by Nick Totem
27
Thomas got a call from Dominic a few days later, asking him whether he had made up his mind about the painting. It had been several months since Thomas made the deposit, and it was the third time Dominic had called. He had willfully forgotten about this, and he couldn’t decide whether he should just let Dominic have the deposit money or get the painting, a constant reminder of that episode in his life. Another four weeks passed before he reached a decision. By this time California’s weather was already feeling like summer, and warm air had taken hold of the earth with colorful flowers blossoming everywhere, bright mornings, and stunning sunsets.
The decision of where to hang the painting had been made, and the logistics arranged. Thomas decided to go bold with the big painting, and there was only one wall that could accommodate it and so the flat screen television would have to be moved. As he approached the Savoir Gallery on a Saturday afternoon, he could already see the abstract painting dominating his living room, giving the ambience depth, culture, and texture. He hurried in. Once in front of the painting, he moved about, trying to see if he could see different things from various vantage points.
“Thomas?”
A voice called with the softness of a falling leaf, but all the same, it froze all of him, save his heart, ready to burst through his chest.
He turned to the voice and saw her coming. Lana smiled with so much tenderness. The face remained the same, but she seemed like a new person. Her hair was short like a man’s and styled sleekly, a darker shade than what he remembered, and contrasted so stunningly against her pale face which was lightly powdered, barely covering up the mole on her left cheek. The straight lines of her jaw and nose became well defined against the curving eyelids, the hair curving around her forehead. She was almost handsome, a hint of masculinity teasing within her feminine beauty. And red lipstick. The high collar of her white blouse framed her neck, and her rust-colored leather skirt showed her thighs. And of course high heels. He didn’t know what to do, being faintly aware that he couldn’t even move. His unbelieving eyes gawked at her.
“Hi, Thomas.” She stood a couple of steps from him.
“Hi,” he said as though to a stranger, and turned quickly to the painting. He purposely crossed his arms. “I’m considering this painting,” he added.
The smile yielded to a questioning look as she, too, turned to the painting.
“This is a wonderful painting. The lines are very subtle, just to outline the colors. There is something of Picasso, Kandinsky, Brâncuşi . . .”
He had no understanding at all of what she was saying. What were these lines, these colors that she was referring to? He tried to keep his eyes on the painting, but as if by their own volition, they drifted toward her face, stealing glances until turning fully on her. Just like seeing her again after the first time she had disappeared, her beauty exceeded anything that his mind could conjure up when he was away from her. That he could forget her was only because his mind was feeble and could not hold onto her beauty, a beauty that time could not reduce, but to which it succeeded in only adding another dimension. How her lips moved, and he saw the vermilion border, the sharp edge of her upper lip, and he remembered seeing it for the first and the thrilling high it had given him.
She had stopped talking. When? He hadn’t noticed. They gazed at each other.
At last, she said, “Are you looking to purchase this particular painting?”
“Ah, yes.” He bounced his head lightly. Then he sounded more assured, “Yes. In fact, I put down a deposit with Dominic.”
“Oh, you did. Do you have the receipt?”
He retrieved it from his coat pocket and handed it to her.
“I’ll be right back.” With the receipt, she went to the desk and picked up an iPad.
Thomas took off his glasses and, with tired movements, rubbed his eyes. Too many different emotions rose from the pit of his gut—bitterness, sweetness—he couldn’t breathe. And there were questions: Where have you been? Why are you back? And on and on. But the most important question of all, he had to extinguish right away: Is it still possible?
“Dominic put down the price for this painting. You agreed on ten thousand?” she said when she came back.
“Yes, that sounds about right.”
“It’s a good price.”
“And you don’t even have to go out with me,” he said with severity.
“How would you like to pay for it?” she said, businesslike.
He gave her a credit card.
“It will take just a moment.” She went to the desk.
His cool surgeon personae was nowhere to be seen, his heart in its resting place twitched, and as he saw her processing the credit card, he had the urge to run out the door. Time slowed down, her movements over the credit card machine appeared in slow motion, and he couldn’t do anything but stand there, battered simultaneously by intoxication and hopelessness, both wafting from the past. At last she came back and handed him the iPad to sign. His hand trembled as he took it.
“So, you’re back,” he said, and without intending it his voice sounded caustic.
“Yes, almost a week. Please write down the delivery address as well.”
“No more private jets?” he said, looked at her, and handed her back the iPad. Now that he had regained a little coolness, he saw a few signs that the private jet lifestyle had not been kind to her—a couple of lines on her forehead, the slight hollowness around her eyes, and a seriousness hovering just above her face—and wondered what had happened.
She avoided his gaze. “It’ll be delivered in about two weeks or so. Thank you so much.” Without raising her eyes to him, she went back to the desk and rummaged through the drawers, as if to avoid further contact with him.
