by Carolyn Nash
“The cab brought us to where we’re going to stay, dear.” I emphasized the last word, making my voice slightly impatient, willing him to understand the charade. “The party’s over now, mister. You’ve got to get up now and come inside.”
Andrew blinked again. “Jeez,” he drawled. “What was in that punch?”
I could have kissed him. “God alone knows. You know how Larry gets at company parties. Always slipping something in the punch bowl.”
“Yeah. Good old Larry.”
“Can you get up now?”
“I think so.” He reached up to grab the back of the front seat. Between the two of us we managed to get him sitting up, with his legs out the door, and then, with considerable effort, standing. The driver sat behind the wheel, watching us, not moving except to change his position slightly so that he could see better. The toad.
We took a step, then another toward the house.
“Hey!” The driver pushed his door open and stepped out into the street. “What about my $98.50?”
I shot a look back at him. “Just keep the blasted meter running and wait a minute.”
“Yeah but…” Frankly, I believe the look I gave him would have probably stopped a charging rhino, and therefore was probably overkill, but it did do the trick. He dropped back behind the wheel. “Just hurry up,” he muttered. “I got things to do.”
The corner of Andrew’s mouth twitched upward. “Real sweetheart, huh?” he whispered.
“You have no idea,” I whispered back. “Ready?”
He looked up the cement walk, then nodded and we started toward the house.
The fifteen feet up that cracked sidewalk was worse than any mile I’ve ever run. Each step sent pain flickering through Andrew’s face but his determination never faltered. By the time we had negotiated the porch, the front door, the apartment door and the hallway to the bedroom, Andrew’s panting had become an agonized gasp and I wasn’t doing much better. I elbowed the overhead light switch on, and we staggered to the edge of the mattress. True to his word, Doug had piled a stack of blankets, sheets and pillows on the end of it.
“Andrew, this is it. You’re safe.” He still stood, feet planted wide apart, rocking back and forth. “Andrew! Lie down.” I shook him, and his eyes at last focused on me. “You’re safe. Safe. Do you understand?”
He blinked and nodded once.
“Lie down then, here.”
He looked down and then suddenly, as if finally hearing me, his legs buckled and he fell forward on his knees, dragging me down with him. The jolt as he hit drove a cry from him. His eyes rolled up and he started to fall forward and I yanked with all my strength, turning him around so that he fell back against me, and I could ease him down.
“Andrew.”
His eyelids fluttered.
“Andrew?”
His eyes opened and blinked at the weak overhead light.
“Andrew?”
His face turned toward me and after blinking a few more times, he seemed to focus. Melanie? His lips formed my name but there was no sound. He swallowed convulsively as I reached up to push his thick hair back from his face. He tried again to speak. “You’re all right?” It was no more than a murmur, but I heard the words distinctly.
I nodded, completely unable to speak.
The lines etched across his forehead and between his eyes smoothed. “Okay,” he whispered, and his eyelids drifted closed.
I got him a drink of water, forced him to swallow one of the antibiotic pills, then I covered him with a sheet and a couple of blankets. When I was certain he was completely out, I brushed back his hair, kissed his forehead, and headed back out front.
By the time I made it to the front door, the cab driver had started up the porch steps. He stopped halfway up, folded his arms across his chest, and stuck out his chin. “You owe me 106 bucks, honey.”
Oh, yeah. That was it. I took one step down. The high-heels of my pink pumps cracked loudly on the ceramic pavers. My hand whipped up, one finger pointing at his chest. “First...” I jerked the finger at his chest and he flinched. “If you call me ‘honey’ again I’m going to reach down your throat and turn you inside out.”
I took another step down and he fell backwards a step. His eyes widened. I thrust the finger at him again. “Second, I’ve got your money.”
I stepped down again and he backed up and stumbled off the last step onto the front walk. “And third, I need to go to the drugstore for some supplies and you are going to take me there, wait for me and bring me back here.” I stopped a few inches from him, glaring up into his startled face. “You got that?”
