Fangirl (37 page)

“Why did they call you?” Cath asked. Maybe it was a rude thing to ask; she didn’t care.

“Oh,” Laura said. She reached into a cream-colored Coach bag and pulled out Wren’s phone, holding it across the aisle.

Cath took it.

“They looked in her contacts,” Laura said. “They said they always call the mom first.”

The mom,
Cath thought.

Cath dialed her dad’s number. It went straight to voice mail. She stood up and walked a few chairs away, for two feet of privacy. “Dad, it’s Cath. I’m at the hospital. I haven’t seen Wren yet. I’ll call you when I know more.”

“I talked to him earlier,” Laura said. “He’s in Tulsa.”

“I know,” Cath said, looking down at the phone. “Why didn’t
he
call me?”

“I … I said I would. He had to call the airline.”

Cath sat back down, not right across from Laura anymore. She didn’t have anything more to say to her, and there was nothing she wanted to hear.

“You—” Laura cleared her throat. She was starting every sentence like she didn’t have the breath to finish it. “—you still look so much alike.”

Cath jerked her head up to look at her.

It was like looking at nobody at all.

And then it was like looking at the person you expected to see comforting you when you woke up from a nightmare.

Whenever Levi had asked about her mother, Cath always said she didn’t remember much. And that had always been true.

But now it wasn’t. Now, just sitting this close to Laura unlocked some secret, half-sized door in Cath’s brain. And she could see her mom, in perfect focus, sitting on the other side of their dining room table. She was laughing at something that Wren had said—so Wren kept saying it, and their mom kept laughing. She laughed through her nose. Her hair was dark, and she tucked Sharpies into her ponytail, and she could draw anything. A flower. A seahorse. A unicorn. And when she was irritated, she snapped at them. Snapped her fingers. Snap, snap, snap, while she was talking on the phone. Stern eyebrows, bared teeth. “
Shhh.
” She was in the bedroom with their dad, shouting. She was at the zoo, helping Wren chase a peacock. She was rolling out dough for gingerbread cookies. She was on the phone, snapping. She was in the bedroom, yelling. She was standing on the porch, pushing Cath’s hair behind her ears again and again, stroking her cheek with a long, flat thumb, and making promises she wasn’t going to keep.

“We’re twins,” Cath said. Because it was the stupidest thing she could think to say. Because that’s what “you still look so much alike” deserved when your mom was the one saying it.

Cath took out her phone and texted Levi.
“at the hospital now, still haven’t seen wren. alcohol poisoning. my mom’s here. i’ll call you tomorrow.”
And then she texted,
“i’m glad that you’re out there somewhere reading this, eventually reading this, it makes me feel better.”
Her battery indicator turned red.

Laura got out her phone, too. (Why was Cath calling her that? When she was a kid, Cath hadn’t even known their mom’s name. Their dad called her “honey”—strained and tense and careful—
“honey”
—and their mom called him “Art.”) Laura was texting someone, probably her husband, and for some reason it pissed Cath off. That she was texting someone right now. That she was flaunting her new life.

Cath folded her arms and watched the nurses’ station. When she felt the tears coming on, she told herself that they were for Wren, and surely some of them were.

They waited.

And waited.

But not together.

Laura got up to use the bathroom once. She walked like Wren, hips swaying, flicking her hair away from her face. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” Cath said.

While Laura was gone, Cath tried to call her dad again. If he answered the phone, she was pretty sure she’d cry some more, she might even call him “Daddy.” He didn’t answer.

Laura brought back a bottle of water and set it on the table next to Cath. Cath didn’t open it.

The nurses ignored them. Laura flipped through a magazine. When a doctor walked out to the waiting room, they both stood up.

“Mrs. Avery?” he said, looking at Cath’s mother.

“How is she?” Laura said, which Cath thought was a deft response.

“I think she’s going to be fine,” the doctor said. “Her breathing is good. Her oxygen is good. She’s sucking up those fluids—and she roused a bit to talk to me a few minutes ago. I think this is just going to be a scare.… Sometimes a scare can be valuable.”

“Can I see her?” Cath asked.

The doctor looked over at Cath. She could almost hear him think
twins.
“Yeah,” he said. “That should be fine. We’re just running another test. I’ll have the nurse come out for you when we’re done.”

