Some Nerve

by Jane Heller

  “You’re staring,” he snapped. “Is that what you do as a volunteer? Knock on doors and stare at patients?”

  “Oh, gosh no,” I said, recovering. I couldn’t let him suspect that I knew who he was. “It’s just that you remind me of someone. My cousin. Yes. You remind me of Cousin Zeke. He’s about your age and works at a hog farm down in Arkansas.” Well, why not. I loved the image of Goddard sloshing around with a bunch of pigs in a puddle of mud. “I’m Ann Roth.”

  “Luke Sykes.”

  “Nice to meet you. So how are you feeling today, Luke?”

  Instead of answering my question, he cocked his head at me. “Hey, I’m from out of town, so I’m curious: Are you Midwesterners on the level with all this ‘How are you feeling’ stuff or are you all a little on the Stepford side?”

  I was offended, of course, but held my smile. “We’re not Stepford, just friendly.” I peered at him and tried to figure out what was different about his appearance. It wasn’t his face exactly. He still had that nose—one of those chiseled, upturned marvels of nature that people pay plastic surgeons a fortune to duplicate. But the hair was—Yikes. It was receding a few inches off his forehead! There was absolutely no adorable lock that tumbled down over his forehead, into his eyes. It simply wasn’t there! And speaking of his eyes, they weren’t turquoise. They were a very unmemorable, very nondescript shade of brown!

  “You’re friendly, huh? Well, maybe you could go be friendly someplace else. I’d like some peace and quiet.”

  What a delightful person. “I understand, but I really do want to know how you’re feeling,” I said, trying to sound sincere while I was also barraging myself with questions. Where were the gorgeous baby blues? Had the big phony been wearing contact lenses throughout his career? And did the doctors make him remove them when he checked into the hospital or was taking them out his idea, so he’d be less recognizable? And what about the famous curls that always fell into his brown eyes? He must have been parading around in a hairpiece all this time, just like Bruce Willis and Ted Danson used to before they decided to go au naturel. Was he following their lead or was he letting his baldness show for the sake of preserving his anonymity? Obviously, he’d do anything to keep the media from knowing he was sick, even if it meant losing the movie-star accessories. Why else would he choose to have his heart monitored at Heartland General instead of at a facility in L.A., our hospital’s excellent reputation notwithstanding? Why else would he fly all the way to Missouri for treatment? Why else would he materialize in the middle of nowhere? Because he was pathological about anyone invading his privacy. He was afraid that the minute the paparazzi and the reporters got wind of his health problem, they’d be swarming like—well—parasites. But he needn’t have bothered with the alias. Without the lenses and the hairpiece, no one would have recognized him. I wasn’t even sure I would have.

  “I feel normal, that’s how I feel. It’s ridiculous for me to even be here. If it weren’t for overprotective doctors, I’d be in—” His lips pursed.

  “That’s okay. I’m a good listener,” I said, heavy on the sympathy, even though I was still stupefied that I was standing there next to him. As I’ve indicated, we didn’t get many—make that any—celebrities in Middletown. The fact that we’d somehow snagged this one and that this one also happened to be the celebrity of my nightmares wasn’t easy to process. Sure, he blended right in with the patient population now—a brown wren instead of a peacock—but I knew about the riveting performances he’d given on-screen and the international acclaim he’d garnered for them, and it was hard to just block all that out. “You’d be where?” In Canada shooting your movie? Ordering everyone around on the set? Making your costars miserable?

  “Never mind,” he said. “They’ll probably discharge me tomorrow anyway. I mean, I fainted. Big whoop. I was working long hours and partying too much. So what?”

  Interesting. There certainly hadn’t been any items in the press about him fainting. According to Tuscany, all the rumors had to do with him going into rehab. Peggy Merchant was a genius in the way she’d managed to keep his condition under the radar. “Fainting is nothing to ignore,” I pointed out. “And the doctors here are first rate—especially for cardiac problems.”

  “I don’t have cardiac problems,” he said as his heart monitor continued to beep. “I already told you.”

