by Gail Oust
Odd as it was, no one made a move to leave the auditorium. Not a single soul. All around me, people gawked unabashedly or talked on cell phones in hushed, excited tones. All eager to impart the scoop on what happened at the garden club lecture. Let it be said, when it comes to gossip, Serenity Cove prides itself on its great communication network. Its motto ought to be, Faster than a speeding bullet. It would come as no surprise if Dr. Sheila’s prone form showed up on YouTube tomorrow. Or even sooner.
One of the EMTs, a man in his fifties with skin tanned and tough as leather, barked orders. Two stretchers were rolled in. Vaughn Bascomb was lifted onto the first one, an oxygen mask strapped to his face, an IV dripping into his arm, and quickly wheeled out. Sheila, complete with oxygen and an IV of her own, was placed on the second stretcher, then rushed out behind Vaughn.
The evening’s entertainment over, people began to file out. I kept hearing the words “food poisoning” bandied back and forth. What had started as a whisper gathered momentum, racing through the crowd more rapidly than a tsunami.
“Do you suppose…?”
“I feel a little nauseous myself.”
“I thought the catfish had a funny taste.”
“I wonder if the cheesecake went unrefrigerated.”
“I’ve heard of cooking oil turning rancid.”
Was the emergency room at the local hospital about to be flooded with complaints of food poisoning? I wondered. Was the power of suggestion at work? Whichever, I was happy the banquet preceding the presentation had been limited to garden club members only. I’d sure hate to eliminate fried chicken or hush puppies from my diet.
“Oh, I think I’m going to be sick,” Monica groaned.
Uh-oh, I thought. Monica’s complexion was the moldy olive green I’d come to associate with her sensitive stomach. Fortunately, there were restrooms close by.
“Kate, find Rita and see if you can help,” Pam, always the practical one, urged. “The rest of us will look after Monica.”
A glance at Monica, who had one hand clamped over her mouth, assured me I hadn’t drawn the short end of the stick. “Thanks, Pam.”
The Babes flanked Monica, two on each side, and herded her toward the ladies’ room.
Rita was about to push past me as she elbowed her way through those exiting when I grabbed her arm. “Rita, slow down. Where’re you going?”
“I’m going to follow the ambulance,” she explained, not breaking stride. “Sheila doesn’t have any family nearby, so it’s the least I can do for her.”
“I’m going with you,” I said, hustling to keep pace.
“Thanks, but you don’t have to…”
“I’m going with you,” I repeated, steering her toward my trusty Buick.
In spite of her protests, I could tell Rita wanted company. I knew Dave, her husband, was in Myrtle Beach golfing with his buddies. Her daughter-in-law, Tara, had begged off tonight since she expected a call from her husband, Mark, who was deployed to Iraq.
Before Rita even buckled up, I shoved the gearshift into reverse, nearly plowing into a Chevy that was edging past me. I ignored the angry blare of its horn and, shifting into drive, stomped on the accelerator. As we roared out of the parking lot, I found myself wishing for one of those flashing red lights to set atop the roof. A little gadget to make me look official. If I ever caught Sheriff Sumter Wiggins in a good mood—fat chance—I’d ask him where a concerned citizen such as myself could get one. I made a mental note to surf the Internet. It would be easier than confronting a man who thought I was an idiot. I put the pedal to the metal, and we headed down the highway
“Watch for deer,” Rita said, the reminder mechanical.
This area of South Carolina was heavily populated with the critters. A deer population that treated newly planted shrubs and flower beds like their own personal salad bar. Deer that darted into roadways, changed their minds halfway across, then dashed back the way they’d come. And to complicate matters, they traveled in pairs. Several of my friends literally had had run-ins, resulting in costly repairs and minor injuries. I learned from their experiences. Mixing Bambi with a Buick doesn’t result in a hybrid.
The night was dark as pitch with only a sliver of moon to guide the way. It felt like it took an eternity to navigate the twenty-odd miles of winding road to the hospital, but in reality it hadn’t taken long at all. I dropped Rita at the emergency room entrance and parked the car in the adjacent lot.
