Use Somebody

by Beck Anderson

  She swings the bedroom door open.

  This is a weird moment for me. I try to think of another occasion when I’ve been in a woman’s bedroom, a woman who I want, without a doubt, when I’ve had no desire to knock her down and make mad, passionate love to her.

  But I don’t. First of all, the whole bedroom is pink. The walls she must have painted herself in wide, dark rose and light pink stripes. It’s atrocious. Not a love den, as far as I’m concerned. Plus, there is a ridiculous, huge flag of Canada pinned to the ceiling.

  “Oh, Canada, that is a big ol’ flag.”

  She snorts. “You are not allowed to make fun of my flag. Not when I can’t beat you to a pulp for teasing me.”

  She crawls so carefully under the pink covers, I wince. She must be in an insane amount of pain.

  “Let me help.” I hold a hand out, and to my surprise, she takes it, presses hard against it for leverage as she swings her legs up on the bed and gingerly scoots down under the covers.

  “Good night, Mr. King.” She lies on her back, holding still, hands resting on either side of her body. She looks like she’s afraid to move, she’s so banged up. The two little dogs jump up on the bed and curl up together at the end of the bed.

  “I’m not leaving. I’ll crash out on the couch in the living room. Try to get some sleep.” I get up and snap off the light, walk out the door.

  “Um, hey. Hey, can you come here?” Her voice squeaks.

  I come back to the doorway. “Macy?”

  “I leave a light on. Can you come turn on the dresser lamp?”

  I turn the overhead light on again, go to the dresser and switch on the little pink and white gingham lamp, shut off the overhead light. “Macy?”

  “Uh-huh?” She’s pulled the covers up to her chin.

  “I can stay in here if you want.”

  “I’d still leave the lights on. You aren’t some big knight in shining armor.”

  “What are you afraid of? This isn’t about almost drowning today, is it?”

  “I’ve just always slept with the lights on, that’s all. And thanks for the unnecessary ‘you almost died’ memo. I don’t need it—I’m too sore to turn over, remember?”

  I sit on the other side of the bed. “You didn’t say no.”

  “About what?”

  “Do you want me to stay in here? I’ll sleep on top of the covers, if you want. No hidden agenda. Just company for you.”

  She closes her eyes. It feels like she’s testing out the darkness behind her lids, testing to see if she’s strong enough to stay in the darkness. “You could stay in here. There’s an extra blanket on that chair by the closet. And don’t get your toes too close to Justin Trudeau. He’s a toe-biter.”

  I walk over to the chair and pluck off the fluffy pink blanket. “What’s with all the pink?”

  “I like pink. Shut up and lie down.”

  I slip off my shoes, lie down next to her, cover up with the blanket.

  I prop myself up a bit and slip my phone out of my pocket, scroll through the e-mails I’ve ignored for two days now. I never ignore e-mails.

  “You can’t do that. It’s bad for your brain. You won’t be able to sleep.”

  I look over at her. Her eyelids droop, and her voice sounds faint, wispy almost.

  “Fine.” I set the phone down on the bedside table and turn to face her, propped on an elbow. Her eyes are closed now.

  “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure, Macy.”

  She falls asleep hard, her lips parting, a rough sound at every inhale. I worry. Is that damage? Water in her lungs? I lie there, grind my teeth in frustration. No one listened to me. The girl should’ve gone to the hospital. I don’t care what Mr. Cardiologist says.

  Macy tries to roll over and cries out in pain.

  My hand shoots out and touches her shoulder. “You’re okay. Just stay still.”

  She takes my hand and wraps both her hands around my arm, pulling me close. “It hurts.”

  “Shh. Sleep.” Now my face is dangerously close to hers. But she’s out. I just lie still and feel the warm, ragged air on my skin as she exhales.

  I watch her sleep for most of the night before I have the nerve to untangle my arm and close my eyes. I don’t let go of her hand, though.

  It’s a nice last thing to see before you fall asleep at night. You know, a delicate, soft hand, clasped in your hand.

  That’s not some mushy bullshit, it’s just true.

  I finally wake up the next morning to look into warm, brown eyes.