  “Yes, you did. Hopefully, you’ll be okay, but in the meantime, is there anything I can do for you? You mentioned that you’re from out of town. Do you need me to contact anyone? Make travel arrangements for a family member? Get in touch with your boss?” I was suddenly enjoying this. He was pretending to be someone he wasn’t? I’d pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Perfect symmetry.

  “My boss?” He smirked. “No, thanks.” He shivered and burrowed under the blanket. “Man, do I wish I could be home where it’s not below zero—inside.”

  “Where’s ‘home’? if you don’t mind my asking.” I was dying to see how far he’d go with his charade. “Someplace with a warm climate, I guess.”

  “Florida,” he said with a straight face. “Miami. I’m in real estate development down there. Residential. Commercial. You know.”

  “It’s definitely warmer there,” I conceded. “But I bet people aren’t as friendly in Miami as they are in Middletown.”

  “It’s too soon to tell, since I just got here,” he said. “But from what I’ve seen, you all have this very upbeat, have-a-nice-day thing going on. Is it in the drinking water or are you as sincere and real as you seem?”

  I didn’t feel very real at that moment, but I was energized by the fact that I’d gotten him to speak civilly to me. “Some places are just more down to earth than others. Here in Middletown, we grow up without the superficialities you find in other parts of the country. Like Hollywood, for example. Now that must be a difficult town for making friends. Have you ever been there or do your, uh, real estate ventures keep you too busy in Miami?”

  God, this really was fun. And easier than I’d expected.

  “I’ve been there a few times,” he said. “And you’re right. It’s a weird place. Everybody’s a walking résumé. They don’t have friendships. They have ‘business relationships.’ I have a buddy who acts in the movies and he’s never met a single person who didn’t want something from him, talk about shallow.”

  Wow, I thought. He sounded almost sincere himself, despite the “buddy” bullshit. But how could he be? He was one of the shallow Hollywood types he was denigrating. And since when didn’t he have any friends? Every time he was spotted coming into or out of a nightclub, he was surrounded by an entourage that often included his sweetheart, Rebecca Truit. Which prompted me to wonder: Did she know he was in the hospital? Had he confided in her that he left the set where he was shooting, not to go into rehab but to have his heart monitored?

  “Whenever I read magazines like Famous, I get the feeling it’s one big party in Hollywood,” I said. “Maybe they all want something from each other, but they look like they’re having the time of their lives in those pictures.”

  “Famous?” He shuddered, and it wasn’t from being cold. “That’s the worst of those parasites.”

  “Parasites?” I said, feigning surprise. “I kind of like the magazine. So do most of the patients. It’s a distraction for them.”

  He shook his head. Even without the add-on hair and enhanced eye color, he was uncommonly great looking, I had to admit. “Don’t be suckered in by those entertainment rags,” he said. “Against his better judgment, my buddy out there agreed to an interview with Famous and the writer didn’t even show up. Can you believe that?”

  Suddenly, the humiliation of that day at the airport came flooding back and I had to force myself not to slug the guy. “Does your buddy have a name?” I asked sweetly. “Maybe I’ve heard of him.”

  “I can’t tell you his name, because he’s a very private guy,” he improvised. “He’s the one who told me how hard it is to be in the public eye. He says
he can’t even walk his dogs without the media there to cover it.”

  Goddard had two dogs: Sam, a golden retriever, and Lucy, a collie. He’d made this declaration in his interview with Vanity Fair. “Does this actor enjoy any aspect of his success?”

  “Hey, success is great, but it’s lonely too. According to him.”

  “Because of everybody being so shallow?”

  “Yeah. If a guy like him has a problem, who’s he gonna call? His agent? His manager? His publicist? They all want something from him, so he can’t trust any of them.”

  “If you’re his buddy, why doesn’t he call you?”

  He was stumped by that one, and I gave myself a silent pat on the back for asking it. “Look, he has a hard time trusting anybody,” he said. “His father, who was responsible for managing his money, ended up stuffing it into his own pocket. His mother, who was against him going into show business in the beginning, turned into a user, selling personal stuff about him to the tabloids. It’s not a stretch to figure out why this guy keeps to himself.”

