“I’m honestly concerned that my dog is ruining your home.”
“What’s the point of owning your own place if you can’t get a little pee on it?” Gabby says.
“OK. But don’t come crying to me when she stains the hardwood.”
We get into the car and drive only a few blocks before Gabby pulls into an underground lot and parks. I’ve never seen Mark’s office before. It occurs to me that I also haven’t been to the dentist in a while.
“You know, while we’re here,” I say, “I really should make an appointment to get my teeth cleaned.”
Gabby laughs as we get into the elevator. She presses the button for the fifth floor, but it isn’t responding. The doors close, and we somehow end up going down to the lowest level of the garage. The doors open, and an elderly woman gets in. It takes her about thirty years.
Gabby and I smile politely, and then Gabby hits the fifth-floor button again, which now lights up, a bright and inviting orange.
“Which floor?” she asks the elderly lady.
“Three, please.”
We head up, and the door opens again on the floor we got in on. Gabby turns to me and rolls her eyes. “If I knew it was going to be ten stops on the elevator, I would have suggested we go eat first,” she whispers to me. I laugh.
And there is Mark.
Kissing a blond woman in a pencil skirt.
Gabby left at around ten tonight to go home to Mark. I haven’t seen Mark since I’ve been in the hospital. It’s not weird necessarily, because Mark and I were never particularly close. But it seems strange that Gabby is so often here on nights and lunch breaks and Mark hasn’t even stopped by. Gabby keeps saying that he’s been working late a lot. Apparently, he had to attend a dental conference in Anaheim this week. I don’t know much about the life of a dentist, but I always figured dentists were the kind of people who were home in time for dinner. I guess that’s not the case with Mark. Either way, his working benefits me greatly, since Gabby spends her time with me instead, which is really all I want anyway.
Since she left, I’ve just been reading the magazines she brought. I like these magazines much better than the British ones. Which is good, because I slept through most of the day today, so I know I won’t be tired for quite some time.
“I knew you’d be up,” Henry says when he comes into the room. He’s pushing a wheelchair.
“I thought you’d take the night off,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I went home this morning. Slept my eight hours, had some dinner, watched some TV. I got in a little while ago.”
“Oh,” I say.
“And I checked on all my other patients, and they are all sleeping and not in need of my assistance.”
“So . . . another lesson?” I ask.
“I’d call this more of an adventure.” He has a wild look in his eye. As if we are doing something we shouldn’t be doing. It’s exciting, the idea of doing something I shouldn’t be doing. All I’ve been doing is healing.
“All right!” I say. “Let’s do it. What do I need to do?”
He pulls the rail down on my bed. He moves my legs. We move the same way we moved this morning, only faster, easier, more familiar. I’m in the chair within a few seconds.
I look down, my legs in front of me, in the chair. Henry grabs my blanket and puts it in my lap.
“In case you get cold,” he says.
“And so I don’t flash anyone,” I say.
“Well, that, too, but I didn’t want to say it.” He stands behind me, attaches my morphine bag to my chair, and pushes me forward.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Anywhere we want,” he says.
We get out into the hallway.
“So?” he says. “Where first?”
“Cafeteria?” I say.
“Do you really want more cafeteria food?” he asks.
“Good point. How about a vending machine?” I offer.
He nods, and away we go.
I’m outside of my room! I’m moving!
Some doctors and nurses stand outside a room or two, but for the most part, the halls are empty. It’s also quiet except for the occasional regulatory beeping.
But I feel as if I’m flying down a California freeway with the top down.
“Favorite movie,” I say as we make our way around one of the many corners of the hospital.
“The Godfather,” he says with confidence.
“Boring answer,” I tell him.
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s obvious. Everyone loves The Godfather.”
“Well, sorry,” he says to me. “I can’t love a different movie just because everyone loves the movie I love.”
I turn back to look at him. He makes a face at me. “The heart wants what it wants, I guess,” I say.
“I guess,” he says. “You?”
“Don’t have one,” I say.
Henry laughs. “You can’t make me pick one if you don’t have one.”
“Why not? It’s a fair question. I just don’t happen to have an answer.”
“Just pick one at random. One you like.”
“That’s the problem. My answer is always changing. Sometimes I think my favorite movie is The Princess Bride. But then I think, no, Toy Story is obviously the best movie of all time. And then, other times, I’m convinced that no movie will ever be as good as Lost in Translation. I can never decide.”
“You think too much,” he says. “That’s your problem. You’re trying too hard to find the perfect answer when an answer will do.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. We’re stopped in front of a soda vending machine, but this isn’t what I meant. “Wait, I meant a snack machine. Not a Coke machine.”
“My apologies, Queen Hannah of the Hallway,” he says, and pushes us forward. “If someone asks you your favorite movie, just say The Princess Bride.”
“But sometimes I’m not sure it is my favorite movie.”
“But it will do, is what I’m saying. It’s like when I asked you what kind of pudding you liked, and you named all three flavors. Just pick a flavor. You don’t need to find the perfect thing all the time. Just find one that works, and go with it. If you had, we’d be on to favorite colors by now.”
