This Enemy Town

by Marcia Talley

  “Oh, Dorothy, I’m so sorry.” And I was sorry, too, but for her, not for the admiral. He’d made his bed and would have to lie in it. Eventually, there’d be a courtmartial. Chances are, Hart would do hard time in Leavenworth.

  Dorothy wept quietly into the phone and I waited her out. “I have a migraine like you wouldn’t believe,” she sobbed.

  “Don’t worry about checking the set this week,” I told her. “You just stay home and get well.”

  “But I want to stay involved,” she choked. “What else am I going to do now that—that—”

  “Does Kevin know?” I asked.

  My question set off another crying jag. It was over a minute before Dorothy was able to speak to me again. “Kevin’s so angry, I thought he was going to kill his father.”

  “Is Kevin with you?”

  “No.”

  So Kevin was laying low, too. I wasn’t surprised. Until this happened, he’d been the pampered son of an admiral, cocky, behaving as if the stars his father wore were his own. When the news broke, it’d be payback time. The brigade would not treat him kindly.

  “Dorothy? I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Snuffle.

  “If you need anything, you just let me know.”

  Sniff. Sniff.

  As I hung up the phone, I realized that Dorothy’s worst fears had come true. Except for me, she was utterly, completely alone.

  CHAPTER 23

  I checked in with Dorothy every day after that. On Friday her headache was better, so she’d gone ahead with her chemo. The next day, however, the migraine came back with a vengeance, affecting her vision. Ted Hart, at home on leave before departing for Norfolk, called the doctor, who prescribed Imitrex for the pain. Kevin talked to his mother on the telephone, expressing concern, but refused to visit while his father was present.

  It seemed like years had passed since opening night, but Sweeney was winding down at last. Friday’s show ran smoothly, Saturday’s was a triumph. Only the Sunday matinee to go, and the show would go down in Academy history.

  On Sunday morning I telephoned Dorothy to say I’d check the set before the final performance, but Dorothy didn’t pick up. Never mind, I thought. She’s either too sick to answer the phone or she’s already on her way to the Academy. Better to err on the side of having two people show up to check the mechanisms rather than nobody.

  The snow that had fallen midweek had begun to melt in one of those warm snaps that often comes to Annapolis in late February, fooling the crocuses into sending out green shoots and hopeful yellow blossoms in the mistaken assumption that it’s spring. I pulled into a parking spot in front of Mahan, where the piles of snow thrown up by the snow plow had begun to melt, sending rivulets of water trickling across the pavement.

  Although it was nearly noon, few people were around. At the chapel, the Protestant service was still in session. Back in Bancroft Hall, midshipmen were probably catching a few last minute z’s before Noon Formation, sleeping off the excesses of a Saturday night away from the Yard.

  In the auditorium, everything looked as we had left it the night before. The curtains stood open but the house lights were off so I couldn’t see very well, just the gray outlines of a set that I’d come to know so well—Sweeney’s tonsorial parlor, Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop, the hulking rectangle of her diabolical oven. It was so quiet I could hear my own breathing.

  Or was it?

  The breathing became a whimper, the whimper a moan, and I realized I was not alone.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Anybody there?”

  I drew closer to the stage. “Hello?”

  The moaning seemed to be coming from the area around Mrs. Lovett’s oven, so I climbed the steps to the stage and crossed over to it. Someone was slumped on the floor, bent over a plastic waste basket, violently retching. “Dorothy?” I rushed over and knelt next to my friend, lifting her chin so I could look into her eyes. “My God, Dorothy, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Hannah, I think I’m losing my mind! I had chemo yesterday, but this whole business about Ted and the investigation has got me so spun up that I forgot to take my antinausea medication. Oh, God, I feel like hell.” She ducked her face into the wastepaper basket again, her body jackknifing in its futile attempt to vomit up something, anything.

  “Dorothy, how long have you been like this?”

  With her face still in the basket, Dorothy shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe an hour.” She curled up like a leaf in autumn, and the horrible dry heaving continued.

