“Could you just ask one of the nurses to help me get dressed?” he asked tightly.
If that took Cassie by surprise she didn’t show it. “Sure,” she said calmly and pushed past the wraparound curtain, leaving Jeremy standing there alone.
He took a good look at the pillow sling that hung against him like a ghastly new appendage. It reminded him of those trays vendors used to sell drinks at stadiums. Hey, Jeremy thought darkly, I need a job—maybe I could kill two birds with one stone!
Forget Hockstein’s “time flies” baloney. Jeremy knew it was going to be the longest six weeks of his life.
CHAPTER
10
And he wasn’t wrong. But not necessarily for the reasons he may have first thought.
What he had no way of knowing at the start, since he was completely unprepared for his shotgun marriage to the abduction pillow he would soon name “Big Bertha,” was how difficult, if not impossible, most everything would be with this fucking thing slung over his tender shoulder. Though Jeremy was furious that neither Hockstein nor the indispensable Lorena warned him there was even the slightest chance he could be stuck in such a humongous sling, he quickly realized that if they had told him—and explained everything that might entail—he may have thought a whole lot harder about having the procedure to begin with. And, he guessed, most people would have—or did and bailed—which was why details were doled out on a need-to-know basis.
The trouble started right off as Jeremy had to remain in the hospital gown, with the brace strapped over it, because getting dressed, even with the nurse’s practiced help, was proving far too complicated. He told her to forget it and just let her wheel him out to Cassie’s car with his clothes in his lap instead of on his back. Fortunately, it was mild May and not chilly December.
The next hurdle was trying to wedge himself and his abduction sling into the passenger seat of Cassie’s MINI Cooper, which was not called a MAXI Cooper for good reason. As if Jeremy wasn’t self-conscious enough being around his future ex-wife in his current state, he had to enlist whatever math, engineering, and logic skills she possessed to help him fit into the little car. It was looking like they would have to call an Uber (a big one) to take Jeremy home until Cassie rolled down the top and he was able to squeeze into the seat.
There was nothing to say about their ride home, as nothing was said between them. As in, literally nothing. (Oh, Cassie did ask if Jeremy needed to stop for anything, but he declined; he didn’t want to prolong the trip.)
Jeremy’s mom was waiting as Cassie pulled up in front of the house. She was talking with Crash, who stood there with Lola in tow. Joyce and Crash both went wide-eyed as they got a load of Jeremy in his hospital duds, attached to the mega-sling and wedged into the MINI. Although Joyce clearly had filled Crash in on Jeremy’s surgery (did she mention his neighbors’ split?), neither was prepared for what they saw. Lola barked at Jeremy and leaped at the car; Crash yanked her down. The dog whimpered and sat on her haunches.
Crash hung back respectfully, but Joyce went full-on mother. “Sweetheart, are you alright? Where are your clothes? What’s with that pillow? My God, it’s as big as you are! Let me help you out.”
Lola barked again, though stayed seated, as Joyce opened the car door and thrust two helping hands at her son. Jeremy nodded at Crash, who was a bit speechless (unlike his dog). Cassie joined Joyce and together they got Jeremy fully on his feet. He felt like an idiot.
“Geez, sorry, man,” said Crash, finding his voice. “Your mom told me what happened to you but, well … wow.”
“Quite the fashion statement, huh?” joked Jeremy, though no one laughed. Without warning, Lola sprang up again, but Crash pulled her back before she could topple Jeremy. Joyce, animal lover though she was, shot the pup a harsh look and reflexively pulled her son aside. It wasn’t lost on Crash.
“I better get this wild thing inside before you’re wearing two of those contraptions,” he said. “Let me or Katie know if there’s anything you need, okay, dude?” Crash turned to Cassie as if seeing her there for the first time. “I mean if you’re not around.” He studied the subdued Cassie in a way that made Jeremy suspect he knew the entirety of recent events; who knows how long Joyce and he were out there talking.
There was silence among the remaining three until Cassie broke the spell. “Joyce, you can take it from here, yes?”
