Asking for Trouble (8 page)

“I think you’re a beautiful, intelligent woman,” he murmured against her lips, “with glass in your hair and a broken shoulder. I also think that you and I need to talk more about this later.” He glanced through the front window as they approached the hospital’s emergency room. “But right now, we need to figure out what we’re going to do about getting you fixed up. What about a clinic?”

“In my head, they’re the same as a hospital.”

“Then we don’t have a choice. You’re going to have to trust me,” he said, as the car stopped outside a large set of automatic doors.

“Oh, Tom. I don’t know,” she said, her trepidation clear. Tom got out of the car and bent to help her out. She couldn’t move. Her gaze was glued to the big glass doors.

“Sydney, honey, trust me. I’ll be with you the whole time, and I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Ill talk you through everything.” He studied her fearful expression and waited for his words to settle into her mind. “Trust me to take care of you, can you do that? Can you trust me?”

She looked at him then, appearing vague and disoriented, as if trust were a new concept for her. The portico light delineated his features. They were strong and confident. Tall and sturdy, built to withstand the forces of the world around him, he appeared to be a man she could rely on. She knew he was a man she could depend on to cope and function when she could not. But was he a man she could trust with her heart, her dignity, and her pride?

“You do trust me, don’t you?” he asked, a troubled note in his inflection when she took too long in answering.

“Yes.” She didn’t sound as sure as she felt. She did trust him, but she didn’t know if he had a real idea of what he was getting himself into. “But what if I ... do something embarrassing? What if my nose starts to bleed or I pass out or I start to scream? What if I punch someone or start tearing my hair out and—”

“You’re not going to do any of those things. I promise. Come on, get out.” He took her right hand, and when she was safely out of the vehicle, he thanked the police officer and then turned her toward the hospital entrance.

“Hold on to my hand as tightly as you want to,” he said, walking slowly toward the doors. “Don’t hear anything but my voice. Don’t think about anything except what I’m telling you.” The doors opened like a sideways set of jaws. “Does your arm hurt?”

“My arm?” There were people on the other side of the door. Not nurses or doctors, she judged, since they were wearing street clothes and seated in small groups, impatiently waiting. “What’s the matter with these people?” she whispered, turning her back on them to face the exit.

Tom caught her and bent his knees to look into her face.

“These people are just like you. They’re hurt or sick and they’re here to get help. They’re waiting to see a doctor. It’s the same as going to the doctor’s office. You sit and wait your turn. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

She lowered her eyes and hung her head. “A long time ago,” she murmured, recalling the past with terror and mortification. “But my mother used to call ahead to warn them. We didn’t have to wait and I ... I didn’t behave very well.”

“How long ago was that?”

She shrugged.

“Sweetheart, you need help.” She looked up quickly to see if he was being condescending, but saw only his concern. “You need checkups,” he said. “What do you do when you’re sick?”

Again she shrugged and looked away. She knew most people saw a doctor on a regular basis and for every little sniffle they contracted. It was the American way. She felt like a traitor. “I wait for it to go away.”

He was ready to argue the point, but he didn’t. “Okay. We can talk about this later too,” he said. “The first thing we do is go over to that desk there and tell them we want to see a doctor. Do you have insurance?”

“Yes.”

“They must love you. Come on.” He led her over to an enclosed reception area, more dragging than leading actually, and while she stood silently by, he did all the talking.

“Do you have an insurance card?” he asked. “Or has it turned to dust from neglect?”

“Is this the smell you were talking about? Does it always smell like this?”

He nodded. “Pretty much. You all right?”

No. She wasn’t all right. He sounded as if he were talking from the inside of a fishbowl. Her heart was racing, and she felt a little light-headed. And the people who moved in slow motion around her were staring rudely at her—as if she were a freak in a sideshow. None of them appeared about to die, but perhaps this was why they were staring at her. Maybe they could see that she was dying. Maybe they all knew. Maybe they could feel it too.

