Would You (3 page)

“Oh, and another one,” I say.
“Dangling.
What about
dang-guh-ling?
”

“Ew! Ew! Extreme ew!”

Audrey has to get ready for work. Her uniform, naturally, is at the Ding-Dong, but she combs her hair.

Probably should make it an early night except that Mom says I should be in early, meaning I'm staying out late. But nobody has any ideas for what to do anyway, so tonight is going to bite.

Claire's in front of the only full-length mirror, and I'm waiting, barely. She's not even dressed and she's
loitering;
just to make me insane.

“Have you seen my black thingy?” she says.

“What black thingy?”

“You know, my
black
thingy.”

She leaves the mirror to look again in the closet, in the drawers, on the floor, under the bed.

I examine myself while I watch her in the glass.

“With straps,” she says, “The one I got at Sheba's Thrift. I've been planning to wear it all week.”

“Meh.” I'm noncommittal. “Where are you going, anyway?”

“Party at Terry's. You?”

“Nowhere. Ding-Dong to start.”

“Did you take my black thing? Did you wear it to Audrey's and leave it there? 'Cause if you did, I'll kill you.”

“No, I did not wear it and leave it at Audrey's,” I say.

“ 'Cause she'll cut off the bottom or change the straps or something, and it's the one thing that I—”

“Claire, shut up. It's not at Audrey's.”

“Well, where is it, Nat?”

I go into the bathroom, shrugging. I wish I had a party to go to.

The light is better in here for makeup. My hair is good tonight; skin too, for a change. What a waste.

Claire comes in and gives me a hip check so she has room over the sink. She's wearing a white V-neck shirt and her haircut from before the prom still looks so good.

“You look nice,” I say, not saying she looks too gorgeous for words. I squelch my vile, bitter envy. Her life is going to explode. She's going away!

“ Joe-boy better be worried about the swarm of boys waiting for you at school,” I say.

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I'm breaking up with him tonight.”

“What? But he adores you!”

“Mmmm,” she says. “If by
adore
you mean
behave like a bloodsucking leech around.”

“Does Kate know?”

“This has nothing to do with Kate. He's been kind of
bugging me. He's all morbid about me leaving. He's acting clingy and annoying and …
and young.
I want to have my summer without all the stress of saying goodbye. And then I want to just leave, you know?”

“Wow,” I say. “He's not going to like this.”

“I'll be gentle,” she laughs.

“What's the point of no curfew,” I say, “if there's nowhere to go? This town is
so boring!”

Claire grins at me and uses Dad's voice. “An intelligent person is
never
bored.”

I punch her shoulder and she punches me back.

“Ow!”

“Gotta go,” she says. “Joe's waiting.”

“For the last time,” I say.

“Mwa!” She goes.

“Bye.”

Poor Joe, I'm thinking.

I pull off my gray sweater and untuck her black thingy from my jeans. It looks great. But she doesn't have to know that.

We're sitting in a row on the concrete divider between the Dairy Queen parking lot and the Cosmos Launderama parking lot. Zack just got off work, but too late to catch the late movie. Nobody really wants to go anyway. We usually
wait for Twofer Tuesdays. We still have about an hour until it's dark enough to go pool-hopping.

Carson is on a roll. “What if someone told you the world was going to end? What would you do in the last three days before the end?”

“Is your source a credible one?” asks Zack. “Or counter-factual?”

“Christ, Zack! Let's say the world is going to end. What do you do with the time left?”

“I'd go skydiving,” says Leila.

“I'd tell everyone what I really think of them,” says Audrey.

“Oh, like you don't do that already?” Carson has been the recipient of many an Audrey earful.

“I think I'd sit really still,” I say. “And watch everybody else flip out.”

“Lame,” says Carson.

“Okay, what would you do?”

“I'd have sex, of course. With twenty or thirty different girls, and no fear of STDs ’cause the world is going to end anyway.”

“And where are you going to find twenty or thirty girls whose last wishes include having sex with Carson Jefferson?” I ask him. “Where are you going to find
one?”

“Oh, I'd find them.”

“You need a taste of reality, Carson.”

“I love reality! Especially when it's on TV.”

