Alive (32 page)

“Well, look at you,” she squeals. “Your father has photographs in the office, but you’re…well, you look so grown-up.” Eyelashes flutter.

I scoot an imperceptible inch closer to him. Back off, Blondie.

I clear my throat, since Henry appears to have lost the use of his vocal cords. “We’re meeting Dr. Jones in his office in a few minutes”

She rests her palm on the phone. “Sure you don’t want me to page him?”

“That’s okay,” Henry says quickly. I elbow him in the ribs. “Yeah, we’re, uh, we’re going to go wait for Dr.—I mean Dad—in his office,
okay?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” she says, grinning at us. Then, to Henry: “Can I bring you anything? Water? A juice box from downstairs?”

I’ve already started to drag Henry down the hall, away from Cassandra and her white dental-assistant teeth and perky hair flips. “No. We’re fine. Thanks,” I answer for
him.

“Did you see how she looked at me?” he asks, craning to look over his shoulder.

I search the nameplates for the office that belongs to Henry’s dad. “Slow down, Romeo. The woman offered you a juice box.”

At the end of the corridor, I spot the familiar name:
JOSHUA
H
.
JONES
,
M
.
D
. We slip into his office and close the door behind us. I take a deep breath, the doorknob poking into my lower back.

“How long do you think we have?”

Henry crosses a white rug and sits down on a stiff leather sofa.

“Not sure. Should be a while. He only comes back here to do paperwork.”

I exhale and crack my knuckles. “Okay, then. In that case, I’m going in.” I slide into the massive rolling chair and do a quick spin to face Dr. Jones’s computer.

I remember the first time I saw the records Dr. Belkin kept about me. You could scroll and scroll and keep on scrolling and still you’d never reach the end.

I see at once that this hospital doesn’t use the same record system as St. David’s, but it’s similar enough.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asks Henry, breathing over my shoulder.

The screen is dark, but I rattle the mouse and it brightens. Dr. Jones has already logged in for the day. A stroke of luck.

“Shhhh.” I hold up a finger. “I told you. I’ve got this.” I’m clicking the top right-hand side of the screen and typing in the words
Levi Zin
. A short
list of documents appears in the drop-down box. “This is it,” I whisper. “Should I click on it?” I look up at Henry, who’s inches from my cheek.

“Are you kidding me? Open it.” He pokes my shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”

We both go rigid at the sound of approaching footsteps. “Thanks, Cassie.” We hear the unmistakable voice of Dr. Jones. “Tell Margo I’ll call her back in an hour.
Back-to-back appointments until then.”

“Henry,” I squawk. A turn of the knob.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Henry slaps the back of the chair and then springs to the door.

Stepping outside, he must run headlong into his dad because I hear, “What are you doing here, Henry?” Followed by a pause and then, “Whoa there, oh shoot. Oh, darn.”

I mentally groan

“Dad, I’m so sorry.” I can envision renewed hair-tugging. “Can I get you a cloth? A napkin?”

I cringe. The door is only open a crack. I’m not sure what to do or how much time I have to do it. Any? No time to second-guess. I click on the file.

A warning for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act flashes on-screen. I click through it with the mouse. I tap my foot on the floor. “Come on, come on, come on.
Load.” A glance over my shoulder. I can just make out a sliver of Henry.

“You really got me,” says Dr. Jones. A rustle of clothing. “Was I expecting you? I didn’t see anything on the schedule.” He pauses. “Not that you have to
schedule anything with your dad. Sorry.” He sounds flustered. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“No, um—”
Think, Henry, think,
I will him. “Just a spur-of-the-moment decision. Sorry about your coat.”

“No worries. I have a stain-remover pen inside. Your mother insists.”

I jump from the chair. Should I duck? Dive?

The door swings open another two inches. “Wait! Dad!” I’m paralyzed. “Stella’s, uh, in there.”

“Stella?”

“Yeah. We were in the area and she wasn’t feeling well, so I said maybe we could go to your office and she could lie down on your couch for a while.” I can count out the
seconds by the pounding of my heart. “I hope that’s okay. I know we didn’t ask first.”

A hand appears on the knob. It closes another couple inches.

I sigh, sinking back into the chair and wiping my brow. I don’t have time to read the file. I glance around. A printer is perched on a desk stand beside the filing cabinet.

I have no spare time to think. I punch a couple keys and, to my relief, the ink-jet starts coughing up pages.

“Then I should go in to see her. Is she okay? Henry, this stuff is serious. Stella—”

Only a couple more pages. The printer is a dinosaur.

“Actually, would you mind feeling my glands?” I hear Henry closest to the door now, as if he’s physically blockading it. “I’m worried I’m coming down with
something too.” I bend down and peek into the bowels of the printer. Why is its speed glacial?

Henry’s getting desperate.

“If you’re coming down with something, then you shouldn’t be around Stella. And you definitely shouldn’t be kissing her.”

“Dad! Please!”

My eyes bug and I’m a thousand times grateful that Henry isn’t here to witness my reddening face.

Last page. It chug-chug-chugs, lurching out of the machine all maddening stop-and-go. The door is opening again. And from Henry’s strangled warning, I gather that there’s no stopping
Dr. Jones this time. Henry’s used all the tricks in his bag. I lean down and grab the page from the printer. Just as I’m preparing to fold it in with the rest of the stack, a familiar
number catches my eye, one that I have branded onto the back of my eyelids, one that I will forever associate with the deepest, purest form of pain and that, even now, in its immobile black
typeface, read at a time that can’t possibly harm me, makes me want to faint.

When Dr. Jones opens the door, he’s facing Henry, who I see is still making a big show of pointing at his glands. This gives me a split second to make it from the desk to
a position reasonably close to the sofa where I was supposed to be resting.

