Any Place I Hang My Hat (20 page)

My usual cure for this particular brand of craziness was reading. Anything. Mark Twain short stories would divert me, as could back issues of The Nation or my collection of takeout menus. But lying there in bed, unable to turn and switch on the lamp, I decided to think about Freddy, mainly because I knew his hunt for his father had been the start of my search for my mother. For me, the night I’d seen him confront Thom Bowles was the equivalent of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the impetus for big-time action in my life that almost certainly would have happened anyway.

I’d taken the phone into bed in case I changed my mind and decided to give 911 a chance to save my life. It was late now, nearly eleven.

I tried to think of more parallels between Freddy Carrasco and me. But I hurt too much to concentrate, too much to even consider getting up and taking a couple of the pain pills I’d been saving since a root canal about three years earlier, although they’d probably degraded and would more likely give me diarrhea than relief.

And then I made a call. As I pressed the two numbers on my speed dial, I told myself, You’ll rue the day, asshole.

“Hello.” John’s voice was clear and I thought, Well, at least he wasn’t expecting a phonesex call.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s—”

“How are you, Amy?”

“I’m okay. I just wanted to know how you were doing.”

“I’m okay too.”

“Good.” I suppose I was waiting for an involuntary sob, then him saying, It’s … oh God, Amy, it’s so lonely without you. But if he was sobbing, he had his hand over the mouthpiece. I realized this second could grow into the Mother of All Awkward Silences, so I quickly added: “I’ve been busy doing some research lately.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, without any inflection. It did not sound like a lonely voice.

“The research has nothing to do with work.” I waited, but got nothing. “I’ve been looking for my mother.”

“Wow.” A genuine wow. I smiled to myself. “Is there something I could do to help?” he asked.

“Not right now,” I said. “If there is, I’ll let you know.”

“Good.”

“John, can we talk? I mean, get together and talk?”

He took a deep breath and I told myself, This isn’t a good sign, but then immediately went into self-protective mode and thought, Well, he’s got to consider it for a minute. “Amy, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because whatever differences of—I don’t know—philosophy, temperament, you and I have aren’t going to change.”

“You’re not going to start with that business of me taking one step back every time—”

John cut me off. Quietly, without a hint of anger. “I think we’re two good people who have so much in common but who happen not to be able to work as a couple. It was hard enough breaking up, breaking away from each other once. It would be worse if we tried it again.” I wanted to tell him about how I’d hurt myself, sliding off the couch trying to get to that voice I believed had been his, but he said, “I wish you all the luck in the world looking for your mother. I hope it turns out well, happy for you, happy for her. And if there’s any way I can help you with that research, please let me know.”

“But otherwise … ?” I asked.

“What would seeing each other again do, except to start up the whole miserable breaking-up process again?”

“What would it do, John?”

“Right.”

I couldn’t come up with anything, so I just said goodbye. Then I managed to get up to take the pain pills.

WHEN I AWOKE around six the next morning, I noticed two things: the pain was worse, and about one square foot of my left side was magenta. Also, I was hungry. Naturally, after dispatching a container of vanilla yogurt and half a navel orange, I pictured a surgeon talking over my near-dead body: I have to operate. Pray she didn’t eat or drink anything in the last twenty-four hours.

Nevertheless, with a peach Snapple so I wouldn’t have to drink from an emergency-room water fountain and a book of the Lewis and Clark journals for company, I took a cab to the nearest hospital, one of those places the sick rich favor, with private rooms featuring all-day/all-night snack service and phones with data ports.

No doubt they had a secret emergency room for the wealthy; I would have to ask Tatty. The ER waiting room I was in was decorated in the Soviet gulag style, what with a dead clock, its face veiled by shattered glass, a dying ficus with brown-edged, dust-coated leaves, and brown plastic chairs on rust-pocked metal legs. The TV was stuck on an in-house channel that kept rerunning a tape entitled “Neurocutaneous Syndromes.”

The usual New York, Crossroads of the World types crowded in on foot or stretcher. Stabbings seemed to be mid-Manhattan’s crime of choice. There were also gunshot wounds, convulsions, asthma and heart attacks, a carbon monoxide poisoning, a couple of attempted suicides, and assorted fits and fractures. Almost all the victims were accompanied by relatives and friends in various stages of hysteria and early morning dishabille, or by weary cops.

