Wavemaker II

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  Or Esther, or Gert, or Roy, or Dan, or anyone who could talk. Things were smooth, then a rupture, and everything was dangerous. Like the night she had a problem with the garbage. She couldn’t reach a soul, she wasn’t hungry, so walked outside to Fifth Avenue. She’d taken a turn, and another, and another. On the curbs, mounds of garbage were stacked high. On the side streets it formed barricades between the sidewalk and the street. She pushed on. She took more turns. Ahead there was a narrow tunnel shaped by piled trash, an empty building, the starless sky. Kay needed to walk through or go back the desolate way she’d come. Within the aisle of garbage, she felt certain a figure was edging toward her. The shape drew close. She screamed as if she’d been knifed. She opened her eyes, screaming still. She was all alone. The stench of grapefruit rinds and fish all around her.

  With Merrill she played backgammon. The click of the disks, the padded thumping roll of the dice, Merrill’s oval hand sliding things around, it was soothing. The truth was, she could call anyone. Randomly. She could dial the number of about a hundred households in Rumson, New Jersey, and the person answering would be generous and up to date. Kay could now count on the nuns, Gert, the pharmacist, the firemen, any number of people, to keep the town current. All she had to do was dial or go home. And that’s why she stayed at the St. Regis. Even on the nights when she could go home. She couldn’t stand to hear the bad news. The sound of her own sorrow, reflected back, got to her. Better to be here, where the scrambled eggs were always delivered by a ghost. And to play backgammon with Merrill, who had problems of her own. Or Roy. If the price was that she was transparent, that strangers whispered she was stupid and selfish, that was okay.

  Kay had a routine. Awake by five. Three cups of coffee, black. Hair. Makeup, then shower, her face poking out between the curtains to steam-seal it. Powder. Dress. Toast. Last cup of coffee, cold, with first cigarette. Brush teeth. More lipstick. Pull up the spread on the bed. In the hallway, socked by lost perfume and last night’s cigar smoke, she’d press for the elevator, slow to come. The lobby was quiet, always. On Fifth Avenue she walked to the cathedral. Behind the main altar, beyond the clatter of the day’s preparations, she sat in the small blue chapel to the Virgin. She wouldn’t kneel. She never lit a candle. She did not pray. She stayed until she was tired, as if some fight had gone on beneath her consciousness. She exited on Fiftieth Street. Hailed a taxi. Men in gray suits began to cluster on street corners, move in swift packs. Vie for the attention of the cabbies.

  At the hospital, the rush was on. The metal cave of the elevator pressed twenty or more bodies. On the tenth floor, she moved, hip-checked, not hard but clear, she knew how to get through the quick-closing doors. She veered left. Room 1005. Bo was just finishing what breakfast he may or may not have eaten. His roommate was there or not there any longer. The day would begin.

  This Tuesday morning Bo was awake, his breakfast tray pushed aside, not touched. His eyes were narrow as if the effort of looking at her was annoying him. Kay felt his forehead, traced her hand along his cheek, brushed back the fine white down on his scalp. What’s up, sweetheart?

  He closed his eyes.

  Bo?

  His lids flicked as if a small pulse of electricity jolted the skin. As if he was dreaming. Bo?

  Can we get a new pack for the speedboat?

  What speedboat, angel?

  If it’s here. His tongue sounded swollen. He opened his eyes and looked at her, furious. It’s broken, he said. It’s wrecked.

  Honey, what are you talking about?

  The boat. Bo looked like he was going to cry.

  Did you have a dream?

  Bo looked at Kay as if what she said was so ludicrous he couldn’t parse it, then his eyes blinked almost shut. His mouth opened slightly, his breath coming in and out with trouble. He was sleeping, suddenly. She was still looking at him, still holding his hand. Jesus, what’s going on? Kay watched him a moment longer; the circles under his sparse white lashes were so blue he looked like he’d been punched twice. Kay cradled his cheek in her hand, then went to hunt down Hollis.

  Hollis was in a scuffle with a young redhead at the nurses’ station. She leaned in to the high-top desk, her hip sticking out, her red cowboy boot tapping on the linoleum. Simple instruction. Don’t get the foul-up here. Mrs. Clemens! I didn’t see you, pardon-moi. Hollis pushed back from the desk and bounced toward Kay. Good! I’ve got some news.

