CHAPTER 3

The traffic in LA was reason enough for the most even-keeled person to lose their mind, but Jane liked the traffic. It made her feel like she was part of something. She had plenty of other ways to lose her mind. Phantom husbands in restaurants was one. Eating fast food every day, a habit that made her life in LA feel impermanent, was another. She wiped at the fallen shredded cheese and lettuce in her lap as she drove to work and resolved to do more cooking.

Sleep deprivation was another way the darkness crept in. Coming home from a hectic night shift at the hospital, a spider had found Jane. Fuzzy and black, its body the size and perfect roundness of a quarter, it had dodged her flying shoe and made for the bed where it hid itself in the clutter, and Jane hadn’t been able to work up the courage to go in after it. Six hours on the Goodwill couch in the living room without light-blocking curtains did not a happy Jane make. The ticking of the AC unit felt menacing. The sounds of neighbors’ footsteps outside were portents of doom.

The spider added to what had already been a surreal night. At work, a patient recovering from a procedure that put twenty screws in her shattered femur had started bleeding internally. Jane had discovered it while helping her to the bathroom. She kept saying it was just bruising from the jet ski accident and then she’d flat-lined. When Jane had finally left at eight thirty that morning the patient was still in surgery, and the outcome hadn’t looked good. It took hours for the combined adrenaline of the patient’s emergency and the spider’s invasion to wear off so Jane could sleep.

When her alarm sounded, Jane was already half-conscious, trying to ignore a lump in the couch cushion that bit into her thigh. Her daily inspirational quote appeared with pink and purple hearts on her phone screen: When you say, “It’s hard,” it means “I’m not strong enough to fight for it.” Stop saying it’s hard. Think positive!!! Because one exclamation point wasn’t enough. Jane gave her phone a good shake and asked how positively it would be thinking if she only recharged it for two minutes instead of thirty. She dragged herself into a sitting position and kicked at the bottom of the couch. Time to start the day.

Taco Bell was the savior of bad planners and the ill-prepared. Jane piloted her Jeep through the asteroid field of the LA freeway system while eating a taco and singing along with Elton John. Her singing poured out the windows into a smoggy afternoon dusk, almost carefree. Still, she felt a nudge at the back of her head that something was wrong. She pushed it away with rational justifications, the spider invasion, the patient who might now be dead.

But this was more than that. An entire chorus of Rocket Man passed while Jane filtered through all the possible ‘things wrong’ that might be bothering her until she found the right one.

I didn’t arm the alarm.

Jane stomped the brake and swerved onto the upcoming exit ramp. Two lanes of drivers laid on their horns in righteous fury. Elton carried on his merry singing, oblivious, while Jane calculated the time it would take to turn around, drive home, arm the alarm, and start off again. In the past, she’d forgotten, and it had been okay. But with the spider, and the patient last night, Jane felt the universe conspiring against her more than usual.

She pulled into the condo parking lot as Elton announced her arrival to the kids showing off their surfboards at the adjacent In-N-Out. This was home, a two-tower high rise not quite in Santa Monica. There was no ocean view and no security guard in the parking lot to watch the gate that rolled open for anyone and their dog. Literally. Jane once saw it open for a man walking a Saint Bernard. The ocean was out there somewhere because families in swimsuits stopped off from Highway 1 to grab snacks and cheap towels from the neighborhood CVS, but it was part of another world. Here, there was no salt spray in the air, just fast food grease and exhaust. The condo stairwell smelled like a swamp.

Jogging up five stories in flip flops, not recommended, but Jane’s sneakers were in her locker at the hospital. Elton’s voice crooned in her head as she clapped her way up to her unit. Outside her door, Jane paused to investigate for any sign of forced entry. Silly, but she couldn’t help it.

Shayla across the way had a dachshund, and a mother who owned the unit Jane subleased so her name didn’t show up on any online housing directories. They were just stepping out for a walk. Such a nice thing—mothers and daughters who took walks together, shared common interests, pets. Jane’s mother had withheld cookies when she couldn’t recite Bible verses without mistakes. She ducked inside to avoid them.

On the alarm panel, Jane punched in her code, hit arm, and started off again. Jogging down the stairs, she ditched the flip flops and offered the soles of her feet to whatever bacteria were feeding on the damp cement.

Off to work for real this time. Jane skipped the CD back to I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues, unwrapped her second taco, and spewed some half-masticated shell onto her steering wheel when she tried to resume singing. Everything was fine.

The east nurse’s station and the west nurse’s station of the seventh floor of the hospital were divided by the elevator. Each desk was staffed by two nurses per shift. Doraceli, the East 7 dayshift nurse, wasn’t snarky enough to look at the wall clock when Jane walked in, but she checked the computer clock. Usually it was her shift partner, Grace, at the desk waiting to go through the reports with Jane. Jane preferred Grace. Doraceli knew nursing, but her bedside manners, her table manners; all of her manners oozed sticky condescension that Jane could do without, especially today.

Alma, best shift partner ever, had already arrived. She looked the way Jane felt, like they’d been inflated into blueberries by Willy Wonka and it was easier to roll than walk. She spilled an impressive number of antihistamines, antacids, anti-nauseas, Dayquil, and Advil onto her half of the station’s desk. She pitched forward and let her head crash into Jane’s shoulder. “I think I’m dying.”

