Once More With Feeling (13 page)

"Has to be."

"But why?"

"Had a patient once who was sure he was
Napoleon. You should have seen the battle plans he drew up.
Wouldn't use a ballpoint pen for anything. Had to do it with a
quill on parchment. He gave me one as a gift. One day I showed it
to a friend who's at Columbia getting his Ph.D. in history. He said
that if Napoleon had been half as brilliant, Waterloo would have
been his greatest victory."

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Nah. I've got a theory."

"What?"

"Maybe you want the things you pretended
Elisabeth had. Maybe that's why you made up her life like
that."

"No." Gypsy didn't understand what had
happened to her, but she did know that wasn't right. The Elisabeth
in her imagination had not been happy with her lot. In fact,
Elisabeth had wanted to be Gypsy.

Elisabeth had wanted to be Gypsy.

"Don't you want the rest of it?" Perry held
out another bite.

Gypsy stared at her.

Perry lowered the fork. "Think you can sleep
now?"

"Perry, when you're sitting in those
churches. . ." She closed her eyes for a moment, and Owen's face
was as clear to her as Perry's had just been. "Do you think about .
. . an afterlife?"

"Sometimes."

Gypsy opened her eyes. "And what do you
think?"

"I think I'll just wait and see. I suppose
I'll know soon enough."

"What if there is an afterlife? What if
decisions get made there. . ."

"You know something the rest of us don't?
Something you saw when you died?"

Unfortunately, Gypsy had absolutely no
memory of those moments. She shook her head. "What if . . ." The
idea was too preposterous to articulate.

But what could be more preposterous than a
full-blown delusion that had given her an unfaithful husband, a
son, a network of friends and a life that was as clear to her as
Waterford crystal?

"You're not going to figure out every bit of
it tonight," Perry said. "Let me get you all tucked in, and I'll
turn out the light. But no more talk about pillows or sleeping
pills, you hear? I'm leaving this cheesecake in the refrigerator
for you. You start feeling bad again, have Marietta get it for you.
My orders."

Gypsy slid down in the bed, and Perry
lowered it again.

"Thanks, Perry." Gypsy closed her eyes, but
she didn't expect to sleep.

"'Night, honeysuckle. Don't you think about
anything except getting better and going home. Okay?"

But Gypsy was already locked in a silent
theological discussion with an old man adorned in a long white robe
and a flowing beard. She didn't even hear Perry close the door.

Gypsy had sworn Dr. Roney to secrecy about
the date and time of her release from the hospital. Casey knew,
because he could be counted on to get her home to her apartment
without a fuss. But Gypsy didn't want a crowd gathered to see her
whisked away, and she didn't want publicity. She still wasn't sure
she could trust herself. What would she say when she was asked how
she was feeling? "Fine thanks, except I'm not completely sure this
is me?"

Most of the time now she believed she was
Gypsy Dugan. She was even settling comfortably into Gypsy's speech
patterns, her mannerisms, and even somewhat into her personality.
Perry had brought her copies of newspaper articles about the crash,
most of which had a brief biography about her. She'd seen an issue
of New York Magazine that Perry swiped from the radiology waiting
room with pictures of her Manhattan apartment, and a People
magazine retrospective published one year ago on the five-year
anniversary of
The Whole Truth
. She'd encouraged everyone
who visited to recount the most minute details about their lives,
as well as hers, in order to learn everything she could about the
world she couldn't remember.

But the only world that was still clear to
her was Elisabeth Whitfield's.

"You're going to do fine." Perry helped
Gypsy button her blouse. Hours of physical and occupational therapy
had restored much of her muscle tone, but her coordination was
still less than a hundred percent. She couldn't perform the most
painstaking tasks, but she was on her way.

"What if I don't remember anything?" Gypsy
asked. "I walk into the apartment, and it's like I've never been
there before?"

"You've seen pictures. That'll get you
through the worst of it."

"Perry, these people who've been visiting .
. ."

