Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
I escaped from the hospital by hitching a ride with one of the ambulances; they dropped me at my train stop. The evening alone at my apartment was much how I’d envisioned it: trying to repress Nico fantasies.
The next eighteen hours were split into two distinct segments.
The first twelve were spent in a cyclic wish-wash of excited expectation, then anxiety-riddled dread, then excited expectation. I couldn’t wait to see Nico again when he brought Angelica to the hospital. I even contemplated wearing makeup and doing something with my hair that day.
I also dreaded the encounter and felt as if I would need to explain Dr. Ken Miles’s behavior and my relationship with him. I planned to be honest, but then I seriously wondered for the first time in a long time if honesty was overrated.
The remaining six hours occurred after Angelica’s clinic visit and screening tests.
Rose brought her in. Nico was not with them.
When I realized he wasn’t coming, I felt a foolish amount of disappointment.
Rose explained that he’d gone back to New York to tape several shows and do some publicity interviews.
Rose spent most of the visit scrutinizing me with her intrepid, fox-like gaze. The lady was difficult to evade. Every so often, she’d ask, “Are you ok?” or “Is there anything you want me to tell Nico?” or “He’ll be back soon.”
In my defense, after the initial letdown, I was able to conceal and tuck away my disappointment.
I endeavored to take excellent care of Angelica, this little girl that Nico loved.
I used a butterfly needle—smallest gauge—when drawing blood, and I insisted on conducting the entire exam myself.
I told her all the kids’ jokes I knew, surprising myself with the vastness of both number and subject matter.
Before Angelica and Rose left, I was rewarded for my efforts with a small hug and a shy smile from Nico’s niece.
The simple display of gratitude did strange things to my brain and heart, and made them both swell in unison.
I started mentally sizing her up for a hand-knit kid’s sweater that I’d placed in my Ravelry queue two weeks ago.
At the time, I’d added it for no reason at all other than I loved it; but now I was happy that I did.
It would look lovely on her, maybe in purple hypoallergenic yarn such as bamboo or possibly linen.
She was really very lovable for a kid. I made a mental note to discuss her illegal levels of cuteness with Nico when he returned.
If I get a chance…if he wants to see me.
Just before they left, Rose gripped me by the arm until I met her gaze. She smiled at me, but it was only because I’d known her my whole life that I discerned the penetrating quality of her gaze masked behind a motherly facade.
She pressed a CD case into my hand and leaned in close as though to share a secret. “Oh. I almost forgot. Nico asked that I give this to you.”
I glanced from the CD to Rose then back again. Written on the disc in handwriting that I recognized as Nico’s were the words Good Music; then, in all capitals, LISTEN TO THIS.
“Oh. Thank you.” I turned the plastic case over needlessly, suppressing a smile and an excited fluttering in my stomach.
“You’re supposed to listen to it.” Rose said, still watching me.
I nodded, placed it in my lab coat pocket. “Yes. I see that.”
“You should listen to it.”
I glanced at Rose and gave her an obligatory smile. “I will.”
“Promise?” she pushed.
“Yes.”
“Soon?”
“Rose!”
“He’ll be back this week.”
I pressed my mouth into a firm line as she eyeballed me. After a long moment, she sighed.
“Tra il dire e il fare c’è di mezzo il mare.”1 Rose rolled her eyes heavenward, turned, and left.
“I will cross that ocean and listen to it!” I said with a grin at her retreating back, referring to what she had said in Italian: “Between saying and doing is the ocean.” Her matchmaking attempts were as subtle as a fire alarm.
If she knew what I was like, and knew who I really was, she wouldn’t want me for her son.
I spent the rest of the workday oscillating between the extremes of happiness that he’d made me a mix-tape—in the form of a CD—and stomach-twisting restlessness.
I wanted to see him. I didn’t want to see him.
I couldn’t wait to listen to the CD. I didn’t want to listen to the CD.
Maybe being friends wouldn’t be so bad. I didn’t want to be friends.
The last time I’d felt such a dichotomous, swirling mixture of emotions was the night I’d snuck into his room and handed him my virginity.
It had felt like I was in a boat and that boat was both sinking and flying, but not floating.
Nothing made sense, and I was preoccupied by my nonsensical indecision.
Therefore, I forgot until just before my shift ended, when my knitting bag stared at me from my locker, that it was Tuesday knit night with the ladies. For the first time ever, I considered skipping, making an excuse, and calling in sick and muddled.