“And then let's say your source is proved wrong,” says Zack. “It was all a hoax and the world is not going to end. Then what would you do?”

“Go straight to the doctor.”

“I'd be glad I told people what I think of them,” says Audrey. “Anyone who can't take the truth shouldn't be using up oxygen on my planet.”

“Well, aren't we supposed to do that anyway?” says Leila. “Live every day as if it's our last? You know, fully?”

“Fear of public speaking and fear of getting fat are way above fear of death in opinion polls,” says Zack. “Fear of deformed people and fear of making mistakes are also up there.”

“And that is relevant because?” says Audrey.

“Depends on how you're going to die,” I say.

This inspires Carson. “Would you rather be attacked by a huge genetically engineered plus environmental-fiasco spider
or
be up against a ruthless, brilliant assassin who was under orders to take you dead or alive?”

Audrey groans. “I
hate
movies where there's a blob for an enemy—there's no challenge, no psychology. With a human being there's always a chance you might just—”

“Oh that's so typical of a girl,” says Carson. “You think you could just use sex to save your life.”

“Oh that's so typical of a boy,” says Audrey. “You represent the decades of sexist pigs who've created the cultural stereotype of an imprisoned woman bargaining with her
charms to save her life, and then you turn around and act like there's something wrong with it. Like you wouldn't let someone out of jail for a blow job?”

“Uh, gee, Audrey, now that you mention it…”

We push him to the ground and throw gravel all over his perfect white T-shirt.

We manage to kill a couple of hours, just riding around rearranging people's porch furniture. We're coming home cheerful and we pass Devon Road. A cruiser is parked sideways across the end of the street. There are lights and extra cops and one of those yellow plastic ribbons being stretched around pylons.

“Good,” says Audrey. “Keep the officers busy while the teenage delinquents wreak mayhem all over town.”

“Havoc, Audrey. Wreak havoc.”

We split up at the corner and I head for home.

My cell is ringing as I turn onto our block. I pull it out of my back pocket but it's only HOME, so I don't answer. I'm nearly there anyway.

I put my bike in the garage and pull down the rusting,
rattling door. The kitchen light is on. Actually, every light in the house seems to be on. Bit late for them, isn't it?

My cell rings again. I go in the back door with it still ringing. Dad's at the wall phone and Mom is at the table with her head in her hands. One look and I feel thunder in my brain. There's something really wrong.

I look at them and they look at me. Dad hangs up the phone and my cell stops ringing. He half smiles but then shrugs and his face scrunches up like someone poked him in the eye.

“What?” I say.

“It's Claire,” he whispers.

“Claire,” says Mom. She scrapes the chair back and stumbles up. Her eyes look wild, extra blue. She opens her arms and I walk into them.

“Claire what?”

I pull out of the hug and Mom slumps back down on the chair with her face hidden in her hands.

“There's been an accident,” says Dad.

“Oh,” I say, “we might have passed it. On Devon Road?”

“They didn't say where,” says Dad.

“What? You mean Claire?”

“Claire has been hit by a car.”

There's not enough air for a second.

“Is she … is she alive?”

“She's very seriously injured,” says Dad. “They say. We were trying to reach you before we go to the hospital.”

“We should go now.” Mom jumps up. “We have to see Claire.” She snatches her bag from a chair but it flies out of her hand.

Dad puts his arm around her, trying to slow things down, but she jerks away and cries, “Now! We have to go now!”

“I'm coming too,” I say. They look at me, ready to say no, but how could they say no?

I am swamped with a clammy sweat. My bathing suit's still wet under my clothes.

“I have to pee,” I say. “I'll meet you out front.” I race to the stairs. Claire was hit by a car. No way. Claire was hit by a car. For real?

Claire's wardrobe tornado is still all over the room. I peel off my swimsuit and toss it in the tub while I pee. I put on underwear, put my damp clothes back on. I'm wearing Claire's black thing. I'll wear it to the hospital, show her I've got it, confess. The horn beeps; I fly down the stairs. Dad said “very seriously injured.” What does that mean? What the
hell does
that mean?

