TWENTY-NINE
It was another hour before the nurse came back. Cath drank her bottled water.
She wiped her face in her shirt. She thought about how much nicer this waiting room was than the one at St. Richard’s. She tried to mess with her phone, but it was dead.
When the nurse came out, Cath stood up. “Are you here for Wren Avery?”
Cath nodded.
“You can come back now. Do you want to wait for your mom?”
Cath shook her head.
* * *
Wren was in a room by herself. It was dark, and her eyes were closed. Cath couldn’t tell if she was sleeping.
“Do I need to watch for anything?” Cath asked the nurse.
“No, she’s just resting now.”
“Our dad will be here soon,” Cath said.
“Okay. We’ll send him back.”
Cath sat down slowly, quietly, in the chair by Wren’s bed. Wren looked pale. She had a dark spot, maybe a bruise, on her cheek. Her hair was longer than it had been at Christmas, hanging over her eyes and curling at her neck.
Cath pushed it back.
“I’m awake, you know,” Wren whispered.
“Are you still drunk?”
“A little. Muzzy.”
Cath tucked Wren’s hair back again in a soothing gesture. Soothing for
Cath, anyway. “What happened?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Who brought you in?”
Wren shrugged. There was an IV in her arm and something taped to her index finger. Up close, she smelled like puke. And like Wren—like Tide and
Marc Jacobs Lola.
“Are you okay?”
“Muzzy,” she said. “Sick.”
“Dad’s coming.”
Wren groaned.
Cath folded her arms on the edge of the mattress and laid her head down, exhaling. “I’m glad they brought you in,” she said, “whoever it was who brought you in. I’m … sorry.”
That I wasn’t there, that you didn’t want me there, that I wouldn’t have known how to stop you anyway.
Now that she was with Wren and Wren was okay, Cath realized how exhausted she was. She shoved her glasses into her coat pocket and laid her head back down. She was just drifting off—or maybe she’d just drifted off— when she heard Wren whimper. Cath lifted her head. Wren was crying. Her eyes were closed, and tears were running down into her hair. Cath could almost feel the tickle. “What’s wrong?”
Wren shook her head. Cath wiped Wren’s tears away with her fingers, and
wiped her fingers on her shirt.
“Should I get the nurse?”
Wren shook her head again and started shifting in the bed. “Here,” she said, making room.
“Are you sure?” Cath asked. “I don’t want to be the reason you choke on
your own vomit.”
“None left,” Wren whispered.
Cath kicked off her boots and climbed up over the railing, lying down in the space Wren had cleared for her. She put her arm carefully under Wren’s neck. “Here,” Cath said.
Wren curled against her with her head on Cath’s shoulder. Cath tried to untangle the tubes around Wren’s arm, then held her hand tightly. It was
sticky.
Wren’s shoulders were still shaking.
“It’s okay,” Cath said. “It’s okay.”
Cath tried not to fall asleep until Wren did, but it was dark, and she was tired, and everything was blurry.
* * *
“Oh, God,” she heard their dad say. “Oh, Wren. Baby.”
Cath opened her eyes, and her dad was leaning over them both, kissing both of their foreheads. Cath sat up carefully.
Wren’s eyes were crusty and puffy, but open.
Their dad stood back and put his hand on Wren’s cheek. “Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head. “Kid.”
He was wearing gray dress pants and a light blue shirt, untucked. His tie, orange with white starbursts, was stuffed into and hanging out of his pocket.
Presentation clothes, Cath thought.
She checked his eyes out of habit. They were tired and shining, but clear.
Cath felt overwhelmed then, all of a sudden, and even though this wasn’t her show, she leaned forward and hugged him, pressing her face into his stale shirt until she could hear his heart beating. His arm came up, warm, around her. “Okay,” he said roughly. Cath felt Wren take her hand. “Okay,” their dad said again. “We’re okay now.”
* * *
Wren didn’t have to stay in the hospital. “You can sleep and drink water at home,” the doctor said.
