by Adi Alsaid
As soon as he was done retching, Elliot laid his head back. “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning the words not just for Leila, but for Maribel, and even for himself. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
2
THE FIRST THINGS Elliot saw when he woke up were ambulance lights flashing quietly, with no accompanying sirens. He turned his head to see the surrounding boonies of Burnsville, the thick trees that surrounded everything in his hometown. Watching the red lights dancing quietly on the trees, he thought for a second that maybe he’d gone deaf. Then he heard the sound of footsteps, and Leila’s face appeared at his window. She’d parked the car and walked around to help him out.
“Come on,” she said, opening the door. “Let’s get you fixed.”
“Where are we?”
“We’re at the hospital,” Leila said. “You passed out before you could give me an address, and your hand’s still bleeding pretty bad.”
“I’m sorry about your car.”
“That’s okay.” She reached over to help him unbuckle his seat belt. “You didn’t mean to do it.” She smelled nice, and Elliot felt embarrassed about what his own breath might smell like.
Leila helped him ease out of the car. Then she put his good hand over her shoulders, put her arm on his waist, and told him to keep his bleeding hand elevated. As they hobbled across the parking lot, Elliot tried hard to not seem so drunk.
The emergency room was empty save for a woman trying to quiet a screaming toddler, and the nurse sitting at the receptionist desk. Leila sat Elliot down on a chair and checked in with the receptionist, returning with some paperwork. As Leila asked Elliot his basic information to fill out the forms, Elliot looked at the crying toddler, hoping that the kid’s lack of visible injuries meant that he was okay, just cranky, and that his mother was a little too overprotective.
“Reason for visit?”
Elliot turned to Leila. “Really?” He held up his hand, trying to keep it turned away from the toddler to prevent further freaking out.
“I’ll just put down ‘drunk.’”
“That works,” Elliot said. He slid down the plastic chair so that his neck rested on the back. The less his head spun, the more his hand hurt.
Leila took the forms back to the receptionist, who said they’d be attended to shortly. After a minute or so, the mother and her toddler disappeared behind a set of double doors. The child’s wailing faded like, fittingly, that of a departing ambulance.
“So,” Leila said. “What’s your story?”
Elliot could feel her gaze on him; his alcohol/blood/puke-stained tux, his bloody hand, his lack of a boutonniere. “That’s not a story anyone wants to hear,” he said, avoiding her gaze.
“Well, if you bleed to death, I want to be able to tell people a little bit about you.”
Elliot chuckled, then put more pressure on his cut, yelping out
in pain.
“Come on. I took you to a hospital, even though I hate hospitals. You puked all over my car. You owe me a story.”
“I thought you said that was okay.”
“Yes, it’s okay. But I make it a strict policy not to hit people with my car and then not find out who they are.”
“You’re taking this whole being in the hospital with a drunken stranger awfully lightly.”
“I almost killed you. Without a little bit of levity I’d have to deal with the guilt.” Leila smacked him lightly on the bad arm, and he squirmed in his seat. “Don’t be shy. We’ve got nothing else to do in this waiting room.”
When Elliot didn’t respond, she softened her voice. “Was it a girl?”
Elliot turned to her. “How’d you know?”
“You were stumbling around drunk in a tux on the side of the road during prom season. Consider it a lucky guess.”
Slumping farther into the hard, plastic chair, Elliot closed his eyes. Something inside him hurt, and it had nothing to do with his hand or the alcohol. “I had it planned so perfectly. Lloyd-Dobler-holding-a-stereo-over-his-head perfect. At least, it should have been perfect.”
“Who’s Lloyd Dobler?”
“You’ve never seen Say Anything...?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? The Breakfast Club?” Leila shrugged. “Oh, man, you’re missing out. Eighties movies are the best. When my parents first moved to the States, they were worried that they wouldn’t be up-to-date on pop culture. They bought as many movies as they could and watched them over and over so they could pick up on slang. My house is full of VHS tapes, still. I grew up watching them. They aren’t like movies these days. You don’t need a $200-million budget to show a guy getting the girl.”
