by Ray Garton
She laughed and placed a hand on one of his broad shoulders. “Perfect!”
“Why don’t we go find a couple of chairs and fill out our photo forms?”
They did, laughing and talking the whole time.
“Did you hear somebody from our group had a heart attack in the cocktail lounge?” Marty asked.
“Is that what that was? I heard some commotion. Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you did.”
“No idea. Did Principal Getz come? Maybe it was him!”
Margaret couldn’t decide what she wanted beneath her picture, but Marty suggested “Skinny, Sexy and Successful.” She didn’t like the idea at first, but he pressed.
“Think of all those horrible things they used to say about you and to you,” he said, placing his hand over hers “Now you’re a successful advertising executive and you look like a movie star. Why not rub it in a little? That’s what I’m doing. I’m not about to stoop to their level and be nasty about it, but I figure they deserve to have it rubbed in just a little. Sort of like a . . . a revenge massage.”
Laughing, she wrote the words down.
“What do you say we stick together tonight, Marty?” she asked. “I think that between the two of us, we can befuddle a lot of very unpleasant people.”
He rose from his chair, took her hand and pulled her up with him, grinning. “I think you’re right.”
Margaret felt a tingle . . . the kind of tingle she hadn’t felt in a long time. In it, there was some of the same giddiness she’d felt when Lynda began to improve. But added to that was the warmth of Marty’s hand in hers, and his smile, and the way his eyes touched her.
It was turning out to be a much more interesting evening than she ever could have anticipated . . .
24
Lynda pressed the call button with her thumb, then lay back on her pillows with both hands resting on her flat stomach. She knew the response would be quick. Her nurse tonight was Derek, a tall and handsome fellow in his thirties who was not only efficient but always eager to make sure her needs were met and she was comfortable. He was friendly and funny and a good enough sport to engage in a little harmless flirting with her now and then, which had somehow put her at ease in her most painful moments.
“What can I do for you, Lynda?” he asked with a smile as he entered the room in his light blue uniform.
“Well, you know, I’ve been feeling so good these last few days . . . but about twenty minutes ago or so, I got really . . . sick to my stomach all of a sudden.”
Derek glanced at the small tan garbage can beside her bed table. It was filled with candy and sandwich wrappers.
“Maybe a little too much junk food?” he asked, arching a brow.
“But I’ve been so hungry lately.”
“I know, and that’s good. But you haven’t been eating for a long time. Your body’s not used to the stuff you’ve been putting into it all of a sudden. Feel like you’re going to vomit?” he asked, reaching into the bed table drawer for the small, beige, kidney-shaped emesis basin.
Lynda propped herself up on an elbow, frowning, and said, “Well, I don’t think so, but . . .”
Derek placed the basin on the mattress beside her just as Lynda’s body convulsed once and her head shot forward.
She vomited generously and forcefully all over his crisp blue uniform with a flat, thick splashing sound.
Suddenly weakened, Lynda flopped back on the pillows, gasping for breath.
Derek tossed the small, unused basin onto the bed table as his uniform dripped onto the tile floor. He said calmly, “That thing wasn’t big enough anyway . . .”
25
Brandon Lyons had not gotten fat and he hadn’t gone bald. He looked, in fact, quite the same way he’d looked the last time Margaret had seen him, which had been graduation day. He’d always had an odd handsomeness about him, but it had been marred by a vague slovenliness and frightful fashion sense. His face, still scattered with a few stray freckles from his youth, had a happy glow to it as he approached Margaret with a drink in hand, and his dark brown hair, as it always had, looked mussed.
“Somebody told me you were Margaret Fuller,” he said.
Marty was busy talking to a few of the jocks who had spent so much time making his life miserable back in school, and Margaret had gone to bar for another Bloody Mary.
“Well, I guess they told you right,” she said, smiling.
He wore a brown sport coat over a blue shirt, with tan slacks and shiny black shoes.
“It’s nice to see you again, Margaret,” he said.
“Is it?”
“Yeah!” he said enthusiastically, his eyes widening. “How are ya, anyway?”
“I’m just fine, Brandon, and you?”
“Oh, I’m doing pretty well. I’ve got a small trucking company outta Tucson. And I’m footloose and fancy free.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means I’m single!”
“You say that as if it might mean something to me.”
“Well . . how about you? Are you married?”
“No. Footloose and fancy free.”
“Well, there you go.”
“There I go where?”
“Well, you know.” He looked her up and down slowly. Spread his arms as if he were about to embrace her, then let them slap to his sides. “I mean, God, Maggie, you’re lookin’ . . . fine!”
“Why, thank you, Brandon. And I must say that you . . .” She looked him up and down in exactly the same way, pausing a moment to take in a thoughtful breath. “. . . are wearing very shiny shoes.” She started to walk away, smiling, with her drink.
“Wait a second, hold it,” he said, hurrying to her side. “Where are you living these days?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Oh, yeah? Hollywood?”
“No. Los Angeles”
“You work in the movies?”
