Fall Love

by Anne Whitehouse

  "Let's see what it is," suggested Althea.

  "I never suspected that you were an ambulance chaser," Jeanne replied. "You go ahead. Just don't get too close."

  Jeanne's condescension irritated Althea, but she decided to satisfy her curiosity anyway. Just past the intersection, two huge trucks, one in front of another, were blocking the narrow aisle of Grove Street. Althea walked around them. As she approached the sidewalk, she noticed the commotion first. Some men were arguing, and other men were gathered by. She decided that they must be the workmen associated with the trucks. Some of them were moving aside to clear a path for two medics. She assumed that one of the workmen had been hurt, or else had suffered a heart attack.

  Althea had just stepped up from the curb when she saw the injured man lying motionless on the sidewalk. It was like the dawning awareness in a bad dream as she looked down on Paul's familiar face, now white and closed. Her heart seemed to freeze, and she swayed weakly. As she looked up, she saw a rope hanging slackly in the air from the roof. There was a rushing in her head; she was nauseated. Feebly she tried to resist and felt sicker. She gave in, and it was a relief, though still sickening, to let go. She felt the pit of her stomach sinking, and then she fainted right where she stood, some twenty feet from Paul, as the medics arrived beside him and commenced to take his vital signs. She felt a tainted voluptuousness, a release that was awful and pleasant at the same time. She didn't register any impact.

  Scarcely was she conscious again when Jeanne was kneeling over her, her face drawn with concern. "Althea, are you all right?" Jeanne's voice was both abrupt and tender.

  * * *

  Jeanne hadn't waited by herself for long. Instead of following Althea around the two trucks, she had squeezed through the narrow space between them. First she heard a man say, "The screws must've been loose." Next she saw him close by on her right, and she saw a red-faced man retort, "Why the hell weren't they checked then?"

  The view directly in front of her was obstructed by a huddle of other men. Farther to her right she observed a man and a woman rushing out of the building on the corner. He was black-haired and burly, she stylish with Oriental features. Jeanne heard the red-faced man begin an explanation, "The bumper fell to the ground and somehow bounced and hit his foot. It happened so fast. Like a one-in-a-million chance. He was out like a light."

  Jeanne, still listening, followed behind this couple, around the men gathered on the sidewalk. She saw a large, curved piece of chrome on the ground and the two medics preparing to lift a prone man onto a stretcher. Before she recognized this man, she sensed who he was, just as, not two months ago, she had sensed his presence before she glimpsed him in the empty rows of the Green Heron Theater.

  She tried to approach him, but the burly man in front of her blocked her. "Let the medical people take care of this," he ordered.

  "I know him," Jeanne insisted. "Let me by." She craned her neck, trying to see over his shoulder, but he was too tall. She glanced around him and instead of seeing Paul, she saw Althea, just when she had almost forgotten about her.

  Althea had been farther from the scene of the accident than Jeanne, who had advised her, with a mocking undertone, not to get too close. Jeanne observed Althea swaying unsteadily, and just as she realized what was happening, she saw Althea collapse into a faint.

  The action was quiet, almost calm in appearance. Althea didn't topple or fall flat. Her legs slipped from under her. To Jeanne, it seemed like a spiralling inward, as if Althea were turning into herself as much as falling. It was like the intake of a breath, as if a voice were being swallowed back, before sound. Its cry was primal and silent.

  Watching Althea, Jeanne discovered a refracted glimmer of herself, when she had begun to fall on that October train ride from Greenwich and then been rescued. She recalled the bliss of being succored, her exhilaration. In that instant of realization she rushed to Althea's aid, but she was not as close to Althea as the woman had been to her on the train, and she didn't reach her friend in time to prevent her fall.

  Yet Althea hardly seemed to need Jeanne's help. She lay on the sidewalk slightly curved into herself, in a languid sprawl that had nothing awkward or damaged about it.

  Although the focus of attention was on Paul, the youngest of the workmen had also noticed Althea fainting, but Jeanne reached her before he did. "She's with me," Jeanne said, not dismissing him but explaining.

  "We ought to revive her," he suggested.

