“Miller. James Miller.”
“Dr. James Miller.” I widened my smile. “I’m Vivian Schuyler. That will be all for now.”
“Any time, Miss Schuyler,” he said, meaning any time you like, you just crook your little finger, ask for me by name, I’ll be right there like Buck Rogers in hyperwarp.
And that, I thought with satisfaction, would ensure my great-aunt Julie the finest care available at the Lenox Hill Hospital this dark November night. God knew, she would have done the same for me.
Only then did I become aware of the awestruck faces surrounding me. “What the hell was that?” said Pepper, as we filed into the room.
“Oh, just a delightful little trick known as flirting for favors,” I said.
“Well, that much was obvious. I meant the intracranial jabberwocky and the fluid pressure. What sort of Greek is that?”
“Dear Pepper. Don’t tell me you’ve never slept with a doctor before.”
But I sobered up at once at the sight of Aunt Julie, just lying there (as Mums had promised) with that bandage. The room had been darkened, and the gauze glowed a dim white just above her left eyebrow, or what had been her left eyebrow, sculpted and spidery, before the doctors had shaved it. Poor Aunt Julie. She’d be appalled when she woke up and looked in the mirror. No makeup, her hair flat and matted against her skull, her fashionable clothes replaced with the indignity of a blue open-back hospital gown. No cosmetic barrier of any kind against the unkind eyes of the world around her. She didn’t look old, exactly. Just tired.
I touched her forehead with my fingertips. “It’s Vivian, Aunt Julie. Vivian’s here. I’ve given your doctors a good grilling. They’re going to take excellent care of you. Back on your feet in no time.”
Not a whisper of a reaction, not a flicker.
“She’s been like that for four hours now,” whispered Pepper.
“Sleeping Beauty,” I said. “You’re like Sleeping Beauty, aren’t you, Aunt Julie? I’ll go round up a prince to kiss you. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of volunteers.”
Don’t humor me, young lady. I could almost hear her say it.
? ? ?
IN THE WAITING ROOM, Mums had regained her composure and was handing Dad a cup of coffee. He accepted wearily. Mums turned and watched me settle in a chair like a horse to the knackers. “Where were you all this time, Vivian? We were trying to reach you for hours.”
“I was at the Lightfoots’ house. Dinner.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
She poured the coffee from the urn in the corner and gave it to me. I was surprised that she knew I liked it black. I took a sip. “It was an engagement dinner for Gogo, in fact. You’ll never guess whom she’s marrying.”
Mums sat down next to me. “I can’t imagine. Wasn’t she seeing that nice young man, what was his name . . .”
“She’s marrying Doctor Paul, Mums.”
She plucked an invisible speck from her dress, next to the knee. “Your Doctor Paul? From the post office?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
I drank my coffee and considered how much to tell her. “So sorry. I can’t divulge the sordid details, Mums. Let’s just say that if you and Mr. Lightfoot had ever married, the two of you, you’d be living in the White House by now.”
“I see.” You could have cracked an egg on those two words.
“Well, you know how it is, Mums. You win some, you lose some.” I stretched my arms above my head, coffee and all, and smothered a yawn in my throat.
“Is that so.”
It occurred to me, as I absorbed the message in those three frigid words, which might best be summed up as Very Bad News for Mr. S. Barnard Lightfoot III, that maybe Mums wasn’t such a bad sport after all.
A tiny smile elbowed its way past the wreckage of the past six hours to prop up the corner of my mouth. A smile, of all things. Horrors. Up with the coffee cup, on the pronto.
“Why are you laughing?” asked Mums.
I gave her a shove, shoulder to shoulder. “I was just thinking. You as First Lady.”
? ? ?
AT TWO O’CLOCK in the morning, Dr. Miller walked into the waiting room. Our slumped bodies snapped to attention.
“Vivian Schuyler?” He looked at me. His face hung with fatigue, but he was smiling. “She’s asking for you.”
? ? ?
AUNT JULIE WAS PALE and blinking and smelled of medicine, but she was awake.
I brushed her hair away from her bandage. “Don’t do that again, all right?”
“Goddamned stairs.”
“What was that, Aunt Julie? I can’t hear you. Something about watching your step next time?”
A raspy harrumph.
I smoothed my hand over her sheets, white and crisp as any good hotel. “How do you feel, Aunt Julie? Do you want more morphine?”
“Yes.”
“Rephrase. Do you need more morphine?”
Her eyes were fluttering shut. Dr. Miller stepped forward with a penlight and did his thing.