Thomas closed his eyes tightly and let out a quiet sigh, as when one realizes that one has committed an irredeemable mistake. He moved silently to the door, almost tiptoeing, and hurried along the pavement. It was only when he stood by his car, half a block away that he looked back the gallery. Young boys sometimes hit the girls on the playground not because they hate the girls, but because that is the only way they can touch them—Thomas had known this all along but he couldn’t help verbally poking at her. What an asshole I am, he thought. Where was the gentleman, where was the cool surgeon? And why for God’s sake did you come back here? Now he felt a vacuity inside and a pain as intense, as if no time had passed.
Let us set the chairs in the corner. Let us sit down, you and me, Lana. Cry on my shoulder, cry until all your sorrow is gone. And then stay, stay somewhere, anywhere, with someone, anyone. It doesn’t have to be me. But never run again. And live your life happily.
Words came to him, dreamlike, because he knew they were just that. He had fooled himself enough times to know that he could never be the one.
28
On the following Friday afternoon after the arrival of the painting, Thomas was hurrying to finish his clinic. The last patient was waiting to be seen. He hadn’t made any plan with Charli, though she had always been unpredictable, and one time she had even come to his office unannounced. He was planning to have a talk with her this weekend, telling her that he would not be able to provide her with a future she had been seeking. Since Lana’s return, he was more determined than ever to break it off with Charli. What’s more, a compulsion had been building inside him, as if Lana’s sudden return had ignited a fuse; an irresistible urge to be within her presence again had been swelling in his mind, crowding out his personal life, his patients, Charli, his monther, in short everything except for only one thing—how to get back into Lana’s life again?
“Doctor Wilde. Phone call for you. Line one please,” the receptionist called him from the front. “Doctor Steven from the ER.”
At his desk, he answered the phone, identifying himself.
“Hi. This is Doctor Steven here in the ER. I have a patient of yours,” a man on the phone said.
“Okay. Let me have the name and date of birth; let me
look up the chart.”
“Lana Fauves, date of birth is . . .”
“What’s the name again?” Thomas asked. He must not have heard correctly.
“Lana Fauves. She’s not your patient? She said you’re her doctor.”
“No. No. I mean yes. Yes, I am.” He inhaled, strangely anxious. “What’s the problem?”
“Loss of consciousness. Taken in by EMS. Vitals are normal. No significant history. Labs are fine. Physical exam shows nothing remarkable except for a little nystagmus. Possibly a seizure.” The doctor must be reciting from a chart.
“Where are you calling from? Give me the address, will you?”
On a late Friday afternoon the traffic to downtown Los Angeles was stop-and-go. Traffic demands of the driver, who is instinctively anxious to get to his destination, the patience of a monk, something Thomas had very little of. He had rushed out of the office without answering Mike’s questions, and sped out of the parking lot only to halt on the freeway. And what luck—he now had another chance to fall into Lana’s orbit. What luck, what luck, the feeling of being lucky grew into a weird happiness.
More than an hour and a half later Thomas entered the emergency room. Though Thomas had been a medical student here, he no longer recognized the surroundings. The Los Angeles County Hospital had a new modern building, and the medical complex was almost a small city, operated by dedicated people with an astounding efficiency. Still it served mainly the poor and inside the waiting area, chaos emanated from the unintelligible voices and the rows after rows of people waiting, some in pain, others in dejection, and everyone anxious under the constant humming of fluorescent lights. Disinfectant and humidity, sweat and antiseptic, stifled the air.
Being a county hospital, it had many volunteer physicians, who came and went at all hours, and Thomas remembered this and could get in without any difficulty. It also helped that he was wearing a tailored suit and a tie, and the security guard let him in with a nod. Inside, the chaos was palpable—machines beeping, phones ringing, footsteps of nurses running around, voices of doctors yelling orders, and moaning and cries of pain. Patients occupied all the rooms, and stretchers with sick people crammed all the hallways, as if within the confines of this emergency room humanity was fighting for just another day.
Thomas checked the patients’ board on which “Lana Fauves” was written in blue ink. Seeing her name erased a sort of disbelief that he had had ever since the phone call, a disbelief people usually have when they are told something bad has happened to someone closest to them, that it has all been a mistake. He made his way, dodging a nurse and an ultrasound machine, to her room in the far corner.
“Thomas,” Lana cried as he entered the room. Her eyes opened wide, wild and frightened, the eyes of someone drowning in cold water. The mole on her left cheek loomed like a tear drop. Her hands reached out. An intravenous line connected a bag of IV fluid to her arm. She was wearing a hospital gown, white with little blue flowers, and covered by a white blanket, and her own clothes were in a bag under the bed.
“Lana, are you okay?” He took her cold hands.
“Something happened to me. I must have passed out. I woke up here. What do you think happened to me?” she said breathlessly. Lying on the stretcher, childlike and helpless, she looked up at him.
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to the ER doctor.”
“Please, I want to go home.”
He squeezed her hands to reassure her, and then went out. Doctor Steven was in fact only a senior resident, and his eyes were red and sleepless.
“Doctor Wilde, you didn’t have to come. You could have called me. Nothing has changed since we talked. She is alert and oriented now. We’re waiting for a brain scan. If that’s normal she can go.”
“All labs checked out okay?” Thomas asked.