Cath nodded and folded her arms again around her stomach.

“Thank you,” Laura said.

Cath went back to her chair to wait. But Laura stood there by the nurses’ station. After a minute, she walked back to her chair and picked up her Coach bag, tucking a used Kleenex into a pocket and nervously smoothing out the leather straps.

“Well,” she said. “I think I’m going to head home.”

“What?” Cath’s head snapped up.

“I should go,” Laura said. “Your dad will be here soon.”

“But—you can’t.”

Laura slid her handbag up over her arm.

“You heard the doctor,” Cath said. “We’re going to be able to see her in a few minutes.”

“You go see her,” Laura said. “You should go.”

“You should come, too.”

“Is that what you really want?” Laura’s voice was sharp, and part of Cath shrank back.

“It’s what Wren would want.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Laura said, sounding tired again, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look … I shouldn’t be here. It was a fluke that they called me. You’re here now, your dad’s on his way—”

“You don’t just leave somebody alone in the hospital,” Cath said. It came out aflame.

“Wren’s not alone,” Laura said sternly. “She has you.”

Cath jerked to her feet and swayed there.
Not Wren,
she thought.
I didn’t mean Wren.

Laura wrenched her handbag straps higher. “Cather—”

“You can’t leave like this—”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Laura said, lowering her voice.

“In what alternate universe?” Cath felt the rage burst up her throat like a cork popping. “What sort of a mother leaves the hospital without seeing her kid? What sort of a mother
leaves
? Wren is unconscious—and if you think that has nothing to do with you, you are skimming the surface of reality—and I’m right here, and you haven’t even seen me for ten years, and now you’re leaving? Now?”

“Don’t make this about
me,
” Laura hissed. “You obviously don’t want me here.”

“I’m making it about
me,
” Cath said. “It’s not my job to want you or not want you. It’s not my job to earn you.”

“Cather”—Laura’s mouth and fists were tight—“I’ve reached out to you. I’ve tried.”

“You’re
my mother,
” Cath said. Her fists were even tighter. “Try harder.”

“This isn’t the time or the place for this,” Laura said softly, steadily, tugging on her handbag. “I’ll talk to Wren later. I’d love to talk to you later, too. I’d love to
talk
to you, Cather—but I don’t belong here right now.”

Cath shook her head. “Now is all you get,” she spat out, wishing she could make more sense. Wishing for more words, or better ones. “Now is all you ever get.”

Laura lifted her chin and flicked her hair away from her face. She wasn’t listening anymore. She was the Cool One. “I don’t belong here,” she said again. “I won’t intrude like this.”

And then she walked away. Shoulders back, hips swaying.

He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.

I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.

“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.

What
is
left of me?
Simon wondered.
A ghost? A hole? An echo?

An angry little boy with nervous hands?

—from chapter 24,
Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak,
copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie

TWENTY-NINE

It was another hour before the nurse came back. Cath drank her bottled water. She wiped her face in her shirt. She thought about how much nicer this waiting room was than the one at St. Richard’s. She tried to mess with her phone, but it was dead.

When the nurse came out, Cath stood up. “Are you here for Wren Avery?”

Cath nodded.

“You can come back now. Do you want to wait for your mom?”

Cath shook her head.

*   *   *

Wren was in a room by herself. It was dark, and her eyes were closed. Cath couldn’t tell if she was sleeping.

“Do I need to watch for anything?” Cath asked the nurse.

“No, she’s just resting now.”

“Our dad will be here soon,” Cath said.

“Okay. We’ll send him back.”

Cath sat down slowly, quietly, in the chair by Wren’s bed. Wren looked pale. She had a dark spot, maybe a bruise, on her cheek. Her hair was longer than it had been at Christmas, hanging over her eyes and curling at her neck. Cath pushed it back.

“I’m awake, you know,” Wren whispered.

“Are you still drunk?”

“A little. Muzzy.”

Cath tucked Wren’s hair back again in a soothing gesture. Soothing for Cath, anyway. “What happened?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Who brought you in?”

Wren shrugged. There was an IV in her arm and something taped to her index finger. Up close, she smelled like puke. And like Wren—like Tide and Marc Jacobs Lola.

