by Joy Fielding
“What do you mean?”
Janine lowered her voice. “I know the fact Casey can hear means her condition has definitely improved, and she could be coming back to us. But at the same time”—her voice became a whisper—“I can’t help but think how awful for her to have been lying here all this time, unable to see or talk or move, but able to hear everything. What if she can understand everything she hears? What if she knows someone might have tried to kill her?”
“What are you getting at?”
The whisper assumed a certain urgency. “Do you think there’s any chance she’d think it’s me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We both know Casey and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything. Things were pretty tense when she decided to dissolve our partnership, and I admit to some pretty evil thoughts.”
“Such as?”
“I actively prayed her new business would go under, that she’d lose all her money, even that her hair would fall out.”
“You prayed her hair would fall out?” Gail’s voice was almost as loud as it was incredulous.
“Shh! I didn’t mean it.”
“Still …”
“I wouldn’t have wished this on my worst enemy,” Janine said.
Is it possible that’s exactly what you are? That this past year has been all an act? That you hate me enough to want me dead? That you’ve simply been biding your time, pretending to be my friend? That you’re somehow responsible for this hell I’m living in?
“You know I love you,” Janine said plaintively. “Don’t you, Casey?”
Do I?
“I think we have to stay positive,” Gail was saying. “We have to believe the fact she can hear is a good thing, that it means Casey’s on the road to recovery. And Casey, if you can understand what you’re hearing, as scary and as frustrating as that must be, then at least you know how much we all care about you, and how much Warren adores you, and how much everyone is rooting for you, so hurry up and get well.”
Oh, Gail. Sweet, generous, naive, trusting Gail. Forever seeing the good in everyone. At least I can always count on you.
“But what if years go by,” Janine broached quietly, “and there’s no further change, and she’s trapped like this, possibly forever …?”
“She won’t be. Casey’s strong. She’s been through a lot in her life….”
“Oh, please,” Janine interrupted, her tone shifting quickly and noticeably. “Yes, Casey didn’t have the best parents in the world, but at least hers had the decency to die and leave her an obscenely wealthy young woman. Plus, she wasn’t exactly dealt a bad hand in the looks department. Not to mention, she’s smart and educated and—”
“In a coma.”
“Yes, she’s in a coma.” Janine drew an audible intake of breath. “I’m sorry, Casey. If you do understand any of this, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I know it probably sounds like a bunch of sour grapes, and that’s not how I really feel.”
Isn’t it?
“She knows that,” Gail said.
It sounded pretty convincing to me.
“Do you remember the first time we met?” Janine asked, and Casey wondered for an instant if she was talking to her.
“Of course,” Gail answered. “It was hate at first sight.”
“You hated me?”
“You hated me,” Gail corrected.
“Was it that obvious?”
“Only to those of us who were breathing.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I felt threatened,” Janine admitted. “I mean, you and Casey had been friends forever. I was the new kid in town.”
“You were her roommate, her college buddy. I was the childhood friend who chose marriage over university, who could never hope to compete with you on an intellectual level—”
“Few can,” Janine interjected, and had the good grace to laugh.
Gail giggled. “I guess everyone who meets Casey wants her all to themselves.”
“So, how did you and I ever end up as friends?”
“I don’t think Casey gave us much choice. She was so persistent. Weren’t you, Casey? ‘She’s a really nice person,’ “Gail mimicked. “ ‘It just takes a little while to get to know her.’”
“ ‘Don’t underestimate her. She’s really smart. You have to give her a chance,’” Janine followed.
“All those lunches….”
“Painful.”
“And those girls’ nights out.”
“Excruciating.”
“So, when did your feelings change?” Gail asked.
“Who says they have? I still don’t like you.” Janine laughed. “You do know I’m kidding, don’t you?”
“I know.”
Don’t be so sure.
“I guess it was during Mike’s final stay in the hospice,” Janine continued, unprompted. “You were so loving and strong that it was kind of hard not to admire you. The way you just accepted what was happening, how you never got angry or cursed your lot in life. Unlike me, who’s spent most of her life cursing one thing or another. I thought that was pretty amazing. And I guess that morphed into thinking you were pretty amazing.”
“I’m not,” Gail demurred.
You are.
“Eventually I realized Casey was right, that I had underestimated you, that under the frizzy hair and the shy smile, you were a real powerhouse, and I had to admire you. But enough about you,” Janine continued, laughing again. “When did you realize you’d been wrong about me?”
Gail laughed. “Around the same time,” she admitted. “I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to make all the necessary arrangements, to be there for Mike’s mom, who was a real basket case, and to hold myself together when I was pretty much falling apart. And of course, Casey was there, being her usual supportive self, which was no less than I would have expected. But what I didn’t expect was you. You were right there beside her. Every time I turned around, there you were, helping with this, organizing that. And after the funeral, you were the one in my kitchen, putting together a plate of sandwiches, and then quietly stacking the dishes in the dishwasher and putting things away, while I talked to guests in the living room.”
