The Smack

by RICHARD LANGE

  “Okay.”

  “And I’m thirty-three, not twenty-three.”

  “That’s fine, too.”

  “It doesn’t matter?”

  “Of course not. Now, come out here.”

  “I will, but I don’t want to talk about this when I do.”

  “We can talk about whatever you want.”

  “I don’t want to talk about nothin’.”

  “Okay.”

  Tinafey returned to bed without a word. Wrapping her arms around Petty’s neck, she buried her face in his shoulder. They lay like that a long while, breathing in sync, until Petty finally whispered, “You want to watch TV?” Tinafey nodded, and Petty put on a sitcom. Tinafey sat against the headboard and watched the stupid show with tears in her eyes, as intent on it as if it were news about the end of the world.

  Later Petty dreamed about the cowboy. He and Tony were burying him in the desert, and the guy kept trying to climb out of the grave. Petty panicked and swung the shovel at him, hitting him in the head. The cowboy fell to the bottom of the hole but got right up again. Petty laid into him then, brought the shovel down sideways like an ax on the guy’s head over and over until it split his skull and his brain sloshed out. And still he kept coming. Petty finally forced himself awake and lay there in the dark, tasting vomit.

  15

  PETTY FELT BETTER THE NEXT MORNING, AND WHATEVER HAD been troubling Tinafey had passed, too. Petty heard her singing in the bathroom, and she was as cheerful as ever at breakfast. Their plan for the day was to drive to Disneyland.

  “I know it’s silly,” Tinafey said. “But I always wanted to go there.”

  They arrived at the front gate before the park opened. There was already a line. The first thing Tinafey did when they got inside was buy a Minnie Mouse hat from a shop on the old-timey street of shops the park funneled everyone down after loosening their wallets at the entrance. The hat had plastic ears and a pink bow stapled to it, and Tinafey wore it in the photos Petty took of her with Donald Duck and Goofy and a princess dressed all in blue.

  They went on the jungle boats, the Indiana Jones ride, and the Haunted Mansion. Tinafey started conversations to pass the time in the long lines, asking people where they were from and talking to kids about their favorite rides.

  “You havin’ fun?” she asked Petty every so often.

  “Sure,” he’d say. “What’s next?” He’d vowed never to set foot in another theme park after a long, hot week with Sam in Orlando, but he didn’t bring this up to Tinafey.

  They had chicken nuggets and chili fries in an Old West saloon, then walked forever against the crowd to get to the Small World ride, which was at the top of Tinafey’s list. The outside of the ride was a giant clock. It clicked and whirred every fifteen minutes during the hour they waited to get on. A band of toy soldiers appeared, and there’d be a parade of dolls dressed like leprechauns and geishas and flamenco dancers. More dolls danced and sang inside, herky-jerky cowboys and hula girls and Arabs on flying carpets, depending on what country your boat was supposed to be passing through.

  Petty had a slight headache when it was over. He took some Midol Tinafey had in her purse before they set out for the Matterhorn.

  “Then Star Wars,” Tinafey said, consulting a map of the park. “My nephew said you got to.”

  Petty’s phone vibrated in his pocket. It was his mom calling. He thought about letting her go to voice mail, but a bad feeling prompted him to take the call.

  “Where are you?” Joanne said.

  “Still in L.A.,” Petty said. “Why?”

  “Sam’s in the hospital.”

  Petty motioned for Tinafey to hold up. He put a finger in his ear to block out the noise.

  “The hospital?” he said.

  “She passed out on a bus,” Joanne said.

  “Is she all right?”

  The call was breaking up. Petty turned in a circle to see if he could snag a stronger signal. Then he realized that what he’d thought was static was actually Joanne crying.

  “Is she all right?” he said again.

  “I don’t know,” Joanne said. “But it can’t be good. The paramedics had to come.”

  “What hospital?” he said. “I’ll go right now.”

  “Someplace called Good Samaritan. The emergency room.”

  “I’ll call as soon as I find out what happened.”

