by Eliza Gordon
“What do you think, Aldous? Does my butt look good in these pants?” She twists her head, shows me her white belly, and engages the purr motor before chomping down on her catnip-stuffed fishie. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Trish with Muscles said seven-ish, which is a little vague, and I don’t want to be the first person to show up, but if I’m too late it’ll look like I didn’t really want to show up in the first place. Obviously not the case. I opt for seven thirty—that seems about right. And I’m carrying one of my big purses so I can keep Marco’s present in there, in case no one else brought presents. I don’t want to look like a googly-eyed fangirl.
Sure enough, when I walk into the crowded pub, the Hollywood Fitness crew has basically taken over the whole front area parallel to the bar.
“Daniiiiii!” Minotaur hollers, standing to offer me a chair as everyone waves in greeting.
Marco is talking to a woman I don’t recognize—she’s pretty, young, straight flaxen hair draped over bare arms that reveal she spends time in the gym. She giggles and touches his hand when he says something funny, and my stomach drops. Oh my god, is that his girlfriend? He hasn’t mentioned one . . . maybe it’s a new relationship and they haven’t started using official terms like girlfriend. The way she’s looking at him, it’s clear she’s been bitten by the same bug I have.
He turns while her hand is still touching his wrist and rises from the bench against the wall down from where I’m standing. He squeezes through and opens his arms for a hug, which I gladly fold into, hugging him like I haven’t seen him in a year. I also make a small note that the look on the pretty girl’s face is no longer so smiley; I feel a little guilty, like I’ve interrupted something.
“Ms. Steele, you made it,” he says against my head.
“Hey, someone said there’d be cake,” I tease. He steps back, his right hand still on my shoulder, and gives the drink signal to his friend manning the pitchers lined up along the strip of tables. “Happy birthday!” I say. I consider giving him his present, but a quick scan of the table doesn’t reveal any other festively wrapped packages. Maybe I should wait.
“Thanks. So pleased you could come out and play with us. Have a seat.” He finally lets go so he can pull out a chair for me. But then he returns to his spot on the bench down the way—Pretty Girl looks smug as he resumes his earlier position, which does not endear her to me. If Marco is her man, cool. This isn’t high school.
Introductions are made around the table, but I’m nervous enough that I will remember exactly zero names by the time the beer is drained from the glass they’ve slid in front of me.
The group is a mix of his gym life and outside friends, and an hour in, pints filled and refilled, the stories of shared histories have most of us in stitches. Seems Marco and his buddies are magnets for trouble when they’re allowed out of doors—one story detailed an ill-fated camping trip near Mammoth Lakes, California, which ended when a food-seeking black bear tore apart the door and interior of Marco’s truck; another story found the birthday boy and his crew trying to save the car of a young woman who got stuck in the surf at Grover Beach—when the car was too mired in wet sand, they had to watch as the Pacific Ocean ate it, tires and all. Beyond a wee bit of trouble with the authorities, the story had a happy ending; the girl who lost her car later married one of Marco’s friends and is seated at the table to blush appropriately as they razz her about driving on wet sand.
Pretty Girl doesn’t have any interesting stories, but I smile into my glass every time she touches his arm or elbow and he slyly shifts away. Poor thing.
It becomes clear that a few of these folks are Los Angeles transplants, show-business friends of Marco’s when they were all down south. When one among his LA crew segues into a conversation about the absolute best stunts in Hollywood history—from Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible to Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and the king of the original Hollywood stunt, Buster Keaton—this friend talks about what a master Marco is, how he intuitively knows how to make a stunt look seamless. When he tells a crazy stunt story that involved David, the friend who died, the change in Marco’s face is subtle, but still present. The conversation lulls for a moment before an astute Trish picks up the ball and changes course.
“So, Dani, tell these guys about the thing The Rock is doing in town in August.” I feel weird, talking about myself when this party is about Marco, but the tone of the conversation has cooled—I can see in Trish’s face that we need a diversion.