  "Yes." Jeanne's glance flickered over him, but before either of them acted, Althea's eyes opened of their own accord. Jeanne knelt beside her. She took Althea's wrist to feel her pulse and smoothed the hair back from her brow. Her skin was dead-white and moist.

  The workman took off his jacket. "Here, let her rest on this," he offered, his chivalrous gesture shaming Jeanne, who hadn't thought to remove her own.

  "That's very kind," she commented.

  Together, they arranged the jacket under Althea's head. Althea didn't resist their adjustments. Recovering speech, she spoke only one word: "Paul." To Jeanne it seemed like a command, as surely as if Althea had said, "Go to Paul."

  Jeanne nodded. "I'll be right back," she promised. She found the medics preparing to remove Paul to the ambulance. She hesitated, afraid to intrude yet wanting tremendously to do so. "Excuse me," she interrupted, speaking loudly, "I know this man. I'm a friend of his."

  One of the medics stopped to look at her, and Jeanne returned his gaze. He had a red beard and crinkles around his eyes. "Well, your friend has broken bones," he informed Jeanne. "We're taking him straight to the hospital. You can follow if you like. Go to the waiting area of the St. Vincent's emergency room. Someone there will keep you informed."

  As he spoke, Jeanne's eyes strayed from him. She could see that Paul's right leg, which was closest to her, was turned out at the knee, and the entire foot was encased in a pillow.

  "Please let me see him," she begged. "Just for a second."

  The medic's crinkles deepened as his tone warned her, "You can help him the most by letting us get him to the hospital." Then he seemed to relent. "Okay, you can speak to him but keep your word. Just for a second, not any longer. He's conscious," and he stepped aside for Jeanne.

  Jeanne knelt beside Paul. His eyes were closed, his face turned to one side. She bent, touching her lips to his exposed cheek. Her hair brushed his face in a wispier kiss. She saw his eyes open, at first a clear blue, then clouded over. He grimaced, evidently in pain. Recognizing her, he spoke her name aloud.

  She touched his hand. "I'm here, and I'm going to the hospital. Althea's here, too, and she's coming with me."

  "Can you call Kurt Matthews for me? Somehow I don't think I'll be dancing tonight." Trying to laugh, Paul cringed. "And Bryce—he's expecting me at home."

  "I'll call them both for you, I promise. And I'll wait at the hospital for the news. Look, they're ready for you."

  She stepped back to give the medics room. "Take good care of him," she said to them. She felt urgent and empowered by Paul's requests. She gave herself a mission: she would discover what had happened and how it had occurred. If she couldn't be a ministering angel, she thought, she could at least be mistress of the situation. Right after Paul was taken away, she went to question the young workman who had come to Althea's aid.

  "He wanted to know if he could watch the hoist, and I said, 'Why not?'" he confessed. "I feel bad about that now. But this seemed like a fairly routine job. I have to admit, that back half of a Thunderbird looked pretty weird to us. But we lift lots of strange-looking furniture. For millionaires. Things you would never want. The car was cool by comparison. It was almost inside the window, when bam! the bumper crashed to the sidewalk and bounced off and hit him. I still haven't figured out exactly how it happened. He's lucky that it didn't fall on his foot directly, because that foot would be gone, gone, gone."

  Jeanne was quiet, thinking of that outcome. Althea, too, was listening, propped up on her elbows. Tears welled in her eye
s. "I'm really all right," she said before she was asked. "It's Paul. I feel so sorry for him."

  "Is that why you fainted?" the young man asked her.

  "I guess I fainted out of shock when I recognized him."

  He nodded seriously. "I can understand it, because we've never had an accident. I mean, I've been with this company two years, and this is the first one I've seen. It must be bad karma. Mmm-mmm-mmm." He shook his head. "The boss is going to be shitting in his pants. Heads will roll."

  "Your boss is really going to be upset, because the man who got hurt is a dancer," Jeanne said sharply. "In fact, he's scheduled to perform tonight at the Joyce Theater."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Yes." Jeanne remembered that she ought to gather and record the relevant information. "Will you excuse me for a minute?" she asked Althea. "I'll be right back."