“But your girl turned you down?”
Elliot opened his eyes again. The receptionist had left the room, and it was just him and Leila, the fluorescent lighting of the waiting room casting an unappealing glow on everything it touched, from the pale green walls and gray plastic chairs to the racks of pamphlets with little diagrams and bulleted lists of symptoms.
“Come on,” Leila said. “Your worries don’t actually drown in the alcohol. You have to let them out.” She offered a smile and nudged him lightly. “Tell me about this girl.”
He sat up, careful not to move his hand too much. The nausea was mostly gone now, but he could still feel the alcohol pounding through his veins and clouding his thoughts. “I’m a pretty forgetful guy,” he said. “But everything she says, I remember. I remember what color her hair ribbon was when we met on the first day of fifth grade. I remember that she loves orchids because they look delicate but aren’t, really. From the single postcard she sent me when traveling with her family two summers ago, I remember what my name looks like in her handwriting.”
“What’s her name?”
“Maribel,” he said. He loved saying her name out loud, loved the feeling of each letter shaping his lips. “I’ve loved her for a very long time. We’re friends; we have been since elementary school. Never more than that, though.”
He turned to look at Leila. She was sitting with her legs tucked under her, her fingers absentmindedly tugging at the hem of her sundress. “And you never told her how you feel until tonight?”
Elliot shrugged, looking at his bloody hand. “I could never decide how.”
“You never thought of, ‘Hello, friend. I love you. Let’s make out?’ It works every time.”
“I actually did think of that one. I’ve thought of every single way you could possibly admit your love to someone. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to just blurt it out while hanging out, or to write her a letter, or make a big gesture, or come up with one of those step-by-step plans that villains in teen movies are always coming up with to get a girl to fall in love with them. You wanna know how much it costs to write someone’s name in the sky with one of those planes? Because I looked into it.”
“If it’s more than the cost of a lobster, it’s not worth it. Take her to a restaurant, buy her a lobster, and write her name in butter on the tablecloth. That would totally work on me.”
Elliot gave her a sideways glance and laughed.
“I bet you hadn’t thought of that way to say ‘I love you.’”
“Almost. I was gonna go with crab legs.”
“That would have been a mistake,” Leila said. She tucked her legs farther under her. “So, why tonight?”
Elliot took a deep breath, and the gross aftertaste of vomit made him turn away on the exhale, embarrassed. “I knew I wanted to tell her before high school was over. So I decided to tell her how I felt at the prom, in front of everyone. There’s nothing more romantic than someone who’s not scared to put themselves out there for the one they love.
“I’d play the scene out in my head, and it always felt romantic, like something out of a movie. I could only imagine it ending well. I could always feel the kiss coming.
”
Elliot was interrupted by a nurse calling his name. Leila came along as he followed the nurse down a hallway and into a small examination room, where a doctor was washing his hands. He cleaned the wound, pulled out the glass, and stitched it closed, all without a word. He worked gruffly, as if he were fixing a broken toy. Elliot tried to keep his wincing to a minimum, but he must not have been doing a great job, because at one point Leila offered her hand to squeeze. When the doctor was done dressing Elliot’s hand, he deftly found a vein in his other arm, plugged in an IV, and told him to keep it in for twenty minutes, then call the nurse. “It’ll sober you up,” he said, sounding like a judge passing down a sentence.
As soon as he left the room, Leila hopped onto the patient table alongside Elliot, crinkling the paper. “I want to hear your speech, the one you made to what’s-her-name.”
“Maribel,” he said, not wasting an opportunity to let her name pass through his mouth. “I obviously didn’t get the girl. There’s no happily-ever-after here.”
“Give me the speech anyway.”
