The God Particle (6 page)

“But how did you get past the nurses? I don’t think I’m supposed to have visitors. And my parents . . . Janine. . . .”

“They wait for you outside.”

“Thank you for bringing the ring back, Anna. You could easily have kept it and sold it. You wouldn’t have to . . . you could have found a different job.”

“I did find a new job,” Anna says.

“You did? What is it?”

She places her index finger over her mouth. “He said sometimes it is a crime to break the silence.”

“What? Who?”

Steve waits for Anna to answer, but instead she disappears, evaporating before his eyes. In her place the presence returns, gradually, like an electric charge, something sensed but unseen, felt but not heard. The room seems to dissolve around him. To white it dissolves, the pure white field where the presence lives. Where his fear lives. Where death lives. All around him the presence grows stronger, sweeping, thrumming, screaming all around him, inside of him, overpowering stimuli that he cannot hear or see or detect with any of his senses.

Fear consumes him. He wills himself to wake up. This is only a dream. Wills himself to wake up.

7

“Steve.”

He opens his eyes. Janine stands before him. Her eyes are bloodshot, teary.

“Janine.”

“Oh, Steve, I’m so sorry. So sorry. I know you remember. I know that’s why you were at that place, that sex place. This is all my fault. You almost died and it’s all my fault.”

She puts a hand over her mouth. Her body shakes. Steve considers reaching for her, considers touching her, but he doesn’t.

“You hurt me,” he says.

“I know.”

“Who is he?”

“Nobody. He’s nobody, Steve. It was just a stupid thing. I was out with Christina and saw this guy I used to work with. All of us were drinking and I didn’t realize how drunk I was and then we just ended up back at his place. It was such a stupid mistake.”

He lies there, staring at her, trying to maintain his composure and not feeling very successful.

“I loved you,” he whispers. He would wipe the tears from his eyes if his arms weren’t so tired and sluggish. “I trusted you.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“How am I supposed to do that now? Trust you?”

“Because I love you, Steve. I made a mistake, and now I’m asking you to forgive me. Please forgive me.”

“How do you expect me to—” He stops and begins again. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that.”

Her breath catches at this. Her chest heaves.

“Steve, please—”

“Do you know what I heard? Do you have any idea how horrible it was?”

“I love you, Baby.” She reaches for his hand, wraps her fingers around his. “I love you so much.”

He tries to pull his hand away, but Janine’s grip is like a vise. “Then why the hell did you do that to me? Is that what you do to someone you love?”

“I messed up! Okay? I made a terrible mistake, and I know it must have really hurt you, and now I’m asking you to forgive me. I don’t want to lose you over this. I don’t want us to throw away everything over some stupid thing that didn’t mean anything.”

“You’re the one who threw it away,” Steve says. “You hurt me and I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore.”

“Oh, Baby. Please. Please don’t do this.”

Pain swells in his chest. He can sense reality swimming away from him, the way it does when he drinks too much, time losing linearity, emotions flashing strobelike, on and off, on and off. He hasn’t fallen out of love with Janine. At the moment he can’t really imagine how he’s going to live without her. And yet. . . .

“If you’re not home, I’ll always wonder where you are. Every time you take on a client, a guy, I’m going to wonder if you’re having sex with him.”

“Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous. I messed up once, Steve. Once.”

“You could do it again.”

“And you’re so perfect, is that what you’re telling me? That you’ve never cheated on anyone before?”

He tries not to shout, but somehow he’s having trouble controlling the pitch and volume of his voice. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you!”

“Oh, whatever! Such a little angel you are.”

“Janine, don’t let it turn into this.”

“I’m not letting it turn into anything. You’re the one who’s being unreasonable, who won’t give me a second—”

“Look,” Steve interjects. “I don’t want to make a goddamn . . . I’m . . . shit. My parents are outside. They don’t have to know about this now. I’m just saying that when we get back to L.A., I think you should come by and get your stuff.”

Janine begins to cry again, softly.

