Spur of the Moment (20 page)

“I'll get one if the show is picked up. I'm from Denver. Well, New York originally. I've been in Denver since college.”

“I'll call you tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. Talk to you later.”

 

 

B
ut he didn't call tomorrow, or the day after that. A week went by, and still she didn't hear from him.

34

Accidents

C
helsey fed her cat, Mo, giving her the usual dry food along with wet food. Chelsey used to buy expensive organic cat food when Mo was a kitty, but back then Mo had been a tiny, fluffy ball of flatulence, darting around the house emitting odors so noxious it was impossible to believe such a small creature could create such a vile smell. When Chelsey had guests over, Mo could take out a room as fast as a teargas bomb, everyone staggering around blindly, gasping for fresh air. So Chelsey had switched to the cheaper, chemically saturated stuff. It was the American way, really, and Mo should do her patriotic duty to keep the makers of various preservatives and dye-#-whatever in business. Anyway, Mo was decidedly less stinky these days, which was always a good thing.

Chelsey walked to the bathroom peeling off her clothes, shedding them as she went as though she were leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. She pulled down her workout pants to sit on the toilet, and she felt a strange, disorienting fuzziness graze her butt. It was Mo, of course, who would use the toilet seat as a stepping stone to get to the bathroom sink, where she would moan plaintively until Chelsey turned on a trickle of water for her to drink. No matter that Chelsey had just poured Mo a fresh, cold bowl of water. Mo seemed to think it adventurous to seek out alternative water sources, which meant that Chelsey hadn't had water in a glass any time in the last two years. She had to have water bottles with lids, otherwise Mo would stick her entire face into the glass and sneeze two or three times for each sip of water she commandeered, despite the rules Chelsey had tried to lay down about not drinking from mom's glass.

Chelsey lifted Mo and carried her to the couch. Chelsey lay down and remained perfectly still for a full thirty seconds so Mo wouldn't run off. Mo considered, considered . . . kneading her paws into Chelsey's chest . . . was this really the best place to nap? Was there someplace better? This
was
warm and this scratching-behind-the-ears business sure did feel good . . . Finally Mo settled down with a general condescending air of “I guess this will do.”

Chelsey listened to Mo purr as she scratched and petted her. Chelsey really should go make herself something to eat, but she felt too damn tired. All these late nights of practices and performances or having athletic sex for hours on end—it was good fun, all of it, but she often had early morning clients to meet, and she just wasn't getting the sleep she needed.

She knew that skipping meals wreaked havoc on her metabolism. She was doing absolutely everything she told her clients not to do: She was sleeping too little and irregularly, she was skipping meals and not always making the healthiest choices when she did eat . . . She would become a model citizen of dietary virtue tomorrow. Tonight, she just wanted to get her call from Rob from the station and stagger up to bed and pass out.

She looked at the clock. It was 7:30. He usually called between seven and eight on the nights he was at work.

After a few minutes, she picked up one of the ten books on Indians she'd bought. She'd bought mostly nonfiction books about Indian history and tradition, but she'd also bought fiction by Sherman Alexie, Leslie Marmon Silko, Adrian C. Louis, and Michael Dorris.

Chelsey wasn't sure when she fell asleep, but when the phone woke her up, she glanced at the clock. 10:33.

“Hello?”

“Are you watching the news?” It was Ana.

“No. Why?”

Ana didn't say anything for a long moment. “I'm sure it's nothing. Rob isn't . . . he isn't on duty today, is he?”

“Yes. Oh my god. What's going on?” Chelsey struggled to get her eyes adjusted to the light and searched for the remote. She fumbled for it from her perch on the right side of the couch to the left arm rest where it lay and pressed
POWER
. What immediately popped on the screen was the local affiliate to NBC news.

The voluminously coiffed male reporter stood in front of burning house.

“It's still not clear what started the blaze of this three-story home in central Denver, but . . .” The reporter stopped talking and pressed his finger to his earpiece. “It's been confirmed, two firefighters are dead tonight and a third has been injured. Authorities are not revealing the identities of the two fallen firefighters pending notification of their families, but it appears that they were trapped when the roof collapsed.”

“Oh my god,” Chelsey whispered. “Oh my god.”

“Chelsey, I'm coming over, okay? Chelsey?”

Chelsey nodded, which of course Ana couldn't see, but Ana hung up the phone and raced over anyway.