When we say Claire's name to the reception nurse in Emergency, she says “Oh” and looks around in a panic, like she needs someone to help her. Or maybe I'm making that up because the place is freaking me out.

“If you'll take a seat,” she says. “Someone will be right with you.”

“We're not taking a seat,” says Dad. He's tall anyway, but he's making the nurse shrink.

“I need to see my little girl,” says Mom.

“It's the family,” says the nurse into a phone, like there's only one family, like everyone knows.

“Is she still alive?” I ask.

“Yes,” says the nurse. “She's inside, in the trauma bay. Someone will be out to speak with you shortly.”

We stand there waiting. Maybe it's not so long, but it feels like forever. At least five minutes. Like holding a baking pan without an oven mitt for at least five minutes.

There's a lady in one of the seats, clutching her wrist and whimpering. There's an old guy wearing an undershirt and wrinkled khakis. He's sitting on the coffee table instead of a chair, his hands fumbling around, not finding his knees to rest on.

New game, I think. Guess the Emergency. But I don't see anything wrong with him, so maybe there's a wrinkly wife in her nightie somewhere behind that swinging door.

I notice how I'm not breathing and then I breathe and I notice I can't hear anything except a buzz in my ears from brain cells colliding.

My mother is pacing in circles like a maniac panther. Dad is this huge silent lump leaning against the wall next to me, with his shoulder half covering a sign:
HAVE INSURANCE
CARDS READY BEFORE SPEAKING TO RECEPTION.

A doctor wearing green scrubs comes out. I recognize the scene from TV, only he's not handsome and he has a bristly neck.

“Mr. and Mrs. Johnson?”

They swish to attention, like startled puppets.

“You are Claire's next of kin? Your daughter is not married?”

“No, no, it's us,” they tell him.

The doctor looks at me.

“I'm her sister.”

He looks nervous, with bloodshot eyes.

“I'm Dr. David Cooper,” he says. “I'm a resident here at the hospital. What I have to say will be difficult to hear. Claire has been very badly hurt. We're monitoring the situation closely. She has had a severe head injury and is not responding to stimuli at this time. She may have some bleeding in her brain.”

He pauses while Mom sags against Dad. “We're working at the moment to stabilize her vitals. We had to wait for Dr. Hazel—he's the neurosurgeon—to come back in, but he's here now and we're preparing her for surgery.”

“Can we see her?” asks Mom.

“In a few minutes,” says Dr. Cooper. He looks for refuge on the pages pinned to his clipboard. I'm guessing he hasn't done this too often, this talking-to-the-family-in-a-traumatic-crisis-hell situation.

“I need to ask you a few questions. Does Claire have any health issues we should know about? Is she diabetic, for instance? Or does she have an allergy to any medications?”

“No,” says Dad. “She's the healthiest girl alive.”

Dr. Cooper blinks a couple of times.

Not anymore, I can hear him thinking.

“I see.” He writes something down. “Did any of you witness the accident?”

We all murmur no, shaking our heads. I wonder for the first time who
did
see it. Who called?

“Is anyone else hurt?” I ask.

He doesn't look at me. “I'm not at liberty to tell you that,” he says. I glance around, maybe to see Kate's parents, or Joe's, but then I remember the nurse saying, It's
the
family, like there's only one.

“How old is Claire?” asks Dr. Cooper.

“Eighteen,” say Mom and Dad together.

The doctor's pencil hesitates. “Oh.”

“What, ‘Oh’?” I don't like the way he said “Oh.”

Dad pats my shoulder.

“I think the doctor means that Claire is not a minor, am I right?”

“What difference does that make? Shouldn't you be in there saving her?” I say. “Aren't these questions kind of pointless?”

“There may be certain decisions,” says Dr. Cooper, “about her treatment. If she were a minor, your parents would have to make them. As it is …”

“Can you just tell us the situation?” says Dad.

Dr. Cooper ducks his eyes. He can't look at us during the next part.

“It seems that Claire, after impact, somersaulted and landed a distance away from the collision site. She apparently had a seizure on the spot. She has a broken collarbone and several other injuries. Most importantly, she has suffered severe trauma to the head and brain.”

He stops.
Severe trauma to the head and brain.