Crosstalk (14 page)

The nurse looked confused. “Didn't your fiancé call you? He's here.”

Oh, thank heavens,
Briddey thought.

“I told him to bring his car around and meet us at the front door. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” She put the phone to her ear. “Kathleen, listen, I have to go. Meeting.”

“Wait,” Kathleen said. “What favor did you want me to do?”

“I'll tell you later. 'Bye.” Briddey shut her phone off before Kathleen could ask any more questions and grabbed her bag and coat.

The nurse helped her into the wheelchair, lowered the metal footrests, then put Briddey's post-op instructions, her throw-up basin, her box of Kleenex, and the bouquet of violets in her lap. She told an orderly to follow her with Trent's roses and the water jug and wheeled Briddey down the corridor and onto the elevator, giving her orders all the way: “Rest this afternoon and this evening. No strenuous activity for forty-eight hours, no bending, no lifting”—the elevator pinged and the door opened onto the lobby—“and no stress. Don't worry about connecting with your fiancé. The amount of time it takes can vary considerably, especially if you're under stress or fatigued. If that's the case, it may delay contact.”

Or not,
Briddey thought, thinking about Trent's fortuitously timed arrival. When the nurse said he'd called, she'd assumed he'd gotten out of his meeting and Ethel Godwin had told him she'd phoned, but what if he'd heard her call out to him instead?

When they arrived in the lobby, the nurse wheeled her through the glass doors and outside. “Here we are,” she said.

Trent's car wasn't there yet. “He must still be—” Briddey began, and stopped, looking at the battered Honda parked in the drive.
That looks like—

C.B. got out of it.
My lady,
he said,
your chariot awaits.

“Will he always come when you call him?” she asked almost in a whisper.

“Aye, that he will.”

—F
RANCES
H
ODGSON
B
URNETT
,
The Secret Garden

What are you doing here, C.B.?
Briddey demanded, clutching the arms of the wheelchair.

He looked a little more presentable than he had last night, but not much. He'd shaved, but he was wearing a London Underground baseball cap, and neither his faded brown T-shirt nor the striped shirt over it was tucked in. The laces dangled untied from his work boots.

I'm saving your bacon,
he said, ambling over. “Is she all set?” he asked the nurse.

No,
Briddey said, and would have glared up at him if it hadn't been for the nurse standing right there.
I thought you avoided hospitals
.

I do. So let's get out of here.
“Do I need to bring the car closer?” he asked the nurse.

“No,”
Briddey said, and the nurse must have mistaken her vehemence for affirmation that yes, she could walk to the car, because she put the wheelchair brake on and knelt to flip up the footrests so Briddey could stand.

Briddey glowered at C.B. as the nurse dealt with the apparatus.
I am
not
ready to go,
she said.
And you still haven't told me what you're doing here
.

You called and said you needed a ride
.

I wasn't calling you. I was calling Trent
.

Yeah, well, apparently he didn't hear you this time either. And there's no telling how long it'll be before he gets out of that meeting and sees your text.
C.B. reached for the tote bag in her lap.
I figured I was better than nothing. Unless you want to call your sister. Or Suki. I'm sure she'd be delighted to come get you—as soon as she posts it on her blog. And sends out a few tweets.

He was right.

Plus, the nurse here thinks I'm your fiancé,
C.B. said, nodding toward the nurse, who'd finished with the footrests and was straightening up.

You told her you were my
fiancé
?
Briddey said.

No, she just assumed it
.
So how are you going to explain that you don't want to go home with me? Especially after your odd behavior last night? They might decide they'd better keep you for observation
.

The nurse was looking at them curiously. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked Briddey.

“Yes,” Briddey said brightly. “I just can't get up with all this stuff in my lap.”

“Sorry, sugar,” C.B. said, taking her tote bag and the violets and then the throw-up pan and Trent's roses and stowing them all in the back seat. He came back over and put his arm around her to help her out of the chair. “Ready, sweetheart?”

I am
not
your sweetheart,
she said, and would have loved to shake off his arm, but the nurse was standing right there.

This is like being kidnapped,
she thought.
You want desperately to call for help, but you can't because there's a gun stuck in your side.

May I remind you that you put the gun there yourself?
C.B. said, helping her to the car.
You were the one who wanted to have the EED. Now, look like you can't wait to go home with me, so she'll let you leave. You want to go, don't you?

Yes.
She needed to get to Commspan so she could connect with Trent.

Well, then, I'd suggest you act happy.

“I'm so glad I'm going home,” she said, and beamed at the nurse. “Thank you for everything.”

Atta girl,
C.B. said, opening the door to his Honda.

His car was as messy as his hair. There were papers and fast-food sacks strewn all over the seats and the floor. “Sorry, I didn't have time to clean it out,” he said, hastily scooping them up and dumping them in the back seat.

He bundled Briddey into the front seat, shut the door, and got in himself. He put the car in gear and pulled out of the driveway and toward the exit.
And I resent being called a kidnapper,
he said as he waited for an opening in the traffic.
I'm just trying to help out here.

“Good,” she said, getting her keys out of her bag. “Then take me to the Marriott. My car's parked there. It's just a few blocks from here. Turn left.”

Sorry,
C.B. said.
No can do. The nurse said you aren't supposed to drive for twenty-four hours.

“No, she didn't,” Briddey lied, and remembered he could read her mind. “Anyway, you know how overly protective doctors are. You can see I'm perfectly all right—”

What I can see,
he said,
or rather, hear, is that there's already been one unintended consequence of your surgery. Who knows what other UICs you might develop? Blackouts? Seizures? Your head might suddenly fall off in the middle of Union Boulevard. I couldn't be responsible for something like that.