“Baby, I found the ring. In your coat pocket. I didn’t mean to. I was just checking to make sure nothing had been stolen. You were going to propose.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. This embarrasses him, that she knows just how bad it was, how fundamentally his life changed during the short mobile-phone call.

“I would have said ‘yes.’ ”

Steve looks away from her, at the wall, at the empty, white wall.

“And now you’re not going to ask me?”

“I’m sorry, Janine.”

She leaves him.

He lies there for a moment and breathes steadily, deeply, ignoring the tears filling his eyes.

8

When he decides Janine isn’t coming back, Steve pulls the sheet away and surveys his body. He’s naked. His left leg is mostly covered with a sprawling, plum-colored bruise. Carefully, turning his torso with a slow, gradual movement, Steve gathers the IV tube so that it won’t pull out of his arm. Then he pushes down with his elbows and slides his legs toward the edge of the bed.

The pain is enormous. It shoots from his feet to his groin and from his groin to his feet and beats wildly in his left shoulder and hip. Steve summons every ounce of willpower not to scream. Collapses on to his back. Lies there sweating.

Goddamn Janine. How could she stand there and ask him to forgive her? Did she expect him to get down on his bruised knees and propose like nothing happened? To pretend he didn’t hear her fucking another man, that he didn’t hear her begging for it? He had been ready to
marry
her, for Christ’s sake. He had been twenty-four hours from asking her to spend the rest of her life with him.

Goddamn her.

He draws his elbows close and this time works his hands beneath them, pressing against the bed. Then he pushes upward, ignoring petals of pain in his left shoulder, and scoots his ass backward until he is in a mostly upright position.

This Herculean effort requires a five-minute recess. His skin is slick with sweat. Any minute now the doctor is going to barge into the room, the doctor or a nurse or his overprotective mother, and they’re going to secure him to the bed with restraints.

But he can’t stay here. He has to figure out if he can walk or not, if he can get around on his own, because there is no way he can remain in this Zurich hospital for a few more weeks. The VP job is virtually his, after all. He was hired for it, groomed to assume the position after Jim Mannheim finished his planned two-year stint. But Steve also knows the finicky advisory board will pass him over in an instant if he can’t step in for Mannheim immediately. With the import auto parts business suffering through a devastating slump, the officers of Automotive Excellence see the downturn as a golden opportunity to grab market share from less-robust competitors. They’ll cheer Steve on if he comes back gradually, returning to form over a span of months. They’ll hold parties in his honor and speak fondly about his dedication and fortitude. But before all that they’ll give the VP job to someone else. They’ll do it because the health of the company comes before the health of the individual. Were he on the advisory board, Steve would do the same thing to someone else.

Now upright, he pushes with his hands, lifting his legs, and slides them toward the side of the bed. The pain registers in bright bolts. His feet dangle in the abyss between the mattress and the floor. To reach a standing position from here he must succumb to gravity, must allow himself to fall, and somehow this is unimaginable. He might as well step off a cliff. He might as well jump from the third story window of a Zurich apartment building.

And there goes the VP job. His well-charted life drifting off course.

Rather than simply standing, perhaps he could sort of slide off the bed, gradually transfer his weight to his legs and feet, spread the debt of pain over several seconds instead of assuming it all at once.

Or perhaps he could sort of float to the ground. Levitate off the bed and then orient himself into an upright position, standing but really not, because his feet wouldn’t actually be touching the floor.

No contact with the floor means no strain on his legs and feet. A lot less pain.

The only real problem would be propelling himself. Initially he could just push away from the bed, of course, but he can’t simply hover across the middle of the hospital room. No, he’ll need to work his way along the wall in order to gain enough purchase to drive himself forward. And then push against the wall as he opens the door, since he’ll have no friction against the ground to hold himself in place.

And yes, it’s a crazy idea, trying to move across the room without touching the floor. But in this moment he can somehow imagine it, can visualize the proper set of circumstances to induce such a thing to happen.

Really, it’s all a matter of perspective.

