by J. C. Nelson
A muffled squeak from beside me caught my attention. Grace stirred and opened her eyes.
I triggered the call button over and over, then ran to the door. “She’s awake!”
A new doctor ran in, an Asian American woman with short black hair. “We’ll take the tube out. Grace, don’t try to talk until we do.”
Afterward, Grace lay sputtering on her side, sipping cold water through a straw.
I knelt beside her bed. “You scared me. That’s not allowed.”
“T’war.” Grace coughed again, and grimaced. “Snake wheat reticule. Means ‘path.’”
“It can wait.”
Grace struggled to sit up, triggering the bed. “Throat hurts.” She called the nurse again.
After the nurse removed her IV and gave Grace another cup of water, Grace began to struggle with her hospital gown, cinching it shut in the front, then trying to drag it down over her bust. The more she fought with it, the less it covered. Finally, she shrank down under the sheet and looked up at me. “Would you mind leaving?”
If she’d shot me in the stomach, it would have hurt less. I looked away and stood up, knocking my chair over by accident.
“Brynner.” She swallowed, cracked lips white and dry. “I just need to shower. By myself.” She rang the call button again and repeated her request.
The nurse looked at me like I was a dead skunk. “You could use a shower, too. And have you eaten at all? I told you to go get dinner before I left last night.”
I shook my head. “Takes three weeks to starve to death.”
She took Grace by the arm and shoved me toward the door. “You look like you’re about two weeks, five days along. Go get breakfast in the cafeteria while I help Grace feel presentable. She doesn’t need you standing guard.”
That wasn’t why I was here. “This hospital is the thirdsafest place on earth. My dad oversaw the barriers himself back when Aunt Emelia practiced here. Unless a meat-skin parachutes in from the sky, it’s not getting past the walls.” I was here because—because it felt like the right thing to do. But if Grace wanted time alone, I could give it to her. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m done eating.”
GRACE
It wasn’t my first time to wake up in a hospital after being stung. Not my first severe attack, either, though last time, a wasp caused it. On the other hand, this was definitely my first time to wake up with Brynner Carson staring at me like a lost puppy.
I don’t know if it was the sound of his voice or the butchered translation job that woke me. If my throat didn’t feel like I’d gargled battery acid, I would have done a better job of explaining why I kicked him out. It wasn’t just because my gown covered less than half of what it ought to. I had no doubt Brynner had looked on finer rear ends than mine.
I felt nasty and probably smelled worse. I didn’t want him near me like that. If he was going to be near me, I wanted to look my best. So with the nurse’s help, I hobbled to the shower and sat in it, turning the water ever hotter.
“Just breathe the steam—it’ll help with your throat. Pull that call chain when you are ready to get out.” She left me in the bathroom, in the fog of the shower and my own mind.
I remembered figuring out the journals.
And kissing Brynner.
And pain, first in my hand, then in my thigh. Lights swirling overhead as someone carried me, ran with me. Dirt roads and highways passing at speeds that made the lines blend together.
When I finally turned off the water, every inch of me flushed bright pink from the heat. Brynner had told me there were scorpions in the house. But I hadn’t exactly been thinking at the point where I got stung. I jerked the call chain and waited for help.
The nurse handed me a towel. “Don’t you worry. Your fiancé is down in the cafeteria, signing autographs, or so I hear.” She helped me over to the bed and nodded to my purse, which lay against the wall. “We brought that up with your things. I’m sorry, but they cut your clothes off in the ER.”
My hands and legs felt like they weighed fifty pounds each. I could barely sit up while she slipped a top and bottom on me. “Brynner’s not . . .” Not my what?
“I’m sorry,” said the nurse. “We thought ’cause of the bracelet, and all. I mean, he wouldn’t leave, hardly slept last night. I’ll let the staff know.” She knelt and slipped a pair of socks on my feet. “I think I’m going to take my morning break and go buy a man some breakfast.” She walked over to primp in my mirror.
“No.” The word burst out of my mouth along with a jolt of jealousy. “We—haven’t been together long.” Technically true, I told myself.
“I knew it. All the good ones are taken.” She washed her hands and walked out.
A short time later the head nurse came in and began to brush my hair.
I glanced in the mirror. I looked better than I felt, but not good enough. “You don’t happen to have any makeup, do you?”
She shook her head. “We don’t, but you don’t need any. You’ve got that natural beauty going on.”
“I just want to look my best.” Though I’d barely managed to admit it to myself, I couldn’t help wanting to look nice. He’d asked me point-blank if I liked him.
I’d lied to him back in the house. This time, I’d tell him the truth.
“Well, you can go shopping when you’re out and doll yourself up. Thank goodness it’s Friday. I’m ready for the weekend.”
I shook my head. “Excuse me. What day did you say it was?”
“Friday. Best day of the week. I’m not surprised you don’t remember yesterday, since you were damn near dead. My cousin in the ER says your fiancé drove you here himself.”
Any normal day where I woke up in the hospital after nearly dying, it would have been the fiancé remark that worried me. But for now, I needed to focus on getting to a bank by two to arrange payment. “I have to go.”
I struggled to sit up and tried to throw my feet off the bed.