  The warm, brown eyes of JT, wonder dog extraordinaire. Whose underbite is agape, with tongue lolling, and he’s very, very close to my face.

  He’s wedged himself between Macy and me, and the alleged toe-biter is either about to tongue-kiss me or bite my face off.

  “Good morning.” I say it to him in as sweet a voice as I can muster.

  Macy sighs. “Good morning.”

  I wonder if she remembers that if she moves, she’s gonna hurt. What was a black purple reddish battle ground over her ribs has probably turned for the worse.

  I close my eyes, mostly to shut out the moist dog breath on my face, but when I do, I see her lips, blue, and her eyes, white without pupil. I feel her cold, wet body limp against mine.

  I give her hand a squeeze. “How do you feel?”

  Justin Trudeau suddenly wags all over. The movement may have started in his tail, but his whole spazzy little body is now shaking and quivering.

  We’re awake, and his dumb doggie brain has registered it, and damn, he’s one excited little dog.

  Macy squeezes my hand back. “I think I’m just a giant bruise. I hurt.”

  Justin whimpers.

  “Does he need to go out?”

  I’ve apparently said the magic words. Justin Trudeau is no longer in between Macy and me. He’s shot down the bed, on to the floor, and out into the living room. I can hear his toenails tipping and tapping on the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

  I can see Macy now. She still has her eyes closed. Her long, dark lashes fan out over her pale cheeks. She’s not got her color back.

  In front of her sweet face, her hands are entwined with mine. Her fingers lace between mine, and her fingertips sparkle pink.

  She opens her eyes. They are blue-green, flecked with gold. I’ve never been this close to them indoors. They’re exquisite.

  “He needs to go out, definitely. That’s the potty dance he’s doing, and in a second, he’ll pee on the living room carpet. And then I’ll lose my pet deposit.” Her brow furrows in worry.

  She makes a move to turn over, and it’s clear that it’s not a good move. She sucks in her breath. “Oh, ow, ow that hurts. Oh!”

  “Hey, I got this. Stay put.” I spring off the bed and shoot into the living room, looking for the little dog’s leash.

  By now, though, Justin has alerted the rest of the Canadian delegation, Pierre Trudeau the French-Canadian bulldog, and so I’m greeted with two eager dogs doing the potty dance.

  “Keep a lid on it, mutts. Show me where your leashes are.” I try to locate both of my shoes and the leashes all at once.

  By some miracle the dogs have honed in on what I need and bounce under the breakfast bar. I spy the leashes in a bowl above them and grab them.

  “Sit! Sit? Sit, for Chrissakes!” I bark at the dogs.

  “You don’t need to be a jerk!” I hear Macy call from the bedroom.

  “Handled! It’s all good! Not being mean in the slightest!” I have JT’s leash on, and the more peaceable bulldog sits like an angel as I circle his chubby neck with his leash.

  Then we’re out the front door. I half-have my shoes on—I’m ruining a very expensive pair of Gurkha boots by stepping into them without unlacing them.

  It’s biting cold and blazingly bright. “Jesus!” I can’t help it. In LA the temperature is a steady 64 degrees, whether six am or six pm or high noon or midnight. Kind of tepid bath water twenty-four seven.

 
; In Idaho, in June, it’s chilly. Then it’s blazing hot. Then it hails, then it’s frosty. If you take two steps down the river, the temperature in the shade suddenly drops ten degrees.

  The cool air sinks into the bed of the river, and until the sun arcs over the high foothills, the freezing river and the cool air chills.

  Which is the temperature situation right now, and I’m wearing jeans, a t-shirt, no socks, and sort of shoes—I’m wearing them like scuffs.

  The dogs tug and bounce.

  I follow them down the sidewalk in front of Macy’s apartment to a little patch of grass at the end of the townhouses.

  “Okay gents, time to do your business.” I stand and feel my neck and nipples freeze solid while the dogs contemplate the mysteries of life to be found in the blades of grass and that one gum wrapper they’ve found on the scrap of lawn.

  “Mornin’.” A deep, smoke-scraped voice speaks up behind me.

  I spin around. The bulldog barks, and it’s not a friendly hello.