  Petty ended the call. Tinafey was watching him with a worried look.

  “My daughter,” he said and had to leave it at that when his voice suddenly choked off.

  He came clean with Tinafey on their way back to L.A., told her that he’d met with Sam and suspected she was strung out on something, and now it appeared he’d been right. If Tinafey was upset he hadn’t mentioned the meeting before, she didn’t show it. He offered to drop her at the hotel, but she insisted he drive straight to the hospital, not wasting any time. He called Good Samaritan and was able to verify that Sam had been admitted to the ER. That was it, though. They wouldn’t give him any more information over the phone.

  The hospital was a modern complex at the edge of downtown. Mirrored windows in a sandstone facade. The girl manning the desk at the main entrance directed Petty to the emergency room. Tinafey told him to go on; she’d wait for him out front.

  Petty’s anxiety peaked as he approached the receptionist’s window in the ER lobby. He was out of his element here, didn’t know the rules or how to get around them. The woman behind the bulletproof glass didn’t look up when he asked about Sam. She demanded ID, glanced at the driver’s license he gave her, and told him to have a seat.

  All the chairs were filled, so he stood against the wall. A lady judge scowling down from the TV shook a bony finger at the waiting room. At the girl trying to rock her crying baby quiet, at the Mexican with his hand wrapped in a bloody rag, at the fat woman in a wheelchair who moaned under her breath every few seconds, “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  Petty couldn’t keep still. His foot tapped, and his knee bounced. He took a couple of laps around the room and pretended to browse a rack of pamphlets on eating right and quitting smoking. A kid trying to knock loose a bag of Fritos punched the vending machine. The bang made everybody jump. Petty was suddenly certain that Sam had died. That’s why they won’t let me see her, he thought.

  He was about to confront the receptionist, ask her what was taking so long, when a man in a white coat opened a door and called his name.

  “You’re Samantha Petty’s father?” the guy asked, consulting a clipboard.

  “Yes,” Petty said.

  “I’m Dr. Avakian,” the guy said. He was short, with a shaved head, thick black eyebrows, and yellow teeth. Petty followed him into a small, cluttered office.

  “So, okay,” Dr. Avakian said. “The reason your daughter is here is that she had a seizure.”

  “From the drugs, right?” Petty said.

  “What drugs?” Dr. Avakian said.

  “I saw her a couple days ago, and she looked awful,” Petty said. “I think she’s on something.”

  Dr. Avakian checked his clipboard again. “We asked about drugs, and she indicated she didn’t use any,” he said.

  “And her saying so is enough?” Petty said.

  “We haven’t seen any evidence that she wasn’t telling the truth, and her blood work came back fine in that respect.”

  “Well, what, then? What caused the seizure?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. We’re going to run some tests.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “For starters,” Dr. Avakian said, “we’re doing an MRI of her brain.”

  Her brain? Cold black water trickled down Petty’s spine.

  “Why?” he said.

  “To look for anything out of the ordinary,” Dr. Avakian said.

  “Like what?”

  “It could be any number of things.”

  “Stop it,” Petty said. “Don’t give me the runaround.”

  Dr. Avakian’s
face didn’t change, but Petty could tell he was perturbed. His voice had an angry undertone when he said, “I know you’re upset, but…”

  Petty didn’t back down. “Worst case,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “It’s much too early to talk about worst cases,” Dr. Avakian said.

  “Is it a tumor?”

  “A tumor is one possibility.”

  “How long until you know for sure?”

  “A few days,” Dr. Avakian said. “We’ll be keeping her here for observation until then.”

  Petty had to pause for a second. He stared at a photo on the wall. Half Dome in Yosemite. When he felt like he could talk again without stammering, he said, “Can I see her?”

  “You can,” Dr. Avakian said. “But only for a minute. She needs to rest.”

