The Everything Girl

by L. Maleki

  “Gina, you’re scaring me.” My chest tightened.

  “It’s the baby. The baby’s heart stopped beating.” She broke again, weeping.

  “The baby is dead?” I whispered.

  She didn’t answer. I burst into tears.

  “Not yet.” She sucked in a shuddering breath and blew it out. “Lucia came in for her ultrasound. The baby’s heartbeat was under a hundred beats per minute, so they admitted Lucia, to keep an eye on her and run tests.

  “I got here as soon as I could. It was awful, Lucia hooked up to a million machines, her face so scared. I was holding her hand when one of the monitors set off an alarm. We both screamed. It was so loud. We could see the rate of the beats dropping. Nurses and doctors rushed in, but there was nothing they could do. And then … And then the heartbeat stopped. Just stopped.”

  Gina breathed in and out again, raggedly. “Eight seconds.” Her voice sounded like it had gone through a grater. “The baby’s heart restarted on its own, after eight seconds. It was a lifetime. The beat came back strong but has slowed back down a few times since then. Lucia was out of her mind. She’s on tranquilizers now.”

  “So she’s okay otherwise? Physically?”

  “Yes. They can’t find anything wrong with her or the baby. Nothing obvious. The neonatal specialist told Lucia to have hope, that maybe the baby just needs a little extra time to build strong organs. But that she should be prepared to lose it.” She started crying again. “How do you have hope when you’re afraid to close your eyes? That you could wake up to a dead baby in your stomach?”

  “I … I … I don’t know what to do. What can I do, Gina?”

  “I don’t know either.”

  “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “You can’t come right now?”

  “Frank has disappeared. As soon I find him, I’ll have the jet bring us back. We’re scheduled to leave at nine anyway.” I looked at my watch. Jeez, it’s two o’clock in the morning. “It’s only a few hours from now.”

  “I have no one to talk to, Paris. Lucia won’t let me tell anyone. She’s terrified her parents will find out.” She let out a sob. “I’m so scared. I don’t want to be here alone.”

  You son of a bitch, Frank. I’m going to kill you when I find you.

  “Honey, I love you. I know it’s hard, but maybe try to get some sleep, that will help a little. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice trailing off weakly. “I’ll try.”

  Chapter 24

  Frank was not in the penthouse.

  But I did find his crumpled, coffee-stained pants on the floor of his living room. A pair of tighty-whities in a ball next to them.

  I dropped, boneless, onto the leather couch, staring into space. Now what? What can I do? The only real contact I had in town was Dee, and she was currently being injected with lidocaine in over 40 percent of her body, in order to get stitched up by a physician’s assistant. I could either wait here and hope Lucifer made it back to the hotel, or I could call the car service we’d been using and hope one of them was willing to spend the wee hours cruising the mean streets of Galveston with me.

  I went into my room, changed into jeans and a hoody, and packed my clothes. Tucking my black dress into the suitcase, I ran my finger over the embroidered peacock one last time. I’d bought this picturing Benji and me at a fancy art gallery opening. The beautiful, beautiful gown was ruined for me. Bad ju ju. I hate you, Frank.

  I was ready to go. Maybe I don’t have to wait for him.

  No. No, Todd would not be on board with me ditching Frank. His infantile moneymaker was out there, wandering around Galveston high as a kite, and it was my job to find him and get him home. I was going to be in trouble for losing Frank in the first place.

  I crossed the hall and knocked again but knew it was futile. After a second, I went in, just to make doubly sure Frank hadn’t somehow snuck in and passed out. I was not so lucky.

  But just in case he did show up, I packed his clothes and bathroom supplies. I prayed with everything in me that we’d make the scheduled flight home.

  He hadn’t unpacked in the first place, so I just had to gather up what he’d thrown on the floor. I did notice his swimsuit was missing. Who knew what had happened to that. It was probably lying down by the hotel hot tub. Also missing were deodorant and a toothbrush, which wasn’t surprising. I did not touch his lotions, Kleenex box, or the single stiff sock lying on the bed.