Elliot met her insistent gaze and realized for the first, somewhat clearheaded time that she was pretty. Not Maribel, but pretty. Then he looked down at his feet dangling off the table. “I don’t think I’m ready to relive that moment quite yet.”
“Fair enough,” she said. They fell quiet, but Elliot could feel her gaze still on him. “You’re okay, though?”
Elliot held up his bandaged hand. “All patched up.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, I know.” He shrugged.
“Listen, I know we just met...” Leila started to say, but her voice trailed off before she could finish the thought. There were loud voices coming from down the hallway, and before he could make out what they were saying, Elliot knew exactly who the voices belonged to.
“Uh-oh.”
“I knew that one of these days you’d end up in the hospital,” his mother said before she’d even entered the room. The door swung open, revealing a middle-aged couple with nearly matching Afros of the Jewish variety. His dad was wearing pajama pants and slippers, a stained T-shirt for which Elliot knew the man would receive grief as soon as Elliot’s mother noticed it. Elliot instinctively moved his uninjured hand to cover up the bandages, but he either did it too slowly, or his mother had been preparing to shriek anyway, and nothing was going to stop her. “My baby!”
“Oh, Jesus,” Elliot said.
“Don’t you start with the ‘Oh, Jesus,’” his mom said, rushing over to inspect Elliot’s hand, as if she was certain that there was no way the doctor could have done the job thoroughly enough. “What have you done?”
“What is that on the tux?” Elliot’s father stepped forward, squinting at the various stains as if trying to read them.
“Will both of you please just take it easy?” Elliot said, looking over at Leila and grimacing in embarrassment.
His parents didn’t seem to notice her presence in the room. “Take it easy? My son’s bleeding in the middle of the night, and I’m supposed to take it easy?”
“I’m not bleeding, Ima. I’m okay.”
“I hope when you have children, you never have to learn the grief of getting a phone call from a hospital in the middle of the night. I’m surprised neither one of us had a heart attack and is sitting here next to you plugged into a machine.” His mom adjusted the strap of her purse. “All right, mamzer. If you’re okay, tell me: Why are you in a hospital?”
“Does anyone remember what the rental place’s policy on stains was?” Elliot’s father was inspecting the cloth of the tuxedo between his fingers, his glasses lowered all the way to the tip of his nose.
“It’s nothing,” Elliot said. “I’m fine.”
“You’re fine, sure. You smell like a vagrant. And what’s this for?” She pointed to the IV. “Tell me what happened, or I’m calling that doctor back in here to pull the stitches out. And you better hope he’s willing to; otherwise, I’ll do it myself.”
“Sharon, I think he’s been drinking,” Elliot’s dad said, sniffing at the tuxedo jacket.
“Don’t talk shtuyot,” she said, “He doesn’t drink.” She scowled at her husband, then looked back at Elliot. “You don’t drink.”
Elliot pulled the cloth away from his dad’s fingers. “Dad, please stop smelling me. Mom, just calm down for a second.” He looked over at Leila, who was clearly trying to contain her laughter and look serious.
“Nu? I’m waiting.”
“The thing is...” he said, not knowing at all what the thing was or how to express it to his parents.
Thankfully, a nurse came in at that moment. Had she known what was waiting in the room for her, she might have let Elliot have a few more minutes of IV fluid on the house. Elliot’s mom instantly assailed her with questions about Elliot’s condition and prognosis and at-home treatment. “Is there a pharmacy in the hospital? Is it open? What brand of gauze do you trust the most? How many painkillers is it safe to give him? Look at how much pain he’s in; can’t he have more?”
The nurse hurriedly directed Elliot’s mom to the pharmacy.
“Come on”—Elliot’s mom motioned for his dad to follow—“before they close.” At no point had the nurse hinted that the pharmacy might be closing.
“You,” his mom said, pointing at Elliot from the doorway. “We’re not done with you.” Then she headed down the hallway, an echo of chattering in her wake.