  Petty followed the doctor out into the ER, a ring of curtained cubicles surrounding a central nurses’ station. They’d tried to soften the place with soothing colors and blond wood accents, but fear and pain and worry clung to everything like cigarette smoke in a cheap motel room. The fake Christmas tree, the pink scrubs, the poster of panda bears hugging: bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

  Dr. Avakian pulled aside the curtain of one of the cubicles. Sam lay there on a gurney, a blanket drawn up to her chin. Her eyes were closed, and thin blue veins fanned out over the lids. She looked even more frail than she had the other day. A bag of something dripped into her through an IV line, and some kind of monitor beeped quietly.

  “Hey,” Petty said.

  Sam’s eyes opened, and she gazed at him with no surprise, as if she’d expected to see him there.

  “Hey,” she replied.

  Petty laid a hand on her shoulder. She let him.

  “You doing okay?” he said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I was on the bus going to work, and I woke up here.”

  “Grandma called, and I got here as fast as I could.”

  “She shouldn’t have done that,” Sam said.

  “Yes, she should have,” Petty said. “You should have called me yourself.”

  Sam frowned and took a deep breath that shook her whole body. She was acting tough, but Petty could see in her eyes how scared she was.

  “What did he tell you?” she said, pointing with her chin at Dr. Avakian. “Quick. No bullshit.”

  “You had a seizure,” Petty said. “They’re trying to figure out why.”

  “What else?”

  Petty glanced at Dr. Avakian.

  “What else?” Sam said.

  “Nothing else,” Petty said. “They need to do tests.” Sam made a face like she didn’t believe him. He moved his hand to her forehead to push aside a strand of hair. She let him do that, too.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said. “They’re gonna take good care of you.”

  Sam started to say something in response but instead bit her lip and turned away. A woman laughed out in the ER. A phone rang.

  “Okay, Dad’s got to go,” Dr. Avakian said. “We’re going to move you now, put you in a nice room.”

  Petty didn’t want to leave, but at the same time he couldn’t wait to get out. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Do you need anything?”

  Sam shook her head without looking at him. A nurse bustled into the cubicle and said, “Time to draw more blood.” Petty stepped away from the gurney, and the nurse pulled the curtain closed, shutting him out. Dr. Avakian walked him back to the ER lobby.

  “I acted like an asshole earlier,” Petty said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” Dr. Avakian said.

  “It’s just that I want you to keep me informed about what’s going on. I want to be involved.”

  “I understand. Leave your number at the nurses’ station.”

  Petty shook the doctor’s hand like they were sealing a deal, but he wasn’t sure the guy had heard a word he said. He felt like they’d been talking through a thick pane of glass. How many sick girls had he attended to already today? How many worried fathers had he dealt with? It was probably all a blur to him.

  Tinafey was waiting on a bench outside. Petty told her everything was still up in the air and that meant a change of plans. He wouldn’t be leaving for Phoenix tomorrow after all. Instead he’d move to a hotel closer to the hospital, closer to Sam.

  “Even if she doesn’t want me to, I’m staying,” he said.

  “She wants you to,” Tinafey said.

  “As for you, no problem,” he said. “I’ll drop you at the airport in the morning for your flight.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll get a taxi.”

  “What taxi? No taxi. I’ll drive you.”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “You’re no trouble.”

  Petty drove up Western Avenue to avoid the freeway at rush hour. All the signs for the stores and restaurants were in Korean. Petty had known a Korean once. All the dude talked about was golf.

  Tinafey stared silently out the window, didn’t even hum along with the radio like she usually did. Petty wished she would. Anything to take his mind off Sam.

  “Even with all this shit going on, we should do something special,” he said.

  “Why?” Tinafey said.

  “It’s our last night together. We have to do it up right.”

  He pulled into a liquor store for Champagne and a bottle of Scotch. The Korean behind the register had a dent in his head, like someone had taken a chunk out of it with a hatchet. One of his eyes stared blindly off into space. He asked Petty for his ID.

  “I’m older than you,” Petty said.

  “The police,” the Korean said with a shrug. “ID, ID, all the time.”

