Hollis came in, pushed back the plastic on the door. Greetings and salutations. She smoothed a hand across Bo’s forehead. Cool. This man is cool as a cube.
As a cube?
Like ice. He’s gonna get out of here.
Think so?
Yes, know so. A couple more days and no fever, no infection, we’ll put him in a normal room. How’s your mouth, Bo?
Bo opened his mouth for Hollis. With a wooden depressor, she touched his tongue as if it were the wing of a butterfly.
Are you sucking the ice chips, Bo? You look a little red in there. A small Styrofoam cup filled with ice sat on his bedside table. She peeled open the lid. Here. Keep at this. Bo tipped back the cup and took a few chips in his mouth.
What about food?
Tomorrow they’ll try again with breakfast. Hollis took a long look at the catheter attached to Bo’s chest. You all right here? But Bo didn’t answer, he stared up at the television. Looks okay. I don’t see anything to worry about. Okay. I’ll see you two on Monday.
Monday! Where are you going?
Can you believe it? I have the whole weekend off. I’m going on a mystery cruise.
You’re kidding. With that Hetzler guy?
No way. I barely know him.
I thought that was the point.
Don’t listen to your mother, Bo, she’ll corrupt your pure heart. Hollis pecked the top of Bo’s head, a kiss so quick, so shielded by the woven paper mask, it barely happened at all. The Three Stooges were in a fine mess. Bo laughed while Curly hit his own head with a frying pan. Hollis slipped out the door, unbuttoning the Peter Pan collar on her nurse’s uniform as she went. See you Monday morning. And we’ll start packing up your duds.
Around midnight, with Bo asleep for hours, Kay took off her scrub coat, her mask, her gloves, and plastic booties, made a small package to come back to on the chair outside Bo’s room, and wandered down to the third floor of the west wing to see if the soda machine had been fixed yet. One machine for so many friends and relatives, it was an odd arrangement. But here it was, lit up and humming. Kay fished in her pocketbook for loose coins, dropped them in the slot. With a crash that echoed all the way down the long empty corridor, her Tab landed in the bin, lukewarm. Kay took it across the hall to the ladies’ room and, without turning on the lights, went to the window, opened the sash, and lit a cigarette. She sat down on the wide sill, looked out over the empty street just below, no ambulances soaring in, so quiet. She could smell the river, the moon was bright, her son was getting better and maybe would be well for a while now. There was a big party tonight for Roy, she should make an appearance, but it was better to stick around here.
Kay liked this window, had found refuge here before on harder nights. She liked the big square tiles and the smoking as if in college. She felt almost happy. I’m in college, I could get kicked out for this. The moon was so high over the river it lit everything, the Dumpsters, the emergency sign, the yellow brick entrance. She hopped off the sill, flushed the cigarette down the toilet. She’d go for a walk around the block, she hadn’t been out of the hospital in two days. A little fresh air wouldn’t kill her.
Back on ten, there was a lot of action. She could hear it the second she stepped off the elevator, the squeaking running shoes, the loud whispers, the machines scraping along the floor. And she knew, before turning the corner, that it was Bo. Whatever happened was over, had happened while she was outside, dreaming of college. And the intern with the ass too small for his green scrubs was backing out of Bo’s room with a machine on wheels. He’s okay, he said, we didn’t need it, and he winked at her and wiped his sweaty face, and Kay would have hit him if she could have raised her arm. Bo’s bed was empty, and that terrified her except for the simultaneous understanding that if he were dead, the intern would be acting differently. Where is he? Where is he? Had she spoken out loud? The night nurse in charge, Clarissa, came back to find her. Your sweater, she said. She was very fat. She held Kay’s cardigan by the top button. Bo had slept with it wrapped around his shoulders because he liked the smell. Where is he?
Intensive care. His fever spiked, happened so fast something beeped on our monitors. A mistake, actually. We read a code for his heart, and that’s why all the hardware. But really it’s just the fever. He’ll be all right. We’ve been watching for this.
Why?
Well, it’s not unexpected. We’ll keep him in ICU for a day or two, let his system stabilize. It will help his throat too.
