by Hiatt, Bill
“I can heal you, Tal, so unless you want to spend hours in the trauma center over at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, let’s pretend you just got some superficial cuts. Besides, if anyone saw how extensive your injuries really were, there’d be some risk of panic, and we don’t want that.”
According to Nurse Florence’s carefully crafted fiction, Stan had gone missing around four o’clock, and we were looking for him. Well, that part was true, but it was almost the only thing in her story that was. She, Stan, and I took turns telling her revisionist version, depending on whose perspective was relevant. As the story went, Stan had gotten an SOS from friends at UCSB who needed his help on a project, so he had taken the bus down. But the friends who called him weren’t in the dorm right then, so Stan had taken a walk down to the lagoon. By that time it was dark, and Stan had encountered someone who, based on the description Stan provided, the detective taking the statement decided was clearly a sexual predator. Anyway, Stan became suspicious and tried to run away, but he got turned around, ran in the wrong direction, toward the ocean, lost his cell phone, couldn’t call for help, ended up hiding under a bench on the path (ooh, another small truth), hoping the guy would go away, but he kept walking around that area, around and around, as if he knew Stan was still around somewhere, and Stan was afraid to run, so he ended up trapped for hours. He occasionally heard people, but always too far away for it to be safe to call out to them. In this version, when Nurse Florence and I hit the lagoon path, Stan came out, but the pervert, who was closer than Stan thought, tried to attack Stan, then got in a fight with me. Nurse Florence produced a blood covered knife from somewhere to explain the blood on the ground, but she was careful to magic the ground to make the blood seem much less and to magic my injuries to make them look more superficial.
The story had a few rough spots, but for improvisation it was pretty good. And with Nurse Florence right there to sell it, the detective was more than satisfied. As the old saying goes, that woman could sell ice to Eskimos.
By the time the detective had finished taking our statements, some of our searchers, drawn by the commotion, had found us. Nurse Florence fed them the Readers’ Digest condensed version of the story we had given the detective and then handed off Stan to them, telling them we had to clear up a little police business but that they should gather people at the bus, and we would join them in a few minutes.
The place was crawling with police, so it took Nurse Florence a while to find a quiet spot. Once she had one, she wrapped us in mist, had me take off my shirt and jacket, and examined my wounds.
“Just flesh wounds, at least,” I said.
“Deep ones, almost to the bone in some spots. If I hadn’t stopped your bleeding, you would have collapsed minutes after the officers got there.” She removed a small green bottle from her purse and then quickly and efficiently poured the contents carefully into each wound. I was expecting stinging or something, but I felt a gentle warmth instead.
“There’s quite a bit of nerve and muscle damage, more than I thought. This is going to take longer to heal than I would like, but I can’t very well leave you like this. We just have to hope no one comes looking for us for a while. Even if they don’t, that salve by itself is too slow, though it would heal you eventually. I’ll give it a little help.” She put one hand on my left arm and one on my right hand. She closed her eyes and whispered in Welsh. Suddenly the purest white light I had ever seen flowed from her, making her look like an angel, and then it engulfed me. Every part of my body tingled, and I could literally feel wounds closing, muscles and nerves knitting themselves together beneath. Held in the light, I lost all track of time. When at last I noted, regretfully, that the light was fading, I was shocked to look at my watch and discover that forty five minutes had passed.
Nurse Florence added a few bandages. “I left some small cuts to account for the superficial wounds you were supposed to have gotten, just in case the police do any follow-up with you. Now,” she added a little shakily, “I’m feeling pretty drained, and someone is bound to come looking for us soon, so get your shirt on quickly.” Almost before I finished dressing, the mist faded, and Nurse Florence and I headed for the bus as fast as she could go, which wasn’t very fast by that point. Nonetheless, the students had kept themselves entertained in our absence. True, Coach Miller looked pretty irritated, I suspected because he had hardly seen Nurse Florence since we arrived on the campus. Dan was still sitting up front, face unreadable, trying not to socialize with anyone. Stan was equally quiet, sitting alone near the middle of the bus. Whether because nobody wanted to tick Dan off or because Stan made it seem like he wanted to be alone, no one was sitting next to him or on either side of him. When I sat down next to him, he looked out the window. I tried to talk, but he just shook his head. He clearly didn’t want to talk.
