—Goi Nasu
I’M GETTING DRESSED to go to the hospital when the nausea hits me. It is so sudden and with such force that I drop to my knees on the bathroom floor. Within seconds, I am throwing up the orange juice I’d taken my supplements with before getting in the shower. It doesn’t let up for a good ten minutes, until there is absolutely nothing left inside me to throw up other than my own insides. I am so spent by the violence of the sickness that I stretch out, face down, on the bathroom’s marble floor, closing my eyes and praying that it doesn’t hit again.
Finally, convinced that it’s over, I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, trying to figure out what is going on. This episode is exactly the same as the one I had in Paris, only worse. My head is starting to pound now, and I feel the intensity of it building. I wonder if I have some horrible disease that I’m only just figuring out. Why would this happen twice with no apparent reason?
I remember the pain medication the doctor in France had given me. I manage to pull myself up to the bathroom counter and find it still inside my shave case. I open the bottle, swallow two tablets with as little water as I can manage and then make my way into the bedroom where I collapse onto the bed.
~
I HAVE NO idea how much time has passed. When I wake up I am groggy and feel as if I’ve been asleep for a week. I lift up on one elbow, look at the clock and see that it is one in the afternoon. I wait for a moment to see if the headache is gone, and it is. My stomach feels as if it has been rinsed with acid. It aches almost unbearably.
By this point, I’m pretty sure I need to see a doctor. I pick up my cell phone and call my manager.
Curtis answers on the first ring. “Hey,” he says.
“I’m a little under the weather. I was wondering if you could get me in with a doctor today?”
“Sure. What’s going on, Klein?” he asks with worry in his voice.
“I don’t really know. It’s the same thing that happened in Paris. I just became uncontrollably sick with a massive headache afterward. It’s happened again this morning, so I have no idea, but I don’t think it’s anything good.”
“Yeah, man,” Curtis says. “I know a guy over at Vanderbilt. Let me give him a ring and see what I can get going. I’ll be back in touch with you in just a bit, okay?”
“Thank you,” I say and hang up.
It’s less than five minutes before Curtis calls back. “I’m going to come over and pick you up. The appointment is in an hour with Dr. Macau. He was happy to work you in.”
“I really appreciate that, Curtis. I was headed to the hospital this morning. My phone is blowing up with texts from Riley. Would you mind calling her? Tell her what’s happened and check in on the baby for me, please? I don’t think I can right now.”
“Of course,” Curtis says. “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Yeah. See you then.”
~
CURTIS IS TRUE to his word, knocking on my door in exactly a half hour. I’ve managed to get dressed but am so weak that I can barely walk to the car without his hand at my arm.
“You’ve got me worried, Klein,” Curtis says as he pulls out onto the street from my house. “No idea what’s going on?”
“None,” I say shaking my head.
“Look, everything’s going to be all right. Dr. Macau is the best of the best, and whoever you need to see from there, he’ll make excellent recommendations.”
“Did you get in touch with Riley? “I ask, leaning my head against the back of the seat and closing my eyes.
“I did,” Curtis says. “Can’t say she was any too happy until I told her you were sick. Then she put on her compassionate hat. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know she’s the mother of your child, but good lord, Klein.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say.
~
DR. MACAU IS as good as Curtis promised he would be. In his office at Vanderbilt, he asks me dozens of questions before ever taking a look at me. Among them, questions about where I’ve been recently, what I’ve eaten, had to drink, things I might’ve been exposed to, people I’ve been with. I begin to wonder where he’s going with this, but he’s doesn’t give me any clues.
Once he’s completed the questions, he calls a nurse, a kind, motherly older woman, who greets me with a reassuring smile and asks me to please follow her. I do so and end up in an examination room where she tells me to put on a lovely blue paper gown and lets me know that the doctor will be in very soon. He is and gives me the most thorough examination I’ve ever had in my life. Once that’s complete, he says, “Klein, I’d like to get some blood work, get a urine sample, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a sample of your hair from the back of your head. It won’t be noticeable. We’ll get it so that you’ll never even know it was done.”
Of everything he’s said, I find this the most alarming, not out of vanity, but concern for what the reason would be. “I have to ask you, doctor, what are you thinking?”
“Just trying to cover all the bases, Klein, and since you were in another country and your activities have been a little unusual, I’d like to make sure you haven’t taken in some kind of toxic substance. We’ll do a tox screen.”
This, of all things, is not what I expected to hear. “What kind of toxin?”
“It could be anything,” Dr. Macau says, shaking his head a little. “But your symptoms are fairly unusual given that there doesn’t seem to be any prompting factor.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay. Whatever you need to do.”
Once I’m done, I walk back to the waiting room where Curtis is looking at a magazine and waiting for me.
“Everything go okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I’m not sure what to make of it, but I guess we’ll find out what he thinks at some point.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Curtis says. “A virus or some bug you picked up. Better to cover all the bases though, right?”
