A Changed Man (26 page)

“Call her,” says Max. “Please.”

“Use the phone in the kitchen,” Lorraine says. “It’s mobile. Bring it in here.”

Danny goes into the kitchen and dials. The phone rings twice, three times. Probably they’re at the dinner, someone’s giving a speech, his mom’s got the phone turned off. On the fourth ring she picks up.

“Hello?” she says. “Danny! What’s wrong?” For a moment Danny can’t decide whether he’s happy to hear her voice or annoyed because she’s jumped to the conclusion that something’s wrong. Maybe he’s just calling to say hello. Hi, how’s the dinner going?

“Max is crying,” says Danny.

“Oh, my God, is he hurt?”

“No, but he’s been crying for sort of a long time.”

“But he’s not hurt?”

“No, Mom, he’s not hurt.”

“How long is ‘sort of long’?” says Mom.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes? Max has been crying for
fifteen minutes?
What did Dad say to him? Did Lorraine hurt his feelings?”

“It wasn’t Dad. Or Lorraine. Exactly.”

“Did you and Max have a fight?”

“No, nothing like that. I think he’s sad or something.”

“Oh, dear God,” says Mom.

Danny’s walking into the living room, bringing Max and Mom closer. Bringing him Mom. Danny hears sounds in the background behind his mother. Police sirens, crackly announcements over loudspeakers. It doesn’t sound like a benefit dinner.

“Where
are
you?” Danny asks.

“Nowhere special.”

“Nowhere special? What’s all that noise in the background? Where
are
you?”

“In the emergency room. But don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

“What the fuck? How fine could you be if you’re in the emergency room? Mom, are you okay?”

“Language,” says Mom. “Vincent had an allergy attack. In the middle of his speech. I guess he’d eaten nuts. Obviously, my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. But a lot was going on—”

“Seriously?” says Danny.

“Can you believe it? Is that insane, or what?”

“Insane,” says Danny. “Way insane.”

“What a night,” says Bonnie.

Danny smiles. There’s something about his mom’s tone that reminds him of their best times together, the way his mom sometimes acts as if everything is a ridiculous joke they’re sharing. Just the two of them. Then Dad catches Danny’s eye and melts the smile off his face. Danny makes himself focus. In the emergency room?

“Is he okay?” says Danny. Now Dad’s really giving him major eyeball. Even Max has stopped crying and is listening in. How bad could Max’s crying fit have been if he can turn it off like that? Danny feels stupid for having called Mom, but it’s too late. Mom’s talking about how great Vincent was, what a hero, how he kept going and finished his speech even though he could have died.

“So is he okay?” repeats Danny.

“Is
who
okay?” says Dad. Danny decides to ignore him.

Right on cue, Max starts bawling again, loud enough so Mom can hear.

“Fine. Vincent’s fine,” says Mom. “Let me talk to Max.” Danny passes the phone to his brother, who sighs and takes it as if he’s doing them a favor.

Is Mom asking Max what his problem is?
Please
don’t let him bring up the marriage and the Bulgarian baby! Max is listening, still sniffling, but no longer looking so bug-eyed and wild.

“Where is she?” Dad asks Danny.

Danny wishes he could tell him. Or to be more exact, he wishes that his dad were someone whom he
could
tell. She’s in the emergency room with our Nazi roommate. How great it would feel to tell that other, imaginary father about Vincent staying with them, and about the strangest thing, which is that Danny is starting to
like
him. Danny can talk to Vincent. As opposed to Dad.

“On her way home,” Danny says.

“Car service, I hope?” Dad says. “She’s such a lousy driver.”

“Now, now,” says Lorraine.

“Yeah. Car service,” Danny says.

Max is handing the phone to him.

“Danny?” says Mom. “Get Max to a quiet room. Take off his shoes. Let him lie down. Sit next to him. Stroke his forehead. Is there a TV? Let him watch TV. I’m depending on you, okay?”

“I think I can do that,” Danny says. “Not the forehead part.”

“Danny, I love you so much,” Mom says.

“I love you too, Mom,” he says.

“Call me in ten minutes,” says Mom.

“No,” Danny says. “There’s no point, Mom.”

“Okay…but if you need to. Call me, Danny. Promise?”

“I promise,” Danny says. And somehow they get through their good-byes without too many more warnings or interrogations.

“What did your mother say?” asks Dad.

Danny repeats Mom’s directions.

“Brilliant.” Is Dad relieved or sarcastic? Both. Dad likes it when anyone has a plan, even if it’s Mom. It’s strange that Mom should suddenly be the take-charge one. She must be like that at work. She raises all that money. Lorraine seems to have lots of plans. All Dad has to do is agree.

