No Coming Back

by Jessie Salisbury

  Julie was watching Gina. “She’s pretty, Rich. Where did you find her?”

  “A friend of Wendy’s.” He saw her watching Susan trying to follow Tex through the complicated moves of some new dance craze. “I guess she and Tex have a lot in common.”

  “That is an interesting dance he’s doing. Some kind of jazz, I’d say, mixed up with something Oriental. Sue doesn’t seem to grasp it.”

  “Not the sort of thing a hair dresser does.”

  Julie laughed. “She isn’t your typical hair dresser. I don’t know why she’s being so quiet.”

  Pete stopped beside them, released Gina, and offered Julie his hand. “Come and try it.”

  “It isn’t really my thing,” she protested but stood up.

  Tex immediately claimed Gina again and Susan sat down beside Rich. She blew out a long breath. “That’s not for me.”

  “Me, either. Not now. I used to dance sometimes.” He thought their continual changing of partners fit into the exoticness of the dance, sort of like square dancing. They really needed more room. Two twirling couples more than filled the space.

  Susan looked at the can of soda she was holding. “I’ve never heard of this kind. What is it?”

  “Something Gina found somewhere, a discount place probably. Have a Pepsi if you don’t like it. Or maybe the beer is better?”

  “Beer really isn’t my thing and I’ve already had two. Probably two too many and it’s making me a little queasy.”

  His cup was empty. “Could you hand me mine over there?”

  She regarded him somberly, not moving.

  “This is my party and I’ll drink if I want to.”

  The song ended and a slower one began. Amid the ensuing laughter, Tex came for Susan. Pete was with Gina again. Julie sat beside Rich and said, “Rich, you pick out the oddest people.”

  She followed his gaze and watched Gina twirling under Pete’s upraised hand. “She would never be content as a teacher’s wife. You know that.”

  “Do I? And I’m not teaching anymore.”

  She smiled gently at him. “You will. It’s your life. Come along with me and Pete for a while, and maybe Sue. Let them go and come back into what you know and love.”

  He kept his eyes on Gina, reluctant to admit Julie was right. “Do you have any more advice for me, auntie? You’ve changed, Julie.”

  “Not me, Rich.” She continued to watch Pete and Gina across the room. “Sure, I could give you some advice, like not living here in this dingy place when you have a family waiting for you to come back and care for you.” She looked down at him. “Don’t ask me how I know.”

  The song ended. Pete and Gina stopped beside them. Gina went on into the kitchen, Pete offered his hand to Julie, and Rich was alone again, all by himself in the corner of the crowded little room. But not alone. Julie just had to bring him up again. He poured beer into a paper cup, downed it, and reached for another can.

  Another hand closed around his and he looked up at Pete. Pete set the cup on the table. “Rich, take it easy.”

  “Why?”

  “Let her go, Rich.”

  “She’s going anyway.” He reached for his drink again but Pete picked it up first.

  “You my keeper, Pete?”

  Pete put the cup down again. “No. We’ve been friends a long time, so don’t get mad at me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But stop drinking, Rich. You never were able to handle very much of it.”

  “This is just beer, not the hard stuff.” He raised the cup in salute in Pete’s direction. “Here’s to you and Julie.” He took a large swallow.

  Tex and Gina came out of the kitchen arm in arm. She leaned against him, laughing. He put his arm around her waist. Rich winced and closed his eyes.

  “I think we’d better go, Rich,” Pete said.

  Feeling no animosity toward him, Rich regarded him silently, grateful for his presence and understanding, but unable to say so.

  Pete looked around the room. “Where’s Sue?”

  “She went into the bathroom,” Gina said.

  “We’ll see that she gets home,” Tex said, “if she wants to stay awhile.”

  Julie leaned down and whispered in Rich’s ear, “We’ll be around later, after all this is over. Take it easy.”

  “Sure. Thanks for coming.”

  He didn’t move after they were gone. He didn’t know where Susan had gone and he could hear Tex and Gina somewhere out of his sight. In the bedroom probably. His cup was nearly empty and he drained it. He tried moving his leg but his knee was stiff and hurting from sitting still too long. His therapist had told him about that—keep moving it gently, don’t sit in one position too long to let it get stiff. He called, “Tex? Gina?”

  After a long moment of dead silence, during which his frustration grew, Gina said from behind him, “Something wrong, Dickie?”

  “It’s getting a little quiet.”

  “So it is. Tex, let’s go somewhere where it’s a little livelier and there’s more room to dance. I want to try that new one on a real floor.”

  “Gina, this is Rich’s party. I don’t think . . .”

  She stamped her foot. “I want to leave.”

  “Go on, Tex,” Rich said, not really meaning to. “You’ve got her and now she’s your problem.”

  She snorted. “So that’s what you think of me, is it? A problem?”

  Rich knew the beer was affecting him and his ability to control his tongue, but he didn’t care. “A big problem. Poor Tex.”

  She glared at him, her eyes flashing. “You’re drunk, you poor fool.”

  “Yeah, I’m a poor fool.”