I launch into my cheeriest explanation about Rock the Tots, at once selfishly hoping that the very fit women sitting around the table won’t join up and obliterate my chances even further. “Of course, the only way I’m going to be able to get through this whole thing is if the World’s Greatest Trainer keeps yelling at me to stop whining,” I say, lifting my beer. “Three cheers for the World’s Greatest Trainer!”
The group livens up again, lifting their glasses to their hip-hip-hoorays. The blush that paints Marco’s cheeks looks good on him; the wink he offers in thanks staggers my resting heart rate.
With my one-beer limit reached, I excuse myself to the restroom. As I pass the last two stools at the bar’s end, a very red-faced man yells at his girlfriend, threatening to shut her up if she doesn’t watch her mouth. The woman looks right at me, her eyes wide and bloodshot and haunted—for a beat, I consider asking her if she’d like to come with me to the bathroom. Before I have the chance, though, the bartender slides over and asks “Rusty” if maybe he’d like to switch to coffee.
My bladder is relieved to find no line for a stall. I finish my business, wash up, and refresh my lipstick, ogling my butt in these jeans one more time. Money well spent.
As I open the bathroom door, it’s obvious that Rusty hasn’t switched to coffee, and the words being exchanged with the bartender, and possibly other patrons, are no longer friendly. I try to scoot by, but just as I’m passing the woman, Rusty launches himself at her, shoving her into me, and we both fly backward onto the floor, her body on mine as Rusty straddles her and continues yelling, a beer bottle still clutched in his right hand.
Before I know it, the bartender is over the counter trying to pull us free, helped by Marco, Minotaur, Alex the Vet, and various others.
Minotaur wrestles the guy from behind and shoves him backward into the bar. Rusty slams the bottle against the counter’s edge, handily weaponizing the glass. He lunges, but Marco has his hands outstretched to stop the guy from getting near Minotaur or the woman, who is still screaming and writhing on top of me.
And then there’s blood. A lot of blood, streaming from Marco’s palm.
Minotaur, Alex, two other friends of Marco, and the bartender disarm and slam the now-shrieking Rusty to the floor. Marco helps the woman and me off the floor with his uninjured hand, blood rapidly draining down his middle three fingers of the other and soaking into the carpet.
“Are you all right?” he asks me.
Firmly but gently, I grab his elbow. “You’re not. Let me see.” The wound looks like the one Georgette sustained on the outside of her left hand from an unfinished metal edge on a playground slide. She fainted the second she saw the blood, so Jackie and I had to carry her home between us, trailing blood on the gray sidewalk like some sort of sick Hansel and Gretel.
Once the woman is on her feet, sobbing uncontrollably, Trish and two other party members pull her aside; the waitress behind the counter has the phone against her ear, feeding details to who I hope is a police dispatcher; she tosses me a clean bar towel.
Marco offers me his hand, splayed atop the scratchy white cloth. As soon as he looks down at the frightening wound, his face blanches.
“Okay, head up. Look at me,” I say. He obliges, brown eyes earnest. “We’re going to get you some stitches.”
“Yes. Right. Seems that might be necessary.”
“Does it hurt? Do you need to sit?”
“It does hurt a bit.”
Trish rushes up beside me. “D
ani, Jesus, are you okay—” She stops midsentence, her attention drawn to the bloody mess lying across my open palms. “Shit. We need to take him to Providence, over on Glisan. That’s the closest ER.”
“Ladies, I’m fine,” Marco says.
“Sure, you are. And I have some superglue in my purse. We’ll just glue you back together so you can finish your pint.”
“Your British accent needs work, Steele.”
“Well, we’ll have plenty of time sitting in the ER for you to correct my lilt and brogue.” I look to Trish. Pretty Girl is still sitting behind the table, eyes wide, her face a little green. Guessing she’s not a fan of blood. Her loss is my gain.
“I’ll take him. I’ve only had the one beer.”
Without having to be asked, Trish hustles to the table and grabs my purse and Marco’s jacket.
“We should wait until the police arrive, shouldn’t we?” Marco asks.
“If we do, you’re going to bleed through all the restaurant’s towels,” I say, wrapping the terry cloth snug around his wounded hand.
“Is there ever a dull moment when you’re around?” he asks, digging through his coat pocket for his keys.