  You are disgusting, Frank.

  I found him at 8:14 in the morning.

  I’d spent the night looking for him, finally talking a young Uber driver into driving me around and brainstorming where my boss might have gone. We started at the bars within a few blocks of The Railhead. They were closed, but some had cleanup crews hanging around. No one had seen a middle-aged white man in pajama pants. We widened the search, hitting every dive bar and honky-tonk, but any pajama-clad men they’d seen were the regular homeless people on their stoops.

  There was no one at the golf course clubhouse. We stopped at the ER, the police station, and at the oil conglomerates’ office building; no one had seen him.

  I decided he was most likely at an oil guy’s house or with a complete stranger. We drove down a few alleys but I decided enough was enough. If he was unconscious on one of these back streets, it was his own goddamned fault.

  By eight o’clock, I was in such a panic I could barely function. I made the poor driver take me back to the hospital one more time. And that was when the admittance nurse told me a John Doe had been brought in, but he was wearing underwear. Only underwear. No orange pajamas. And his hair was blue, not brown.

  “Do you have a picture?” I asked her.

  She turned her screen to face me. There was Frank. He had a blue Mohawk. And, apparently, someone had given him a pair of underpants.

  I can just walk away now. Pretend I never found him. Go home, quit, find a nice bridge to live under.

  But I couldn’t do it. He had no equal in the douche department, but he was hurt. I was the only one there who could help him.

  “That’s him. Franklin Coyle. Here, I have his wallet with his ID.” I handed her his driver’s license, tapping the picture. Despite the hair, his puffy, translucent face and squinty eyes were the same.

  “What’s wrong with him? Can I take him home?”

  “I’m afraid he’s going to be here for a while. Two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a bad concussion.”

  “Damn it. How did that happen?”

  “We don’t know. It looks like he was in a fight. He was drunk, incoherent, and then he passed out. It was a taxi driver who brought him in, but the driver said this man flagged him down, practically naked and all beat up.”

  I sighed. “Do you have the driver’s name? I’ll make sure he’s thanked appropriately. Frank will be grateful.” If only that were true.

  She leaned toward me, whispering. “Between you and me, he better be very appreciative to that driver. He peed on the man’s seat.”

  My head hurt. “Would you believe it if I told you Frank runs a multibillion-dollar hedge fund? No? I don’t really believe it either. God sure is funny, isn’t he?”

  When I got into his room, Frank’s hospital bed was at a slight incline, with a tube running from a port in his chest to a separate, chambered machine.

  His head was also bandaged. Electric-blue hair poked up out of the white cloth. He had a black eye. I wished I’d given it to him. He lay there, on a bed, cared for, peaceful, asleep. I tried to get comfortable in a flimsy plastic chair, exhausted and worried out of my mind about Lucia and her baby, and my father. And my raise. And Benji. And, Oh shit, Liam’s birthday party is today … I pushed at the chair arm in frustration, trying to mold it into a bearable shape.

  Nine a.m. We’d missed our flight. The company said they could delay for two hours but after that they were rescheduling the plane. Two hours wasn’t going to matter. The doctor claimed Frank couldn�
�t leave for at least another twenty-four hours.

  Lucia was in her own hospital bed, hours away, intently listening to the heartbeat of her baby wax and wane, with Gina fretting by her side. While there was nothing I could do to solve the problem, I could be there. Show support. Like they’d always done for me. Frank did not deserve the time I was giving him right now. I hate you, Frank, I thought for the one millionth time that morning.

  His eyes fluttered and then opened. Red slits.

  I stood, folded my arms, and glared at him. It wasn’t my job to make him feel better.

  “What day is it?”

  “Sunday.”

  “Morning or night?”

  “Morning. You were only missing for a few hours.” I settled back into the bedside chair. “Where’d you go, anyway? Where’d you get the underwear? And what the hell happened to your hair?”

  He shut his eyes and fell back asleep.

  I went into the hall to call Sonya. Frank’s wife was going to be irate that he would not be in attendance at their son’s party. What would the neighbors think?