“No, I work with an advertising firm.”
“Really? You make commercials?”
“As far as you know, yes.”
“How long will you be in town?”
She frowned slightly, tilting her head. “Why?”
“Well, you know . . . I thought maybe we could get together, you and me. Have dinner?”
“Why would I want to do that, Brandon?”
“Just . . . because.” He shrugged and laughed, a little nervously. “You know, it’s been a long time. I’d like to get to know you again.”
“You never knew me to begin with, Brandon.”
“Oh, c’mon, Maggie, we were all friends.”
“We were? To which we are you referring?”
“Well, I mean . . . all of us. You know, we went through a lot together.”
“You never went through what I went through, Brandon. We both know that, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess people made a few jokes about you and — ”
“A few jokes?”
“Hey, I know we were kind of nasty sometimes.”
She took in a breath to ask another question, to shout it at him this time, but she closed her mouth, stopped herself. She closed her eyes a moment, thinking. Finally, she opened her eyes, smiled, and asked, “Tell me, Brandon, is your cock really as big as everyone used to say it was? I mean, people used to call you Bran-dong because you were supposed to have this huge dick. Was it true. Brandon? Are you that well endowed?”
Brandon’s eyes sparkled as his smile grew and he reached out and took her hand. “Now you’re talkin’,” he said. “Damned right it was true. Every word of it. Anybody who said otherwise was lying, I can tell you. But, I don’t think anybody said otherwise, did they?” He laughed.
Still holding his hand, Margaret said with a smile, “Brandon, no matter how big your prick is or was, it couldn’t come close to the size of the prick that you are, and always have been. And whether or not it’s as big as all those school legends claimed, I hope whatever you’ve got between your legs drops
off. I mean, I hope it just . . . drops off!”
His smile crumbled and his hand fell away from hers as he took a surprised step back.
Margaret turned and walked away . . .
26
Having changed into a clean uniform, Derek headed for Lynda’s room again.
After being vomited upon, he’d asked a nurse’s aid to go into room 406 and clean up the mess. Then he’d gone to the desk and told the unit secretary to contact Dr. Plummer and inform him of Lynda’s condition. Then he’d gone to clean up and change.
He walked into room 406, expecting to find Lynda recovered from her rather sudden and violent regurgitation.
The floor beside the bed was clean. A towel had been placed on the bed to cover the mess. The aid, a young Asian woman, Miss Im, was lifting the side rail on the bed. She turned to Derek and said, “I helped her rinse her mouth and washed her face and neck, but I couldn’t change the sheets. She’s just too weak to move.
“Too weak?”
“Well, look at her.”
Miss Im left the room and Derek went to Lynda’s bedside.
She was surprisingly pale as she lay crookedly on the bed, her eyes half-open.
“How’s it going, Lynda?” he asked.
She made a frail sound and shook her head slowly.
Derek checked her blood pressure. It was very low.
He touched his fingers to her wrist to check her pulse, but couldn’t find one. Moving to the other end of the bed, he pulled the blanket back and touched his fingers to her foot to check her petal pulse. It was barely palpable.
Replacing the blanket, he went back to the head of the bed.
“Can you tell me how you’re feeling, Lynda?” he asked.
She turned her head to him slowly and gave him a weak smile. “Not . . . very good. I don’t know why. Things have been . . . so great . . . lately.”
He smiled down at her and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, things are still great. They’ve just slowed down.”
She chuckled.
Her face was so pale.
Derek left the room and went back to the desk, to the unit secretary. “Did you get Plummer yet?” he asked.
“I paged him. He’s not responding.”
“Page him again. This time, tell him to get here stat. Something’s wrong with Lynda.”
27
“I’d rather stand right here,” Margaret said pleasantly, her right arm, purse tucked tightly high beneath it, linked through Marty’s and his arm holding hers close.
“But that’s not where you stood for the group photo when we were in high school,” Amelia said, her smile firmly intact, but her voice becoming just a bit impatient.
“Amelia, dear,” Margaret said, reaching over to touch her sturdy shoulder for just a moment, “we’re not in high school now.”
“But the whole point was to reproduce that picture, with everyone standing in exactly the same places they stood back then.” Amelia sounded as if she were speaking to a child.
“I’d like to stand here.”
“But you can’t.” Amelia’s smile began to twitch.
“I can’t? I’m sorry, Amelia,” Margaret said, still smiling happily, “but I wasn’t given a list of rules at the door.”
Amelia’s smile fell of her face completely and she stood a bit straighter. “This is not the way we decided this would be done.”
“We? We who? Who is we?”
“The reunion committee.”
“But I’m not on the reunion committee,” Margaret said.
“That is precisely my point!”
Margaret’s smile only grew larger. “Well, what coincidence. That is precisely my point, too. I wasn’t on the committee, so I wasn’t around to tell you that I don’t want to stand wherever it is you want me to stand . . . I want to stand here.”
Amelia’s cheeks began to turn the shade of candied apples.
Marty turned his face toward Margaret and touched his lips to the hair that fell over her ear.
