For The Least Of These (9 page)

My adoring look must have swiftly changed to a puzzled one, and he quickly said, “Alicia. She’s been telling me that you are a fan of mine. Correction: my number one fan.”

I was embarrassed. I knew that I must look like a complete idiot with all the red paint in my hair and on my dress, and now Alicia had already been babbling God only knew what to Rick. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

Rick seemed almost as puzzled as I had been a few moments earlier. He let go of my hand and introduced me to the rest of the band. Dylan, Skylar’s brother, looked remarkably like Skylar. Both of them were tall and muscular
– although Dylan was taller, and both of them had blond hair and beards. Dylan’s eyes were a darker blue than Skylar’s, and he looked a lot older than Skylar. Bass player Kenny Dressler was even taller than Dylan. He had long, wavy flaxen hair that went down to the middle of his back. Even in the darkness, he wore sunshades that hid his eyes from me. Otherwise, he was clean shaven and not bad looking. Jared Peterson was the keyboard player and the newest member of the band. He wore his black hair in a Mohawk and the rest of his head was covered in tattoos – as were his arms. He wore a short goatee on his chin but was otherwise clean shaven. His eyes were golden brown and unblinking. He wasn’t ugly, but his looks did scare me a little. Rick then said, “Why don’t we all go back to the hotel. We can have a few drinks in the bar.”

Kenny and Jared began walking towards a silver Chevy Cavalier. Skylar, Dylan, and Alicia were getting into the truck. Alicia was in the backseat while Skylar drove and Dylan took the passenger seat. No one offered to move so I could get in the back with Alicia. I looked at them helplessly and wondered where they expected me to sit.

I was about to ask just that when I felt a hand on my burning shoulder. I turned around and it was Rick. Normally, his touch would have thrilled me and probably been the most wonderful feeling in the world. But now it only served to amplify my pain. I even cringed slightly, but Rick didn’t seem to notice. “Why don’t you ride with Adam and me? We’ve got plenty of room.”

Again, I allowed myself to forget my pain. “That would be great,” I answered.

Rick led me to the dark car I’d hidden beside earlier – a silver gray Lexus. The seats were black leather. Adam was already in the driver’s seat, and Rick helped me into the shotgun position. Rick sat directly behind me.

I was beginning to suspect that Adam had expensive tastes. The car was very luxurious. The outside of the car
– including fog lights, tinted windows, and a sun roof – was fancy, but nothing compared to the interior. The first thing I noticed was the navigational system in the center of the dashboard. The stereo system was custom installed. It was made by Bose and it included a six disc CD player, satellite radio, a cassette player, and multiple speakers. A small digital screen displayed the current outside temperature. Adam started the engine, and we were cruising at sixty in just seconds.

Adam glanced over at me. “You really should put something on that sunburn, Brandy. It looks really unpleasant and painful.”

“It’s not a sunburn,” I said. “I don’t really know what it is. It just sort of happened right before I met you.”

“That’s Adam for you. Giving girls the hives before he even talks to them.” Rick said with a laugh, but Adam just ignored him.

My seatbelt began pulling tightly across my chest. The pressure it put on my tender shoulder was unbearable. I pulled at it until the tension loosened a bit. Although not as intense, the pain was still there, and now I was beginning to feel it in my back. I couldn’t imagine what could be causing this problem. I hadn’t been in the sun all day.

“So how did you get red paint only in your hair and on your dress?” Rick asked.

“It’s sort of a long story. Suffice it to say that a punctured paint can and I had a fight – and I lost.”

“But why is the paint only in your hair and on your dress? There’s none on your skin,” Rick pressed.

“Well, I did have some on my face, arms, and back, but I used some solution to clean it and…” Awareness crept into my brain. I was having a reaction to the carb cleaner.

Adam looked away from the road towards me. “Just what kind of solution did you use?” he asked.

