Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (13 page)

“Penelope, if you really need me to do
this, I’ll do what I can, but I can’t promise next time’s going to be any
better than this time,” I tell her.

“I really need you to do this,” she says.
“Jamie never got to see the two of you make up or even have a pleasant
conversation. I think it’s something he’d be excited to tell her about, though,
when he…”

As far as low blows go, that one was
pretty far below the beltline, but I am a man of my word. I’m willing to put
myself through a little hell for a few days or maybe a few weeks to take some
of the stress off of Penelope, but I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid.

For what he’s said to me since Jamie’s
death, Ed Morgan is the worst person I have ever met in my life. I get that he
was pissed off and scared and gutted, but that didn’t give him the right to
tell me that I’m the reason she’s dead.

The asshole future-father-in-law thing was
irritating, but it was endurable. Attacking me after I’d just suffered the
greatest injury I’m likely to suffer, though, and never letting up, never
apologizing or even acknowledging that maybe he’d gone too far, even one
time—that’s what’s unforgivable.

“I told you,” I say, “if it’s that
important to you, I’ll come back, but I can’t promise anything.”

“I understand,” she says. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I tell her and pull her into
my arms. “You’re nothing but trouble for me, you know that?” I ask.

“I know,” she says. “It’s what moms do.”

“All right,” I tell her. “I’ve got to get
to work, but give me a call if you need anything, okay?”

“I will,” she says, and we part ways.

It astounds me that a woman like Penelope,
so sweet and nurturing, one of those people that just treats you like you’re
someone special, even if you’re only meeting for the first time, could be
married to a hateful, resentful man like Ed. That’s the way it usually goes,
though.

Still, I had hoped that maybe things would
be different this time, but that’s what addicts call not playing the tape
through to the end.

I get off the elevator and am walking back
to my car when my phone rings again.

It’s too soon for another moaning call
from Rita.

I pull the phone out of my pocket and look
at the caller ID.

I answer the phone, “Hey, Danna. What’s
up?”

“Hey bro,” she says, “I kind of need your
help here a little bit.”

My blood turns cold.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

The last time she told me she needed help,
she was in the hospital for a week. The time before that was just before she
was diagnosed.

“I kind of lost my balance and I’m finding
it a little difficult to move, well, at all,” she says, trying to mask the fear
in her voice. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to dial a number when
your hands aren’t working?”

“I’ll be right there,” I tell her, “or do
you need me to call an ambulance?”

“Uh, the way my foot is starting to turn
colors, I think you should probably just call an ambulance and meet me at the
hospital,” she says.

“Hang in there,” I tell her. “You’re going
to be just fine, all right? We’re going to figure this thing out in no time.”

“You know,” she says, “for such a famous
actor, you’re not very good.”

“Oh shut the fuck up and let me call an
ambulance,” I tell her.

“That sounds more like you,” she says.
“You’re probably going to have to do the hanging up on this one. I had to press
the call button with my nose and you have no idea how many times I had to go
back and delete or re-enter numbers—it’s a pain in the ass.”

“Love
ya
, sis,”
I tell her. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

I hang up and call 9-1-1.

After quickly explaining the situation, I
tell the dispatcher that my sister will be waiting inside the house, but unable
to answer the door and that, because I’m not close enough to home to make a
difference, if they need to break down the door, they have my permission.

I really liked that door, too.

The dispatcher is kind enough to keep me
on the phone until paramedics arrive at the house and get Danna on a stretcher.
Before the dispatcher hangs up, I ask which hospital they’re taking Danna to,
hoping that I’ll luck out and not have to chase her down, but the nearest
hospital isn’t this one.

I get in my car and fumble with the keys
for a minute before I manage to work the right one into the ignition.

This isn’t the first time Danna’s had an
episode. It’s not even the first time she’s had an episode since she’s been
staying with me.

They’re not fatal in most
circumstances—the exceptions generally being someone falling and hitting their
head on something—but they’re terrifying, not only for Danna, but for me.

This sounds like the worst one yet. She’s
been unable to get up before, but she’s never lost the ability to move all four
of her limbs at the same time.

I get to the hospital and find Danna as
she’s being wheeled through the emergency room. The doctor talks to me a little
as he and some nurses push her into a small room and transfer her from one
gurney to another.

“It looks like she’s got a broken leg,” he
says. “When she collapsed, she must have fallen onto something or over
something, because there is a definite fracture on the lower portion of her
tibia. She’s breathing all right, though she’s very fatigued. We need to run
some tests, but we’ll keep you posted. If you’ll just wait outside in the
waiting room…”

With that, one of the nurses grabs both of
my arms and physically turns me toward the door.

“You all right, Danna?” I call over the
doctor’s shoulder.

A weak voice amid all the movement and
commotion replies, saying, “I’m just faking it to get out of work, boss.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” I call back
to her and now, with that out of the way, I gladly walk out and find the
waiting room.

*
                   
*
                   
*

Having an episode is a traumatic thing for
Danna and, to a lesser degree (or at least a different one), for me as well.

As I sit here in Danna’s hospital room in
the chair next to her bed, I think about the odd ways in which people deal with
things. Some people get pissed off, some people get more determined, some
people crawl into a bottle and some people just shut down completely. Danna and
me, though? We’re dealing with this situation by going out of our way not to
even bring it up.