On screen, the reporter was explaining how a fire weakened the supporting joists and beams, which could cause the roof to collapse. On and on he went, talking about what heroes these firefighters were and how many other firefighters had died this year in Colorado and across the country.

It took Chelsey a long time first to even register the noise, then to understand that it was the sound of someone pounding on her door. Her first thought was:
The police are here to tell me that he's dead.

That's when the tears came. She'd been in too much of a shocked trance before, but now she understood that Rob was gone. She had never been in love before him—she'd thought she had but she'd been too young and stupid to know what love meant. Now that she had found her true love, a guy who challenged her and always taught her something new and laughed at her jokes and made her laugh and whose hand was just the right size to hold hers, she'd lost him. She'd been too happy. No one deserved that much happiness and God was taking it away from her.

But when she opened the door, it wasn't the police, it was Ana, carrying a large box of Kleenex.

“How are you?”

Chelsey's sobbing renewed with additional force, and she gratefully reached out to take a handful of tissues.

“I have to call the fire station, see if they can tell me the news.”

“I'll call,” Ana said. She didn't need to say that Chelsey was crying so hard she could barely speak.

“No, I will.” Chelsey grabbed the cordless phone. It took her four tries to dial the station correctly. “Shit, nobody is answering.”

“They're probably all at the fire.”

“Do you think I can call 911?”

“How would a 911 operator know about the firefighters?”

“I don't know. I need to do
something.”

She and Ana returned to the couch, where they kept a silent vigil in front of the TV. When the news was over and
The Tonight Show
came on, Chelsey flipped through all the channels, hoping to catch more news on the fire.

“Shit! What are they doing, putting on a comedy show when people are dying?” Chelsey screamed.

“Chelse, why don't you go back to channel nine and mute it, and then if a special report comes on, turn the volume back on.”

Chelsey kept flipping channels frantically for several more minutes before conceding to Ana's plan.

“If he were alive he would call,” Chelsey said.

“He's fighting a fire. He can't get to a phone.”

“They said they'd gotten the fire out.”

“I'm sure there is clean-up stuff. Or maybe he's with the injured firefighters at the hospital?”

“Or maybe he's in the hospital. Or the morgue.”

Chelsey tried calling the station again. When no one answered, she held the phone in front of her and yelled, “What kind of public safety establishment are you? Why don't you have anyone to answer the damn phone?”

She slammed the receiver down and jumped up. She began pacing furiously back and forth across the living room floor, frantic with nervous energy.

“Do you think we should go to the station? To the hospital?”

“Did the news say which hospital the injured firefighters had been taken to?”

“I don't remember. I know! We can drive to the scene of the fire! Maybe there are firefighters there who know where Rob is.”

Chelsey was running to get her coat out of the closet before Ana could even answer her. Ana sprinted out the door behind Chelsey, grabbing her coat off the back of the kitchen chair on her way.

“I have a really good idea. Why don't you let me drive?” Ana said.

“No, no. I'll do it.”

Chelsey was in no shape to be driving a 2,000-pound machine around. “If I drive, that'll let you keep your eye out in case you see anything.”

“All right, all right.”

Ana drove Chelsey's car to the scene of the fire. A number of curious neighbors were milling about, several firefighters in partial gear were cleaning up, and a man in uniform stood barking orders into what looked like a walkie-talkie—the fire chief, Chelsey guessed.

Chelsey tried to run up to one of the men in fire gear, but was stopped by the man in uniform.

“I'm sorry, you can't go near there,” he said.

“I just . . . I heard about the fire, and I just wanted to make sure my b—my fiancé is okay. He's from station six.”

“I know one injured firefighter from station six was taken to St. Joseph's.”

“Oh my god. Do you know how bad his injuries were?”

He shook his head. He appeared to be genuinely sorry he didn't know the answer.

“Did any . . . were any of the firefighters who died from station six?”

He shook his head again.

Chelsey grabbed Ana's hand and pulled her to the car. Chelsey got behind the wheel and tore out, tires squealing, before Ana could even get the door closed. Ana yanked her seatbelt into place and said a silent prayer.

“Injured? That's not bad, right? Or maybe it is. Maybe he has severe burns. So his gorgeous face will be ruined—it'll be a horrible tragedy, but everything will still be okay. We'll still love each other and things will work out. Of course, maybe the burns are too severe and after a horrible and painful few days or weeks he'll succumb to the injuries. Or maybe something fell on him and he's paralyzed. It would be hard, but we could get through it together. Right?”