I agree with a silent nod and we walk from the office to the parking lot, getting back in Curtis’s car.
“He did do some kind of weird testing, though, and when I asked him why, he indicated he wanted to make sure I hadn’t taken in anything toxic.”
“You mean like you were poisoned?” Curtis asked.
“I really don’t know,” I say. “I mean accidentally of course. I didn’t deliberately expose myself to anything.”
“Right,” Curtis says, but he looks a little startled by the revelation, and if I didn’t feel so weak and out of it, I would ask him why. I don’t have the strength for the conversation right now, so I just close my eyes and let him drive me home.
Riley
“Some allies are more dangerous than enemies.”
―George R.R. Martin
I AM MORE than ready to be released from the hospital. My stay has been longer than the average delivery stay because I seem to have developed an infection that the doctors want to make sure isn’t going to be an issue before they release me. I’m beyond bummed that Klein hasn’t shown up today and not sure what to make of Curtis’s explanation. He’d said Klein was unable to come because he had been sick this morning. I’m beginning to regret my rash decision to pay Klein back with a few bouts of violent illness.
I mean, what if it actually kills him? Then what would I do? We’re not married. No provisions have been made for the baby since Klein hadn’t even known about her. A hard wedge of fury forces its way up from somewhere deep inside me, and I curse my ignorance. I may end up being my own worst enemy, after all.
A rap at the door interrupts my worrying. “Come in,” I say, hopeful that Klein has recovered enough to make it here today. But the face that appears is not one I had expected. “Pete,” I say, not bothering to hide my irritation. “What are you doing here?”
His boots thud heavily on the hospital floor. “I just came by to check in and see how you’re doing.”
“There’s absolutely no reason on earth why that would be necessary or e
xpected.”
“I’m sure of that,” he says, walking around the bed to take a seat in the chair next to me. I’m glad suddenly that Noelle can’t stay in the room yet. I don’t want him to tarnish the promise of her birth with memories of the payment I’d had to make for Pete’s silence.
“Why are you here, Pete?” I ask, trying not to make the words an actual hiss.
“That’s an understandable question on your part. I got a call from Curtis a little while ago. It seems that he took Klein to see a doctor this morning.”
“Yes, I know he’s not feeling well,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
Pete looks at me for a long, hard moment, and a chill creeps its way down my spine.
“I’m a little curious about something Curtis said.”
“Oh, really? What would that be?”
“He said the doctor wondered if Klein might’ve been exposed to something toxic.” He drops the last words like a quarter in a slot machine, my response his potential prize.
“That would be odd, wouldn’t it?” I say in as clipped a tone as I can manage.
“It would,” Pete agrees. “And not something I would ordinarily think anything about except that there is this thing I found out about you and Aaron, which I know I never actually completely conveyed to you. There really didn’t seem to be any point in going over that when we had agreed on a deal for my silence. But now I’m wondering if maybe that had been a rash decision on my part.”
“What exactly do you think you know, Pete?”
“I know that one day when Aaron and I were hanging out having a beer, and he was talking to me about his depression, he confided that you had actually suggested he might want to commit suicide.”
The words drop across me like bullets at a target, punching holes as they land. “If you knew him, surely you know that Aaron tended to exaggerate.”
“Actually,” Pete says, “I knew him to be an extremely kind soul who never hurt anyone in his life. I also know that he was madly in love with you, or at least he thought he was, but he did struggle with depression, like many creative people I know. He seemed to think that once you figured out he probably wasn’t going to get to the rung on the ladder of life you were aiming for, you were pretty much done with him.”
“That is insane,” I say. “And that might be an accurate word to describe Aaron in the last year of his life.”
“You see,” Pete says, giving me a long cold stare. “I have to disagree with that because I knew him well. I spent a lot of time with Aaron in the last year of his life. That’s not what I saw at all. I saw a man with a broken heart for sure and a man struggling with clinical depression.”
“And he told you that I said he should kill himself? I don’t know. Maybe I did say that in the heat of one of our arguments or something, but who doesn’t say things like that now and then?”
He considers this for several loud seconds. “I can’t say that I know anyone who does. You see, I saw the texts that you sent him, not just one but several. And they all said exactly that, that when a person gets as sad as he was, maybe there really is no other option for ending it.”
I consider my response for some time. I could deny it, but he said he saw the texts, so that would be pointless. I opt for another strategy. “And do you think you’re so much better than me, Pete? You who angled to sleep with me using this very information? How do you figure that makes you any better than me at all?”
“It doesn’t,” Pete says. “I readily admit it. I’ve never claimed to be any kind of saint, far from it, in fact. And if I had it to do over again, I probably would pass on that little piece of blackmail I pulled with you. But there you go. We don’t get to redo many of our mistakes in this life, do we? However, when I was talking to Curtis this morning, and he mentioned the whole poisoning thing, I wondered what lengths you might go to when Klein made it clear he didn’t want a future with you? Am I getting close, Riley?”