Danny hustles Max into the guest room, puts him on the lower bunk bed, and takes off his shoes. “Man,” he says. “Your feet stink.” Then says, “Guess where Mom was.”

“Where? The dinner, right?”

“The emergency room.”

That shocks Max out of his crybaby mood. “What’s wrong? Is Mom okay?”

“She’s fine,” says Danny. “It’s Vincent. He had some kind of allergy attack, some peanut thing, right in the middle of dinner.”

Max blinks and sits up, and Danny has the pleasure of watching his brother’s bright, crisp expression neaten up the blurry mess of his meltdown.

“Is Vincent okay?” Max says.

“Mom says he’s fine,” answers Danny. “He finished his speech even though he was practically dying.”

“In the middle of the dinner?” Max actually smiles. “No way. That is
awesome.
”

T
HE MINUTE
B
ONNIE SPOTS
Elliot Green among the
onlookers watching Vincent regain consciousness in her arms, she knows she can count on a visit to the emergency room. For liability reasons. Bonnie wonders what Elliot is whispering to Meyer. Could he be suggesting that Vincent is going to sue them?

Meyer comes over to Bonnie and says, “Let’s take Vincent to Lenox Hill. Elliot thinks it’s a good idea.”

“Fine,” says Bonnie. In fact, she’s relieved. She wants a nice young intern to promise that some delayed reaction won’t kick in eight hours from now—in
her
house—and kill Vincent in his sleep.

Vincent gingerly sits up. Careful, everyone move back, give the guy some air. Bonnie could, in theory, get off the floor. But whatever message her brain is trying to send to her feet is returning unanswered. Maybe her legs have fallen asleep, maybe she’s still wobbly. Maybe she was even more scared than she knew. For a moment she thinks
she
might pass out and really make everyone’s evening.

There’s no question but that the Ticknors’ car will lead the shiny black convoy that streaks away from the museum, diagonals across Fifth Avenue, and veers east toward the hospital. Larry won’t hear of anything else. The hero who gave Vincent mouth to mouth is not about to walk out at intermission.

Laura Ticknor rides up front with the driver, and Larry gets in back, where he and Bonnie sandwich Vincent between them. Bonnie’s trying not to think about what all this might mean for the foundation. The only thing that counts is that Vincent is okay. And yet she can’t help noting that the Ticknors’ hands-on involvement augurs well for the future. How could they
not
support an organization after they’ve saved its poster boy’s life?

“Don’t I get dessert?” Vincent says. Everyone chuckles madly.

“Forget it,” says Bonnie. “The way things have been going tonight, it’s probably pecan pie.”

“I’m sorry,” says Vincent. “I fucked up.”

The Ticknors will have to understand that Vincent wouldn’t be saying
fuck
if he hadn’t just passed out. Among the brain cells he must have lost are the ones that modulate self-presentation. At first, Bonnie mistook Vincent’s adaptable chameleon quality for sneakiness, but that was before she realized that he simply wants things to go well. As she does. Anyway, why should Bonnie care if Vincent says
fuck
around the Ticknors?

“The caterers fucked up,” says Larry. “That’s who fucked up.”

Finally, Bonnie gets it. Vincent’s a movie star. Larry Ticknor is trying to speak the star’s own language. Vincent’s not just some white-supremacist creep, not just some upstate loser. He’s a serious guy who nearly died in order to finish his speech. How much more could he have done to prove the strength of his convictions, the sincerity of his conversion? It was brave in every way, and Larry Ticknor knows that.

“It’s my fault,” Bonnie says. “I should have double-checked the menu. I’m sure I told the caterers, but—”

“Turn left,” Laura tells the driver.

“Got it,” the driver says.

“Oh, why am I telling
you,
Enrique? We’ve done this route a million times.” Laura turns to explain to Vincent and Bonnie. “Our son is extremely accident-prone. It’s part of the ADD.”

“How old are your kids?” says Bonnie.

“Jake is thirteen, almost fourteen,” says Laura. “And Brooklyn is six. Do you have children?”

“Two boys,” Bonnie says. “Twelve and sixteen.” She and Laura Ticknor are bonding over their children! The boys she’s left with their self-centered, insensitive father who can be depended on to hurt their feelings, however accidentally. Not to mention Black Widow Lorraine. Bonnie has abandoned her kids so she can pimp them to Laura Ticknor.

“Bonnie’s got great kids,” Vincent says. So he
hasn’t
damaged his brain. Or at least he can still use the part that knows how impressed Laura will be that he’s not only noticed Bonnie’s kids but, after all he’s been through tonight, is being nice about them. How surprising that, as a male presence, Vincent has turned out to be so much more useful than Joel. Every time Joel helped the kids with their homework, it ended with shouting and tears. But Vincent has told her that he had a talk with Danny about a paper he’s writing for school. A paper about Hitler. You’d think Danny would have had enough Hitler, first with Meyer and now Vincent. At least Bonnie’s kids know who Hitler was, as opposed to those lame-brain high school students who, she read in a recent survey, think that the Holocaust is some kind of Jewish holiday.