  When the retching subsided, I gathered her into my arms, gently rocking. I straightened her wig, which had tipped over her forehead and was in danger of falling off the next time she dove for the wastebasket. “Dorothy, this is way past the point where it’s going to get better by itself. You need to see a doctor. I’m going to take you to the emergency room.”

  Dorothy lay limply in my arms and moaned.

  One arm at a time, I shrugged out of my coat and folded it like a pillow, using it to prop Dorothy into a sitting position against the oven. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Dorothy raised a hand, then let it drop to her side. “Hannah, don’t leave me.”

  “I’ll be right back. A minute, no more.”

  I dashed off stage left and ran down a short flight of stairs that led to a little vestibule. On my left a spiral staircase went up and up, first to the balcony, then to rooms at various levels in the clock tower. In the other direction was a janitor’s closet, and just beyond, on the other side of the door, I remembered seeing a water fountain. I wrenched open the closet door, grabbed a handful of paper towels, and wet them thoroughly at the water fountain. Then I hurried back to Dorothy.

  “Here,” I said, handing her a paper towel dripping with water. “Suck on this. You’re dehydrated.”

  “I’m going to die!” she moaned.

  “Trust me. You’re not going to die.” With one of the towels, I swabbed her forehead and cheeks. “You’re going to the hospital where they’ll give you something that will stop the nausea.” I tugged on her shoulders, urging her to muster what resources she had and stand up, but she was dead weight in my arms. “Come on, Dorothy,” I urged. “Work with me here.”

  “Oh, oh, oh, oh, I am going to die,” she whimpered.

  “You’re going to be fine, but not unless you stand up and let me take you out of here.” I tugged on her again. “Dorothy!”

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital! Kevin’s coming!”

  I checked my watch. Twelve-fifteen. Kevin would be arriving in about an hour, along with the rest of the cast of Sweeney Todd, ready for costumes and makeup.

  “What do you plan to do? Sit in the audience holding a wastebasket on your lap? Think! If you don’t come with me now, you won’t be well enough to see the performance, so there’s no use complaining about it.” I shifted my position until I was kneeling in front of her. I thrust my hands under her armpits and eased her into an upright position.

  Dorothy’s hand began roving erratically over the floor. “Where’s my purse?”

  “There you go!” I teased. “Barfing up major body parts and the woman still wants her purse.”

  At that, Dorothy managed a laugh, but it quickly turned into a moan.

  I felt around in the semidarkness until my hand touched the strap of her handbag. “I’ve got it,” I said, looping the strap around my neck. Then I persuaded Dorothy to wrap her arms around my neck, too. With Dorothy and her handbag hanging from my neck, I staggered to my feet. I eased an arm around her waist and shuffled her off the stage, into the lobby, and down the front steps of the building, where I opened the door of my car and pretty much shoved her in. “Lie back. We’ll be out of here in a minute.” I elevated her legs on a stack of overdue books, then covered her with my coat, tucking it snugly around her. In spite of the coat and the warmth of my car, she began to shiver.

  After running the mini obstacle course of Jersey barriers that surrounded the sentry post
at Gate 8, I turned left at the light and broke all kinds of land speed records getting to Rowe Boulevard. At Route 50, Rowe turns into Bestgate and it’s pretty much a straight shot to Anne Arundel Medical Center, if you know the back way in. After passing the Wawa, I turned left onto Medical Drive, ran the orange light at the next intersection, and veered left, winding around the Clatinoff Pavillion to the front of the building where EMERGENCY glowed in red neon from the top of the roof that sheltered the entryway.

  I pulled in, set the emergency brake and left Dorothy in the car with the engine running. I waited—come on, come on!—for the glass doors to whoosh open ahead of me, then barged into the emergency room and looked around, feeling frantic.

  With the exception of a receptionist, there wasn’t a nurse or an aide in sight.

  Damn! Just when you need them, they disappear. Every time I’d been to Anne Arundel before, pink-shirted volunteers kept sprouting up like weeds, pushing gurneys, magazine carts, and empty wheelchairs, causing traffic jams all over the place. I rushed the information desk, where an aide was busily attaching a form to a clipboard. “Excuse me, but I’ve got a very sick woman in my car.” I waved my hand toward the wall of windows that separated me from my sick friend.

