Head Rush

by Carolyn Crane

  Banging, screeches, footsteps. I regret it instantly as I sink deeper into the pain. What have I done? I feel like I’ve betrayed him. More sounds.

  “Miss Jones?”

  Is it a second later? Two minutes later? I look up.

  Max rests a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay? What’s going on?” Norman’s behind him. Max asks again: “Are you okay?”

  “No—yes.” I feel like I don’t understand the question. “Call Otto. Tell him to get over here. Hurry. Please.”

  He pulls out his phone. Only then do I look over at the curtain. It’s still. Was he even here? But foot-sized puddles are drying on the floor.

  I feel sick that the killer of Avery said he loves me; it feels like a perversion of something good and true. I should tell them Packard was here. Point out the puddles. They could still catch him. I keep silent.

  The old Justine always knew what to do. Well, most of the time.

  I reach up and Max gives me the phone. “I really think it’s something,” I say to Otto.

  A door squeaks on Otto’s end of the line. “I’m on my way,” he says.

  Elevator bell. He’s on the move. Luckily, the government center is just a block away.

  “It’s too much,” I whisper. “It’s different this time. A surge of stress—”

  “Relax your face. Try that.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Breathe. Can you do that?” He launches into the reminding technique, where we remind each other how past episodes turned out to be nothing. Max and Norman retreat to give me privacy. Otto asks me to relate my symptoms. We always do that because if you pass out and you’re taken to the hospital unconscious, it helps with the diagnosis. I relate them with total precision.

  If I’d been revised, I’m sure I’d know it. Simon and Shelby don’t believe it either, or surely they’d say something.

  Another wave of pain. “This feels wrong,” I say. “Even with ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’, the wolf came at the end.”

  “I know,” Otto says. “Just wait.” It sounds like he’s running. “I’m already halfway down the block. Breathe.”

  I lie down on the floor and breathe. It’s all very ignoble.

  “Slow, deep breaths. You need your autonomic nervous system to slow down.”

  “That’s my line,” I say weakly.

  The thunk of the elevator doors through the phone. He’s already downstairs?

  “I’m scared,” I say, the only true thing I can think of.

  Another thunk. Eventually I feel the vibrations of his footsteps on the floor beneath my head. “That was fast,” I whisper as his shadow darkens the world beyond my closed eyes.

  He sits on the floor, shifts me gently to cradle my head on his lap.

  Unbidden, I picture Avery’s eyes. Again I feel the fear. A wave of rage roars through me. “Packard was here,” I blurt out. “Goddamn him. Why does he keep—”

  “Packard? What?”

  “He came in the window. To tell me I’m revised. Ahh!” I cry as the pain turns pinpoint.

  Otto’s muttering something into his phone. I barely realized he made a call. Again I’m seasick with this regret, deep in my gut, as though I betrayed Packard. Why should I have allegiance to Avery’s killer? Am I going crazy?

  “You should’ve told me earlier,” Otto says. “We’ll never find him now.”

  “I called out to Max,” I protest. “Excuse me if I got blindsided by pain! It’s gone pinpoint!”

  “Pinpoint? You’re sure?”

  “Of course!”

  “Just breathe. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “It’s the tension that’s worsening it.”

  “There’s nothing for you to worry about.” But I can tell he’s worried.

  He says the calming things we usually say to each other. I latch onto his voice, rich and deep, like a song.

  I look up. “Too bad we don’t have our own CT scanner,” I say. We often say this.

  He nods, and I have this thought that maybe he’s installing one in the condo below. Maybe that’s the wedding surprise. It makes me feel strange.

  Sad.

  “Close your eyes.” He brushes his fingertips over my forehead. “Try to soften here.”

  I close my eyes, so grateful he’s come.

  “Soften. Breathe. Let me take care of you.”

  It feels good to put myself in his hands, because he understands. I make my thoughts simple. Just him. A feathery touch to the side of my forehead. The light changes as he leans his face nearer, touches his lips to mine.

