9:20 P.M.
After the ruckus died down, Stella stared at the puddle of water under the window. The black man with the dog, determined as he was to climb out onto the ledge, had been in too much of a hurry to close it after himself. The rain streamed in until a nurse came to shut it and lead the whining dog away.
She didn't know what became of the man because he’d not come back. Whatever he’d gone out on the ledge to fix in this storm must have been badly broken.
Sheets of rain beat forcefully against the windows, making a demanding, impatient clatter. I know you're in there! Let me in!
She again thought of the colored man and wondered what in the blazes he was doing out on the ledge for so long. Maybe he wasn’t out there repairing anything. Maybe he was hiding.
She sighed. Man could not live without his cupful of deceit. She hated being deceived, a reminder of the years when she was the favored subject for her brothers' practical jokes during their ‘salt-in-the-sugar-bowl’ stage of development.
It was this same sense of injury, mixed with her determination and common sense, which led her to stretch the limits of etiquette and finally shatter the maddening void that was her life in Paris.
Otis had become increasingly tight-lipped about his London business affairs, cutting her out of his life more and more, until she found herself seeking out the scandalmongers' prattle in order to keep informed of his doings. There were whispers about his involvements in shady deals with dangerous people and reckless entanglements with foreign governments.
None of that upset her. What did trouble her were the murmurs about the man himself. There was a hint that Otis Gallagher was somehow a peculiar and unsavory character. Where she had once been begged for stories about her husband, there was now an embarrassed silence and a quick change of subject when his name was mentioned. People regarded her differently, still friendly, but less at ease. Often, she caught them staring, as if she were some kind of curiosity.
Otis’s letters to her were tender, devoted, and full of utterly plausible lies, but on the strained, rare occasions he was with her, he held himself back.
On the second day of June 1912, she awakened to the same life she’d lived for two years. Time had passed and nothing had changed except that she was sick of the way she was living.
Wearily she rose and went to the window. The magnificent morning light filled the Paris streets. Across the boulevard, were an old couple holding hands, the sun riding the backs of their proper Sunday clothes. How many years had they been weaving their spirits into the cloth that protected them from the world?
Letting her nightdress fall to the floor, she stared at her polished, pale skin, running her hands slowly over her body. She was nineteen. It was such a waste that Otis neglected the love she had to give. She clenched her fists to her temples as her anger broke and ran free.
She called for her maid to have the driver ready to take her to the docks. She was going to London to find him, and nothing was going to stop her.
In the lobby of the elaborate London hotel, Stella collected her thoughts while studying the fountain statues of the three Greek fates. When she was ready, she ascended the marble staircase with the firm and steady step of one determined to search out the truth.
To her surprise, the door to his suite was unlocked, and swung noiselessly open under her hand. She hesitated before entering, suddenly regretting her presence there. Had she no pride? How incredibly stupid she’d been. She would throw herself at his feet and beg forgiveness for doubting him.
Stepping into the foyer, she went directly to the drawing room. In the dim light she recognized his tweed overcoat, thrown carelessly over a brocade divan. Parallel to it was an elegant gray cloak.
From behind the inner door she heard sounds that were like someone whimpering and begging. Unable to help herself, she pressed her ear to the door and listened to her beloved's fevered cries.
Oh please, oh please, please. Yes, please.
She shrank back, pressing her forehead against the cool panel of the door. “Otis?” she whispered, or maybe she didn't. It seemed unlikely she could have spoken at all.
Yes, yes. Please, yes.
She pushed the door open and stared into the candlelit chamber. She never actually saw them, but the layered shadows on the wall replicated the spectacle in a towering ghostly silhouette.
She was seven years old when she saw two male dogs coupling in a tangle of mangy, straining hips. Unsure of what she’d seen, she’d asked her mother for an explanation.
“Sometimes,” her mother replied pouring hotcake batter onto the griddle, “male animals turn strange and go against nature. Nothing to do but let them alone and don’t mention it.”
She recoiled, stumbling back as her legs buckled under her and gave way. Immobile, her mind sought excuses to protect her from the reality in the next room. It was a dream, she thought, a vile dream. She would close her eyes and wake up in Paris, in her bed, waiting for Otis to come home.
Except Otis was there, kneeling next to her in his nakedness. The faint scent of wax and sweet oil hung about him.
Stella, my darling, my love, he’d cried, over and over while his hands, those delicate creatures, caressed her face, her hair.
Stella, my darling, my love. It became his litany.
She was embarrassed for him. His smell, the shadows, the memory of the dogs, all made her want to cover him, to hide his shame.
Behind them was a sudden warm rush of air, hurried footsteps, a hushed, excited voice, a slammed door and they were alone. She would have liked to disappear, but that part of her which betrayed itself without reason, made her look at him.
Otis crouched over her, still in a state of arousal despite his anguish. This was a face unknown to her, unveiled and flushed with the reflection of Eros's darker image. Sweating above her in the faint afternoon light, he pulled at her underthings.
She, in turn, surrounded his childlike hips with her thighs and tenderly took him in.
Stella, my darling, my love.
Yes, please. Yes.
10:15 P.M.