When I entered through the sliding-glass doors, Rita glanced up from a seat on one of the vinyl sofas. Except for worried parents of a fretful toddler and a man in coveralls, a bloody towel draped around one fist, we had the waiting room to ourselves.
“Hey,” I said to Rita by way of a greeting. “Any news yet?”
She shook her head. “The doctor’s working on them. The nurse told me it might be a while.”
Just then a man who I assumed to be an ER doc in lab coat and scrubs shoved through the door that separated the waiting area from the treatment rooms beyond. His gaze skimmed over the toddler’s parents and the worker with the bloody hand, then rested on the two of us. “You relatives of the food poisoning victims?”
Rita and I stepped forward. “Friends,” Rita said. “We’re just friends.”
The doctor frowned. “By any chance, do either of you know how to contact their next of kin?”
My knees turned to Jell-O. “Are they…?”
Chapter 4
“Dead?” the doctor asked, supplying the dreaded D word.
We nodded.
“No, but they’re both in critical condition. To be honest, ladies, it doesn’t look good. If either of you know how to contact their relatives, now would be a good time.”
With this he disappeared into the restricted area.
“Did you…” I cleared my throat. “Do you know her family?”
Rita shook her head. “Sheila has a sister, Debbie. Last I heard she was living in LA and had just remarried for the third time. I have no idea how to get in touch with her.”
“What about Sheila’s parents?”
“They both died years ago.” Rita slumped down in a chair, cradling her purse in her lap. “I feel so helpless.”
I did too. And didn’t like the sensation any better than she did. “Why don’t I try to find us some coffee? This is shaping up to be a long night.”
Rita nodded dully. As I started across the waiting room on my quest for a coffee machine, the doors of the emergency room slid open and in walked a trio I recognized from the rec center. For some strange reason they reminded me of Peter, Paul, and Mary, folk singers from the sixties. Sixties? Yikes, the thought brought me up short. That makes me sound as old as Methuselah. How can I protest being “elderly” when I keep having these flashbacks? Isn’t there some kind of pill I can take?
Betsy Dalton, the cosmetics VP, clung to TV producer Todd Timmons while Roger McFarland, Sheila’s erstwhile editor, trudged two steps behind. “I know you don’t care for Bascomb any more than I do,” Betsy was saying, “but Sheila’s another story.”
Absently Todd patted her hand. “I’ve talked myself hoarse trying to persuade Sheila that she’d be better off without that dude. But did she listen? No,” he said, not waiting for an answer. “I tried to convince her that Bascomb’s responsible for the drop in ratings, but there’s no reasoning with her. She insists he appear on her show time and time again. He’s bland enough in person, but on camera, Bascomb projects the personality of a squid.”
Squid? Did this mean Timmons didn’t care for calamari? A pity, but then calamari might rank up there along with the other “fried” foods Sheila disdains. It struck me that neither Betsy nor Todd were members of the Dr. Vaughn Bascomb fan club. I filed this information away for later.
Waking from my eavesdropping coma, I decided to make myself known as a member of the Sheila and Vaughn cheering section. “Hello,” I said, approaching the threesome with a smile meant to convey sympathy and friendliness. “I’m Kat
e McCall, a friend of a friend of Sheila’s.”
They stared at me. I felt like an alien from Mars.
But persistence could be my middle name, so I tried again. “Guess you could say that makes me a friend of Sheila, twice removed.
“Get it?” I asked, hoping to inject a little levity. “You know, it’s the way Southerners describe relatives—aunts, cousins, what have you—once, twice, three times removed.”
I waited for a glimmer of amusement, a glimmer of anything actually, but from their expressions I could tell I was wasting my wit.
Roger McFarland’s chubby face puckered into a frown. “Have we met?”
I took this as encouragement. “No, but I saw you in the audience tonight. My friend Rita Larsen was Dr. Sheila’s college roommate. She was instrumental in bringing Sheila here to Serenity Cove Estates.”