“I just didn’t want Casey to get all the credit.”
“Why are you so afraid of letting people see the real you?”
Who is the real you, Janine?
“Maybe because they’ll discover there isn’t that much to see.”
Or too much.
The sound of pages turning. “As George Eliot so wisely observes, ‘Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa …?’”
“What?”
“ ‘That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not the last of her kind,’” Janine continued reading. “ ‘Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action …’”
“You’re comparing yourself to Saint Theresa?”
“ ‘… perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity.’”
“That’s really quite lovely,” Gail remarked. “I think.”
“And I think I’ve had enough great literature for one day. I should get going.”
The sound of a chair pushing back. A whiff of expensive French perfume. The feel of Janine’s lips on Casey’s cheek.
It’s all coming back, Casey thought, almost bursting with excitement, although she remained motionless. She could hear. She could smell. She could feel. Surely any day now, her body would no longer be able to contain her emotions and she’d be able to move, to talk, to shout from the rooftops.
“Call me later?” Janine asked.
“Sure thing.”
A muffled embrace, high heels clicking against the hard
floor, a door opening and then closing, the chair being reoccupied, pulled closer to the bed.
“I hope you didn’t take any of that to heart, Casey,” Gail said. “Janine talks tough, but underneath, she’s a real softie. Did you know she’s been here every day since your accident?”
According to Detective Spinetti, it wasn’t an accident.
“Why would she come every day if she didn’t love you?”
Maybe to monitor my progress, look for an opportunity to finish the job she started?
Casey felt a soft hand brush across her forehead. She inhaled the clean scent of Ivory soap. Could there be a more glorious aroma?
“Anyway, we’re all so excited about the news. Warren called everybody last night. He was so thrilled. ‘She can hear,’ he shouted when I picked up the phone. Even before I said hello. ‘The test showed she can hear.’ We still don’t know if that means you can understand anything, but he says the doctors are very hopeful, and that there’s reason to be guardedly optimistic. That’s the doctor’s phrase—guardedly optimistic. But it’s better than being guardedly pessimistic, right? I think so. Anyway …”
Her voice drifted to a halt.
“I’m not going to read to you. I’ll let that be Janine’s thing. I’ll just sit here and talk to you, if that’s okay, tell you what’s been going on in my life these last few weeks. And trust me, you won’t want to miss a word of this, I promise. It’s pretty juicy stuff. Well,” she qualified, “juicy for me.”
She took a deep breath before continuing. The breath floated across the room in ripples, like a gentle wave.
“I met this guy.”
Another pause. The chair inched closer to the bed. A thrilling combination of strawberries and lime floated under Casey’s nose. Probably Gail’s shampoo, Casey thought, luxuriating in its wondrous scent.
A soft giggle, then, “His name is Stan. You might have heard me mention him to Janine. Anyway, I really haven’t told her very much. You know Janine—she’d want to know everything, and she’d pepper me with questions, and it’s still so early, I’m afraid to jinx it. Am I making any sense?” Another giggle. “Okay, so here goes. His name is Stan Leonard, and he’s thirty-eight. His wife died of breast cancer three years ago, and he has two children, William, who’s ten, and Angela, who’s seven. He’s a computer programmer, owns a house—mortgage-free—in Chestnut Hill, and he likes movies and theater and traveling, although he hasn’t been able to do much of that since his wife died. And what else?
“Let’s see. He’s not all that tall, maybe an inch taller than I am, which is fine by me. Mike wasn’t very tall either. And he could probably stand to lose a few pounds, although not too many. Actually, I kind of like him the way he is—not so perfect. It’s just that I know Janine would say he could lose a few pounds, which maybe is one of the reasons I haven’t said too much to her about him. I don’t want her judging him. Or maybe it’s me I don’t want her to judge. I don’t know. I just know I think he’s really cute. Yes, he has a bit of a paunch, and his hair is thinning a little on top, but he has the most beautiful gray-green eyes you’ve ever seen; they’re really unusual. And when he smiles, the corners of his lips turn down instead of up, and I find that strangely endearing, don’t ask me why.” She laughed again, the soft sound tinkling through the remainder of her description. “But surprisingly, he’s quite muscular. He works out with weights, so he’s got these really amazing biceps. Not like Arnold Schwarzenegger or anything. But certainly more than you’d expect from a computer nerd. That’s how he describes himself, a computer nerd, although I don’t think he’s at all nerdy, and I don’t think you would either.
“I think you’d think he’s really cute.
“And he’s really nice, Casey. I know you’d like him. He has this way of leaning forward on his elbows when he’s listening to you, like you’re the only person in the room. But it’s not a con. He’s genuinely interested. And I find I can tell him things, things I haven’t told anyone other than you, you know, stuff about Mike, and he understands, because his wife died so young, too, so we have that sadness in common. Does that sound maudlin? Because it isn’t. It’s not like we sit around crying and commiserating all the time, because we don’t. In fact, we laugh constantly. Does that make me sound callous? I hope not.”