“Yeah. Her vitals are stable. The blood tests are normal, and she has gotten a liter of fluid. EKG is fine,” he said, flipping through the chart.
“How much longer do we have to wait?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe three, four hours. This is LA County. We have some patients who have been waiting since this morning for a scan. I’ll do what I can, but honestly it’ll be a few hours, at least.”
“Can this be done tomorrow?”
“Yeah, it could be a seizure, but if it’s an aneurysm, you’re taking a big risk. If that’s the case, you’re looking at surgery or an interventional radiology procedure tonight, even though that’s a small risk. You know she has no signs of meningeal irritation, or intracranial pressure elevation. No signs of stroke.”
Thomas looked in the direction of Lana and said, “Thank you, Doctor.”
“All your labs are fine. Your vitals and EKG are fine,” he told Lana when he came back to her. “We’re just waiting for a brain scan.”
“Oh. I want to go home, Thomas. Please, I just want to get out of here. I can’t breathe here.” Her voice sounded like the air coming from her lungs was under pressure.
“No, you have to wait for the scan,” he said firmly. Amid the bustling of the ER, the fight for life, he felt none of the conflicting emotions her presence had induced in him previously, but only the cool working of logic, of what must be done to restore health.
“I’m going to die here. I have to get out of here.” Her voice became loud and alarming. She sat up.
“Shhh. Shhh. Lana, it’s just a quick scan. Just lay back and rest. I’ll take you home when it’s done.”
“No, I want to go home now. You can’t keep me here. I know my rights.”
“You’re taking unnecessary risks. Wait for a scan and you’re free to go. It might be an aneurysm, the reason you lost consciousness. It can burst in the night.”
“I feel fine now. You said yourself everything is fine.”
“Except your head, we don’t know what’s going on in there,” he said, remembering the many conversations he had had as a resident many years ago, trying to convince patients to undergo the necessary medical procedures, but never succeeding. Once the patients had doubts implanted firmly in their minds, they were nearly impossible to dislodge.
“I haven’t eaten all day. That’s the reason I passed out. They shouldn’t have taken me here. I have to go. Do you understand?” She attempted to get up and change clothes, but didn’t know what to do with the IV in her arm.
“Take it easy. All right. Just sit still until the nurse can remove your IV. It’ll bleed if you rip it out.”
She would have to be sedated and her decision would be taken from her, if the brain scan, it now seemed, were to done. He knew he could ask Doctor Steven to sedate Lana, and there would be no questions asked. Things like that were sometimes done for the patient’s benefit and in spite of their insistence. He remembered this from his days as a resident, whenever the patients unknowingly frolicked near death’s door. He was tempted to help her despite herself. But this was Lana. Who was smarter and could understand more than he. And he observed, as he had never been able to, her power over him, maybe because it was here, the one place where his ability and knowledge towered over hers that he finally realized their true positions.
“I know my rights,” she said, more determined.
“Okay, let’s leave. We can always come back here if you lose consciousness again, in the middle of the night. God forbid,” he said, trying reverse psychology.
But he was no match for her. She fixed her eyes on him and said curtly, “I want to leave.”
“All right. Okay. You just have to sign a form. I’ll talk to the doctor.” He knew he might regret this, but he couldn’t resist her command.
Doctor Steven wasn’t the least bothered and didn’t try to convince Lana; he probably had seen it all before and was glad that the patient could be discharged to her personal doctor, and with that came another vacant bed in the crowded ER. He repeated the neurological exam on Lana, asked a series of questions to evaluate her mental status, and discharged her. As a parting instruction, he told Thomas to keep an
eye on Lana through the night, to do a neurologic check on her every two hours if possible, because she should still be watched over even if the scan was normal. “If it’s any consolation,” he told Thomas, quoting an obscure study published in The Journal of Internal Medicine, “Frequent neurological exams are a completely valid alternative to a brain scan in this situation.” Thomas thanked him.
In the ER, things happen with lightning speed for those on the verge of death, but for those deemed well enough to go home, things go no faster than the hour hand. While he waited, he read Charli’s texts and laughed at the message: “I’m horny tonite.” He texted her that he was busy in the ER all night. By the time Thomas escorted Lana, in a white dress and platform heels and a string of pearls, to his car, it was nearing ten o’clock.
“Thank you, Thomas. I’m so sorry I ruined your evening. I didn’t know who else to call. I was so afraid. You’re the only doctor I know. I thought you would speak with the ER doctor on my behalf. I had no idea you would come. Thank you for coming,” she said, apparently having regained the composure and the slight haughtiness in her voice. “If you hadn’t come, I don’t think they would have let me go.”
“You’re welcome. I’m happy to help,” Thomas answered casually, truthfully. Now that he was driving through Los Angeles at night, he sensed it—the danger of streets, the putrid sins stinking from dark alleys, the crooks and gangsters lurking, but also the beautiful and the beautifully minded, the innocents, the romantics of both hopeless and hopeful varieties—in short, the soul of the city. And he was elated to sit next to her, to be the one she, in distress, had reached out for.