by Maria Semple
“That’s correct.”
She grabbed Teddy’s foot and gave it a shake. “I guess it’s premature to break out the cigarettes and ‘Send in the Clowns.’”
The doctor scowled.
“What, no Sondheim fans?” asked Violet.
“There’s not a lot to joke about,” he said. “A biopsy indicated his liver is severely cirrhotic.”
“Oh God.” Cirrhotic livers, this was her father’s bailiwick. “How bad is it?”
“The liver is a regenerative organ. Sometimes it can recover from the injury of alcohol. Unfortunately, the scarring is permanent, so it remains vulnerable to any alcohol and infections.”
“But if he doesn’t drink, he’ll be fine,” Violet said.
“If he doesn’t drink, he might get better. We don’t know yet. If he drinks again, he’ll probably die.”
“That’s easy enough.” She looked at Teddy. “Right? You can stop drinking.”
Teddy raised his eyebrows skeptically.
“Oh, come on. That’s the easy part. I can get you one of those minders David hires to go on tour with his bands.” She turned to the doctor. “Can I sign him up for a liver transplant?”
“They don’t put active alcoholics on the transplant list.” He looked Violet up and down with disapproving eyes. “As you know, livers are hard to come by. You have to show that you want to live enough to not drink.”
“But if he stays sober, he can get on the list.”
“I’m not sure.” The doctor clanked the chart back onto the rail. “There’s a screening process that I’m not completely familiar with.”
“So tomorrow I’ll talk to someone and get you on the list,” she told Teddy. “I know the best hepatologist in the city. Dr. Beyrer. We’ll have her take over your case.”
“If you really want to help?” said the doctor.
“Yes,” said Violet eagerly.
“I suggest you donate blood. When Mr. Reyes came in, his liver was unable to manufacture the compounds required for clotting, so he required a massive blood transfusion. The hospital is always in need of blood.”
“Oh,” Violet said, deflated by the meagerness of the request.
“Unless, of course . . .” he said.
“What?” she asked, brightening.
“You’re infected, too.”
Violet felt a stab of humiliation. “No,” she said. “Of course I’m not infected.”
“Good. Then you can give blood on the fourth floor. They’re open all night. Is that all?”
“When will he be released?” Violet asked.
“He’s on a strong regimen of somatostatin to lower the pressure within the portal system. Also, his abdomen was showing preliminary signs of ascites, which caused an infection to develop. We’ve got him on diuretics and broad-spectrum antibiotics.”
“Well, whatever. The important thing is he won’t drink again and we’ll get him a new liver.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me, but we’re short staffed here.”
“Of course. Thank you, Dr. Mol-eester.”
The doctor departed. Teddy laughed, and coughed so hard he was thrust upright. The respirator tube snared him back like a fish on a hook.
“Jesus! I’m sorry!” Violet frantically pushed her fingertips into the milky tape to keep the breathing tube affixed. She placed one hand on Teddy’s chest to push him back down, and left it there. He closed his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “The Baroness von Beeswax is in the house. I’m going to make sure you stay clean and get you a new liver.” Violet quoted Shakespeare, “Come, let’s away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds in the cage.” Teddy opened his eyes. “You do know where that quote is from,” she said. “It’s what Shirley Jones sang to Shamu in your favorite Partridge Family episode.”
Teddy laughed again and started coughing.
“Stop it, stop it,” she said.
And then: in traipsed Coco.
On a chair and table were a mangy rabbit-fur coat, cans of Red Bull, and a Vogue. They’d been there the whole time; Violet just hadn’t noticed.
Coco was dressed the part, in all black. Laced into her black bob were braids with colorful bangles. Also on the table was a Ziploc bag of beads. Coco must have woven them into his hair. Her doll.
“Who are you?” Coco’s voice was breathy and her words choppy. Her eyes, evacuated. There wasn’t even the slightest attempt at affability. Violet stared into the face of crazy. Not good-crazy. Mean, hard, mentally ill crazy. Violet looked to Teddy. His eyes were closed.