  The aide looked up from her work, her face grave. “Tylene, give this lady a hand, will you?”

  From behind a partition, Tylene appeared, dressed in turquoise scrubs in a cheerful ice cream cone print. Within seconds she’d located a wheelchair and followed me outside to help Dorothy get into it.

  With Dorothy sagging like a cooked noodle, Tylene pushed the chair up to the information desk, where I explained Dorothy’s problem to the aide, who handed me a clipboard and asked me to have Dorothy fill it out. “She’s so sick,” I replied, “that I don’t even think she can remember who she is, let alone hold a pen.”

  “I’ve got to get the roast into the oven,” Dorothy muttered, pretty much proving my point. “It’s just sitting out on the counter. And the potatoes need peeling. But I suppose I could make rice.” On and on she babbled, leaping from dinner preparations to movies she forgot to TiVo to plans for an addition to their Davidsonville home.

  “Do the best you can, then,” the aide said with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll fine-tune it later.”

  In the end, I filled out the form as best I could by rummaging around in Dorothy’s purse for her driver’s license, military dependent’s ID, and her Tricare health insurance card. “Here,” I said, handing the card over the counter along with the clipboard. “Over to you.”

  The aide scanned the form, photocopied Dorothy’s insurance card, then, apparently satisfied, handed me a square pager made of black plastic with a blinking red light like the kind you get when you go to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I showed it to Dorothy, whose eyes were now hovering at half mast. “Look, they’ll call us when our table is ready.”

  Dorothy’s eyes flew open. “How long do I have to wait?”

  Earlier, I’d noticed a sign prominently displayed on the information desk: approximate wait time for non-life-threatening emergencies. Underneath the notice was a selection of flip cards hanging on pegs. The flip card said: < 1 HOUR.

  I read the sign aloud. “Less than one hour.”

  “Okay.” Dorothy managed a weak smile, then grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and began retching into it.

  Almost instantly, Tyrene materialized like a guardian angel, carrying a kidney-shaped basin and a wet cloth. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she soothed, wiping Dorothy’s face with the cloth. “They’re kinda busy back there right now, but we’ll be getting to you right soon.”

  Dorothy nodded, and using both hands, pressed the wet cloth against her eyes.

  “Can’t we get her something to drink?” I asked.

  Tyrene shook her head. “Not till the doctor takes a look at her.” She pushed Dorothy’s chair out of the traffic and eased it into position next to an upholstered chair, which I plopped down in immediately.

  And we did what you do in waiting rooms. We waited.

  At the far end of the room, a huge, flat-screen TV was tuned to CNN and some Army brigadier general (retired) was pontificating about the war in Iraq. Next to us a bearded man in a plaid shirt dozed under a ficus tree, his head thrown back and his mouth yawning open, a black pager balanced precariously on one knee. Every time somebody wandered in the vicinity of the doors, they would whoosh open, letting cold air in. After five minutes of that, I moved Dorothy over several rows to keep her out of the draft. Tyrene must have noticed because she reappeard bearing a flannel blanket, fresh from the ER blanket-warmer, which she helped me tuck around Dorothy’s shoulders.

  Eventually our pager started flashing like an alien spaceship and someone appeared to roll Dorothy away. I offered to go with her, but in three or four rambling sentences, Dorothy refused. Trying not to feel miffed, I watched TV, read two old National Geographics from cover to cover, telephoned Paul to tell him where I was, left a message for Admiral Hart on his home phone, and filed my nails, not necessarily in that order.

  Three hours later Dorothy was back, smiling bravely. “That’s it?” I asked Tyrene.

  “That’s it. You can take her home.” She handed me a sheaf of papers. “These are for her primary care physician. She’ll need to follow up with him in three days.”

  “What did they do?” I asked Dorothy.

  “Blood and urine tests. Then they started an IV and put something in it. I felt better almost right away.”

  Tyrene looked down at her patient. “Now you take it easy for a couple of days, you hear me, Dorothy?”

  Dorothy nodded mutely.

