Before He Finds Her

by Michael Kardos

  Now his left leg was bleeding. What the hell? It only stung a little—what had he even cut it on? Probably a nail sticking out of the pole. The leg hurt less than his hand. But damn. Blood was definitely dripping down the one side. His pant leg was sticky. The worst part was, he couldn’t lower himself anymore. The cut leg didn’t allow it. If he were ten, twelve feet in the air, he’d have let go and taken his chances with a fall. But he was still close to thirty feet up.

  “I cut my leg!” he shouted down to the officer. “I think it’s bad.” His whole body was shaking.

  “Can you hang on? The truck will be here any second.”

  “How about a fucking ladder?”

  “Just hang on.” While they waited, the officer tried to keep Ramsey calm. “I’m Officer Ogden,” he said. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll just wait a—”

  “Bob Ogden?” Ramsey said.

  “Yes, sir,” the officer replied.

  Bob Ogden was a year younger than Ramsey. They’d gone through school together, and now he was a cop with a cop’s uniform and a cop’s car, and Ramsey was trapped like a shivering cat in a tree, too stupid to know its own ass from third base.

  Ramsey said, “You were a pussy in high school.”

  “How about we just wait for the truck,” Officer Ogden said.

  It was the only time Ramsey would ever stand in the bucket.

  When he was finally on solid ground again, his legs were shaking so hard that he could barely stay upright. But that didn’t stop him, the second that Bob Ogden came over, from taking a swing at the officer. Ramsey ended up in the road, splayed on his back, with Officer Ogden standing over him and shaking his head—because he, being sober, already knew what was still hazy to Ramsey: that by morning, Ramsey would be facing a court date, no job, and a line of staples in his thigh.

  The next day, thunderstorms gave way to a hard, steady rain. Ramsey’s roommate slept. On the muted TV, race cars looped stupidly around some track. Beneath the heavy disinfectant smell in the room, Ramsey detected traces of a thousand diseases. Hospitals always made him feel sick. Yet the doctors reminded him that it could’ve been much worse (electrocution, broken spine), and he knew he was damn lucky to be lying there, medicated on a soft bed. The pills, the pills, thank God for the pills, which insulated him from the sharpest pain and the bleakness that would otherwise be devouring him. His former self would’ve already been scheming ways to steal some of those pills for later use or profit. His current self was simply grateful that they were in his system.

  Climbing was all he ever did well, and now they’d taken that away from him. The “they” in his thoughts were hazy and constantly changing: his supervisor at the electric company, Officer Ogden, his father, Gina, his teachers, karma, his own stupidity. He’d never climb again. His leg was a disaster, and apparently so was his constitution. He’d been terrified up there. Lightning and thunder had never bothered him when he was a boy in a tree. It thunders, you climb down. No big deal. You don’t clutch on for dear life and make a spectacle of yourself. Jesus.

  There wasn’t even anyone to pity him. Eric had visited briefly, called him a fool, laid a hand on his shoulder, and left for work. His roommate, a teenager who’d been beaten to a pulp, was useless as a distraction, what with his jaw wired shut.

  Late afternoon, a big female nurse with a man’s haircut shoved him out of bed and made him walk down the hallway. Up, up, let’s go, just to the water fountain, just to the EXIT sign, just to the elevator and back, just to the far wall, just, just, just. The two of them left Ramsey’s room, and he limped past the nurse’s station. When they got near the elevator, it opened. Its sole occupant stepped out, carrying a vase of flowers.

  This was his future wife.

  She was startlingly pretty, alarmingly so—with the sort of face you only ever saw when part of what you saw came from your own imagination: You’re in a bar when you’ve had a few but before you’ve had too many, when the jukebox is playing the right song and the lighting is dim and cigarette-fogged. You know that what you see isn’t real, that everything will change in daylight.

  Well, it was daytime, and the only music came from some idiot doctor down the hall whistling to himself. Yet her green eyes were real, her smooth skin was real, every last thing.