In the half hour it’s been since the
doctors let me in here to see her, we haven’t once talked about why we’re
having our conversation in a hospital room. She probably doesn’t have long
before the fatigue wipes her out for who-knows-how long. Why waste what time we
have by only talking about why we’re in the room.

“By the way,” Danna says, “you got a new
message from your secret admirer.”

“Did I?” I ask. “I like that you’re
calling her my secret admirer now. It sounds a lot better than crazy-stalker-
fuckhead
.”

“I’m sure she’s just lonely,” Danna says
dismissively. “Anyway, you remember the flowers in different stages of
development that she set out on the sidewalk last time, right?”

“Of course,” I answer.

“Yeah, so this time, she wrote you a love
note that stretches along the sidewalk all the way around our block,” Danna
says. “She used big letters, so I managed to get it written down. It should be
in my purse somewhere—did they grab my purse?” she asks. “Did you check?”

“It’s American healthcare,” I tell her.
“Do you really think they’d let you in here without taking a thorough look
through your pockets and purses for loose change?”

“You know,” she says, “if you’ve got my
purse or you know where it is, you can really just tell me. If not, I’m sure if
we flipped to the right news station, we’d get an aerial view of the whole
scene.”

“I really don’t care that much about what
the poem said,” I tell Danna and before I can continue, her head has jerked
toward me and she’s giving me a glare as if sensing that I’m about to ask her
about what happened today. “We’ve got to talk about it at some point,” I tell
her.

“We really don’t,” she says. “I fell and
broke my leg. I’m probably going to need to stay off my feet for a while and
get a lot of rest, but I’m going to be fine. I’m not dying or anything,” she
says. “How’d it go with Ed?”

I don’t want to talk about it and so I
don’t even respond to the question.

“Danna,” I tell her, “this is happening
more frequently now. I mean, is it just going to get worse from here? I think
maybe it’s time that we hire Paolo.”

The origins of Paolo are largely lost to
antiquity, but I do remember that the name first came up a few months after Danna
had been diagnosed.

I don’t remember the exact conversation,
but I remember that it culminated in me promising that, in the scenario that
Danna gets worse and I, for some reason, am in charge of the hiring and firing
of any temporary or permanent healthcare and/or rehabilitation staff, that I
would make sure her healthcare worker was a handsome man with a sensual accent.

I do remember that knowing English wasn’t
a job requirement so long as he was willing to give Danna sponge baths multiple
times a day until she got bored of him, at which time, I’d hire someone new to
replace him.

Where the name Paolo itself came from, I
haven’t the slightest recollection.

So when I tell Danna that it might be time
we hire a Paolo, I’m putting the words in a way that’s likely to be a little
easier to hear, but it’s not going to change the weight of what those words
really mean.

Danna’s still young and she’s still got a
lot of time ahead of her. If she keeps doing what she’s doing, though, she’s
going to run herself into the ground.

“We’ve got to do something,” I tell her.
“I wanted you to move in so we could keep a better eye on each other. I didn’t
do it so you’d overextend yourself day in and day out—”

“I’m sick,” she says, resigned. “It
happens.”

“I think we both need a little help here
to make sure that you’re not putting your health and wellbeing at risk,” I tell
her.

“You can’t take away my freedom, Damian,”
she says. “I won’t allow it and you’d never let it go on for any significant
amount of time anyway, so why bother wasting the time, money and effort.”

“I’m not trying to take away your
freedom,” I tell her. “I’m trying to look out for my sister, that’s all.”

Her eyes are growing heavy, but that
doesn’t really seem like the reason Danna’s telling me she’d like to be alone,
to have a chance to close her eyes and rest.

Even if it’s only temporary, we are going
to have to figure out some kind of help for Danna after she gets out of the
hospital, and I’m going to have to try to figure out a way to be there more.

I have to work, and even if I tried to
take another break, Danna wouldn’t allow it. She’s the one that got me to take
the role in
Flashing Lights
. I didn’t
even want to do the movie.

No matter what I do here, Danna’s not
going to like it. I’m sorry about that, but that’s out of my control. There
just aren’t enough options.

On the set today, they’re doing scenes
with some of the extended cast, so I’ve got the day off. I was hoping to get
some kind of repose after everything with Ed, but I’m never going to be able to
relax until Danna’s back home.

That tells me something I should have
known for a long time and that new knowledge has me pulling the phone from my
pocket and dialing the number.

“Hello?” Emma answers.

“Hey,
Em
,” I
say. “Listen, there’s something I think we should talk about and as much as I’d
like to do this in person, I’m not sure how practical that’s going to be right
now.”

“Well this doesn’t sound good,” she says.

“Danna’s not doing so well right now, and
that made me realize that I’m really not in a position right now where I’m
ready for a relationship,” I tell her.

“Well,” she says, “we’re just dating. If
you need some space or some time, that’s fine. I don’t think that we need to
call everything off completely, though. We’re still finding out where this goes.”

“I know,” I tell her, “and I’m really
sorry, but I do think that’s going to be the best thing for both of us right
now.”

“Well, I’m not going to sit here and argue
with you about it,” she says. “If you want us to stop seeing each other outside
of work, we’ll stop seeing each other outside of work. One thing, though.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Your voice is
really shaky.”

“I’m fine,” I tell her and even I notice
the quiver in my tone this time around. “Have I really been talking like that
this whole time?” I ask.