“You’re not coming in?” Joyce’s eyes locked on her daughter-in-law as if to say, Why don’t you two just kiss and make up? But even she knew that was not to be.
“I’m just going to grab a few things, but then I have to go,” said Cassie.
“You already took one coffee pot, don’t take the other, alright?” It was the first thing Jeremy could think of and at least it showed he was paying attention. Cassie nodded tightly and made her way into the house.
“I’m so sad for you two,” said Joyce when Cassie was out of earshot.
“Thanks for being here, Mom,” Jeremy said, bypassing whatever other feelings he was having just then.
Joyce took her son’s free arm and guided him up the weathered brick path.
CHAPTER
11
Matty and Joyce both offered to stay over to help Jeremy deal with his first night in the clunky abduction sling. But he stubbornly declined, said he’d figure it all out even though he had little to go by. (Was it okay to stretch his right arm at all? Could he loosen that brace strap jabbing into his neck?) He had an expanding list of things to call Lorena about in the morning.
The truth was, he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle his life on his own for the next six weeks, left-handed eating—left-handed everything—being among the many tests he’d be up against. Fortunately, he was not supposed to shower for four or five days so he didn’t have to worry just yet about that mind-boggling adventure. Still, how the hell was he going to get the fucking sling off and then back on much less not kill himself on the slippery shower tile?
And he couldn’t stay in that stupid hospital gown forever. But, as changing into clothes still seemed like such an unfathomable feat of engineering under the circumstances, it was simply too exhausting to ponder.
The list of challenges currently facing Jeremy was so daunting that he decided to calm his brain and just go to sleep. Easier said than done, he’d discover, although at least left-handed electric tooth-brushing wasn’t that hard once you figured out how to get toothpaste on the brush with one hand. (Think about it.)
But he was in for yet another unwanted surprise when he tried to get into bed: there was no way to even remotely lie flat on the mattress with the gigantic brace, which, in doing so, thrust his attached arm up in the air and painfully over his head. And forget about assuming his usual sleeping position on his side. The sling’s bulk prevented him from rolling over on his right; rolling to the left brought the abduction pillow back up into the air and, of course, his arm with it, straining his troubled limb at an impossible angle.
After much anguished negotiation, Jeremy settled into the only seemingly workable position, if not for sleep then at least for some measure of physical comfort: sitting up against his two bed pillows with the brace at his side, Velcroed arm resting flat and straight atop it. Oh, and scratch the physical comfort part: in a matter of minutes, Jeremy developed pain in his arm and shoulder from the unnatural sleeping position and had to constantly adjust himself by degrees until he found relief, temporary though it was.
Twenty minutes and an OxyContin later …
Sleep remained a ridiculous expectation as Jeremy’s mind raced, replaying the day’s crazy hodgepodge of events. Though he tried to keep thoughts of Cassie at bay, they refused to stay submerged, bubbling to the surface with a stubborn, needling intensity. She wanted out of his life but was still demanding his attention. He wanted her in his life—at least he thought he did—but had seemed unable to give her the attention she needed.
Then again, how much attention had Cassie shown Jeremy these last years? Real attention: spontaneous, probing, loyal, passionate (and not just physically but emotionally). Sure, no longer reading his film reviews—or much else he wrote—was an indicator of her pulling away, not even trying to make the effort to connect with Jeremy on one of his most essential levels. But wasn’t it Jeremy who had gradually stopped enlisting his smart, objective, forthright wife as a creative sounding board, one that he once so wholly depended upon for inspiration and validation? Had he stopped respecting her opinion, or had he started better respecting his own? And if it was the latter, was it because Cassie had made him more confident—as a writer, a creative force, a man? Was her work here done? Was that her plan all along? Get her husband to a higher level of independence and then give him complete independence? Was that what he’d wanted without really knowing it? A self-fulfilling prophecy?