  I open my eyes. Is it better? I don’t know, but I feel less alone in my misery now that he’s here.

  He smiles. Sooty curls frame his face. “It’s better. I can tell.”

  “You can’t tell.”

  “Yes I can. And the fact that it’s even a little better proves it’s a tension phenomenon unrelated to internal physicality, therefore benign.”

  I smile wanly. We always try to sound like we know what we’re talking about. “That was pretty good.”

  He strokes my forehead. “I’ll keep you safe,” he says. “You’re not alone.”

  Chapter Five

  I wander out of our bedroom the following evening, all set for my bridesmaids to arrive for our grand dinner. Miss Erma Saunders, the woman who married the mayor of Midcity back in 1943, held a bridesmaids’ dinner instead of a bachelorette party too. And with the ten o’clock curfew, it’s not as if my friends and I can go out dancing. Our party will break up well after ten, but Otto has arranged for police officers to drive my guests home.

  My dress is a red-and-black satin affair with red-jewel sparkles, and my shoes are black satin with black sparkles. I think I look good, but I feel completely off balance. One moment I feel angry at myself for not sending Max straight after Packard—doesn’t Avery deserve justice?—and the next, I feel like a cretin for turning Packard in at all, half-assed as it was.

  I head down another hall and spy Otto in the kitchen with Kenzakuro, his new personal chef. Kenzo has a shaved head—he looks like a Sumo wrestler, and probably was one once too, considering that everyone working around here seems to have extreme pugilistic abilities. Kenzo also runs a gay-themed cooking show on a cable access channel that he thinks nobody ever watches.

  Otto gives me a rosy-cheeked smile from behind the steamer. One of the things I love about Otto is that I never doubt how he feels about me. With all the men I’ve ever dated, I was always the one who loved the most, fretted the most, and got dumped. But not Otto. We fit like that.

  With a flourish, he puts a pinch of spice into the large pot on the stove.

  Kenzo glances up from his chopping. “You look good enough to eat.”

  “Don’t tell that to Stu’s sleepwalkers,” I say.

  Otto casts a dark look into the pot.

  Kenzakuro’s cheeks fatten with a smile as he tips the cutting board piled with peppers into a silver bowl.

  The stony set to Otto’s face tells me he’s struggling to hold his prisoners in today. We often worry that the way he’s using his force fields to hold Midcity’s worst criminals in secret locations around town might be weakening his head’s vascular structure…and making him more vulnerable to vein star. Their will to be free creates an awful pressure on his brain.

  But what’s the alternative? Letting them all loose would endanger the city even more.

  Otto sniffs the steam and adds another pinch of spice. “Does it seem unusually dark in here?” he asks.

  Kenzo shakes his head.

  Uh oh. We recently watched a sad Bette Davis movie where her vision went dark right before she died of some horrible head problem. It gave us both the dangerous idea that vision issues precipitate cranial issues.

  I flip on a lamp. “Does this help?”

  Otto squints, seemingly unsure. He’s definitely feeling his prisoners.

  Kenzo and I exchange glances; Kenzo knows too. He heads around to my side of the room and pulls a bottle fr
om the refrigerator. “Champagne?”

  I nod, grateful for this distraction.

  “Georges Fancher ’73,” Kenzo says, filling the glasses. The champagne sparkles as if it has its very own light source. He hands me a glass and goes around to give Otto his. “To both you nuts.”

  I sip. “So, so wonderful.”

  Otto puts the glass to his generous lips and, gazing at me from under thick dark lashes, he takes a sip. Probably his last sip, because the alcohol will dilate his blood vessels—very bad for vein star.

  “Thank you. Both of you. For all this,” I say. “For helping to make my dinner perfect.” I go over and put my hand on Otto’s arm, remembering what it was like to zing all my fear into him, and the sense of peace afterwards. I wish Otto could feel that glorious relief right now. Not that Otto could ever zing; he doesn’t generate the volume of fear I do. But I wish I could give him the feeling of it as a gift.

  Chimes. Someone’s coming up in the elevator.

  Otto raises his dusky brows.