  I set the hospital forms on Dorothy’s lap, went around to the back of the chair and started pushing. “Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.”

  Dorothy twisted in her chair. “Oh, no! My car’s at the Academy!”

  “We can pick it up later. You shouldn’t be driving anyway.”

  She checked her watch. “I’m missing it, I’m missing it!”

  “Missing what?” I asked.

  “Kevin’s final performance!” Her eyes glistened with tears. She grabbed my hand where it rested on the handle-bar of the wheelchair. “Please, Hannah, take me back to Mahan.”

  After everything that had happened in the past several hours, I’d completely forgotten about the musical until she reminded me. “You have been to every rehearsal. And you haven’t missed a single one of Kevin’s performances,” I reminded her. “He’ll understand if you miss just this one.”

  “I need to go back to Mahan.”

  “Well, then you’ll have to push yourself down Route 50 in this wheelchair, because I am going to take you home.”

  “There won’t be anybody there,” she pouted. “Ted has to report to Norfolk in the morning. He’s already gone.”

  “That’s all right. If nobody’s home, I’ll just stay with you until we’re sure you’re all right. End of story.”

  With Dorothy muttering mild curses under her breath, I pushed her chair in the direction of the sliding glass doors, but had to pull to one side to make way for an emergency. An ambulance had roared up, siren whoop-whoop-whooping, and a pair of EMTs had opened its rear doors, preparing to off-load some poor soul on a stretcher.

  Five seconds later the EMTs eased through the door with the stretcher, followed by someone I recognized: Professor Medwin Black. Before I could even begin to wonder what he was doing at the hospital instead of overseeing the musical at Mahan Hall, Dorothy screamed. I turned my head and watched as her eyes rolled back in their sockets and she fainted dead away. “Dorothy? What the hell?”

  The form on the stretcher stirred. The left side of his face was covered by a bandage that wrapped completely around his head, and his neck was encased in a brace. “Mother? What are you doing here?” he slurred, before he, too, lost consciousness.

  The casualty was Midshipman Kevin Hart.

  CHAPTER 24

  How we all fit into the private treatment ro
om without a shoehorn, I’ll never know.

  Kevin lay on the gurney, woozy but conscious, and Dorothy sat in a chair—a regular one, without wheels—appearing more alert than I’d seen her in weeks.

  “How are you feeling, Kev? Can I get you anything?” Dorothy shot up and down from her chair like a jack-in-a-box, with Medwin Black and me running interference to keep her from actually climbing up onto the gurney with her son.

  Kevin’s left eye was turning black and he’d been X-rayed. No broken bones, thank heaven. We were awaiting the arrival of a plastic surgeon who’d been called in for consultation about the nasty gash on his cheek.

  “What happened?” I asked Kevin after doctor number one came and went.

  “I crashed my car,” he replied, squinting at me through his one good eye. “I was moving it from in front of Mahan to a space along the seawall.” He paused, as if trying to piece it all together. “I remember feeling groggy. Then wham!”

  “He missed the ninety-degree turn at the end of McNair and drove head-on into the seawall,” Professor Black explained. “He was driving slowly, thank goodness, but the air bag deployed, hitting him square in the face.”

  “Oh, his face, his poor face,” Dorothy crooned. “It’ll be all right, Kev. Of course it will be all right. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  To my way of thinking, Kevin had plenty to worry about. The results of his blood test, for one thing, if, as I suspected, he’d been driving under the influence. The penalties for that are severe, especially on a federal reservation.

  His eye, for another. I cringed at the sight of the bruise that was blossoming around his eye socket. Hopefully it was simple, just a humdinger of a shiner. If Kevin’s vision were impaired, that would shelve any plans he had of becoming a pilot.

  He turned his head, and winced in pain. “I tried to call you, Mom. I didn’t want you to miss me.”

  “Miss you? What do you mean?”

  Medwin Black smiled. “Adam Monroe, our Beadle, was just diagnosed with infectious mononucleosis. The doctors grew concerned about his liver, so Kevin was slated to go on.” Professor Black turned to his student. “But you’ll get your chance next year, Kevin. I’m sure of it.”