What’s wrong with his throat?
Cankers from the chemo. So he’s on a light morphine drip. Something for the fever, something for the pain. Didn’t Hollis tell you? Dr. Bronson?
Yes. They told me. They told me it was possible. Show me where he is?
Kay followed Clarissa down the silent corridor, through a double set of doors, another corridor, now they were in a different building built in a different time, a left turn, a right turn, and they were standing in front of a glass partition, inside a small vestibule with a view into the pediatric ICU. All this had happened to Bo in the time it took her to drink a Tab, smoke a cigarette, and walk to the river and back. Clarissa handed Kay her sweater and said good night. Kay waved to the ICU nurse through the glass. She was taking Bo’s pulse, reading numbers in an orange light. His eyes were closed. He looked asleep, exactly the way he had when she tiptoed out forty minutes ago.
The nurse opened the glass door and closed it quietly. He’s doing great, she said.
He’s okay?
You can see him in the morning. We’ll let him sleep. The ICU nurse smiled. She had small teeth and red round lips. She had a mustache, bleached very yellow. You’re welcome to sit in here. Kay took another vinyl chair and moved it around so she could lean her face against the glass. One of them had infected him. Either she’d done it or Hollis had. With some kiss or caress. She knew it.
Roy loved all the balloons. Esther’s idea, of course. Red, white, and blue balloons taking a dive from the ceiling at midnight, just when the senator from Wyoming was making the fortieth toast of the evening. And the little boats, each a Mayflower carved from a baked potato loaded with caviar immigrants. Better a shtetl, said Muddy, or something useful. But Roy got the symbolism and it was good for him, it was right, and he was grateful for all the creativity. The sight of all his friends in red, white, or blue cummerbunds, it made him a little teary, he had to admit, and if his mother wore brown, that was her privilege. But Esther in the red sequins was a dream, and when they danced to “When the Saints Come Marching In,” she laughed so hard and looked so pretty, he almost felt like he would marry her, why not, worse things had happened.
Frank whispered something to Merrill that made her blush. A frosty pink hit her cheeks, she blushed right down to the décolletage on her painted-on white gown. Fly on the wall, fly on her ear, what would he give to hear what Frank could possibly say to Merrill that would warrant a blush from her. Probably something about her taxes. She looked up and smiled like the million-dollar girl she was, and that other one, Million-Dollar Dolly, she was here too, with her friend with the death-defying tits, all in electric blue, to light up, to send electricity to the whole damn city if needed. Drop a bomb here tonight, you’d lose half the government, and a good portion of the other swanky citizens as well. When you win, everyone comes to the party. A fact of life. Lucky, he felt his luck like a snake winding around his feet, and that made him nervous for a second, even as they all lifted their glasses for the hundredth time that night, he was on the lookout for trouble, to find it before it found him. And that was easy to do: Kay. Where was Kay? She should be here. Weren’t things going great? Wasn’t this just where she should be, dressed in something fabulous?
Roy nodded and hugged his way to Frank and Merrill and bent down to whisper in the ear of the man who caused blushes: Kay, what gives. Frank frowned hard as if this thought had just occurred to him. But Merrill dipped two pink fingers into Roy’s cummerbund and drew him to her. She’s on watch.
She joined the army?
Ho, ho, Frank laughed, but not very hard, he was frowning, something big had slipped right past.
She’s watching Bo.
For?
Just to make sure he’s okay, she said she’d stop in later to celebrate.
Later, how later, it’s after midnight.
Well, give her a chance.
Roy nodded and watched the lieutenant governor make a joke with the waiter.
Muddy was fading. Midnight and his princess had had it. So Roy said, I’ll be back, he told Esther, and Frank, and Dan, and anyone who stopped dancing and talking and yelling and drinking long enough to ask. I’ll be back. And he wrapped Muddy up in her long mink coat, in July for godsakes, holding it just the way she liked, and she was tired, didn’t need to say a thing, and for once Peter was actually parked outside where he was supposed to be, it was a miracle, a night of miracles. And maybe it was time he should spread a little of this around.