How was it, exactly, that Jeremy started needing less and less from the people around him? Yes, he and Matty were really close, and Jeremy depended on his mom in ways that were such carryovers from his youth that it felt a bit embarrassing when he thought about it, which is why he tried not to. But he’d slipped away from so many others who’d been constants in his life for so long. Friends like Norm, and Joshua who he’d known since third grade, and old college pal Cliff who was Jeremy’s best man as he was Cliff’s, and Zoë from the first screenwriting class he ever took who soon went pro, and wickedly funny fellow film reviewer and inveterate gossip Candace, and his cousin Amie with whom he shared photographic memories of their grandparents. They were all at his birthday party and, while it was good to see them (even if he didn’t really want anyone there to begin with), he could also feel a kind of remove, maybe a result of their less frequent calls and emails and texts and lunches and drop-bys.
It was not as if Jeremy could blame Cassie for any of that. On the contrary, she encouraged him to see his friends, ask them over, invite them to screenings rather than go alone. In general, she liked people more than Jeremy, liked having others around more than he did. Jeremy could go either way and, of late, that way seemed to be more solo than not. Meanwhile, Cassie expanded her friend network, often spending more time out and about with them than in with Jeremy. The fact that Jeremy had become just as happy if she was with him or not was not lost on either of them. And it had gone largely if entirely undiscussed.
Jeremy put in an SOS call to Lorena as soon as Hockstein’s office opened at 8 a.m. He’d gotten through a rough night, dropping in and out of sleep—mostly out—finally getting out of bed around six when he could no longer sit in that dreadful upright position. He managed to make one-armed, left-handed coffee and some rye toast but for all the effort it took he might as well have been trying to paint the Mona Lisa. And, for the record, the hospital gown wasn’t smelling so hot.
“You know what you need?” asked Lorena after offering Jeremy a few answers to his first wave of how-the-hell-do-I questions.
“A time machine so I can jump ahead six weeks?” He was sitting at his desk (don’t even ask how he fit into his ergonomic chair with the pillow brace), about to turn on his laptop, which, unlike Jeremy, had been in sleep mode for the last two days.
“That’s funny! Good you can keep a sense of humor,” Lorena said with a little laugh. While she’d completely missed the point, Jeremy had to admit she had a pleasant voice. “No, an occupational therapist,” she explained.
“I thought I had to wait until the brace was off for that.” He watched the Apple logo materialize on his computer screen.
“That’s a physical therapist. This is different.”
Jeremy slowly typed in his password with his left index finger. “How different?”
“Why don’t I just read you what we have?” she asked, the tap of computer keys echoing through the phone. “Okay, here we go: ‘Occupational therapists treat patients post-surgery to improve the skills they need for everyday activities such as living and working. They provide therapeutic interventions such as strengthening programs, modalities, home and workplace modifications, manual therapy techniques, pain management, and more.’” Lorena clucked her tongue and said, “Really, who wouldn’t want one of those miracle workers?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Jeremy said, gazing at his screensaver: a photo of him and Cassie and Matty standing at the Tower of London from Matty’s post-bar mitzvah trip. Jeremy had thought about changing the picture for years, but kept it from laptop to laptop, so sentimental about Matty’s first trip to Europe, which, the kid announced on the flight home, in his usual dramatic flair, had “changed his life.”
“We can set you up with one, Mr. Lerner,” bubbled Lorena.
“One what?” Jeremy asked, still lost in London.
“An occupational therapist!” she exclaimed. “Would you like a man or a woman?”
That felt like a trick question, so Jeremy took a guess and answered “a woman,” then asked if his insurance would cover it. Lorena checked and confirmed it would, which made Jeremy sink a bit, remembering that he was on Cassie’s coverage and wondered how, all things being equal, that would work from now on.
“I’ll make you a referral, and she’ll call you this morning, how’s that?”
“Feeling better already,” Jeremy lied.
“Wonderful. Dr. Hockstein will be very happy to hear that,” Lorena brightly signed off.
Then it’ll all be worthwhile, thought Jeremy dryly as he tried typing hunt-and-peck with just his left hand. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have any writing deadlines right now.