  In front of me is a bigger guy, thick forearms, wide nose, sandy blonde curly hair, with a shark tooth necklace and a gray sweat shirt. He smokes.

  “Can I help you?” I try to sound confident. Not beat-up-able.

  “You Macy’s friend?” He takes a pull on the cigarette, pulls a piece of tobacco from between his lips, flicks it away between his rough fingers.

  I size the guy up. “Who wants to know?” The dogs are done and crouch at my feet. Maybe they’re my reinforcements.

  “Tell Macy that Troy came by. She knows what it’s about,” he says.

  “Any reason you need to see her at seven in the morning?”

  He sneers. “I’ve got five-hundred reasons. Remind her there’s a deadline and there’s interest.”

  “Call her if you need to give her a message. Not my job.”

  He smiles, slow, flicks the lit cigarette at the dog closest to him. Pierre jumps sideways to avoid being singed. “Will do. Keep an eye on your pets, mister. The girl included. They get themselves in trouble a lot.”

  He turns and ambles away across the parking lot. He climbs into an old burgundy pick-up, still idling. I pull the dogs down the sidewalk as the truck screeches out of the parking lot, leaving burnt rubber on the pavement and the smell of it in the air.

  “Fucker.”

  Justin Trudeau agrees with my assessment of Troy. He barks loud, once, calling after the departed truck.

  I bring Macy some toast and a glass of water. There wasn’t much in her fridge.

  “Can you give me a boost out of bed? I need to go to the bathroom, too.” She hasn’t made it very far. She is turned over on her side, facing the edge of the bed.

  “Are you doing the potty dance?” I grin. It is a feeling beyond relief to see her awake and functional. Yesterday’s scare at the river still has a grip on my nervous system.

  She reaches out for my hand and pulls on it. I hear her suck in her breath. Then she’s out of the bed.

  She wears what I put her in last night—sweats and a t-shirt from one of the guys’ suitcase. I can’t remember who ran to get dry clothes when we were waiting for the cardiologist to finish checking her out.

  She shuffles into the bathroom and I hear it—a rasp, almost a rattle, when she breathes in. Then she speaks up. “Can you go feed the dogs? I have a shy bladder.”

  “Fine.” I go tend to the pups.

  The toilet flushes, and then I hear her coughing. It sounds terrible, like a loose penny at the bottom of a Coke can.

  I fish my phone out of my shirt pocket. Dialing, I can feel my heart pounding faster and faster as I think. Something’s wrong. She’s not supposed to cough like that. My brain chews on the thought, turns it over and over, to the point that I think I’m short of breath by the time the phone is answered on the other end of the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Tessa, it’s Jeremy. Jeremy King, Andy’s friend?”

  I think I hear a snort. “You mean Andrew. What’s going on? Is everyone all right?”

  “Everyone’s fine. Well, not everyone, but everyone you know. Listen, can you put Dr. Joe on the line? He’s not left for work yet, has he?”

  A loud exhale. “No. He’s here. This better be good. You’re sure you didn’t do anything stupid to Andrew? Kelly’ll tie your balls in a knot if something happens to him.”

  “I told you he’s fine. Tessa, please.” I hear my voice crack, just a tiny, tiny bit, but it’s clear. “Please.”

  “Wow. Okay, Jeremy. I’ll get him.” I can hear her muffle the phone. There’s a long pause.

  “Hello?” It’s Joe, Tessa’s husband, and the Pettigrew/Reynolds family doctor. It’s not my family, but it’s the closest I have to a family, so right now I’m claiming him as my family doctor, too.

  “Joe, it’s Jeremy. Listen, I appreciate your time. I’ll make it quick. So there’s this woman—”

  “I don’t want to know about your sex life, please,” he interrupts.

  “Jesus, it’s not anything like that. I have plenty of LA doctors for stupid stuff like that. This girl, she almost drowned in the river yesterday, well, actually she did, I gave her CPR, she was blue, she was unconscious for at least, I don’t know, maybe 90 seconds, a cardiologist checked her out, but now this morning her lungs sound rotten—”

  Joe breaks in again. “This a friend of yours?”

  “Yes. Well, she’s our fishing guide. The cough. It’s terrible. I’m worried, Joe.”

