California Dreaming (18 page)
“Something in his brain. Once we know what's going on, we can talk more. Now if you'll excuse me, I have other patients to see. If you stay here, I'll come back as soon as I can.”
She started away, but Anna called to her. “Doctor! Wait!”
Dr. Miller turned around. “Yes, Miss Percy?”
“I want to know everything. What happened? Who brought him here? How did you find my name? What do you think is going on with him?”
The doctor pursed her lips and then sat again, ignoring a quick buzz from her beeper. “From what I understand, there was a response to a 911 call from his residence. He didn't make it, a housekeeper did. She saw him acting strangely, slurring his words, knocking into things, problems with balance. By the time he was brought in, he had little control of his limbs. Clearly some kind of brain problem, once we ruled out drugs or alcohol. Is he a chronic abuser?”
This was no time for Anna to be coy, and she knew it. “He smokes marijuana. A fair amount.”
“That wouldn't do it.”
She felt a moment of relief. Not that it helped the situation anyway.
“How about alcohol abuse?” Dr. Miller pressed.
“He drinks. But not excessively.”
Dr. Miller shook her head. “I don't think that's it.”
“What do you …”
Anna's voice trailed off as she had a sudden memory, all the way back from when she'd first arrived in Los Angeles. She remembered how she'd found her father out in the gazebo behind the mansion, smoking some high-quality reefer. He'd complained about headaches, then. Serious ones, which had no apparent cause. Was it possible that … ?
“He had headaches. Bad ones.”
Dr. Miller snapped to attention. “When? What kind of headaches? When did he have his last one?” The questions came rapid-fire.
“It was months ago. They seemed to get better.” She felt like kicking herself. She should have insisted that he go to a doctor then. She should have taken him there herself. Maybe straight to this hospital. He should have been looked at immediately.
“It's possible,” Dr. Miller admitted. “But also possibly not. Please, wait here. It shouldn't be long. I'll check in with you as soon as I know something.”
Anna didn't want to wait. “Can I see him?”
“Please wait,” the doctor said again.
Anna waited. And waited. She realized that doctor Miller's concept of “it shouldn't be long” and her own concept of the same phrase were quite different from each other, since an ugly black numeral wall clock directly across the hallway was there to keep her company. An hour ticked off. An hour and a half. The Indian woman's baby, the grandmother, and the construction worker were all treated and released. Just for something to do, she walked over to the nurses’ station to check in with Alma, but the nurse said that Dr. Miller had not forgotten about her, that her father was still undergoing tests, and that the best thing Anna could do was to be patient.
She returned to the orange plastic chair and eyed the new cast of characters that had taken the place of the others. If they weren't suffering themselves, they had the same nervous look of expectation, as if they were steeling themselves for the worst news possible. A middle-aged woman seated a few chairs over was wringing her hands and muttering to herself in Spanish. Nearby, a couple of teenagers with skateboards huddled together in sober silence. Meanwhile, the nurses blithely went about their business—making phone calls, filing paperwork, chatting casually about their plans for the weekend.
She had been in emergency rooms back in New York. Parties where friends had had too much to drink. Once, after the taxicab she was riding in with her mother north on Park Avenue had stopped for a light at Seventy-second Street, they'd been rear-ended, and her mother had insisted on both of them being taken to Lenox Hill Hospital for precautionary X-rays.
Her mother—she needed to be called. Also her sister. But Anna couldn't bring herself to dial their numbers when she didn't know anything.
Instead, she called Sam, and caught her in her Hummer, on the way home from a meeting with a DJ.
“Sam?”
“What's wrong, Anna? Spill. I can hear it in your voice.”
“My father's in the hospital.”
Sam's voice was reassuringly calm. “Which one?”
“Cedars-Sinai,” Anna reported.
“I'm in my car and on my way. Who else knows?”
Anna shifted her body around. The hard-backed plastic chair was incredibly uncomfortable. “Just you and me. And Logan. I was with him when I got the call.”
