Chapter 13
“Oh my gosh,” the woman said as she reached us, huffing from rushing down the street. “Do you need help?”
I was starting to freeze up with panic, which I knew was not helpful to Ricky.
I probably did need help, but I wasn’t sure if I should be accepting it from this particular person, who I didn’t really believe was dangerous but who I did feel guilty about following all afternoon.
But we were in a mostly unfamiliar place with nobody else around to rush to our aid, and Ricky needed me to help him.
“I, uh,” I stammered. “He … he fell,” I finished feebly.
“I heard that,” she said. “It sounded like a doozy. What do you think, buddy? Think if we help you up you can stand?”
“God, I hope so,” Ricky winced. I winced inwardly, too. It sounded like he didn’t think I’d be able to help if he was really hurt. But that was probably me reading too much into things again.
The woman and I squatted down on either side of Ricky, each pulling one of his arms over our shoulders. All three of us grunted as we hoisted Ricky up into a standing position.
“What about it?” the woman asked. “Can you put any weight on it?”
Ricky gingerly planted his left foot, which he had been holding up, onto the ground and slowly tried to shift his weight off our shoulders. “Yipe! Nope!” he yelped, quickly slumping back onto us, his foot shooting back up. “Not happening.”
“Oh, boy,” the woman said, looking down at his suspended ankle. “That sucker’s swelling up fast. You guys from around here?”
“No,” I said. “We’re staying at the Rose Beach Inn, out on the highway.”
“Yeah, I know that place,” she said, betraying no special recognition. “Look, I’m not from here either, but I know where there’s a medical clinic. You need to get this looked at. I can give you directions. You want me to help you to your car?”
“Yeah, that would be great, thank you,” I said, already panting under Ricky’s weight. “It’s over there.” I indicated across the street. “The copper-colored one.”
“Hey, that’s neat,” the woman said admiringly as we slowly hobbled across the street.
“My dad had a Corvair. Rusted to bits. It’s funny, I hadn’t seen one in years, but there must be two around here.
I saw one kinda like this being driven real slow the other day.
I think it was a different color, though. More brown. But yours is real cute.”
“Thanks,” Ricky grunted, struggling to shift his weight entirely onto me so he could fish his keys out of his pocket. I let out a stifled gurgle as I started to buckle.
“Keep your arm up,” I croaked. “I’ll get them.”
I almost immediately regretted this offer.
Getting to Ricky’s keys with his arm over my shoulders required me to twirl around in front of him until we were face-to-face, pulling his arm around me into a very close almost-hug, and then—how had I not thought through that I would have to do this?
—reaching into his pocket. I knew Ricky was in serious pain when he let me execute this entire maneuver without saying or doing anything remotely inappropriate.
I fumbled with the surprisingly tiny keys, trying to figure out which one would unlock the door.
“The octagonal one,” Ricky groaned. I found the right one, turning it in the lock with a satisfying clunk.
The three of us did a little shuffle-spin together once I got the door open to point Ricky’s rear end toward the seat and lower him down.
The woman followed me around to the driver’s side. As I slid behind the wheel, she leaned over in my open doorway, pointing down the road. “The medical clinic is down that way, back toward the highway. About half a mile, you can’t miss it.”
I nodded, going numb as I took in the dash and wrapped my hands around the skinny steering wheel, its plastic molded to look like wood grain.
I had been on autopilot up to this point, but as I looked blankly at the gauges, which Ricky had told me to ignore during my last—only—driving lesson, I realized I had no muscle memory left to rely on.
Ricky was moaning in the passenger seat, apparently in too much pain to realize that we had made it to a critical moment and I was failing him.
The woman shut my door, standing next to the car and looking at me curiously as I sat frozen in the driver’s seat. After a few seconds, she tapped on the window. I knew how to roll down the window, I realized, so I did that much.
“Are you okay? Do you want to follow me? I can guide you to the clinic if you’re afraid you might miss it,” she offered, her eyes concerned under knit brows.
“Okay,” I choked out.
“I’m right over there,” she said, pointing down the street to her red Toyota. “I’ll pull out, and you pull up behind me, okay?”
I nodded numbly, and she turned to head to her truck. I choked down a couple of breaths and resolved to do this for Ricky. I looked again at the keys in my hand. I turned to Ricky. “Sorry, which—”
“Octagonal,” he moaned.