Real home. Omaha. “You’re coming back with me,” their dad said, and Wren didn’t argue.
“I’m coming, too,” Cath said, and he nodded.
A nurse took out Wren’s IV, and Cath helped her to the bathroom, patting
her back while she dry-heaved over the sink. Then Cath helped her wash her face and change into her clothes—jeans and a tank top.
“Where’s your coat?” their dad asked. Wren just shrugged. Cath took off
her cardigan and handed it to her.
“It smells like sweat,” Wren said.
“It’ll be the best-smelling part of you,” Cath answered.
Then they had to wait for Wren’s paperwork. The nurse asked if she’d like to speak to an addictions specialist. Wren said no. Their dad just frowned.
“Have you eaten anything?” Cath asked him.
He yawned. “We’ll drive though someplace.”
“I’m driving,” Cath said.
Their dad had tried to get a flight out of Tulsa the night before, but there weren’t any until this afternoon, so he’d ended up renting a car—“Kelly gave me the agency Visa”—and driving for seven hours.
The nurse came back with discharge papers and told Wren that she’d have to leave the hospital in a wheelchair. “It’s policy.”
Wren complained, but their dad just stood behind the wheelchair and said, “Do you want to argue or do you want to go home?”
When the nurse buzzed them out into the waiting room, Cath felt her stomach jump and realized that she was half-expecting to see Laura still sitting out there. Fat chance, Cath thought.
The doors opened, and Wren made a sobby little gasping noise. For a second Cath thought maybe Laura was still there. Or maybe Wren was trying to throw up again.
There was a guy sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands. He heard Wren’s gasp and looked up, then stood up, and Wren was out of the wheelchair, shuffling toward him. He took her in his arms and pushed his face down into her pukey hair.
It was the big guy from Muggsy’s. The guy who threw punches. Cath couldn’t remember his name. Javier. Julio …
“Who’s that?” her dad asked.
“Jandro,” Cath said.
“Ah,” he said, watching them hug. “Jandro.”
“Yeah…” Cath hoped that it wasn’t Jandro who dropped Wren off at the emergency room, then left her alone. She hoped that he didn’t know anything about that bruise on her cheek.
“Hey,” someone said, and Cath stepped aside, realizing she was standing in the middle of the hallway. “Hey,” he said again.
She looked up—and into Levi’s smiling face.
“Hey,” she said, and it almost came out with an exclamation point. “What
are you doing here?”
“I got your text—I texted you back.”
“My phone’s dead.” Cath looked up at Levi’s crinkle-cut eyes and relieved smile, trying to take him all in.
He was holding two cups of coffee and had a banana shoved into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Mr. Avery?” he said, holding out a cup of coffee.
“This was for Jandro, but it looks like he’s covered.”
Her dad took the coffee. “Thanks. Levi.”
“Levi,” Cath repeated, and she knew she was close to crying. “You didn’t have to come.”
He made a loose fist and chucked her gently on the bottom of her chin, taking a half step toward her. “Yeah, I did.”
Cath tried not to smile—but ended up smiling so wide, her ears almost popped.
“They wouldn’t let me back,” he said. “Or Jandro. Only immediate
family.”
Cath nodded.
“Is your sister okay?”
“Yeah. Hungover. Embarrassed … We’re going back to Omaha now, all
three of us.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she
said.
“You didn’t even know I was here.”
“I know now, and I’ll apply these feelings backwards. Thank you.… Did you miss your sister’s birthday party?”
“No, it’s tomorrow after church. I’ll take a nap and head back that way—
unless you need anything.”
“Nope.”
“Are you hungry?”
Cath laughed. “Are you about to offer me a banana?”
“I’m about to offer you half a banana,” Levi said, letting go of her hand.
He gave her the coffee and took the banana out of his pocket, peeling it. Cath glanced over at Wren. She was introducing their dad to Jandro. Wren looked like hell, but Jandro was looking at her like she was the Lady of the Lake.