Shortly after the bus got underway, Nurse Florence tapped me on the shoulder and leaned over to whisper to me. “I know what I said about erasing people’s memories of betrayal, but a little mood music is different. You can cut the tension on this bus with a knife. Let’s do something about that.” I looked around, and she was right. People should have felt at least a little exhilarated by having helped save Stan, but somehow Stan and Dan between them were radiating gloom, and almost everyone seemed vaguely out of sorts. So I started singing a capella, gradually working more and more magic into the music, spreading contentment throughout the bus like a warm wind on a quiet summer night. Even Dan and Stan showed some signs of relaxing, but Stan still didn’t speak.
“Tal!” said an urgent voice behind me, even sexier for its urgency.
“What?” I asked Eva. She had sat down in an empty seat right behind me.
“Tell me what happened on Founders’ Day!”
“What do you mean?”
“You know damn well what I mean! If I’m going to lose Dan over all this, I at least need to know what ‘this’ is.”
I leaned as close to her as I could. “This isn’t the time, but Eva, I promise, I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything.” Stan looked in my direction, the obvious question written on his face, but he still didn’t speak.
“And Eva,” I added, “when you know everything, you’ll realize Dan wasn’t lying to you, not to be cruel, not to make you feel crazy, not lying at all.” She started to answer, then suddenly realized Stan was sitting next to me. She must have been so focused on getting her questions answered she had just looked right through him. She turned bright red, and lowered her eyes, too nervous to make eye contact.
“Stan?” she said, very timidly. “Stan, can we talk?”
“I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry,” whispered Stan.
“I’ve already told everyone who would listen.” Stan’s face betrayed a little surprise at that. “All the cheerleaders. They were impressed you were such a gentleman. And the football players who wouldn’t listen, well, the cheerleaders will see that they know what really happened. In a day or so, everyone will know it wasn’t your fault.
“Stan,” she continued, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t thinking about you, and I should have been. I wasn’t thinking at all. Now all of us are miserable, and it’s my fault. I can’t ask you to forgive me.” She finally made eye contact with Stan, and, much to my surprise, grabbed his hands in hers. I hoped Dan wasn’t watching—this was definitely a moment that could be misinterpreted.
“I just want to make you feel better.”
“I’ll get over it,” whispered Stan. “And you aren’t exactly the only one who has been acting on impulse and making it tough for everyone else.”
“Gee,” I said, “just because you got the whole town out searching for you, I wouldn’t say that was making it too tough.”
Stan looked at me as if the thought had never occurred to him. “You mean you guys aren’t the only ones who looked for me?”
“Buddy, I don’t know of anyone who wasn’t looking for you.” Eva nodded in agreement.
“It ma
y not seem much like it right now, but everyone likes you, Stan. The thought of something happening to you…” Eva shuddered. “It would be more than anyone could stand.” I had been trying the whole bus ride back from Isla Vista to get even a word, any sign of conscious life, from Stan, and then along came Eva, and not only got him to talk, but cheered him up—and she’s the one who got him into this mess in the first place! That’s a life lesson, folks—if you want to cheer up a guy, just find a volcanically hot girl to treat him like he is the center of the universe, and all will be well.
Stan was actually smiling by this point. “Well, I didn’t mean to have everyone make all this fuss.” Then the smile faded. “What am I going to tell my parents? I’ll be grounded until Armageddon!”
“Remember how your cell phone got lost,” I prompted. “You were going to call and tell them you were at UCSB and would be late for dinner. Then you lost your phone and got trapped on the lagoon path. It wasn’t really your fault.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Stan in amazement, realizing for the first time that Nurse Florence’s story had been designed in part to cover him with his parents.
