Chapter Eight
Rylee
Monday
Neesa knocked on Rylee’s open office door. “Hey, quitting time.”
Rylee rested her fingers on the keyboard and swiveled her focus away from the screen.
“I’m taking the Metro up to McPherson Square to meet some friends for dinner,” Neesa dropped her purse to the ground and shoved her hand into her coat sleeve. “You should come.”
“I don’t think so, Neesy. It’s been a long day.” Rylee reached out and closed her laptop. “I think I’m just going to head home.”
“No, you’re not.” Neesa shrugged her coat into place.
“You’ll just relive today, get angry, and not be able to sleep.
” Threading the zipper together, she yanked it up.
“Then you’ll try to jump out of the helicopter tomorrow and break your leg because you’re tired.
I’m not having it.” She bent to scoop up her purse strap.
“Fast rope, not jump.”
“Come out.” Neesa reached for Rylee’s coat and held it out to her. “Put good conversations into your brain, laugh a little.”
“Do I know anyone?”
“Other than me? No.” Neesa said. “But they’re welcoming people. This isn’t a clique I’m throwing you into.”
Rylee was vacillating. She’d envisioned a hot bath, a glass of wine, and some ridiculous romcom that could never happen in real life. But Neesa was wise. And maybe it was better that she was distracted from today’s disappointment. “What kind of restaurant?”
“Soul food. Mom and pop place. You can suffocate your angst in a bowl of mac and cheese and a side of collard greens.”
Since it was her belief that humanity should support each other through the tough times and rejoice together at the good, this might be the perfect antidote to her present funk.
Rylee turned her attention to the vase filled with bright flowers and recalled the befuddled smile on the stranger’s face. He wasn’t angry with her at all; he just handed her the flowers, and off she drove.
Strangers could be generous and kind.
Rylee hoped that guy knew that he made an indelible memory for her.
Clutching those flowers while she waited for Rose’s nurse-friend to make eye-to-eye contact with her was like holding a psychological buoy to Rylee.
And here was Neesa, offering another help line.
Why wouldn’t she allow that?
“Yeah,” Rylee stood and stretched her hand out for her coat. “Why not?”
The two women took the elevator down to the ground floor and out into the night air. The sidewalks bustled with people leaving, their minds elsewhere—what to cook for dinner, how to get the kids through their homework and into bed, would the boss be mad that they left without finishing the report?
They walked the short distance to the Metro station in companionable silence.
As they started down the stairs, Neesa said, “So here’s what I learned today—"
Rylee turned her head to catch Neesa’s bemused expression.
“Titivate doesn’t at all mean what I thought it does.”
“Titivate?” Rylee repeated.
“Yeah, do you know what it means?”
Rylee wanted to reach for the railing as she moved with the after-work crowd down the stairs, but the germ count was too high. “I think I’ve seen it written before. Titivate? No, I don’t know.”
“Titivate,” Neesa glanced up at Rylee, “just hearing it, what do you think it means?”
“Sexual tingling?” Rylee offered. “Getting someone aroused? His intelligent conversation titivated me.”
Neesa quirked a brow. “Intelligent conversation is what does it for you?”
“Absolutely,” Rylee said. “Every time. Give me a reading, thinking man, and I’m in a swoon.” She pulled her Metro card from the back of her phone and pushed through the barrier, then waited for Neesa to join her. “So what does it mean?”
“To tidy.” Neesa threw her hands in the air. “Titivate means to tidy things up or do a little something to improve them, like gargling with mouthwash. ‘She titivated her hair.’”
“Disappointing.”
“I know, right?” Neesa checked the Metro map, then pointed out the correct platform. They started down the stairs, and Neesa lifted her voice to be heard above the crush of commuters. “So titivate is not in the same word family as titillate.”
“You know it’s been a while since I found a nice nerd boy to titivate me or to titillate me,” Rylee sighed.
Neesa laughed. “You and me b—What the?”
Instead of standing in knots of folks who knew each other or packed into efficient lines down the platform, people had formed into what Rylee called the “death ring.” It was the circle people formed when they watched a crisis unfold.
It happened the same way all over the world.
It was the unmistakable and very human reaction that was like a great big crisis bullseye that had drawn Rylee into many a lifesaving effort.
Sometimes the rescues were successful; often, the situations were doomed from the start, which was why Rylee named them “the death ring.”
Adrenaline kicked her senses into high drive as Rylee caught Neesa’s hand, holding her back.