  When she smiled, Ramsey knew. That fast. He’d fallen for pretty faces before—who hasn’t?—but one thing those pills did was filter out the noise and let you perceive the essence of things. He could practically see the light within her—not purity, exactly, or innocence, but an essential goodness that her lived experience hadn’t quashed.

  “What took you so long?” Ramsey asked.

  She played along, looking at her watch. “I’m only three minutes late—I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  She had on a white top and blue skirt, well tailored. Business attire, he supposed. Professional but snug-fitting. He was glad he had on the sweatpants that Eric brought him, rather than the paper gown. Glad he’d brushed his teeth. Glad he happened to look his best when he was a little scraggly with a day or two of razor stubble—something he’d been told by some girl once and chose to believe now.

  What Ramsey did next was positively absurd, nothing he’d ever do in a bar at 1 a.m., let alone in a hospital corridor beside his overbearing nurse. He said, “I’m just glad you made it,” and doffed—doffed!—an imaginary hat. She’d obviously come to visit a sick friend or relative, making the next thing out of his mouth utterly inappropriate. “And how thoughtful of you to bring me those.”

  She looked at the flowers, then back at Ramsey. “Just be sure to change the water every day,” she said. A small card was attached to the bouquet. She plucked it off and handed him the vase.

  “Wait... what?”

  “These aren’t cheap, either,” she said. “There are gardenias and lilies...” She squinted. “What am I saying? You’re a man, you don’t care. Trust me, though—they aren’t cheap.” She looked over at the nurse. “Will you make sure he changes the water every day? Otherwise, he won’t do it.”

  It was nice to see his nurse speechless. She nodded.

  “Excellent!” she said to the nurse. To Ramsey she said, “Well, take care now,” and pressed the elevator button. The doors opened, and she was gone.

  The next day, she was back.

  He’d spent hours thinking about her, the pills that worked miracles on a leg doing nothing to dull the ache of knowing he’d failed to get her name before those elevator doors closed. In the dark overnight hours, the error had grown enormous and irrevocable.

  But here she was again, his only visitor since yesterday afternoon, when a policeman came by with a court summons. Three light-knuckled knocks on the door, the same knock of faux respect perfected by the attending physicians before they entered with whatever grim news they couldn’t wait to dump on you. But it was neither cop nor doctor. Today she had on blue jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt. Less makeup. She looked even lovelier. It was a word—lovely—he’d never considered in his life, yet it was the only word that fit.

  He felt embarrassed. In the hallway, standing face to face, he could pretend he wasn’t an invalid. Now he lay in bed, same clothes on as yesterday, a frail patient with his mute roommate looking on. He hadn’t showered since the day before coming to the hospital. He propped himself into a sitting position, stifling a grimace of pain, and made a show of examining the new bouquet she’d brought, which was significantly larger than yesterday’s.

  “Those are nice,” he said. “I like the...”

  “You have no idea what any of these are.”

  Taped to the vase was a cream-colored card with neat cursive writing:

  To Ramsey Miller.

  Feel better soon!

  Your friend, Allie

  “So me and you are friends now?”

  “Don’t believe everything you read,” she said, smiling.

  He nodded. “That one there’s a purple rose.”

  “The purple part’s right
—it’s an iris.”

  “Huh. Looks like a rose.”

  “Not really.”

  “How do you know my name?” he asked.

  “The nurse’s station,” she said.

  He looked up at her. “Are you rich or something? These flowers cost a lot.”

  “They seemed to make you happy yesterday. That’s what flowers do—so I figured, what the hell?” She noticed yesterday’s bouquet sitting on the table beside his bed. “They look good there.”

  “Who were they for?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone. Don’t worry, she got her delivery later.”

  “You just lost me.”

  “Well, I brought up another vase later.” She squinted, as if trying to figure out what she was missing, and smiled. “Of course—why would you know? I run the flower shop downstairs.”

