“Hi, Andy, it’s me. Alex. Listen, I’m sorry to bother you over there, I’m sure you’re incredibly busy, but I need to talk to you, so please call me on my cell phone as soon as you get this. Doesn’t matter how late it is, just be sure to call, OK? Uh, OK. ’Bye.”
It was so strange that he hadn’t said he loved me or missed me or was waiting for me to get back, but I guess all those things fall squarely into the “inappropriate” category when people decide to “take a break.” I hit delete and decided, rather arbitrarily, that the lack of urgency in his voice meant I could wait until tomorrow—I just couldn’t handle a long “state of our relationship” conversation at three o’clock in the morning after as wonderful a night as I’d just had.
The last and final message was from my mom, and it, too, sounded strange and ambiguous.
“Hi, honey, it’s Mom. It’s about eight our time, not sure what that makes it for you. Listen, no emergency—everything’s fine—but it’d be great if you could call me back when you hear this. We’ll be up for a while, so anytime is fine, but tonight is definitely better than tomorrow. We both hope you’re having a wonderful time, and we’ll talk to you later. Love you!”
This was definitely strange. Both Alex and my mother had called me in Paris before I’d gotten a chance to call either of them, and both had requested that I call them back regardless of what time I got the message. Considering my parents defined a late night by whether or not they managed to stay awake for Letterman’s opening monologue, I knew something had to be up. But at the same time, no one sounded particularly panicked or even a little frantic. Perhaps I’d take a long bubble bath with some of the Ritz products provided and slowly work up the energy to call everyone back; the night had just been too good to wreck by talking to my mother about some petty concern or to Alex about “where we stand.”
The bath was just as hot and luxurious as you’d expect it to be in a junior suite adjacent to the Coco Chanel suite at the Ritz Paris, and I took a few extra minutes to apply some of the lightly scented moisturizer from the vanity to my entire body. Then, finally wrapped in the plushest terry-cloth robe I’d ever pulled around me, I sat down to dial. Without thinking, I dialed my mother first, which was probably a mistake: even her “hello” sounded seriously stressed out.
“Hey, it’s me. Is everything OK? I was going to call you guys tomorrow, it’s just that things have been so hectic. But, wait until I tell you about the night I just had!” I knew already that I’d be omitting any romantic references to Christian, since I hadn’t felt like explaining the entire Alex scenario to my parents, but I knew they’d both be thrilled to hear that Miranda seemed to respond well when I’d brought up the idea of The New Yorker.
“Honey, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but something’s happened. We got a call today from Lenox Hill Hospital, which is on Seventy-seventh Street, I think, and it seems that Lily’s been in an accident.”
And although it’s quite conceivably the most clichéd expression in the English language, my heart stopped for just a moment. “What? What are you talking about? What kind of an accident?”
She had already switched into worried-mom mode and was clearly trying to keep her voice steady and her words rational, following what was sure to have been my dad’s suggestion of passing along to me a feeling of calm and control. “A car accident, honey. A rather serious one, I’m afraid. Lily was driving—there was also a guy in the car, someone from school, I think they said—and she turned the wrong way down a one-way street. It seems she hit a taxicab head-on, going nearly forty miles an hour on a city street. The police officer I spoke with said it was a miracle she’s alive.”
“I don’t understand. When did it happen? Is she going to be OK?” I had started choke-crying at some point, because as calm as my mother was trying to remain, I could hear the severity of the situation in her carefully chosen words. “Mom, where is Lily now, and is she going to be OK?”
It wasn’t until this point that I noticed my mom was crying also, just quietly. “Andy, I’m putting Dad on. He spoke to the doctors most recently. I love you, honey.” The last part came out like a squeak.
“Hi, honey. How are you? Sorry we have to call with news like this.” My dad’s voice sounded deep and reassuring, and I had a fleeting feeling that everything was going to work out. He was going to tell me that she’d broken her leg, maybe a rib or two, and someone had called in a good plastic surgeon to stitch up a few scrapes on her face. But she was going to be just fine.
“Dad, will you please tell me what happened? Mom said Lily was driving and hit a cab going really fast? I don’t understand. None of this makes any sense. Lily doesn’t have a car, and she hates to drive. She’d never be cruising around Manhattan. How did you hear about this? Who called you? And what’s wrong with her?” Again, I’d worked myself up to nearly hysterical, but again his voice was commanding and soothing all in one.
“Take a deep breath—I’ll tell you everything I know. The accident happened yesterday, but we just found out about it today.”
“Yesterday! How could this have happened yesterday and no one called me? Yesterday?”
“Sweetie, they did call you. The doctor said that Lily had filled out the front information page in her daily planner and had listed you as her emergency contact, since her grandmother’s really not doing all that well. Anyway, I guess the hospital called you at home and on your cell, but of course you weren’t checking either one. When no one called them back or showed up in twenty-four hours, they went through her planner and noticed that we have the same last name as you, and so the hospital called here to see if we knew how to reach you. Mom and I couldn’t remember where you were staying, so we called Alex for the name of the hotel.”