“We can take my car. I’m in charge.”
“I don’t want to bleed all over Flex Kavana.”
“He’s seen worse,” I say.
FORTY-NINE
Seems that not even a lot of blood makes folks move faster in an ER. I should’ve told Marco to faint so he could move to the front of the line.
At the admissions desk, he hands me his wallet. “My insurance card is on the right side. Help a fellow out?”
I find the card, pausing just long enough to confirm it’s the right one. “Your real name is Marcellus?” I ask, trying not to smile.
“Roman mythology, after Mars, the god of war.” I swear he’s blushing. Miraculously Beautiful Marcellus . . . has a nice ring to it.
The admissions clerk, a carbon copy of Tyler Perry’s Madea character, looks over the wire-rimmed glasses barely balanced on the end of her nose. “Is that what you were doin’ tonight, sweetie? Engaging in some war?” She nods at the very blood-soaked towel wrapped around his hand.
“Actually,” I interject, “he was defending two women from a mean drunk dude with a broken beer bottle. Marcellus here stepped in to help—and on his birthday, no less.”
“Noble. Happy birthday,” she says, typing in his info so slowly, I fear he will need a transfusion by the time he sees a doctor.
When he finally has his hospital bracelet on, the wide door swings open to transport him into the hubbub of the sick and wounded.
“Come inside with me?” he asks.
“Are you sure? I can just wait out here.”
He smiles widely. “I hate needles.”
The nurse who escorts us to a curtained-off bed—a petite thing named Lexie with eighties throwback bangs and what I think might be a perm—sets to asking all the requisite questions, though her Texan accent is so thick, I fear that the quizzical look on Marco’s face means he can’t understand what she’s saying. I give her my summation of events from the pub, making sure she knows that Marco is a bit of a hero and should be given the highest standard of care.
When she steps away to retrieve a kit to clean the wound, I lean over onto the bed. “She sounds Texan. Texas and Oregon are about as opposite as you can get. Oregonians are like, ‘I’ll have an egg white omelet made with eggs laid by free-range chickens topped with sheep’s milk cheese but only if the sheep was well loved, and please add roasted, non-GMO veggies and the tears of woodland sprites.’ Lexie the Texan is probably like, ‘I’ll have beef. No need to slaughter it first, pardner. Just bring it to the table whole.’” Marco laughs, shaking his head. Seeing that she’s heading back our way, I whisper, “Quick! I’ll give you five bucks if you ask her if she had an armadillo as a pet when she was a kid.”
Marco is still chuckling.
“So glaaaaad to see our birthday boy still has his sense of huu-mor.”
I wink conspiratorially.
Lexie positions Marco supine on the bed with his injured left hand palm up across a rolling side table draped in sterile blue paper. He stretches out his right hand to me where I sit in the chair adjacent; I gladly take it, concerned that he’s injured but selfishly flipping out on the inside because I’m holding his hand, and he’s holding mine right back. I don’t let go, even as he hisses lightly behind his teeth when Lexie really digs in to make sure there’s no residual glass in the two-inch-plus slash that runs from the callus below his middle finger and curves into the meaty part where the thumb attaches.
“Sorry about that, sweetheart. Gotta git it nice and clean for the doc to stitch up. Also gotta make sure there’s no damage to the tendons.”
“Hey, tough guy, just don’t look at what Lexie’s doing,” I say. “Holy smokers, is that a real nun?” An old woman in a plain navy-blue skirt-and-jacket uniform walks by, her head covered in a white-and-blue coif and veil. “I haven’t seen a real nun in years.”
“They work with the chaplain here in the hospital,” Lexie offers.
“Is it true that nuns are married to Jesus? Like, how would you ever get your honey-do list done? You’d ask him to do stuff, and he’d be all, I can’t, I’m performing miracles all weekend. Jesus seems like he’d be a terrible husband.” Marco’s grinning, despite the obvious pain. “I suppose, though, if he didn’t clean the gutters or get the snow tires put on the car, you’d be like, Jesus, I’m gonna call your dad if I don’t get some help around here!” Marco loses it; Lexie gives me a tight smile as she pulls her necklace bearing a gold cross pendant out from under her teddy-bear scrub top.