CHAPTER
12
Jeremy stood in front of his bathroom mirror assessing the damage, before greeting his occupational therapist, who was momentarily due for her first home visit. All he knew was that her name was Annabelle (coincidentally—or not—the name of a deadly doll in a successful series of horror movies) and that she was one of Dr. Hockstein’s go-to referrals. Oh, and that Lorena must have deemed his case urgent, or at least sufficiently desperate for Annabelle to schedule Jeremy for the very next day.
He tried getting his matted hair into some kind of passable shape using a one-handed, left-handed brushing technique that completely did not work and possibly made him look even worse. Shaving was a nonstarter; Annabelle, not to mention the rest of the world, would simply have to put up with his salt-and-pepper scraggle. Ever try washing your face with one hand—with a two-ton pillow blocking the sink? Not fun. Nothing to be done with his stinky hospital gown, though hopefully his “miracle worker” could teach him how to change into his real clothes and then help him set fire to said gown.
Still, he had to change his underwear before getting in breathing distance to another human being. Joyce and Matty didn’t count, or at least so they said the previous night when they brought him dinner again, and he complained of feeling gross. “We’re used to it,” his mother said, and Jeremy left it there.
With his single arm working in concert with his two feet, he shimmied out of his briefs and into a new pair, which took far more stretching, sliding, and bending than he ever imagined in the service of that simple everyday act.
Doing so, it struck Jeremy how dingy and shapeless his skivvies looked. Maybe it was time for an undergear overhaul if only for his self-esteem and not, as Matty had so randomly floated, for any new potential viewers.
Finally, given that a dose of deodorant was about the best he could do to mask the telltale signs of his current hygienic state, Jeremy had quite the task ahead to apply his Mennen Speed Stick. And under the hospital gown no less. Although it seemed as if reaching his right pit with his left hand could work, he didn’t count on the pain it would cause to tilt up his affixed right arm ever so slightly to make way for the roll-on. Let’s just say there was a howl, and not from one of the many coyotes that haunted Laurel Canyon. Meantime, he had to twist his left arm all the way out an
d up so he could reach into his left pit with the deodorant stick. But that required more acrobatic skill than Jeremy possessed, and he gave up. Maybe Annabelle would have a hack for him—if she could stand getting close enough to demonstrate. He suspected, or at least hoped, she’d had her share of grungy patients.
“Well, aren’t you a sorry sight?” was the first thing out of Annabelle’s mouth when Jeremy greeted her at the front door. It might have seemed brash if it wasn’t completely true.
“This is good. You should have seen me before I tried to clean myself up,” joked Jeremy, partly to relieve the anxiety he’d been feeling about this stranger who’d be coming into his home to help and partly because there was something so instantly disarming about Annabelle, with her loose, wavy locks, petite frame and crinkly eyes. She wore olive green capri pants, a stretchy, long-sleeved T-shirt with a koala bear on it, and a pair of stylish memory-foam sneakers. She was, in a word, adorable.
“Well, don’t you worry. My line of work, I see it all,” Annabelle said, confirming Jeremy’s suspicions. She looked beyond him and into the house. “Though it’d be much more effective if we did this inside and not in the doorway.” There went those crinkly eyes again.
Jeremy moved away from the door and made an “entrée” gesture with his free hand. Annabelle gave his abduction sling the once over as she walked in.
“You must’ve torn the shit out of your rotator cuff to end up in a brace that size,” Annabelle said. “Only the second one of those I’ve ever seen.”
“Think you can handle it?” Jeremy asked, and then realized how double-entendre flirty it must’ve sounded. He cleared his throat, swallowed. “I mean, yeah, it’s huge.” Okay, that didn’t sound right either. He quickly switched gears before she could respond. “Can I get you some water? A coffee?”
“Thanks, but I come prepared,” she answered, pulling a metal water bottle from her oversized shoulder bag. Annabelle looked around the living room with its beamed ceiling, curved archways, and nubby, overstuffed couch. She pronounced the room “cozy” and then proceeded to take a seat on the Mission-style armchair.
The Last Birthday Party Page 7