Roll with the Punches

by Gettinger, Amy

  Through gritted teeth, I snarled at Yvette, "How could someone else publish a book that close to mine?"

  "Nearly identical, but important differences," Yvette said. "Jackson's superior writing shines through, and his book is already climbing the bestseller list." She moved in front of me and gave me a hard look. "What I want to know is how you explain such glaring similarities in plot, dialogue and action between your book and Reynard's, including the ditzy strawberry blonde?"

  "She's my best character yet!" I roared up from James's lap and Yvette skittered back against Jackie’s china cabinet. "And that's my book flying off the shelves!" My hands flew up and hit Jackie's chandelier, sending it spinning and the lights dancing. "Those are my fans! He's getting my big shot!"

  The air thickened and grayed as James stood and blocked me from getting at Yvette.

  "Great minds think alike," Jackie finally said. "They say there are only so many good plots in the world, and we're bound to repeat them. You can still publish it with another—"

  Yvette said from the corner, "Not that thing," and she pointed at my leprous manuscript. "It looks like one of Reynard's early drafts. No editor or agent will buy it as original material."

  Heat blazed up my face and I pounded the table. "You think I stole my own book," Pound, pound, pound. "From Reynard Jackson? How could I have managed that if his book just came out? This group just said—"

  Yvette shrugged. "You've only been with them a few months. You joined with a manuscript. Which you could have updated monthly from someone else's hacked computer. Hackers can do amazing things these days.”

  The air got positively viscous. I could hardly breathe.

  "Bull hockey!" James slammed his own fist on the table with a wide grin. "Rhonda's impossibly inept with computers. I should know. I've fixed hers enough times. So let's just squelch that whole idea from the start.”

  My hero.

  Yvette said to him, "Do you have her backup disk with all the drafts on it to convince me it's hers?"

  "Convince YOU?" I bellowed.

  Everyone froze as wisps of smoke coiled off my head. They'd all seen my worn-out punching bag at home. I seethed, itching to really bump that pink sweater past the coach's bench into eternity.

  My cell phone vibrated in my purse.

  After a long moment, I hissed, "Not that it's your business, but my computer crashed in September and soon after, I lost my backup flash drive." I snagged the purse and squeezed past Jackie out the door, glad of a reason for escape.

  My father's voice answered as I stomped around Jackie's front yard under a starless sky. "Rhonda? Been trying to find you all day. Had to call your sister in Australia for your phone number. Your mother's in the hospital."

  I stopped. "Dad, why? What happened?" My stomach, already tensed up like a basketball, started pounding down court.

  "She's at UCI Medical Center. You gotta come help me, Rhonda."

  "But what happened, Dad? Dad? Dad?"

  The phone went dead and echoes of that stupid song rang in my head.

  CHAPTER 4

  "Should we call anyone else?" James asked, weaving his Toyota Corolla through traffic between Jackie's house in downtown Orange and the hospital. He had insisted on driving so I could frantically dial my cell phone.

  "I'm not sure." I gulped air and finally reached the hospital receptionist, who said Mom was in a regular room, not the ICU. Good. I asked to be connected to her room phone, and the line was busy. Better. My mental pictures of Mom comatose and white changed to pictures of Mom chatting on the phone with a bandaged appendage. I held for the floor nurse.

  We turned a corner fast, and there was a gasp behind me. Yvette. Her ride was late. Jackie had gone to Dad's house on Acorn Street in Anaheim to check if Dad was still there, and Marian's fancy new red Corvette held only her and George. So the deluded, insectoid editor now cowered in James's back seat, making little strangled noises every time the car careened around a turn. Now that I knew Mom wasn't dying, I considered asking James to stop at a bookstore on the way to the hospital to prove Yvette wrong about my book. But it could probably wait a day. My mother needed me. So I pretended Yvette was a large pink bug back there and enjoyed her unease.

  The hospital receptionist told me the nurse was busy. I should call back in a few minutes.

  "Did you call your sister?" James said.

  "Monica's off scuba-diving in Australia." I chewed a fingernail. My older sister had left the country a month before to live in Australia with her oceanographer husband and two small children. "She left me her new cell phone, with four messages on it that I have no idea how to retrieve. I need her password." I redialed my parents' house in Anaheim. No answer.