After a few minutes Eva moved away. Stan’s eyes followed her, not a good sign under the circumstances.
He realized I was looking at him intently. “Don’t worry, Tal. I’m not making that mistake again.” I leaned as close to him as I could. Suddenly, despite how often I had spilled my guts tonight, I wasn’t eager to have anyone overhear.
“Stan, I feel like garbage. I wasn’t there when you needed me. Well, I’m not making that mistake again.”
“Tal, I didn’t run away because of what you did or didn’t do,” said Stan gently. “I ran away because I realized I had let you down. Dan isn’t just a friend. He’s like your…bodyguard, or something. Straining that relationship might put your life at risk. And I didn’t think about it until it was too late.”
“Listen, it might have been easier if things had worked out differently, but Stan, I have never, never been more proud of you than I am right this minute.” Stan’s mouth fell open.
“Proud? But I screwed up completely!”
“You came to the rescue of a damsel in distress, even though you knew it could mean trouble, big trouble. And even after you knew she had just been using you, you decided to protect her. Hell, even when it looked as if Dan was going to crush you, you didn’t say a word.”
“He wouldn’t have believed me,” pointed out Stan.
“Maybe not,” I replied, “but most guys would have tried to tell him, anyway.”
“Tal, I really wanted to, well, you know…” Stan blushed and looked away.
“Yeah, you and every other straight guy that ever looked at Eva. Okay, so there was a little lust in the equation. But even Eva knew you well enough to know that wouldn’t be enough. That’s why she made up that whole story about needing someone, being desperate for some kind of support. From the way she tells the story, she practically had to drag you over to her. And then there’s how you behaved with the kelpie.”
“Is that what that was? I knew it was something…unnatural. But I almost got you killed.”
“No, I almost got myself killed. I could have easily vanquished that thing. I hesitated. I almost got both of us killed. But what I meant was, how you were ready to give me the sword, even though it was your only defense. That was one of the bravest things I have ever seen.
“Yeah, brave! I spent hours cowering under a bench!”
“Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It is acting despite being afraid. Until I got there, though, there was no action that wouldn’t have been stupid. Hiding was smart, not cowardly.”
“But trying to give you the sword wasn’t that brave. I knew you could use it to defeat the kelpie and save both of us.”
“Maybe, but on some level you knew it was a risk, and you did it anyway. Say what you want, but I’ve seen battle many times in my lives, and I have seldom seen even a trained veteran do what you did. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. Wow,” I said, suddenly noticing how he looked in the glare of the bus ceiling lights. “You’re more bruised up than I thought.”
Stan looked around to make sure no one was close by, then leaned still closer to me. “I got to see Eva in her bra. That sight was worth a few bruises.” I could hardly believe my ears—an actual joke! Clearly, Stan was on the mend.
“Heck,” he continued, “if I could have seen her without the bra, Dan could have cut my face clear off.”
“Yeah, well I imagine in those circumstances he would have cut off something else,” I replied quietly. Joking a little with Stan felt great—not too long ago I was afraid we would never joke again—but the problem of what to do about Dan remained. I had been keeping my eyes on him as much as I could. He had been sitting near the front of the bus, not saying a word to anyone, barely moving.
No one his age should have to go through that much. I should know—I was an expert at going through too much.
I thought Stan and I would be okay, at least. Our friendship was intact. But whether our relationships with Dan would ever heal, to say nothing of Dan’s relationship with Eva, well, that was anyone’s guess at this point. If, as Nurse Florence had said, someone was trying to isolate me, they had not completely succeeded yet, but they had accomplished a lot in a single day.
And then there was the unresolved question of a kelpie—in the UCSB lagoon, no less! It would hardly have surprised me more to run across the Loch Ness Monster in the high school pool. It was also troubling that the kelpie behaved so atypically for its kind. Kelpies worked by luring their victims into the water and drowning them, not by using their shifting abilities to beat their victims in combat. And what about how the kelpie just happened to pop up right where Stan was, intercept him before he even got to the dorms, herd him down to the lagoon, and trap him there? Again, too much coincidence. I had the paranoid feeling that whatever evil force was plotting my downfall was getting more and more aggressive. It could not be very long now until there was a direct confrontation.