Park Avenue sparkled with the night. Muddy was pleased and smiled at him and didn’t mention anything about Esther or Merrill or anyone she usually liked to discuss after an event, except to say that blue wasn’t Esther’s color. She wore red, Muddy. Exactly my point, she did the right thing. What choice did she have, white on that skin? And blue? No.
Wait, Peter, I’m coming back.
Roy walked his mother in, all the way to the door of her bedroom. You’re all right?
What else would I be?
True. True enough. Good night, dear, he said, and kissed her cheek, then turned to run down the stairs, happy, he was happy like a child. It was a sin to be happy like this.
Peter knew the entrance to the hospital where Roy could get in, and someone would get him up to the tenth floor, even if it was almost one in the morning. Roy had a hunch. And a hundred-dollar bill to the guard in the west wing had him standing in front of the right night-duty nurse. The fat one.
But she was impervious to his tan, his tux, which had cost a lot, now that he thought of it, was it really worth it for one event? How many Fourths of July could he dredge this up at, it was a onetime suit, and it still didn’t move her. Money didn’t matter, so he tried humanity. He told her, I’m a friend. And she said, And I’m the president of the United States, which gave him an idea, but then he rejected it. Too much. Roy reached into his pocket. I have this little flag, I’d like to give it to Mrs. Clemens.
The nurse, for reasons he would never fathom, except as a further sign of his incredible good fortune, which he needed to spread where it was most needed as soon as possible, stepped over to the phallus-shaped microphone on her communication system and called four numbers, Two-three-eight-six, over the loudspeaker. Am I getting the boot? Roy even asked that and smiled, a winning smile, a smile that said, You want presidents, I’ll give you presidents. And a young man came scooting up the hall from wherever he’d been dozing, a pillow crease on his cheek. A cheek, Roy noted, the color of an autumn leaf, golden, lucky, he was so fucking lucky, and the boy took a sleepy seat where the fat nurse had just disembarked, and she said, Follow me, and Roy said, Thank you, thought, That boy’s face is sweet. And it wasn’t Roy’s fault, no indication of his changing luck, when the boy got the ax the next day for pilfering in the fat nurse’s purse while she was showing Roy the way.
Kay was sleeping too, but there was no crease in her beautiful face. Her cheek smashed against the glass, so if by sudden chance the glass lifted, she could go to her son. Sleeping or not, she’d be ready. Thank you, Roy said, thank you very much, and bowed like a courtier to get this fat nurse on the move. Give me the field here. Give me a chance. I’ll be back, she said, and Roy thanked her again, and waved the little flag like a wand.
Roy could see Bo’s face lit orange through the glass. Strangely, he looked not so bad, maybe it was his luck talking, but Roy could definitely determine that there was a kid with possibilities. Bo looked okay, looked positive, Roy didn’t know why. He didn’t necessarily want to wake Kay, who, even asleep, looked tired, looked clobbered by sleep. He sat down slowly in the chair beside her; the brocade of his jacket, maybe it was the embroidered stars, made a scratching noise on the plastic. He held himself suspended for a second, and then, carefully, let his keister hit the seat. She didn’t stir, her face stayed mashed into the safety glass, and he looked at her crunched mouth and felt love, love like religion.
Twenty minutes later she was still asleep, and he was wide awake, with a list formed in his head of who he would call and who he could get. Roy had the time now and he had the energy. A mustachioed nurse wearing neon-red lipstick tiptoed toward him like a nightmare to wave him out of the ICU, but that was okay, his luck was holding. For Bo, this setback would be temporary, a poodle, a miniature poodle right around the bend. Esther was correct.
Back on ten, the golden boy had vanished, and a new nurse, cute with red hair, was counting sheets of paper. Roy handed her five one-hundred-dollar bills and stole a piece of paper from her pile. He wrote down his telephone number, the night line, where he could actually be reached. He knew she would take it. He could tell right away. She blinked, astonished, and he said, like he was teaching her a new prayer, the one that would change her life: Mrs. Clemens, whatever she wants, she gets. And then he made his way down the same back stairs he had ascended earlier, and miracle of miracles, Peter was right where he left him.