“I’m his aunt,” Violet said, the words getting stuck in her throat.
“No, you’re not.” Coco sat down on the bed. She took a swig from a can of apricot juice, then tore open some Oreos. “That lady in the blood place was a real bitch,” she told Teddy. “She wouldn’t let me give blood because of the hep C. But I stole some cookies and juice.” She seemed to have completely lost interest in Violet.
Teddy opened his eyes but stared at the ceiling. He wouldn’t look at Violet. The fucking coward.
Coco was a crazy liar who didn’t love Teddy, yet he kept coming back for more.
Teddy was a crazy liar who didn’t love Violet, yet she kept coming back for more.
So who was Violet, other than a crazy liar . . . who kept David coming back for more?
But Violet could change that. She would make herself worthy of David. It might be the only thing of note she would do for the rest of her life.
It would have to be enough.
She hoped it would be enough.
“Turn it up,” Coco said to no one in particular. “I love this commercial.”
Violet looked at Teddy one last time, his eyes still closed. She turned and walked out of his room and down the corridor.
She thought about the zucchini in the garden. Winter weather hadn’t yet arrived, so the summer vegetables were still thriving in December. Tomorrow, she’d pick some and make David that pasta he liked, the Marcella Hazan recipe with the mint and garlic and red wine vinegar. She picked up her pace; she couldn’t wait to tell David about the dinner she was going to make. She’d fry green tomatoes, too, with herb aioli. Because of the heat, the dill and cilantro Violet had planted last month were beginning to bolt and needed to be picked. Dot could help Violet. She loved helping her mama in the garden.
Violet turned into the waiting room. David sat cross-legged on the floor, playing dominoes with a black family. She had no idea her husband knew how to play dominoes.
He looked up. “What?” he asked.
She decided against telling David about the pasta. It would be better to surprise him.
SALLY watched, undetected, from across the nurses’ station, as Violet left. Once the coast was clear, Sally moved to a chair beside Teddy Reyes’s room. She didn’t know what she’d been waiting for, but when the girl in black left, Sally floated to her feet and entered.
The respirator was so loud it seemed to overpower the patient asleep in bed. Sally walked closer. Yes, this was the man from the wedding. Not that she had doubted it, but seeing him gave her the serenity of knowing she’d put the pieces together correctly.
Sally glanced at his chart. There it was, hepatitis C, genotype two. Fourteen percent of all hep C cases were genotype two. At least he’d given her the good hep C.
He was beautiful. Gorgeous fuzzy eyebrows, the kind you wanted to gently brush your lips across. A crooked nose. Sweet ears. One had been pierced several times but was now free of adornment. Short, sparse eyelashes. His forehead smooth, kissable. His arms rested above the blankets. So tanned, the jaundice only showed on the inside of his elbows. He must have loved the sun — a day laborer, a beach rat, a water baby?
A tattoo peeked above the blood pressure cuff and continued down his inner arm. Sally couldn’t tell if it was a vine or some kind of snake.
His thumb bled at the fingernail. He must have chewed it just before he fell asleep. Poor guy. What had he been
so worried about that he pushed the respirator tube away and risked his life just to chew his nails? Was it something Violet had said? On the blanket, near his right hand, was a bright red dot. Fresh, virus-infected blood. Before Teddy, Sally might have been afraid of it. Tonight, she touched it. She leaned over to behold his face. Her hair brushed his cheeks.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. She reached under his neck and felt the warmth of his skin, happy warmth. She slipped her fingers farther down his back and felt the ripple of his ribs. In his slumber, his head rocked, then lolled on her arm.
“You did the best you could,” she said.
Sally’s free hand was slightly cupped and turned upward. She closed her eyes. Teddy was alive in her. As was the person he had contracted the virus from. And the person who’d given it to them. And anyone else who had hep C. Or any other disease. Or who’d ever been delivered impossible news. Or whose life was not what they’d hoped it would be. They all rested in the palm of her hand.