I didn’t want to tell him. I knew how stupid I would look. I had even suspected that the cleaner would be dangerous to my skin, and I had used it anyway. But I couldn’t lie. I needed to get the chemicals off my skin, and if I lied, I wouldn’t be able to do it soon enough. Hopefully, I hadn’t already waited too long. “It was carb cleaner,” I replied in a small, self-effacing voice.

“What?” Rick laughed out loud from the backseat. “You put carb cleaner on yourself? Why in the world would you do that?” He was having quite a laugh at my expense, but I had to admit that it was sort of funny
– or at least stupid.

“You need to wash that stuff off of you,” Adam said. I noticed that he wasn’t laughing. My esteem for him grew in that moment. “I think you need to go to a doctor. Those chemicals could be dangerous. I’m going to take you to the Emergency Room of the nearest hospital.”

“Wait a minute,” Rick said. “Are you sure this is that serious? We don’t want to overreact.”

“All I know is that she put some chemicals on her body a while ago, and now she’s as red as a lobster. And from the look on her face, she’s in pain, too. I’m not going to take a chance.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell them that it wasn’t serious at all. I wanted to tell them that it didn’t hurt. But it did, and it was getting worse all of the time. My butt and my legs above my knees were now starting to burn, and I was beginning to realize that I had probably absorbed the chemicals from the vinyl seat in the truck. I needed relief, and a hospital didn’t sound so bad at that instant.

I have no idea how far or in what direction we traveled. The lull of the car rocked me into a fitful sleep where I dreamed that Rick was at my bedside in the hospital. He wouldn’t look at me and I was crying for him. Then I saw myself lying in the bed and all of my skin had turned into black, ugly scabs that were seeping pus. I was loathsome, and Rick refused to turn towards me. Then he walked out of the room, and Adam came in. His eyes were filled with pity, but he didn’t turn away from me. Instead, he reached down and held me in his arms…

I suddenly realized that I was no longer dreaming. Adam did have his arms around my neck and he was trying to get me out of the car. In my sleep, I hadn’t been cooperating with him, and my deadweight was even greater than my normal excessive poundage. Adam didn’t seem to be bothered. He had plans to carry me inside if necessary, but I brought myself to full wakefulness and prevented him a future of slipped discs and painful backaches. Using his arm just to steady me, I got out of the car under my own strength.

“Man, you are as red as a lobster,” I heard Rick remark.

Adam helped me across the parking lot, and Rick followed close behind. Normally, I would have been humiliated to have Rick, Adam, or most anyone else see me this way, but my skin felt like it was on fire and that was all I could think about at the moment.

Most emergency rooms I’d been to in the past were filled with patients and the wait to get into a room was lengthy, so I was surprised to find that there was no one ahead of us when we entered the waiting room. The woman at the registration desk
– tall and thin with graying black hair and half glasses that sat on the end of her beak-like nose – took my name and asked me for my insurance card. That was when I realized that I’d left my wallet in Alicia’s purse. I explained that I didn’t have it with me. The woman told me that I would have to pay a fee in advance, so I also had to tell her that I didn’t have any money or credit cards with me. She was on the verge of turning me away when Adam walked up and handed her a credit card. She seemed satisfied, and she told the nurse at the next desk that she could take my vital signs. The nurse was a plump woman with red hair of such a brilliant color that it could have only been formulated in a salon. She motioned for me to come to her.

Before I moved, I turned to Adam and said, “You really shouldn’t do this. But thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” he assured me.

I turned to look at Rick, but he had vanished. “Rick stepped outside,” Adam said. “I’m sure he’ll be right back.”

After the nurse had listened to my symptoms and taken my temperature and blood pressure, she took me to a treatment room. Rick hadn’t returned, so Adam followed me. The nurse didn’t stop him. Apparently since he was paying my bill, he was free to go with me. While I changed into one of those too small hospital gowns, Adam waited outside the room. Before I let him come in, I got into the hospital bed and covered up with a sheet. He came in and sat down close by my side. I couldn’t explain it, but I liked this very much. I had all but forgotten Rick, and I didn’t even wonder where he was.