She looked at Tom and nodded. “I’m fine,” she said bravely, refusing to make a scene. Tom was going to have enough to deal with when she slipped silently into oblivion—or to whatever existed or didn’t exist beyond life. In her mind she heard him explaining her death.

“She was kicking and screaming and clawing at her face one minute and dead the next I’ve never seen anything like it. Sydney was one weird chick, if you ask me.
”

“Sure? You’re pale. Do you want to sit down?”

“Are you going to sit down?” she asked, gripping his hand as she would a lifeline.

“In a second,” he said. He took up the purse that dangled from her shoulder, pulled out the brown leather wallet, and picked through it with one hand until he found her insurance card, which he gave to the receptionist. “We’re going to have a bunch of questions to answer here. Are you up to it?”

“Sure.”

He took a clipboard with a few sheets of paper attached from the receptionist and led Sydney by the hand to sit in a secluded corner of the room.

“T
HIS IS GOING TO
be great,” Tom said, smiling his enthusiasm as he settled into the chair beside her in the waiting room.

The people around them were solemnly quiet, adding fuel to Sydney’s disquiet. If a hospital was a place of healing and miracles, why wasn’t anyone smiling? she wondered. Except Tom, of course. But even his smile was marred by the anxious concern in his eyes.

“Now I’ll know you inside out,” he said. “I should have started bringing my dates here years ago.” He paused. “Not funny, huh? Well, you’ll get a charge out of these questions—one way or another. Is Sydney Wiesman your full name?”

“Isadora.”

“Sydney Isadora Wiesman is your full name?” She nodded, hardly noticing the humor in his voice as she eyed the people seated in front of them, waiting for one or more of them to fall over dead. “No doubt about it now,” she heard him saying. “We have to go out again. I want you to tell me all about your mother.”

“Why?”

He looked down at the clipboard and the name he’d written on it and shook his head. “Forget it. How old are you? And don’t lie.”

The board on his lap, he was writing with one hand—while the fingers of the other one turned white under the pressure of her grip. He continued to ask numerous questions, some of which were quite embarrassing, considering she hadn’t known him eight hours.

Tom didn’t act as if he had the slightest compunction in asking personal questions such as whether or not she had regular bowel movements or when her last menses had occurred and what she used for birth control. As a matter of fact, he appeared to be having a rather good time of it—or so it seemed from the comments he made.

And if the truth were known, there were several occasions she wanted to laugh with him but couldn’t. It was like listening to a comedian while on her way to the gallows. No matter how funny or clever the jokes, she couldn’t laugh.

His efforts weren’t in vain, however. He was trying so very hard to keep her distracted and her spirits up, and for that alone she was grateful and etched his name in her heart for all time.

They were halfway through a long, gruesome list of gastric anomalies—many of which she was sure she was developing as they spoke—when the big doors opened wide again to admit a young woman with a baby in her arms.

Sydney didn’t see each of them individually, she saw one complete picture—distraught mother holding a quiet, listless child. She was struck by the stillness of the infant.

“Oh, no,” she said with a gasp, thinking the worst. “Not a baby.”

She loved children. They were always so active and busy. They had such zest for life, they were the last ones she’d ever associated with death. Somehow a child’s death was worse than the thought of her own demise.

“What?” Tom asked, looking up to see the horror in her face and swiftly following her stare to the young mother and child. He was quick to catch on. “Hang on now, Sydney. We don’t have all the facts yet. Babies get sick, too, but it doesn’t mean they die. It’s late at night, and their pediatrician’s office is closed. It could be something as simple as a bad cough.”

“Why doesn’t it move?”

“It is moving. Look. It’s sucking its thumb and looking around. It’s late,” he repeated. “It’s probably sleepy.”

Upon closer examination she found his words to be true. The baby wasn’t dead yet, but its skin was unusually red and it had a glazed expression in its eyes. She continued to watch the child closely and answered the rest of Tom’s questionnaire in monosyllables.

He finished just as the mother turned away from the receptionist and started searching for a place to sit.

“I’m going to take these back to the desk now. You stay put,” he said, scanning her face for signs of mental distress.