  Okay, a tiny part of me felt sorry for him after that speech, because I knew it wasn’t a fabrication. He’d gone on record that his father and mother had sold him out. My family members had their “issues,” but they’d never done anything to shake my trust in them.

  “Doesn’t he have a wife or girlfriend he can turn to?” I asked, picturing the veddy veddy British Rebecca in one of her skimpy little frocks. She was the latest in a string of actresses from the UK who were beautiful but boyish.

  “He’s not married, but he’s been seeing someone,” Goddard confirmed. “I think he’d like to make a commitment and settle down, but he’s not there yet.”

  Well, so much for breaking the news of their engagement, I thought. Still, I was making progress. He was telling me things without realizing it. He was giving me material that could form the basis for a fabulous piece in Famous. I was totally on track.

  I was about to ask another question when he started complaining about his accommodations. The room was too cold. The mattress was too thin. The sheets were too starchy. Blah blah blah.

  “I don’t even know why I’m here,” he said petulantly. “I had flip-flops in my chest and dizziness and nausea, but that was four days ago. I don’t see why I’m being hooked up to this TV screen.”

  “Isn’t it better that they’re being cautious?” I said, since I was supposed to be a representative for the hospital. “You wouldn’t want anything serious to happen once you’re back in…Miami.”

  As if on cue, his heart monitor suddenly started beeping loudly and with urgency. I jerked my head at the screen and even I could tell there were wild fluctuations in his beats or his rhythms or whatever the monitor was recording.

  “Not again,” he moaned, grabbing my arm, pulling me closer to the edge of the bed.

  “Not again what?” I said, wishing I could extricate myself from his grip. Coaxing information out of a movie star was one thing. Getting too close to a man in the throes of cardiac arrest was quite another. “What is it? Luke? Luke?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes sort of rolled back in his head and his color turned a sickly yellowish-green.

  “Do you want me to get the nurse?” I said.

  “It’s the same damn thing I had the last time,” he whispered, breathless. “It came on fast, from out of nowhere. Man, I’m so dizzy, so nauseous. I feel like I’m gonna—”

  Hurl. Yes. He felt like it and he did it—on the sleeve of my freshly laundered smock. I’d been dreading a patient vomiting on me. I just didn’t expect the patient to be Malcolm Goddard. But then, he’d been hurling things at me since we met.

  I felt very close to puking myself, naturally. Panicking too. But I couldn’t fall apart. Not in front of Goddard or in front of Rolanda, who had hurried into the room.

  “Yeah, there’s the arrythmia,” she said, nodding at the monitor as if she’d been waiting for it to reveal what was wrong with her patient. She turned to him, examined him quickly, told him she was calling the doctor, and promised she’d be back to clean him up.

  What about me? I wanted to ask her. I wasn’t exactly smelling like a rose. In fact, I was dying to rush off to the restroom to clean myself up. But I didn’t think it would be ethical to desert someone in need, even if that someone was a snake.

  “How are you feeling now?” I said to a slightly groggy but otherwise alert Goddard. It sounded like “How are you feeling dow,” because I was kind of holding my nose.

  “Just go!” he commanded.

  Yep, commanded. I was stunned. Who did he think he was? He should have been apologizing instead of ordering me around. He was the one who’d puked on me, wasn’t he?

  “I’d like to make sure you’re okay first,” I said, keeping a lid on my anger, but only barely.

  “What are you now? A nurse?” he said with a sneer. “Leave me alone.”

  “I’m not a nurse, but I care about your health.” I did. Sort of. I wasn’t completely single-minded.

  “My health is nobody’s business,” he muttered, turning his head away. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  “But—”

  “What part of that sentence didn’t you understand?”

  Okay, he was sick. He had some kind of heart condition, and he wasn’t happy about it. I got that. But I was trying to help (well, right then I was trying to help), and I did not deserve to be treated so rudely. His attitude was infuriating, just as it had been infuriating back in L.A., and I couldn’t stand there and not call him on it. Sick or no sick.

