In Case of Emergency (21 page)

“Didn’t you run into your asshole ex-boyfriend?” She grabs a box of tissues from my dresser and pitches it at me.

I swat the box onto the floor. “Screw you if you think I’m still crying over him.”

“Good girl. Now get dressed.”

We go to our usual place, Bumper’s, on Santa Monica Boulevard. Every time we come here I make the same observation: Bumper’s doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. The furnishings look like garage-sale ware, beat-up barstools and mismatched crushed-velvet armchairs, yet the floor is an expensive wood parquet. Tiffany lamps hang overhead, tiny colored panes of glass making careful awnings over subdued light, but arcade games with flashes and bells take up one corner. Besides the fact that this bar is walking distance from where we live, the Skee-Ball keeps us coming back.

Marla orders some horrible thing with peppermint schnapps in it, and I get a Jameson on the rocks. We perch on barstools at a small round table close to the arcade area, and wait for the Skee-Ball station to open up. The woman rolling the wooden ball up the ramp is wearing bright pink leggings and a striped shirt that fits tightly across her chest. Her manicure
looks too elaborate to endure indoor sports. She plays Skee-Ball the same way I do, always aiming for the ring that says 50, launching the ball so hard against the ramp it either sinks right into the top ring or bounces off and falls into the gutter.

Digging through her giant purse, Marla says, “Can I show you something?” She slides toward me a thin stack of paper that’s been folded in half. I open it to discover a three-page Excel worksheet, the most complicated one I’ve ever seen, with a tiny font and colored headers.

“What is this?”

She pulls back her sleeve to show me the eczema that’s taken over her left arm, small patches of white and gray dotting her usually smooth skin. It’s easy to forget Marla has allergies. She reacts so rarely—an itching in the throat here, a mild bout of eczema there—and when she went to see a doctor a year ago, she was told it would be next to impossible to figure out which food was causing it.

“Tom made it for me,” she explains.

He must have spent hours. The first two pages list food allergies, their corresponding symptoms, and the kinds of dishes that contain trace amounts, and the last page outlines a plan for stripping away foods one at a time in order to narrow down the culprit. The ever-practical Marla has met her match.

“Wow.”

“I know.” She puts it back in her purse carefully, as if it might explode. “He’s so sweet, but sometimes the way he’s sweet makes me miss Alexander even more.”

“You mean like where are the puppies?”

She laughs. “Yes, actually. Didn’t matter what Alexander and I did, we had a good time. With Tom, like when he gave me this, he worked so hard on it, it’s amazing he did this for me, but—it feels like we’re doing our taxes. Where are the puppies?”

I imagine Tom at his desk, limp ponytail trailing down his back, surfing the internet for hours, fashioning an Excel sheet with all the fervor of true love. When Marla and Alexander were together, they were always talking about the future, about how much better things would eventually be. Even when Marla found out about his heroin use she insisted he was better than that, insisted he loved her despite how he’d taken to treating her. For a while, it was enough to be right.

“I’m going to try to be friends with him,” she says.

“With Tom?”

“No, Alexander. He’s trying to get clean now. He checked himself into rehab about a month ago.”

“You didn’t tell me you were talking to him again.”

“Just some texting here and there. I haven’t seen him. Plus, he’s not allowed to have his phone while he’s in rehab.” She sees the look on my face and adds, “You worry too much.”

I tell her not to get too close and remind her that we’re talking about someone who stole her money and lied to her all the time. Marla makes a gesture as if that’s all old, unimportant history. Behind her, the woman with pink leggings walks off. Marla pulls a roll of quarters out of her purse and warns me of her impending ass-kicking. When a column of wooden Skee-Balls cascades into the slot, Marla picks one up, weighs it in her hand, and looks at me with the crazed expression of someone to whom winning means everything.

“It’s just Skee-Ball,” I say.

She sends the ball up the ramp, scores forty points, and picks up the next one. I find myself talking about Jared, how our break-up turned me into a lunatic or a snap turtle or both. She sets a ball down and turns to me.