After the nurse left, Adam said, “I’m glad you let me bring you here. I knew you were red, but I didn’t realize it was this bad when we were in the car. You’ve also got some welts on your back
– I saw them earlier.”

“I knew better than to put that stuff on me, but I let my vanity convince me that it would be okay. I didn’t want Rick to see me painted red.”

“You probably should have just gone home and washed it off in the shower. Then you could have met Rick.”

“I wanted to, but Skylar said there wasn’t time. It probably wouldn’t be this bad if I hadn’t sat on that truck seat
. It was saturated with those chemicals. I hope Dylan doesn’t have the same thing happen to him. He was sitting there for the ride home.”

“So, what do you do when you aren’t fighting with paint cans?”

“Nothing as exciting as what you and Rick do.”

“You’d be surprised. It’s not that exciting. It’s kind of boring at this point. Maybe not for Rick, but definitely for me.”

“Well, not as boring as my job. I spend most of the day on the phone with grocery stores. I set up promotions in their stores, sell them decorations and signs, and confirm their weekly ads. Once in a while, I get to do the paste up for the weekly flyer. That’s the highlight of my job…”

“That doesn’t sound so bad…”

“I really want to be the one that creates the ad. That job belongs to my boss. He’s not very good at it. The ads look almost the same every week. But he still does it. He doesn’t want to hire anyone else to do my job, so I’m kind of stuck. But enough about my uninteresting life. Tell me about traveling with Rick and his band.”

“What’s to tell? We go from one concert to the next with little time for anything else. We eat out all the time, I see very little of my family, and I’ve never had time to fall in love or have children. It may sound exciting, but I’d rather have a life like yours.”

I thought about what Adam said. I supposed that traveling all the time could get tiring, but it had to be different for Rick. He was up on the stage with all those people cheering for him. Everyone loved him. How could that ever be boring?

“I guess you’ll be glad when this tour is over and Rick retires. Then you can do all the things you never had time for.”

“Ha. Yeah, when Rick retires. That’ll be the day, alright.”

“Sounds like you don’t believe he’s really going to do it.”

“We’ll see.”

The doctor walked into the room. This was the fastest service I’d ever had in an emergency room. He was a rotund old man with a receding gray hairline. He wore round glasses, a thick bushy mustache, and too much cologne. “Now, what seems to be your problem, Miss Moretti?”

“I’m red and burning. I have carburetor cleaner on my body, and I think I’m having a reaction to it.”

“I think so, too.” He had me turn over so he could look at my backside. Fortunately, Adam moved to the opposite side of the room. He couldn’t see my naked butt, but I could look into his concerned eyes.

The doctor had me turn back over. He asked me a few questions about how I felt and then he said, “The first thing you need to do is get into a cold shower for about fifteen minutes and wash. This will remove any residual chemicals that haven’t soaked into your skin yet. While you are doing that, I’d have your friend run to your house and get you some clean clothes. I’m also going to give you a prescription for some corticosteroid cream. The cream will sooth the burning, but use it only as I direct and stop using it once the burning and redness dissipate. Since you aren’t exhibiting any signs of nausea or any reactions that might indicate nerve damage, I don’t think you absorbed enough of the chemical to cause poisoning. You do realize, however, that you are lucky. Overexposure to hydrocarbon can be very harmful – it can even cause death. I don’t know what possessed you to put it on your body, but I wouldn’t advise doing it again. Right now all you seem to have is contact dermatitis, but a fairly severe case. Just remember that it could have been much worse.”

I was embarrassed to have the doctor admonish me in front of Adam, but it was also evident to me how extremely stupid I had been. Adam asked me if Alicia had a cell phone so he could call her. I told him that neither of us had one, so he said that he would call Dylan and see if one of the guys would bring me some clean clothes. He then left the room so I could move into the shower without losing my dignity
– if I had any left.

While I stood in the cold shower, the burning eased a bit. I also scrubbed my hair in the hopes that I would be rid of the red paint and all reminders of the foolish mistake I’d made.