  He looks terrible!

  Just a second. I’m sorry, Kay. Hollis went back behind the nurses’ station to grab a clipboard. Are we straight here? she said to the girl, and didn’t wait for an answer. Nodded herself. Checked a couple of things on the board in her hand.

  Kay waited. She never greeted Hollis, her second self, the self she would be if she could know what Bo required here. But Roy took care of Hollis, she’d seen every show on Broadway. Kay had spotted other offerings from other parents, boxes of expensive chocolates, button-down sweaters, small pearl earrings to match a nurse uniform Hollis rarely wore. Did they all depend on Hollis the way she did? Kay had no idea. She never spoke to any of them more than once. One conversation to return a greeting and head off further communion. She did not want to know how their child was doing.

  All right, so here’s the news. It looks like we’ve got a donor in the father. Hollis glanced up at Kay, and then down again at the papers in her hand.

  You’re kidding.

  For the transfer, for the bone marrow. Dr. Bronson thinks he can do it with Will Clemens’s cells. It’ll work, he thinks. He thinks it’s worth a try.

  Worth a try?

  Hollis looked up at Kay. I’m sorry. You know? I’m really sorry. Last night, after you left, the new consult, Dr. Bronson, he came in, looked at Bo, studied all the backup documentation, all the workups and the history, your blood tests and Will’s, and he thinks, and he’s excited about it, that Bo can do the transfer with his father’s stem cells. So last night, right away, Bo started on a high-test antibiotic. Take out any blood infection, which has been lurking, by the way.

  He looks horrible. He’s having nightmares.

  Yes. It’s nasty. But I’ve seen this work before.

  I thought it was all brand-new.

  No. Not the antibiotic. Dr. Bronson said he’d stop back late morning to talk to you. I can tell you what I see. But give me a couple of minutes, I’ve got a trainee. Just what I need, right?

  Hollis?

  Yes?

  You’re sure it’s Will?

  Yes, definitely.

  Do you think this’ll change anything?

  Hollis watched down the hall as the young nurse with red hair tripped over a dropped paper cup. The girl stooped to pick it up with the tips of her fingers and walked to the nurses’ station, left it in a crumpled ball on the high counter. Hollis looked back to Kay. I hope so, she said. I’ll meet you down there.

  What Kay could see without Hollis’s interpretation: Bo’s shoulders and head propped on three pillows stacked like a snowy slope, so, head elevated. His face and throat were slightly jaundiced, and the pajamas he wore, blue cotton, white piping, were some fantasy of what his father might wear. At home, Will slept naked, but Bo had wanted the idea and Kay had delivered it, three pastel sets from Best & Co. The pajamas were loose. One sleeve pushed to the bicep, and that arm was mounted, forearm taped in three spots to the stiff white foam card. Close to the inner elbow, but not in the crook, all veins had collapsed, worn out there, a new shunt was angled, taped, and a tidy bit of artwork: a drawing of Superman by Hollis mounted on top of the tape. Into the shunt a transparent length of tubing to the bag on the stand. In the bag, an amber-red liquid not yet in play. A second bag, clear liquid, hooked to a second line that transversed the first like a railroad connection. This was running, as far as Kay could tell. The second bed was empty. Hollis said she would aim to keep it that way until a private room came free. If they began the bone marrow transfer, they’d want him isolated. On the bedside table a black Matchbox 911T, a li
dded plastic cup with a bent straw, a chain of hand-cut paper dolls (Rita), a blue crystal rosary (also Rita) wrapped in a spiraling snake around the base of the lamp and taped (Hollis, she was mixed on Catholicism), a Mass card facedown. In the corner, three large brown packing boxes crammed with cards, toys, gifts, caps. All for taking home. Kay leaned in close to Bo’s face, studied the shape of his nose, the straight shaft of each pale eyebrow. Mouth open, his breath in this knocked-out sleep had the aroma of lemons too long in the fridge.

  Hollis stood in the doorway, one eye on her trainee. So, the clear stuff is just sugar, amino acids, vitamins, the usual. The orange is the rocket fuel, the antibiotic, to kill any germs lurking around. A Mr. Clean of the blood system. He’ll be on that all day, a slow drip, and it will make him very sleepy. They started him around ten last night, that’s why he’s so out of it. The last thing he wants to do is eat, but housekeeping brings the tray anyway. He’s getting the equivalent of breakfast now. All day, we’ll switch him back and forth. And if that works, and if they tap the donor successfully, day after tomorrow we’ll start a seven-day countdown to the transfer. Of course, you’ll have to sign off before they touch him.

