Crosstalk (7 page)

“We'll discuss it next week. Call Charla and make an appointment,” Briddey said, and shot through the doors and into the garage.

“I'll walk you to your car,” C.B. said, catching up to her. “You know how in the good old days when you were mad at somebody, you could shout, ‘Good
bye
!' and bang down the receiver, and it not only felt good, but it got your message across perfectly?”

I should have parked closer,
Briddey thought, accelerating her pace.

“And you know how now all you can do is click an icon, which isn't nearly as emotionally satisfying? I've come up with an app that makes a really loud slamming-down-the-receiver noise.”

She reached her car, glad she'd put her overnight bag in the trunk and not the back seat.

“I haven't worked out all the kinks yet,” C.B. said. “I want to make sure there aren't any side effects I might not have thought of.”

Very funny.

“And speaking of hanging up, that's another disadvantage of telepathy. There wouldn't be
any
way to hang up on the other person.”

“For the last time, the EED doesn't make you telepathic!”

“You don't know that. That's the thing with unintended consequen—”

“Look,” she said, opening the car door. “As much as I'd like to stay and explain the EED to you
again,
I really have to go. I have a meeting downtown—”

“You're lying.”

She looked up at him, horrified. Somehow Suki had found out where she was going, even though she was sitting in a courtroom miles away. And if she'd told C.B., she'd told everyone. Including Facebook. And the Irish Inquisition would be peeling into the parking garage any moment. “H-how—?” she stammered.

“I can see it in your face, and the way you practically ran out here to your car. You can't wait to get rid of me.”

True,
she thought, relieved. “Look, I appreciate your input—”

“No, you don't. You think I'm sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong,” he said. “But when you see somebody heading straight for the edge of a cliff, you can't just stand there and do nothing.”

“I am not heading—”

“That's what
you
think.”

“Why? Because I'll end up like a patient in
Coma
? Or get jogger's knee? Give me one good reason I shouldn't have the EED. And not one involving black-market organs or lobotomies. A
believable
reason.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “That's the problem.” He looked at her seriously. “Listen, Briddey, being connected isn't all it's cracked up to be. You think you want to know what other people are thinking—”

“Briddey!” Charla called, hurrying across the garage toward them, waving a piece of paper.

Oh, no
, Briddey thought.
If that's a message from Trent, and he mentions the hospital…

She moved to intercept her, but Charla was already at the car, saying breathlessly, “I'm glad I caught you. Your sister Mary Clare called. She said you need to contact her right away. It's an emergency.”

It's always an emergency,
Briddey thought. “Did she say what the emergency was?”

“No,” Charla said. She looked at C.B. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“C.B. was just leaving,” Briddey said. She looked at him meaningfully. “Weren't you?”

He smacked the top of the car door with the flat of his hand. “Yeah,” he said. He stuck the earbuds back in his ears and walked off, his hands in his pockets.

Charla leaned in toward Briddey and whispered, “Was he bothering you?”

Yes,
Briddey thought. She shook her head. “No.”

“Oh. When I heard you two shouting, I was afraid he was sexually harassing you or something.”

“No. We were discussing an idea for the new phone.”

“Oh.” Charla looked doubtfully after him. “He's so weird. His hair—”

“Tell my sister I'll call her as soon as I can,” Briddey said, and got into the car.

She shut the door, started the car, waved, backed out of the parking space, and drove off, feeling like she'd barely escaped disaster. And there was still the call to Mary Clare to get through.

She
had
to call her, in case it was a real emergency and not just Mary Clare's latest obsession regarding Maeve. But what if it
was
an emergency and they had to postpone the EED? There wouldn't be another opening for months.
And I can't take much more of everyone trying to talk me out of it,
she thought. On the other hand, if Aunt Oona had had a heart attack…

Briddey fretted about it the whole way to the Marriott and while she parked the car, finally deciding to turn on her phone and call Mary Clare from an inner corner of the parking garage in hopes that the coverage would be spotty.