  Liam, on the other hand, was still young enough to want his daddy at his birthday party just because he loved him. Given a year or two, he would start to pray his embarrassing father wouldn’t show up. Frank had blown what was probably the last time Liam would have loved him, no matter what, and been overjoyed to see him. Was there anyone in Frank’s life happy to see him walk in the door? Not anymore.

  The call was not pleasant.

  “Yes, I know, Sonya, and I’m so sorry. To be honest, I don’t know what happened.”

  “You incompetent little bitch. You had one job. To watch Frank.” She hung up.

  “Fuck you!” I yelled into the phone. Two orderlies turned around and gave me a dirty look. How come I never got a chance for a comeback?

  That’s it. That’s the last time someone hangs up on me or walks off before I get to say my piece.

  I’d been trying to decide who to call next, Todd or Benji, flipping through an Entertainment Weekly without processing the content, when Frank’s phone buzzed. Sonya had sent a text. Actually, it was a video. In the garden behind the Coyle brownstone, the person filming was walking a circle around a messy pile of clothes and small objects, squirting a clear liquid at the heap. I recognized Frank’s favorite peach-colored fedora and a green Columbia jacket. Then a barbecue lighter came into the frame, and a merry little flame dancing from the tip was touched to the waiting pile. A streak of fire zigzagged over his belongings, following the path of the lighter fluid. Soon, it was a full-on bonfire, tongues of orange and yellow and black chemical smoke licking the sky.

  Happy Birthday, Liam.

  I hoped Sonya didn’t ruin his day, but I guessed that was too much to ask.

  I had an idea. According to that month’s EW, the Biebs was staying at his house in New York, working on a new album. I had Frank’s contacts programmed into my phone, thanks to Michelle. I punched in Justin Bieber’s name and found his manager. A few phone calls later and she confirmed the rock star would be willing to sing three songs at the party, but it was going to cost Frank.

  I gave her Frank’s credit card number, happily. “If you can get some backup dancers, Frank will pay for that, too. Just use the card,” I said, and hung up.

  Then I forwarded Sonya’s barbecue video to Todd and explained to him what happened.

  He called right away.

  “So,” the COO said.

  “What do you want me to do with him, Todd?”

  “What do you mean? Isn’t he fine there?”

  “Well, Sonya isn’t coming to stay with him. She says she hopes he dies. As a matter of fact, she had a number of suggested methods. And I can’t stay, Todd. I have an emergency back home.”

  He cleared his throat. “I suppose you don’t see this as an emergency? Did you not agree to take care of Frank and, failing that, now you want to abandon him? What if the press finds him?”

  I was surprised at how cold he was. He didn’t even ask what my emergency was, just assumed my life was less valuable than Frank’s. I stayed quiet. Depression hit me like a truck.

  “One last thing,” Todd said. “I’m afraid to ask. The investors? How’s their temperature today?”

  “That is a very good question. It was hard to read them at dinner last night. They think he’s funny. It’s weird. But by the time we left for the club, I’d guess the guys who didn’t come with us were pretty disgusted. Or they were shacking up with the college girls. I don’t know. Anyway, I haven’t talked to them today. Though I should. To check in on Dee.”

  “Who’s Dee?”

  “She’s the Texas assistant who Frank kicked and she ended up impaled with broken glass. Which is why I left him to go outside in the first place, to help her into the ambulance.”

  “Fine. See what kind of damage control you can do while you’re there.”

  “But I don’t want to be here. I want to go. Emergency, remember?”

  He sighed dramatically. “I’ll get back to you. Do what you can in the meantime.”

  I should have told him about the new credit card charges I’d rung up, but decided that could wait. I wanted him to let me come home.

  A minute later, I was at the nurses’ station. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my friend Dee was brought in last night. She was cut up by shattered glass at a bar. Is she still here?”

  “I’d need her last name.” She looked at me suspiciously from behind round glasses.

  A younger nurse interrupted. “You know Dee? Yeah, she’s in the west wing. Let’s see … yeah, room 229W.”

  “How is she?”

