Mittman, Stephanie (36 page)

"And
this time, Charlotte, while you're at the courthouse, you be sure to change the
date Ash's trial is set to begin. Tell the clerk I've a conflict. Jack likes to
accommodate me whenever he can."

"He
likes the Chivas Regal he gets for accommodating you," Charlotte said,
looking for a place to put the potted plant.

"Would
you like me to take that for you?" Ash offered, reaching out and letting
his fingers touch hers. He took the plant and placed it on his lap, finding it
ridiculously stimulating to think that it had just rested on her own.

Good
God! If holding the same plant she had could make his stomach fly and flop like
flapjacks, what would touching her again do to him?

Resolutely,
he planned to never find out.

***

The
hospital was bustling, too busy for its size and too noisy for its patients. At
first the nurses thought that Cabot was injured, being wheeled into the front
hall in an invalid's chair, which he found profoundly humiliating. Being
horribly petty, Charlotte considered it nothing more than he deserved after
trying to stop her from bringing her very best friend in the world a plant that
she had nurtured herself on the roof outside the high room.

Well,
at least there had been no mention of what had occurred the previous night in
Cabot's room. Tonight she would be sure to tell him she had a headache and
needed to get to bed early. Tonight and tomorrow night and every night for the
rest of her life if need be. And she'd hug herself until she broke before she'd
answer another knock on her wall.

Ash
spoke to the nurse at the front desk. She smiled up at him as if they were old
friends, and rose to point the way down a corridor, her hand on his sleeve. It
was a simple gesture, overly friendly, perhaps, but men and women did it all
the time.
"I heard your husband's aunt was ill. I'm so sorry,"
someone
might say, adding a pat of the hand. Or
"Let me help you with
that,"
and arms would brush arms.

It
was something she and Ash needed to avoid, that contact that set her on fire
and made her think reckless thoughts. She envied the nurse who stood so close
to him, leaning her head toward his as she pointed straight and left and right.

"They
try to keep the burn patients together," he said when the nurse had
finally let him go. He looked at Charlotte and stood just out of her reach.
"I think you'd better just wait here."

"Don't
be ridiculous," she said as if she spent half her days and all her nights
at the hospital.

"Cab,
I think you ought to make her wait here," Ash said, leaning over and
whispering something to Cabot that she couldn't hear.

"You're
so used to your damsels in distress, you've lost sight of just who this woman
is," Cabot said proudly. "Despite that ridiculous haircut, this is
one of the best lawyers in all of northern California."

She
took off her hat and shook her hair, what there was of it, out. "Thank you
very much," she said a little too sweetly, and forged forward down the
hall.

From
behind her she could hear Ash disagreeing with his brother. "Well, then, I
hope she's got one of the strongest stomachs," he said finally, and
seconds later he'd caught up to her.

"Left?"
she asked him, trying hard to keep from seeing into any of the rooms, trying
even harder to block out the sounds of moaning and the calls for help that
echoed down the hall.

"Just
follow the screams," he said, then shook his head tightly. "I think
this is a mistake."

"She's
hard," Cabot said, urging Arthur to push him faster to keep up.
"She's tough as ice in winter."

"And
she appears to be melting," Ash said, just as she began to feel the
corridor tilt around her.
This is hell,
she thought, voices all around
her calling out in pain, crying for help, praying to die.
I'm in Dante's
damn inferno.

She
leaned against the wall and swallowed hard, the edges of her vision darkening,
seeing two of everything, and all of it turning an unnatural yellow.

"I'll
take you back to the waiting room," Ash said. He sounded miles away,
though she could feel that he was close to her, touching her, holding her up so
that she wouldn't slip to the floor in a puddle of serge. She inhaled deeply,
trying to fill her lungs with the scent of him instead of carbolic acid and
decay.

"Don't
be ridiculous," Cabot said, ordering Arthur to her side. "Treat her
like a woman and you see what happens?" he said to Ash. "Which room
is it? This one?"

"Let
me take you back," he said. His hand gripped her upper arm and one leg had
her pinned against the tile wall where the cold was seeping through her coat
and into her bones.

"No."
It was all she could manage. She was afraid to try to say more. If she opened
her mouth again, it might be a scream that emerged. Or her breakfast biscuit.

"For
him?" Ash asked, backing away just a little as if testing whether she
could stand under her own power. "Or for you?"

"I
want to see Selma," she said. She pulled herself upright and stood
squarely on her own two feet. "And Eli will need me. I'm all right."

"You're
better than just all right," he said softly, moving his hand so that he
now only guided her by the elbow. "I'll be right here."

Cabot
coughed and held out the potted flowers to Ash. "Hold this. I don't want
it to fall."

It
seemed to Charlotte it was perfectly all right with him, however, if she went
tumbling to the ground.

She
grabbed the plant from his outstretched arms and tiptoed into the room, where
Eli sat by the bed, his familiar back bent, his head hanging low. In the bed
was a mass of gauze and padding that all but hid Selma's small body. A portion
of her face was bandaged as well, and the piece of cheek still exposed was
white and tight looking like a rubber water bottle about to burst. She appeared
to be asleep, but her breathing was labored and heavy.

"Eli?"
Charlotte whispered. "We came as soon as we heard. How is she?"

Eli's
face when he raised it to hers was old. Deep lines ran like dried riverbeds
down his cheeks, and the remnants of tears still glistened within the crags and
ruts. His eyes were rimmed in red and he clutched a damp hankie in one hand. He
shook his head slowly from side to side. "She's gonna be fine," he
lied, loud enough for her to hear it in her dreams.

The
back of Charlotte's throat itched, her nose did as well. Her eyes smarted as
she fought off tears, and she bit on the inside of her cheek to concentrate on
simply not going to pieces in front of her friend.