The nurse shook her head as she removed the needle from Elliot’s arm and taped a cotton ball to the speck of blood that appeared.
“Wow,” Leila said.
“I know.” Elliot held up a hand to show he completely understood every thought she was having related to his parents. “Ugh, it is going to be a long night for all the wrong reasons,” Elliot said into his hand, which he then used to rub his face. The fluids had helped sober him up a little, but the outside world seemed intent on keeping him as dazed as possible.
When he looked back up, the nurse was gone, and Leila was standing in the doorway, surveying the hall. She came over to Elliot and pulled him off the patient table. “Let’s go,” she said.
“What? Where?” The paper cover on the table ripped as he stumbled off. He followed Leila out of the room, past an orderly wheeling an empty gurney and a man whispering into a cell phone.
Leila didn’t say anything until they were back in the ER waiting room and headed toward the exit. “We’re going to get the girl.”
* * *
“Slow down,” Elliot said, as she pushed the doors and led them to the parking lot. “What do you mean, get the girl?”
“Look, in all romantic comedies, there’s always a scene in the movie where we think the boy’s lost his chance before he gets the girl.” She was still pulling him by his good hand toward her car. “That’s this, right now. You think you’ve lost the girl. But not yet. Not if I have anything to say about it.” She opened the passenger door for him as if he were still drunk and bleeding. “I have a feeling that’s why we—forgive the choice of words—ran into each other. I’m gonna help you get Maribel.”
“That’s very nice of you to offer, but I think I should go back in there and deal with my parents.”
“No. Your parents will be there to deal with in the morning. It’s prom night. What you should do is go after the girl.”
“You keep saying that,” Elliot said. He was shaking his head, even though he could feel a small part of him flaring with hope. “But life’s not like the movies. You try to live your life like the movies, and you end up with a bloody hand and a broken heart.”
“That actually sounds like a line from a movie,” she said, walking around to the driver’s side. She opened her door, then looked at him over the roof of her car. “What would Lloyd Dobler do?”
“I’m not Lloyd Dobler.” He felt like screaming,
but instead the words sounded sad, defeated. Leila ignored the comment and slipped into the car, forcing Elliot to sit next to her to continue the conversation. “I’m more like Duckie from Pretty in Pink, and maybe it’s time I accept that. Maribel said no. I should let it go.”
Leila leaned across the center divider and reached for Elliot’s seat belt, buckling him in with an assertive click. “You don’t have to be Duckie, whoever that is. You don’t have to give up. Would Lloyd Dobler ever give up?”
Maybe the look Leila was giving him should have come across as crazed instead of enthusiastic. Maybe she should have seemed more delusional than inspiring. But, as she turned the key in the ignition and the engine started, Elliot couldn’t help but feel that life could still be like the movies. With this girl’s help, he might still have a chance at that orchestra-swelling kiss.
“Let’s go get the girl.”
3
TOP-FORTY MUSIC filled the dark of the hotel ballroom where prom was still raging on. Candy-colored lights roved the walls manically. A stage had been built in the far side of the room for the band, with a sizable dance floor. All the couples danced close together to make it hard for chaperones to know who was pressed against whom.
Elliot and Leila were in the men’s bathroom. Elliot had excused himself to go get cleaned up, but Leila had just followed him in, checking the counter for wet spots before hopping onto the marble surface.
“So, what’s the plan?” She had to say it loudly, since the walls practically pulsed from the music from the ballroom. The stained-glass lamps hanging by the mirrors were rattling like snare drums.
Elliot slid out of his jacket and started wetting some paper towels. “Um, I don’t know, actually. I guess the declaring-my-love-for-her strategy didn’t work so well, so I should probably try something else this time. Something...”
He gestured with his hand, as if trying to draw the next word out of the air. “I don’t know,” he said. “Something more successful, hopefully.” He tried not to gag as he brushed chunks from his tuxedo.