  The nurse scanned the computer screen. “Her chart hasn’t been updated in a while, but it looks like she’s going to be okay. She did have quite a few stitches.”

  Frank was sleeping, or very convincingly faking it, so I grabbed my tote bag and wandered into the halls. Was I a terrible human being because I felt no pity for the patient? My emotions were all over the place, though the needle spent most of the time in the blues.

  The hospital complex was newer, with the main building facing Galveston Bay. There were a lot of windows and cheery paintings, and patients and guests gathered in the many comfortable lounge areas or in the outside sanctuaries. I tried not to eavesdrop but came across a wide variety of people issuing tears, laughter, or hissed arguments.

  As I moved down the hall, an old man with wild tufts of white hair burst out of a room and slammed the heavy door; it reverberated as he marched down the hall, shoulders stiff. I felt pain in my gut for him. I had no idea what his situation was, but clearly he was upset. His life had probably been fine one minute, and then, without warning, he was here.

  I realized he had come from the hospital chapel. The door was interesting, different. Most of the doors in the hospital were extra-wide pine doors or metal sheets or sliding glass. This one appeared to be a single slab of cedar or fir, something worn and very old. It was rounded at the top, with a slight peak in the middle—an Arabic design, something you’d see in a mosque. The frame was a mosaic of colorful tiles. Each plaque bore an icon or symbol representative of religions from different cultures found around the world.

  The Hindu’s Wheel of Dharma, the Jew’s Star of David, the Islamic star and crescent, the Khanda symbol of Sikhism, the Christian cross, the yin and yang circle found in Asian philosophy, India’s Jainism hand representing nonviolence—there were so many, some ancient, some modern. I had only a vague notion of what most of them meant, but I was comforted that they were nestled together, here, a lovely palette of various worlds.

  I hope this is what it’s like in the next life, different peoples and belief systems peacefully sharing space. Except Frank. I hope he’s chained to an ice floor in the lowest level of hell, with his hair on fire.

  I had my camera with me. Just can’t get enough of doors, I guess. I shot pictures of the entrance from various angles. This will tie my collection together, I thought, a brief moment
of happiness settling over me. I finally broke away, taking random pictures of other hospital doors along the way. I was sure I looked weird to the people passing me in the hallways.

  When I got to her room, a dozen pillows propped up Dee, a homemade quilt thrown over her bed. It wasn’t even ten in the morning and flowers and balloons surrounded her bed.

  “Paris!” She offered a huge smile but then winced as a string of sutures on her cheek and another string alongside her eye strained against their knots. She nodded at a woman and a teenage boy beside her.

  “Mamma, Jeb, this is Paris. She is the sweet girl from last night I was tellin’ y’all about. Paris, this is my mother and my younger brother, Jeb.”

  We politely shook hands but there was no southern warmth coming my way. I didn’t blame them. “So nice to meet you.”

  They mumbled something and went into the hallway.

  I turned to Dee. “Oh, Dee, I am so sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Ah, heck, it wasn’t your fault. Besides, look at all the flowers and candy!”

  I laughed. “Good point. Maybe it’ll make you feel better to know Frank is also in the hospital.” She did a double take. I put my hand on her shoulder. “He’ll be fine. Don’t spend one second worrying about that jackass. He’s got two broken ribs and a punctured lung. Someone beat him up. And gave him a blue Mohawk. All well-deserved.”

  “A blue Mohawk?!”

  “Yeah. I have no idea what happened there.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make me feel better! Poor man. His drinkin’ just got away from him. I hope he’s got family close by.”

  “He’ll be fine, believe me. Evil never dies.” But I had a feeling he’d be convalescing in solitude. Unlike Dee, who clearly was cherished by a number of people.

  That made me think of Lucia, who also could have a squad of loved ones around her, if she’d allow it. Was she home yet? How was the baby? Did she have someone besides Gina giving her flowers and helping out? Lucia had friends, but she was not reaching out to them in her time of crisis. I hope she changed her mind. She needed what Dee had here, love and support in bulk. Lucia and her baby deserved that. So did Gina.