“Tea then? Anything with caffeine. Please?”
His jaw clenches and he glances from me to the machine and back, but finally he gives a curt little nod before once again disappearing into the kitchen.
“You are unusually calm for the girlfriend,” Dr. Maqsud remarks. “Are you on drugs too?”
“No,” I instantly reply. “I’m just really tired.”
“Me too. But hey, idiots like your boyfriend here are how I make my living, and they are usually idiots in the middle of night. I am used to it.”
I crack a smile. “Why do you keep calling him Mr. Smith?”
“All these kinds of patients are either Mr. or Mrs. Smith,” Dr. Maqsud replies. “They call me because they don’t want anyone to know how dumb they are. I get paid well to not ask names.”
“Is that legal?” I ask, but before Dr. Maqsud can answer, if he was even going to, Tristan’s body tenses against my legs, and another terrible cough erupts from him. He jerks and curls onto his side. I have to grab him at the hip and shoulder to keep him from rolling off the couch entirely.
I keep waiting for the coughing fit to end, or at least die down, but it only seems to be getting worse. I look at the doctor, who is watching him carefully, but does not seem concerned. After a full minute of this, Dr. Maqsud turns back to his kit and slips several little test tubes into a stand, then he pulls out tiny bottles and pours one of each into each of the test tubes.
Tristan’s coughs finally subside; there is now a puddle of drool soaking through my pajama pants and onto my knee. Tristan flips himself back over, so he’s face up. He weakly grabs my hand and drops it onto his face. “Hair,” he whispers, his voice thin and raspy.
I go back to combing his hair again and slowly his muscles relax. His eyes slide shut immediately, so I just stare at his face. It’s weird to see someone you’ve technically known for years in a state like this. Looking at him—his eyes puffy and red again, his lips both swollen and cracked from coughing, his cheeks pale, his brow drenched in cold sweat—I realize I’ve never actually looked at him at all. Even after we had sex I never really looked at him. Until this moment I’ve never really seen him.
Dr. Maqsud turns back around with a handful of long, one-ended cotton swabs. One after the other, he swipes the back of Tristan’s throat with them and places one in each of the test tubes, letting them soak in their liquid. In the sixth vial, the previously clear liquid turns blue.
“That is what I thought,” Dr. Maqsud mumbles to himself. “Well,” he says to me, much louder, “the coughing is an allergic reaction, most likely to fungus on the magic mushrooms. I can give him steroid and it will go away.”
“Yes,” Tristan groans weakly, “steroid.”
“Not until after blood test. I need to see results.”
The centrifuge’s quick hum slows and the spinning gradually comes to a stop. Almost instantly Julian reappears carrying a tray with four mugs and a teakettle, making me wonder if he somehow heard it slowing down from the kitchen. He puts the tea tray on the displaced armchair and pours tea into one cup, which he passes to me.
“Tea, Doctor?” Julian offers, his impatient eyes fixed on the centrifuge.
“Do you have marmalade?” Dr. Maqsud asks.
“No,” Julian answers, politely stifling a confused frown.
“Then I will wait,” Dr. Maqsud says.
Out of the bottom of the centrifuge a little piece of paper emerges, like a receipt. A long receipt. Dr. Maqsud snatches it up and quickly reads it. I watch Julian watch him. He remains poised in an impressive veneer of calm, but I see his heel twitch several times.
“Okay, so, Mr. Smith, you take a lot of mushrooms and then you have bad trip and take phenibut to try to combat bad trip, right?” Dr. Maqsud says. “You take too much phenibut—this is powerful and dangerous stuff. You are terrible at chemistry, do not try to be chemist again.
“Your mushrooms had a fungus on them, that is why you are coughing. Get new dealer. Fungus will take at least twenty-four hours to clear your lungs, I leave pills for this. You do not take until noon tomorrow. For now, I give you steroid so coughing stops. Based on amount of psilocybin in blood, mushroom trip will be over in the next six to eight hours. I advise sleeping it off. I can give you shot for that too.”
“Steroid,” Tristan croaks as another round of coughs wracks his body.
