Greetings from the Flipside (11 page)

Well, it doesn't.

6

P
raying you are resting peacefully in the arms of our Heavenly Father. May He carry you through this stormy time.'” He closed the card. On the back of the card was a small sunset.

Jake glanced up. Well, she
was
resting peacefully. Of course, that was just observation from the outside. Maybe she was frantically trying to climb out of the coma. Now, though, she just looked peaceful.

He opened the next card. They were coming in by the dozens. For the past four days, he'd made it his job to come and read them to her. There was no way of telling when her mother would be here, and he tried to avoid her as much as possible. But mother or no mother, he felt compelled to be with Hope, even if she didn't know he was there.

He slid the card out of the envelope. It was a picture of a cross on a hill. Green grass rolled in the distance. The sun was setting directly behind it, spraying light in all directions. “‘It is in the most difficult of times that we rely on and pray to Jesus. Through His stripes we are healed. Cling to Him in all things.'” He laughed a little. “Well, you don't appear to be able to pray or cling, but we have to cut them some slack.” He set the card aside.

He was about to start a third card—it had a little lamb on it—when the nurse walked in. Her name was Bette (“like a gamble,” she'd said) and they'd met two days ago. If he was sick, she was the kind of nurse he'd want. Like many in the healthcare profession, she seemed not to have the time or energy to take care of her own health. Her scrubs fit tight in all the wrong places and she nursed some sort of energy/sugar/coffee/spiked water drink throughout her whole shift. All her features were sunken, but most of all her eyes. Sometimes Jake sensed when she came to check on Hope that she was a little envious of the sleep she was getting.

“Hi there, Jake.” Her voice was always cheery even while her eyes looked swollen with fatigue. “How's our girl today?”

It was this kind of response that caused him to believe that he really shouldn't speak very much. “She's not mine. I mean, she's not . . . we're not . . . you know, together, unplatonically speaking. Speaking of speaking, we haven't really. Not in a long time. But I was delivering flowers for her wedding—I mean, the one that didn't—and then I found her, so . . .”

Bette raised an eyebrow at him as she took Hope's blood pressure. “You're trying to say you're just friends?”

“Of course, yes, that's a much easier way to say it.”

Bette patted her hand lightly. “Hope, when are you going to wake up, girl? If I had a hot guy sitting next to my bedside, I'd sure as heck wake up.”

Jake actually glanced behind himself.

“Yeah, you,” she said with a smirk.

“Oh, um . . . thanks?”

She shook her head. “Sweetie, I believe in divine intervention. You know what that is?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah. I write about that a lot.”

“Oh? You're a writer?”

“Not really a . . . per se . . . greeting cards, I write the little . . . inside where you sign . . . you know?”

“I'm going to have to teach you to speak in complete sentences, but I think I'm following. You write greeting cards.”

“Not a lot. Just a few to keep in my store. We send a lot of bouquets for funerals and things, so I try to write something hopeful in each card, something that will give them strength.”

“That's very sweet, Jake. And you're very sweet to sit in here and read these cards to her.”

Jake shrugged. “I don't know if it's doing much.”

“Oh, come now. I don't want to hear that from you. We can't give up hope. On Hope.”

Jake laughed. “I guess her name requires that we don't, huh?”

From a nearby tray, she took what looked like large needles from a plastic sheath. She walked to the end of the bed and untucked the sheets and blanket, exposing her feet.

“They give shots in the feet now?” Jake cringed. He wasn't sure if he could watch.

“It's called Coma Arousal Therapy. We just call it CAT.” She held up a needle. “The bottoms of the feet are extremely sensitive. So we gently stick needles, pricking her here and there, to try to get her to wake up.”

She pricked the bottoms of her feet, but Hope remained motionless.

“Several times a day I will come in and do this. Sometimes I put a smell near her nose, like peppermint oil or eucalyptus oil. I've done ammonia too. I'll play music.” She looked at Jake as she pricked her feet again. “But I've found that talking to patients who are unconscious is the best therapy around. Studies show that loved ones are the most influential.”