“Oh my god, it was a day ago. Has she been alone this whole time? Is she still in the hospital?” I couldn’t ask the questions fast enough, but I still felt like I wasn’t getting any answers. All I knew for sure was that Lily had decided on me as the primary person in her life, the emergency contact you always had to list but never, ever took seriously. And here she’d really needed me—didn’t have anyone else, in fact—and I’d been nowhere to be found. My choking had subsided, but the tears continued to pour down my cheeks in hot, angry streaks, and my throat felt as though it had been scraped raw with a pumice stone.
“Yes, she’s still in the hospital. I’m going to be very honest with you, Andy. We’re not sure if she’s going to be all right.”
“What? What are you saying? Will someone just tell me something concrete already?”
“Honey, I’ve spoken to her doctor a half-dozen times already, and I have complete confidence that she’s getting the best attention. But Lily’s in a coma, sweetie. Now, the doctor did reassure me that—”
“A coma? Lily is in a coma?” Nothing was making sense anymore; the words were refusing to take on meaning.
“Honey, try to calm down. I know this is shocking for you and I hate to do this over the phone. We considered not telling you until you got back, but since that’s still half a week away, we figured you had a right to know. But also know that Mom and I are doing everything we can to make sure that Lily gets the best help. She’s always been like a daughter to us, you know that, so she’s not going to be alone.”
“Oh my god, I have to come home. Dad, I have to come home! She doesn’t have anybody but me, and I’m across the Atlantic. Oh, but that fucking party is the night after tomorrow and it’s the sole reason she brought me and she’ll definitely fire me if I’m not there. Think! I need to think!”
“Andy, it’s late there. I think the best thing you could do is get some sleep, take a little time to think things over. Of course I knew you’d want to come home right away, because that’s the kind of person you are, but keep in mind that for right now Lily is not conscious. Her doctor assured me that the chances are excellent that she’ll come out of this in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, that her body is just using this as an extended and deeper
sleep to help itself heal. But nothing is certain,” he added, softly.
“And if she does come out of it? I’m assuming she could have all sorts of brain damage and horrible paralysis and things like that? Oh my god, I can’t stand it.”
“They just don’t know yet. They said that she is responsive to stimuli in her feet and legs, which is a good indication that there’s no paralysis. But there’s a lot of swelling around her head, and it won’t be possible to know anything for sure until she comes out of this. We just need to wait.”
We spoke for a few minutes longer before I hung up abruptly and called Alex’s cell phone.
“Hi, it’s me. Have you seen her?” I asked without so much as a hello. I was now a mini-Miranda.
“Andy. Hi. So you know?”
“Yeah, I just got off the phone with my parents. Have you seen her?”
“Yes, I’m at the hospital now. They won’t let me in her room right now since it’s not visiting hours and I’m not family, but I wanted to be here just in case she wakes up.” He sounded very, very far away, completely lost in his own thoughts.
“What happened? My mom said something about how she was driving and hit a cab or something? None of it makes any sense to me.”
“Uch, it’s a nightmare,” he sighed, clearly unhappy that no one else had told me the story yet. “I’m not sure I know exactly, but I did talk to the guy she was with when it happened. You remember Benjamin, that guy she was seeing in college who she walked in on having a threesome with those girls?”
“Of course, he works in my building now. I see him sometimes. What the hell was she doing with him? Lily hates him—she’s never gotten over that.”
“I know, that’s what I thought, too, but it seems they’ve been hanging out lately and they were together last night. He says they had gotten tickets to see Phish at Nassau Coliseum and drove out there together. I guess Benjamin smoked too much and decided he shouldn’t drive his car home, so Lily volunteered. They made it back to the city with no problems until Lily ran a red light and then turned the wrong way down Madison, straight into oncoming traffic. They hit a cab head-on, on the driver’s side, and, well, uh, you know.” He choked up at this point, and I knew things must be worse than anyone had let on.
I’d done nothing but ask questions the last half hour—to my mom, my dad, and now Alex—but I couldn’t bring myself to ask the most obvious one: Why had Lily run a red light and then tried to drive south on an avenue that only ran north? But I didn’t need to, because Alex, as always, knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Andy, her blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.” He stated this matter-of-factly, trying not to swallow the words so I wouldn’t ask him to repeat them.
“Oh my god.”
“If—when—she wakes up, she’s going to have even more to deal with than her health: she’s in a lot of trouble. Luckily, the cabbie was OK, just a few bumps and bruises, and Benjamin’s left leg is completely smashed up, but he’ll be fine, too. We just need to wait for Lily. When are you coming home?”
“What?” I was still trying to process the fact that Lily had been “seeing” a guy I’d always thought she hated, that she’d ended up in a coma because she was so drunk when she was with him.
“I said, when are you coming home?” When I was silent for a moment, he continued. “You are coming home, aren’t you? You’re not seriously considering staying there while your best friend on earth lies in a hospital bed, are you?”
“What are you suggesting, Alex? Are you suggesting that this is my fault because I didn’t see it coming? That she’s lying in that hospital bed because I’m in Paris right now? That if I had known she was hanging out with Benjamin again none of this would have happened? What? What exactly are you saying?” I shrieked, all of the confusing emotions of the night boiling over into a simple, urgent need to scream at someone else.