You could never sound callous.
“At first I felt really guilty. You know, in the beginning. It was like I felt I was being disloyal to Mike, even after all this time. You know I’ve only dated a few times since Mike died, and even then, it was only guys I never felt any real attraction to. So I never felt guilty. But with Stan, it’s different. Did I tell you how we met?”
Tell me.
“It was at Rittenhouse Square, by that sculpture of the lion crushing a serpent. It was the end of last month, lunchtime. I was finishing this tuna sandwich I’d brought from home, trying not to make too much of a mess, and this guy—Stan—he comes over, studies the sculpture for a few minutes, then sits down on the bench beside me. And he asks if I know what it’s supposed to represent. So I tell him: It was made by this French guy over a hundred years ago, and it symbolizes the triumph of monarchy over the rabble of democracy. Which sounds like a line straight out of Middlemarch, when you think about it. Anyway, we start having this long conversation about art, and he asks me if I’d like to go to the new exhibit at the Art Institute, and I hear myself saying yes.
“I still can’t believe it. I let this total stranger pick me up. In a public square, of all places. I mean, I never do things like that.
“So, a few nights later, we go to the exhibit—it was on the German Expressionists, and it was really good—and then he takes me to this Mexican restaurant over on Lancaster. Warren’s gym is on Lancaster, right?
“Anyway, we ended up talking all night. Or at least until eleven o’clock, because that’s the time his babysitter had to leave. But before he says good-bye—and he doesn’t try to kiss me or anything—he asks me out again, and I hear myself saying yes. And before I know it, he’s calling every day, and we’re going out again, and on the third date, he finally kissed me good night. And it was great. Casey, it was so great. Just the right amount of tongue. Oh God, I can’t believe I’m actually saying this out loud. Do I sound really pathetic?”
You sound like a woman falling in love.
“But now he’s talking about maybe going away for the weekend, which means he’s probably expecting me to sleep with him. I mean, I don’t imagine he’s thinking of separate bedrooms, do you? Not that I don’t want to sleep with him. Don’t get me wrong. I do. I think about almost nothing else. But it’s been years since I’ve been with a man. Since Mike, for God’s sake. And even though they say it’s like riding a bicycle, I was never very good at riding bicycles. Remember when we were kids, how I was forever losing my balance and falling off? And the thought of taking my clothes off in front of this man, well, I just don’t know if I can do it. What if he takes one look at me naked and jumps into the Schuylkill River?
“So I need you, my best friend on earth, to tell me what to do, because I really don’t know. And I can’t believe I’m sitting here going on and on about this, because I know it’s all so trivial compared to what you’re going through. And I feel kind of like I did with Mike. I keep thinking, how can I go out and have a good time while you’re lying here in a coma? How can I laugh? How can I allow myself the luxury of a good time?”
Because you deserve it. Because life goes on. Because we only get one chance, and we never know what fate holds in store for us.
“Just know that I love you, and I need you, and I miss you more than words can ever say.”
Oh, Gail. I love you, too.
“Please come back to us, Casey. Please come back.”
The sounds of sniffling.
“Everything all right in here?” a voice asked from the doorway.
“Yes. I’m sorry. Are you Casey’s doctor?”
“No. I’m Jeremy, her physical therapist.”
/>
“Nice to meet you, Jeremy. I’m Gail, her friend.”
“Nice to meet you, Gail.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Getting a little stronger every day.”
“That’s great. Did you hear that, Casey? You’re getting stronger every day.”
I’m getting stronger.
“We’ll just keep working on getting those muscles active again.”
“I guess I should go,” Gail said. “Let you get busy.”
“I can give you another couple of minutes, if you’d like.”
“Thank you.” A slight pause, a shy giggle. “Now, that is one handsome man. You’ve really got to wake up soon, Casey. He’s definitely worth a look. Kind of a cross between Denzel and Brad. Almost as perfect as Warren.” She leaned forward, kissed Casey on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you,” Casey repeated silently, the words echoing in the cavern of her mind until they became a prayer.
THIRTEEN
“Lester Whitmore, come on down!” the announcer brayed. “You’re the next contestant on The Price Is Right.”
“Oh, God, would you just look at that guy,” Drew squealed from beside Casey’s head. “Oh, sorry. I keep forgetting you can’t see. Shit, I smeared my nails.”
The pungent smell of fresh polish told Casey her sister was likely giving herself a manicure. She wondered how long Drew had been in the room.
“You should see this guy,” Drew continued. “He looks like he’s going to have a heart attack, he’s so excited. He’s sweating right through this ugly Hawaiian shirt he’s wearing, and jumping up and down like a lunatic, and hugging the other contestants, none of whom look exactly thrilled to be on the receiving end.”
The Price Is Right, Casey thought. She’d grown up with that show. That it was still on the air was strangely—and immensely—comforting to her.
“Oh, look. They have to guess the price of a set of golf clubs, including the bag.”