Weekend (10 page)

"Maybe we should wake her," Kerry said, "have her drink coffee."

"Sleep's the best thing," Angie said.

Shani held her peace. So Robin was out. They would be fools to try anything with Lena around. She hoped they did and got caught. She was suddenly angry at Angie and Park, especially at him. What a hypocrite, the care he showed carrying his girlfriend to the bedroom.

Sol finished in the bathroom. Shani took his place, washing her face and brushing her teeth. When she returned to the living room, Sol and Lena were leaving out of the front door, Kerry was fixing the bed in the guest room, and Bert was asleep on the floor. Shani turned out the nearest lamp and lay back on the couch, swearing that if the roof caved in, she wasn't getting up.

An indeterminate time went by. Behind closed eyelids, Shani noted the rest of the lights going out.

Someone with alcoholic breath covered her with a blanket. Doors opened and closed. Far away, she thought she heard splashes and laughter, but she wasn't sure.

Someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes. It was dark, and a shadow loomed over her.

"What is it?" Shani mumbled. She had a headache.

"I'm sick," Kerry said anxiously.

Shani remembered Bert's advice. "Stick your finger down your throat, throw up." She rolled over.

"You'll feel better."

Kerry had the bad manners to yank her into a sitting position. A yellow glow from the porch light strained through the kitchen's curtains. It was sufficient to show Kerry's tears. "I've thrown up," she coughed. "I've got cramps. I can hardly breathe."

Shani was not alarmed. Kerry often panicked. "You're going to be fine. You've just had too much beer.

A hot bath will help." She took her trembling hands. "I'll run the water for you."

Suddenly Kerry doubled up in dry heaves, gasping for air.

"No! I never get sick from beer! It was bad! There was something in it! I have a strange taste in my mouth!"

Shani reversed her diagnosis. "Try to relax. Who else is still here?"

"Park's asleep in - hall - Angie - seeh! I can't take this! Help me, Shani!"

"I will." She turned on the lamp. Bert was where she had last seen him, snoring peacefully. She jumped to her feet and kicked his butt. "Wake up! Get up!" He groaned, began to stretch. Running down the hall, she stumbled over Park, who was crashed outside Angie's partially cracked door.

"Huh?" he muttered, sitting up. She turned on the hall light.

"Kerry's sick! I think there was something in the beer!"

Park was barely awake, scratching his head. "There's alcohol in beer. God, my head hurts. It makes everyone sick."

"How do you feel?"

"Terrible, how else? Why did you wake me?"

"You don't have cramps?"

He grimaced, rubbed his bloodshot eyes. "Girls get cramps, Shani, not boys. What time is it?"

"Where did you put Robin?" she demanded.

His eyes focused. He was suddenly alert. He pointed to the door at the end of the hall on the left. "In the master bedroom. Why do you say there was something in the beer?"

Shani did not answer him. She raced to the door, threw it open, snapped on the light. Robin was huddled in the fetal position in the centre of the king-sized bed. Shani jumped on the mattress and rolled her friend on her back.

"Robin! Robin!" she shook her. "Robin!!!"

Park came up at her back. "Get out of the way," he ordered. He put a finger under Robin's nose, checked her pulse. "Robin!" he shouted. She did not respond. He slapped her across the face, her head rolling like a mannequin's. He moved to her feet, pinching her Achilles tendon. Nothing.

"Is she dead?" Shani moaned, a weight beyond comprehension crushing her chest.

Park pulled the pillow from beneath Robin's head and pried open her mouth, checking for obstructions with his fingers. Taking a breath and forcing his lips against hers, he exhaled. Robin's diaphragm rose sharply, once. He listened at her chest, muttered, "Clear."

"Is she dead? Answer me, damn you!"

Park stood, pale as a winter moon, but sober, in command. "No, but she's in a shock or a coma. Use the phone in the kitchen. Call the hospital. The number is taped beside the phone. Tell them we're bringing in two poison victims." He picked Robin up, cradling her in his arms. "I'll start the car."

"Shouldn't we call for an ambulance?" There was no time to feel hurt. Yet later, she knew, there would be too much time.

"This will be faster." He kissed Robin's forehead, moving for the door. "Now do as I say."

