She’d exhale and relax. ‘The backyard is beautiful.’
All that was going to happen the very next day. In just twenty-four hours, what we were going to do and what we would worry about would change, and the distance between us would change, too. But in the hospital, sitting on the edge of Stella’s bed, that all seemed impossible, unimaginable. We were still, for the most part, innocent and okay.
‘What do we do now?’ Stella asked again, hugging the hedgehog to her chest.
I touched her hand. ‘We have fun, just like you said. We go get you some pie. And that martini, too.’
She smiled. ‘With three olives?’
‘With four, if you want. We’ll have a martini-drinking contest.’
She sighed decadently, already imagining it. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
The first time I saw you, you were wearing a flowered smock and pink cotton pants. Terrible shoes: those white nurse things. Orthopedic. I didn’t think much about you the first time I saw you. You were a new aide, one of the many aides that cycled through the place. The aides didn’t do much, just tried to keep us comfortable and entertain us and do all of the things that the nurses didn’t have time for. Some of the aides volunteered, in fact, and weren’t even making money at it. They were just doing it because…I don’t know, I guess they saw it as charity. Maybe it made them feel less crazy.
You were younger than most of the aides. You didn’t have that cropped-short, old-woman hair helmet, but shoulder-length, wavy hair, wavier in some spots than in others. You had delicate hands, red-raw skin, sensitive to cold, dry temperatures, a long, sloped nose with a little bulb on the end, and a wide smile, although you withheld your smiles most of the time, almost as if you worried smiling too much might upset us. When the other aides and nurses went out to smoke, you read all of the pamphlets near the meds room, the ones that were titled What Is Anxiety?, as if any of us didn’t know. Perhaps you read them simply to look busy, to pose as if you were perfectly fine with not being included. I liked you for that, because the other aides acted like bitchy hens out there, smoking together. It’s obvious they were talking about us, the patients.
Then there was the morning I had the episode. According to some, I started screaming. I pulled the couch cushions off the floor in the TV room, and I kicked Thatcher in the shin and upturned Ursula’s and Kevin’s chess game. They don’t even play chess, they just sit there staring at the pieces and talk about how indecisive they both are, so I didn’t feel bad about messing up their game. I don’t remember any of it, though. All I remember is waking up and seeing Kay hovering above me. Her wavy hair hung around her face, her gray eyes slanted down with concern, and she kept pressing her full lips together, just like she always did when something worried her. I was certain we were in the back room of Dairy Queen, just waking up from a nap.
I said Kay’s name. Kay smiled tentatively. She put her hand to my forehead and then glanced somewhere I couldn’t see. Then Bev came into the picture. ‘Just lie there,’ Bev said.
I looked around to see where Kay had gone. I didn’t understand what Big Bev the nurse was doing at Dairy Queen. ‘Bring Kay back,’ I said.
‘Shhh,’ Bev answered. ‘How about you have some water.’
‘Don’t let Kay leave!’ I said, frantic. ‘I haven’t seen her in so long. I want to talk to her.’
Bev put the pitcher back down on my nightstand. ‘You’ve had a confusing morning.’
I tried to sit up, but Bev wouldn’t let me. ‘I just saw her here,’ I said. ‘She was looking at me. You said something to her.’
‘The only other person in here was Rosemary,’ Bev answered.
Then I heard your voice in the hallway. ‘Bev? What? Do you need something?’
‘No, Rosemary, it’s fine.’
You walked into the room anyway. And it was you, Rosemary, not Kay, with your stubby blonde ponytail and your-I’d never realized it, until right then-haunting gray eyes. I stared at you hard. I didn’t quite believe it. ‘How are you feeling, Richard?’ you asked.
Bev settled me back down and looked over her shoulder. ‘Can you watch him for a second?’ she asked. ‘Make sure he doesn’t try and get up again.’ I knew she wanted a cigarette.
‘Of course,’ you said.
Bev shut the door. You immediately started straightening my sheets. ‘Feeling better?’
‘What happened?’ I asked, so groggy.
‘You…got up. Ran around a bit.’ You looked at me curiously. ‘You don’t remember?’
I shook my head. I looked at you and told you that, a few seconds ago, I swore you were my girlfriend from high school. You still looked like her, if I squinted.
You looked embarrassed, but then said, ‘Well. That’s nice.’