  “Ah.” Ramsey motioned to his two bouquets. “So you aren’t exactly paying for these.”

  “Are you kidding? On my salary?”

  “Won’t you get in trouble?”

  She smiled. “I manage a small flower shop for a very large chain. I think there’s like a thousand stores. No one cares if a few flowers get donated to a worthy cause.” He must have flinched, because she said, “What’s wrong?”

  He couldn’t bear to tell her that a worthy cause was the best compliment he’d ever been paid. So he said, “It’s just... I got to be honest. I’m gonna be here another few days. And I’m sort of getting used to the sight of fresh flowers.”

  Her outfit yesterday, he learned later that day when she ate her bagged lunch in his room, was because of a job interview. She was a college senior, business major, with an eye on the pharmaceutical industry—specifically the corridor of companies between Princeton and New Brunswick: Merck, Johnson & Johnson, all the biggies.

  She sat in the chair beside his bed, one leg underneath her, sipping from a sweating cup of Diet Coke.

  “You can’t imagine,” she said. “They hire you right out of college, no experience, and you can pay back your student loans so fast.” When she named the starting salary, Ramsey was pretty sure she had it wrong.

  “What would you actually do?” he asked.

  “Drug rep.”

  “Yeah, okay, but what would you do?”

  She shrugged. “Meet with doctors and their office staff, talk about the drugs your company makes, give them free samples and other swag.” He didn’t want to admit that he’d never heard the word swag. She must’ve read confusion in his face, because she added, “You know—coffee mugs, pens, stuff like that.”

  Ramsey nodded. “And that makes them buy your drugs?”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “So what about the flower shop?”

  “That’s just getting me through college. The pay is terrible, but it’s super easy. And there usually isn’t much to do, so while I’m there I can study.”

  “And hang out with creepy older men.”

  “You aren’t that much older.”

  “I thought you might say I wasn’t creepy.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Well, are you?”

  He actually had to think about it. “No.”

  She watched the TV a minute. Downhill skiing. No one crashed. “So what happened to your leg?”

  Telling her about the leg meant telling her about his job at the utility company, and how proud he’d been to pass his CDL exam on the first try, and how the best and freest days of his life were gone, gone, gone before he’d even had a chance to climb a single pole for real.

  “You’ll find another job,” she said, as if the whole mess of his life could be capped like a pen. “An even better one.”

  “I will, huh?”

  “Of course. You’re a take-charge kind of person. Like me.”

  He laughed. “Did you not hear everything I just told you?”

  “Sure, but that was the story of your past. It ended with you here, in the hospital, talking to me. Now it’s your present.”

  “You’re saying that today is the first day of the rest of my life?”

  Her face reddened. “I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true.”

  He wanted to believe that he could emerge from the hospital as if from a cocoon, transformed from anything he’d ever known or been. And of the many reasons why he began to fall so quickly in love with Allie, one of them was because he yearned to become worthy of her too-generous assessment of him. And in that way, she was already correct—in falling for her, he was taking charge of his life.

  “Hey, do me a favor?” Ramsey asked, and looked over at his roommate. “Bring that guy some flowers tomorrow. I’ll pay for it—the kid hasn’t had a single visitor.” His roommate looked over and waved, then looked back at the TV.

  “Okay,” she said, and whispered: “Can he really not talk at all?”

  “Nope,” Ramsey said.

  “Bummer. Yeah, I’ll bring him something.” She stood up. “Well, I know where to find you.”

  The next day, the roommate got his flowers. Ramsey’s came with helium balloons.

  The day after that, both roommates were discharged. It was Allie’s day off, but she’d already given Ramsey her telephone number.

  The roommate was being kicked out first, so Ramsey said, “See you, man,” and strolled around the hospital for a while so the kid could pack his things and leave in peace. That was what the nurses wanted, anyway—for Ramsey to walk walk walk. So he went the length of the hallway, then the hallway above and the one below. When he returned, his leg was throbbing a little. His roommate had left a slip of paper on Ramsey’s pillow.