“It’s okay if you go stand where they want you to stand,” he whispered.
“But I don’t want to,” she said, turning her head so that their faces were close enough to kiss.
Smiling, he said, “Maybe just to keep the peace, know what I mean?”
Margaret started to respond, but Amelia grabbed her hand first, and began to pull.
“That’s right,” Amelia said. “To keep the peace. A lot of work has been put into this and I think you should respect that. Now why don’t you just come over to the second row, where you’re supposed to be.”
Margaret tried to pull her hand away, but Amelia’s meaty fingers had a firm grip.
“That’s the damned problem!” Margaret snapped. “You people spent four years telling me what I’m supposed to do, who and what I’m supposed to respect and how I’m supposed to act, and you’re not going to do it now!” She kept a tight hold of Marty’s arm.
Amelia slapped her other hand onto Margaret’s wrist and clutched her with her sausage fingers. When she spoke, it was with her lips pulled back and through tightly clenched teeth.
“Then maybe you’d rather not be in the picture at all!”
“Goddamn your fuckin’ eyes, you bitch, let go of me!” Margaret shouted.
The room had become quiet as the attention of all the others turned to Margaret and Amelia and their tugging match.
“Please, Margaret,” Marty said, his voice shaky, “maybe it’s best if you go along with things and not make such a scene.”
Amelia continued to pull on Margaret’s hand and arm with both hands.
“I’m not making a scene!” Margaret blurted. “This fucking cunt is making a scene!”
It happened so suddenly that no one watching the unpleasant scene reacted at first.
First, the blood filled her eyes like tears. Then, it began to spurt ever so lightly, like juice from an orange being peeled, from the corners, spattering her face.
She let go of Margaret’s hand and arm and staggered backward, her arms waving as if she were trying to flag down a cab. A noise came from her throat, a gurgling whimper, and then she fell flat on her back with her arms jutting upward stiffly. Then she began to scream.
Her screams became more shrill as she began to rub at her own eyes and gag on her blood as it spurted upward and came back down in her mouth, and as the others began to gather around her frantically to help . . .
28
“Is re something . . . wrong, Derek?” Lynda asked. “You’ acting . . . like something’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, realty. It’s just that you’re having a couple of problems.”
“Problems?”
“Hey, things have been going pretty well, haven’t they?”
“Yeah . . . they have.”
“So, what’s a couple of problems, huh? That doesn’t mean things aren’t still going well, right? It’s nothing you can’t handle judging from the recovery you’ve had in the last few days. Besides, Dr. Plummer will be here soon to fix things. So, it’s nothing to worry about, right?”
She swept a hand downward over her sweaty face, slowly. “Yeah . . . right.”
“Feeling sick again?”
“Yeah . . . sick again. Got something . . . for me to puke in?”
“Yep,” he said as he leaned over, grabbed the small garbage can, turned it upside down and emptied it of its wrappers and tissues, then held it before Lynda.
She vomited into it violently, with great, thick splashes. Then she collapsed back onto the bed, panting and weak.
Derek glanced into the garbage can before setting it down. He did a double-take.
Lynda had vomited up more of the food she’d eaten, as she had before . . . but this time it was mixed with dark and glistening swirls of blood . . .
29
Someone shouted, “Call an ambulance!”
Someone else replied, “The ambulance just left here a little while ago.”
Several voices ros
e then, talking, asking questions.
“What was an ambulance doing here?”
“Somebody had a heart attack.”
“I heard it was Daryl Cotch.”
“Really? Is he dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was unconscious.”
“It didn’t look good for him, from what I saw.”
Margaret stared at the writhing Amelia, listening to the voices that came from all around her as Marty put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.
“My God, what’s wrong with her?” he asked in a whisper.
But she barely heard him. She was beginning to hear her blood rush through her veins with every thunderous beat of her heart.
Goddamn your fuckin eyes, you bitch, let go of me! she had said to Amelia.
And now, Amelia was flopping around on the floor, out of sight now that so many people had gathered around her, with blood gushing from her eyes for no apparent reason.
“Jesus, she’s gonna bleed to death if we don’t do something!” a woman shrieked.
She’d placed her hand on Daryl Cotch’s chest and told him to drop dead . . .
“Call another ambulance, dammit!” a man shouted. “There’s gotta be more than one around here!”
. . . and now he was being driven away by an ambulance because he’d had a heart attack.
“Oh, my God,” Margaret muttered, feeling sick and weak.
Marty held onto her, turned her around so she faced him with both his hands on her shoulders. “Margaret, are you all right? You look awful!”
“What?” she asked faintly, too lost in her own thoughts to make sense of his words
“I said, you look awful. You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
“No, no . . . not gonna pass out.”
“You’re so pale and so . . .” He winced slightly and shook his head without finishing his sentence.
She paid no attention to him. Things were happening inside her head that were beginning to frighten her. Bits of conversation and chunks of memories were beginning to snap together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle . . . and the picture it formed was frightening.