Todd Timmons looked down his nose at me, not an easy feat considering he was vertically challenged. “Then you better hope nothing happens to Sheila, or that precious retirement community of yours will be hit hard enough with a lawsuit to knock it off the map.”
Without another glance, the trio left me in the dust while they beelined for the registration desk. My attempt at Southern hospitality had been a total flop. My good intentions rebuffed, I decided to let them find their own coffee.
I returned fifteen minutes later carrying two Styrofoam cups filled with a liquid that had the consistency of mud and smelled like kerosene. Even so I counted myself lucky. The cafeteria had closed hours ago. It was nothing short of miraculous that I’d stumbled across a janitor—are they still called janitors these days, or are they custodial engineers?—who directed me to a bank of vending machines. Without the man’s kind assistance, I’d still be wandering through a maze of dimly lit corridors, past shuttered offices, in the grim hope of finding sustenance. Sustenance in the form of caffeine and sugar. While waiting for the coffee to trickle into the cups, I’d plugged my last quarters into the candy machine. With each step across the waiting room, Peanut M&M’s jangled merrily in my pocket. In times of stress, the sound was music to my ears.
I handed Rita the coffee and sat down beside her. “Still no word?”
She shook her head, took a sip of the brew, and grimaced. “I tried to persuade the nurse to at least let me keep Sheila company, but she said the doctors were with her. She told me that unless I was a blood relative I had to wait out here.”
“I have an idea. What if I convince her I’m Sheila’s sister from Spartanburg? I do have some acting credentials if you recall,” I added for good measure.
Rita winced at the reference to my recent acting debacle in a production in which she’d served as stage manager. Under less dire circumstances, I would’ve been offended. Instead I tore open the M&M’s.
The parents with the fussy toddler were finally called to be seen. The man with the injured hand kept his gaze fixed on a TV mounted high on a wall tuned to one of those twenty-four-hour news stations. I selected a green M&M and popped it into my mouth. When my children were young, I convinced them the green ones were for mothers only. This way I was assured my fair share. After all, a mother’s duty is to protect their young. And all mothers know too much sugar isn’t good for kids. So I made the supreme sacrifice and ate most of the M&M’s myself. Thus saving my offspring from hyperactivity and bad teeth.
Peter, Paul, & Mary, as I was coming to think of the threesome of Todd, Rog, and Betsy had established squatter’s rights in a configuration of vinyl chairs adjacent to where Rita and I kept vigil. Ignoring a sign prohibiting cell phones, Betsy pressed hers to one ear and jabbered away. The two men slouched in their seats. Roger scowled at the screen of a sleek laptop while Timmons played with a BlackBerry. I recognized the gadget, not because I owned one, but because I’ve seen the commercials. I even know about iPads and apps. As for commercials, I watch because I can. Jim, my late husband, was a medalist in the sport of channel surfing. Since the remote control was invented, I rarely saw a commercial and felt totally out of mainstream America. Now that he’s passed, I’m commander of the remote.
Timmons struck me as the artsy type. He was dressed casually in designer jeans strategically faded at the knees, an unstructured blazer, and a shirt that had never met an iron, opened at the throat to reveal a dark T-shirt. Roger, on the other hand, favored rumpled chic. With his tie askew, well-worn cords, and tweed jacket sporting leather patches on the elbows, he was making a valiant attempt to impersonate a college professor. I gave the boy a B+ for effort.
Time crept by. One hour bled into two, then three. It was getting later and later. The toddler had been sent home with his much-relieved but weary parents. The worker had been stitched up good as new and advised in the future not to mix six-packs with power tools. Except for the five of us awaiting news of Sheila’s and Vaughn’s condition, the emergency room was deserted. I glanced up from my dog-eared copy of Prevention. I thought it an odd choice for reading material in a hospital. I ask you, is that sound business practice? If more people practiced prevention, they’d have little need for a hospital’s services. With no patients, hospitals would have to close their doors. Just a thought…
I saw Timmons peek at a watch nearly the size of a dinner plate that probably offered more apps than an iPad. “I’ve had enough sitting around. I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know now.”