“I know you’re scared,” she said. “I’m scared, too.”
When Sally opened her eyes, his were open and gazing into hers. Their yellow glow only added to their beauty, such a gorgeous icy green.
“I forgive you,” she said.
His eyes absorbed her with such courage. His lower lids rose slightly. He was smiling. And then he closed his eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Those Violets
DAVID HADN’T TOLD HIS WIFE WHERE HE WOULD BE TODAY. IF VIOLET called, Kara was under strict orders to tell her he was unreachable, not back at the hospital.
“What’s the name of this ambulance service?” asked the woman in the billing office. She was fat and peppy, a combination David found endearing.
“It’s called Private Ambulance Providers of Los Angeles,” he said.
“And it’s not one of ours?”
“It’s a private ambulance service.”
“You know insurance isn’t going to cover that?”
“I know.”
“Can’t be cheap.” The woman shook her head.
“It isn’t.” David had arranged for Teddy to be transferred to Cedars and to be cared for by Sally’s hepatologist, Dr. Beyrer. David would pay the bill, no questions asked.
“Okey dokey,” said the lady. “We’re just about ready. Let me get one more authorization.” She pushed herself up with a celebratory groan.
“Take your time,” David said.
Last night, when Violet had found David in the waiting room — he was playing dominoes with the father of a guy who’d been shot — there was a peculiar look on her face. David knew what it looked like to be wildly loved by Violet, he could tell by the twinkle in her eyes, and for the first time in years, he saw it. He had no idea what had transpired in that hospital room. But David’s final act of faith in Violet, and he knew it was the last one that would be required, was loving those she loved.
In the sweat lodge, David had chosen to believe in her. It had brought him the truth that day in his office. What she told him, the depths to which she had sunk, and in the name of what, he still couldn’t comprehend; it nauseated him. What she described, not the details as much as the madness of the affair, was all too familiar.
Back when David and Violet were newly engaged, Sacramento Sukey had called David’s office every day and every night. He never took her calls, naively willing her to just go away. His heart still raced, remembering that white-knuckle moment when he was heading out to meet Violet at Orso, before Falsettos. His secretary had buzzed him, “David, it’s Sukey again.” “Tell her I’m out of the office.” “She’s out here,” whispered the secretary, “in my office.” David slipped out the back door and raced down the thirty-eight flights of stairs, to Seventh Avenue. Somehow, there stood Sukey, jangly, puffy faced, desperate, outside a souvenir shop. She held the hand of her little boy. David wrote Sukey a check for five grand, right there on the sidewalk — for what, he didn’t know, but he became unglued by the prospect that Violet would surprise him at his office, as she sometimes did, and discover he was a cheat. Sukey never called again. Still, David hadn’t set foot in Sacramento for seventeen years. In fact, when Violet landed her first TV job and wanted to move to LA, the only hesitation on David’s part was that it was too close to Sacramento. This was why he hadn’t cheated since. Not because fidelity was sacrosanct, but because infidelity turned good people bad. David sometimes wished he could give himself points for his rectitude. But he had made up his mind, so it wasn’t even a choice. Other people apparently had a harder time sticking to things. Not David.
On the hospital worker’s desk was a clownish ceramic bowl with pinched edges. In it were fifty cards the size of shirt labels. David grabbed a bunch and fanned through them, reading the single word calligraphed on each.
Gratitude
Healing
Compassion
Play
Tenderness
“I see you found my angel cards,” sang the woman.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Every morning you’re supposed to pick one and use it for inspiration.”
“Ahh,” said David.
“Pick one.”
He tossed the cards back into the bowl, stirred them with his finger, and picked one. “Courage,” he read. Beside the word was a drawing of an angel in a bathing suit, jumping off a high dive.
“Do you like it?” asked the lady. “Because if you don’t, you can take another one. I do it all the time.”
“Courage is fine.”