“No, I didn’t say any of that. You did. I just assumed that of course you’d be coming home to be with her as soon as possible. I’m not passing judgment on you, Andy—you know that. I also know that it’s really late for you already and there’s nothing you can do in the next couple hours, so why don’t you call me when you know what flight you’re on. I’ll pick you up at the airport and we can come straight to the hospital.”
“Fine. Thanks for being there for her. I really appreciate it and I know Lily does, too. I’ll call you when I know what I’m doing.”
“OK, Andy. I miss you. And I know you’ll do the right thing.” The line went dead before I could pounce all over that one.
Do the right thing? The right thing? What the hell did that mean? I hated that he had just assumed I would jump on a plane and race home because he told me to. Hated his condescending, preachy tone of voice that immediately made me feel like one of his students who’d just been caught talking during class. Hated that he was the one who was with Lily now even though she was my friend, that he was the one acting as a liaison between my own parents and me, that he was once again sitting on his moral high horse and calling the shots. Gone were the old days, when I might have hung up comforted by his presence, knowing that we were in this together and would get through it together, instead of as warring factions. When had things become like this?
There was no energy left to point out the obvious to him, namely, that if I left early to come home, I’d be fired immediately and my entire year of servitude would have been for nothing. I had managed to suppress that awful thought before it took full form in my mind: that my being there or not being there would mean absolutely nothing to Lily right now, since she was unconscious and unaware in a hospital bed. The options swirled around in my mind. Perhaps I would stay just long enough to help with the party and then try to explain to Miranda what happened and make a plea for my job. Or, if it appeared that Lily was awake and alert, someone could explain that I would be on my way as soon as possible, at that point probably just a couple more days. And while both of these explanations sounded somewhat reasonable in the dark hours of early morning after a long night of dancing and many glasses of bubbly and a phone call telling me my best friend was in a coma because of her own drunk driving, somewhere down deep I knew—I knew—that neither of them was.
“Ahn-dre-ah, leave a message at Horace Mann that the girls will be missing school on Monday because they’ll be in Paris with me, and make sure you get a list of all the work they’ll need to make up. Also, push back my dinner tonight until eight-thirty, and if they’re not happy about that, then just cancel it. Have you located a copy of that book I asked you for yesterday? I need four copies—two in French, two in English—before I meet them at the restaurant. Oh, and I want a final copy of the edited menu for tomorrow’s party to reflect the changes I made. Make certain that there will be no sushi of any kind, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Miranda,” I said, scribbling as quickly as possible in the Smythson notebook the accessories department had thoughtfully included with my array of bags, shoes, belts, and jewelry. We were in the car on our way to the Dior show—my first—with Miranda spitting out rapid-fire instructions with no regard for the fact that I’d gotten less than two hours of sleep. The knock on my door came at 7:45 A.M. from one of Monsieur Renaud’s junior concierges who was there personally to wake me up and see that I was dressed in time to attend the show with Miranda, who had herself decided she’d like my assistance just six minutes earlier. He had politely ignored my being quite obviously passed out on the still made bed and had even dimmed the lights, which had blazed all night. I had twenty-five minutes to shower, consult the fashion book, dress myself, and do my own makeup, since my woman was not scheduled to come this early.
I awoke with a minor champagne headache, but the real jolt of pain came when the previous night’s phone calls came flashing back. Lily! I needed to call Alex or my parents and see if anything had happened in the last couple hours—god, it seemed like a week ago—but now there was no time.
By the time the elevat
or had hit the first floor, I’d decided that I had to stay for one more day, just one lousy day to tend to this party, and then I’d be home with Lily. Maybe I’d even take a short leave of absence once Emily returned, to spend some time with Lil, help her recuperate and deal with some of the inevitable fallout from the accident. My parents and Alex would hold down the fort until I got there—it’s not as though she’s all alone, I told myself. And this was my life. My career, my entire future, was on the line here, and I didn’t see how two days either way made all that much difference to someone who wasn’t yet conscious. But to me—and certainly to Miranda—it made all the difference in the world.
Somehow I’d made it to the backseat of the limo before Miranda did, and even though her eyes were currently fixating on my chiffon skirt, she hadn’t yet commented on any one part of the outfit. I had just tucked the Smythson book into my Bottega Venetta bag when my new, international cell phone rang. It had never rung in Miranda’s presence before, I realized, so I scrambled quickly to turn off the ringer, but she ordered me to answer it.
“Hello?” I kept one eye on Miranda, who was paging through the day’s itinerary and pretending not to listen.
“Andy, hi honey.” Dad. “Just wanted to give you a quick update.”
“OK.” I was trying to say the bare minimum, since it seemed incredibly strange to be talking on the phone in front of Miranda.
“The doctor just called and said that Lily is showing signs that indicate she may come out of it soon. Isn’t that great? I thought you’d want to know.”
“That’s great. Definitely great.”
“Have you decided if you’re coming home or not?”
“Um, no, I haven’t decided. Miranda’s having a party tomorrow night and she definitely needs my help, so . . . Listen, Dad, I’m sorry, but now’s not a great time. Can I call you back?”
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