They stop in front of the ER entrance, and within seconds Meyer’s car screeches up to the curb. Back at the museum they’d done some triage to keep the delegation manageable. Roberta Dwyer and Elliot Green were dissuaded from tagging along. As is, they have enough people to fill a small waiting room.

Larry Ticknor isn’t embarrassed by the size of the entourage. Quite the opposite, actually. He pauses and waits for his posse to collect and provide the wind in his sails as he grabs Vincent’s elbow and swoops through the sliding doors.

The whole scene comes at Bonnie too fast for her to register more than a few quick impressions. The waiting area’s not terribly crowded. No one seems badly hurt. Here and there, someone’s pressing a neon-blue ice pack to some body part.

The population is more diverse than Bonnie would have expected. An African woman in a batik dress and a matching turban is breast-feeding her baby, while, a few seats away, an Asian family huddles for a whispered conference. The young man at the admissions desk wears a white coat and tie, wire-rimmed glasses, and a set of dreadlocks that seem calculated to stay just within the limits of a hospital dress code. Bonnie wonders what Vincent thinks about finding himself in this multiculti health-care situation.

Their group forms a protective squadron flanking Larry and Vincent as Larry leans across the desk and says, “I’m Larry Ticknor. And this is my friend Vincent Nolan. Vincent had an allergic episode while speaking at the Brotherhood Watch benefit dinner. And we’d feel a lot more comfortable if a doctor could take a look.”

The reception clerk appraises Vincent, then takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. How difficult it must be to work out here on the front line, deciding, hour after hour, precisely how much trouble each new arrival is in. Not much, it seems, in Vincent’s case, or anyway not enough to disrupt the smoothness with which the clerk hands Larry a clipboard and says, “Fill these out, okay?”

Larry
fill these out? Horrified, Larry looks at his friends. It’s one thing to give CPR, to swap spits with a former Nazi, but it’s quite another to be asked to fill out a questionnaire. He has assistants—an entire staff—paid to deal with crap like this!

“I’m Larry Ticknor,” he repeats. Is this not ringing a
bell?
Doesn’t the kid understand that the Ticknors have generously rewarded the hospital for their competence and efficiency during their son Jake’s numerous ER visits?

“Of course, Mr. Ticknor,” says the clerk, without a hint of impatience, without a trace of
I don’t care who you are.
Well, maybe just the faintest trace. “But somebody needs to fill out the form. That’s where we generally start from.”

Bonnie was wrong. The kid is steamed. That
generally
is a tipoff.

Laura says, “Let it go, Larry. This might be one of those times when it’s better not to throw your weight around and just pretend to be a normal civilian.”

“Fine,” says Larry. “Whatever. You field this one, Laura.” He passes the clipboard to Laura, who hands it on to Bonnie. ER hot potato. Fishing around for her pen, Bonnie says, “Why doesn’t everybody sit down?”

“There’s a pen attached right there.” The clerk is thrilled that he’s going to be dealing with Bonnie instead of Larry or Laura.

Larry shepherds the others to an empty row, in which they arrange themselves facing the desk. Vincent’s saved the seat beside him for Bonnie, a gesture that pleases her until she recalls: she’s got to sit next to him. She’s filling out his forms. Address, phone number, date of birth. It should be easy, but she’s distracted by the hospital noises, bells, voices on the PA, sirens.

“Health insurance?” she asks, without hope.

“I doubt it,” Vincent says. “Was I covered at the tire place? That wouldn’t be good anymore, anyhow. It’s been a while. I don’t remember.”

Of course he doesn’t have health insurance. Bonnie should have thought of that weeks ago and looked into the Brotherhood Watch plan, which covers her and the kids. How much Bonnie takes for granted! She wonders, as she so often does: How do people manage? People like Vincent. For all she knows, one ER visit could cost hundreds of dollars. Thousands. If they’re willing to see him at all unless he has insurance. Isn’t there a law that says that the ER has to accept you? Bonnie takes out her wallet and finds the card from the foundation’s health plan. She brings the clerk the forms, together with her card.

“He’s on this same plan,” she says. “He hasn’t got his card with him.”

The clerk types the information into the computer. Bonnie’s heart is racing.

“Sorry. His name’s not coming up.”

“Believe me,” says Bonnie. “He’s on it. I know. I’ll check at the office. I’ll call our provider tomorrow.”

Is it that word
provider?
Or is it, more likely, that he senses Bonnie’s desperation? He knows Bonnie’s lying. He types a while longer. “Here’s the number to call,” he says. “First thing tomorrow morning. All right?”