“Are you okay?”

“Muzzy,” she said. “Sick.”

“Dad’s coming.”

Wren groaned.

Cath folded her arms on the edge of the mattress and laid her head down, exhaling. “I’m glad they brought you in,” she said, “whoever it was who brought you in. I’m … sorry.”

That I wasn’t there, that you didn’t want me there, that I wouldn’t have known how to stop you anyway.

Now that she was with Wren and Wren was okay, Cath realized how exhausted she was. She shoved her glasses into her coat pocket and laid her head back down. She was just drifting off—or maybe she’d just drifted off—when she heard Wren whimper. Cath lifted her head. Wren was crying. Her eyes were closed, and tears were running down into her hair. Cath could almost feel the tickle. “What’s wrong?”

Wren shook her head. Cath wiped Wren’s tears away with her fingers, and wiped her fingers on her shirt.

“Should I get the nurse?”

Wren shook her head again and started shifting in the bed. “Here,” she said, making room.

“Are you sure?” Cath asked. “I don’t want to be the reason you choke on your own vomit.”

“None left,” Wren whispered.

Cath kicked off her boots and climbed up over the railing, lying down in the space Wren had cleared for her. She put her arm carefully under Wren’s neck. “Here,” Cath said.

Wren curled against her with her head on Cath’s shoulder. Cath tried to untangle the tubes around Wren’s arm, then held her hand tightly. It was sticky.

Wren’s shoulders were still shaking.

“It’s okay,” Cath said. “It’s okay.”

Cath tried not to fall asleep until Wren did, but it was dark, and she was tired, and everything was blurry.

*   *   *

“Oh, God,” she heard their dad say. “Oh, Wren. Baby.”

Cath opened her eyes, and her dad was leaning over them both, kissing both of their foreheads. Cath sat up carefully.

Wren’s eyes were crusty and puffy, but open.

Their dad stood back and put his hand on Wren’s cheek. “Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head. “Kid.”

He was wearing gray dress pants and a light blue shirt, untucked. His tie, orange with white starbursts, was stuffed into and hanging out of his pocket. Presentation clothes, Cath thought.

She checked his eyes out of habit. They were tired and shining, but clear.

Cath felt overwhelmed then, all of a sudden, and even though this wasn’t her show, she leaned forward and hugged him, pressing her face into his stale shirt until she could hear his heart beating. His arm came up, warm, around her. “Okay,” he said roughly. Cath felt Wren take her hand. “Okay,” their dad said again. “We’re okay now.”

*   *   *

Wren didn’t have to stay in the hospital. “You can sleep and drink water at home,” the doctor said.

Real home. Omaha. “You’re coming back with me,” their dad said, and Wren didn’t argue.

“I’m coming, too,” Cath said, and he nodded.

A nurse took out Wren’s IV, and Cath helped her to the bathroom, patting her back while she dry-heaved over the sink. Then Cath helped her wash her face and change into her clothes—jeans and a tank top.

“Where’s your coat?” their dad asked. Wren just shrugged. Cath took off her cardigan and handed it to her.

“It smells like sweat,” Wren said.

“It’ll be the best-smelling part of you,” Cath answered.

Then they had to wait for Wren’s paperwork. The nurse asked if she’d like to speak to an addictions specialist. Wren said no. Their dad just frowned.

“Have you eaten anything?” Cath asked him.

He yawned. “We’ll drive though someplace.”

“I’m driving,” Cath said.

Their dad had tried to get a flight out of Tulsa the night before, but there weren’t any until this afternoon, so he’d ended up renting a car—“Kelly gave me the agency Visa”—and driving for seven hours.

The nurse came back with discharge papers and told Wren that she’d have to leave the hospital in a wheelchair. “It’s policy.”

Wren complained, but their dad just stood behind the wheelchair and said, “Do you want to argue or do you want to go home?”

When the nurse buzzed them out into the waiting room, Cath felt her stomach jump and realized that she was half-expecting to see Laura still sitting out there.
Fat chance,
Cath thought.

The doors opened, and Wren made a sobby little gasping noise. For a second Cath thought maybe Laura
was
still there. Or maybe Wren was trying to throw up again.