  He takes a deep breath. “You are a man with a lot of money and connections. You want to make sure she’s completely okay, take her to a real hospital. She might have aspirated water into her lungs or she could develop pneumonia. Wouldn’t hurt her to give her a thorough check.”

  “Where?”

  “You could bring her to Boise.”

  “If I have to get a jet, I could take her pretty much anywhere. Where would you take her?”

  “Seattle, then. You can’t go wrong with Virginia Mason. They’ve got a top rate pulmonary clinic. More than likely she just needs to rest. She’s young, I take it.”

  “I don’t know how old she is, but yeah.”

  “She’s twenty-one at least, right?” Sounds like Joe is judging by the rise in his tone.

  “Of course.” God, what kind of impression do I make on people? Jesus. “C’mon, Joe. This isn’t easy for me, asking for your advice.”

  “Fine, I’m sorry. Okay, I have to go. Andrew okay? Tucker good?”

  “Everyone’s fine. Thanks, Joe. I know it’s not standard. I appreciate it.”

  He chuckles. “Hope she’s worth the plane ride.”

  “Definitely. She definitely is worth it.”

  It surprises me to hear, but I said it and I believe it.

  I hang up and walk back into the bedroom. Macy’s back in bed, trying to pull pillows behind her to prop herself up. Each movement she makes is tiny.

  “I’ll do that.” I get her tucked in, settle her in on the pillows.

  “Thanks.” She picks up the toast and nibbles.

  “Now that I have you right where I want you…”

  “Helpless and injured?” She smiles.

  “That’s how I like my women. No, really.”

  “No, really.” She takes my hand. “I do want to say thank you. Completely. You saved my life. I drowned.” She holds my hand in both of hers and looks down at it, avoiding my eyes.

  “I’m glad I was there. But now you do something for me.”

  She frowns. “What?”

  “Come to Seattle with me.” I pick up my phone again.

  “What? Why?” Her head tilts, confused. Then she leans back suspiciously.

  “Humor me. I don’t like how you sound when you breathe. It’s not right.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m being cautious. No one even let me take you to the emergency room.”

  “No.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

  “No, you do
n’t get to say no. No one else saw you when I pulled you up out of the water. No one gets it.”

  She looks doubtful. “I’d miss work.”

  “You can’t guide all banged up. And ten bucks says you’re on light duty until a doctor gives you release anyway. That’s how getting hurt on the job works.”

  She chews on her lip. “Worker’s comp is no good. I have to work. That looks bad if you take worker’s comp.”

  “It’s there to take care of the employee and the employer when someone gets hurt during work. This is exactly how it’s supposed to work. You let me take you to Seattle, the doc there will clear you to return to work after a couple days tops, and I can show you around Seattle while you rest up.”

  That last thing makes her think. She raises an eyebrow. “You know good places for seafood there?”

  “Of course. And we’ll stay somewhere really nice, so you can sleep on soft sheets and heal up a little.”

  “If we go, I’d want to go to the Space Needle.”

  “Done.” I don’t tell her that I think the Space Needle is cheesy tourist crap, because I can see a little of her twinkle coming back into her eyes.

  “All right. What about the dogs?”

  I smile. “They can come with.”

  “They’ll be scared on the plane,” she worries.

  “They can sit on your lap.”

  She questions this. “No, they can’t. They don’t let you do that on a flight, do they?”

  “They do if you’re on a private plane.”

  Her eyes go wide. “What?”

  “Macy Shea Summerlin. I am a Hollywood agent. I am loaded. You need to be a better listener.”

  “Okay. You have a ton of money. I just assumed you were full of crap.”

  “I am about a lot of things, but that one’s the truth.”

  “It’s a deal then.” She puts out her hand.

  I take it in mine and kiss it, Prince Charming-style. Then I turn it over and kiss the tender bright pink scar on her palm. “Thanks. It’ll set my mind at ease.”

  Maybe I can be the man in the white hat this time. She needs it; I can just feel it in my bones.

  I don’t even want to say anything to the guys. We’re supposed to leave in three days. I ignore that part and start planning our trip to Seattle. I go out front of Macy’s place and begin making calls.