“They'll give you anesthesia before the… they fix things up,” said the Brit. “They don't want you tossing up food in there.”
“Why did this have to happen?” the girl asked. She slurped water noisily. “This hurts, you know. I feel like utter crap. I might as well be dead.”
The Brit winced and reached out a hand to her. “Don't drink too much. They said not to.”
“Oh, honey,” the girl's mother murmured. “They'll take care of you soon.” She crawled up onto the bed beside her daughter. “Daddy and I will make sure they do.”
But the whining intensified into pained bleating, and no one came. After a while, the dad left to find someone, ostensibly to demand an explanation for the delay, but Gretchen and Craig knew why. Her surgery was unscheduled, not an emergency. She had to wait her turn. Daddy just had to do something. He couldn't bear to see his girl suffer.
Gretchen's eyes filled. She spoke softly to Craig so that no one else could hear. “I want you to tell me… I need to know. What happened to change my life so I can't recognize it anymore?”
“Gretchen,” Craig's voice was so low she could barely hear it, “I consider the matter settled. This isn't a negotiation. It's just upsetting for both of us and gets us nowhere.”
“I don't recognize myself in this.”
“People change,” he said. “You're hard to live with. Up, down, all over the place. Mad for no reason. Jumping out of your skin and all over me. I never know what you might do next. I feel ungrounded. I just want a happy life. Peace.”
“Did the feeling just… shift, like a dog jumping over to another lap? Did you tell her she's irresistible to you, like you did me?”
“Hush, now.” He pulled the sheet down. “Get up, Gretchen. Let's get going.”
“Did you think, oh, here's someone prettier than Gretchen, someone who will hold me in high esteem. Someone who won't nag me to work harder or slob around in an untidy house without lifting a finger to pick up.”
“Please put your clothes on.”
“How can you love someone and then not love them?” she asked. “I don't believe it's possible.”
Craig opened the brown sack, pulling out a blouse. He untied the threadbare blue print hospital gown that encased Gretchen and tried to pull it up over her head. She resisted, arms down at her sides, steely.
“You can't just stop loving.”
“Come on,” he said. “Come on.” When she continued to resist, he dropped his arms to his sides. He put one in his pocket.
“You wish it would ring, don't you? There's a woman out there, you're thinking. She'll welcome me without any pressure. But what I want to tell you, Craig, is that that's a temporary state in a relationship. It's after six months that matters, when you see the man's pores, and dirty underwear on the floor, when you notice he never flosses… I love you, defects and all. I love when you make a racket blowing your nose, and when you fret about the newspaper being late, and when you criticize me, then say it's because you care so much.”
The girl in the next bed whimpered, then moaned. Her cries were muffled, presumably by the arms of her mother.
“I decided”-Gretchen pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them-“that she must be hotter in bed, something along those lines. So last week I conducted some scientific tests. Remember, by the window? And then at the beach that Thursday morning. So early, fog everywhere… I may not have proved anything to you, but I proved a few things to myself. You're older, and you hate getting older. I mean, forty isn't so old, even though you feel it is. But there's such a thing as being graceful, you know. We could be graceful together.”
“Don't do this,” Craig said.
“Like during the dance, I felt happy with your arms around me, the love I felt for you right at that moment. I felt like it didn't matter that I'm not a perfect person. I felt accepted, for just a moment. Then… you chose a bad time to tell me, admit that. You're slightly guilty in that respect, too.”
“I never said a word!”
“You were going to. It felt like a truck crossing the centerline, coming at me.”
“You were drunk, just like you were the night before, you know, when you went to stay at your mom's. You were mad for days before I even said a word. Don't tell me you blame this situation on me.”
“Of course I do. I wish you would say you were sorry for everything.”
“If I say I'm sorry, will you get up?” He picked up her clothes, then set them down on the bed again. “And put on these god-awful clothes you brought?”
“No.”
“I'm just trying to… it wouldn't be respectful of me not to tell you, would it, Gretch? To live a big lie?”
“You show your respect for me by cheating?”
“Is it cheating if I tell you about it? We aren't even sleeping together yet.”
“Yet you want to move in with her.”
“Everything's in the car, ready to go. Now you know it all.”
“You plan to sleep with her tonight, if all goes well here. You expect to find her sitting by the fire, combing her neat hair, wearing the kind of negligee you like, something frothy and girly. She'll jump up, arms raised to hold you… It's a charming fantasy. I can't compete. I drink too much, I have no fashion sense, and at the moment, I can't even reach you to hug you without using a crutch.”
“I don't want to hurt you. You're hurting yourself.”
“Not true. You want honesty? I stumbled at the dance. I felt faint when I realized the moment had come and you wanted to end things. I simply fell. I didn't try to evade the truth. Although I was afraid, yes.”
“Tell me you'll be graceful now, Gretchen.”
“You want it easy.”
“Tell me we can get beyond this.”
“To a divorce? The house is mine. Where will you live? In some dingy, little apartment in a bad neighborhood?”