I feel the blood leave my face. I’m really a better liar than this, but somehow he’s caught me off guard, and I am all but handing him a winning ticket.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Pete,” I say. But even to my ears, the words are unconvincing.
He shrugs. “Maybe not, but I’ve lost one buddy to you, Riley. And even though I would never call myself a great friend to Klein, I’m not so far down the road that I would let him get thrown under the bus by you, too.”
“Get out, Pete,” I say, my teeth literally clenched together. I want to pick up the closest object and hurl it at him, but that would only bring a barrage of nurses running, and right now, I just need to be by myself to regroup, to think.
“You take care now, Riley,” he says, getting up and stopping at the doorway. He turns around to look at me one more time. But it’s not gloating that I see there. It’s something that looks a lot more like regret.
Klein
“Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword”
―Oscar Wilde
I AM JUST ABOUT ready to leave the house for the hospital when a knock sounds at the front door. I’m not expecting anyone, so I look out the window. Curtis’s car sits in the circular drive. I open the door, figuring he’s stopped by just to check in on me. “Hey,” I say.
“How are you?” he asks, walking into the foyer.
“Feeling a lot better.”
“Glad to hear it,” he says with a weary sigh. “We need to talk, Klein.”
I hear the concern in his voice and wonder if the doctor might have gotten back to him, but then doctors don’t do that. They communicate directly with their patient. “Come in, Curtis.”
He walks through the foyer and into the living room, coming to a stop in front of the fireplace. His hands are shoved inside his pockets, a look of unease on his face.
“I can tell something is wrong, Curtis. Just go ahead and say it.”
“I hate to be the bearer of this kind of news, but there’s no way to get around it. You have to know about this, and then you can figure out what to make of it or what to do about it.”
“What is it?” I say, feeling an awful sense of dread.
“Pete stopped by to see me a little while ago. He’d been to the hospital to see Riley and apparently had an enlightening conversation with her.”
“About what?” I ask, deadpan.
“He knew the guy Riley dated before you, Aaron Rutgers. I think you probably met him a few times.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“He seems to think Riley played a part in Aaron’s suicide.”
This is the last thing I expect to hear. Shock reverberates through me. “What do you mean, ‘played a part’?”
“He says he saw texts from her telling Aaron he should kill himself.”
“What? Wait a minute, Curtis. There are a lot of things about Riley that wouldn’t surprise me, but that she would do something like that, I can’t imagine.”
“Neither can I, but maybe you should talk to Pete. It’s pretty convincing. He said he actually read the text. It wasn’t just hearsay.”
I have no idea what to say. It’s as if a bomb has gone off inside me, and all of a sudden, I’m thinking that Riley, a woman who might do something as cruel as this, is the mother of the baby I already can’t imagine living without. “So, why are you telling me this now?”
“Because that’s not all there is to it, Klein.”
“What else could there be?”
Curtis drops his head back a couple of inches, staring up at the ceiling as if looking for inspiration and then says, “Pete thinks she might be behind whatever has been making you sick.”
If the information about Aaron had been a shock, I have no words to describe the effect this bombshell has on me. “That’s just crazy.”
“I know it
is,” Curtis admits, shrugging a little. “She hasn’t even been around you, has she?”
“No. Not for a good while.”
“Then maybe Pete’s just overthinking it.”
But then I remember the text from Riley when I’d been in Paris, a reminder to take my vitamins. Could she have put something in them? I can’t imagine. But.
“I’m sorry, Klein. Whatever I can do,” Curtis says, slapping a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You know I’ll do it.”
“I do,” I say. Curtis lets himself out of the house with a bit of a dip to his shoulders. He’s a bright, sunshiny kind of guy, and I know this kind of thing upsets the natural goodness he likes to afford people. I’d like to believe there’s nothing about this that could possibly be true, but something in my gut knows it is. There’s only one way I’m going to find out, and that’s to talk to Riley in person.
~
I DON’T TELL her what time I’m coming, but nonetheless, when I walk into Riley’s room, she’s alone, and I’m glad because I can’t hold in my questions much longer.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re here. They’re saying I can probably go home today.”
“That’s good,” I say in an even voice, walking over to stand by the window and stare down at the parking lot below. “We need to talk, Riley,” I say without looking at her yet. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to do so, and I fold my arms across my chest, getting to the point immediately. “Pete thinks you might be trying to get rid of me, Riley.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I do turn to look at her, wanting to gauge her reaction for myself. I can see she’s been expecting this because her expression is completely neutral. There’s not a glimpse of surprise to an eyebrow nor a shocked widening of her eyes.
“Pete’s crazy,” she says.
“You can have your opinion about that, nonetheless, he’s pretty convinced of what he’s saying.”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Why on earth would I do something like that, Klein?”
That Weekend in Paris (Take Me There(Stand-alone) Book 3) Page 20