“Hey. It’s your money,” he said, and turned quickly and walked back to the car.
* * * *
“No!”
The shout woke me from my doze and I rose to lean over Andrew. He had thrown the covers back and was trying to get up.
I pushed him back down on the mattress, pinning his shoulders. “Andrew. Andrew, lie back. You can’t get up.” His skin felt dry and hot. The new bandage showed starkly white against the bare skin of his abdomen.
He swung a hand up and knocked my hand away. “No! I’ve got to…” I grabbed his wrist and he fell back against the pillow. “I’ve got to go.”
A three-quarter moon in the southeastern sky cast its bright light through the French doors in squares of light and shadow. It helped me to see him, but it was a ghostly light that washed the color from his skin and deepened the shadows under his eyes. “Please, I’ve got to…” His eyes closed and his head turned away.
I grabbed a damp cloth and wiped his face, trying to cool him, but he knocked my hand away again. He thrashed back and forth and struggled to rise. I pulled the blankets back up over him but he threw them back again, impatiently.
“I don’t want to stay in bed,” he said irritably. “I’ve got to get up and go… and go…” He looked puzzled and frustrated. He reached over and grabbed my arm. “Where? Where am I supposed to go?”
“Nowhere, nowhere,” I crooned. “Just lie still. Lie still.”
He stared across the room as if he were trying to see across a vast distance. “Beth?”
My hand began to shake as I stroked his forehead and hair. My other hand rested on his shoulder and I could feel his muscles suddenly tense. “Beth, no! You promised you’d quit!” His thrashing started again.
“No!” he shouted, suddenly furious. He struggled to rise as I used all my strength to try to keep him down. He shook his head. “Fine, go, get out!”
“Please, please lie still,” I gasped. “You’ll start the bleeding again.”
As abruptly as it came, the anger left and his eyes flew open in panic. “No!” He looked through me, past me. “Please! I didn’t mean it. No.”
He reached out toward the phantom running away from him. “Wait, no, Beth, please!” His eyes were wide and pleading. Tears shone in his eyes.
He struggled and I had to lean hard on him to hold him down. Tears dropped from my face onto the bare skin of his chest. “Please Andrew, please lie still,” I choked out.
Though he didn’t seem to hear me, he fell back under my hands. His muscles went limp and he turned his head away. “Beth, please come back,” he whispered.
He shivered and I pulled the blanket up, tucking it around him. I lay down next to him, cupping my body against his side, carefully wrapping my arms around him. I kept saying something to him, kept talking, but I don’t remember what it was. Just nonsense words, letting him know I was there, that I would never leave. After several minutes the shivering stopped and his breathing deepened.
I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
In the early morning light coming in through the French doors, I studied Andrew. As an undergrad, I’d developed an interest in sketching and found I had a talent for capturing a likeness. Drawing had taught me a different way to look at faces and I found as I sat by the mattress, watching Andrew sleep, I was assessing how I would transfer what was essentially and un
iquely Andrew to a piece of paper. Unlined and with no flaws, his high forehead would be tough to catch. His brows were a bit easier, strong and somewhat darker than the color of his hair; some dark strokes of the pencil would place them. His eyes were well shaped and somewhat deep set, thus easier to mark in because I could make strong lines and wouldn’t have to be tentative with my charcoal. Long, curling, dark blond lashes would be difficult to get just right, but I thought with work I might do it. Noses were always difficult, particularly when they were straight and symmetrical; his would be particularly hard to shade. The planes of his face and the somewhat prominent cheekbones would take some work, but I knew that sort of classic shape had been caught by other artists, so I could get some semblance of it. His mouth would be a problem; it was a bit too perfect. To get the curve and thickness of the lips without it looking too ideal would be a challenge. An impression of beard stubble could be made with quick, short strokes using the point of the pencil. His neck I would suggest with a few long lines.