“If you mean ‘go to the bathroom,’ I’ll help you. If you mean ‘leave the hospital,’ I’ll tie you down. I’ve seen kittens with more fight in them.” She blocked my exit from the bed, tapping her finger on the straps. “Do you think for a moment I won’t do it?”
I slumped back in the bed. “I have to go.”
“You aren’t going nowhere today. Maybe not tomorrow. Don’t get yourself on bed arrest, Ms. Grace.”
Desperate times called for desperate measures. I hated what I had to do, primarily because of what might come out of the nurse’s mouth while he was there, but I was out of choices. “Could you tell Brynner I’d like to speak to him?”
A few moments later, he stood in my room, towering over my bed like a mythical creature carved of muscle and bone. A quarter-inch beard covered his jaw, making him look part lumberjack.
“I need a favor. I wouldn’t ask, but I don’t have anyone else.” My cheeks burned, and beads of sweat formed on my skin.
“Name it.” He held up his arm, showing a purple band that matched mine. “Since we’re practically family.”
I pointed to the wall. “Get my purse.” While he waited, I scribbled careful instructions on a notepad, then handed him my license and checkbook. “Routing number and contact information is on this. That goes on the slip. I need you to go to a bank and transfer from my checking to that account number.”
“Don’t they have apps for that sort of thing?”
“I don’t trust online banking.” The truth was I changed banks too often to keep up with websites and anything but my most recent account.
He nodded. “Me neither. How much do you want transferred?”
I bit my lip. “Everything in there. Please, it has to be done by two o’clock or the payment won’t be in on time.”
“Everything.” He frowned, narrowing his eyes. “What are you—”
“Let me worry about that. I’ve been doing this for years. Please.” I took his hand, wrapping my fingers over his scarred palms. “It’s for my daughter’s care c
enter. Please.”
It wasn’t like I had a choice. It wasn’t like he didn’t. But Aunt Emelia had been right. Sometimes you had to trust someone.
He dropped my hand and stalked out of the room without a word.
Eighteen
BRYNNER
I didn’t like the implications of Grace’s request, not leaving money for even basic necessities. But she was an adult, and I had no say in her decisions. I took her paper and drove to a bank with every intention of doing what I was told. At least if Grace felt well enough to order me around, she had to be getting better.
Banks irritated me. Their dry, boring nature just cried out for something fun to happen, like a fire, or an earthquake. Something to brighten up those peoples’ day. First, I stood in line to speak to a teller. Who told me she couldn’t help. I needed to stand in line for a branch representative. Which I did.
While the tellers looked like smiling would kill them, the branch manager reminded me of a guy in a hostage situation who had someone holding a gun to his head, threatening to blow his brains out if he stopped smiling.
“How can I help you, Mr. . . . Carson, is it?” He shook my hand with a greasy palm.
“My friend is in the hospital and asked me to make a wire transfer for her. I’ve got the account details right here.” I handed him the paper with Grace’s numbers.
He grinned to the point where it had to hurt. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you transfer funds out of someone else’s account.”
“I have her signature and her license.” I handed over Grace’s license and her checkbook.
He shook his head. “You could have written that yourself.”
“Really? How many men do you know who write like that? All bubbly? It might as well be written in glitter ink and have strawberry scratch-n-sniff on it. Do you have any idea who I am?” About then, it occurred to me that shaving so I matched my press photographs might have been a good idea.
“You’re Brynner Carson. I’m such a fan of that movie they made about your dad. But that doesn’t change bank policy.” Somehow, he still managed to show each and every last one of his teeth through that smile. “Nothing changes bank policy. Now, shall I have security escort you out?”
He glanced to the door, where a bored rent-a-cop slouched in cheap polyester. The guard walked over, his head almost coming up to my shoulder, and put one hand on his gun. “I’ll have to ask you to leave, sir.”
“I just want to transfer some money. That’s all I want to do.”
The branch manager pointed to the door. “You asked me to commit fraud. I’ve asked you to leave politely. Because I’m polite.”
Both of them stepped back when I stood. “Meat-skins are easier to deal with.” I looked over to the guard. “If you value your fingers, you’ll keep them to yourself. Pull that gun on me and you’ll need an enema to reload it.”
I walked out, crossing Smiley’s branch off my list of places where I’d be welcome. I drove all the way back to Bentonville, to a brown brick building off Main Street, and walked into the bank president’s office.
“Wilbur,” I said as he hung up the phone with a look of surprise, “I need help sending money. You do wire transfers?”
A great-great-grandson of Bentonville’s founder, Wilbur had looked old when I was just a boy. As an ancient man, his hair had turned silver white, and he sported eyebrows that you could take shelter under. “Brynner Carson, your aunt said you were back in town. Let me get my manager to help you. I never did learn to work the computers.”
A moment later, an older man, in his fifties, with salt-andpepper gray hair and thin wire frame glasses stepped into the office.
Wilbur stood up and pointed to me. “Chuck, you need to help Brynner with this transfer. Go on, he doesn’t bite.”
I followed Chuck to a side office, growing more uneasy by the minute. I recognized the man, though I couldn’t put my finger on just where I’d met him. “Before we start, could you answer me a question?”