Cat gasped mid-fall and jerked herself out of her dream. A chill came over her, making her acutely aware of the uneasiness that had crept into her gut earlier in the evening.
Shaking off the sensation, she grabbed the tail of her fleeing drowsiness and went back into another dream where Gage was lying death-still on an old army cot shoved into the corner of the morgue. As she approached, his body changed, folding and twisting into an egg from which a baby chick emerged. On closer inspection, she was not at all surprised to see it had Corky's face. It stopped peeping and began to whisper, ‘A secret, a lie, a wish to die.’
The phone rang, which pleased the insomnia god to no end.
“Hello,” she growled. “All I can say is this had better be God, or something very important.”
There was no reply. When the phone rang a second time, she realized she had not picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” she said again, amused by her own voice, which for some reason, sounded like that of a truck driver from the Deep South.
“I'm sorry, I have the wrong number,” Nora said, and hung up.
Cat giggled, took a sip of soda water from the glass next to her bed, and waited for the phone to ring again.
“Thunder Thighs Café, you eat, you pay.”
Nora laughed. “How'd you know it was me?”
“Because you just called and told me you had the wrong number.”
“That was you? I thought I dialed Billy Carter's private line by mistake. Were you sleeping?”
“Yes, and having the weirdest dreams.”
“Sorry for waking you, but I thought you’d want to know about the drama that just took place at Mercy.”
Cat snapped the clear plastic tooth guard off her teeth. “Tell!”
“I knew the ward was understaffed tonight, so I called around nine-thirty to find out if they needed me to come in, and Gilly told me that Corky Benner had just tried to kill himself by jumping off the ledge outside his window.”
Cat’s adrenal medulla went into hyperdrive. “Oh my god, is he—?”
“He's okay. Shook up, but alive.”
Springing out of bed, Cat grabbed her jeans and wiggled into them, cradling the phone against her shoulder. “I gotta go, Nora. Bye.”
“No, wait! There's more. Somehow Gage knew what Corky was up to, so he runs up to Ward Two, climbs onto the ledge, and talks the kid out of going through with it.”
Even though her breath was visible in the ice-cold bedroom, Cat was sweating as she pulled on an oversized green angora sweater. “Got to go, Nora. I want to—”
“Wait! I'm not done yet. You have to hear the five-star ending. Gage loses his balance and falls off the ledge, but the kid sees it coming and grabs the back of his raincoat. I mean, are we talking escape by the skin of our London Fogs, or what?”
At the sound of Cat's zipper, Nora hesitated. “Wait a minute. Have you got somebody there with you? Is that why you're trying to get me off the phone?”
“Does your mind have permanent residence in the gutter? I'm going now, Nora.”
“Wait, let me give you the conclusion. The Death Wish Kid is back on phase one suicide precautions and Gage was treated in emergency for scrapes and bruises. I think—”
“Is he still there?”
“Who?”
“Gage, in emergency.”
“I suppose so; you know how long that can take. The last time I had to go to emergency for a tetanus shot, I waited three hours for one stupid—”
“Your time is up, Nora. Thanks for calling, but I have to go now.”
“What are you doing?”
“Remember Miss Elwanda's typing class exercise in high school? Well, now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. I'm going to the hospital to check on Gage and Corky.”
Nora snorted. “Are you crazy?”
“Precisely.”
Concentrating on breathing slowly, Cat wondered why it had taken Nora so long to figure that one out.
11:05 P.M.
His arms folded tightly against his chest, Corky stared blankly at the ceiling, lost in his own unhappy world.
Cat made note of the boy's puffy eyes and pushed back the still-damp hair from his forehead. There wasn't a pill in the world for his kind of depression.
“You don't have to talk, Corky. As a matter of fact, don't say a word. Just pull yourself together long enough to listen to what I have to say.
“I don't know why you did this tonight, and I'm no psychiatrist, but I do know you need to tell somebody what's going on. You're a great guy. You have a special energy that shines from you, especially when you don't think anybody's noticing. You're one of the gentle, sweet people in the world, and I don’t want those who love you to be robbed of you.”
Corky stirred uneasily, tears rolling down his face. She felt her own eyes well up, and had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could speak again. “Please, Corky, no matter how terrible you think it is, it can be fixed. Nothing is so bad it can’t be mended—except being dead.”
She stood, picked up his limp hand and squeezed. “Tell somebody—anybody—about what’s eating you, because if you don’t…” (How did one threaten someone who has just tried to kill himself?) “…it will end up taking you from us, and I don’t want the bad guys to win.”
11:41 P.M.
Gage allowed Cat to drive him home and grudgingly gave in when she insisted on fixing him something to eat. She didn’t ask what he wanted, but simply made do with what he had, serving him a meal of cornbread, sweet potato, buttermilk, and steamed spinach.
He appreciated the way she let him eat in peace, not talking his ear off, or overstuffing him the way most women were in the habit of doing. He could almost imagine it was Delia bustling quietly around him. Like Delia, this woman possessed a self-assuredness and an innate female sense of knowing what was right. That, when mixed with the sight, was a powerful combination.
They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. Between them was a new respect and understanding that would not be easily shaken.