Angie and Bert wanted to come, but since they felt fine, Park told them to contact Sol and Lena, and to wait by the phone and keep the line open. He also suggested they sniff the glasses and mugs they had used during the party for suspicious smells. Unfortunately, Angie had washed them all before going to bed. Angry, Park told them to look around, anyway.

Park held Robin and they laid Kerry in the backseat. Shani drove like a fiend and ran a red light, picking up a flashing highway patrol car. After explaining the situation to the officer, they had a police escort. At the hospital, the doctors were waiting. Kerry disappeared on a stretcher through swinging doors while the officer carried Robin inside. Park got on a pay phone to Angie. She had found a half-empty bottle of Insect Death in the refrigerator. Park copied down the insecticide's ingredients and gave the paper to a nurse, who hurried through the door where Kerry and Robin had gone. The two of them sat down to wait.

Ten minutes later — showing no adverse symptoms — Sol arrived. Ten minutes after that, Lena and her parents showed up. Lena was silent. Mrs. Carlton was heartbroken. Mr. Carlton was furious. He called the police and told them to get to Angie's house and begin a complete investigation before any of the evidence could be tampered with. Kerry's mom and dad came next. Together, the four parents comforted each other.

A nurse brought them news. Kerry's stomach had been pumped and she was feeling better. But, although Robin had been revived, her condition was critical. She was vomiting blood, and flirting with circulatory failure. Later, a young internist updated their conditions. Given her symptoms, Kerry had in all probability ingested a small amount of the insect killer. Robin, however, had definitely swallowed at least three ounces of the poison. Two ingredients in Insect Death, phosphorous and mercury, were particularly toxic to the kidneys and were therefore endangering her heart.If Robin made it through the night, there was a chance — looking back, the doctor must have known that it was more likely — that she would suffer permanent damage.

Shani took a seat far away from the others. At the end of the corridor, through glass doors, she saw an orange glow in the east. But the way she felt, the night could have been just the beginning.

Kerry made a swift recovery, though she would often afterwards complain of stomach-aches. Robin did not leave the hospital till two months later, twenty pounds lighter and a ghastly yellow with a slightly damaged liver and two all but useless kidneys. Unless she had a successful transplant, the doctors said, she would be tied to a dialysis machine the rest of her life. And that life would not be nearly as long as average.

Two pairs of fingerprints were found on the bottle of Insect Death: Angie's and Bert's. Of course, they had both studied the bottle when Park had called them from the hospital to see if they had located a source of the poison. Mr. Carlton blamed them all, even Lena. At his insistence, the police gathered them in Robin's hospital room three times and tried to re-enact the sequence of events that had led to the fateful drink. The police ended up with eight different stories, not always the same one from the same individual. All of them had gone in and out of the kitchen all night long. Who could remember when and why and with whom? Everyone agreed that Sol had given hera beer, but who had given it to him, and was it the same person who had initiated the prodding to have Robin drink the beer, and had she actually drunkhis beer? For a while, Sol was on the burner, but he had made himself too obvious a suspect to be a suspect. Too much alcohol had blurred their memories, not to mention the fact that almost all of them had something to hide. And Robin herself was no help. Though anxious to catch the culprit - if there was one - the trauma of her injury had created a mental block against the night. It was finally recorded in the books as an "accident" caused by "one or more intoxicated adolescents mistaking an insecticide for a common beverage and inadvertently mixing it with a glass of beer." No lawsuits were filed, no fingers pointed. Life went on as usual. Except for Robin.

But Shani was often to ask herself,No matter how drunk you were, how could you take a bottle covered with insect sketches and labelled in bold black letters , CAUTION POISONOUS,and pour it in a glass a person was to drink out of, unless you wanted to kill that person ?

SIX

Sitting on his surfboard, Park stared down at his legs dangling in the blue-green bathtub-temperature water and started to worry about sharks. A couple of hours ago Bert had mentioned seeing a few sharks.