“Fine,” she said, thinking,
I'll let him drive me to Commspan, and then I'll call a taxi and go pick up my car
, and then was afraid he might have heard that, too.

But he must not have, because he said,
Great. Let's go,
and leaned forward, watching for a chance to turn onto the street.

“No, wait,” Briddey said. “First, you have to promise to talk out loud to me.”

Why? Because you think our talking like this is “reinforcing our neural pathway”? That isn't how it works.

“How do you know?”

I went on the internet and did some more research.

What did you—?
she began eagerly and then caught herself and asked aloud, “What did you find out?”

I'll tell you on the way.

“No. We're not going anywhere,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching into the back seat for her tote bag. “Stop the car. Either we talk out loud, or I'm getting out right here and phoning a taxi.”

You really think a taxi driver's going to pick up somebody standing on the curb wearing a hospital ID bracelet and carrying a throw-up pan?

“Then I'll walk.”

“Okay, okay. We'll talk out loud. Now can we go?”

“Yes,” she said, and settled back into her seat.

He roared out of the drive onto the street and flicked on the turn signal. “Where are you going?” Briddey demanded. “This isn't the way to Commspan.”

“We're not going to Commspan.”

Oh, my God, he
is
kidnapping me,
she thought.

“Oh, for…I am
not
kidnapping you,” he said. “I am taking you home. Doctor's orders. When I told them I was there to pick you up, the nurse told me you were supposed to go straight home and rest. You just had brain surgery, remember?”

“But I told my assistant I'd be back by noon.”

“So tell her your meeting's running long,” C.B. said.

But the longer she was away from Commspan, the more questions it would raise, and—

“So tell your assistant you're back, and you're on your way down to my lab, that I've got a new app to show you and you'll probably be down there for the rest of the day.”

“But what if someone calls to check up on me?”

“They can't. There's no coverage, remember?”

“Is that what you do?” she asked. “Tell people you're in your lab and then take the day off?”

“Only when I have to go give somebody a secret ride home from the hospital,” he said, and grinned at her.

But I need to connect with Trent,
she thought.

“Then you definitely need to go home,” he said, “because if you're at work, you won't have a minute to yourself. Let's see, you've been gone since ten
A.M.
yesterday. That's—what?—nineteen thousand emails to answer? Not to mention memos. And phone messages. Besides, do you really want somebody to see us come in together and tell Suki?”

“Suki's not there. She has jury duty.”

“Nope, she's back. The defendant jumped bail.”

“I live on South Sherman,” she said. “You take Union Boulevard and then Linden. Turn left here.”

“I know. I can read your mind, remember?” he said, and promptly turned right.

“I said left!”

“I know. I'm taking you to McDonald's. Or did they finally bring you breakfast?”

“No,” she said, and realized just how hungry she was. “You really
can
read my mind. Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he said, pulling into the drive-thru. He stopped the car and reared back in his seat so she could lean across him and order a Big Mac and fries.

“You don't realize how lucky you are that you hooked up with me,” he said, pulling up to the second window. “You could've—”

“Connected with a
real
kidnapper,” she said. “Yes, I know.”

“Right. Or with one of those people who make a face and say, ‘Do you know what's actually
in
a Big Mac?' Or with someone without a car. Then how would you have gotten home? Speaking of which, you need to text Trent and tell him not to come get you. You don't want him showing up at the hospital.”

And finding out she'd already left with someone else who'd said he was her fiancé. She hastily got her phone out, hit Trent's number, and then stopped. Who should she say had come and gotten her? She had to name someone.

“No, you don't,” C.B. said. “You're forgetting Rule Number Two. Don't say any more than you have to. Just say ‘You don't need to come get me after all.' ”

“But what if he asks—?”

“He won't,” C.B. assured her. “He'll assume you drove yourself home. He doesn't know the nurse said you weren't supposed to drive.”

“Your order, sir,” the boy at the window said.

C.B. paid, and the boy handed him the sack. Briddey reached for it.

“Not until you send the text,” C.B. said. “He could get out of that meeting any minute.”

He was right. She stared at her phone, trying to think what to say. “I found someone to take me home?” No, that would invite him to ask who…

“Oh, for—I'll do it,” C.B. said, snatching the phone from her and handing her the McDonald's sack. “Eat.”

“What are you typing?”

“ ‘No need to come to hospital. Transportation situation taken care of.' What's Charla's number under?”

She told him.

“ ‘I'm back,' ” he recited as he typed. “ ‘Meeting with C.B. Schwartz about new app. Move all afternoon appointments to tomorrow morning.' ” He hit
SEND
and then turned off her phone and handed it to her. “There. Now eat.”

Briddey dug eagerly into the sack as he pulled out of McDonald's and headed toward her apartment. “You were going to tell me what you found out when you went online?”

“Well, for one thing, I found out there's a lot of junk on the internet.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. You wouldn't believe the crazy stuff on there—people claiming they can hear the voices of Napoleon and John Lennon.”

“And Hitler, I suppose,” Briddey said.

C.B. shot her a delighted smile. “You're right. They also claim they can hear their pets. And their plants. And bring about world peace by all thinking ‘Give peace a chance' at the same moment. Between them and the lunatics who think they're communicating with Martians or the spirit of Ramtha, it's no wonder telepathy's got a bad name.”

“So you didn't find any evidence of people actually experiencing telepathy?”

“I didn't say that. Some incidents seemed to be authentic…”

“And?” Briddey prompted.

“And unfortunately, most of those support Dr. Verrick's bonding theory. Almost every verifiable incident involved people with an obvious emotional connection. Parents, spouses, children, lovers.”