"I know. They seem like strangers."

They were strangers. Gypsy was convinced of
it. A woman who claimed to be a former colleague had cried
inconsolably about a lost lover. The woman and the lover were both
lost to Gypsy; she hadn't had even the faintest quiver of
recognition. Another woman with tightly permed white hair was a
neighbor, another with a buzz cut claimed to be her cleaning lady.
Two men with the clean-cut good looks of Mormon missionaries were
her hairdresser and manicurist respectively. Another with a
flamboyant red ponytail handled her business affairs.

Four men, of differing shapes, styles, and
sizes had indicated they had once been more to her than friends,
three had come right out and said it, and two still seemed to be
vying with Casey for that honor.

And then there had been the crew of
The
Whole Truth
.

Gypsy shook her head. "I don't even remember
the names of the people I've met since the accident, much less the
others, It's all so confusing."

"It'll get better. One step at a time,
gingersnap."

"Do I really have to leave the hospital in
that?" Gypsy pointed to the wheelchair parked beside her bed.

"Even if it wasn't a hospital rule, you're
not so steady on your crutches yet. It'll take awhile before
walking feels natural again."

Gypsy knew Perry was right. She still
couldn't put weight on the foot that was taped. She had been
assured of a complete recovery, but after weeks of treatment she
was frustrated. Some part of her, some skeptical part that hadn't
accepted the obvious truth, still believed that when she was truly
well, she would wake up and find herself in Elisabeth Whitfield's
body again.

She was just about to prove or disprove that
theory.

"Perry, you know what would help?"

"Hmmm?" Perry was packing the remainder of
Gypsy's personal items.

"If you'd run down to the gift shop and get
me some new panty hose and another emery board. Mine's worn to a
nub."

"You had your nails done three days ago.
They have to be perfect before you can leave the hospital?"

"It would help. And take your time, would
you? I need a few minutes alone to prepare myself." She practiced
her Gypsy Dugan smile. She was fairly certain she didn't have it
quite right, because people who claimed to know her always seemed
surprised when she used it. But Perry wouldn't suspect anything;
until the accident she had only known the television Gypsy.

"I guess you might need some time," Perry
said.

"Do you mind too much?"

"Just let me finish up here, and I'll be
gone." Perry put the last nightgown in a dark leather Bottega
Veneta suitcase that Desmond had brought for the trip home. She
stacked up a few more odds and ends and packed them, too. Then, she
vanished out the door.

Gypsy--or Elisabeth, and she was about to
find out which--waited half a minute before she got up from the
chair where she'd been watching Perry and hopped across the room to
get her crutches. She had planned this moment carefully. For days
she'd wormed information out of the hospital staff, one bit at a
time, so that nobody would suspect anything.

She had discovered that Elisabeth Whitfield
was still in the hospital and still on this floor. She had wheedled
Elisabeth's room number from someone on the housekeeping staff, who
had also told her when Elisabeth was most likely to have visitors
and how long they stayed. She had plotted and planned her own
discharge from the hospital, making excuses when Dr. Roney offered
to let her go earlier in the day.

She wanted to catch Owen Whitfield with his
wife. Because when she did, she was sure that she would learn
whether her obsession with the Whitfields was a product of guilt
and brain injury, or the unthinkable.

And the unthinkable was that she was
Elisabeth Whitfield, who now dwelled in the body and the life she
once had coveted.

"I must be nuts."

She swung the crutches under her armpits as
she'd been taught to do and worked her way across the floor. The
door was a problem, just as she'd expected, but by leaning heavily
on one crutch, she was able to pull it open a crack and peer
outside.

This was the part of her plan that had
stumped her. She had learned a week ago that Desmond had hired
security for the duration of her stay in the hospital. There was
always a man, a different one at different times of day, stationed
outside her door. She had questioned Desmond about it, but he had
replied that she was a celebrity, and there were a lot of crazy
people out there. The guards were uniformly courteous
and--unfortunately--conscientious to boot. She had never practiced
walking in the hallway without one trailing right behind her.