They were all triaged over me, so after three hours, I was more than halfway through the Lewis and Clark book, up to June 1805. I read a Meriwether Lewis journal entry twice: “When sun began to shine today, these birds appeared to be very gay and sang most enchantingly. I observed among them the brown thrush, robin, turtledove, linnet, goldfinch, the large and small blackbird, wren, and several other birds of less note.”

I closed the book, then my eyes. The sweet echo of bird tweeting faded, only to be replaced by doubts over the usefulness of a life spent explicating Democrats’ critiques of Republicans’ fiscal follies. I don’t know whether I doubted for seconds or minutes, but when I heard “Lincoln!” barked out, I stood automatically. As was invariably the case, several people glanced about, but not seeing a man in a stovepipe hat, went back to what they’d been doing.

An hour and several X-rays later, the emergency-room doctor corralled a meandering orthopedist, who took me into yet another vertical coffin of an examining room. He said, “Nice job,” as he checked out the giant bruise on my side, which was darkening to purple. He poked at me for a while, then turned away to study the backlit film. “Three broken ribs,” he finally said, a little too cheerfully for my taste.

“Cracked or actually broken?”

“Oh, definitely broken.” He pointed to some pale, blurry streaks on the X-ray he seemed to believe were ribs. “See?” he asked.

“No.”

“Here, here, and here.” He poked his index finger toward the X-ray three times.

“Okay.” Since I couldn’t imagine why he would make something like that up, I took his word for it. “Do I have to get taped up?”

He shook his head. “No. We used to do that, but the constriction kept patients from taking deep breaths and coughing—which can lead to pneumonia. Time will do it. It’s the best healer.”

“What kind of time are we talking about?”

Shea D’Alessandro, M.D., as his name tag read, gave one of those manly bisyllabic chuckles—hur, hur. “You’re an impatient patient,” he observed. By the time I realized he expected a smile in response to his doctor drollery, he was writing something in my file. Just to have something to do, I retied the frayed white strings on the blue hospital gown and watched him.

Shea D’A appeared the flawless product of an Irish-Italian intermarriage, what with his eyes of choir boy blue, black crooner hair, and inverted triangle physique. I did my reflexive check. Loose slacks, ergo no detectable dick. No wedding ring. Ninety-seven percent likelihood heterosexual. On the down side, he was older, in the neighborhood of forty-five, used the kind of hair gel that retained visible comb tracks, and was acutely aware of his own desirability. “So, Amy Lincoln, what do you do when you’re not breaking ribs?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“Really?”

“Why ‘really’? Do patients routinely claim to be journalists?” He did his double chuckle again and I immediately regretted not having given a direct answer. I always felt resentful during small talk with significantly cute guys who viewed their flirtation as their precious gift to you. Yet I always responded with some form of girlish gratitude, which for me usually meant a mildly sardonic remark. Plus I guessed Shea D’A’s interest in me was minimal: He was probably one of those newly divorced men who needed to test what a hot ticket he was with every woman he met. Anyway, sitting upright on the examining table with my feet dangling was starting to strain my back, but whenever I slumped to relieve the discomfort, a bolt of pain went through my ribs. “I work for a newsmagazine,” I snapped. He waited. “In Depth.”

“You’re kidding!” His long black lashes did a genuine wow blink. “I’m a subscriber!”

“Good.” Meeting subscribers was usually disappointing. Most had messy hair and seemed the sort who’d memorized the periodic table for the fun of it while in high school and now liked to test themselves … scandium, titanium, vanadium … at cocktail parties.

“What do you do when you’re not working, Amy Lincoln?”

First of all, I hated to be called Amy Lincoln. Okay, I understood the In Depth business sparked his interest, as well as his not wanting to call me Ms. Lincoln because the formality would undercut his perfectly pitched cool. I didn’t care. Admittedly, being almost thirty and having no man in my life, I should have cared. But I’d never been able to stand guys, handsome or froggy, who posed routine questions—Where did you go to school?—in a smarmy tone, as if the real question they were asking was, Do you like to fuck standing up while eating egg salad?

