Chapter 67
ALISON’S MOTHER, LYNNE, is still kneeling in front of me. “You’ve had a trauma,” she says. “You might be in shock. Are you cold?” Actually, I am.
Lynne sends Alison into the house for a blanket, and when she comes back with it and they throw it around my shoulders, I realize I’m shivering.
Suddenly, I feel like I’m going to faint.
I lean over and put my head down and take deep breaths.
That’s when Jane bounds over and licks my face.
I laugh. (Interesting factoid I can share here: Dog spit cures nausea. Who knew?)
An ambulance pulls up. Three EMT people surround me as they check my pulse and blood pressure. I think I pass their tests, but they slide me onto a gurney anyway. Then one, wearing a badge that says FRED, says he’s going to examine me to see if I have any broken bones or internal injuries. Uh-oh.
Gently, Fred presses down on the foam rubber over my stomach. It bounces back. He looks at me as if to say, Huh? But he says nothing. Then he presses on my hips, my chest, my back. More pokes. More bounces. I’m waiting for him to ask why I’m wrapped in layers of padding, but he doesn’t.
I guess when you’re an EMT in New York, you’ve seen it all.
Another EMT, a woman, is examining my arms. “Where’d the blood come from?” she wants to know.
“Austen,” I say. She looks confused.
“Texas?” she asks.
“Dog,” I say. I’m still having a little trouble forming words, so it comes out “Duh.”
The woman shines a light in my eyes, holds up fingers and asks how many I see, but I’m not focusing on her. Lynne is walking toward me with Austen in her arms. She’s wrapped a towel around his little head like a turban. He looks adorable, like he just washed his hair.
“It was a cut on his scalp,” she says. “Pretty deep, but the bleeding has stopped.” When Austen sees me he begins to wag his tail. I reach out and hug him. I am so relieved to see he’s okay, I almost forget the big picture: Someone tried to kill me.
Fred the EMT guy says my vital signs look good but he thinks I should go to the hospital. I say no. He shrugs and says that for the next twenty-four hours, I should rest, drink plenty of fluids, eat lightly, get some sleep, and not operate any heavy machinery.
Lynne, my new best friend, helps me up and walks me around Amber’s car so I can see the damage.
The front fender is dangling, practically touching the driveway.
The back is dented and cracked, and both taillights are smashed.
Amber’s Lexus will need extensive, expensive bodywork.
Ben will not be happy. Well, what else is new?
Lynne brings me into her house so I can rest on her Biedermeier couch. I’m still a little dizzy, but it’s much better.
She asks if she can get me anything or call anyone for me. I say no.
She wants Hailey and me to stay for dinner, sleep at her house tonight.
I thank her and say that Hailey can stay but I’d be more comfortable in my own bed. She absolutely insists on driving me home, and I agree. I’m not in any condition to drive, and neither is the car. We both need towing.
In an unexpectedly decent gesture, Hailey announces, “I’ll go home with you too.” I am really touched by this. Even when she adds, “I want to keep an eye on Austen.”
As we walk out the front door, I notice a beautiful oil painting hanging in the front hall.
A lush sunset in the classic shades of orange, red, and gold, but the artist has created it out of entirely unexpected shapes: A square sun dipping low under triangular golden clouds.
Octagonal tree branches with slim hexagonal leaves.
Everything is off-kilter, angular, quite spectacular.
It looks sort of familiar. Have I seen it before?
Lynne grabs her car keys from the hook and notices me admiring the piece. “Lovely, isn’t it?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“I fell in love with it the minute I saw it.”
“I can see why you bought it.”
“Actually,” she says, “it was a gift from the Harrisons.”
Really? I had no idea the families knew each other that well. Over the weeks, Amber has mentioned lots of friends—her besties Lynda and Laurie; her tennis partner Jill; Connie and Eve and Seth and a handful of old college friends. But Lynne Swanbeck? No. That’s a name I would have remembered.
Or maybe it’s just slipped my still-shaky mind. Tomorrow, when things settle down and I’m once again firing on all cylinders, I’ll try to remember if Amber ever mentioned her.