Chapter 7 Simi #2
“If you don’t come back to the hospital, they’ll be compelled to report you as missing.” I know that’s what she wants to avoid above all.
“What happens after the hospital?”
“Then we go home and figure things out,” I reassure her.
“I don’t have a home.”
“You do now. Come on.” I stand.
After the longest pause in the history of pauses, she takes my hand and stands.
In the car, Rupi eats her way through fifty dollars of vending machine snacks. She’s always been able to do this: survive on nothing, then eat five thousand calories at a go.
My survival technique might be The Ostrich—avoidance—but hers is The Camel—famine survival.
As we get out of the car, I cast a nervous glance around the parking lot. St. Joe’s is a small hospital, and there’s a very high probability of someone recognizing me.
Rupi is wearing scrubs, but even in those she’s entirely too striking.
Tall and long limbed, with dramatic cheekbones and eyebrows and a jaw that can make plastic surgeons weep.
Tattoos cover her left arm. There are a lot of new ones that I haven’t seen before, a psychedelic sleeve coming all the way down to her wrist.
Before I can figure out how to sneak her back in, she walks past me and into the hospital. Prem and I race behind her as she strides past registration to the stairs with all the confidence of someone who works here.
“You take the elevators and make sure the coast is clear,” she throws at us and continues up the stairs. It’s three floors up. I try not to worry about her blood pressure as Prem and I take the elevator.
The first person we see when we get out is Sheena. Of course it is. Behind her, I see Rupi start to emerge up the stairs.
“Hey, Sheena!” I call out without thinking. She turns to me just as Rupi comes into view.
Sheena walks up to us. Behind her, Rupi slips calmly into her room, unseen.
“Did you guys find her?”
I burst into laughter. I don’t even know how I’m doing it, but it spurts out of me. I can’t remember which movie this was from, but I’m the heroine cracking up after she’s played a prank on the hero.
“It’s the funniest story,” I say.
Sheena looks as confused as I’m feeling.
“I told you she must have gone looking for a restroom,” I say. “She got lost. And before she found a restroom, she peed herself.” I’m laughing like I’ve come unhinged. “They had pumped her so full of fluids. Obviously she was dying of embarrassment. Imagine your fiancé witnessing that.”
Prem looks at me like he has no idea who I am, but he goes along with whatever it is I’m doing. “I can’t believe she was embarrassed,” he says. Then his eyes fill with meaning. “Love means seeing each other at your worst.”
I give another bizarre laugh. “Well, mission accomplished.” I turn to Sheena. “Someone needs to help clean up. Prem can show you where it is.”
“Of course,” she says.
Prem leads Sheena away, and I run to the storage area and grab a gown and IV kit before going to Rupi.
She’s passed out on her bed. I give her shoulder a nudge. “You okay?”
“Define okay,” she says, eyes still closed.
I help her out of bed. “Let’s get you changed. You never left the hospital. Got it?”
She grunts, but she lets me get her into the gown. Her body is darned near skeletal, and my heart clenches.
“I need to get the IV back in.” I push her on the bed and thank the big fat veins we’re both blessed with. That bottle of orange soda was truly an inspired choice.
I have the IV in her in under a minute. I did graduate top of my class.
I tape everything in place (also in record time). Just as I’m tossing everything in the garbage, I hear Prem speaking unusually loudly in the corridor. He’s warning me that they’re near.
“Someone must’ve cleaned up before we got there. But thank you for helping me.”
I drop into the chair next to the bed and take Rupi’s hand. “By the way, you went looking for a restroom and peed yourself.”
“What!” I can feel her body getting ready to sit up, but there’s a knock on the door, and she closes her eyes and pretends to be dead to the world.
They come in to find me stroking Rupi’s forehead. The poignancy is so overdone, I feel like I missed my calling in the world of soaps.
Prem looks at me with his heart in his eyes, and I glare at him. He quickly turns the look on Rupi and pats her, but distracted as he is, instead of her leg he ends up patting her crotch. Her eyes spring open.
Horrified, he pulls his hand back. Color floods his cheeks.
“When do you think Rupi will be discharged?” I ask a little too loudly to keep both me and Rupi from bursting into untimely laughter.
“Hopefully soon,” Sheena says in a tone that suggests she cannot wait to be rid of us. I hear you, babe. “Were you able to get her Social Security number?”
All the laughter in the world dies inside me.
It’s been barely an hour since she asked last. “It’s going to be a while before we can get any of that,” I say.
“Remember she was robbed. She has nothing backed up. We’ll have to apply for replacements for all of it. But you have my contact information.”
She lets out a sigh. “That should work for now. Let me check if we need anything else before we let you go. Oh, and we had to call the cops when she went missing and we couldn’t find any of you.”