Back to the party, Peter, he said, it can’t possibly be over.
When Pasteur first dropped the hint of his release, Will was losing so badly at hearts, he didn’t hear it. He couldn’t concentrate on anything because his hip throbbed as if a miniature jack-hammer drilled the bone. A week and a half after a minor procedure. He thought it might be infected. At the card table, he shifted and rubbed and irritated the other players. For christsakes, Clementine, take a bath or something, said Ray Spofford, always a bad sport. You’re making me itch.
You better get someone to take a look at that, Pasteur said.
I’ll take a look. You want me to look, Clementine?
Pasteur pressed his creased newspaper flat on his thigh. He glanced at the wall clock. Twenty-five to five. Clean it up, he said. We’ll break early. Just add up what you have.
Good work, twitch. You won me a Bundt cake.
Yes, well. Last chance for that kind of help. Soak it up while you can, said Pasteur. Let’s go now. He jammed the newspaper into a back pocket. Come on, I want to get out of here.
Who doesn’t? Sammy Finlandor sneezed into a closed fist.
Let’s go.
Will folded his hand reluctantly. For one bright moment he was doing so badly he thought he might shoot the moon. Recoup his losses. See young Emily again. Win himself a cake.
Just after breakfast the next morning, Will was shaving turnips when Nancy Campanella tiptoed into the kitchen, lavender skirt swinging back and forth over empty cans on the floor. Chef Brodie was muscling some dessert into shape for dinner. Cling peaches and oiled stale bread, stirred together with a bag of sugar. One egg leavened the whole thing. Nancy watched until the orange batch was poured into vast tins and set in the oven, then she handed Chef Brodie a pink slip. He nodded as he read it, wiped his hands, and read it again. All right, I’ll tell him. But after she left, Chef Brodie got distracted by a rust situation around the handles of his two best fry baskets. He placed an angry call to the supply clerk.
By ten o’clock Pasteur was standing beside Chef Brodie. You think I don’t have enough to do?
Take him, go ahead, Brodie said, and picked up the wall phone again and dialed.
You need more help down here?
Brodie gave Pasteur a squint. Needing help and getting it, two different animals. Listen, I have something to do. You take your man. We’ll still eat. Chef Brodie waved Pasteur off and started yelling into the phone about the waste of his time and talent, the danger in shoddy equipment.
Pasteur moved slowly through the kitchen to Will’s sink. You can let that go now. Will just looked at him,
not sure what he meant. I said, You can put that scraper down and follow me.
Will spent the next half hour filling out forms on Pasteur’s clipboard. They wanted a full accounting of his next intended decade. Will sat on the edge of his cot and tried to imagine anything at all about what might be ahead. His mind worked like a toy with a spring action, rejecting each obvious idea. He’d see his family. He’d find a job. Just thinking such things made him sick to his stomach.
All right, that’s enough. Pasteur had a short stack of clothes, Will’s suit from the courtroom rolled in a ball, a pair of black loafers, and a new green plastic satchel. Get dressed. There’s a car outside for you. I’ll walk you down to the gate, but I don’t have all morning for this ceremony.
Sammy Finlandor had been trying to get a cold tablet from the infirmary for two days. He’d been stuck working in the laundry because his nose wouldn’t stop running. Will could hear him sniffing all the way down the row. After the head count, Will shook out his suit. It smelled like cat piss. His eyes started to tear for no reason. Sammy walked by the open door.
What’s going on? Sammy sneezed hard, doubled over and stood upright again. What are you doing?
I don’t know.
What do you mean, you don’t know. You’re leaving, obviously. That’s amazing. Just this morning they told you?
Will nodded.
Christ, look at you. What are you, crazy? You cry when you arrive here, not when you go.
Will squinted down into the green plastic valise.
Come on. Sammy started to cough again, deep in his chest. Come on. I’m dying here. That’s something to cry about. Will put his hand flat over his eyes.
Wavemaker II Page 18
