The Long Sleep (6 page)

“I told him I had enough,” I said.

“So you broke up?”

“I tried to. He wouldn’t accept it.”

“It figures. Guys like that . . .”

“Okay, you were right.”

“You better call the police.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s gone now.”

“It’s
not
okay. You were on the floor
and you couldn’t get up. He hurt your head. That is not okay. You
should call the police, report him, and get yourself to the
emergency room.”

“Ben, I’m all right. It hurts but I don’t
think anything’s broken.”

“You don’t know. People think they’re okay,
then the brain swells up and that’s it.”

“You mean—they die?”

“That’s what I mean. A head injury is serious
stuff.”

Ben took it upon himself to call 911. The
first responders were our fire department. The paramedics looked me
over and agreed with Ben that I needed medical intervention. Or
evaluation. Whatever they said, I can’t remember exactly. The next
responder was a policewoman. I’d seen her before. She had short,
curly hair and nodded seriously as Ben told her what happened.
Before I knew it, they were bundling me into an ambulance. Ben
followed in his truck.

I’m not accustomed to being so helpless and I
didn’t like it. They wheeled me into an MRI room and did an MRI of
my head. A doctor looked over the results and decided I would be
okay. After several long waits, Ben took me home. He had already
called our parents and they were both there in a state of
panic.

Daddy said, “This can’t go on.”

“It won’t,” I assured him. “I’m finished with
Evan.”

“According to you,” Ben reminded me, “that’s
what got you beat up. He’ll be back. You know that.

“How are you going to avoid the jerk?”

Even though Evan was a grade ahead of me,
Lakeside was a small school. I’d been thinking about that in the
back of my mind. Now it came forward.

“Maybe I won’t have to see him if I quit
Lakeside.”

I’d been there all my life. It was scary to
think of changing. But not as scary as being near Evan.

My parents were appalled when I brought it
up. Why, they asked, should I be the one to change schools? They
tried talking to the headmaster, who said he would speak to Evan,
but we all knew it wouldn’t do any good. Not with Evan’s
astronomical opinion of himself, and the school’s, too, what with
him being a star athlete. Lakeside’s team was already abysmal.
Without him, it would be nothing.

And so I withdrew, explaining my reasons to
anybody who would listen—and that wasn’t a lot. Except for my
friend Glynis. She stood by me in spirit, if not physically. She
stayed at Lakeside while I transferred to big, confusing
Southbridge High, where I met Cree. And Hank. And almost got myself
killed.

* * *

I had started to adjust to life at
Southbridge. It wasn’t bad, until that horrible Thursday when Hank
was shot.

On Saturday I called the hospital again.

He was holding his own, they said, but still
in a coma. Actually what they said was there had been no
change.

“Still in ICU?” I asked. Which meant I
couldn’t go near him. If he could possibly hear me, I wanted to
tell him I meant to go ahead with his series. I wanted to talk
about the research we both had done. There were so many aspects I
needed to discuss. For instance, the ventilator and whether or not
to unplug it.

Then there was the feeding tube. That was
what happened with Terri Schiavo. She could breathe on her own but
had to be fed through a tube. The question was whether she would
have wanted to go on living that way. Personally I felt that if she
could breathe, then she actually was alive. But was it life? She
still needed artificial means to keep going.

There were other kinds of right-to-die cases,
too, such as people who were terminally ill and in terrible pain.
They were going to die anyway and probably soon. Why make them
suffer if they wanted out? What did it accomplish? It was easy
enough for people on the outside to get righteous about it, but
they were not the ones in agony.

And what about emotional pain? That was the
more usual reason for suicide. The trouble was, despair and
depression could often be treated, and sometimes there was a change
of mind. I’d seen the phrase, “A permanent solution to a temporary
problem” used in discussions on that topic. In cases like that,
where the person was depressed with no fatal illness, could you
argue in favor of the right to die? Of course people did it anyway
if there was no one around to stop them. To them, the emotional
pain seemed black and hopeless. Since there was nothing wrong with
them physically, I wasn’t sure if the right to die should apply to
them. Yet it was their own life, no one else’s. Whose place was it
to decide?

