Lie Still (31 page)

She said, “But it’s all got me so . . . I mean, they can’t wait to have a private little chat with me, the one who gave him the shot.” Again the look.

“You shouldn’t be worried. Really. You were just doing your job. They’re going to do theirs—get it all on the record.

They can hear the lawyers coming.”

She turned away. “But you know how people talk, and I know the nursing administration has been asking questions in the ER. I can’t help be worried.”

“Are you feeling like you did something wrong?”

She looked at the ceiling and stammered, “I—I don’t think so, Malcolm. You know how you wonder, though, after something goes bad? I mean, a sub-Q shot of epi is something I could do in my sleep. I probably have done it in my 230

DAVID FARRIS

sleep. I’ve given so many of them they all run together in my mind, you know?” She served the salads.

I said, “Logically—I mean in a purely analytic sense—

there are really only two things you could have done wrong. You could have drawn up the wrong drug—say, grabbed the wrong amp from the drawer and cracked it open—but that’s pretty unlikely, since they’re mostly different colors and different sizes and shapes. Or, you could have given the epi IV instead of sub-Q. Hit a vein. That’s really unlikely, too, but if you did, it’s a whopping big dose for IV. He could have gotten his pulse so fast he arrested from a tachy-dysrhythmia. Or got acute heart failure from the blood pressure. Hell, with that much epi IV it’s possible he shot his blood pressure through the roof and had a stroke. I’m just thinking out loud, but he could have bled into his brain from the sudden surge in blood pressure.

Nah, that’s getting way off into fantasyland. And they’re getting a CT of his head, so they’ll know if that happened, but I really doubt it’s going to show much besides the usual—‘diffuse edema, consistent with global ischemic in-sult.’ ” I took a bite. “But all the other possibilities are
his
—I mean, something his body did that most wouldn’t.

So all in all it’s pretty unlikely that anyone could seriously blame you.”

She forced a smile. “What do you think? That’s what I want to know.”

“Like I said, I can only guess. Pick one. Take laryngospasm. It’s as good as any.”

“Vocal cords close . . . spasm and . . .”

“And he can’t move air in or out. Shut off. And in his stressed state, his heart . . .”—I waved a hand—“checks out.”

She drained her wineglass, then refilled it. “Hope you don’t mind,” she said.

“No. Of course not.”

“What does your friend think? What’s her name? Dr.

Monty?”

“Dr. Montgomery, Mary Ellen Montgomery. Every-LIE STILL

231

body calls her Monty. I think she’s about as unclear about it as any of us. We only talked about it for a few seconds.

She was up to her ass in alligators when I was up in the Pick-U.”

“So what’s the lowdown between you and this Dr.

Monty?” She sipped her wine and gave me a coy look. “You didn’t mention you lived with her.”

“It’s true,” I said. “I don’t hide it. I guess it just didn’t come up. Mary Ellen and I have been friends since we started med school together. We were lab partners in gross anatomy and paired up for the class on physical examination. I got to listen to her heart and peer deep into her eyes.

And ears. With the right scope, of course.

“Then we both got residencies here in Phoenix and decided to share a town house. That means we’ve been roommates going on three years and friends for seven.” I reached over for a chunk of the tomato she was quartering and popped it in my mouth. “We’ve never been lovers.” I took another swallow of wine.

She said, “You haven’t heard anyone say anything about me, have you? I mean, people can be so mean sometimes.

I’m just really worried.”

“God, you’re being skittish. I haven’t heard a peep, Robin.”

She went to the stove and turned on the flame under the wok. “I just hope all this fuss doesn’t hurt you.”

I chortled. “My reputation ruined? A wrongful death suit?

Permanent vegetative state?”

“We can talk about something else, if all this is . . .”

“It’s all right. I suppose I could get sued over this. You don’t need to do anything wrong to get sued. A third of all doctors get sued eventually. Maybe I can get mine over with early. I’ve heard it’s a real eye-opener about what a joke the legal system is. The courtroom as a one-ring circus. Illusion as your goal. But I have insurance. Not as much as the hospital’s twenty million dollars, but if they run through my policy limits all they’ll have left to go after will be an old Datsun and a pile of debt.”