Chuck shrugged. “If Wilbur Benton says so, I could answer twenty.”
“You don’t have any daughters who graduated from Benton back when I went there, do you?”
He shook his head. “Both my sons were three years behindyou—”
“It’s all good. Just wanted to check.”
I explained about the transfer, and Grace, and the scorpion, leaving out the kiss that just didn’t work out, and gave him Grace’s instructions. He punched numbers into a computer for a few minutes, then frowned.
“This routing number’s no good. Are you sure the destination account is right?”
Could Grace have gotten the numbers wrong? “I don’t know.”
He pointed to a cubicle. “Use that phone, confirm the routing numbers, we’ll try this again.”
So I sat down in the chair. First I dialed the hospital, but the phone rang and rang, without answer. Then another idea came to me. I dialed her confirmation number and waited.
A woman answered. “Suquamish Convalescence Center, how may I direct your call?”
I almost didn’t answer in time, focusing instead on where I’d called. “I’m calling on behalf of Grace Roberts. I need to speak to someone in—”
“Accounts. I hope you don’t hang up the way she does.”
The phone beeped, and for thirty seconds, I listened to a recorded announcer talk Medicaid benefits, and how I, too, could plan for many happy years.
When the phone clicked again, a voice like black ice spoke. “Ms. Roberts, I’ve been waiting for your call. Can we play a little game? I call it ‘Guess the latest excuse.’”
“If you want to play with yourself, be my guest, but not while I’m on the phone.” I forced myself to take deep breaths. Who knew what the history here was? “I just need to confirm an account number for wire transfer.”
He coughed, cursing, and when he spoke again, his voice was deep and calm. “I’m sorry, sir, we had a misrouted call. How can I help you?”
“I told the receptionist I’m calling on behalf of Grace Roberts. Do you want this money or not? Because she’s trying to transfer it to you. If you do want it, now would be a great time to give me your account number.”
“Hell yes, we want it. She’s always a month late and a thousand dollars short. I could throw her daughter out and use the bed for a paying customer.” He relayed a set of numbers.
Grace had transposed a six and a nine in two different places. “Thank you. I’ll schedule the transfer right away.” I tapped my pen, willing myself to not say anything else.
And the idiot opened his mouth again. “How much is she shelling out? It better be at least half of what she owes.”
“How much does Grace need?”
“Let me put it this way. Even if she paid twenty thousand right now, I’d want another twenty-five for the next six months, on account of her being completely unreliable. From now on, she pays in advance.”
There was a time, when I was younger, when holding on to money mattered. When I looked at my BSI paychecks and opened my interest statements. I’d never gotten a hug from a bank note or had a savings bond watch me while I was sick with the flu. Once a year, I met with the investment banker who ran Dad’s accounts, and mine when the family fortune passed to me. It made for a good nap. “What’s your name?”
“Ravi Hendricks. Why? Don’t go getting pissed off at me for wanting her to pay the bills. Five fucking years I’ve played this game with her.”
Exhale desire to strangle an asshole. Inhale love and peace. “Listen to me, Ravi. Listen very carefully. You’re going to receive a wire transfer shortly. You’re going to smile and keep your freaking mouth shut.”
“About time she found a sugar daddy.”
I slammed the phone down three times on the desk, creasing the plastic, and nearly screamed when I picked it up. “If you ever say that again, I will show up at your front door, or maybe in your parking garage, or maybe I’ll be taking a nap on your couch when you get home. Do you know what
I’m going to do?”
Heads turned to stare at me across the bank while I waited for an answer that wouldn’t come.
“Nothing. I’ll just wait, because lately it seems that wherever I go, dead things show up and start tearing chunks out of people. I won’t lay a finger on you, Ravi. But I won’t stop them, either. You keep your mouth shut. You keep the money. You leave Grace alone.”
I slammed the phone down again, this time in the cradle, and walked back to a very rattled branch manager. “They have poor customer service skills. Here’s the correct destination number. Pull the funds from my account.”
His hands trembled as he punched the numbers in.
“Is there any way she can tell where the money came from?”
He nodded. “If she noticed, your friend might ask the bank, and they’d refer her to us. We treat account information as confidential, but—”
“She’ll know. She’s way too smart for that. Don’t do it.”
“Too late.” He printed out a paper and handed it to me. “That’s your confirmation code. It’s done. Why do you care if she knows?”
“I don’t want her to think she owes me. She might get the wrong idea. It’s just money.” I shrugged. I knew what mattered in life, and it wasn’t green paper or bank account balances.
Telling a banker “it’s just money” is a great way to give them heartburn. He sputtered and shifted his eyes until I shook his hand and left the office.
The bank president, Wilbur, waited for me at the door. “I want to thank you for banking with us. Are you all set up?”
“I am. I’ve got to get back to County. I have a friend there.” I drove back, terrified of explaining this to Grace.
GRACE
I spent two hours in a state of perpetual panic. What if Brynner didn’t get the transfer done? What if they wouldn’t accept it? I’d called in every favor just to get my daughter in, and worked any and every job available to keep her that way.