“So, he’s going to be fine with the steroid?” Julian asks. “He’s not in any danger from the drug interactions? What about the fever?”
“Fever is because of mushrooms, fever is so high because of bad interaction with phenibut. Steroid will help with that too. So, Mr. Smith…” He turns back to Tristan. “You want steroid and sleep aid? Or just steroid?”
“Steroid,” Tristan repeats, his teeth gritting as if in pain.
He rolls back over onto his side. I think I’ve lost the feeling in my legs, but I am fixated on Dr. Maqsud filling up another syringe and connecting it to the needle in Tristan’s arm. No wonder he didn’t want me to take him to Health. He’d get suspended, maybe even expelled, if the university knew about this.
Dr. Maqsud pulls the needle out of Tristan’s arm and disposes of it in a portable biohazard bag. He repacks his toolbox and his centrifuge, then takes the tea tray off the armchair and places it on the coffee table. He pours himself a cup and settles into the now empty chair. “I will wait thirty minutes to make sure steroid is working right,” he explains. “Do you have honey?”
Julian is instantly off to get it.
“I thought you only wanted tea with marmalade?” I say because I’m willing to say anything rather than have him just sit there and stare at me.
He shrugs. “Honey not as good as marmalade, but I make do.”
Julian reappears carrying a half-empty honey bear. He hands it to Dr. Maqsud then crouches down next to Tristan. Our eyes catch. I can tell he wants to touch Tristan the way that you can’t help but want to touch people you care about when they’re hurt or sick, but he’s holding himself back because Dr. Maqsud is watching.
It is a long thirty minutes, during which Dr. Maqsud checks Tristan’s temperature, heartbeat, breathing, and looks inside his mouth and ears three times. Each time, he reports that Tristan’s temperature is dropping and everything looks good. Julian’s nervous foot-tapping slows with each good report. By the time Dr. Maqsud stands up to leave, Tristan’s temperature is down to 102.1, and it’s been over twenty minutes since he coughed.
“He should exhibit normal symptoms of psilocybin ingestion in about an hour, once the steroid is in full effect,” Dr. Maqsud tells us as he finishes his third cup of tea. “If his fever goes up instead of down, call 911. As long as it gets down to 101, you don’t need to worry, but call me again if it’s not completely gone by nine tomorrow morning.”
Julian nods. “Thank you,” he says, then, “just a minute,” and he disappears into the bedroom. He re-emerges carrying a thickly packed letter-sized envelope. He hands it to Dr. Maqsud, who opens it and looks inside, but does not pull the contents out. I don’t have to see it to know it must be a hefty amount of cash.
“Good doing business.” Dr. Maqsud holds out his hand and Julian shakes it. He then pulls a business card out of his shirt pocket and hands it to me. “So that next time he does something stupid you don’t have to bring him to your brother,” he explains.
I take it with a tired smile, really not sure what to say to that. Did Julian tell him he was my brother? Or is he just guessing because Tristan and Julian don’t look at all related?
Dr. Maqsud grabs his centrifuge and his toolbox and Julian walks him to the door. I stare at the tea tray on the coffee table and realize that this whole time—even when I took Dr. Maqsud’s card—I haven’t stopped combing Tristan’s hair.
Julian reappears and crouches down beside us. “Tristan,” he says, somehow sounding both gentle and frustrated, “I’m going to help you to the bed, okay?”
Tristan takes a long, deep breath and sort
of rolls over, so his knees hit the floor. Julian is behind him in a flash, catching his waist between his knees and hoisting him up, under the arms. Julian and Tristan are about the same size, but Julian doesn’t seem to be straining as he literally pulls Tristan to his feet.
Slowly they make their way into the bedroom. I watch until they are through the doorway, and then my eyes wander until they land on Julian’s blanket, crumpled up on the floor. I pick it up and walk over to the bedroom, figuring it will be needed in there.
Julian has Tristan on the bed and is already pulling off his shoes. I wait until both are off before slowly walking up and holding out the blanket. Julian takes it and unfurls it, but hands me a corner. Wordlessly, we spread it across Tristan.
“We will be in the living room. I’m going to leave the door open so you can call if you need me,” Julian gently tells Tristan, who grunts in response.