I slotted the key with the octagonal head into the dash, planted my feet on the brake and clutch, and turned. The engine rumbled easily to life. I let out an exhale. Okay. I had done this much successfully.
Looking out the window, I could see that the little red pickup had already backed out into the street and was idling in front of the movie theater.
I simply had to back out, too, and pull up behind her, and then follow her a half mile down the road to this clinic.
A half mile didn’t sound so bad. I could run a half mile in less than five minutes.
I looked down at the shift knob. I had to focus intently for a moment before the hieroglyphics inscribed there morphed into a pattern I could comprehend, but eventually I remembered how the shift pattern worked. I located the R, and tried to move the lever in that direction. It wouldn’t budge.
“Um,” I said, hating to bother Ricky, but perplexed.
“Down,” he panted. “Out of first. Can’t just go sideways.”
Right. I pulled the lever down, toward neutral. The car bucked and died.
“Uh.” I was starting to sweat.
“Clutch in,” Ricky said through gritted teeth.
Oh, right. I cranked the engine over again, keeping the clutch fully depressed this time. I managed to finagle the knob over to the reverse position, started to release the clutch, and—the engine sputtered and died again.
“Too fast.” Ricky shook his head.
“But I have to be fast. This is an emergency,” I protested.
“Ughhh,” Ricky moaned.
I reached for the key to start the car again, then paused. “It’s still in reverse … I probably have to go back to first, huh?”
“No,” Ricky said huskily.
“No? I can start it here? Wish I’d known that before.” I was starting to get punchy.
“Just start the damn car,” he barked.
I started the damn car, in reverse, tried to come off the clutch, and stalled again.
Over Ricky’s moans, I heard a shout from outside the car.
I saw the red pickup in the rearview mirror; the woman had backed all the way down the street to come check on me.
I cranked down my window again and stuck my head out.
“Are you doing okay? Having some trouble?” she called from inside her truck.
I could only nod.
“Do you want me to drive you there? Hold on, let me repark.” She wheeled her truck into an open spot next to me, and I climbed out and into the backseat as she came around.
“Not much of a driver, eh,” she said sociably as she settled into the driver seat and, in what looked to me like one fluid motion, turned on the car and backed out into the street.
“Thank god,” Ricky groaned.
“I’ve only had one lesson,” I explained.
Her eyes flicked to me in the rearview mirror. “Didn’t ace the test, huh?”
“Not yet.”
With an expert—or, at least, someone with a valid driver’s license—behind the wheel, it was indeed a short trip.
Within a couple of minutes, we had pulled off the road into a small parking pad in front of a nondescript building that could very well have originally been built as a craftsman-style house.
A sign above the door identified it as the ROSE BEACH COMMUNITY CLINIC.
Our helper and I guided Ricky up a ramp to the front porch and into the building. The receptionist jumped up as soon as we entered, and within seconds Ricky was in a wheelchair, being whisked back to an examining room.
“Gosh, I don’t know how to thank you,” I said to the woman when we were alone in the waiting room.
“Happy to help,” she said. “I’ll tell you, it’s been a heck of a day. Here I’ve been, killing time, nothing much to do, and first I give some choking lady the Heimlich while I’m eating lunch, and now I get to help you guys. I feel like a real Florence Nightingale today.”
“You saved our bacon,” I said, smiling shyly.
“I don’t want to hold you up, though. Maybe I can see if there’s a cab we can call to get you back to your car?
” I really did feel immensely grateful, and felt that, if nothing else, I could repay her kindness by leaving her alone and letting her go on her way without any further suspicion from us.
I owed her at least that much, probably significantly more.
But she shrugged. “I don’t mind waiting, if you don’t mind the company. It seems to me you’ll need some help getting back to the inn. I don’t think your friend’s going to be able to drive you.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to take you out of your way. Won’t you end up stuck out there?”
“Not at all,” she replied, steering us toward a cluster of chairs facing the reception desk. “Have you met any of the other people staying at the inn? The Rose family?”
“Yes, we’ve, uh, had an interesting few days with them.”
She laughed. “I’ll say you have. So you’ve met Lis? She’s my wife. I’m Denise.”
Denise offered me her hand, and I shook it, pleased with myself for correctly deducing their relationship. “Oliver. The sprained ankle is Ricky.”
“So it’s easy,” she said. “I’ll drive you back to the inn in your car, then Lis can take me back to town.”