“Dr. Jones!” I say in a voice that’s far too cheery for someone who only moments earlier was napping. My cheeks warm.
Napping?
I can’t imagine what Henry’s
dad must think of me if I’m the type of girl to make myself at home in someone’s office. Fantastic. I take the enthusiasm down three notches and try again. “Nice to see you
again.” I fake a more feeble smile.

“Nice to see you too, Stella.” His white coat flutters behind him as he whooshes through the room, dropping a stack of files on his desk. His smile could melt butter and I feel a
surge of guilt for snooping through his things. “Henry tells me you’re feeling out of sorts?”

“I, uh…” Henry gives me a subtle shrug. Right. Improvise. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Just a faint spell, I think.”

Dr. Jones starts to open his mouth.

“But just for a minute,” I interject. “I’m feeling much better now. Strange how it can just pass like that, but hey, count your good days, right? That’s what the
nurses are always telling me.” I’m rambling. “Anyway, thanks for letting me use your office. Sorry to barge in like that.” Behind my back I point to the bulge of paper
tucked into my jacket. Henry squints. Then his eyes widen. Meanwhile, his dad takes turns looking between us like we’ve both come down with some rare avian flu. “So,” Henry says,
trying and failing to sound natural, “you seem really busy.”

“Really busy,” I agree with a serious crinkling of my brow.

“And we didn’t mean to disturb you.” Henry retreats one small step toward the door.

“Yeah, that’s the last thing that we want to do.”

“You two aren’t disturbing—”

“Sure, sure, I know, Dad, but we should get going and besides, Stella’s feeling better.”

“So much better,” I agree.

“Right.” Henry rubs his palms together, backpedaling farther toward the door. “Anyway, thanks for letting us pop in, and I’ll see you for dinner.” He waves.

Trailing Henry, I back out of the door so that Dr. Jones won’t see I’m hiding something in my jacket.

Henry tugs at my arm and we both break off in the opposite direction, toward the elevator, giggling in spite of ourselves. He hardly even acknowledges Cassandra when she tries to make parting
conversation.

We stampede into the elevator, which lurches to a stop on the next floor, where a young, pregnant woman gets on. I take this as our cue. “Come on.” I look both ways, and together we
tumble out into a hallway.

“What are we doing here?” Henry asks. Both of our shoes squeak loudly across the floor.

I spot a supply closet. The coast is clear. I swing open the door and we duck in. I have to know what the report says. If what I thought I saw is real.

We’re now standing toe-to-toe. I fumble for a light and switch it on. My nose is an inch from Henry’s chest. The shelves surrounding us are stocked with jugs of cleaning fluid and
cartons of gauze. Beside our feet is a mop bucket. I scoot it sideways.

“Are you crazy?” Henry asks in a hushed tone.

I retrieve the papers and spread them out flat. “I’m pretty sure that’s already been established. Here.” I turn the pages horizontally, so that we can both read them.

Medical jargon fills the first page. Blood type. Echocardiogram numbers. White-cell count. I’m used to the language and understand most of it. I scan the small print, not sure on which
page I’d seen the number. When nothing on a page catches my attention, I hand it to Henry, who folds it up and sticks it in his pocket.

“Look.” I point to a spot halfway down the second page. “A description of his injury.” I underline the words with my nail. “Doctors observed severe head trauma as
well as blunt force to the neck and spine. Residual water in lungs. Severe laceration on the throat. Heartbeat low at thirty-six beats per minute.”

I flip quickly to the next page. Henry’s breath is hot and tickles my scalp.

“His family signed to take him off life support,” Henry says about the fast, looping signature scrawled at the bottom of the sheet. I’d worried about the same moment for my
parents. The one where they had to admit that I wasn’t coming back. Pull the plug. The idea had the finality of a period, not at the end of a sentence or a paragraph, but at the end of a
weighty Russian novel.

We’re to the final page now. A sharp intake of breath. I can scarcely focus on any of the words. The ink runs together in dark blobs that appear to pool on the white paper. My hands
tremble because I know what will be on this page. The number.

I lick my lips and read on, through the medical report of the cause of death. The combination of Levi Zin’s injuries paints a violent picture of an end not peacefully met. Even with the
physicians’ sterile terminology, it’s as if I’m looking through a projector lens and playing on the screen is a reel highlighting each cut and blow. In my mind’s eye, I see
as the life force is beaten and slashed from Levi Zin’s fragile teenage body.

And right there on the still-warm leaf of paper is the time that it all ended.

“Five oh eight.” I lift my eyes to meet Henry’s. “That’s the time that he died.” There’s a click in my chest, as of a piece of a puzzle snapping into
place. “That’s our connection.” I stare at the numbers in disbelief. “This is it. The time I—”

“The time you feel the pain,” Henry says without taking his eyes off me.

I nod. The moment teeters on the edge of reality. It has the shimmery quality of something out of a dream. Currents hum in the air. “Henry, I’m scared.” I don’t mean to
say this, but I do and it’s out. He shifts protectively toward me, and I raise up on my tippy-toes and I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, if our lips touch in just the right way, my
pain will slip away, but just as I’m committing, a blast of light blinds me.

Henry raises his arm to shield his eyes, but in doing so he jabs one of mine.

“Ouch!” I stumble back, knocking boxes off the shelf behind me with a loud clatter.

“What are you kids doing?” a man in a blue janitorial jumpsuit demands. “Get out of here! Does this look like the back of a movie theater to you?” He grabs Henry by the
collar and yanks him away from me. “Show some respect.”

I scramble out after Henry and we do exactly what the man says. We get out of there. Fast.