I walk out and peruse the bookshelf as I wait, mostly because it’s better to be staring at something than it is to be staring at nothing. I pull out a book written in a language I don’t recognize—it looks like it might be Cyrillic. By the time Julian comes out, I’ve settled on the couch and am mindlessly flipping through the mystery book.
“Your tea must be cold by now,” Julian says, sitting down on the couch a familiar but polite distance away.
“I don’t mind cold tea,” I reply, gently closing the book. “Anyway, I suppose this is the part where I do actually really borrow your boots and go home and try to think up some explanation to give my roommate about why I disappeared in the middle of the night without shoes.”
“If that is what you’d like.” Julian smiles, kind, amused, exhausted, frazzled, and relieved all at once. “If you’d like to stay a bit longer, I did finish making chocolate-chip pancake batter just before the Bailer got here. I could have pancakes in front of you in ten minutes or less.”
That’s right, my stomach rumbles back to life, food. “I suppose,” I respond with a tired, loaded smile of my own, “that another ten minutes or so really doesn’t matter at this point.”
—
While the pancakes cook I sit at the kitchen table, which is dark wood, cut sharp, elegant, and modern, and read a cookbook that is all about how to cook without using technology that is less than five hundred years old. I’ve just gotten to a bit about how in ancient Norway different types of straw were used for controlling the heat of a cooking fire, when the soft clink of ceramic announces that pancakes have been served. I instantly put the book down and joyfully take the fork that has been sitting beside me waiting for action.
Julian returns a moment later with a steaming plate and fork of his own and sits in the chair nearest to me.
“So,” I say, breaking the silence before it can become awkward, “Key makes you take ayahuasca during the initiation ceremony?”
“Well…” Julian smiles wryly. “I’m not a Keyman, but from what I heard growing up, yes.”
“Growing up?”
“My father is. He was very mad at me for declining the invitation when I was tapped. He threatened to cut me off and everything.”
I look pointedly around the apartment. “But he didn’t.”
Julian shrugs. “My mother counter-threatened to file for divorce and take half of his money with her. She’s had ample evidence of his affairs for years and he knows it, so it stands to reason she’d make out well in the settlement.”
“Why didn’t you join? Almost everyone I know secretly wants to be tapped, especially by Key.”
“Yes, because they believe in the prestige and the connections that supposedly set up your entire future for you. It’s true, they do…but it comes at a cost. I don’t know if this is true of all secret societies, but Key has a long-stretching agenda that goes beyond Yale, and its members are expected to do whatever is necessary to support that agenda for the rest of their lives. That is why they set you up so nicely—so that when you’re called upon, you’re well placed to do whatever you’re asked.”
“So Tristan wants to be tied to these people forever, but doesn’t want them to hear whatever he might say on ayahuasca? Seems sort of—”
“Dumb?” Julian finishes for me. “It is. I’ve tried to tell him that it’s not worth it, but he’s stubborn and set on it, whatever hell it may bring into his life. I can’t believe he did this though. I mean, he’s done ’shrooms several times, he should have known that the solution to a bad trip was not over-the-counter psychoactive pharmaceuticals. And a fungus? I’m going to call Jesse about this fungus. Actually I should tell him now before he sells to anyone else. Do you mind?” he asks, ever the gentleman.
With my cheeks so stuffed with pancake that they jiggle, I shake my head no. He goes into the living room for his phone. I swallow my pancakes and get up to help myself to a glass of water.
Julian’s cupboards have glass panes, which is very helpful in this endeavor. I find bottled water in the fridge beside a half-eaten Oreo cheesecake. If I hadn’t just stuffed two pancakes down my throat in less than five minutes, I’d definitely want to eat that cake.
“Sorry,” Julian says, slipping his phone into his pocket as he reenters the kitchen. “Anyway, what were we talking about?”
“Tristan, Keymen, you think he shouldn’t join, he won’t listen, ayahuasca, and he’s an idiot for mixing drugs.”