  Back at the hotel, Petty sent Tinafey up to the room while he called his mom from the lobby. He filled her in on what the doctor had said and told her he’d be sticking around.

  “I’m coming out, too,” she said.

  “With your hip all jacked up?” Petty said. “What are you talking about?”

  “She needs her family.”

  “I’m her family.”

  “All of a sudden?” Joanne said.

  Petty let her get away with that one.

  “At least wait until they find out what’s going on,” he said. “It may turn out to be nothing.”

  “And you’ll stay with her until it’s sorted out?” Joanne said.

  “Of course,” Petty said.

  “You know what I mean, right?” Joanne said. “I’m asking you not to run out on her again, like you did when you left her with me.”

  It made Petty angry to think that’s how she saw it, how she saw him. “Mom…” he said, a warning, a plea.

  “I’m trusting you,” she said.

  He ended the call before he lost his temper.

  When he got back to the room, Tinafey popped the Champagne and poured it into water glasses. It was decent stuff, but all it did was fill Petty’s chest with bubbles.

  “What are we gonna toast to?” Tinafey said. “We got to toast to something.”

  “To you,” Petty said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Tinafey said.

  They tapped glasses.

  It was too early for dinner, so they watched TV for a while. Petty switched to Scotch, drinking it without ice because he was too lazy to walk down the hall to the machine. All the shows Tinafey put on had people screaming at each other, and she changed the channel whenever there was a commercial. Petty tuned it out. He concentrated on the details of the scam he was counting on to bring in a little quick cash.

  Tomorrow he’d put a dozen phony listings for Maui condos on Airbnb, offering below-market weekly rates for places in Wailea and on Kaanapali Beach. The listings were already on his laptop from the last time he’d used them, complete with photos snatched from other sites. He’d ask anyone who bit to contact him by phone for more details, and he’d offer the people who called an even lower rate if
they’d wire payment directly to him through MoneyGram. Crude as the swindle was, it usually brought in ten grand or so before someone complained and his accounts were deactivated. The only other thing he needed was a new burner to take the calls. He’d pick one up in the morning and be in business by noon.

  Tinafey went into the bathroom to take a shower. Petty called Sam but got her voice mail. The hospital connected him to the phone in her room. That phone rang and rang until a nurse answered. She told him that Sam was asleep and would probably sleep through the night. He asked her to recommend a florist, then he made another call to order an arrangement of white roses and a teddy bear holding a stuffed heart to be delivered to Sam’s room. He was about to get a bunch of balloons from another place when Tinafey, wrapped in a towel, came out of the bathroom.

  “How old did you say this girl is?” she said.

  “Twenty-one,” Petty said.

  “She don’t want balloons.”

  “It’s no big deal. It’s the thought that counts.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not thinkin’, you’re drinkin’,” Tinafey said. She sat next to Petty on the bed and took the phone out of his hand. “You need to eat somethin’.”

  She was right. Petty felt the booze when he stood, the floor tilting as he made his way to the bathroom. He scrubbed his face with cold water, combed his hair, and changed into a clean shirt.

  Tinafey wanted Mexican food. There was a Cabo Wabo Cantina in the mall next to the hotel. As they walked over, a gust of paranoia rattled Petty’s bones. He turned and looked over his shoulder. A big bald dude with tattoos on his arms was twenty feet behind him and Tinafey, keeping pace with them. Could Avi have sicced someone new on him already? Or maybe there’d been two of them from the start, the big guy and the cowboy.

  “Hold up,” Petty whispered to Tinafey. He took her arm and led her to a souvenir-shop window.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “We’re shopping,” Petty said.

  Tinafey was sharp enough to figure out what was going on, or at least sharp enough to know to wait until later to ask more questions. The two of them pretended to be mesmerized by the sequined T-shirts and trucker caps on display in the window as the big man passed behind them. Petty kept an eye on him. He walked up to a woman carrying a baby and took the kid from her. The baby giggled, and the man held it out in front of him and made goofy faces at it. Petty relaxed when he saw this, chalking up his jitters to the long, stressful day.