by Karen Bass
“I can take it up if you want.”
“So you can find out the unit number of a helpless woman? No sirree, Bob. You can consider yourself thanked and move on.” As Sid shifted the bag to her, she narrowed her pale eyes. “Why aren’t you in school? You look of an age you should be in school.”
Sid hesitated. “My friend really was in a motorcycle accident. I’m skipping so I see him.”
The woman huffed. “Don’t you be stupid enough to drop out. That’s what I did. Spent my life as a waitress and got the varicose veins to prove it.” With that she entered the high-rise.
Sid watched through the glass doors until the woman got on the elevator. She lingered as long as she dared, then walked slowly back to the hospital. Would Brock be waiting to ambush her? She imagined dropping him the way she’d dropped Simon. Maybe not. For one thing, she didn’t think he’d ever actually touch her. For another, she still sort of liked him, even with that shock tactic he’d tried to use on her on Friday.
Moving through the building like she was in a third-rate spy movie slowed Sid down even more. She browsed in the gift shop while casing the area near the elevator. When it was clear, she darted over, pressed the button and a scene flashed through her mind, of the elevator opening and Brock standing right there. She took the stairs.
On the third floor landing she peered through the narrow window at the slice of hallway she could see. Voices in the stairwell above her pushed her into action. She could feel her blood thundering in rapid flams. Da-doom. Da-doom. No sign of anyone but staff. Sid started toward Taylor’s room. She was almost there when she heard Mr. Janzen’s voice. She paused mid-step, straining to hear the reply. It was Brock. She ducked into the closest room and hid behind the open door. A man was asleep a few steps away, hooked to a machine that wheezed like it was breathing for him. Brock’s voice was louder now. Sid held her breath, heartbeat still racing. Calm down, she told herself. I’m not a criminal.
Brock was saying, “...appreciate it. And I hope Taylor recovers quickly.” His footsteps receded down the hall.
Sid gave it a minute and eased out from her hiding place. Brock was nowhere in sight so she walked into Taylor’s room to see Mr. Janzen at the window, looking down at the street. He must have seen movement in the glass because he turned before she was two steps into the room.
“Hi, Sidney,” he said. “You just missed that nice Mr. Brock.”
“Yeah, I know.”
His brow wrinkled and cleared in three beats. “Wanted to miss him, did you? So he was telling it straight when he said you were skipping class?”
Sid nodded. “You going to turn me in?”
“Should I? He asked me to call him if you showed up. He was certain you’d be here and seemed pretty worried that you weren’t. Didn’t say anything about getting you back to class.” He winked. “You should be safe now. He said he couldn’t stay.”
Sid released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“I’d like to call him, though, set his mind at ease.” He held up a piece of paper that probably had a phone number on it.
“I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with Tay.”
“Understood. I’ll call your dad so he knows what’s up, then I’ll call this Brock fellow.”
Sid gave a short nod.
“Good. I have to leave the building to turn on my cell, so why don’t you sit with Taylor? His mom and brother are having a coffee break at the shop across the street.”
He left and Sid took his sentry position by the window, though she kept her back to it and her eye on Taylor. No sign of improvement. His bruises were more vivid – they looked like they’d been coloured by a five-year-old with garish crayons. They matched the balloon bouquet floating above the wheeled bed tray. Sid looked at the card. From the staff and students at Edwards High. The balloons looked fresh; her bet was that Brock had bought them in the gift shop this morning.
She sat beside the bed and slipped her hand through the rails to cup her fingers under Taylor’s left hand. His fingers lay limp against hers. She stared at the hand for a long time –
it was the only part of him she could see that looked normal. A nurse bustled in, checked the drips, took Taylor’s pulse and made a few notes, then left, all without looking at Sid. I’m invisible, she thought.
The fingers twitched. Sid’s head jerked up. Taylor’s eyes were open, barely, and he was looking at her. Better yet, he was seeing her. Sid offered a smile. “Hey. Welcome back.”
His gaze down drifted from her face and she thought he was going back to sleep, but it rose again. “Hey, yourself.” His voice was a thin rasp. “You’re back, too.”
Sid glanced down at her Metallica shirt. “Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it. I don’t think I can go back to all baggy all the time.”
His breathing grated and the corner of one eye flinched. Sid had no idea if that was a response to what she’d said or something else. She scooted the chair as close as she could get it and cradled his hand in both of hers. “Tay, please tell me you didn’t believe that video.”
His eye twitched again, more like a series of tiny spasms. “Knew it...after I’d cleared my head with a ride. Last thing...remember wanting to get home, call you.”
Relief surged through Sid. She gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry we argued, Tay. This is all my fault.” He said nothing, just breathed like it was taking a lot of effort. She continued, “My great plan hasn’t worked out so well. And I’ve missed talking to you, you stupid jerk.”
His mouth almost lifted but then sagged into a grimace.
“Did I ruin things between us, Tay? I mean, will you ever be able to think of me as your friend again? I don’t know what I’ll do if you can’t. You’ve been my best friend for years. Almost my only friend, except maybe for Narain, but he puts up with me because of you, mostly.” Sid clamped her mouth shut. She was spewing like a busted fire hydrant.