  "You're the baby?" James was so sweet, trying to divert me from my worries.

  "Yep."

  "Me, too. Cuts down on your responsibility, you know?"

  It had until now. But Monica was gone. My brothers, Hank and Jerry, were on the East Coast with 2.2 kids and 2.3 marriages each. So I was up at bat, and the parents were throwing curve balls.

  "And what we get away with," he whispered, glancing toward the back seat. "Pranks and lies. As a kid, I killed my sister's Chia pet slowly, with Coke.”

  "That's nothing," I said. "I offed a hamster, a gerbil, and two canaries. Not on purpose. Sort of over-handling and under-feeding. I even killed a Petrie dish full of mold for my sixth grade science project. How was I supposed to know bleach was lethal? I had to color a bunch of dust bunnies with felt tip pens to fake the mold I needed for my results.”

  More gasps came from the back seat as we sped through a red light.

  I said, "Mom and Dad had better be hardier than that."

  James said, "But didn't Monica leave strict orders for you to visit your folks?"

  "Hey, they were okay when I saw them just last …" month, I realized. But I couldn't tell James that. My time was so tight these days with work and writing and the daily exercise I needed at age thirty-four to fend off flab. Plus every extra shift I could get at the library and tutoring junior high English to make up for lost wages since I'd taken June off to finish my now-worthless book.

  James grinned. "Well, what can they expect from the baby of the family, huh? Just the baby."

  These words, surely meant to soothe, clunked in my head. Just Rhonda, just the baby.

  He went on. "And about your book, don't blame yourself. I mean you know how many people could have stolen it. Hackers, for one. If you register for writing conferences or sign up for writing magazines online, anyone could get access to your computer."

  Clank, clunk. Maybe not the best subject to divert me with. "I have a blog and a website, too."

  He shrugged. "Well, there you are."

  At the hospital, I jumped from the car and rushed into the building and up to room 226B, where I stopped short at the sight of the still, gray, nearly lifeless form in the first bed. Could that be my energetic mother? Brought down to this in a few scant minutes? But the man sitting by her was not my father.

  Then I heard a familiar voice from beyond the gold room divider curtain. "One more pillow under my knee, here, Caesar. And bring me my purse, will you? Those flowers can go over there.”

  I finally let out the breath I’d been holding for the last twenty minutes and moved to the cheerful window side of the room. There sat my tall, skinny mother, Ethel Hamilton, propped on pillows in the second bed. Phone to her ear, she looked weary, but still queenly. An orderly in scrubs, a cleaning rag flopping out of his back pocket, hopped around the room doing her bidding.

  Into the phone, Mom said, "Of course I'm still coming next week, Monica. Even if I have to swim."

  I approached, and Mom said to me, "Why are you here?" She shoved a tray of cheap chocolates at me and chattered on to my sister, "It's just Rhonda. I told your father not to bother her. What were you saying?"

  “Just Rhonda,” again? Damn it! Hadn't we gotten past that? Barely kee
ping my gurgling mix of anger and anxiety in check, I said, "Mom, what happened? I just got this call from Dad and rushed right over.”

  She waved me off and continued into the phone. "It's not that bad, honey. I just slipped on a wet patch this afternoon in Food Mart, probably Seven-Up or something spilled on the floor. It was really sticky, you know, probably some kid did it, and boom! Down I went, pretty fast. They really ought to watch the kids in there. Some old person could fall down and really get hurt.”

  Like you, I thought, though she'd never admit she was old. Mom's desires were easy for my Spidey sense to read. She usually wanted to be a first lady of something: TV, movies, cable, the nation. Back when Dinah Shore had been queen of the talk show, our father had sworn that Mom was on Dinah's substitute host list. We'd waited by the phone daily for the program director's ring, which had never come.

  And of course, Monica had always been Mom's assistant queen: smart, sleek, and directorial. Whereas I was the family jester. "Just Rhonda," the irresponsible one. My stomach now burned at the thought.

  To Monica, Mom continued, "The paramedics caught up with me right as I got through the express checkout line. No, no. Russell Stover. Two pounds. But not enough to bribe the doctor to just put a cast on my ankle and send me home. He still claims I need surgery to walk again.”