“It’s not like it was just the breakup.”

“You mean I’m always a snap turtle?”

“Piper, don’t you remember? You called me from Colorado. From your
mom’s funeral. It took me the longest time to understand what you were saying.”

“I have no memory of going to her funeral.”

“The service had already started and you were bawling your eyes out, and besides the full-blown panic attack you were having about having to sit there while strangers sermonized about your mom, you kept talking about Jared, how you couldn’t believe you had to be there without him. You kept saying—”

“I mean it, I really don’t remember going to her funeral.”

“You kept saying, ‘First her and now him.’”

Bumper’s has been filling in steadily, so we’re surrounded by people who posture and cackle. The Skee-Ball station dings and chimes as it racks up points, and yet Marla’s voice is low and clear through the roar around us. “He’s also the reason you lost your job, Piper, the reason you kind of lost your mind. Why can’t
I
run into him? I’d have a couple things to say to him.” She sends the last ball up the ramp and wipes her hands on her jeans. “You really don’t remember this?”

I think before answering. “No, I do. I thought I remembered everything—getting on the plane with Ryan and Dad, how we sat in the same aisle and didn’t talk. The silver matchboxes in a glass bowl at the hotel. I carried the urn filled with her ashes in my lap, all the way to the canyon. But I don’t remember her funeral. And I definitely don’t remember calling you.”

Marla’s looking at me in what I imagine is a motherly way, as if at any minute she’s going to pat my hand, or bring me into her bosom for a good cry. I’m used to this, to her treating me like I’m some kind of fragile, explosive creature. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

“Piper—”

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I dig it out. “It’s Ayla.” Marla waves for me to answer.

Outside the air feels cool and clean; I take in big lungfuls and resist the urge to flail my arms around in space, to air out my armpits and the sides of my body.

“Why aren’t you in my bed?” Ayla asks in a groggy version of her voice.

“Are you sleep-dialing me?”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Maybe I don’t want you to get sick of me.”

“No. Come over.”

“You’ll be asleep by the time I get there.”

“Tomorrow?”

“The day after. I work tomorrow.”

“Lame.”

“Make sure to miss me.”

“If you’re not over in five minutes—”

When she was the mystery girl at Sustainable Living I coveted all the little moments I couldn’t witness, the particular way she brushed her teeth, what position she read books in, how she looked when she fell asleep. Now she’s lovelier than ever and all the things that are mine—my problems, my fears, my past—are slamming into each other, making me feel grotesque, almost dangerous. I want to believe there was some kind of turning point between then and now, something to keep me from feeling so flawed and needy, but standing here, holding the phone to my ear, one arm paddling the air like a broken seabird, I know it isn’t true. These are not the gifts I’d wish for her.

“Good night, Ayla.”

28

William and I arrive at 8963 Budlong Street and walk inside. Our patient is a large woman with a puffed-up barrel chest who wheezes loud enough to
be heard without a stethoscope. She sits in a La-Z-Boy wearing a drenched purple tank and green sweats. To get her into the dining room, William and I have to maneuver the gurney through the kitchen, and as we do, I notice the Styrofoam, plastic, and paper containers of every fast-food restaurant in the area spread out on the table and counter, spilling out of the aluminum trash can.

In the dining room I question her tentatively, writing her name and age on my glove, mentally trying to hold my nose shut against the muggy smell of sun-cooked wrappers. As usual, seven firefighters aren’t far behind, and soon the lead medic, whose jet-black hair frames her face with a pixie cut, takes over the initial assessment.

Kneeling between the La-Z-Boy and the medbox, I listen to her run through the pecking order of questions as I assemble the components of an albuterol treatment kit. It’s a little like putting Ikea furniture together without any instructions, but I finally figure out which way is up, screw the threaded plastic together, and pour the medication into the reservoir. William collects most of the woman’s vitals, scrutinizing my blundering work. When I hand the finished product to our patient, she puffs on it gratefully, and the medication begins to vaporize. Droplets suspend in white clouds around her red face.

“How long have you been short of breath?” the lead medic asks.

