Vessel, Book I: The Advent

by Tominda Adkins

  * * * * *

  I spent about fifteen hours in the waiting area, surviving on energy pills, vending machine muffins, and bad cafeteria coffee. I was on and off the phone with Margot and the insurance company the entire time, assuring them over and over again that no, Jesse had not overdosed on anything the night before. He hadn’t even had three whole drinks yet, and no, we weren't dealing with bulimia again as far as I knew.

  Jesse's collapse was all over the news, although there was little to report. Nothing changed, and there were no conclusions as to what was wrong with him, medically speaking. Every couple of hours, someone came in to have me sign something or ask me questions, and all they would tell me was that Jesse was fine, just inexplicably unconscious.

  Finally, at about two in the afternoon, right when I was settling down to sleep on the waiting room's least uncomfortable bench, a nurse came in and told me that Jesse was alert and asking for me.

  There was no mistaking which room he was in. The flowers that had accumulated within the past couple of hours alone now overflowed to a table across the hallway. Cards and well-wishing notes covered the door, sent from every source imaginable, from celebrity acquaintances, from the governor of Tennessee, from obsessed fans. You'd think the Pope himself was in there with a corroded artery. I found the door handle among all the cards and slipped inside.

  Jesse was alone. He sat straight up in bed and greeted me with a look of pure panic.

  "Quick! What’s a Cat's Can?" he demanded.

  And here we go.

  "A what?"

  "A Cat's Can."

  I sighed and moved farther into the room, maneuvering over baskets of flowers. "A CAT Scan is when they take an X-ray of your head, pretty much."

  His fearful expression didn't go away. In fact, it grew worse. He gasped audibly. "Are they going to cut my hair?"

  I immediately missed the waiting room so very badly. "I really don’t think so ...."

  "You don’t think so, or don't know so!?"

  I pulled up a chair, trying to seem as encouraging as possible, but I was exhausted. Unlike him, I hadn't just taken a fifteen-hour nap.

  "Jesse. I am fairly certain that no one is going to do anything to your hair, but I don’t even know what’s wrong with you." I looked him over as I sat down. "So what happened? What did they tell you?"

  With the immediate threat to his hair banished, Jesse calmed, but a quieter fear remained. It churned behind his eyes and tugged at the pale planes of his face, and it scared me to death.

  I asked again, speaking each word sternly. "Jesse. What did they tell you?"

  Jesse shook his head like it was hard for him to pay attention to my question, like he was brushing it off. "They said I’m fine. Said it was exhaustion."

  My shoulders sank with instant relief. "Jesus, Jesse ..." I took a deep breath and immediately started rattling off feasible schedule changes, taking time for a break and then re-routing the tour later to make up for affected shows. But Jesse wasn’t finished; he wasn't listening. He was staring off into space, preoccupied with thoughts that obviously had nothing to do with the tour. I stopped talking and a nervous stillness fell between us. Jesse broke it quietly.

  "It's not exhaustion, Jordan."

  A knot formed behind my navel. The person I was looking at was not Jesse Cannon, at least not any side of him I'd seen in five years' time. This person was not worried about his hair or his career. This person was shaken to the bone.

  The knot tightened when Jesse turned to me, concentrating on the familiarity of my eyes and face, reminding himself that he could trust me. The door was closed, but he spoke in a hushed, sober tone, not once taking his eyes off mine.

  "Something is about to happen to me."

  P A R T I I

  O R I G I N S