  Topaz Trucking, it read in neat letters. Below it, a phone number.

  Bobby Landry is my uncle. He’s a training manager there. (I noticed your bad leg isn’t your driving leg.) Is your CDL Class A? That would help.

  Take care,

  Vic

  P.S. Don’t tell Bobby where you met me.

  P.P.S. Don’t blow it with the flower girl.

  To his own astonishment, Ramsey didn’t blow it. The vow he made to change his life was no transitory side effect of the good meds. It was real and lasting, and every bit as solemn as the vow that Eric had made years earlier to quit drinking and thank Jesus for every last thing. In fact, first on Ramsey’s own agenda was to deal with his booze situation. He was reasonably sure he wasn’t an alcoholic, but he knew he had to cut way back. Eric still put a dollar into a shoe box every day that went by without him taking a drink. Ramsey tried a ritual that suited him better: one drink whenever he drank, and no more. If that didn’t work, he’d try something else.

  He dialed up Topaz Trucking, met with the mute kid’s uncle, and a week later enrolled in the company’s training program.

  At home, he followed his doctors’ orders to the letter, stretching the leg and cleaning the wound meticulously. And while he was in the spirit of cleaning, he bought a new vacuum and a mop and some Windex. He bought a napkin holder for the kitchen table. He bought a kitchen table for the napkin holder.

  He also began making lists. He listed things to do each morning: forty sit-ups; fifteen push-ups; walk to the ocean and back, followed by fifteen minutes of leg stretches; wash any dishes/pots/pans in the sink; read the front page of the newspaper; learn a new word from the dictionary.

  He listed current skills and skills he’d like to acquire. He listed short-term goals (pay all bills on time; stay sober for three months; learn some more chords on the crappy electric guitar that was gathering dust in his closet), and he listed things he felt grateful for (living this long; meeting Eric; having health insurance when he got injured; meeting Allie).

  Meeting Allie. Of course she was the reason he did any of this, why he awoke each morning with energy and optimism rather than festering in his dark bedroom all day and letting his leg harden into a permanent, painful handicap. Each day brought the possibility that he’d see her. She might come over after her shift with takeout, and maybe she’d stretch out on his sofa and s
tudy for one of her classes. Or maybe they’d watch something dumb on TV. Or maybe they’d go into his bedroom, and she’d be gentle with his injured leg and less gentle everywhere else.

  Like Ramsey, she was alone in the world. When she was a freshman at Monmouth College on a soccer scholarship, she told her evangelical parents about dating one of her teammates, and that was pretty much that. Within the year, her mother and father had sold their home in Freehold and moved to the Florida panhandle, where the weather was warmer and the people more God-fearing. Allie was told, explicitly, that she wasn’t welcome in their new home.

  “The funny thing,” she said, telling Ramsey the story in his apartment one night, “is that Amanda and I were only together that one semester. Turns out, I like guys.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said. “But that was it with your parents? You never patched things up?”

  “We talked a few times on the phone. My father agreed to let me back into their lives if I agreed to fly down there on my own dime and stand in front of their congregation and admit to my sin and pledge that I’d stay pure until marriage.”

  Ramsey smirked. “I hate to break the news to you, babe, but you ain’t so pure.”

  She hit him with a sofa cushion. “If I needed their money, I might’ve said whatever stupid thing they wanted me to. But they were broke, and I was paying all my own bills. So I didn’t see the point.”

  “People sure are different,” he said to her.

  “Yeah, they were always intense, but it got a lot worse over the years.”

  “No,” Ramsey said. “I mean...” He was thinking about the difference between Allie and himself: how his own response to his family’s dissolution was to become a degenerate, while hers was to play varsity soccer, earn a 3.5 GPA, and manage a flower shop. He shook his head. “Never mind.”