“Anna, you need to call your family. They'll want to know. Keep your cell on. I'm at Sunset and Crescent Heights. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”
She thanked Sam, clicked off, and started to make the painful calls. She reached her sister, Susan, at the Kripalu Yoga Institute in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Susan had moved there after getting out of rehab, and so far the simple life of the center—she worked as a kitchen assistant—was keeping her clean and sober.
Her sister took the news without hysteria, once she heard that their father was stable, and reported that their mother was still in Italy if Anna wanted to call her there. Anna said she would, even though it was after midnight in Milan. Susan made Anna swear to check in every two hours. If she needed to come to California, she'd get on a plane. All Anna had to do was give the word.
Next Anna called their mother. When she answered the phone at the Hotel Intercontinental in Milan, Jane Cabot Percy was impressively cool. She didn't even sound sleepy. “He's stable, you say, Anna?”
“Yes, Mother. He's stable.”
“It's not his heart?”
“Something in his brain, they think.”
Her mother barked a short laugh. “Well, your dad has extra in that department, even if he got shortchanged when it came to judgment, the poor thing. You call me as soon as you know anything. Okay, Anna? I mean it. I want to hear from you in the morning my time, no matter what.”
A foursome of noisy orderlies went past, pushing a couple of gurneys. Anna waited until they were out of sight to answer. “I will,” she agreed.
“My thoughts are with you both.” Anna's mother clicked off.
Anna snapped the phone shut and slouched back in the hard plastic waiting room chair. It had been a long couple of hours.
“Anna!”
She turned. Sam was hurrying into the waiting area, a Gucci bag in one hand and a takeout bag from Jerry's Delicatessen, which was right across the street from the hospital, in the other. She wore black boot-cut jeans with a slinky black silk top.
“What do you know?” Sam demanded, her voice worried. “What's the latest?”
Anna felt a surge of fear as she considered the possibilities.
“Anna? I've got some information.”
Coming from the other direction was Dr. Miller. She looked more tired than she had just a few hours ago.
“We've brought your father into surgery. He has a subdural hematoma.”
“What's that?” Sam asked.
“And who are you?” Dr. Miller asked sharply, her brown eyes taking Sam in questioningly.
“My good friend. This is Sam Sharpe. Go on, Dr. Miller,” Anna insisted, as another gurney was pushed by them. “Did it have anything to do with those headaches I told you about?”
“Doubtful. Very doubtful, I'd say.”
Even as the doctor said the words, Anna felt marginally better. At least there wasn't anything that could have been done.
“So what is this subdural thingie?” Sam prompted.
Dr. Miller took out a small pad and a pen, and quickly sketched a rough picture. “There are blood vessels between the outer part of the brain, called the
dura
, and the brain itself. One of his bled out. Right here.” She pointed to her own head, a little above her left ear. “That's what caused all the symptoms.”
“Is it treatable?” Anna queried.
“Yes. Your father is in surgery now. They're drilling into his skull to let the blood drain and relieve the pressure. He wasn't in a major accident, as far as we can tell, so it wasn't caused by a major trauma. That's good. I understand the hematoma is quite substantial, which isn't so good.”
Anna shivered. “When can I see him?”
“He'll be out in another hour. Then we'll bring him up to intensive care. It's on the fifth floor. He'll still be sedated. But you and your friend should be free to go up there now and wait. I'll try to check in with you as the surgery progresses.
“Thank you,” Anna said dully.
Two hours later, she and Sam sat together in the intensive care waiting room, which was as different from the emergency room waiting area as two locations in the same hospital could be. While the emergency room was crowded, the intensive care area was empty save for the two of them. The room itself was spacious and white-walled, with a huge picture window facing north toward the Hollywood hills. There were plush gray fabric couches, a flat-screen TV on the wall, all the latest sports and fashion magazines, and low, calm lighting.
Anna had called Susan and texted her mother with the latest word from Dr. Miller, and she and Sam were making their way through knishes Sam had brought from the deli. They sipped cups of coffee from the coffeemaker on a side table.
“Anna?” Dr. Miller appeared in the doorway. She smiled broadly. Anna and Sam were on her immediately, but the doctor started in before they could even get their knishes out of their hands. “We're done,” she reported. “The surgery was a success. He's in a room here. We'll keep him here for forty-eight hours, then move him to a private room downstairs. Or he might be able to be released even more quickly than that.”
