the unidentified student who was listed in serious condition at the Medical Center. No mention of another student who had been there at the time. I breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

  “It’s Lance what’s-his-name. The guy who got hurt,” Cheryl said, wide-eyed. “Chuck called one of the guys he knows in the lab next door. His professor told him that it was Lance, and that Dr. Richards was being questioned by the police and the fire department, and that it wasn’t an accident.”

  “What do you mean, not an accident?” I said. “Of course it was an accident.”

  She shook her head. “No. They found the remnants of a bomb.”

  “Bomb?”

  “Did you see anything?” he’d asked. “You must have seen something.”

  “No,” I said, then cleared my throat. “No way. It couldn’t have been.”

  “I’m the only one who comes in this early.”

  “Bomb.” She sat down suddenly, and looked at me wide-eyed. “If Chuck hadn’t been with me... God, Melanie. He might have been there. He might have been killed.”

  “No, Chuck’s not here. He told me he wouldn’t be.”

  I shook my head, not only to dispel Cheryl’s fears, but my own ridiculous suspicions. I dropped down on the couch next to her and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “He wasn’t there and he’s fine.” I smiled, but she still looked deathly pale. “Hey, you really care about that jerk, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said and her eyes flicked up at mine and then away.

  I gave her a shake. “Cheryl, it’s okay.”

  She looked back at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. I’m happy for you.”

  “I mean, if you were like, I don’t know, interested in him.”

  “What? You’d give him up?”

  She took a deep breath, and then let it out and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I could.” Pink washed up into her cheeks. “I’m sorry Melanie, but even for you I don’t think I could.”

  “Cheryl.” I gave her a shake and when she finally met my eyes I smiled. “You idiot! I’m happy for you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.”

  She let out a pent-up breath and threw her arms around me. “Oh, good!” she said. “Oh good, because I think I love him.”

  I hugged her back. “Hallelujah!”

  She laughed. “No kidding!”

  “Look, this is all very good and well, and I’m happy for you Cheryl, but I want to know what the hell happened at the damned lab,” Maggie said from the doorway.

  Cheryl and I looked over from the couch. Maggie stood, arms crossed, glaring at me.

  “Maggie,” I said.

  “‘A little accident at the lab,’” she mimicked.

  Cheryl sat back and stared at me. “You were there?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, for god’s sake! Don’t I look all right? Let’s not make more of it than there is. Look, the limo is going to be here in less than an hour and I’m not finished packing, I still have to dry and curl my hair, and I haven’t picked out anything to wear. Now can we leave this business of the lab until some other time? Maggie?”

  “Okay.”

  “Cheryl?”

  “You haven’t picked out anything to wear?”

  “No. You going to help me?”

  “Sure.”

  * * * *

  “No, no. The pink angora. Definitely.”

  I stood in my terry cloth robe in front of my oak d
resser staring into the old, beveled-glass mirror. I held up first a light green silk blouse, then a delicate, V-neck angora sweater. Both new, both part of the wardrobe that Cheryl and Maggie and I had spent three weekends shopping for. I turned left, then right, then forward, and frowned at my reflection. “You sure I can’t wear my sweatshirt and jeans?”

  “Yes!” they both said.

  “For heaven’s sake, put the sweater on. It’s ten to two,” Cheryl said as she stuffed pantyhose and half-slips down into my suitcase.

  Maggie stood at the closet, pulling pants, skirts, and blouses out. “I can’t believe you didn’t pack last night.”

  I pulled the pink sweater over my head, fluffed out my hair over my shoulders and quickly applied some lipstick. “I thought I’d have plenty of time this morning.”

  “Yeah, right.” She crossed to the suitcase as Cheryl headed for the bathroom and my make-up case. I leaned forward to inspect my eye shadow in the mirror, wet a finger and wiped at a speck of mascara under my eye, and then stopped, staring at my reflection, at the light brown, long curling hair, the plain face, the nose that was too broad at the bridge, at the jaw that was too square and the mouth that was too wide. Then I looked at the room behind me, at Maggie folding skirts and blouses into my suitcase, at my purse near the door with the brochures and tickets poking out, and I shivered. “Oh lord, Mags, do I have to go?”

  Maggie grinned and dropped a blouse down in the case and smoothed it. “Right, you want me to call the airport and cancel? Okay.” She started to pick up the phone, but then she got a good look at my face. “Hey.” She walked over next to me and spoke to my reflection in the mirror. “What is it? This morning?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t know what it is.” I didn’t either. All of a sudden I was just terrified.

  “Come on,” Maggie said. “Give.”

  “I think I’m just having a critical case of pre-flight jitters.”

  She put an arm around my shoulders. “I wish you’d change your mind and let me go with you.”

  When will you learn to keep your mouth shut, Mel?