“You, young man,” the lady said, handing him some papers, “have gorgeous credit.”
“I get that a lot.” David filled out a check for a whopping $23,545.99.
“Come with me,” she said conspiratorially. David followed her down the corridor. “I sprained my ankle a couple of months ago.” She winced with each step. “It keeps flaring up. I guess I should have taken better care of it.”
“Rice,” said David.
“What?”
“It’s an acronym. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. It’s what you should do for an ankle sprain.”
“You’d think working at a hospital, someone would have told me that!” She laughed. “Here you are, room 833.”
David hadn’t realized it, but she had escorted him to a door that read REYES, T. David balked. “Oh.”
“Have a nice day, Mr. Parry,” she said, and hobbled off.
“Yeah, you, too.”
Last night, David and Violet had taken his car to and from the hospital. Back home, Violet slept, but David couldn’t. He had called a taxi to take him to the Shrine to get Violet’s car. That was LA for you — a voracious gobbler of time and energy over car logistics.
The best example had been ten years ago, at a Grammy party at the old Morton’s. David couldn’t leave until he had said hi to Mick Jagger, who was in serious conversation with some chick. David lingered a few minutes. Then, to give Mick a hint, he sat on the edge of the banquette. David overheard them fervently debating whose car to take home. They could take both cars, but if they did, Mick would have to park his Bentley on the street, which wasn’t safe, but if they left his car at Morton’s, the valet would be closed in the morning, so maybe they should park one car on the street now, but this neighborhood had overnight parking by permit only, so they would risk getting towed . . . Christ, it went on for an eternity! David realized that if Mick Jagger wasn’t immune to LA car bullshit, nobody was. From then on, David had always found it amusing.
Driving Violet’s car home on the 405 early this morning, David had the freeway to himself. The shoulder was dotted with tough orange garbage bags. Parolees in stenciled vests picked up trash in the dry hills. A deer had one of the bags in its teeth and shook it with a dumb violence not usually associated with Bambi. David smiled. He’d have to tell Dot about it. He turned on the stereo. A CD was playing, something Violet must have been listening to on the way to the Shrine last night.
You’re always sorry,
You’re always grateful . . .
It was that Sondheim song she had wanted sung at their wedding. David couldn’t remember exactly what about the lyrics had made him so upset. It was some song where married men explain to a bachelor what it was like being married. David turned up the volume.
You’re always sorry.
You’re always grateful.
You hold her thinking,
“I’m not alone.”
You’re still alone. . . .
You’re sorry-grateful
Regretful-happy.
Why look for answers
Where none occur?
You’ll always be
What you always were,
Which has nothing to do with,
All to do with her.
It had taken him long enough, but driving north on the 405, just past the Getty, David finally got Sondheim.
A man coughed. A dry cough that wouldn’t stop. Teddy Reyes. David stood at the open door. Courage, the angel card had counseled.
Teddy Reyes sat on the bed, his back to David, naked it appeared, his hospital gown in one hand. His hair was shaggy, his back brown and slight. Seeing the skin his wife had touched, loved once, it made David’s stomach tighten. Teddy Reyes pulled a T-shirt over his head. Before he stuck his hands through the armholes, he rested, depleted from the exertion. The small man who had sundered David’s marriage barely had the strength to put on a T-shirt! Still, he had somehow managed to wrest Violet’s sanity. David knew she wouldn’t have relinquished it without a fight. Teddy got his arms through the shirt and sat there, slumped.
That’s when David saw them: the violets tattooed on Teddy’s arm. A garland, exactly like those behind Violet’s ear. They snaked from the inside of his wrist, up his arm, around his elbow, then disappeared inside his shirtsleeve. The violets. Those fucking violets.
LATER that day, David was returning calls at his desk when Kara entered with a Post-it: “The driver from PAPLA.” It took David a second to register, Private Ambulance Providers of Los Angeles.
“Get him on the phone,” David said. As he waited, there was a terrific squawking through the double-paned window.