Did Hank mean to cover all those issues? He’d
seen it as a three-part series, but we hadn’t discussed what would
be in each part. He knew his journalism techniques, such as what
would make the most effective presentation. Me, I didn’t know
anything. I really needed him.

I thought about all that as I lay in bed on
Saturday morning, until Rhoda knocked softly on my door. Just as
softly, without me answering, she opened the door. “I made
coffeecake and it’s not getting any warmer.”

I loved her coffeecake with the
cinnamon-sugar crust, so I dragged myself up to face another
day.

Later I began working on our assignment for
American History that involved making a chart with different color
markers. My markers were all dried up. We had divided into teams
and Cree and I were doing it together. She called just as I
finished breakfast.

“Want to meet me at CVS to get our stuff? I
have to go anyway and pick up my grandma’s prescription.”

“Cree,” I reminded her, “I don’t have
transportation.”

Neither did she, although she lived in the
village and it wasn’t far for her to walk. She used to travel
everywhere on her bike, when she had one.

“Um,” she said, which meant she was thinking.
“If I pick up my grandma’s pills, by rights she should lend me her
car. So I can pick you up. When are you getting your car back?”

“Very soon, but I still need a new
windshield.”

“Are they anywhere near finding the person
who shot yours out?”

And shot Hank. “They’re working on it,” I
said.

That brought up an image of Falco’s green
eyes. They were so green, I wondered if he wore contact lenses.
Were cops allowed to? What if he got hit in the face?

“An hour?” Cree said.

“Okay. An hour.” I wondered if I could get
her to take me to the hospital afterward.

Cree was always on time, unlike me. I had
this habit of coming up with last minute things that really,
really
needed doing. But I was ready for her when she came
at exactly eleven-thirty in her grandmother’s bright orange car. It
was sort of a metallic orange. Not bad as a color, but for a
car?

“I see you got Archie,” I said as I climbed
in beside her. Archie was what her grandmother had named the
car.

“At first she wanted it back by two o’clock
for one of her girlie meetings, but somebody’s picking her up, so
that’s okay.”

“You mean there’s no deadline?” I asked
hopefully.

“Why?”

I sighed, but it was more like a groan. “I
can’t wait to get mine back. Except I don’t know if I ever want to
see it again.” I tried to imagine getting behind the wheel,
especially for the first time after that shooting.

“What are you going to do?” Cree asked. “You
need something, way out here in Boonieland.”

Not having a car was unthinkable. “I’d have
to take the bus to school. You’re so lucky to live in town.”

“I guess.” She made a left turn and started
down the steep hill toward the bridge. “Every time I do this I
can’t help wondering if the brakes will hold. Do they ever
not?”

“I never heard of it happening, but I suppose
it could.”

She gave me a quick look as we turned onto
the bridge. “Is something on your mind?”

“I’m sorry. Yes, something is. Um—after we
get our stuff, would you mind terribly if we make a quick trip to
the hospital?”

She glanced my way again, but mostly had to
keep her eyes on the bridge. “Is he out of his coma?”

“I haven’t heard anything. Of course I don’t
expect the hospital to keep me posted.”

“Can’t you call them?”

I hesitated before answering. “I really want
to see him.”

She hesitated, too, and then said, “Oh.”

I tried to explain. “It’s not personal. I
mean, it’s not him. I just feel responsible, you know? Even though
it wasn’t my fault. I mean, it was my car.”

We passed a sign welcoming us into
Southbridge proper, not the Boonieland east of it, where I lived.
Cree said, “Look, if somebody had a beef with him, they’d have done
it anyway, whether it was your car or not.”

“What if they were aiming at me and
missed?”

That time her quick look was more of a
glower. “Who would shoot at you?”

“How do I know? Who would shoot at Hank?”

“Maybe they were shooting at something else
entirely. You said it was getting dark.”