About the time we hit the Santa Brígida off-ramp on Interstate 1, Nurse Florence came back again, sat down behind me, and said, “I’m worried.”
“Oh, really? About what? Things have been going so smoothly up to now.”
“Now is not the time for sarcasm. Listen, Coach Miller was going to take the bus back to the school, but he just got a call from Carrie Winn to drive directly to the Schoenbaums’.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “That’s only a few blocks difference. Most people could walk home from Stan’s house just as easily as they could from the school.”
“True, but why does Winn care what our first stop is?”
“I don’t know. She’s probably there and wants to be sure she gets to greet Stan when he comes back. Right now, that doesn’t seem like such a big bump in the road, certainly not compared to everything else that’s happened.” I could see Nurse Florence remained unconvinced, but she decided not to keep pressing me and went back to her seat right behind Coach Miller.
Just a few minutes later the bus pulled onto our street. Although it was late, as we approached Stan’s house, the light became almost blinding. I didn’t know what was happening at first. Then, squinting against the light, I managed to make out the news vans—three or four of them. The lights had been set up by the camera crews.
So that was what Carrie Winn was up to? A photo opp? A sound bite?
Most of my fellow students didn’t seem that daunted by the presence of cameras. In general the football players and cheerleaders streamed out of the bus to line up for their fifteen minutes of fame. But they were not the ones the news crews were here for.
Aside from Coach Miller and Nurse Florence, neither of whom seemed to intend to get out, there were four of us left on the bus: Eva, trying to become invisible in the very back; Stan and I near the middle; Dan at the front. The eloquent spaces among us created telling visual imagery, but none of th
e photographers seemed interested in capturing our little tableau inside the bus.
I got up and started to usher Stan out. “Well, buddy, let’s get this over with. They aren’t going to go away.” Stan nodded and started to get up, then fell back.
“Ouch! I think I twisted my ankle.” Only Stan could twist his ankle getting up from a seat. I helped him up and let him lean on me as we weaved toward the exit.
As we stepped through the exit, camera flashes exploded like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. It wasn’t until later I realized how much Carrie Winn had spun the events of that night, making our arrival almost one of those archetypal Pulitzer Prize photo moments. “The brave survivor moved slowly down the steps, leaning on the young hero who had rescued him.” Actually, we both nearly stumbled and fell in all the commotion. As soon as we set foot on the sidewalk, we were surrounded. I would almost rather have dealt with the kelpie again.
Stan was clearly confused by the questions being flung at him and the continuous flashing of cameras. I wasn’t much better. Neither one of us immediately responded, and the reporters became more insistent. Beyond them, the camera crews of the various news networks were jockeying for position. At that point I would have given anything to be home in bed. My house was only a few steps away, but getting there now seemed a feat comparable to scaling Mount Everest.
Then I saw Carrie Winn cutting through the crowd, striding toward us, purpose incarnate. In moments I found myself freed from the chaos of reporters only to be trapped in the middle of a press conference.
Carrie Winn, immaculately coiffed and dressed, especially for what must have been one o’clock in the morning by then, flowed into what was obviously a carefully prepared speech as soon as the cameras started rolling.
“I have never been as proud of my town as I am tonight. We all rallied together, every last one of us, to find one missing young man. But I am especially proud of that young man, Stanford Schoenbaum, who I am told showed great courage in the face of an attempted abduction, and of my intern, Stanford’s classmate, Taliesin Weaver, whose quick thinking led us right to Stanford and whose bravery saved Stanford’s life. Let’s have a round of applause for our young heroes.” The applause was deafening and would have been flattering, had I thought I deserved it. Then Stan and I had to teeter back and forth next to Ms. Winn, like trophies in the case, while she found subtle ways to claim credit for us, for the town, for whatever she could lay her hands on.