  You’ve already started.

  This? No. It’s a good prep. We could do this anyway, just for infection.

  Could?

  Here’s our man of the hour.

  Dr. Bronson pushed through the double doors at the end of the corridor, followed by a dozen doctors all in white.

  Every floor at New York Hospital had a phone booth with the same bubble glass and the same occluded vista to the elevators. And it seemed to Kay she’d been in every one. Alice picked up on the eighth ring and Kay said, Go upstairs, wake up Mr. Cohn, it’s an emergency. It must be, said Alice, and Kay heard the receiver crash against the desk like a dish breaking. Every phone booth had its own smell, this one smelled like camphor for babies, for their diapers. Kay wedged the door open so she could breathe. Dr. Bronson had been explicit. There was little time to waste. Ten minutes later—she kept a steady beat of dimes going into the telephone—Roy came on the line. Sweetheart. Kay explained. All right, all right. You need a judge’s order, that’s all. I can do that. Let me think for a second. All right. Give me an hour. Two, tops.

  It was convenient for times when her room seemed too desolate that the St. Regis had a famous bar, not so crowded sometimes, cool and dark as a cave. Someone meandered on the piano keys, just tying notes together, enough to make a parched tune. The men who rushed off street corners in the mornings sometimes crossed long legs in the low leather seats at night. Kay drank a Scotch in a heavy tumbler, with lots of ice. The aroma was faint, delicious and elusive. She gathered up a top cube with trembling fingers, put it in her mouth and sucked. She was thirsty and hungry and hot. The waiter, silent, good man, offered a silver bowl with salty nuts, many Brazils. She ate half a dozen, one after the other like a prescribed medication, took a long pull on her Scotch, and the trembling subsided. Her father would be surprised to see her here in a bar alone. There was every possibility that Dan, Esther, Roy—especially Roy—Merrill, Frank might stop by for a drink. More nuts.

  A man with a silver mustache, as silver as the bowl holding her nuts, nodded at her from the bar. A joke. She pivoted her head away and watched the face of the piano player. His mouth winced slightly just before each desiccated note. Another long sip. When she turned back to look for an almond this time, the man from the bar stood by the pushed-in chair, his hand resting flat along the wide top like a pale fish on a platter. I couldn’t help but notice you, my dear lady.

  Kay’s eyes filled with the pressure to make a cruel remark.

  May I join you? His cocktail napkin dangled from the bottom of his glass. It made him seem like a novice to Kay. She ticked her eyes toward the waiter, bartender, the businessmen at the next table. Okay, just for a moment, she said. Then I’m going upstairs.

  So you are a guest here too. His hips scooped down into the leather seat. Kay hadn’t noticed how anyone moved lately, except for Bo, but this dip registered. My son is very sick. Why didn’t she just say that. My son is very, very sick.

  In Lima, when a beautiful woman watches the musician’s mouth, we say it’s a sign of special sensitivity. For music, the mouth is more important than the hands. It’s the hungry art, don’t you think?

  Kay looked at him a second, as if considering what he’d said. But she was thinking how Will would laugh if he were watching.

  I’ve said something funny? The man had a wide grin with a tiny overbite. Two long teeth serrated the cushion of his lower lip.

  No. But I made a mistake. Kay pushed back in her chair. She tried to signal the waiter.

  Just a moment, give me a moment. I never know the proper words to say to Americans. But I like it here anyway. I always stay in the same suite, two-eighteen, big, yet close to the ground. I want to be a part of everything, yes? You understand this?

  Kay frowned. She leaned over, reached for her purse.

  And I like this management. Very thoughtful. Whenever I arrive, each time I am surprised again, how discreet, how private the Americans are. It’s wonderful. A big surprise. Big one. He smiled, spread his hands flat on the table, examined his fingertips, then lifted his gaze up to her face. Kay thought of a trick Will had taught her. A joke about seduction. You lit a match looking down. And then before you blew on it, if you were a woman—or shook it, if you were a man—you looked up for a moment and let the flame show in your eyes. It was irresistible, Will said. And then there was the cat trick. You looked someone in the eye and imagined they were a cat, or better yet, a kitten. She was less sure how this worked, but Will said it was foolproof. Why not just look them in the eye and imagine you are fucking. Never works, said Will. It scares them.