Rule number one of rescue: Don’t become part of the problem.
First step of rescue: Take in the lay of the land, assess the dangers.
From the stairs, they could see a man, clutching his chest, contorting his face with agony. No one had entered the ring of observers to help. That usually meant no one had the necessary skills or the confidence to try.
That crush was surely taking up the guy’s available oxygen.
Neesa and Rylee came to the same conclusion at the same moment—this emergency was limited to a single subject’s medical situation—not a fight, not a contaminant.
Rylee commanded, “Back. Back. Back,” as she raced down the stairs, shoving people out of the way.
Neesa, her elbows bent and held high, plowed forward. “Clear the way. Move!”
By the time they reached the center platform, the man had one knee on the ground and was hovering over his bent leg, using it to support himself on his elbow as he clutched his heart.
Rylee quickly shucked her coat and laid it on the ground behind the man, then put her hands on his shoulders. “Sir, I’m a trained ex-Marine medic. May I help you?”
The man nodded without looking up. His breath came in quick, shallow puffs.
Rylee pointed at a sturdy-looking, gray-haired woman with the stoic face of a bean counter. She was dependable. “Ma’am, do you have a phone with bars?”
She pulled her phone from her pocket, looked down, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You’re in charge of communications. Call 911 and give them this location. Answer their questions. Stay on the line.”
Rylee angled down so she and the man were face-to-face.
“Sir, my name is Rylee, and my friend is Neesa. We’re getting you help, and we’re not going to leave you.
Right now, I’m going to sit behind you and bend my legs to make a backrest. I want you in a semi-sitting position.
Neesa down there is going to bend your legs and help you hold them in place so we can take the strain off your heart as much as possible. ” Rylee lifted her chin to Neesa.
Neesa had steadied the man in the W configuration to wait for EMT help.
“And we’re focusing on our breath,” Rylee told the man.
“We’re slowing the inhale. We’re exhaling longer than we’re inhaling, so we don’t hyperventilate.
We’re breathing together.” Rylee breathed through her mouth, exhaling onto the man’s neck so he could have a focus point and so he could feel her rhythmic breathing.
“In for four. You’re breathing into your abdomen, not your chest. Exhale slowly for six. ”
His breath whooshed out.
“That’s fine,” Rylee soothed. “We’re trying again. In two, three, four. Trying to hold for a second. Good and exhale for six.”
The breath came out to the count of one.
“Sir, what’s your name? Is there anyone I can call?” Rylee asked.
The man weakly lifted his arm with his cell phone aglow.
Neesa reached for the phone. “You’re on the line with someone?”
“Here we go,” Rylee said, “focus on my words, breathing in for four.”
Neesa put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” She held. “Sir, I’m on the scene of a cardiac episode in the Metro. Can you tell me the name of the man you were speaking with?” Neesa turned to Rylee. “His name is Benjamin Burnett. Everyone calls him Benny.”
“We’ve got you, Benny,” Rylee said, snagging her own phone from her purse. “You’re breathing.” She opened her clock app to the stopwatch and reached for the man’s wrist to count Benny’s erratic pulse.
While Neesa asked the person to stay on the line so they could ask questions if necessary, she rummaged in her purse, pulled out a pen and a piece of paper, and thrust them toward Rylee.
Rylee wrote the time and Benny’s pulse and breath counts. Then held the paper up so Bean Counter could see it.
Bean Counter lowered her voice and gave the 911 operator the numbers. After a moment, Bean Counter caught Rylee’s eye. “The paramedics are on their way. I’m staying on the phone.” She shifted her weight, seeming to plant herself on that spot.
While Rylee knew the first responders would race with screaming sirens and flashing lights, this was end-of-day Washington, D.C., so cutting a path through traffic-clogged roads was going to be a feat.
A lone Metro officer snaked her way through the crowd and punctured through the death ring. There, she bent to see what was going on.
Rylee said, “It’s inconvenient, but this is a medical emergency. You need to close the platform.” As soon as the words left her mouth, a Metro train slid loudly out of the tunnel and stopped with a hiss.
“Clear this platform and shut it down.” Rylee used her most commanding, military, give-me-no-shit voice, which always seemed to get results.
The woman was flustered as she talked into her radio, but she did what she could. People got off the train and were sent to the other end of the platform to exit. People got on the line and left.
Bean Counter stayed, phone shaking in her hand.
A nervous-looking guy with a fox-shaped face and a black leather briefcase stayed.