“Well, um . . . again, I'm not even part of the—”

“Hope, dear God! Hope!”

Bette sighed before CiCi even got in the room. “That woman . . .”

CiCi rushed in, her eyes frantic, her face splotchy. “I got a word from the Lord!”

Bette was swiping the needles with alcohol and putting them back in their case. “Well, I got a word from the doctor, who sometimes mistakes himself for the Lord. He continues to maintain that you should keep a positive attitude around the patient at all times and not say things that are—”

“Stuck! That's the word the Lord gave me! Hope, you're stuck! You're stuck!”

“Okay, listen . . .” Bette took CiCi by the shoulders and sat her down in a chair behind Jake, away from the bed. “CiCi, right?”

“Yes. Yes.” She was nodding, her hands trembling, her lips pressed together so tight they couldn't even be seen. It looked like she'd lost all her teeth.

“I know it feels like she's up against a wall here.” Bette was trying to use a hushed voice.

“And no way to get out. No way at all . . .”

“There's always a way. It just might not come like we expect it to. Jake, why don't you hand CiCi some of those cards you've been reading.”

Jake gathered ten or so, stacked them, and gave them to her. CiCi opened the first one and seemed to settle a bit, nodding at whatever words she was reading. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” she kept saying over and over.

As CiCi absorbed herself in the cards, Bette grabbed his attention as she stood by the side of Hope's bed. Her voice was very low. “Jake, listen to me. I understand you're a little uncomfortable here. But the way I see it—and I've been a nurse for twenty-three years—you need to be here. As much as possible. She needs to hear positive reinforcement, over and over. She needs to hear good things about her life. She was knocked unconscious with a broken heart. Somewhere deep inside of her, she believes that she has nothing good to come back to. Be her good. Okay?”

Bette walked out and Jake sat motionless by the side of the bed. Behind him CiCi was talking to herself, but apparently gaining some hope as she read the Scriptures and poems inside the cards.

Jake, on the other hand, was desperate.

How could this all be laid on him? Hope couldn't possibly remember him from years ago. He just happened to be there and now he's here, and she was probably wondering whose strange voice kept reading her all those sympathy and get well cards.

“Well,” Jake said, his voice low and a notch below a whisper. “I should say something right now. I should say something that will cause you to want to come back.”

Silence crawled into the room. Even CiCi had stopped talking. The monitors didn't beep. The hospital page didn't blare through the speaker. The only noise came from the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead.

If there was a time when she might tune into his voice, it would be right now.

His mind was totally blank.

He grabbed another card off the shelf and opened it up. “I'm sorry. This is all I can do.”

Greetings from My Life

The door to my room is so thin it won't even slam. I walk in, throw it against its frame and it just makes a little
swooshy
sound. I am fed up. Mostly fed up with myself. I had my chance and I blew it. I'm crawling on my hands and knees like a dog in front of the guy I want to hire me. I don't even get a chance to show him my cards. He hands me a wad of cash. Tells me that's all he can do for me.

Moron.

Me, not him.

He doesn't know me very well. And that's got to change.

As I sit on my Murphy bed, making sure my weight is evenly distributed, I notice the plastic bride and groom I'd tossed in the wastebasket is back on my desk. I stare at it for a long time. What did it do, crawl out of there by itself? I sigh, flicking it with my fingers back into the trash. Maybe I never put it in there at all.

Then I hear noises. Childlike noises. What is going on right outside my window? I decide to pull the shades up. Light would probably do me some good. I raise the window too. Fresh air and all that. Too soon to tell if that exists in NYC.

Right as I open the window, I feel something wet and sticky splatter across my face. I take my hand and swipe it across my forehead. I don't know why I was expecting red, but it's yellow. I glance up to see the girl who was previously in my room now outside in the small, weed-infested atrium, splatter painting. A few other kids are there as well. They're all covered in paint. So are the sidewalks, trees, and plants around them.

She smiles at me. “How's that dream coming along?”

The idea strikes me just then, the way the best ideas always do. “Hey, stay right there. I'm coming to you. I need your help.”