“The minute I wake up,” says Bonnie. “Thank you thank you thank you.”
Now
he hears her desperation. And now he gives Bonnie a long look: another sort of triage. Are she and Vincent a couple? Oddly, Bonnie likes the idea. What flatters her is not being mistaken for Vincent’s wife so much as a stranger thinking that she
could
be with a good-looking younger man whose rich friends have whisked him to the emergency room in a fleet of town cars.

Bonnie’s cellphone rings.

“Hello?” Bonnie says. “Danny? What’s wrong?” The familiar horror scenario streams through her mind, modified to fit the current situation, which tonight involves Joel’s apartment. Fifty stories up. She’s never been there, but several times, she’s been on the phone with Joel, and he’s launched into a dreamy, ecstatic description of his million-dollar view. His million-point-two-dollar view.

Bonnie’s already praying her way through the usual list. Don’t let it be this, don’t let it be that. She always knew that it would be something she never even imagined.

“Max is crying,” says Danny.

Bonnie says, “Oh, my God, is he hurt?”

He isn’t. If no one is in danger or pain, Bonnie can handle it. Still, Max must be awfully upset if Danny’s worried enough to call. Bonnie asks Joel to take the boys for one night, and he can’t even manage that!

“Where
are
you?” Danny asks.

“In the emergency room. But don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

“What the fuck? How fine could you be if you’re in the emergency room? Mom, are you okay?”

Bonnie’s haste to reassure him is delayed by a second of guilty pleasure at how concerned he sounds. She leans into the phone, turning her back on Vincent and the others.

“Language,” says Bonnie. Somehow, telling Danny about Vincent’s mishap convinces her that everything
is
going to be fine. An allergy attack in the middle of the gala dinner sounds like a bad joke. “How insane is that?”

“Insane,” says Danny. “Way insane.”

“What a night,” says Bonnie.

“Is he okay?” says Danny. What a good human being Danny is, filled with sympathy and fellow feeling. He cares about Vincent. He wishes him well. Bonnie can tell from his voice.

“Vincent was great. He was a hero. He kept going and finished his speech even though he could have died.”

“Is he okay?” repeats Danny.

Bonnie hears Max sobbing in the background.

“Fine,” Bonnie says. “Vincent’s fine. Let me talk to Max.”

Max gulps hello, then starts crying again. Even so, Bonnie finds the sound of his voice comforting. He’s alive and unhurt. Physically, at least.

“Honey,” she says, “you’ll feel better. I promise. Tomorrow night, we’ll be home, you’ll be sleeping in your own bed. Just find a nice quiet place to lie down. Get Danny to come with you. Let me talk to him a minute more. Okay? Bye, sweetheart. I love you.”

Bonnie tells Danny to help Max find somewhere to rest. Let him watch TV.

“Danny, I love you so much,” she says.

“I love you too, Mom,” he says.

As soon as the line goes dead, Bonnie’s overcome with regret for not having gone over tomorrow’s arrangements. For not having reminded Joel that he’s taking them to school in the morning. Let them think she’s neurotic. Better safe than sorry. Max has been crying for fifteen minutes. Bonnie should drop everything and rush over there right now!

Coming out of her crouch with the phone, she sees the desk clerk watching her.

“Kids,” says Bonnie, flapping her hand.

“What can you do?” says the clerk.

Bonnie wonders if he assumes that they’re the kids she has with Vincent, the husband allegedly covered by her medical insurance.

“You’ll let us know, right?” she tells the clerk. “I mean, when it’s our turn.”

“There’s six of you,” he says. “I’m not about to forget you.”

Bonnie returns to her seat beside Vincent, who says, “Who called?”

“That was Danny,” says Bonnie. “Max is having some kind of meltdown.”

“Max?” says Vincent. “What kind of meltdown?”

“Crying,” says Bonnie. “He won’t stop.”

“He’ll stop,” says Vincent. “Don’t worry. Max is a stand-up guy.”

Bonnie smiles, and Vincent smiles back. They’re talking about her child’s character. So why should this feel like flirtation? Having someone to talk to about her child is sexy, though maybe only a woman would think that. It’s been so long since Bonnie flirted with anyone, she no longer knows what it feels like. Maybe the basic procedure was changed during the years she was married. Is she flirting with Vincent in a hospital waiting room? What could be less romantic? But it
is
romantic. That’s why they set TV shows in emergency rooms. In any case, Bonnie’s only dimly aware of her surroundings. It’s as if the edges have melted away, and the only sharp image is Vincent. Which
is
what flirtation feels like. Bonnie remembers now. The fantasy—the impossible part—is that Vincent is flirting with
her.
Wake up. She’s Bonnie. Flabby arms. Single mother of two.