“Didn’t think you’d want to be friends after, after what I said,” Taylor whispered. “You looked...horrified.”
“I was surprised, that’s for sure. You’ve got to know nothing’s going to stop me wanting to be your friend. We’ve got history. You’re stuck with me for life, if you can stand to be around me. I’m not really very hot at all.” The corner of Taylor’s mouth rose. Sid smiled. “You were a little tough on me, though. You were pissed off, I guess. I don’t blame you because I was choked when I saw the video. I’m sure Wes set that up. Or Clem got him to. I wanted to kill them both. It’s still tempting. Makes me sick to think I was that stupid.”
“Why?”
Sid hesitated. It looked like Taylor was taking every bit of strength he had to listen. And it looked like he was in a lot of pain. “Are you okay? Should I call a nurse?”
“Not yet. Tell...”
So Sid told him about Wes leading her into the trap and how she’d gotten backed up against the wall by Rocklin. “Thanks to the editing job on that video, Wes probably has the drummer gig sewed up.” Sid couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Could a part of her still want to join tfd? Rocklin had forced a kiss on her and told her to get lost. She didn’t want to hang around jerks like that. “As a bonus, his hassling campaign will be picked up by other guys.” She told him about having to knee Simon that morning when she’d been leaving the school.
His eyebrows hung low, obscuring his eyes. His fingers had curled into a hot fist in the cocoon of her hands. But it was his breathing that alarmed Sid. It had grown louder, more irregular. She placed Taylor’s hand on the bed and darted to the door.
“Nurse? “ she called loudly. A woman at the nursing station raised her head. “I think Tay needs some medicine or something.”
The nurse was instantly on the move. Her rubbed soled shoes squeaked on the gleaming linoleum. As she passed Sid who had pressed herself against th
e door frame, she said, “There is a call button at the bed. Shouting can upset our other patients.”
She fussed around Taylor for a few minutes, adjusted some drips, tucked and straightened his bedding, took his pulse again. Sid had eased toward the bed and now stood at its foot.
The nurse skewered Sid with a sharp glare. “Visiting is very tiring for someone in his condition. His medication has been cut back to every four hours and he isn’t due for more yet. It’s easier to control pain when you’re resting peacefully. You should leave now and let him do that.”
Sid’s fingers tapped against her thigh in a rapid paradiddle rhythm. “I won’t talk, okay? I promised Mr. Janzen I’d stay ’til they got back.”
The nurse gave her a skeptical glance and double-checked the drips. She paused by Sid on her way out. “Not a word.” She walked out of the room. Crisply. Without a backward glance.
Sid inched around to Taylor’s left side. She was going to whisper something to him about the nurse being one tough bag, but his eyes were already starting to close. Before they did he managed a barely audible whisper. “Be you.”
The Janzens gave Sid another bedside shift in the afternoon. He slept. She held his hand and tried to decide if their short conversation meant that Taylor forgave her. He hadn’t actually said so, but at least they were talking. As for the rest, she guessed Taylor couldn’t or hadn’t decided if he preferred girls or guys. She didn’t much care. He was still Taylor; she was still Sid. And if she had anything to say about it, they were still friends.
When the Janzens relieved her, Sid made her way home on the bus. She walked from the bus stop, head down, shoulders slumped, every step an effort. The image of Taylor, tethered in his bed by tubes and slings, pulsed in her mind, accompanied by the monotonous beat – beep, beep – of a hospital monitor.
Jean-clad legs and feet blocked the front step. Sid raised her head. “Brad? What are you doing here?” It came out wrong: accusatory when she was relieved. Surprised, but relieved.
“Is it true?” He pushed his glasses up his nose and stared.
A bass drum started booming in her stomach. “What?”
“That you and your boyfriend had a fight, and that’s the only reason you even looked at me at the wedding.” Brad joined her on the sidewalk. “That he had some kind of accident and you’ve gone running back to him.”
“Taylor’s a friend. That’s all he’s ever been, Brad. I just spent all day at the hospital, watching my best friend, bruised and broken and eaten up with pain – and you think...”
Jumbled emotions paraded across Brad’s face. His eyebrows lowered to hide behind his glasses. “So what I heard was a lie? And I shouldn’t believe that there’s a video with you Frenching with some band guys...and other things.”
“Shit.” Had it gone viral that fast?
Brad made a disgusted noise.
Sid grabbed Brad’s forearm. “I was set up. And I swear I didn’t do any other things. Please say you believe me.”
“Why? Because we have such a long and trusting relationship?”
“No! Because...” James pulled into the driveway, beside Brad’s jeep which she hadn’t even noticed before. From behind the wheel he watched them and radiated fury. “Look. Heather must have told you all those lies. Believe me because I like you. Has Heather ever been nice to you, Brad? Even once? Was she being nice to you when she told you all that crap?”
For a second he looked like he wanted to believe her. Then he pulled free and walked away, brushing by James without a word.
James blocked her view, scowling as they both listened to the jeep’s engine whine in reverse, then rev as it accelerated down the street. “Do you mind explaining to me what he was doing here when I thought you were at the hospital?”