I held the sketchpad and drew those lines with my 6B black lead pencil. As I shaded them in, the black lead became red, which began to make red lines on Andrew’s portrait. Frustrated, I grabbed my gum eraser to erase the red, but it only smeared and red began to flow out of the page, out of his mouth…
I jerked awake, still sitting near the mattress, my hands trying to throw the dream sketch pad across the room. Andrew lay on the bed exactly as he’d been. I must have slept for no more than a few seconds, just long enough to dream.
I checked my watch. Time for another struggle to get one of the antibiotic pills and some water down Andrew’s throat. I went to get a cup of water and a pill from the bathroom while I tried to shake the effects of the dream. Even so, I felt a bit like I was sleepwalking.
I knelt by the mattress with the water and pill.
“Andrew?”
He didn’t move.
“Andrew? Can you wake up? Just enough to take this pill.”
No reaction. He’d been fitful most of the night, but now he seemed to be sound asleep… or…
“Andrew!” I said louder. I laid my hand on his forehead. I might as well have been cupping a hot mug of coffee.
“Andrew?” My voice came out high and thready. I put down the water and took his shoulders and shook him. “Andrew!”
No response and the blue sweater felt like a heating pad turned to high.
I jumped up and ran for the bathroom and soaked a washcloth and a towel, then ran back, stripped off the sheet and blanket, and started pulling at the blue sweater. As I moved his arms and tugged at the sleeves, he didn’t react. His head lolled from side to side, but only because of my movements.
Please, please, please, please…
“…please, please, please.”
I peeled the sweater up, gently lifting it over the bandage, and then worked his arms out and pulled the hot material over his head. I threw it aside, and laid the wet, folded towel on his chest. He groaned slightly at the touch of the cold cloth, but then quieted. I looked at his jeans, bit my lip, told myself to stop being a ninny, and slipped my fingers under the waistband and pulled at the button. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling of unreality from my dream, and perhaps that contributed to what happened: it was as if, for a short time, I split. Terrified at the heat coming off his skin, I struggled to get the denim off him. Yet also, I stood back in utter astonishment watching as I undressed Dr. Andrew Richards, slipping the button through the buttonhole, pulling down the zipper, and tugging at the blue denim to peal it down those long, muscular legs.
Stop it! Focus!
The jeans seemed fairly new and were stiff. I had to pull and shift them, trying to get them down over his
so very nicely formed
bottom without removing his knit boxer-briefs. His skin was so hot
oh my, how can just the sight of a man’s thighs send that shiver over my skin
and I was terrified by the heat radiating off him. I bunched up the jeans, threw them on top of the sweater, and then took the washcloth, laid it over his right thigh, and drew the cloth down his leg to his ankle
I must be still dreaming. I have to be dreaming.
then did the same to the left leg. The hair on his legs was the same red-blond shade as that on his head. He had a rather long scar near one ankle that appeared to have happened a long time ago, probably when he was a boy. Once his legs were a bit cooler, I moved up his body to his boxer-briefs.
Well, he’s not going to need to buy a monster truck to compensate for any little thing.
I started to giggle. I looked again and the giggle threatened to become an hysterical laugh. I shook my head fiercely.
Hold it together, Melanie!
I went to the bathroom and cooled off the washcloth and attempted to cool off my splintered imagination, then went back and tried to calmly draw the cool cloth beneath the waistband of his shorts and below the edge of the white bandage that encircled his lower chest. A triangular patch of dark blond hair led from his navel to below the light blue boxer-briefs. The sight sent a quiver through my belly and I no longer had the slightest inclination to giggle when I thought about what lay under that thin material. My heart beat in my throat.
“Stop it Mel,” I whispered, but oh, how I didn’t want to stop where my thoughts were leading. Maybe if I’d more sleep or less fear in the previous twenty-four hours I might have been more in control of my senses, but my imagination took advantage of my weariness and played out a rather vivid mind film…
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then moved up to try and cool the rest of Andrew’s body. The wet towel I’d placed on his upper body was warm to the touch when I took it off. I wiped his chest with the washcloth
he didn’t get a chest like this in the lab
following the contours of his chest, the bones of his shoulders, down his arms to his hands. I lifted each hand in turn, wiping the palm, and then between each finger. Then I moved up the mattress and stroked his face, each eye, his cheeks, his mouth.
what would those lips feel like against mine.
