The damp December chill penetrated Sharlie’s sheepskin coat. Her gloves were too short, and she yanked at her sleeves trying to cover the chapped red circles around her wrists. The last bus in the uptown caravan had just hissed to a stop at the corner, but she resisted the impulse to run for it. That faint jingling sound she heard was probably the Salvation Army band over on Fifth Avenue, but since her attacks sometimes began with bells, she stood still, watching forlornly as the bus slammed shut its doors and roared up Madison Avenue.
One kneesock had slipped down inside her boot and rode painfully against her ankle. She bent over to fix it, sleet trickling down the back of her neck. Sharlie’s mother despised kneesocks. After all, she said, a twenty-six-year-old woman isn’t a cheerleader anymore, not that Sharlie ever could have been one.
Suddenly the cold and her own bleak exhaustion overwhelmed her. She was going to be late for dinner anyway, and if there had to be a scene, she might as well rest in preparation. She peered downtown past the brightly decorated windows. It was hard to tell without her glasses, but none of the blurry shapes appeared to be a bus. She picked up her soggy shopping bags, hoping they’d hold together until she got home, and entered the steamy warmth of a coffee shop on the corner of Fifty-third Street. No coffee. No tea. Too dangerous, all that caffeine upsetting the careful balance of chemicals in her bloodstream. She ordered a hot chocolate and settled the packages under the counter, remembering her father’s admonition about leaving things behind in restaurants. She put one foot on either side of the shopping bags and took mental inventory of her purchases: a book on maritime art for her father, which he would leaf through once and display in his office; a pair of opera glasses for her mother (Sharlie had left the old ones on her seat after La Bohème), and since these were really a replacement and not a gift, a long silk robe, rose and silver, which would look wonderful on Mother. Everything did, with her long, graceful body. For herself, she’d bought a pair of furry slippers, hoping they’d ease what she called the blue-feet syndrome. Cold feet, warm heart. Sick heart.
The waitress brought the hot chocolate, and as Sharlie cupped the mug with her hands, warming her fingers and enjoying the rich, sweet steam in her face, she tried to picture herself in her mother’s new robe. She grimaced, imagining her feet catching in the silvery folds to send her sprawling in an unladylike heap on the Oriental rug. Mother, on the other hand, would look chic in overalls and orthopedic shoes, though of course she’d never be caught dead in such things. And I, Sharlie thought, in the most expensive basic black little number somehow always end up ripping the dry-cleaner tag off my sleeve after an evening at the opera. Even so, it wasn’t that she didn’t have the proper lean lines. It was just that they bent in the wrong directions—elbows, knees, all the angles sticking out like those accordion measuring sticks that open into zigzags.
Sharlie sighed, took a sip of her hot chocolate, and wondered if the habit of losing things was an unconscious impulse to leave some kind of impression, a legacy that said, I Was Here Once.
Suddenly she looked up, startled, holding herself very still. There had been a sound, and this time it was definitely not the Salvation Army tambourines. A menacing, discordant jangling, all too familiar, clamored in her ears. She struggled against the rising panic, trying to quiet the uneven hammering in her chest. She exhaled slowly, leaning on her elbows and letting her body slump toward the counter. She gazed down into the soft swirls of warm chocolate, concentrating on them and excluding everything else from her mind. Hot chocolate. What Hot Chocolate Means to Me, by Charlotte Converse. Hot chocolate means a warm drink before bed when the sheets are going to be cold. Hot chocolate means steamy comfort after a January outing of skating in the park. … No, she thought. Forget the fiction, that’s risky. No skating for Sharlie, never was, never will be, world without end, ah-ah-men, ah-ah-men. The color, concentrate on the color.
After a moment the frantic clatter under her rib cage quieted. She squinted at her watch and imagined her parents sitting like statues in the living room, martinis sticking out of their hands, the clocks ticking away inside their heads. Her father would be furious, she thought, but at least he wouldn’t worry. She’s perfectly all right, Margaret. She’s only lost track of time or gotten on the wrong bus. Why in God’s name can’t she take a cab? I always tell her …
She says she likes the human contact, her mother would say with a shudder, imagining all those warm bodies pressed against one another.
And they did feel good, Sharlie thought, as ten minutes later she stood, crushed upright in the bus full of shoppers. Warm and secure, she swayed with the lurching stop-and-go motion, sweating in the stifling heat. She surveyed the other passengers, particularly enjoying the black lady with the ferocious face and the bush of hair that circled her head like an electrified halo. Sharlie imagined the feel of it, soft and yet assertive.