He looked startled. She had scored. “Let's not get into that. The lawyers will work things out so that they are fair.”
“Did you tell her about the back taxes we owe?”
“I refuse to talk about this. That's business. Right now is personal.”
“Okay, it's personal. You want to leave me for a younger blonde with black roots and a quiet voice.”
“How do you know all that?”
“No great detective work involved there. She's blonde with roots because you like blondes, and I'm blonde and no woman over twenty is a natural blonde. She's quiet, the better to listen to her hero. No doubt she drinks too much, too, or sings too loud like I do? She fancies herself in control, but sometimes she does outrageous, unbelievable things? She has to do something obnoxious.”
“No, she doesn't.”
Gretchen threw her magazine on the floor. “I really don't want to know about her and her delicate sensibilities!”
A drawn-out wail from behind the plastic curtain split her sentence in half.
“This isn't the place,” Craig said.
“It's the only place. After tonight, you won't see me. You'll be busy with her.”
“Please, Gretch, let's get going.” He punched the cell phone again. Again, there was no answer. He stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, one eye on the window. “Where's that damn nurse?” He checked the clock on the wall.
The Brit returned, successful, with a resident in tow. He sat back down in his chair in front of the sink. The mother removed herself from the bed. The tall, thin doctor, black bags big as old-fashioned doctor satchels pouched under his eyes, leaned momentarily against the wall for support, then moved toward the bed. “Where does it hurt?” he asked.
“It freaking hurts there, and there! It hurts all the way underneath!” she said. “I went to this clinic last week? And they gave me painkillers, that's it! Can you believe it? And now I end up here!”
“When did the pain get really bad?”
“Two days ago.”
“And when did you originally injure yourself?”
�
��Last weekend, on Saturday night. A week ago.”
“How did you do it?”
“I was frolicking,” she said. Weirdly, she giggled. “I was frolicking in the bushes, and I fell, and a twig or something caught on my nipple ring, you know?”
A shocked pause stopped all activity for a few seconds. The resident, who probably had seen it all and heard it all, paused in his scribbling. Even he seemed rattled. Gretchen held herself utterly still. Craig's mouth hung open, stalled at the start of a sentence.
“I never frolic,” said the doctor, and the relief in his voice-if such was the result of frolicking, then by God, he was glad to put in thirty-six-hour shifts for the rest of his natural life-shook the other people in the room, on both sides of the curtain out of their momentary arrest.
“Too busy to frolic,” the mother said. “You must work very hard.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Um, you'll need to remove your jewelry for surgery, Ms. Heller.”
“All of it? Some of them won't go back in. They're permanent.”
“Okay,” the resident said. “Fine.”
“They made me remove my wedding ring,” Gretchen whispered to Craig. “Said you can't have anything metal in the operating room.”
“They don't want to tangle with her,” Craig said. “Don't want to get stuck with something sharp. Holy Christ, what's the matter with those parents? She looks completely savage. Her parents ought to be teaching her more about what it means to be human.”
“You're how old?” the resident asked Katie.
“Twenty-one.”
“Smoke?”
“Yep.”
“For how long?”
“Since I was ten. That's… uh…”
“Eleven years,” her mother offered helpfully.
“Right. Eleven years.”
“Drink?” the resident, from here on out unflappable, said.
“Yeah, to excess, regularly.”
Craig, listening across the curtain, ruffled his hair again, clearly quite upset.
And despite the obvious heat of the story bubbling behind Katie's words, the resident ignored the implications and moved right along. “Anything today?”
“No.”
“Street drugs?”
“No.”
Craig snorted. Gretchen put a hand to his lips to shush him. “Yeah,” he whispered, “she was running naked through the bushes and she doesn't take drugs. Right.”
“I imagine the staff know instantly what lies are being told. Like when they asked how much I weighed…” Gretchen said. “They can probably tell by looking.”
“Oh, you. You don't lie very well. Every crazy thing you do, you eventually confess.”
“You didn't know I knew about your girlfriend.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I didn't want to know. Maybe I wasn't ready until now.”
“Prescriptions?” the resident continued with the girl.
The father stood up. “I've got the list,” he said. “Already gave it to the nurse.”
The resident's head stayed bent over his clipboard. “Read 'em off.”
Katie's father listed at least a dozen medications in a clear English accent. The first ones, familiar names like Xanax, came out brightly, as though he were reciting a list of breakfast cereals. Several others he had trouble pronouncing, but he struggled until he had conveyed the information, and put the paper back into his pocket, satisfied.
“Okay, I was wrong,” Craig said. “She didn't need street drugs when she could get high legally ten different ways every day.”
“Diagnosis?” asked the resident through the curtain, a paragon of dispassion.
“Bipolar,” Katie said, sounding almost happy at being truly pegged. “And…”
At this point, Craig bumped into Gretchen's table and upset the water pitcher, so they didn't hear the rest of the diagnosis. But the next question from the doctor regained their attention. “Are you sexually active?”
“Not anymore,” Katie said, again filling her words with portent.