It wasn't. Mary Clare's voice came through clear as a bell: “Oh, thank goodness you called. I don't know what to do. Maeve's teacher just told me the book Maeve was reading in class wasn't a Secret Haven book, it was
The Darkvoice Chronicles
! Why would she be reading that?”

“All the third-grade girls are reading it,” Briddey said. “Like
Apocalypse Girl.
Or
The Hunger Games.
And I thought you said she was spending too much time online and that you wanted her reading—”

“But not
this
book! Do you know what it's about? A schizophrenic teenager who hears voices. And Maeve said she didn't hear her teacher talking to her. What if it was because the voices in
her
head drowned her teacher out?”

Oh, for heaven's sake
, Briddey thought. “Maeve is not hearing voices—”

“You don't know that,” Mary Clare interrupted. “I read this thing on the internet that said the symptoms of schizophrenia can manifest as early as age seven, and in
The Darkvoice Chronicles,
the heroine hears this voice that tells her to kill her mother—”

“Yes, and in
The Hunger Games
the heroine hunts people with a bow and arrow. Maeve isn't doing that either.”

“Then why won't she tell me what she was thinking about? There's something going on. I know it. Listen, could you pick her up after school tomorrow and take her shopping and get her to tell you—?”

“No,” Briddey said. “I'm in meetings the next two days. I could do it sometime next week—”

“Next week may be too late. The onset of mental illness can be really rapid, and if it's not diagnosed immediately—”

“Maeve is
not
mentally ill. Or deaf or anorexic or planning to cut off her hair and sell it to get money so her father can come home.”

“Cut off her
hair
?” Mary Clare cried. “Why would she—?”

“It's in
Little Women,
” Briddey said. “Which you insisted that Maeve read, as I recall. They're only books, Mary Clare. And you should be grateful she's reading instead of spray-painting graffiti on her school or setting fires or being recruited by terrorists on the internet.”

“Terrorists?”

“She's not being recruited by terrorists,” Briddey said. “I only said that to show you how ridiculous you're being. Maeve is
fine.
Look, I really have to go.”

“Wait,” Mary Clare said. “You're not still planning to have that EED done, are you? Because I read this thing on the internet that said they don't last, and you have to have them redone every three months—”

“Tell me later. What?” Briddey said, as if speaking to somebody else. “Yes. Right away. Sorry, Mary Clare. Gotta go.” She hung up.

Her phone promptly pinged. She checked to make sure the text wasn't from Trent—it wasn't; it was from Kathleen—and then shut off her phone, got her overnight bag out of the trunk, took the elevator up to the Marriott's lobby, and caught a taxi to the hospital, directing the driver to let her off at the side entrance so there was less chance of someone seeing her.

She might as well have walked in the front door. Once inside, she was told she had to go to Patient Admissions, which was right in the middle of the lobby. She filled out the admission forms as quickly as she could and then waited impatiently as they scanned her insurance card, looking anxiously around.

An aide finally came for her, calling her name out loudly, and Briddey hurried after her, eager to be out of sight. The aide took her upstairs and into an examining room where a large, cheerful nurse fastened a plastic ID bracelet on her. “My, what beautiful red hair you have!” she said admiringly. “The EED is a very routine procedure, and you're in excellent hands with Dr. Verrick, so there's no need to be nervous.”

Are you kidding?
Briddey thought.
This is the first time today I haven't been.

“You were very lucky to get him as your surgeon,” the nurse went on. “He's very much in demand.” She handed Briddey a hospital gown and left her to change into it.

Briddey did and then turned on her phone to see if Trent had texted her. He had. So had Kathleen, with the names of three more psychics, and C.B., with links to articles about the unintended consequences of fen-phen, thalidomide, and the Industrial Revolution, and a picture of Marie Antoinette being led to the guillotine.