Suddenly there was blackness all around her. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and opened them again, but it was still there, the dark that wasn’t really dark because it was so alive with bursting, brilliant flashes. No ambiguous ringing this time—instead the ominous thud from deep inside her chest. The sweat she’d relished as evidence of shared humanity betrayed her now, turning cold. The empty thump sounded again, as if some vital piece of machinery had malfunctioned, abandoning its corresponding cog to knock away all by itself, beating against nothing, altering its rhythm in a bewildered attempt to catch up with its fellow gears.
She shut her eyes, speculating about the useless gelatin that seemed to have replaced her legs, grateful for the force of the other bodies packed against her, supporting her. A man’s voice, gentle and far away, spoke from somewhere way above her head.
“Hey, are you all right?”
Her eyes refused to open, but with an effort she whispered, “The door …”
Her body squeezed through the crowd, the calm voice propelling it.
“Air for this lady. Let us through. Ring the bell, somebody.”
And as she was expelled out the door into the icy darkness, the ding of the bus bell grew louder until it blurred into a roar. She looked up at the face of the man who held her arm, tried to smile, murmured, “Sorry.”
Then she fell, Christmas lights swirling around her.
She woke to the monotonous clicking of the cardiac monitor machine. No bells, no roar, just the reassuring tick of her heart. She kept her eyes closed, letting her sense of smell come back to life next. She inhaled tentatively and breathed in the familiar aromas—disinfectant, starched sheets, and, always, mashed potatoes and gravy. Saint Joe’s. She moved her left hand gingerly, anticipating the stiff resistance of the IV tube.
Eyes still closed, she guessed she was on the eleventh floor, in either 1106 or 1108. Her father always insisted she have a private room with a view of the park. The light on the left side of her face seemed stronger, warmer, indicating that the window was on her left—1108, she thought, and opened her eyes.
She looked around the room, taking sardonic pleasure in her accuracy. Only an expert could discriminate among these impersonal cubicles, even with eyes wide open. It’s so damn white in here, she groaned to herself. In my next life hospital rooms will be papered with soft lilac prints. There’ll be squishy furniture and heavy old brass lamps. The dinner trays will exude aromas of garlic and peppers, and there must be tea cozies. The ones that look like roosters maybe.
Sharlie shifted her body, taking inventory. With the tiny movement her head swam, and she recognized the drifting sensation of Demerol. She would float on her cloud of relief for a little while, but soon the crushing pain would drag her down for the cruel hours until they could shove the needle in her arm again.
She wondered now, as she had before she even knew the words to ask the question: Whatever did I do? Whom did I offend? She had been born this way, after all, so whatever the crime, it must have occurred in utero. Maybe there was a twin fetus in there and she’d strangled it with their umbilical cord. Prenatal fratricide? Sororicide? Or maybe she’d explored her unfinished body a bit too adventurously, poking half-formed fingers into places they weren’t supposed to know about.
But the voice at the back of her head, the place where she first felt prickles when deeply moved by beauty or tenderness (and horror, too) said, Nothing, Sharlie. You did nothing to deserve this. You have been ill-treated. And she supposed that the twisting she felt in her stomach and the heat around her temples could be described as disembodied apocalyptic rage.
The pain was very bad now, and she’d been breathing slowly and deeply for an hour already, trying to survive it. Through a long inhalation she heard a rhythmic swish of white-stockinged things marching toward her door, and with exhausted relief she exhaled and looked up into the pink face of Mary MacDonald.
“What’s new, Sharlie?”
“Just the same dull story. How about you?”
The nurse took Sharlie’s wrist and started timing the weak little taps, ignoring the monitor in favor of human contact. Sharlie smiled at her and thought that in her next life she’d be a hospital administrator or a floor supervisor like Mary. That sturdy, corseted body deflected germs and anxieties like an immense lady buffalo galloping through a field of butterflies.
“I didn’t think we’d see you for a while,” Mary said. “What’d you do, climb the World Trade Center?”
“What’s the fun in that?” Sharlie said weakly. “Everybody’s doing it.”
And for the first time, she searched her memory for the events that had put her there. There were lots of lights, she thought, and it was hot. No, cold. She shook her head, remembering a man’s voice, a tall, gentle presence.
Mary put Sharlie’s wrist down and reached out to stroke her hair. The nurse’s hand was warm and round and soft.
Sharlie closed her eyes. “Don’t be nice to me, Mary, or I’ll fall apart right now.”
Instantly the hand stilled, lifted away, and with an abrupt pat on the arm, Mary said, “Okay, kiddo. I’ll send Rodriguez in with your shot.”
Sharlie squeezed her eyes shut tightly, then relaxed her facial muscles and thought about blue sky. No clouds, no smog. Blue sky that went on forever. Gradually she felt herself being drawn into it, and soon she was asleep.