I never thought of it’s being an accident.
“That’s why it’s so stupid! They shouldn’t have been shooting at
all, especially in the dark. People are just too trigger-happy.
Guns are
lethal.
”

I tried to think what someone could have been
shooting at, if not my car. Cree pulled into the parking lot in
back of CVS. We cruised, looking for a space. It was Saturday and
it seemed as if the whole world was shopping in Southbridge.
Finally we found an empty meter.

I hadn’t realized how skittish I’d become
until we got out of the car. I looked around, feeling eyes, but
didn’t see anybody watching.

Why would I see them? They’d be hidden.
Snipers didn’t stand out in the open. I walked as fast as I could
to CVS’s front door.

Cree headed straight for cosmetics, wanting
to check out blusher colors to go with her dark red hair. She wore
it in a ponytail down to her waist.

“You don’t need blusher,” I said. “You have
good coloring naturally.”

“Just looking.”

I knew she was crazy about makeup but Ben
would like her even without it. Again I felt that pang. I used to
have a devoted boyfriend, too, until it all went sour. The very
thought of Evan made me sick. How could I have been so stupid?

A voice said, “Maddie!”

Coming toward me was a head of frizzy blond
hair.

“Glynis!”

I hadn’t actually see her since I left
Lakeside, although we talked on the phone sometimes.

We hugged each other. Glyn said, “How have
you
been?
I miss you so much. How’s the big old public
school?”

She hadn’t heard about the shooting. Glyn
hardly ever read
The Chronicle,
our local paper. Or listened
to the local radio.

“It’s okay. It’s a lot better than what I
left at Lakeside, except for you. This is my friend Cree Penny from
Southbridge High. Glynis Goode, from Lakeside.”

“Hi,” they said to each other.

Somehow we worked our way back to the
lipsticks, where Glyn had been browsing. “What do you think of
this?” She held one up.

Dark burgundy with silver sparkles. I tried
to be diplomatic. “A lighter shade might go better with your
coloring.”

“How about this?”

“That one’s good.” It was apricot.

She put it back, looked at pearly pink, and
sighed. “Don’t you just love cosmetics?”

The question was directed at me, but Cree
answered. “I know what you mean! Even before I could wear them, I
used to come in here and just look.”

Between the two of them, they could have
spent all day in that aisle. I wanted to get out of there and visit
the hospital. Cree still hadn’t answered my question about whether
she’d be willing to take me.

Somehow Glyn must have tuned into my
brainwaves. She put back the tube of pearly pink. “Any new guys in
your life?”

I felt my face heat up. “I don’t have time.
And who wants a new guy after that one?” She knew all about
Evan.

But not about Hank. She looked at me closely,
having seen the blush. Stupid face. I wasn’t a blond or a redhead,
so why did my face give me away?

She laughed. “He was such an idiot. I never
saw anybody so lovesick. He messed up his whole future just because
he couldn’t keep away from you.”

Now we were on a topic I knew something
about. “You call that love? It has nothing to do with love. As I
said to my friendly neighborhood cop, it’s nothing but a sick
obsession, and I mean sick. It wasn’t about
me.
”

“How come you have a friendly neighborhood
cop?” Glyn asked.

I backed down a little. “He’s not exactly
neighborhood. But he’s friendly.” I turned to Cree. “Remember that
guy at the police station, with the green eyes?”

She blinked, and then remembered. “He was
cute. But not much help.”

“He’s been a help to me other times.” I
didn’t want to get into the whole shooting thing. Glynis didn’t
know and it would take too much explaining.

“Evan was really into you,” Glyn said. “Or
maybe not, because he told . . . oh, look!” She held up a dark blue
tube with a pattern of gold stars. It was lovely packaging but the
package isn’t what you wear on your face.

That was obviously a diversion. I said, “He
told what?”

Glyn pressed her lips together as if she
wished nothing had gotten past them.

I tried again. “What did he tell? And who did
he tell it to?”

She saw that I wasn’t going to let go.
“Um—everybody. He was telling all these lies.”

“About me? What sort of lies?”

“Oh, things like you slept around and that’s
why he broke up with you.”

“He—said—
that?
”