But at the time, the waves had been rolling and the tubes curling and the information had not seemed important. Now the sets were well-spaced and he had too much time to think. He could imagine a baby shark, just breaking in its teeth, swimming by and biting off his big toe. The blood would spurt and he would scream and mother shark would hear and come to investigate what her youngster was up to. Then she would smell his blood and bite off his leg. He had read about such tragedies. He had also read that when you started to worry about losing a limb, it was time to get out of the water. He pulled up his legs, resting his feet near the nose of the board and holding the rails to maintain balance. One more wave and he would call it quits.

The beach and conditions were a surfer's dream. Unadulterated golden sand stretched north and south to the horizon. Except for a few white clouds far out at sea, the sky was a cerulean dish whose depth it was easy to believe was infinite. He could feel the warmth of the sun's rays in his blood. He was floating in twenty feet of salt water, but the bedrock was as clear as if it were simply the bottom of a swimming pool. And the waves had ruined him for life. An easy eight-foot or he was a dwarf, an off-shore breeze held their form to the last crucial instant. He was in heaven, but he was exhausted.

"One more and I'm going in!" he called to Bert, a hundred yards to his left. A strong riptide was pulling them south. Several times since sunrise, when they had started, they had had to go ashore and walk back to the house. Once again, the Carlton Castle was a mile up the beach.

"I'm with you! Where's Sol?"

"He went in half an hour ago!" Tired of shouting, Park lay down on his board and paddled towards Bert.

The aroma of his coconut-waxed board filled his head, making him nostalgic for Hawaii. Last summer, Mr. and Mrs. Carlton had sent Robin and him — along with Nurse Porter as an escort — to the islands.

The waves hadn't been nearly as good as today, but he had been happier then, a lot happier.

He pulled up alongside Bert. "Sol said he had a side-ache. Lena probably wore him out last night."

"Did I tell you about the sharks I saw?"

"Yes, and I don't want you to tell me again."

Bert's ears must have been plugged with water. He continued: "One of them was bigger than me. It couldn't have been a sand shark. It looked like that fish in that movie, that one — what was it called?"

"Jaws."

"What?"

"Jaws!"

"Yeah, that one. Are you sure Sol went in?"

Park again pulled up his feet. "You know you're making me pretty damn paranoid. Would you please shut your mouth?"

Bert grinned. He was impossible to offend. "You're afraid of sharks? I thought you didn't like snakes."

"I hate anything that wants to bite me — Oh!" Distracted, he hadn't noticed the approaching set. The first swell looked the killer. He pivoted his board expertly. Bert was also manoeuvring into position. "You go right, I'll go left!" he yelled.

"Gotcha!"

The wave was a monster. On his knees, Park dug hard to gain the necessary speed. A powerful force began to take hold, raising him up. One last stroke and he sprang to his feet, leaning forward to compensate for what may have been a premature stand. But he was okay, sliding down the face, when Bert suddenly crossed his path, six feet below, a perfect place to be for a decapitation. Park reacted immediately, twisting to the right. The tunnel was closing in that direction. A raging foam hammer belted him off his board. Park felt a violent tug at his left ankle, saw splintered, whirling bubbles, had his spine twisted to the other side of a chiropractor's fantasies. Yet he had hold of a good breath and was able to ride out the bad weather. When the washing machine turned off, he was a hundred yards offshore in a relatively calm region between the first and second break. His board was already on the beach. The tug on his ankle had been his leash snapping.

Bert cruised by. "I thought you meant 'right,' looking out to sea," he apologized.

"That's okay. I think I just got a free neck adjustment. Give me a ride in."

During the walk back. Bert told him how he had awakened during the night and had found himself circled by a bunch of bright-eyed birds. Tonight, he said, he was sleeping indoors.

Sol was flat on his back on a red towel blowing smoke rings towards the sky. Shani and Angie were on the north side of the carport, piling wood into a concave hole they had dug. The Carlton Castle had an antenna dish and recording studio, two spas and three computers, but no barbecue. The girls were improvising. They said they were going to roast wienies for lunch. Park wasn't hungry.

"How's your side-ache?" Park asked, setting down his board.

"It hasn't gone away," Sol said, rolling over digging in the sand and pulling out a quart of tequila. "I think I need my medicine. How about you?"

Park shook his head. "It's too early for me."

Bert beamed. "You got a bottle for me?"

"We'll split it," Sol said. "Hell, this is enough for anybody." Bert looked disappointed.