She couldn't afford to have one trailing her
today.

After considering and reconsidering how to
get rid of the daytime guard just long enough to make a brief
escape, she'd devised a plan that might work. She planned to tell
the guard that someone from his office had called her private
number and wanted to speak with him. With no cell phones allowed on
the floor, she thought she'd be safe. When he left to use the phone
at the nurse's station, she would make her move.

But the plan remained untested. The hallway
was empty, although the guard's chair was in place. Perry had
reported that one of the day shift guards was enamored of one of
the day shift nurses, and sneaked off to visit with her every once
in a while when she had a rare break.

The timing of their courtship couldn't have
been better for Gypsy's purposes.

She thumped her way through the door before
it closed slowly behind her. She was out in the hallway, and the
guard was still nowhere in sight.

She started down the hall to the right. The
hall was nearly empty. She had purposely chosen this time of day
because lunch and rounds were over, and medications were already
flowing merrily into bloodstreams. Many patients were napping, and
the staff was taking a break. She was banking on lethargy to keep
the staff at bay. Anyone who saw her wouldn't question her too
closely. They'd seen her in the halls practicing with her crutches
for the last few days. They just hadn't seen her practicing in this
direction.

She came to a junction and turned right.
Immediately she breathed easier. Even if the guard returned right
now, he wouldn't know she was gone, and even if he discovered she
was, he wouldn't be sure where to look first.

"Hey, Miss Dugan." A young man in white with
an appreciative glitter in his eye moved aside to let her by.

"Hey, how you doing?" she responded with a
dimple.

"Got you practicing again?"

"Sure do. Just when I was getting used to
being waited on."

"Well, we got to get you better, so we can
watch you on that show of yours."

"I sure hope you're a fan."

"Slave." He put his hand over his heart.
"Love slave."

"That's the best news I've had since they
brought me to this place."

He blew her a kiss and started back down the
hall.

Gypsy Dugan's life was obviously more fun
than poor old Elisabeth had even imagined.

Gypsy made another turn. The hall was darker
here, and there were more personnel in evidence. But no one paid
her any heed. They were busy, probably overworked, and they didn't
need another problem to solve. She nodded solemnly when anyone
glanced at her, but she didn't dimple. She made herself look like a
woman with a serious mission.

She was.

The door to Elisabeth's room was closed
tight. Gypsy had hoped it would be cracked so that she could peer
inside without being seen. She leaned against the wall and rested a
moment. She could do one of two things now. She could go back to
her own room and forget the metaphysical mumbo jumbo her poor
injured brain had conjured, or she could walk through the door and
solve this lulu of an identity crisis once and for all.

For a moment she seriously considered the
former. Quite possibly what was waiting for her behind the door was
worse than what she already knew. No one had given her a precise
prognosis for Elisabeth. There seemed to be a conspiracy to keep
the truth from her. If she opened the door and saw a woman--a woman
she might once have been--surrounded by massive machines and space-
age technology, would she learn anything except how precarious her
own life might be? If Elisabeth were hovering on the verge of
death, what did that say about her own survival?

At a certain point logic shut down. She
could no more plot all the ramifications of this absurd delusion
than she could draw a detailed map of the universe. She had to walk
into that room, carefully look Elisabeth over, carefully look over
any of her visitors, and then get the hell out. She would have the
rest of her life, short or long as it might be, to make sense out
of whatever she saw.

She took one of many deep breaths she had
taken in the last long weeks and pulled the door open.

Her eyes took a moment to focus. The only
light in the room came from a window beside the bed. The drapes
were drawn and just a sliver of sunshine peeked between them. There
was little inside the room except a bed, a nightstand cluttered
with the usual hospital paraphernalia, and a small dresser. There
were no hideous machines regulating Elisabeth's heart or inflating
her lungs. There were only I.V.s dripping patiently and something
that looked like a monitor at the head of her bed.