“Your favorite color is navy blue,” I say.
“Yep,” he says. “But you can tell that from my scrubs, so you haven’t convinced me you’re telepathic.”
“What’s mine?” I ask him. I can see a vending machine at the end of the hall. I also really hope Henry has money, because I didn’t bring any.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I bet you it’s between two colors.”
I roll my eyes at him, but he can’t see me. He’s right. That’s what’s frustrating.
“Purple and yellow,” I say.
“Let me guess,” he says in a teasing voice. “Sometimes you like yellow, but then, when you see purple, you think maybe that’s your favorite.”
“Oh, shut up,” I say. “They are both pretty colors.”
“And,” he says as we reach the machine, “either of them would suffice.”
He pulls a dollar out of his pocket.
“I have one buck,” he says. “We have to share.”
“Some date you are,” I joke, and immediately wish I could take it back.
He laughs and lets it go. “What will it be?”
I search the machine. Salty, sweet, chocolate, peanut butter, pretzels, peanuts. It’s impossible. I look back at him.
“You’re gonna be mad,” I say.
He laughs. “You have to pick one. I only have a dollar.”
I look at all of them. I bet Henry likes Oreos. Everyone likes Oreos. Literally every human.
“Oreos,” I say.
“Oreos it is,” he says. He puts the dollar into the slot and punches the buttons. The Oreos fall just in front of me, at my level. I pull them out of the drawer and open them. I give him one.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say. “You paid for them.”
He bites it. I eat it whole. “There’s no wrong way to eat an Oreo,” he says.
“That’s Reese’s. There’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s,” I correct him. “Oh, man! We should have gotten Reese’s.”
He pulls another dollar out of his scrubs and puts it into the machine.
“What? You said you only had a dollar! You lied!”
“Oh, calm down. I was always going to buy you two things,” he says. “I’m just trying to help you be decisive.”
He laughs at me as he says it, and I open my mouth wide, outraged. I hit him on the arm. “Jerk,” I say.
“Hey,” he says. “I bought you two desserts.”
The Reese’s fall. I grab them and give him one again. “You’re right,” I say. “And you took me on a journey into the hallway. Which you probably weren’t supposed to do.”
“It wasn’t specifically sanctioned, no,” he says, biting his peanut butter cup. Mine is already gone. I practically swallowed it whole.
I could ask him, right now, why he’s being so nice to me. Why he’s taking so much time with me. But I’m afraid if I call attention to it, it will stop happening. So I don’t say anything. I just smile at him. “Will you take me the long way back?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says. “Do you want to see how far you can wheel yourself before your arms get tired?”
“Yeah,” I say. “That sounds great.”
He’s a great nurse. An attentive listener. Because that is truly all I want in this world. I want to try to do something myself, knowing that when I have nothing left, someone will take me the rest of the way.
He turns me around to face the right direction, and he stands behind me. “Go for it,” he says. “I got you.”
I push, and he follows me.
I push.
And I push.
And I push.
We get through two big hallways before I need a rest.
“I’ll take it from here,” he says, grabbing the back of my chair and pushing me forward. He leads us to an elevator and pushes the call button. “You sleepy? You want to head back?”
I turn as best I can to look at him. “Let’s say I’m not sleepy, what would we do?”
He laughs. The elevator opens. He pushes me in. “I should have known you wouldn’t choose sleep.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What would we do?”
He ignores me for the moment and pushes the button for the second floor. We descend. When the door opens, he pushes me out and down a long hallway.
“You’re really not going to tell me?”
Henry smiles and shakes his head. And then we turn a corner, and he opens a door.
The cold, fresh air rushes over me.
He pushes me through. We are on a smoking patio. A tiny, dirty, dingy, sooty, beautiful, refreshing, life-affirming smoking patio.
I breathe in deeply.
I can hear cars driving by. I can see city lights. I can smell tar and metal. Finally, there are no walls or windows between me and the spinning world.
Despite my best efforts, I feel myself tearing up.
The air funneling in and out of my lungs feels better, brighter, than all the air I’ve inhaled since I woke up. I close my eyes and listen to the sounds of traffic. When a few of my tears fall from my eyes, Henry crouches down next to me.
He is on my level. Once again, we are face-to-face.
He pulls a tissue out of his pocket and hands it to me. And right then, as his hand grazes mine and I catch his eye, I don’t need to wonder what would happen if he and I met at a dinner party. I know what would happen.
He would walk me home.
“Ready?” he says. “To go back?”
“Yeah,” I say, because I know it’s time, because I know he has a job to do, because I know we aren’t supposed to be out here. Not because I’m ready. I’m not ready. But as he pushes me through that door and it closes behind us, I am, for the first time, so full of joy to be alive that I’d be happy going just about anywhere.
“You’re a great nurse,” I tell him as we head back. “Do you know that?”
“I hope so,” he says. “I love my job. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really felt I was meant for.”