  Phone still to her ear, Mom offered chocolates to Caesar and shoved the curtains back to offer them to the small, gray man sitting by the woman in the other bed. When Mom got into this heavy-duty level of hostessing, Monica and I called her Vanna Mom. She didn't offer the chocolate box to me, but shoved a large peppermint at me, whispering, "In case the doctor comes."

  "Okay. Enough," I said, and grabbed the phone. "Later, Monica," I said and hung up. There'd be hell to pay.

  Mom anxiously took my hand, her Christian Science roots surfacing. "Rhonda. How sure do you think that doctor is about surgery? His words were might not walk, not will not walk. Bet he's just covering his ass—" She colored. "I mean bottom. Don't say “ass,” dear. Anyway, how important is walking?"

  "Trivial, really." I said, "I prefer skipping or hopping. Rollerblading, jogging, biking, skateboarding, water skiing, jazzercizing, razoring."

  Mom sighed against her pillows, dramatic hand on forehead. "I've been praying all day for a miracle, but I guess if surgery is the only way …" Her early Christian Science no-medicine beliefs had been diluted, but not erased, by years with my father's family, who swore by a good hospital birth and lots of drugs. Now her eyes closed in mute pain and suffering.

  "Yep," I said.

  "Remember if I die on the table, cremate me. And I promised Monica the crystal, but the silver plate goes to you." Then one very clear eye popped open. "Unless you can think of something better to bribe the doctor with, honey. You know, being a legal secretary for all those years doesn't mean I'm sue happy. Could you maybe help him see that? He's very handsome, you know, blond and tall. Just your type. I didn't see a wedding ring." She visibly cheered at the thought of Nordic-looking grandchildren.

  The problem with this rosy scenario was that I'd never learned how to bat my lashes at any male. Guys, usually the wrong type, just found me. And then dropped me, or took my money, or both. I looked down at my very large hands, clenched around my misshapen sweater sleeves, and cursed the genes that had conspired from both sides to make me "five-feet-thirteen" inches tall and "sturdy," according to Mom. The cute guys in high school had slapped me and my tall, gawky girlfriends on the back, making basketball-player jokes and asking how the weather was up there. But for dates, they'd asked the perky little cheerleaders, not giant me. Only guys with something to prove had taken me out. So I'd learned martial arts. Even now, most guys didn't quite meet my eyes, in more ways than one.

  But James didn't have to look up at me. He was six feet two.

  "Mom, get a grip," I said. "(A) This isn't optional. The doctor said you absolutely need surgery or you'll never walk again. And (B) he's not my type. Too GQ. I'd wrinkle his clothes if I got near him." I'd never met the doctor and this was all bullshit, but I knew nothing short of dire threats of permanent lameness would convince her to have surgery.

  "Funny, he seemed more of a surfer dude to me," she said.

  "You called?" James, who had been parking the car, came up behind me. "Listen, Rhonda. Should I wait for you? Yvette needs—"

  Vanna Mom eyed his scrubs and thrust the chocolates at him. "Hey, Doc, could you let me out of here before somebody cuts my leg open and digs around in my ankle for hidden treasure? I swear there's none in there. By the way, this is my daughter, Rhonda. Isn't she a stunner? Ignore her hair. It just needs a cut and a weave. But look at those gorgeous eyes and that bone structure.”

  I cringed. "He's my friend, a physician's assistant, Mom. James Connors. He's in my writers' group. He gave me a ride over from our meeting. James, this is my mom, Ethel Hamilton." The Queen. He reached out a hand to Mom, and I moved back to give him room in the tight space.

  What the heck. I popped the peppermint in my mouth.

  James shook Mom's hand with a winning smile and took a chocolate. "Thanks. I can't stay. I just—"

  "Nonsense," Mom said.

  I gave her a warning squint over his shoulder. She had a habit of telling my life's story, most embarrassing parts version, to any single man over the age of twelve who came within a mile of me, while filling his plate with canapés. She'd Dear Abby-ed and Betty Crocker-ed all the boys I'd brought home so completely that I'd never heard from them again.

  She patted her hair. "Sorry. With the surgery ax looming, I must look awful.”