  I moved to exit his room, shaking my head at his ability to push my buttons yet again. “Just a little advice,” I said, breathing in my own foul fumes now. “If you want friendly Midwesterners to stay friendly, try not to throw up on them if you can avoid it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Come on, it’ll be okay,” said Tuscany after I called her to report on my first encounter with Goddard. “He was probably embarrassed because he hurled on you. He’s a macho guy, remember? He’ll let you back in to see him once he gives his big movie-star ego a rest.”

  “I hope so,” I said. I was sitting in the Honda, parked in front of my mother’s house. I had just gotten home from the hospital. The sleeve of my smock was still damp; I’d washed it with Purell in the sixth-floor ladies’ room. “But I don’t volunteer again until Friday. That’s three days from now, Tuscany. Maybe they’ll cure him by then and he’ll be gone when I get there.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it,” she said. “From what you described, he could be there awhile.”

  “Well, as much as I hate the guy, I don’t wish him any harm,” I said. “I want my job back, but not if it means somebody has to languish in a hospital.”

  “Everything will work out,” she said. “You’re just a little down right now.”

  I was down, and watching the snow pile up on my windshield and wishing I was on the beach in Malibu weren’t helping.

  “You’ll figure out a way to get the interview,” she said, trying to pump me up. “You’re gonna make this happen, Ann. I know you are.”

  “Love you,” I said, grateful to have her in my life, even long distance.

  “Love you too,” she said.

  I FORCED MYSELF to get out of the car and trudged into the house, careful to remove my shoes first. The only thing worse than germs, according to my grandmother, was dirty footprints.

  I’d been home for only fifteen minutes when Richard called. He invited me to an impromptu dinner with one of his doctor friends and his wife. “We’re all in the mood for Hop Woo and I’m hoping you’ll join us.”

  Middletown had two “ethnic” restaurants: a taco stand next to the Mobil station and Hop Woo, the Chinese place whose chef was a local boy named Brady Finnigan and whose specialty was hamburger chow mein. I wasn’t a Hop Woo fan, but mostly I didn’t want to encourage Richard, who seemed incapable of taking no for an answer. Going out with him as part of a fours
ome—on a double date—might be sending the wrong signal.

  “You’re hesitating.” He sighed. “But, jeepers, Ann. You said we could spend time together as friends. We’ll have an early night if you want. A little dinner, a few fortune cookies, and that’s it. Of course, if you decide you find me irresistible while you’re gazing at me across the table, we can always head back to my place afterward.”

  “Richard.”

  “Okay, okay. Strike that last comment. I’ll be good, I promise.” He chuckled. “And I think you’ll enjoy meeting Eleanor and Jonathan White. Eleanor volunteers at the hospital too, in the gift shop. And Jonathan’s our top cardio man.”

  I sat up straighter. Jonathan White was the doctor who was overseeing Goddard’s care. Richard had mentioned him that night at the Caffeine Scene when he’d dropped his bombshell. Jonathan would certainly know how long his patient would be hanging around, what the treatment plan was, all of that. I wasn’t allowed to ask him a million questions—not even one question—but things had a way of slipping out, especially after a glass or two of wine. Yes, maybe dinner with Richard wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  “What time should I be there?” I said.

  “THIS IS A LOT nicer than the cafeteria,” Eleanor White remarked, surveying our surroundings at Hop Woo, where the lights were low, the décor was red, and the tables were wobbly. There was nothing especially nice about it, but she was right: It beat the hospital cafeteria. She was my mother’s age—a matronly blonde on the order of Lynn Cheney—and she smelled faintly of Bengay. She was also, I was dismayed to discover, one of those women who exhausts you with her breathless, brainless, nonstop chatter about food.

  “It is,” I agreed distractedly. I was more interested in the conversation the doctors were having about a certain patient of Jonathan’s: a young man who’d recently been admitted with arrythmia. Obviously, the patient was Goddard. Jonathan had described him as a hothead who kept insisting he was fine and was resisting treatment.