  The name, address, and telephone of the moving company were painted on the trucks, and she wrote them down in the little notebook she always carried with her. She spoke to the pretty Oriental woman and her tough-looking companion, who had been watching her writing. The woman introduced herself as the decorator and gave Jeanne a business card with a Los Angeles address. She was quick to state that she hadn't seen the accident. She explained the provenance of the car, why it was only a car in part, and why it was being hoisted.

  "And now it's missing a bumper," said the man with her, who turned out to be not her companion but the companion of the man whose apartment it was. "I have nothing to do with the movers," he informed Jeanne. "I work for Frank. I'm just a general roustabout," he continued, deliberately neglecting to include Frank's surname. "He pays me to do nothing. Can you think of a better way of earning money?"

  Meanwhile, the movers were dismantling the hoisting apparatus. The rope was taken down from the roof. One of the workmen removed the bumper. The sidewalk was littered with debris—roses scattered, some with torn blossoms trampled underfoot, a mess of paté, a squashed cheese, berries crushed to a pulp, bleeding a reddish stain. "Guess he must've had a celebration in mind," Frank's roustabout commented aloud. A bottle of Champagne seemed to have survived miraculously intact.

  Althea, who was feeling better, retrieved the Champagne, kneeling carefully so as not to feel dizzy. As she lifted the bottle by its neck, she discovered a single hairline crack running its length. Though fractured, it was still in one piece, and she decided to keep it, placing it in one of the discarded shopping bags.

  While Althea was preserving this artifact, Jeanne confronted the man with the red face and angry voice, who seemed to be in charge of the movers. She gave him Paul's name and insisted on getting other names, but all she got was the owner of the moving company. She left it at that for the time being; she was anxious to get to the hospital.

  She glanced around for Althea, who was sitting quietly on the stoop of one of the nearby rowhouses. "You're coming to the hospital with me, aren't you?" Jeanne asked.

  "Of course. That's why I was waiting for you."

  "Can you walk to the end of the block to catch a cab on Hudson Street?"

  "I'm not an invalid," protested Althea. "I'm just a little weak and thirsty."

  "Maybe you ought to see a doctor."

  Althea shook her head. "I'm no emergency case," she said.

  "Sorry," Jeanne apologized. She thought of how, in overdoing consideration, she could prove inconsiderate.

  At the corner Jeanne hailed a cab immediately. The hospital was only a short ride away.

  "I took down some basic information about the moving company and the accident," Jeanne reiterated to Althea in the cab. "Depending on the extent of the injuries, Paul will have a big liability claim. I wonder what was broken, and how bad it is. I guess we'll soon find out."

  But Althea's attention was straying. She was remembering Jeanne's story about the labyrinth exhibit and the lesson she had learned from it. Althea thought to herself, If these city streets are like a maze, is Paul then the Minotaur at the heart of it that we unknowingly were stalking? With this difference: when we reached him, he was already wounded.

  Althea shook her head. The analogy seemed silly. She ought not to let her mind wander, but focus, as Jeanne was doing, on facts and claims and potential remedies and other grave realities.

  Chapter 21

  Bryce finished packing his bags before breakfast on Saturday, November 22. After he ate, he phoned his sister to tell her goodbye and to inquire after her children, who had nearly recovered from the chicken pox. His last moments were spent with his parents as they drove him to the airport. He found himself mentioning a New York visit, and just the suggestion was enough to make both him and his parents shy. The invitation was not withdrawn, however, nor was it rejected. It was only his aunt Margaret whom Bryce was leaving without a word.

  He had to change flights in Memphis, where the approach to the airport took the taxiing plane on a bridge right over the access road. He wondered what the people in the cars must feel, plunged into the immense shadow of the plane as it wheeled above them.

  Inside the airport, he purchased a package of chewing gun from the same newsstand where he and his father had bought a paper on the previous day.

  Taking off again, watching the world fall beneath him, he thought of the family life he was leaving behind. He had grown comfortable with it in ways that he had never anticipated; still, he wasn't sorry to be going. He didn't want to live in Mississippi. He thought of how he had almost despaired of his relationship with Paul, and of how he now dared to hope again.