So now. His feet. Still dangling over the edge of the bed. He grabs the sheet, the cover of the mattress, and begins to push himself forward.

The levitation effect isn’t as strong as he would have hoped. His feet don’t seem to be maintaining the proper elevation. Perhaps if he pushes harder, moves faster, he’ll gain enough lift to—

He slides right off the bed and tumbles into a heap on the floor.

“Oh my God!” Steve screams. Pain blinds him. Deafens him. Scrambled images as the door flies open and nurses and doctors descend upon him. His mother’s quiet, flapping mouth. His father, arms crossed, brow bent.

Of course, now levitation is no problem. Now he manages to make it back to the bed with no physical exertion whatsoever. Well, here are a couple of orderlies with their arms around him, maybe they’re doing the levitating, maybe they understand what he does not, how to beat the damning power of gravity.

He tries to push them away, to operate independently; how is he ever supposed to figure this out if they keep treating him like a child?

Then a prick of pain as he shoots into the void at a silent, extraordinary speed.

9

Steve is unable to properly explain himself. His mother is particularly perturbed.

“You thought you were going to
float
off the bed?”

Steve isn’t sure anymore what he was thinking.

“Doctor, what’s wrong with him? Why would he think he could
float
?”

“Mrs. Keeley, your son’s IV contains a strong painkiller derived from codeine. Hallucinations are a common side effect. And because it blocks inhibitory neurotransmitters, it can have a stimulating effect.”

“It’s one thing if you get out of bed and do jumping jacks. But to think you could
float
? I don’t understand.”

Dr. Dobbelfeld sighs. “I just told you, Mrs. Keeley, that—”

“Are you sure his brain is fixed?” asks his father.

“The effects of brain injury are unpredictable. Steve may appear well on the outside, but there is no way to tell what sort of impairments he may experience in the future.”

“So he could hallucinate like this forever?” Betty shrieks.

“That is difficult to know. But please understand that the first hours after a patient emerges from a coma can be confusing. They can be traumatic. Combine this with possible side effects from his medication, and I do not find his confusion surprising at all.”

Steve finally thinks of something to say. “If the painkillers are so strong, Doc, why does it hurt so badly to move?”

“You have been in this bed for several days. Bruising and lack of use have likely tightened your muscles. We will begin your physical therapy soon. I think you will make rapid progress.”

“But I’m not going to be back in L.A. in three days, am I?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What?” his mother says. “Why do you want to go back home so soon?”

“I have a job interview, Mom.”

“Oh, Stevie. They’ll postpone that for you.”

“I’m sure they will. But in the meantime they’ll be looking for someone else.”

“Stevie,” she scolds. “You’ll be up and around in no time. Just like the doctor said.”

“He’ll be fine,” his father adds, “as long as he doesn’t try to fly again.”

10

His parents leave the hospital and head back to their hotel, where they think Janine has gone to rest. Steve thinks it’s more likely that Janine has already found her way to the airport. He’s tried to put her out of his mind, to move forward the way he always has from failed relationships, but she keeps popping back with her bright smile and asthmatic laugh. The most effective way to end these nostalgic interludes, Steve has found, is to picture her fucking another man. It’s a matter of perspective, just like with the levitation.

Even now it doesn’t seem so farfetched. Steve gets the feeling that if he could just regain the perspective he found earlier, if he could just see the world through those eyes again, everything would become clear. That he is on the verge of some great discovery, that what seems like delusion is actually radical innovation.

And this terrifies him.

11

“I’m so glad to hear you’re okay, Steve. Sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress.”

It’s Jim Mannheim on the phone. It’s the next day.

“It was a freak thing,” Steve says. “I’m glad everything turned out okay. I’m eager to get back.”

“Get back? Betty made it sound like you’d be out for a few more weeks.”

He shoots a look at his mother, who is sitting in a chair across from the bed, and she shoots back a patronizing smile.

“Actually—”

“Look, Steve. You’re a vital part of this organization. We need you. I want you to take all the time you need to get well, and that’s an order.”