An hour later, she and I sit at one of the rusted iron tables in the atrium. I am working on a card. She pulls one out of my bag and I let her. She's a curious girl, as was I when I was young.

“‘Do you want to break up?'” she reads out loud.

I glance up at her, wanting to see her expression when she opens it.

“Yes. No. I didn't know we were boyfriend-girlfriend.” A pause. Then a roar of laughter. “That is hilarious!”

“Cool. You think it's funny?”

“Funny. And so true. This is sooo my life. Sadly, I relate.” She jabs her thumb over her shoulder to a blond kid, around twelve, standing at one of the easels. “David. Is that hair killer or what?”

Well, in my estimation it seems he needs a haircut. But he has a nice smile.

I glance at her. “Aren't you a little young to be looking for romance, kiddo?”

“I'm eleven, Room Eleven, in case you haven't noticed. And by the way, it's Mikaela.”

“Trust me,” I say, pointing at her with my black sketch pencil. “You love someone, they'll hurt you. Save your heart the trouble and get a pet lizard.” I put the final touches on my card and hand it to Mikaela. “If you like it, the Heaven Sent guy will like it, because you're a kid and he likes kids.”

She looks over the front picture. I've sketched a cute girl holding a variety of plucked flowers. She is eagerly batting her eyes. Underneath it reads
Will you pick me?

Mikaela opens the card. Inside there are three choices:
(1) Yes. (2) I need you in my life. (3) I can't say no.
All three boxes are checked.

Mikaela smiles. “Clever. So this guy . . . he must be a hottie.”

“The card is for a job, not a man.”

“Right. Oooh, wait. If this is Heaven Sent cards, don't you need something about God or angels or fluffy clouds? A lamb? A rainbow? A sparkling body of water?”

“Good thinking. I've got an idea.” I stuff my pencils into my bag. “You up for some fun?”

* * * *

Before I tell you what I'm doing, you must understand something—I am not a rule-breaker. I've never tipped a cow. I've never climbed a water tower while drunk. I don't even have a traffic ticket on my record. I say this because you really must understand that under normal circumstances, I'm not some crazy hooligan from Poughkeepsie. I'm not saying we haven't supplied our share to the world. I'm just not one of them.

“Now!”

As the receptionist leaves to refill her coffee, Mikaela and I dart to the elevators. My thumb punches the up button ferociously, like it's some sort of life-saving procedure. I frantically search the directory to see what floor he might be on.

Three.

“Come on, come on!” Mikaela whispers to the doors.

The doors open and we slip inside just as the receptionist returns, focused on not spilling her coffee as she sips it. She never even sees us.

The doors open on the third floor. As we step off the elevator, there is a large, expansive, open kind of space. There are a few cubicles. Some of the space is divided off like there are different departments. A variety of desks sit here and there. And in the middle of all of it is a crying woman.

The young woman, maybe an assistant of some sort, is wailing at her desk, her hands covering her face. Two older ladies, both gray-haired and looking like twins, are leaning over trying to console her. They're wearing the exact same sweater but in different colors, patting her shoulders, rubbing her back.

I grab Mikaela quickly and we duck behind a cubicle wall.

“Any guesses to which way we should go?” Mikaela's chest is heaving up and down but her cheeks are bright.

I point and we begin sliding, backs to the cubicle walls, toward the area that looks like it has a few different departments. I'm right. We pass ART DEPARTMENT signs. I'm no sleuth, but by the way it's decorated—fruit, flowers, stuffed animals—I'm betting that's where the two elderly sisters work.

If I hadn't seen the banner over the next department, I would've guessed it's where they wrote their Halloween cards. It's dark and abandoned. The banner that is falling off on one side reads HUMOR DEPARTMENT. Mikaela slides on, but I pause to glance inside. It's like a ghost town.

Then I see Mikaela eagerly waving me on. I slide up next to her.

“Is that him?” she whispers, pointing around the corner. I take a peek. He's in his office, at his desk, diligently working. There are Bibles, dictionaries, thesauruses stacked around his desk. Greeting cards hang on his walls.