“Yes, that.” He sighs. “I’m so sorry you’ve gotten dragged into this, Mia. The blackmail thing was stupid in the first place and I never should have gone along with it. The truth is, I find you very attractive and I have since we met, but you’re technically my student and, of course, I’m not exactly available, in the conventional sense anyway. I just…I’m just sorry for how everything happened, but I am not sorry I got to know you better. In fact, I’d still really like to know you more. I wish things were different.”
His shoulders are so tense they’re hunched, which I’ve never seen on Julian. He looks down as he talks, but his eyes are wide. His chest is deflated, defeated. I get the feeling the truth is gushing out of him right now because the stress and worry he’s feeling have burst a hole in a dam and he can’t stop the flood.
Something warm and simple gushes through my body, filling me with a level of empathetic understanding that infects me right down to the tips of my toes. “You really love him, don’t you?”
“I do.” Julian smiles, a fond but heavy smile.
“Do you think he feels the same way?” I ask.
“I think he loves me just as much,” Julian answers. “He simply isn’t as good at loving as I am, so it doesn’t look like he does.”
I stuff another wad of pancakes into my mouth and think about this statement for a moment. As soon as I swallow, I plan to ask more questions along these lines, but the chance is stolen from me by a heavy groan from the living room. Both Julian and I turn in our chairs and stand, though he is quite a bit faster about it than I am.
“Turn off the lights,” Tristan says in a far-away sounding voice. It is very different than the strained wheezing of earlier. The doctor did say that in about an hour the steroid should have taken full effect. Guess it did.
Julian flips off the lights in the living room and then comes into the kitchen and turns off the chandelier and overhead light. Only the light above the stove remains on. Tristan follows him but stops right in the middle of the kitchen and sits down, his legs folded and his back straight.
“Julian?” he says, his voice somehow both detached and vulnerable. “Do you think they know?”
“No,” Julian answers right away.
“What are you doing?” I ask Tristan.
“Sitting,” he replies serenely.
“How do you feel?” Julian asks, reclaiming his abandoned chair.
“Weird,” Tristan answers. Seconds of silence tick by. Tristan just stares into space as Julian and I stare at him.
“Do you want pancakes?” I ask, feeling rude about eating mine when he doesn’t have any.
“Why are you h
ere?” Tristan responds.
“You woke me up in the middle of the night and made me bring you here,” I wryly reply.
“I didn’t make you,” he passively comments.
“Really?” I snort. “I’m pretty sure—”
“Don’t,” Julian quietly cuts me off, “he’s on a trip right now, there’s no point.”
“I can understand you, you know?” Tristan says, craning his head and body in an awkward-looking twist. “I know things. And”—he twists so his whole body and head are pointed at me now—“I know that I didn’t make you do anything. You wanted to come. You wanted to know what was waiting on the other side.”
“No,” I correct him, “I wanted to sleep, but because I’m not a completely heartless person and I thought you were really sick, rather than just on drugs, I helped you.”
“You want to take the proverbial road less traveled but you’re afraid to.” Tristan grins; his dilated pupils glitter with hints of mania. “You’re afraid. Why are you such an afraid person, Mia Winters?”
I look from him to Julian, who holds his finger up to his lips and shakes his head, telling me not to talk.
“Don’t do that, Julian,” Tristan says. “You’re afraid too, afraid I will scare her off, but I won’t. I’ll scare her closer.”
I look at Julian again, really not sure how I’m supposed to take this, but he is swiftly scribbling on a piece of paper, so I turn back to Tristan who is looking at me but seems to be talking to Julian.
“She wants to be afraid,” he whispers with dark glee. “She’s attracted to fear, otherwise she wouldn’t carry it around with her everywhere. You’ve read all of her articles in the Daily. You know. It dances at the outskirts of her every move and word because she’s flirting with it. Flirting with fear. And I am fear personified.”
“Tristan,” Julian says, drawing Tristan’s attention away from me while he surreptitiously slides the notepad across the table to me, “what are you afraid you would say or do during the ayahuasca initiation?”
“The truth.” Tristan hums and closes his eyes. I squint mine and, after a few seconds, manage to make out Julian’s note: Don’t take anything he says personally, it’s all projection. Let me lead him through the trip.
Blackmail (Skeleton Key Book 1) Page 16