  Tex put his hand on her arm. “Come on, Gina. Rich, take it easy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Gina stopped in the doorway, then looked back at him and laughed. “Oh, Dickie!” She laughed again, mockingly, so like Jim Weston, and slammed the door behind her.

  “Gina!” Forgetting his knee, Rich lurched out of the chair to follow her, ask her to come back. His knee buckled and he fell forward. Unable to catch himself on anything, the side of his head hit the sharp leg of the steel cot.

  ~ ~ ~

  Susan Randall rested her head against the side of the bathtub. She had been disgustingly sick and had automatically turned on the water. The cold spray from the shower cleared her head a little and she sat up. She caught a handful of the cold water and splashed it on her face. It helped a little.

  It gradually dawned on her that the apartment was silent. She got clumsily to her feet and, running her fingers along the wall to keep herself steady, went into the kitchen. It was deserted. The wall clock told her it was after eleven, and she wondered how it had gotten so late.

  She saw no one and continued slowly into the living room. For a moment she thought that, too, was deserted, but then noticed Rich sprawled on the floor. She knelt beside him, saw the blood oozing from his forehead, and her stomach started turning summersaults again. But it also shocked her into soberness.

  Rich was breathing raggedly and she knew he needed help she could not provide. She scrambled unsteadily to her feet, surveyed the room, and located the telephone on the kitchen counter. Her hands were shaking but she called 911 and was able to tell the dispatcher where she was and what had apparently happened, and said yes, she would be there when the ambulance arrived.

  She put the mobile handset back in its stand and stared unseeing at it. There’s something else I have to do. What is it? Somebody I should call.

  She could recall only one name. There was a directory under the phone. Her hands were unsteady and her vision a little bleary but she managed to find the name, thankful there was a listed number. She held the handset steady while she punc
hed in the numbers.

  It seemed like an age before a sleepy male voice answered her call.

  “Mr. Weston?”

  14.

  It took Ken Weston about twenty minutes to get dressed and drive to Rich’s apartment on Factory Street. He had made little sense out of the woman’s call and now imagined the worst, knowing only that Rich had somehow been injured again.

  An ambulance was parked partly on the sidewalk with its lights flashing. Several people were across the narrow street watching. Gripped by a cold chill, Ken pulled in behind the rescue vehicle and ran up the stairs. The door to Rich’s apartment was open and he stopped in the doorway to catch his breath. Two emergency attendants were kneeling on the floor beside Rich who appeared to be unconscious with a bloody welt on the side of his forehead. One of them was checking his pulse, while the other was probing along his knee. A girl huddled in an armchair beyond them watching intently. She must be the one who called me.

  One of the EMTs, a young woman, raised her head as Ken came in. “You a relative?”

  “His brother. What happened?”

  She motioned toward the girl in the chair. “She said something happened to his knee and made him fall.” She kept her gaze on Rich, not looking at Ken.

  The girl said, “I was in the bathroom. I found him like that.”

  Ken noted the empty beer cans, the paper cups on the floor, an overturned bowl of corn chips and had a glimmer of what had happened. That certainly isn’t like Rich. What the heck was going on?

  The paramedic, an older man, stood up. “We’ll get him to the emergency room. Looks like he might have a concussion. Can’t tell about his leg. Did he have surgery on it?”

  “Broke it in an accident,” Ken said. “He’s been recovering from that.”

  The EMT got to her feet. “I’ll go get the stretcher.”

  Ken sighed in relief. “I’ll come along behind you to do the paperwork. His doctor’s Ben Hoadley.”

  “Thanks.” The woman trotted out. The male attendant was on his cell phone describing conditions to somebody, answering questions.

  Ken turned to the girl in the chair, a pretty, dark haired girl. He suddenly found her apparent vulnerability very appealing. She met his gaze with wide-eyed wonder. “Are you the one who called me?”

  She nodded then whispered, “You’re Ken Weston.”

  He wondered how she knew. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I found him like that.” She added, looking around, “Everybody else left, I guess.” She continued after a pause. “There was another couple here I was supposed to leave with. I guess they left before this happened.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Susan Randall.” She expelled a long breath. “Pete’s sister. You know, Rich’s friend. He was here with his fiancée, but they left quite a while ago.”

  Ken watched the two EMTS ease the still unconscious Rich onto their wheeled stretcher, cover him with a blanket, and strap him in. “Okay,” the man said. “We’ll get him to the hospital.”

  “Good. I’ll come along and take care of everything for him.”

  Between them, they maneuvered the stretcher out. He could hear them in the hall talking to each other, not really understanding the words, but realized after a moment they were maneuvering the stretcher into the elevator. He heard its door creak closed. Ken returned his attention to Susan. “You’re Rich’s girlfriend?”

  She was still staring at him, her mouth partly open, and shook her head. “No. I came with my brother and his fiancée. I was invited because they needed a date for Rich’s roommate. I guess he left with the other girl. I don’t know what happened.”

  Ken decided to sort it all out later. “Then you don’t live here?” He wondered why that was important. She was having an unsettling effect on him.