“About three…
pant, pant,
days,” she manages. Two-word dyspnea. I make a note to write that on my paperwork later.

The medic shakes her head. “You can’t wait this long next time. Call us sooner.”

I marvel at the simplicity of her blunt words. “Call us sooner.” How many patients have I already seen that needed to be told that? I notice the woman’s cool, sweaty skin and wide yellow toenails, and look around for something to keep her feet warm on the way to the hospital. I find only extra-large men’s slippers that probably belong to her husband, but when
I hold them up, asking, “Will these do?” our patient nods desperately, nostrils flaring.

We load her up, careful not to entangle her in the tubing or the sheets. I sit the back of the gurney fully upright to help her breathe and then run to get the heavy side, since William assumes I am too much of a girl to do the heavy lifting and I am anxious to prove him wrong.

Leaning against the corridor of the CRH hallway, I impale myself with the flat edge of my already-dented metal clipboard, keeping it balanced as I write, pressing my pen through three layers of carbon copies. William meticulously cleans the gurney. It seems this is the only task he enjoys doing; he complains about everything else.

On their way to the parking lot, the two paramedics from our call stop to introduce themselves. They work out of Station 2860 on B shift, Magdalene “Dag” Ramirez and Noah Tyson. I like the look of him, the absence of flirtation, the friendly smile. Tyson’s rugged face has seen too much sun but appears only wiser for the wear.

“You’re new, Piper?” Tyson asks, shaking my hand with his callused one. I try not to groan—why does everyone know this about me? Although I fumbled on scene I thought I had a pretty decent hustle and sense of what to do next. Tyson sees my disappointment and chuckles. “Easy,” he says. “Just a guess. I hadn’t seen you around and the guys said Ruth was training a newbie.”

As soon as they exit the double doors, William says in a thick voice, “Dag. So hot. Married to a Redondo Beach firefighter, but I bet you her husband’s got nothing on me.”

In full disagreement, I attempt diplomacy by saying, “I didn’t see a wedding ring.”

“Why would you?” William snorts. “Think she wants her hand degloved when she’s fighting fires and pulling people out of cars?” He hangs
his thumb off the edge of the gurney. “I didn’t realize Ruth was your FTO. Talk about balls in your face—not only is she lame, she prides herself on being a hammer. But Carl is cool.”

I don’t stick up for Ruth. If William knows it will bother me to speak ill of her, he will speak of nothing else. As we head out to the parking lot, he boasts about the fire academy he completed two years ago. I am not heartless enough to hint he might not get hired (considering the kind of shape he’s in now), but when he berates me I am cruel enough to hug these observations like old friends.

The nine-year-old boy stands alone next to the loading dock of the abandoned warehouse on 112
^th
Street, blinking in the sunlight, an open fracture in his left arm, the broken bone exposed. He doesn’t cry or complain. His fingers are coated with spray paint, his jeans covered in blood. On the way to Crossroads, I look at the silent little man on the gurney, his arm in a splint and sling and swathe, his open wound held tight with a pressure dressing. His gaze is on the view out the back window, the brightly lit, shabby storefronts, the perpendicular shadows of the lampposts. I think about Ayla telling me I don’t know shit about Iraq, and I look at my patient, at the boy’s narrow face, set chin, and slumped shoulders. He’s nine years old and the large eyes on him are all that still belong to a child. I can sense that any kind word would be like speaking in baby talk to a teenager.

“Want to hear a joke?” I ask him.

“Okay.”

“I only know Irish jokes.”

He nods.

I tell him the one about three men who walk into a bar: an Irishman, an Italian, and a Frenchman. Three flies swoop into the bar after them, and
one lands in each man’s beer just after he’s ordered. The Italian man plucks the fly from his glass and says, “
È bello
, it’s fine,” and continues to drink. The Frenchman goes up to the counter and makes a fuss, demanding a new beer from the bartender. And the Irishman grabs the fly by its wings and shakes it over his glass, yelling, “Cough it up, you thievin’ bastard!”