Instead, mostly because I knew Ashley and Sandra would have a conniption if I didn’t show up, I switched my phone from airplane mode to cellular mode.
I’d been keeping it on airplane mode since Sunday so that no calls could be received.
If I left it on cellular mode for any length of time, it started ringing and buzzing uncontrollably with journalists and crazy horn-dog stalker women. That just wore down the battery.
I called Ashley and arranged to have her pick me up from a lesser known entrance to the hospital, just in case any weirdos with cameras were loitering at the entrance to the ER.
She owned a car and insisted on driving to work every day, using the excuse that, since she was from Tennessee, she didn’t trust public transportation.
This made no sense to me, but I had to admit that Ashley was oddly unique in that almost nothing she said made a whole lot of sense, but she was one of the wisest people I knew.
I exited the hospital and pulled my scarf over my mouth and nose to stay warm while I waited for Ashley’s green pickup truck.
I surveyed without seeing the parking garage, and to pass the time, I counted the number of white cars and then the number of blue.
There were a lot more white cars than blue cars.
Movement to my left snagged my attention, and I glanced at an approaching woman. She was dressed in a fancy jacket, wore fancy sunglasses, fancy boots, and her hair was also fancy—pulled back with sleek intricate braids at her temples. She approached me; she slowed then stopped.
She didn’t say anything at first; her face was expressionless. She just looked at me. I wasn’t wearing any sunglasses, and my eyes moved between the giant lenses of hers, then to the ground, over my shoulder, then back to her.
“Uh…can I help you?”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “You are Elizabeth Finney?”
Bah. Fancy reporter.
I glowered at her, my hands fisted in my mittens. “Listen, lady, I don’t know who you are, but I’m not interested in chitchatting about much of anything with anyone. So, please just leave me alone.”
Her mouth hooked to the side in a mirthless smile. “You’re short.”
My eyes narrowed further in an attempt at a Dirty Harry squint. “And you’re fancy. And the sky is blue. And the sidewalk is gray. Go away.”
She withdrew an envelope from her fancy bag and held it out to me. “Niccolò Moretti is a scumbag and so are you. You both deserve to burn in hell.” The sleek and slightly scary stranger poked me in the chest with the envelope. “Take this.”
“Ok….” My hands automatically closed over the envelope. I was so shocked by her words I would have accepted a hissing viper.
Even so, she took a step closer, her nose flaring. I assumed she was giving me a once-over from behind her dark glasses. “You’re nothing,” she hissed.
I blinked at her, then released a confused breath. “What was that?”
“You’re nothing special at all. There is nothing remarkable about you.”
“Ok….” Her presence had been odd up to this point; now she was seriously scaring me. My eyes shifted to the left and right looking for an escape. “Thanks for that.”
Ashley’s horn honked twice, startling the fancy stranger. She jumped backward and almost toppled over in her fancy boots. I took the opportunity to dart around her and jog—in my sensible shoes—to Ashley’s truck.
I locked Ashley’s doors as soon as I closed the passenger side, lifted my eyes, and found that the stranger had turned and watched me depart. She was now staring at the truck. “Go! Go! Get out of here!”
“Who is that?”
“Just get out of here.” A chill spread through me. The woman was standing perfectly still. “Go!”
“Ok! Ok! You’re freaking me out!” Ashley put the truck in drive and peeled out of the garage.
I held on to the dashboard. “Hey, slow down, Miss Fast and Furious—look out!”
Ashley swerved, nearly hitting a pedestrian, and merged into traffic, almost hitting a car.
“Why are you driving like a maniac?”
“Because you’re scaring the poo out of me, that’s why.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, and she stopped short at a yellow light. The driver in the car behind us pressed on the horn until the light turned red. Faintly, as though from a great distance, I heard someone yell an expletive.
“All right. It’s all right. We’re all right...” I was shaking, and my jaw was clenched. I forced myself to relax and take a deep breath. “We’re all right.”
“Who was that woman? And why do you look like you’ve just seen the ghost of Attila the Hun? And what is that?” Ashley pointed to the envelope in my hand.
I stared at it dumbly for a moment, then dropped it to the floor of the cab as if it were poisonous. “I don’t know. That lady gave it to me.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, who is she?”
“I don’t know!”
“WHY ARE YOU YELLING?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”