  Kay looked this fish man in the eye and imagined they were fucking. His shoulders were hard under her fingers, and he wanted to shove her into the padded silky headboard, she was a tight ball, her thighs pushed close to her chest, he rocked farther and farther into her. His skin was hot. His back was narrow. Her ass tucked right into his flat hands; when he came, he lifted her up and up. And when they were done, he left by the window, and she never saw him again. She looked him in the eye and she thought all these things.

  He didn’t look frightened at all. Every time, same suite, two-eighteen. I bet by these numbers. Horses. Dogs. I’ve been so happy here. No, he didn’t look frightened at all, but she was, and when had that happened?

  Kay stood up and knocked into the chair behind. Good night, she said.

  It’s too early for good night!

  Good night. Kay sidestepped through all the chairs to the bar, dropped her drink there, and made for the stairs without looking back. She still liked the lifting-up part, repeated it a couple of times. Then repeated his exit out the window.

  The housekeeper had already prepared her room for the night, turned down the coverlet on the bed she favored, replenished towels, tissues. Emptied ashtrays, removed glasses, dishes, trays. Kay lay down, face into the white pillow, and wished for a similar overhaul on herself. I’ll start with my brain. She fell into a stone-dead sleep.

  Half an hour later, she was awake, staring into the lit bulb of the bedside lamp. Her body was sore all over. She pushed up to sitting, felt her head throb behind her eyes, one eye, as always, a circle of pain. Kay stripped off all her clothes and went into the bathroom. In the bright greenish light she looked at her thighs, she looked at the smooth length of her shins. She used to be a woman with pretty legs. Technically this was still true. She opened the shower taps and stood under the pounding water and hoped it would disassemble the rocket now pushing off behind her eye. Bo had terrible headaches. She wished she could, you know, the usual, what all the parents wanted, take over the whole project. She hadn’t been able to reach Will all day, though she trusted Roy had. The court order was already set. Kay would try to place the call again. Go over the fine points. Before she signed anything, she needed to talk to Will abo
ut odds.

  It was nearly ten. Wrapped in her robe like a sarong, three pillows behind her, two beneath her knees, a Scotch poured neat. She swallowed three aspirins, picked up the phone, and asked the hotel operator to place the call. Just ring the number, please, I can request the party. It had taken her a while to locate the number Roy had given her in case of emergency. Usually she spoke to Will on Saturdays and only briefly, the scheduled call went through the main prison switchboard to a designated phone. This was a direct line to the guard’s desk at Kentucky. Strictly rainy-day stuff, said Roy. In her handwritten directory, she’d looked under W, Will, P, prison, H, husband, and finally located it under R, for Roy.

  A nice voice, relaxed and twangy, answered the ring. Did she have the right number? Had she reached Kentucky at Woeburne?

  Yes, ma’am, you have.

  This is Kay Clemens calling.

  Afraid I don’t know the name. Are you that friend of Margaret Jessup?

  No. I’m Will Clemens’s wife. I was hoping to speak to him. I know it’s late.

  Will Clemens. Ha. That’s a good one. How long have you two been married?

  Excuse me?

  You’re to lay low there now, Loretta. This is no joke. You can’t be talking to him, Mrs. Clemens.

  I think there must be a misunderstanding.

  You bet there is. Mostly in your dumb head. We’ll talk later, when you settle down.

  The line went still. Kay dropped the receiver to her chest. She held down the button on the phone with one finger when it started to whine. Loretta? Her breathing slowed down. She could hear her pulse in her ear like a saw. Room two-eighteen. Two-eighteen was Gert’s birthday. Every year when they were kids, Gert got punch-bottomed Valentine candy from her brothers. She had a black Labrador retriever named Cupid who lapped the candy out of their palms. Now, Gert said, Red wasn’t much better with the presents. Downstairs was a man with long, flat hands. Kay released the button on the telephone. When the operator came on the line she said, Yes, Mrs. Clemens, can I help you? Kay said, Try that number again, please. And when Martin Patton answered on Kentucky, laughing, saying, I’m warning you, I’m warning you, Kay said, quiet as a heartbeat, Officer, I’d like to know your name.