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DAVID FARRIS

“There wasn’t any other Attending on the case, was there?”

“Just me. That family doesn’t really go to regular doctors.

No insurance coverage and an intractable psychiatric condition,” I said. “Very bad combination.”

She poured the vegetables into the hot oil. “So how would they pay their lawyer?”

“You kidding?” I thought any nurse would know how that worked.

She looked at me blankly.

I said, “The
abogados
line up for cases like this.”

“Oh, right, contingency fees. They get half?”

“Half, or maybe only a third. What’s a couple o’ mil?” I said. “But that’s a depressing topic. So I hear you’re meeting with Sally Marquam tomorrow.”

She shot me a look. “Speaking of depressing.”

“Yeah. Precisely. It seems to be where we’re living today.”

“What should I tell her? Can she get my license taken away?”

I thought any nurse would have known how that worked, too. When answers are obvious, though, I try to be polite. I said, “The State of Arizona issues your license.

She could report something to the Nursing Board, but they’re your boss. You’re part of ‘them.’ They don’t want you looking bad.”

She said, “Get yourself some more wine, if you want.”

She added the fish to the stir-fry. I went to the refrigerator and refilled my glass, then stood beside her as she toyed with the sizzling food.

“Will I get sued, too? I mean, am I going to have to go to court?” Robin asked.

“You wouldn’t be named in the suit. Since you work for the hospital, the hospital is responsible for you. If they think you did him in, they go for the hospital. I think it’s called
re-spondeat superior
in legal jive. It’s Latin for ‘deep pockets, baby.’ But you would have to testify. That is, if it went to trial.

I guess most of these get settled out of court, though.”

“You think this would?”

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233

“I don’t know,” I said. “On the one hand we know we didn’t do anything negligent. It certainly looks like there was a bad outcome, but that’s not the same as malpractice.

The question is, can you convince a jury that you—we—

didn’t do anything wrong. If Henry doesn’t die and he’s just left with permanent brain damage and they let some plain-tiff’s attorney wheel a comatose teenager into court, most juries will go nuts, no matter what the facts are.”

“This
is
depressing,” she said. She looked over at me. She put out a hand, taking mine. I stepped behind her and put my arms around her waist. She nuzzled her head back onto my chest. I leaned down and kissed her neck. She turned to me and our mouths met, softly at first, then wet with full intention.

“Time to eat,” she said, pulling away.

The coy looks melted into inviting smiles. Halfway through the plate of stir-fry I was cocking my head right, eyes closed, and digging my fingers into the golf ball in my left trapezius again. She suddenly stood up and said, “You need a back rub.” She held a hand toward me. When I took it she pulled me up and kissed me. I hadn’t planned on a sudden shift to the physical but it didn’t seem like a bad idea.

She disappeared into the back of the house and returned with a sheet, a towel, and a bottle of oil. She put the oil in the microwave, then pointed me to her bedroom. “Promise not to look at the room. It’s a mess.”

“It’ll remind me of home.”

She called after me, “You’re going to have to take your clothes off.”

“Oh damn,” I said.

Her bedroom furnishings were minimal: a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a bookcase. There was nothing on the walls.

I pulled off my shirt and sneakers and lay facedown with my feet at the head of her bed. She came in and lit two candles. Her massage oil was slightly hot, her hands very strong. She kneaded both my trapezii and all the strap muscles of my neck until they felt like they could never again raise my head. I could still tell where the knot was, but its angry barbs were gone.

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DAVID FARRIS

“You’re amazing,” I said through the pillow.

“I took an extra-credit course in nursing school,” she said.

She worked down each arm individually, then back to each shoulder. She worked down my back to the lumbar curve, then wiped her hands, reached under my stomach, and undid my pants. These she slid down and off, then pulled off my socks, leaving me naked. I turned my head and began to rise up slightly but she said, “Lie down and relax.”

It occurred to me: Why did I even start to get up? To what, exactly, was I going to object?

She straddled me and laid her hands back in the exact spot she had just left. From the small of my back she began deep circular strokes around my buttocks. “That feels amazingly good,” I said.

“These are your biggest muscles. And fine ones, at that.”

I was smiling like a fool. She worked down my thighs, calves, feet and toes. I was feeling whole and perfect, as if my flaws had disappeared.