Maeve had texted her, too, in all caps, “WHAT DID YOU TELL MOM?,” the words almost quivering with outrage, which could only mean Mary Clare had latched on to the terrorist thing with both hands.

I am so sorry, Maeve,
Briddey thought, and read Trent's text. It read, “On my way. See you after surgery.”

She was about to text him back when the nurse reappeared, plucked the phone from her hands, and said, “We'll put this and your clothes and purse in a locker for you.”

The nurse took her vitals and gave her a waiver to sign, which released Dr. Verrick and the hospital from all responsibility if the EED failed to work and/or the connection proved to be only temporary, and an informed consent form listing all the possible side effects of the surgery: coronary thrombosis, hemorrhaging, seizures, paralysis, loss of life.

But not a word about becoming a vegetable. Or about having her organs harvested.
There, you see, C.B.?
she thought, signing the forms.
It's perfectly safe.

“Now let's get you on the gurney,” the nurse said. She helped Briddey onto it, covered her with a white blanket, clipped an oximeter onto her finger, inserted an IV line in the back of her other hand, and hooked up a bag of saline.

“Do you know if Trent's here yet?” Briddey asked her.

“I'll go check,” she said, and went out, only to return a moment later with a distinguished-looking man. “This is Dr. Verrick, who'll be doing your surgery,” she told Briddey, and to him: “This is Ms. Flannigan.”

Thank goodness C.B. isn't here. Or Maeve,
Briddey thought. Because his expensive suit and gold Rolex watch fit C.B.'s picture of Celebrity Plastic Surgeon perfectly, and his hair, with a touch of gray at the temples, was even more neatly combed than Trent's.

But his manner was warm and reassuring, and he seemed genuinely pleased she and Trent were having the EED done. “I can guarantee it will add a whole new dimension to your relationship,” he told her. He took her through the procedure, telling her just what was going to happen and explaining how the EED worked. “I'm going to do yours first, and then Mr. Worth's. Do you have any questions, Ms. Flannigan?”

“Yes. How long will it take?”

“The procedure takes approximately an hour, but most of that time is spent in imaging. The surgery itself—”

“No, I meant how long after the surgery before Trent and I will be able to sense each other's feelings? Before we'll know whether it worked?”

“There's no need to worry about
that,
” he said. “You and Mr. Worth scored exceptionally high on the compatibility and empathetic-intelligence tests. I'll see you in the operating room.” He smiled down at her, pleased. “Excellent,” he said, patted the gurney, and left before she could ask him again.

She asked the nurse instead.

“It generally takes twenty-four hours after the surgery for patients to establish contact,” the nurse said.

Which meant she'd have to go on lying for two more days. “Does it ever happen sooner than that?” she asked hopefully.

“No, the edema—the swelling—has to go down and the anesthetic has to leave your system first. But Dr. Verrick considers you an excellent candidate for the EED, so don't worry.”

But that was easier said than done, especially when the nurse produced an electric razor. “You're not going to shave my head, are you?” Briddey asked, remembering what C.B. had said about her hair growing back white.

“Those beautiful red curls? Oh, my, no. Just a tiny patch at the back of your neck.”

To make it easier for the guillotine,
Briddey thought, and must have said it out loud because the nurse said, “The anesthesiologist's going to give you a mild sedative to relax you.”

But it didn't relax her in the least. All she could think about was those links C.B. had sent her about people dying during surgery, especially when the anesthesiologist asked her, “Have you ever had an allergic reaction to an anesthetic?”

She intended to tell him no, but the sedative must have kicked in by then because she asked him instead if they were going to put her in a coma and harvest her organs.

“Definitely not,” he said, laughing.

“When can I see Trent?” she asked, but she didn't hear the answer because she'd fallen asleep right there on the gurney. And she clearly wasn't supposed to yet because they immediately tried to wake her up, patting the hand that didn't have the IV on it and saying, “Bridget? Bridget?”