Chelsey kept babbling, talking so fast that soon Ana couldn't hear what she was saying. Ana almost didn't notice when Chelsey stopped talking and started hyperventilating.

When she became aware of Chelsey's panicked breathing, her heart stopped. “Chelsey, pull over. Pull over. Stop. Chelsey, stop.”

Ana undid her seatbelt and slid as close to Chelsey as she could, trying to get her foot on the brake to slow them down as well as gain control of the steering wheel.

“Chelsey, put your foot on the brake or get your leg out of my way. Shit, shit.” They were about to careen right into a parked car. Instead, with the both of them trying to steer the car, they crashed into a tree.

35

Dating Debacles

A
cross town, Jason was finishing up his grading. The drama teacher had asked him to stay late to help her brainstorm for ideas for the set for the next play she was directing. “I know you've worked in theater,” she said.

“I did some plays in high school, but nothing but improv since then.”

“Still, you know the crazy world of theater,” she laughed.

The woman, Lana, was about his age, with a round face, heart-shaped lips, and thin blond hair cut in a bob. Jason had met her before, of course. She always seemed nice.

“Sure. Let me do some grading and I'll meet you at the theater.”

“I have a better idea: why don't I treat you to a burger? We can brainstorm over a burger and fries somewhere.”

Jason flinched. “I don't eat meat.”

Lana giggled again. “I guess that is healthier, isn't it? You name the place. I'll wait in my office. You know where that is, right?”

He nodded. Lana left him and he picked up his purple pen to begin grading again. He hadn't just been asked out on a date, had he?

But he took as long as he possibly could to grade his papers. Finally, around nine o'clock, he met Lana in her office. She was just as bubbly as ever.

“Okay, you name the place. Am I driving, or are you?” she said.

“Um, I, I think we should both drive in case, I mean, I don't know where you live.”

He gave her directions to a vegetarian restaurant on 13
^th
and Grant and met her there a few minutes later.

They sat down and she looked at the menu as if she'd just noticed a bad odor but didn't know where it was coming from. Then the smile returned to her face. “Oh, is it
all
vegetarian?”

He nodded.

“What's seitan? What's tempeh? They have an awful lot of tofu.”

“Seitan is made from wheat gluten and has a rich, meaty taste and tempeh is made from fermented soybeans.” She looked frightened. “I guess that doesn't sound all that great, but really, they are tasty, you know, the way they are flavored in soy or barbeque sauce and so on.” Still hadn't convinced her. “They have some pastas. Do you like pasta?”

This she could tolerate.

“So, the play. Which production are you doing?” Jason asked.

“Our Town.
I just think that play has such a good message, don't you?”

“I've never actually read that one.”

“What plays did you do in high school?”

“Oh, wow. How exciting.” Neither of them said anything for several seconds. Jason studied his hands intently. He tried to think of something school-related to talk about, but was mysteriously unable to think of a single conversation topic. With his friend Rick, the physics teacher, they never tired of conversation about the students, the administration, or the mandates handed down by the school board. Why couldn't he think of anything now?

“Uh . . . so the sets. You wanted to talk about the sets?” He was triumphant for coming up with this.

“Oh, let's enjoy our dinner before we talk about work.”

He nodded and waited for her to say something. She didn't.

But it wasn't. It seemed to drag on for an eternity. Finally they finished their meals and talked about some ideas for the set. But every sentence he uttered seemed like such work.

“Do you want to go for a drink somewhere?”

“I should probably get to bed.”

“Yeah. It is a school night!” There went that giggle again. “So, I had a lot of fun tonight.”

“Um.”

“We should do it again, don't you think?”

“I thought we got the designs worked out?”

“No, silly, I mean like, you know, a date!”

“Oh I, Lana, there's sort of somebody else.” It wasn't a total lie, but the look on her face made him want to say, “Ha, ha, just kidding, this was the greatest night of my life. Let's go get married.” But he simply could not endure another evening like this.

He went home feeling depressed. God he hated this dating thing. Why couldn't he find a woman to love and be loved by? When would Marin realize he and she were perfect for each other?

The physical attraction they shared was undeniable. The sex they had was always explosive, and he knew she felt the same way. Of course he thought she was beautiful, but it wasn't just her looks that captivated him. The way she carried herself with such confidence—it was intoxicating. And they had so much in common: their sense of humor, their love of performing, the way they understood each other—on stage and off, they could always play off what the other said. Together, they made great comedy, great love, and great friends. Their being together just made sense.