Second, I was finding it difficult to chat with a stranger who had already gone eyeball to eyeball with my breasts. Third, I was never much for older guys who invariably made a huge deal over sex but really only wanted it every other night; fourth, he was wearing a double-breasted suit; and fifth, the pain was getting worse. Mostly, though, I was sick at heart for being such a fool as to have called John.

“Hmmm?” he prompted me, but I couldn’t recall about what. “Flaked out?” he inquired with a tolerant smile. “Hospitals do that to people. I was asking what you did when you weren’t working.”

“I mostly hang out with my boyfriend,” I said, and offered him a tolerant smile back.

Naturally, three hours and two Percocet later, it occurred to me I should regret having blown off Shea D’A. Among women, it is an article of faith that after the end of a relationship, especially when you are the dumpee, getting back into circulation is critical. Smile at men in Starbucks. Go to ball games. Call friends and relatives and plead, Fix me up.

Except blind dates never worked for me.

From my experience, I knew if I asked Tatty, I’d wind up with some ignoramus who’d ripped out a library in an apartment he’d just bought to make way for a plasma TV and his collection of model fighter jets. From college friends I’d get likable-on-first-date guys who would turn out to have insurmountable flaws—a Federal Reserve economist into stuffed-animal erotica, an agronomist at the Rockefeller Foundation who’d scratch inside his ear, then avidly examine the tip of his finger. From family? For a couple of months I’d gone out with one of Uncle Sparky’s friends who’d become chief of a hazardous materials squad, but he wouldn’t stop quoting Ayn Rand. Naturally, my father wouldn’t have anyone to introduce me to. His one postprison reference to me and men was suggesting I marry a dentist so he could get a mouthful of free tooth implants.

Now though, on orders to stay home and take it easy for a few days, I toyed with the idea of calling the doctor, asking some idiot question. Maybe Shea D’A would realize I’d reconsidered and offer to pay a house call. As Aunt Linda had astutely observed several years earlier: “For girls like you, Amy, eligible guys don’t grow on trees. Your motto’s gotta be See and Be Seen. Go out with anyone. Okay, not a real creep or a pervert. But if you stay home, all you’re gonna meet are delivery boys from the takeout place.”

Except I couldn’t make the call. Not for one of those Dr. God guys who was also so aggressively good-looking that he became unattractive. Not for someone who would get turned on by In Depth, but who would have rejected me utterly if I’d said I taught third grade. I glanced at my watch. Not even noon yet and my day shot to shit. Not just the pain: I had the one day before the weekend. Then I’d have to stop looking for my mother and research my article on the candidates’ positions and records on the environment.

I got off my couch and went over to my computer. I walked stiffly, like one of the undead in an old zombie movie, so as not to jar my ribs. After two minutes on the Internet, I realized that if my father hadn’t lied or simply repeated some overheard tale of an elopement, and if he and my mother actually did get married in Maryland in 1973, they would have to have gone to Cecil County. There were numerous references to its being the place young couples headed for back then. It had been the one jurisdiction close to the big eastern cities that had no residency requirements for either bride or groom: no blood tests, no waiting period, and a lot of motels.

A minute later, I was talking with Dan Summers, the deputy county clerk.

“Lincoln as in Lincoln?” he was asking.

Well, the name was Lincoln, so I said, “That’s right.”

From there it was a mere hop and skip to being phone friends with Dan. He told me: “Look, Amy, I’d like to help you, but the rules here say I have to mail a copy of a marriage license, providing there actually was a marriage.” His voice had remarkable smoothness, like Fred Astaire’s, and without the whiney O that people from Philadelphia to Baltimore get stuck with. “It means going through 1973 records down in File Storage, which would mean me leaving the office without anyone in it because my coworker’s taking family leave for a month and we still don’t have a temp to replace her.”

Since speed and access to the generally inaccessible are often an integral part of getting a story, any reporter who can distinguish between her ass and a hole in the ground knows how to get other people to do her work. Depending on the reporter and the ethos of the institution she’s working for, her persuasiveness can take any form, from making a doorman her best friend to offering an outright bribe.