"She
was awake a little while ago," Eli said. "They gave her enough
laudanum to put a horse down, and still she was in pain. I had to sing her to
sleep like when she was a little girl. We had an Irishwoman who watched her while
I was at work and her favorite lullaby was 'Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral.' Imagine! An
old Jewish fool like me singing Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral.' But she finally fell
asleep."

He
wiped at his nose with the wet hankie and then accepted a clean one from Ash,
who put a hand under his elbow and tried to get the old man to get up.
"We'll sit with her, Eli. Go get some fresh air and something to
eat."

He
shook his head at Ash's suggestion. "Never me," he said softly.
"I pray to God let it be me, and he doesn't hear."

"That's
because he's listening to me," Selma said, her eyes still closed, her
voice a raspy whisper.

"I
thought you were asleep," Eli said. "Charlotte's here. And the
misters."

Selma's
one visible eyelid fluttered and she raised her eyebrow as if it could pull her
eye open. Her thick dark eyelashes were gone, the hair that was visible lay in
short clumps. Her right eye opened and suddenly the woman in the bed was Selma
again as she focused on Charlotte.

"I
brought you some flowers," Charlotte said, holding them where Selma could
see them. "Cabot tells me they're very special."

"All
the donations," Selma said, her words interrupted by a coughing fit that
racked her body. "I tried to get them, but—" Her words petered out,
and she closed her eyes once again.

"It's
swollen in her chest," Eli explained. "In her lungs there's fluid. We
have to turn her soon." He pulled his watch from his pocket and winced as
if he could see the time running out.

"The
money," Selma said again between wheezy breaths.

"You
rest," Charlotte ordered her. "And stop worrying about the money. On
Monday I'm going to demand a hearing. You're going to have to hurry and get
well so that you can cheer me on."

Selma
didn't bother to open her eyes, and in her voice Charlotte could hear defeat
settling in. "You win it for me, Charlotte," she said so softy
Charlotte had to strain to hear her.

Tiptoeing
in with shoes that hardly made a sound, a nurse appeared with a small bouquet.
"Handsome gentleman sent you these," she said to Selma, and Charlotte
looked up at the doorway. He was there for a brief moment only, and when she
blinked he was gone. Had she not recognized him, even with all that pain etched
on his face, a blink would have erased his face from her memory.

But
his was one countenance she would never forget, since his actions were ones she
could never forgive.

"Shall
I read you the card?" the nurse asked, pulling it from among the flowers.

"I'll
read it to her later," Charlotte offered, plucking the card from the
nurse's hand and shoving it into her pocket. Good glory! If Eli only knew!

"Better,"
Selma agreed, and let the nurse help her drink a bit of water through a bent
glass straw. As she sat up slightly, Charlotte could see the skin on her neck,
blackened and puffy as if it had been toasted.

"They've
scheduled a second escharotomy," the nurse told Eli. "There's more
flesh they'll need to cut down."

"You
should go," Eli said, cupping Charlotte's chin in his hand. The next
instant he was barking instructions at the nurse and ministering to his sister.

"We'll
go now," Ashford said, putting a hand on Eli's shoulder. "You take
care."

It
was unclear whether he was talking to Eli or Selma, but it was Selma who
responded. "I don't know what happened," she said, as the nurse held
up her shoulders and helped Eli to turn her. "It wasn't half an hour after
I saw you that the whole place was in flames."

"Of
all the stupid, senselessly asinine stunts you've pulled in the past, this one
tops them all," Cabot said to him as they entered the foyer, Charlotte
running ahead and hurrying up the steps so quickly that she nearly tripped on
her hem.

It
hadn't been easy just watching her all the way home from the hospital, sitting
there with those small hands of hers folded stoically in her lap because his brother
was too foolish to reach out and take them in his own.

Twice
he'd asked her if she was all right, and twice she'd assured him that of course
she was. But she hadn't fooled him for a moment.

"Are
you going after her or shall I?" he asked when her skirts had vanished
from the top of the stairs. It was clear that the reality of what had happened
to Selma had crawled under Charlie's skin and she was fighting it with all the
strength she had to keep it from soaking right into her bones.

Cabot
looked at him blankly. "Oh. Charlotte," he said finally. "Let
her be. A decent cry and she'll be good as new."

"Talk
about stupid and asinine," Ash said, shoving his hat at Arthur and heading
for the steps. He stopped on the lowest one and turned to his brother.
"I'm going up there if you're not, because I don't think she can make it
alone."

Cabot
rolled his eyes as if he were talking to an idiot. "Do you have any idea
what happened in that hospital room? Do you realize that woman put you at the
scene of a second crime? In front of the nurse yet! You think I'm some kind of
goddamn miracle worker? It's one thing getting you out of your little
peccadillos. This could cost you years, Ashford."

Even
with his brother's yelling he could hear it. Deafening. "Don't you hear
how upset she is?" he demanded.

Cabot
was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't hear a thing. In fact, she
seems to be handling it well, I think." He headed for his office,
apparently oblivious to the tears Charlotte had yet to shed.

"I'm
going up." If Cabot was right—and when wasn't he?—soon enough he'd be
unable to help her. While he could, he wasn't about to exile himself when she
needed him.

Cabot
stopped his chair again, waved Arthur off, and sat straining to hear in the
silence. "I don't hear a blessed thing. Is she crying? I thought we'd
conquered that. No doubt if we ignore it, it'll go away after a time and she'll
come down right as rain with only a red nose to show for her time."

Ash
wondered for a fleeting moment if there was some law against hitting a man in a
wheelchair, wondered further if he cared. After all, they could hardly hang a
man twice. "No, she's not crying," he said. "She's not doing a
damn thing."