Levi handed Cath half a banana, and she took it. “Cheers,” he said, tapping his hand against hers.
Cath ate the banana and held on to his gaze. “I’d give you the moon right now,” she said.
Levi’s eyes flashed happily, and he hitched up an eyebrow. “Yeah, but would you slay it for me?”
* * *
Cath drove home. They drove through McDonald’s first, and her dad ordered two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches and said that neither of them could nag him about it.
Wren grimaced. “I don’t even care if it’s bad for your cholesterol. It’s the smell that’s making me sick.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have drunk yourself into a bilious stupor,” their dad said. And that’s when Cath realized that he wasn’t going to pretend that nothing was wrong. That he wasn’t just going to let Wren go about her business.
Cath smashed her cheeseburger against the steering wheel and was the only person on the interstate observing the speed limit.
When they got home, Wren went straight in to take a shower.
Her dad stood in the living room, looking lost. “You go next,” Cath told him. “I’m not that gross.”
“We have to talk about all this,” he said. “Tonight. I mean, not you. You don’t. Wren and I have to talk. I should have talked to her at Christmas, but
there was so much else going on—”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t, Cath.”
“It’s my fault, too. I hid it from you.”
He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead. “Not that well. I saw what she was doing.… I thought she’d, I don’t know, self-correct. That she’d get it out of her system.”
His necktie had worked its way almost completely out of his pocket. “You should sleep,” Cath said. “Take a shower, then sleep.”
Wren walked out of the bathroom wearing their dad’s robe and smiled feebly at them. Cath patted her dad’s arm, then followed Wren upstairs.
When Cath got up to their room, Wren was standing at her dresser, impatiently riffling through a mostly empty drawer. “We don’t have any pajamas.”
“Calm down, Junie B. Jones,” Cath said, walking over to her own dresser.
“Here.” She handed Wren a T-shirt and a pair of shorts left over from high school gym.
Wren changed and climbed into her bed. Cath crawled on top of the
comforter beside her.
“You smell like puke,” Wren said.
“Yours,” Cath said. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” Wren closed her eyes.
Cath tapped softly on Wren’s forehead. “Was that your boyfriend?”
“Yes,” Wren whispered. “Alejandro.”
“Alejandro,” Cath said, breathing the j and rolling the r. “Have you been
dating since last semester?”
“Yes.”
“Were you out with him last night?”
Wren shook her head. Tears were starting to pool between her eyelashes.
“Who’d you go out with?”
“Courtney.”
“How’d you bruise your face?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But it wasn’t Alejandro.”
Wren’s eyes flew open. “God, Cath. No.” She squeezed her eyes shut again and flinched. “He’s probably going to break up with me. He hates it when I get drunk. He says it’s unbecoming.”
“He didn’t look like he was going to break up with you this morning.”
Wren took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t think about it right now.”
“Don’t,” Cath said. “Sleep.”
Wren slept. Cath went downstairs. Her dad was already asleep. He’d skipped the shower.
Cath felt inexplicably peaceful. The last thing Levi had said to her, when they’d parted in the hospital lobby, was, “Plug in your phone.” So Cath did.
Then she started some laundry.
“We can’t be friends,” Baz said, passing Simon the ball.
“Why not?” Simon asked, kicking the ball up and bouncing it on his knee.
“Because we’re already enemies.”
“It’s not like we have to stay that way. There isn’t a rule.”
“There is a rule,” Baz said. “I made it myself. Don’t be friends with Snow. He already has too many.” He shouldered Simon out of the way and caught the ball on his own knee.
“You’re infuriating,” Simon said.
“Good. I’m fulfilling my role as your nemesis.”
“You’re not my nemesis. The Humdrum is.”
“Hmmm,” Baz said, letting the ball drop and kicking it back to Simon. “We’ll see. The story’s not over yet.”
—from “Baz, You Like It,” posted September 2008 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and
Wrenegade