He sprang up and trotted toward the reception desk. His cronies followed suit, relentless in their determination to harass a poor, unsuspecting clerk.
“I have a good friend on the staff at Emory,” Timmons announced loudly. “If I don’t hear something soon, I’m calling him.”
Emory, I knew from my brief time south of the Mason-Dixon Line, was a highly respected university hospital in Atlanta. But our smaller, regional hospital wasn’t exactly chopped liver. All anyone had to do was look at the many awards of excellence plastered over the walls to know this.
“Sir, if you’ll just be patient—”
“We’ve been patient,” Roger cut in. “Maybe this Podunk hospital isn’t equipped to handle an emergency of this nature.”
“Roger’s right,” Betsy concurred. “Perhaps we should insist Dr. Rappaport be airlifted out of here.”
“I demand to speak to the doctor in charge,” Timmons continued his rant. “If he isn’t out here in the next five minutes…” He let the warning hang.
I felt sorry for the receptionist who had the misfortune to be working the night shift. “How rude,” I whispered to Rita.
“Ignore them, Kate,” she whispered back. “They’re fools.”
I returned to an article on green, leafy vegetables, but kept one eye on the large clock over the door. I found it strange that the PPM Trio hadn’t expressed any concern whatsoever over Vaughn Bascomb. The poor man had been stricken as well, but they seemed mindless of the fact.
Timmons flicked his wrist and stared down at his watch, evidently prepared to make good his threat. But before he could cause the hapless clerk more grief, the sliding doors whooshed open, and the doctor who had asked about next of kin appeared.
“Are any of you related to Dr. Vaughn Bascomb?” he asked, addressing the waiting room at large.
When no one acknowledged kinship, he heaved a tired sigh. “I don’t suppose any of you know how we might reach a relative?”
Rita and I exchanged anxious glances. Something in the doctor’s tone put me on red alert.
“We’re not here for that idiot,” Timmons snapped. “As friends and associates of Dr. Rappaport, I insist on an update on her condition.”
I had to hand it to the doctor. He showed remarkable restraint in dealing with a guy with an ego the size of Jupiter. If it had been me, I’d’ve—to borrow a former coworker’s expression—laid him out in lavender right there on the emergency room floor.
I rose and stepped forward, propelled by sympathy for a man I didn’t even know. “How is Dr. Bascomb? Is he going to be all right?”
The doctor’s gaze
shifted in my direction. I sensed Rita right behind me, breathing down my neck as we waited for his response.
“I’m afraid Dr. Vaughn Bascomb didn’t make it.”
“Didn’t make it?” I repeated. The words echoed hollowly inside my brain, but I couldn’t quite seem to wrap my mind around the concept.
“We did all we could…I’m sorry.”
Chapter 5
Didn’t make it…?
I struggled to process the doctor’s words. Vaughn didn’t make it? Why…? What happened…? This was an award-winning medical facility. The staff was trained to save lives. My throat felt like I swallowed a giant cotton ball, so dry I could hardly squeeze the words out. “Surely you don’t mean…”
“The patient developed a severe arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat. That happens sometimes in cases like this. In spite of everything we did to correct it, he went into cardiac arrest. I’m sorry, but Vaughn Bascomb is dead.”
Dead? Denial kicked in, numbing me for what would follow later. How could a man I’d met only hours before go from feeling a little “under the weather” to D-E-A-D, dead? Denial, for those who might or might not know me well, is my all-time favorite defense mechanism when life gets too sticky to handle. With denial, the hard truth can be plain as day, yet you can’t see the writing on the wall. I might be mixing metaphors again, but you get my drift.
“I wasn’t aware Vaughn had heart disease. Do you know what might have caused the arrhythmia?” Rita, being the practical, sensible woman that she was, wanted answers. Rita, bless her heart, didn’t let herself get bogged down by such trivial things as denial.
The doctor spread his hands and shrugged. “There are any number of causes. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”
“Could it have been food poisoning?”
The doctor shrugged again. “That’s the likely scenario. We’ll have a better idea once toxicology reports get back from the lab.”