“Yes, I mind. I mind a lot.”
25 | one hand crossover
Jazz sashayed through Sid’s headphones and into her fingertips. She was using brushes instead of sticks, working to control the flow so her drumming slid under the music wafting through her mind and buoyed it up instead of drowning it. She started the song over again, for the umpteenth time, then the thought of those jerks flung her into an angry fill, a crash of bass and cymbals. She threw down the brushes – they didn’t work at all for venting.
Sid found a Rush song on her iPod and lay on the rug, listening to it over and over as she worked out drum tabs for it, then returned to the drums and attempted to follow Neil Peart’s lead. He was a tough one to keep up with. On the sixth go through, when she was starting to feel like she was making some headway, movement on the stairs made her pause. She didn’t look, decided to keep going and played the song a seventh time before she let James interrupt her. He was being very patient.
When the song finished, she laid her sticks on the snare and removed her headphones.
Brock sat on the third step up, wearing a red golf shirt and jeans with a hole in one knee. She’d never seen him in such casual clothes. He clapped slowly. “I have no idea what song you were accompanying, but it sounded good from here.”
“’Workin’ Them Angels.’”
Brock smiled. “One of the newer Rush cds. That’s a good song.”
“You listen to Rush?”
“Sometimes. They’ve been around for a long time.” He leaned against the wall and propped one foot on the bottom step. “So are you?”
“What?”
“Working them angels? You know, your guardian angels?”
“If I ever had any, they’ve moved on to an easier gig.”
“Tough week.”
“Why are you here?”
“Your dad called this morning, pretty choked you were skipping, so I asked him if I could come over this evening. I needed to talk to you anyway.”
“Losing sleep?”
“Actually, yes. It took me three cups of coffee to get moving this morning.” He didn’t change position, but Sid noticed new alertness in his body, as if his casual pose hid his readiness to spring into action. “You need to know what’s been happening, Sid. It’s getting way bigger than either of us could have predicted.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. I need honesty, Sid. And I need you to hear me out. A friend of yours came into my office last Wednesday, forty minutes after class ended. I was packing up to go home.”
“Taylor?” No. That would have been around the time they had been arguing, just before he took off on his bike.
“Narain. He was shaking he was so upset. Gave me a copy of a photocopied poster that had been plastered all over the school. So I booted up my laptop and searched out the video. Narain defended you loudly, said that wasn’t your style. It certainly looked to me like Rocklin forced his attention on you. And that editing at the end was totally unacceptable. I’m really sorry they subjected you to that, Sidney. I tried to talk to you about it on Friday at the hospital but I’m afraid my approach was a bit heavy-handed. Like a cop, I think you said.”
The back of Sid’s eyes started to sting. Narain had stood up for her? What a stupid thing to want to cry about. She should be happy. Instead she felt even more miserable. She moved to the sofa and curled up on one end.
Brock crossed the room and sat on the floor at the other end of the sofa. “Is that why Taylor had his accident? Because he was upset about the video?”
Sid nodded. A few tears slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them away with hasty swipes. She hated crying, and in front of someone was the worst. “At first he thought it was true. Yesterday he told me that his ride had cleared his head. Until that car...” More tears. “Shit.”
“It’s okay, Sid. Tears are a release, not a sign of weakness.”
She still gulped them back, forced herself back into a semblance of control. When she felt like she could speak, she said, “Other t
han my life being shot to pieces, what’s so big about this?”
“Isn’t that enough?” He rested his forearms on his upraised knees. “I went around and removed any posters I could find. But vp Finning had gotten a hold of one. She called me at home on Wednesday night and it spiraled from there. Those boys were smart enough to keep their faces off camera, but their voices were easy to identify. I really want to say that Rock cracked like a piece of thin shale.” He paused.
Was he waiting for Sid to smile at his bad pun? She sniffed loudly and hugged her knees closer. Brock continued, “Han admitted who was involved. All four boys are suspended until Wednesday. There could be further disciplinary action.”
“A longer suspension?”
“No, Sidney.” Brock shifted so he was facing her. “I mean that vp Finning is furious that this happened on her watch, as she put it, and she’s pushing this as far as she can. She has called in the police.”
26 | right hand lead
Sid gaped at Brock.
He glanced at his watch. “An officer will be showing up any minute to get your statement. We might want to head upstairs. I can stay during the interview if you want.”
“Statement?” she squeaked.
“Yes. They’ve already interviewed all four guys, and got a copy of the video off Wes’s computer. They’re part of a special liaison unit working with the schools. Mostly they try to educate, but in serious cases like this they will investigate.” He stood up and brushed off. “You’ll be happy to know that Wes’s parents made him take the video down. I have the feeling he might not have Internet privileges for a while.”
“But the police?”
“After they get their statement from you, they’ll decide how to proceed.”
“Meaning?” Sid followed when Brock headed toward the stairs.
He spoke over his shoulder as he ascended. “Meaning they might want to press charges.”
Sid absorbed that thought in silence as they walked into the kitchen. Charges. Did that mean court, a trial? If Wes was the ringleader he might get nailed. He had screwed up her life in so many ways she had lost count. Now...