“One of those drugs that's supposed to make her sane must inhibit her libido,” Craig said, keeping his voice quiet, obviously fascinated.
“Where can I get some?” asked Gretchen. “Stop you from wanting to screw your newest blonde and any other willing women in your future. Nip your desire in the bud. Make you act your age.”
“Don't be bitter, Gretchen. That's ugly.”
“I'm not pretty but you used to think I was. I guess now all your blind loving goes her way. Now you think she's pretty. Now you see me in front of you, faded. I thought you had more character, Craig. You could have resisted.”
“I couldn't. You think you can control everything.”
“I do have control, Craig.”
“Nobody controls life.”
“I make a dozen decisions every day to regulate my behavior, to keep to the path I've picked. I don't grab for the man making eye contact in the elevator, even if he's handsome, and I'm lonely and ignored. I don't steal at the store even if it's something I want and nobody's looking. I won't sell my soul for a nickel!”
“Here you go again, hysterical. Souls at stake, instead of a failed relationship.”
“Out-of-control is so easy. You didn't make a conscious choice when you looked too closely at a woman and started noticing her perfume, and then took it further and talked to her. Touched her.”
“Gretchen, it isn't as if you don't do crazy things. You know you do when you drink.”
“I'm not proud of that. It's not who I really am.”
“You had to know eventually. I'm glad it's out.”
“I didn't want you to tell me. I wanted it to burn out. Now, you've told me, it's real.”
“She's just a place to go for now. It isn't what you think.”
“Should that make me feel better? That you didn't even fall in love with someone else? You left me for nothing?”
“I didn't say that…”
“Romance is fantasy, you know. You think there's a special woman out there for you when it really all amounts to the same thing, a woman, a sexual attraction, connection. Doesn't matter what woman. It might as well be me as her.”
“I need something different in my life.”
“Question,” Gretchen said. “If you don't love me, how do I feel about you?” She started crying, but really it was her leg killing her now. The dull pain sharpened and struck, and the long bone that had broken burned inside her leg like a molten sword. She took her other half pill with a piece of leftover bread, and pushed him away when he fluttered around her, looking angry. He hovered between her and the window, casting shadows on the bed.
On the other side of the curtain, a nurse announced that they had squeezed Katie in next for surgery. With much effort and many encouragements from her parents, a crew of family and hospital personnel helped her onto the gurney. They took her away. The room quieted for a moment.
“The squeaky wheel,” Craig said dismissively. “Wonder what other poor schmuck will have to wait while they fix her miserable, self-abused breast.” He walked to the foot of her bed and held the metal bar, looking at her. “If you'll get ready, we'll go. If not, I'm leaving.”
She knew he didn't mean it. “I need more water. One more, okay?”
He started over to the sink, but before he got there, two people arrived with armloads of fresh linens and began to make Katie's bed. Silently, he watched. After they left, Gretchen pulled back the curtain and watched him pour her water, then wash his hands.
“What a sordid little life. I guess those people were her parents. What losers,” he said, handing her the glass.
“How do you mean?”
“Smoked since she was ten. Where were they?” he asked. “Lots of teen piercings. Nipple rings.”
“She's an adult. She's twenty-one.”
“And free to act like any old adult fathead, apparently. They popped her out and gave up. Let her roll in the slop on the floor.”
“You don't kno
w what they've been through with her. Maybe this is the best way. Maybe being forgiving, unconditional… people can do that, love unconditionally.”
“To hell with her pain. I'd have had her over my knee. I'd be ripping the damned ‘jewelry' out one by one.”
“I got something different,” Gretchen said, reaching into the bag for her clothes. She pulled the hospital gown down onto the floor and threw on a sweater.
“Oh? What did you get? That they're such good people because they let her ruin her life? Come on, you were as staggered as me about what a waste she is. She won't live to be thirty.”
“She seemed very young to me. Immature, and very, very desperate. She was hurting. The dad kept track of everything for her. He ran out to find help. The mother cuddled her because she needed that. They forgave her everything, every dumb thing she did.”
“They're irresponsible idiots. People like that should never be parents, and that girl had no business living, she was so screwed up.”
“How is it you're so responsible? Remind me. I forget.”
“My life is honest, at least. When I knew I had to change things, I told you.”
“You always overrated honesty. What matters isn't what you say, it's what you do. I don't think you're responsible at all. I think you depend on other people too much, and I think your ego gives you the idea you're running your life independently, when you don't. You need me. You always will. You've got to face that before you can understand real love.” Gretchen pulled on her underpants carefully, up and over her injured leg. He came over to help her with her sweatpants.
“No.”
“That looks awkward. Let me help.”
“You'll push too fast and it will hurt. Please don't. Leave it.”
“I'll be careful.”
“No!”
He stared at her.
“I'm too pissed now. I don't want you to touch me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I can see we're going nowhere. It's like you said, this isn't a negotiation, and you're not changing your mind without leaving here tonight. You won't let go of her and come back to me yet, which is what you should do. So do something else for me.”
“What?”
Sinister Shorts Page 21