  I smile and take off down the hall and to the foyer, startled for a split second at the red roses bursting from the vase on the marble table. So many! A surprise from Otto. I breathe in their scent and flip on the monitor that shows who’s in the elevator.

  Norman’s in there, as usual, along with my best friend, Shelby.

  Shelby’s disillusionist specialty is a grim outlook on life—she thinks there’s no such thing as happiness, and she’s really good at convincing people of that.

  We find each other’s specialties amusing; our dark natures click, like disillusionist puzzle pieces. What’s more, we read the same books, and we love eating and shopping together, and she’s a hoot at movies, especially if you trick her into going to a life-affirming one.

  I wait, hoping she’s still okay with all this. I’d told Otto that having our wedding just two months after Avery’s death was too soon, but it was Shelby who talked me into it—literally out in the car after Avery’s funeral. It shocked the stuffing out of me.

  “You must grab happiness while you can,” she’d said.

  “You don’t even believe in happiness,” I’d reminded her.

  She’d gazed over at the funeral home. “Of course, I do not. Is all doomed. But for a little while we can pretend it is not so.” And then she’d turned to me, there on that gray January day, and she’d said, “What is wrong with feeling safe and good?”

  My line.

  My line when she’d criticized my engagement to Otto just a week before that. She’d accused me of wanting to marry him out of fear, as a reaction to the shooting. And I’d said, What’s wrong with feeling safe and good?

  I watch the numbers above the elevator door flash, one after another, thinking about that bizarre conversation. It was as if we’d switched places, philosophically.

  “Will be Camelot wedding,” she’d told me.

  Camelot wedding. This from the woman who says all celebrations are useless and empty. She’d insisted on being my maid of honor. She’d pressed me until I’d consented.

  I’m startled out of my memory by the ding and the doors, and Shelby steps out, lush and lovely in her luxurious black curls and black outfit.

  “Hello, Justine,” she says in her usual monotone.

  “Hi, honey.” I go to her and squeeze her hands. She’s not a big hugger. She’s barely a toucher these days.

  I take her black coat, missing the garish, clashing colors she used to wear. “How are you? What did you do today?”

  She sighs. “Mooned around apartment.”

  “Ah. Mooning. But no starring? No sunning?”

  She doesn’t think that’s funny. We go into the living room and sit close to the fire. I serve us a glass of champagne from a bucket and tell her about getting back my car. She doesn’t seem surprised or unhappy about Simon being a bridesmaid, and even weirder, she isn’t angry about Packard’s visit or my failure to turn him in quickly.

  Instead, she’s philosophical. “Why would he do this, Justine?” she asks. “Why should he take such a risk? To see you?” She asks this pointedly, as though she really wants me to come up with an answer. She waits, lips parted, revealing her chipped front tooth, which makes her look like a beautiful thug.

  I snort. “Who knows? Otto always says you can only understand Packard’s motivations in hindsight.”

  She frowns, disappointed with my answer. “Killer of Avery will pay and pay and pay,” she hisses; then she stands and strolls across the bright oriental rugs to the far wall, touches a large oil painting Otto recently acquired. Otto tends toward magical realism in his art tastes. Forests and winged beasts.

  My heart breaks to look at her there, so fiercely isolated. During the short weeks they were together, she and Avery had become a unit in every way, and instead of softening her grim view the world, Avery brought his own fiery brand of it to her, and they challenged and enlivened each other.

  And she’d loved him.

  Shelby speaks without facing me. “Did you check it? Check car?”

  “What do you mean, check it?”

  “If anything is gone? Anything unusual?”

  “I’m not messing with the trunk or glove compartment until it gets dusted for fingerprints. Except, one weird thing—Gumby was different.”

  She turns. “How?”

  “In a happy position. I guarantee you, I didn’t leave him like that.”

  “Really!” She comes and sits back down with me, her gaze boring into mine. “What do you imagine might explain that?”

  “Either the tow truck driver changed Gumby, or a certain somebody’s trying to make me think I’m crazy…” I raise my eyebrows. Meaning Packard.