“That's great!” Anna exclaimed, her heart lifting. “He'll be fine?”
Dr. Miller shook her head. “I won't go that far. We need to evaluate him. Seventy-five percent of patients with his kind of injury make a good or complete recovery. But this isn't like a sprained ankle. This is serious business.”
“Can I see him?” Anna asked.
“Absolutely, if you don't mind that he's asleep. Come with me. One at a time, please,” she added, glancing at Sam.
“I'll wait for you—however long you're in there,” Sam promised.
Anna tried to steel herself for what she was about to see as she stepped through the doorway into the austere hospital room. She'd thought she was prepared, but when she caught sight of her strong father unconscious in an intensive care bed, hooked up to every kind of monitor in the history of medicine, with one side of his head shaved for the surgery and bandaged to catch any drainage from the wound, she felt as nervous and emotional as she had when she was certain her plane was headed for disaster. She willed herself not to cry. Instead, she went to her father's bedside and put her hand atop one of his. “I'm here. I'll be here. I'll be here until you wake up. I love you, Dad.”
That was it. That was all that she could take. She stumbled out of the room and trudged back to the waiting area. He was alive. That was good. But to see him that way was simply too much for her.
The waiting room was empty. Anna figured that Sam had gone down to the cafeteria. That was good. She could use a break. Maybe while she was gone Anna would take the opportunity to rest for a little while herself, to not talk to anyone, to try not to even think. She moved toward one of the couches, thinking she might even put her feet up.
“Anna?”
The male voice behind her was barely perceptible. Logan. How thoughtful. He'd come anyway. She turned. Standing at the entrance to the ICU waiting room in jeans, sneakers, and a blue button-down shirt, was Ben.
“If you want me to go, I will,” he said quickly. “But Sam called me. She thought I'd want to know. I hope you're not angry I came.”
He looked tired and unshaven, his brown hair tousled, slight lines creasing the corners of his blue eyes. Maybe running the club was harder than she'd imagined. Maybe he was upset to be in this place. Or both.
“No. I'm glad.”
She didn't move toward him. But she didn't move away, either.
“I'm sorry about your father.”
“He's alive,” she said simply, tucking a wisp of blond hair behind her ear. “The surgery went okay. That's what the doctor said. Where's Sam?” She glanced around the empty waiting area.
“She went downstairs to call Dee. Something about the wedding caterer. She'll be back.”
The gray fabric couches sat invitingly empty, with their view of the Hollywood Hills, but neither made any motion to sit. That would imply a friendship. An intimacy. The only sound was the plasma television's low hum and an audible
drip, drip
from the coffeemaker in the corner.
“I mostly came to show support.” Ben shoved his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. “I know I have no business being here. But I came anyway.”
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“I'm glad you did.”
He smiled wanly and leaned against the white wall by the ICU door. “Really? Because I'm sorry how weird things have gotten between us.”
“I am too,” Anna agreed. She was still in her business outfit from meeting Carlie Martin, and wished she'd thought to ask Sam to bring her some more comfortable clothing. Who knew how long she'd be here? Her vintage suede pumps had not been designed with hospital waiting in mind.
“I hope that will change,” Ben offered.
Anna gave him a small smile. “You know what I think? Maybe it just did.”
Ben smiled back, his blue eyes warm. In an instant, his face went from tired to encouraging, and she felt strangely reassured, even with her father unconscious and his prognosis uncertain. She was glad to have Ben here, she realized. It changed everything.
And in that same moment, she realized she still hadn't called Logan.
Tuesday evening, 8:29 p.m.
“C
ammie, here's what our readers want to know. In a week, you've become L.A.’s teen queen. What can you tell our readers about the view from the top?”
Cammie brushed a lock of strawberry-blond hair behind her left ear, cocked her head at the
People
magazine reporter, and pretended to give the question a lot of thought. But the truth was, she'd already thought about this question today, and she'd already answered it. Twice. These promotional interviews for her club were starting to get awfully repetitious.