  She shook her head, but she didn’t move her eyes from his. “Rich and my brother are good friends. There was a party, sort of. I don’t know the other couple. Friends of his, I guess.”

  She was upsetting his equilibrium. No one had ever looked at him with such open adoration. He wondered just how much she had had to drink. “And I guess maybe Rich drank too much? He doesn’t usually do that. Was there a fight or something?”

  “I don’t know. Everything happened while I was in the bathroom.” She paused. “Tex was supposed to take me home. I guess he forgot.”

  He didn’t ask who Tex might be. He could do that later, after he had talked to Rich.

  He heard the ambulance leave, its siren wailing as it approached Main Street, and knew he had to leave as well. “So. May I take you home, Miss Randall? Do you have a car somewhere?” He didn’t think she was in any condition to drive and wondered how he could dissuade her.

  “Oh.” She appeared confused for a moment. “I would like that, yes, please. No, I came with Pete and Julie.”

  Another name he would have to identify. “I’ll see you home before I go to the hospital. It’s the least I can do. For all the help you’ve been.”

  She got out of her chair unsteadily as if not quite trusting her legs to hold her up and put her hand on the back of it for a moment. “I feel a little dizzy. Poor Rich, all of this is so upsetting . . .”

  “Let me help you.” Ken offered her his arm for support and she took it eagerly. “Do you have a jacket?”

  “No. I have a purse somewhere . . .” She located it on the counter and grabbed it.

  He held her arm gently but firmly on the way down the stairs, and she pressed against him, he supposed because of the narrowness of the stairwell, and wondered if perhaps they should have taken the elevator. He opened his car door for her and helped her in.

  She sat beside him in his car, looking straight ahead as she told him the address on a residential street he was not familiar with. “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Weston.”

  “My name is Ken.”

  “I know. Rich talks about you.” She glanced at him. “He really needs your help, you know, and not just because of this fall.”

  “I’ll help him all I can.” He could think of nothing to say that might comfort her. Or himself. What am I going to do now? How do I tell Dad and Mother about all this? Or do I?

  “Don’t think too badly about Rich.” Her voice was steadier. “It really wasn’t that kind of a party, just a get together to introduce them to us. His roommate and Gina.”

  Another name. He glanced at her. She was huddled with her arms tight across her chest. “Or is it that you don’t me to think harshly of you?”

  He saw her straighten, stiffen her back. “My name is Susan. Rich is my brother’s best friend and I’ve known him forever. He’s just having a hard time right now because he can’t play ball anymore.”

  He released a long breath. “When I get this all sorted out, I probably won’t think harshly of him.”

  She indicated a turn onto a side street, and then another, then pointed. “That house there with the porch light on.” When he had pulled to the curb and stopped, she asked, “Will you let us, me, know how he is? When you find out?”

  “Of course. Do you have a number I can call?’

  “Sure. Do you have something to write on?” She peered into the small purse she was carrying.

  The first thing he found was his business card. “Write on this.”

  She took the offered card and pen. “My cell,” she said. “It’s the easiest.”

  He took the card and offered her another. “You can reach me here.”

  She closed her fingers around it.

  “And thanks, Susan. Thanks for helping, for calling me.”

  She met his eyes and his heart skipped a beat. “It was all I could do, and I’m so sorry all this happened.”

  He watched her until she reached the front door, remo
ved a key from her purse, and unlocked the door. She turned his way, waved, and went in. He drove a little faster on the way to the hospital.

  ~ ~ ~

  “We have him settled and we’re waiting for the doctor,” a nurse told him. “He isn’t really coherent.”

  Ken followed her to a curtained cubicle. A nurse was attaching an IV and he could not see Rich’s face. He did not go in. “I’ll take care of the paperwork.”

  When he had signed the various forms, he said, “I’ll be back in the morning. If you need me before then, call.” He realized that it was already morning.

  The nurse nodded, still looking at the papers. “We can’t do anything until he is seen by the doctor.”

  “Then there isn’t anything I can do now?”

  “No.”

  He drove home slowly, wondering how he would tell Jewel. He tapped lightly on her door. “Mother?”

  She answered almost immediately. She was sitting up in bed, wide-awake. “What happened? I listened on the extension, I thought it was your father calling.”

  “Rich apparently fell in his apartment and hit his head. He’s in the emergency room. I’ll go back first thing in the morning.”

  “Did they say anything? The emergency people, I mean.”

  “He may have a concussion and he may have hurt his knee again.”

  She was silent, keeping her attention on her hands.

  “And how do we tell Dad about this?”

  She raised her head. “We don’t until we have something we can tell him.”

  Ken wasn’t surprised. She had been Rich’s advocate for a long time. “I’d better get to bed.”

  Sleep didn’t come as easily as it should have. It wasn’t Rich’s injuries that rose before his closed eyes. He was in good hands and being cared for. It was Susan Randall’s pale frightened face and adoring eyes.

  15.

  Laura Boutelle usually arrived early for work so she would have time to learn what had happened during the night, then check the notes and determine what she could expect as she began her shift. Today was no different although Sunday mornings were frequently fairly quiet.