  She sits there looking intense.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Must be another explanation,” she says.

  “Like what?”

  She wrings her hands. “You always see your way to truth, Justine. You will figure it out.”

  “It seems like you have an idea.”

  She stays silent.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  Something’s up with her. “Have you zinged lately?”

  She meets my eyes. “I zinged Midcity Mavens fan on street yesterday. Hooting at night. Waking up neighborhood.”

  “Oh, Shelby.” Now that we disillusionists aren’t assigned to criminals, it’s a zinging free-for-all. Except for me, since I’m trying to walk the high road.

  “Was good for him. He had too much drunken joy.” She crosses her arms. “One zing. Does not hurt anybody. Justine, you should pick person with too little fear and give them yours. You could try Simon.”

  “I want to get over my fear the right way. By overcoming it. I want to earn it.”

  “Shelby!” Otto strolls in with a tray of cheese and crackers. “Welcome!”

  Shelby stands, startled, then seems to gather herself. She hasn’t seen much of Otto in the two months since the funeral.

  “How lovely you look,” Otto says.

  “Thank you,” Shelby says brightly. Her tone stops me; she never speaks brightly. She sits back down on the couch. “What are citizens of Midcity to think,” she says, “to see you act as waiter?”

  Otto hands us each a napkin. He’s donned a dapper suit with a midnight blue shirt; he’s one of those men who look perfectly at home in finery. “Maybe they would think I’m in love with your friend.”

  “Perhaps so.” Again brightly. Shelby takes a cracker and dips it into a soft cheese as we both look on. Surely Otto’s picking up on her weirdness.

  Her attention drifts back to the magical beast painting. “Is lovely,” she waves her hand toward it. “In the style of Dutch Masters. Yet subject is quite unexpected.”

  We discuss the painting a bit, then he returns to the kitchen.

  “What’s up?” I ask once he’s gone.

  “What?”

  “The cheery act.”

  “You do not want me to be cheery for your dinner?”


  “I want you to be normal for my dinner.”

  “Pfft.” Again she stands. “Perhaps you should put up your Japanese prints here.”

  “I can’t redecorate.”

  “Is half yours soon,” she says.

  “I’m holding off until I know what I’m working with.” She knows my suspicions about the floor below being turned into more space for us.

  “Have you seen yet? Downstairs?”

  “Of course not. Why would I want to spoil Otto’s surprise?”

  “They continue to work down there?”

  I nod.

  She lowers her head conspiratorially. “Like what?”

  “Remodeling sounds.” I’d told her all this before. Why is she so interested? “Hammering. Drilling.”

  “How many workers?”

  “I’m on the floor above; how would I see them? What’s up with you?”

  “I am curious. Tell me, if he makes new wing below, how do you get from here to there?” She looks around. “Are they joined?”

  “Right now, it’s just the elevator, but I’d think they’d blast through.”

  “Or perhaps the fire escape.”

  “Use the fire escape to go between floors of our own home?” I laugh. “I hope not.”

  “Do they work nights and weekends?” she asks, then adds, “In preparation for wedding?”

  “God, Shelby, stop it.” I sit back. “I want it to be a surprise. I want it to be…” I want it to be lots of things. I want it to blot out the confusion inside me. The sense of being empty. Of Packard with snowflakes melting in his hair. I feel like crying, suddenly, and I close my eyes. “I need to turn off my brain for a few days.”

  “Do not,” she whispers. “You must not.”

  “I was kidding.” I sip my champagne. “So guess what? My pop says he might come.”

  Her mouth falls open. “No!”

  “Yes.” I smile. Dad hasn’t gone anywhere for decades. “You’ll recognize him by his biohazard suit and level-four respirator.”

  “He would not.”

  “Oh, he would,” I say. “He’s an airborne pathogens guy of the first degree. I don’t know how I feel about him giving me away in all that gear, but I’ll be grateful if he even comes.” I inspect my manicure. “I think he won’t, though. Fear is a powerful thing.”