We get back to my room. He puts my wheelchair by my bed.
He puts his arms underneath me. “Put your arms around my neck,” he says. And I do.
He lifts me and holds me there for a moment, the full weight of my body in his arms. I am so close to him that I can smell his soap on his skin, the chocolate still faintly on his breath. His eyelashes are longer and darker than I noticed before, his lips fuller. He has a faint scar under his left eye.
He puts me down in my bed. I swear he holds on to me just a moment longer than he needs to.
It is perhaps the most romantic moment of my life, and I’m in a hospital gown.
Life is unpredictable beyond measure.
“Excuse me,” comes a stern voice from the hallway. Both Henry and I look up to see a female nurse standing in the doorway to my room. She is older and a bit weathered. She has her light-colored hair pulled up in a butterfly clip. She is wearing pale pink scrubs and a patterned matching scrub jacket.
Henry pulls away from me abruptly.
“I thought Eleanor was covering for you the second half of the night,” the nurse says.
He shakes his head. “You might be thinking of Patrick. Patrick needs his shift covered until seven.”
“OK,” she says. “Can I speak to you when you’re done here?”
“Sure,” Henry says. “I’ll be right there.”
The nurse nods and leaves.
Henry’s demeanor changes. “Good night,” he says as he moves to leave.
He’s almost out the door when I call to him. “Thank you,” I say. “I really—”
“Don’t mention it,” he says, not looking back at me, already out the door.
Gabby is throwing things around the house. Big things. Porcelain things. They are crashing and shattering. Charlemagne is by my feet. We are standing at the door to the guest room. I’m trying to stay out of it. But I’m pretty much in it.
Gabby never went back to work. I drove us home while she stared straight ahead, virtually oblivious to the world. She didn’t say much all afternoon. I kept trying to ask her if she was all right. I kept trying to offer her food or some water, but she kept refusing. She’s been as responsive as a statue all afternoon.
And then, the second Mark came through the door and said, “Let me explain,” that’s when she reanimated.
“I’m not interested in anything you have to say,” Gabby said.
And he had the gall to say, “C’mon, Gabby, I deserve a chance to—”
That’s when she threw a magazine at him. I couldn’t blame her. Even I would have started throwing things at him then, when I heard those stupid words come out of his mouth. She started by throwing whatever was nearby. More magazines, a book that was on the coffee table. Then she threw the remote control. It cracked, and the batteries went flying. That’s when Charlemagne and I hightailed it to safer ground.
“Why is there a dog here?” Mark asked. He started scratching his wrists slowly. I don’t even think he knew he was doing it.
“Don’t ask about the fucking dog!” Gabby said. “She was here all night, and you didn’t even notice. So just shut the fuck up about the dog, OK?”
“Gabby, talk to me.”
“Screw you.”
“Why were you at my office today?” he asked her.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me! You’ve got a lot worse problems than how you got caught!”
That’s when she walked into the kitchen and started breaking big stuff. Porcelain stuff.
Which brings us to now.
“Who is she?” Gabby screams.
Mark doesn’t answer. He can’t look at her.
She pauses ever so briefly and looks ar
ound at the mess. Her shoulders slump. She can see me off to the side. She catches my eye. “What am I doing?” she says. She doesn’t say it to me or Mark, really. She says it to the room, the house.
I take advantage of the moment and walk, through the shards, to put my arms around her. Mark moves toward us, too.
“No,” I say abruptly and with force. “Don’t you touch her.”
He backs away.
“You’re going to move out,” Gabby says to him as I hold her. I start rubbing her back, trying to soothe her, but she pushes me away. She gathers her strength. “Get your shit and leave,” she says.
“This is my place, too,” Mark says. “And I’m just asking for a few minutes to talk this out.”
“Get. Your. Shit. And leave,” Gabby says. Her voice is strong and stoic. She is a force to be reckoned with.
Mark considers fighting back more; you can see it on his face. But he gives up and goes into the bedroom.
“You’re doing the right thing,” I tell her.
“I know that,” she says.
She sits down at the dining-room table, catatonic once again.
Charlemagne starts walking toward us, but Gabby sees her before I do.
“No!” she shouts at the dog. “Be careful.”
She stands up and gently walks over to Charlemagne and picks her up. She carries her in her arms over the broken plates. She sits back down at the table with Charlemagne in her lap.
Mark flies through various rooms in the house, getting his things. He slams doors. He sighs loudly. Now seems like the time to start realizing that I never liked him.
This goes on for at least forty-five minutes. The house is silent except for the sounds of a man moving out. Gabby is practically frozen still. The only time she moves is to reposition Charlemagne in her lap. I stand by, close, ready to move or to speak at a moment’s notice.
Finally, Mark comes out into the living room. We stare at him from the dining-room table. “I’m leaving,” he says.
Gabby doesn’t say anything back.
He waits, hoping for something. He gets nothing from her.
He walks to the front door, and Charlemagne jumps down onto the floor.
Maybe in Another Life Page 16