  As the plane reached cruising altitude, it was enveloped in clouds. White and opaque, they obscured the view from the windows for the duration of the flight. It wasn't until the plane descended for landing that it broke through the thick clouds. The difference was swift and dramatic. It was as if, Bryce thought, he were watching a stage set by God (even though he wasn't sure if he believed in God). Suddenly there were no clouds to be seen. Directly below was Brooklyn, and the sun was glittering on the rows and rows of buildings, on the green rise that was Prospect Park and on the clock tower watching over the downtown. The plane glided over the little streets and the little buildings. Bryce looked down at the dark waters of New York Harbor, now dimpled with brightness and speckled with barges and tankers. To himself he named the familiar bridges—the Brooklyn, the Manhattan, the Williamsburg. He saw Manhattan bristling like quartz crystals in a geode. All was illumined, beautified, in dazzling clarity.

  He could scarcely contain his excitement. How spectacular it was, his adopted city! He was coming home! He could hardly wait. The plane veered and changed direction, heading east. For half a minute, Manhattan remained in his window, and then they were flying over the cemeteries on the borders of Brooklyn and Queens, rows of thousands and thousands of tombstones. They were still turning, making half of a circle in swift descent, next to Shea Stadium and over the adjoining park, and then across the bay to the runway, where the wheels of the plane took the ground with a single bump followed by a rush of heartracing speed.

  Deplaning, traversing the long corridor from gate to baggage claim at La Guardia airport, Bryce felt it was hard, after all, not to be met even when he knew he wouldn't be. Once he was on the ground, his exhilaration faded. He realized that a part of his mind must have anticipated, in spite of himself, the unlikely event of Paul's being at the airport.

  His progress through the long corridor of the terminal was slow, deterred by an exhaustion that settled on him all of a sudden. He didn't know whether it was due to his disease, or to too much travel in too short a time, or to his irrational feeling of disappointment. It's probably a mixture of all three, he decided. At the baggage claim he had to wait a long time to collect his luggage. He found a porter to take the bags outside to the taxi stand. Though he thought of telephoning Paul, he didn't, deciding to greet him in person instead.

  At the taxi stand, he noticed with relief that there were only a few other travellers waiting for cabs. The dispatcher was efficient, and Bryce was
soon installed in a yellow taxi with his bags in the trunk. As the drive began, it seemed to him almost as if his taxi and the other cars on the Grand Central Parkway were floating in a fluid pack towards Manhattan. All that they were passing looked familiar to him, as if he had never been away at all. When he arrived at his address, he paid his driver extra to carry up his bags.

  "You can leave me here," he said, at the top landing. After the driver disappeared, he waited a moment, resting, before he unlocked the door and walked out on the roof. He was surprised to find the windows of the penthouse dark, and all the locks secured. His heart sinking, he unlocked them, calling loudly for Paul. There was no answer, nor was there any message waiting for him next to the neat stacks of mail piled on the table in the foyer. He searched all through the house in deepening anguish. He was so careless of himself that he stumbled on the floor of Paul's empty practice room, and fell. There was nothing cluttering the smooth wood which could have tripped him; his limbs simply gave way, and he lay sprawled and trembling, his back aching, without the will to move.

  He had instantly assumed that Paul was deliberately missing, that, after all, Paul simply didn't care, and in this devastating conclusion, with no one else to hear him, he moaned aloud.

  He thought of how, in returning to New York as he had, he had made a leap of faith. Although it was hard for him to trust, he had trusted Paul. How cruel it was now to feel ashamed of his eagerness! His shame mocked him as he pined on the floor. In spite of Paul's assurances to the contrary, he had arrived all alone to his empty house.

  It seemed to him that he lay for a long time. He felt too weak to get up. He wondered if he were having an exacerbation of his disease. His legs felt partly numb. The floor was dusty, and he sneezed, violently, three times. He had read somewhere that all the systems of the body are suspended in a sneeze. He wondered if this were true. Maybe it was like the skipping of a phonograph needle over a groove in a record. His thoughts, distracting him from self-pity, made him feel better. His will returned, which gave him strength. Really, only his legs were weak. He was able to drag himself into the living room, where he noticed what, on first glance, he had overlooked: a large, oblong parcel lying on the coffee table. It was a box of corrugated cardboard, taped shut, and addressed to him. He lifted it, and his hand didn't tremble. It wasn't heavy.