He murmured something and the spell broke.
“Andrew?” I asked anxiously.
He turned his head and his eyes opened a bit before closing again. I tossed aside the washcloth and reached for the cup of water and the antibiotic pill.
“Andrew, I need you to drink something.”
His lips moved and a small sound came out, and then he subsided.
“Andrew!” I said louder.
His eyes opened, but he didn’t really seem to see me. I lifted his head, so hot, so very hot, put the pill in his mouth, and then tilted the glass so he could drink. Some of the water spilled down his neck, onto his chest, but much of it went into his mouth. He swallowed, and I sighed with relief as I lowered his head back on the pillow. I went to the bathroom, soaked the washcloth, and went back to him, continuing to cool him until he seemed to fall into a more natural sleep.
I slipped through the front door, looked up the hall toward the bedroom and listened for a moment. The only sound came from a lone bird in the garden chattering at someone or something--probably the large white Persian cat from next door who had been making regular, ineffectual forays into the garden in his single-handed attempt to curb the San Francisco bird population.
I eased the door closed, and dropped my purse and the bag that held my skirt, my poor bedraggled sweater, and my pumps. I pulled off Andrew’s black and silver cap and shook my hair down, then pulled off his sunglasses. I’d found a discount store a few blocks down that sold jeans, running shoes and lovely, neon-pink and Day-Glo-green t-shirts. Cheap, the shirts wouldn’t last through one wash, and the least expensive twenty-two dollars each. After leaving nearly all of my traveler’s checks with Doug and Tim for the first month’s rent and a hefty security deposit, these clothes had taken most of what was left. I’d been afraid to use my ATM card to get what little cash remained in my checking account. Afraid they’d trace it.
I pulled at the jeans. They were a little tight; the shirt I’d bought was a little too large and had a rather eye-straining depiction of a giant crab dismantling Fisherman’s Wharf. (The giant crab’s rear leg was kicking over an enormous stainless steel vat. Crabs were spilling out of it back into the sea, little balloons over their heads with Yippee! Free at last! One little one sang “Born Free.” The giant crab’s large claw was lifting the roof off Alioto’s restaurant on the marina as he reached inside. A man and woman in Bermuda shorts and baggy shirts, cameras piled nearby, crab bibs tied around their necks, sat at a table. The woman was staring up, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. Her husband was looking across at her as he said, “You know Marian, I had a whole ‘nother picture in mind, but I gotta admit, that’s one steamed crab all right.”) It was bright, it was ugly, and it was the first thing in two days that had made me laugh.
I headed for the kitchen and set the bag of groceries on the counter next to where I’d left the Saturday paper, still open to the third page picture spread of Andrew, the fire-gutted lab, Lance, and, to my horror, a copy of the small photo that had been attached to my graduate school application. As soon as Andrew’s picture had hit the Friday night news, the Adonis-like chauffeur had called the police to tell them of the young woman he had driven to the LA airport, who had directed him to pick up the tall, red-blond man near the University. The police had then talked to the bank, talked to all the students in the lab including Chuck, made the connection between Cheryl and me, and questioned her. From the tone of the article I could tell that Cheryl had played the dumb blonde to the T, and I blessed the fact that I was lucky enough to have a friend like her. They’d talked to the Pacific Crest hotel, entered my room, found the blood stain on the carpet, the remnants of bloody towels, and heard the story from the maid, the busboy, the plumber, and the hotel security staff. I read that they’d let Short-Blond and Beer-Belly go, and only afterward found that their IDs did not check out. I read that the police feared for my safety, that I most likely had been taken hostage, that I’d been forced into the scene in the hotel room by Andrew Richards, who most likely was armed and hiding somewhere in the room. The hotel staff eagerly agreed that I had seemed nervous and had behaved strangely. And then the worst: they’d called Maggie, who confirmed that I’d never willingly be involved in anything like this and that she too feared for my safety.