“Flip over,” she said. I hesitated only an instant. She worked from the tops of my feet up my shins and the front of my thighs. She spread my legs slightly to get to my inner thighs and worked up to my abdominals, barely brushing my half-erect penis. She went on up my chest, working over my chest muscles, did the front of my neck, then my face, with small circles around the temples.

“Now you rest,” she said, and was gone. At that hour I should have fallen asleep in seconds, especially after the two glasses of wine, but my biologic clock was inverted and the procreational parts of my brain were on alert. I just drifted along, smiling drowsily. I did not, however, move.

Piano music came from the living room. I became aware of her moving beside me just before she touched my lips with her index finger, then straddled me again. Her legs were bare. She rubbed my chest again, then bent down and brushed her lips against mine. I smiled, eyes closed. Her cue. She kissed me, well. She had an urgency.

I kept my hands at my sides, my reciprocation strictly in my lips. She slid down my abdomen to kiss, lick, and soon LIE STILL

235

enough suck my near-painful engorgement. She took me well into her mouth with a vigorous rhythm, but stopped just short of culmination.

I opened my eyes to see Robin’s breasts suspended over my face, but for a second I only smiled. She returned the smile and kissed me hard on the mouth. She rubbed her nipples around mine, then slowly rose over my face again for me to suck and kiss her breasts. They were wonderful, despite the obvious presence of silicone implants.

I got her to lie back so I could take a turn with my own mouth. I said, “It seems you have some redheaded genes on the back of a chromosome somewhere.”

She pulled me up to her again, saying, “It’s just the can-dlelight.” Then she rose, saying, “I need you in me.” She went to an old bookcase built into the far wall, retrieving what looked like a large pair of matching books, glued together. “Toy box,” she said. She took a tiny key from the drawer in the nightstand and put it into a nearly invisible slit in the edge of the upper book, turned it, and the cover popped up slightly.

“I got this at a place in North Beach in San Francisco called the Kitsch Kitchen. Isn’t it great?” she said.

Inside the box were some papers, a small stack of money neatly bound with a white paper strip, some silk scarves, condoms, spermicidal foam, and a dildo-shaped vibrator.

The bill on top of the stack was clearly a hundred. I said,

“Jesus, you must deal drugs or something.”

“Oh shit,” she said, “you’re not supposed to be looking.” She gave me an exasperated look. “My parents have a lot of money and my dad insists on sending me some every month. He doesn’t want Mom to know, so he sends cash. I never deposit it so the IRS doesn’t think I’m ‘dealing drugs or something.’ ”

“What are the scarves for?” I asked.

“If you’re bad I tie you to the bed,” she said with a smile as she tossed me a condom and took the foam into the bathroom.

I called, “What if I’m good?”

“Then I tie you to the bed to keep you here,” she called back.

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D AVID FARRIS

Completion of our lovemaking was exquisite, if conven-tional. I topped it off with a quick lapse into total unconsciousness. When I came around I opened my eyes to see Robin up on an elbow, staring at my face. The candles were still burning; little had changed. I offered an expectant smile.

She blinked, but said nothing, still looking at me intently.

She kissed me briefly, then went to the bathroom.

Her prodding me gently in the arm woke me up a second time. “It’s time for you to go home, sleepyhead.”

I frowned. “What time is it?”

She was wearing a plaid flannel nightgown now. “About one-thirty. I need my beauty rest. And you just need some rest, period.”

I looked at her. “I kinda like sleeping here.”

“But we hardly know each other.”

“I thought we were getting along pretty good.”

She smiled. “We are. So let’s not rush things.”

I scowled. I said, “Me-e! What about you?” She kissed me again, then pushed me out of bed.

At her door I hesitated to leave, pulling her toward me to kiss her. Her response was cool.

I rubbed my eyes, stumbled to my car, and drove back home, across the flooding Salt River.

14

Hoacham, Nebraska, Scenic Hub of Agriculture for the Republican Valley, has a unique bar. It’s at one end of the main
street. When you approach it from the town side, the sign
reads “Last Chance Bar and Grill.” From the other side,
logically enough, it reads “First Chance Bar and Grill.” The
locals are onto the ruse. They call it simply The Chance.