I give Marco the uh-oh-I-said-the-wrong-thing-again look, and we try to control our immaturity.
“So where are you froooooom, Mr. Turner, with that pretty accent?”
Marco smiles politely. “Greenwich. It’s a borough—like a suburb—in London, England.”
“That sounds fascinatin’. I’ve never been to England.”
“Yes, I’ve never been to Jolly Old England, either, Mr. Turner. Grace us with a story,” I add.
“Hmmm . . . Let’s see . . .” Marco leans his head back against the pillow and closes his eyes for a moment. I grin with anticipation. I’m finding I love Marco’s stories. “All right, here’s one. When I was in high school, one of my mates was very much in love with a girl he’d met at an interschool dance. We went to a posh private school my parents had to mortgage their house to pay for, and this girl was from an all-girl high school, so these dances were a big deal for hormonal young people. My friend, Leo, he was head over heels—and I knew the feeling, given I’d lost my heart over my unrequited feelings for dear Nicola when I was a youngster,” he says to me, “so I wanted to do whatever I could to help Leo win over the object of his undying affection.
“We decided that for Valentine’s Day, we would skip class and go to her school and he could present her with flowers and chocolates. Only it couldn’t just be him walking up to the front door and demanding entry. Leo needed to make a big entrance, and he knew that I was just the coconspirator he required.
“The night before, we sneaked to her school’s rooftop, where we installed a rig that I had designed that would lower Leo in a harness hidden under his school uniform, which was a proper blazer and tie and this ridiculous boater hat, down the front of the building to the window where he knew she would be at the given time of day, in the science department.
“The morning of Valentine’s Day, Leo was a mess, but a few shots of my gran’s precious Irish whiskey sorted him right out. We stole away from our school, got to the roof of the girls’ school without notice, and attached him to the rig.” Marco winces as Lexie pulls the wound apart and looks at it with a lamp.
“Eyes on me,” I say as his face pales and his grip on my hand tightens.
He focuses on me so intently, I swear we’re the only people left on the planet. “Slowly, two other mates and I lowe
red Leo down the building’s facade, his arms laden with a dozen of the reddest roses and a box of the sweetest Belgian chocolates. He swayed forward and knocked on the window, and when the girls in the class saw what was going on, they, of course threw up the sash, and our smitten Leo broke into song.”
“What did he sing?” Lexie the Texan asks.
“You know, I don’t recall. But Leo was quite the crooner. The instructor for the class ran out in a panic, shrieking for the headmaster, but Leo finished his song and then reached across and gave the now-crying girl the flowers and chocolates. Just as he leaned in for a kiss, the headmaster pushed the girl aside and slammed the window shut. At the same time, an administrator trapped us on the roof—we were escorted down to the front office so we couldn’t lower Leo to the ground. They made Leo hang there for the duration so the entire school could get a good look. Had a terrific fit of rain that day too. Poor Leo was blue-lipped and soaked to the bone when they finally released him.”
“Is this real? Are you making this up?” I ask.
“One hundred percent true,” Marco says, grinning. “Me and the other fellows spent the rest of the day engaged in whatever chores the headmaster needed doing.”
“What happened once they cut poor Leo loose?” Lexie asks.
“They gave him a towel to dry off, and then he, as well as the rest of us, were given in-school suspensions and banned from future interschool events.”
“No!” Lexie says at the same time I ask, “And the girl? Did he ever get that kiss?”
“Indeed, he did. They fell head over heels in love, went to the same university, and are now happily married with a gaggle of kids somewhere in London.”
“Now that is just so romaaaaaaantic.” Lexie returns her attention to Marco’s wound. “That’s why I just love British leading men, don’t you? I wouldn’t let this one outta yer sight, honey,” she says to me. My face ignites as she cleans up the wrappers from her medical supplies. “Okay, you two just sit tight. The doc will be right in. And thanks so muuuuch for that great story, darlin’!” She looks right at me, and her sugary grin melts a little. “For you, I will say a little prayer. Jesus is very forgivin’.”