  "You look lovely," James said. "Camera ready."

  "Why thank you," Mom beamed. "And we're getting on that plane to Australia next Wednesday come hell or high water.”

  Could be hell.

  "Hello?" Mom peered toward the shadows behind me, and Yvette's antennae peeked around the curtain.

  "Hi. Sorry about your accident, Mrs. Hamilton," Yvette said. "James, I'll just be out here.”

  Mom perked up at her growing audience. "Oh, come in!" She insisted on complete introductions, and I got pushed to the foot of the bed as she glowed at Yvette. "Are you a writer or another one of Rhonda's skating buddies?"

  Any subject but skating! I inhaled fast to change the subject, and the peppermint in my mouth dropped smack into my windpipe, where it set up shop and put down roots.

  "What kind of work do you do?" Mom asked Yvette.

  I tried inhaling, coughing, wheezing, bending over. Nothing worked. Oh, God.

  I poked Yvette, who shook me off, snuggling closer to James as Mom started a running commentary on her complete show biz genealogy, from her five aunts in Vaudeville to her flock of nephews in underwear modeling. So, relegated to the cheap seats, I started to choke to death on a peppermint candy. In a hospital room. Staggering backwards, I gestured wildly, flailing my arms, pointing at my throat.

  "And Aunt Marie …" Mom rummaged in her purse for a photo.

  My head felt light. Black spots appeared before my eyes. Also my life: Birth. Slap. Bottles. Blankie. Crib. Da-da. Shoes. Board books. Ear infection. Golden books …

  Just as I keeled over, Mom screamed.

  In three seconds, James's arms were around me from behind, double fists smacking my stomach with rib-breaking force. But nothing happened. Yvette, wide-eyed, skittered toward the door, but was unable to get around James and me. So she stood, horror-struck, right in front of me as James repositioned his hands. Except he lost his grip and I, now starting to black out, reeled toward Yvette, whose eyes got big and boingy like Roger Rabbit's. Shrimpy Yvette reflexively held out her hands as a shield against my oncoming form, so when I went down, I was perfectly impaled in the solar plexus by her small, pink, sequined handbag.

  Fwoomp! The peppermint flew high as both of us fell in a heap right by Mom's good foot. The whole room froze for an appalling second, breaths held, eyes bulging, as the tiny, spinning mi
nt flew toward my mother, landing in her lap with a plop. I sputtered and coughed as James pulled me off Yvette and onto a chair.

  "Ahh!" Mom hissed. A squashed Yvette struggled up from her landing place on Mom's bed as James brought me water, breathing hard, his eyes big.

  The thunderous silence broke when my mother's face cracked open and she clapped. "Bravo! Very convincing, everyone!" Sotto voce, she said to me, "I see London, I see France …"

  Still dazed, I tugged my skirt down from Dover to Marseilles just as a rumble like a subway train sounded in the hall.

  Mom went on, "You really had me going there, kids. Perfect aim. Great acting, all three of you! Frederico and Felicia Save Jane. You could get on the hospital entertainment list with the clowns.”

  James murmured, "What kind of drugs is she on?"

  The rumble in the hallway got louder, and Mom held out a cookie tray. "Anyone?"

  "Ethel! Ethel! I'm here." Thump, clank, thump, clank came down the hall. Dad and his cane.

  Yvette looked revolted at our whole dog and pony show, but she really looked aghast when her escape route from the room was again blocked, this time by a huge tray of pinwheel sandwiches carried by Arlene, my parents' nice gray-haired neighbor.

  "Sorry, Ethel. Price Mart only had small trays left." Arlene bustled in and balanced the food on the arms of Mom's potty chair.

  Then in came Harold Hamilton, my dad, huffing and puffing. He was oversized, from his leonine head and smudged glasses to his brand-new farmer Levis and size sixteen Nikes. Everyone wobbled a bit, adjusting to the change in air pressure as he took up the space of three or four adults and his personality spread out and filled all the empty corners in the room. He'd recently slowed down after a hip replacement, and he used his four-pronged cane like an outrigger on a cruise liner.

  "Harold, can't you pick up your feet?" my mother complained. To us: "I hate it when he shuffles. He never used to shuffle."