“Tom. Thank you. You’re being very kind about all this,” she said, self-conscious, wanting him to know how she felt in case there wouldn’t be another chance to tell him. “You’re a very patient man.”

“Not always, but I’m glad you think so.” He smiled at her.

She was amazed for a second or two that she hadn’t noticed how long his dark lashes were. And his eyes were so blue. She wondered if he’d noticed that people were being called away, disappearing behind a set of metal doors and not coming back.

“Will you be okay here for a minute?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said automatically, not knowing if she would be or not, as she watched the woman with the child seat herself two chairs away.

The woman literally had her hands full. With the baby in her arms, a diaper bag, her purse, and the clipboard, she seemed uncertain as to which to set down first.

“Is your baby terribly ill?”

The woman glanced up in surprise at Sydney’s question.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” Sydney said, fixing her stare on her hands as they tied knots in the tail of Tom’s shirt.

“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind,” the young woman said cordially. “To tell you the truth, he probably isn’t ill at all. I panic too easily.”

“You do?” Sydney was impressed. It was a comfort to know that she wasn’t the only person losing her mind.

“Sure. The last time I brought him here in the middle of the night with a fever, he was teething. Boy, did I feel stupid. I’d even given him some Tylenol at home, and by the time we got here, it’d kicked in and his fever was gone. I’m sure they all thought I was crazy, but I don’t care. I have two other children, but I only have one Andrew. Isn’t that right, pal?” she asked the baby, tapping his nose with the tip of her finger, making him smile at her around his thumb. “And I was just as crazy with the other two, wasn’t I? Yes, I was.”

“He’s awfully red,” she said, sounding concerned enough that the woman didn’t take offense.

“It’s the fever. I gave him medicine at home, but it doesn’t look as if he’s going to make a liar out of me this time. Feel how hot he is.”

Sydney glanced from mother to child and back again, startled by the invitation. Still, she couldn’t think of a reason not to touch the child, so she stood up and walked closer to them. Tentatively, she pressed the back of her hand to the baby’s overly rosy cheek. He was the hottest human she’d ever touched. She’d had sunburns that were cooler than Andrew. The phenomenon was quite disconcerting.

“He’s so hot,” she murmured.

“Scary, huh?” the woman said, although she wasn’t giving the proper impression of a frightened mother as she set her purse and diaper bag on the seat beside her. Frankly, Sydney thought her a master of understatement. The heat emanating from Andrew was more than scary.

She watched the woman fumble with the clipboard and the baby, trying to find a free hand. “I could fill that out for you, if ... if you tell me what to write,” Sydney said.

They were both astonished by her offer. She had no idea why she’d tendered her services, except maybe for Andrew. If Tom was right, and she was trusting with all her might and every frazzled nerve in her body that he was, people often got well in hospitals and were released. At that moment, she wanted more than anything else to see that happen for Andrew.

His mother handed the board and pencil to Sydney and settled back to cuddle him in her arms. She viewed Sydney with a kind but speculative eye, and when she’d answered all the questions, she nodded at Tom and asked, “Is that your, ah, friend? You’re not wearing a ring, so I assume you’re not married.”

She looked over her shoulder at Tom and gave the question some thought. She smiled at him and watched his expression light up as he repaid her the favor.

“Yes. He’s my friend.”

“I thought so. You two look as if you were in the same wreck. Are you in a lot of pain?” She lowered her eyes to Sydney’s left arm, held protectively close to her chest.

“Less than when it first happened,” she said, wondering exactly how much like an accident victim she looked. She hadn’t thought about her appearance in hours and could only dimly recall the pleasure she’d known earlier at being dressed to perfection for her big game-show date. “I guess I’m lucky that Andrew hasn’t screamed at me. I must look a fright.”

She felt even luckier that Tom hadn’t screamed yet.

When he stood and took the clipboard from her hand and walked it to the reception desk for them, the woman quickly leaned over Andrew and whispered, “He’s been watching you ... with
that
expression in his eyes. And he’s
sooo
cute. You’d better nail him down before he gets away.”