“Did the jet ski lady make it out alive?” Jane asked Doraceli.

“More than alive.” Doraceli lowered her voice and leaned forward in a way that made it feel like they were almost friends. “She might be Steve Fletcher’s mom.”

“Really.”

“But she said she didn’t know him.”

“Who doesn’t know Steve Fletcher?” Alma sounded like she was wearing a clothespin on her nose. “Doesn’t she watch movies? Even Jane knows Steve Fletcher. No offence, buddy.”

“I called her listed emergency contact twice last night, no answer.” Jane spoke slowly while in her head she rushed to put some impossible pieces of information together. She couldn’t remember looking at the patient’s name the night before. The orderly had done that part of the job.

Alma opened Fletcher’s patient file. “There’s no name on either of the contact numbers.”

“Call now and see who answers. God, I’d die to meet Steve or his gorgeous brother—what’s his name, who was in SLUT way back when?”

“Daniel,” Alma and Jane said at the same time.

Doraceli handed Jane the shift report. Jane pretended to read it until Doraceli’s attention was on her phone, then she shot bug eyes at Alma.

“Call,” mouthed Alma.

“It’s a really common name,” she hedged as she stared at the pair of ten-digit numbers that might summon Daniel to the hospital. It seemed impossible that she’d called him the night before. After all this time he was suddenly so close. Jane wished Doraceli would finish checking her phone and leave.

“I’m not starting my day until you call.” Alma held her Diet Coke with her free hand suspended over it, waiting to pop the tab and pour it into her water bottle. Along with various other delusions that came from a reality co-created with science fiction, Alma believed climbing the stairs once a week and drinking her Coke from a Pink Ribbon Bottle would magically get her in shape for Race for the Cure. It was an endearing and beautiful self-delusion that suddenly made Jane want to cry.

Alma glared at Doraceli. “I’ll text you if they show up.”

“You better.” Doraceli grabbed her purse and whisked down the corridor. They heard her excited whispers with the West 7 nurses as she waited for the elevator.

“You have to call,” said Alma.

“And say what?”

“That his mom’s in the hospital and had to be rushed into surgery last night.”

Jane still didn’t reach for the phone.

Alma took her hand. “You’ve been thinking about this guy as long as I’ve known you. If he’s even half as perfect as you think, you have to try this.”

“He probably doesn’t remember me.”

“You’ll help him remember.”

“Or he’s turned into an arrogant prick.”

“Then you’ll be able to cry about it and move on.”

Jane pushed away a giddy rush of hope as she reached for the phone. She dialed the first number. It immediately went to voicemail; an automated message repeated the number and told her to leave a message after the tone.

“Well?” asked Alma.

“The phone is off.”

“Try the other one.”

Jane hung up and dialed the second number. The phone rang almost six times before it picked up. A rich baritone slurred into Jane’s ear, “Who is this and how’d you get this fucking number?”

Anyone who watched movies knew that voice. Not Daniel, but his older brother, Steve.

“Hello? Start fucking talking or I’m hanging up.”

“Yes … this is Jane at the—”

“This about my mother? She’s not getting out any earlier than the doctor says. I’m not pulling any fucking strings for her this time.”

“There was a complication. She had to have heart surgery last night.”

“Is this a fucking joke? My mother’s heart is fine. Who is this?”

“I’m the night nurse. Her accident caused more trauma than we initially thought. She’s stable for the moment. We have visiting hours tomorrow afternoon.” Jane added this last piece of information because she was a professional, even though what she wanted more than anything was for Steve, and hopefully Daniel, to visit during her shift.

“You’re serious.” Steve now sounded bewildered instead of angry. “Fuck.” The line went quiet. Jane heard a woman’s voice murmuring in the background. Steve’s voice returned to the line. “My brother usually handles these things.”

Jane’s breath caught in her throat. She nearly choked as she said, “Do you want me to call him?”

“No, he’s … out of town—I feel like you’re saying she might not make it. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m just a nurse.”

“Right. Thanks for that.”

The line went dead. Alma was staring, waiting, but Jane couldn’t think of anything to say. It’d been so long since she’d considered the possibility of seeing Daniel again. Real flesh and blood Daniel, not the dream of him that she’d constructed in her head.

“And?” asked Alma.

“It was Steve.”

“Oh frack.”

“I’m going to do rounds.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“If he comes, he comes.”

“Fine, be that way. But I know you. You’re not as calm as you look.”

Jane was never as calm as she appeared, but she’d learned to survive by pretending. Alma wasn’t the only one who ran her life with a carefully curated collection of self-delusion. She worked her way around the West 7 with steely single-minded focus. The hip replacement grandmother of sixteen perfect children told Jane her water jug was empty. Maybe she’d repeated herself a couple of times while Jane stood with her back to the bed, pink dry erase marker poised in the air while Jane tried to remember how to spell her name. The patient in the next room wanted ice chips instead of ice cubes. And could Jane bring her a heated blanket?

On break, she went down to the ICU and checked on Rhea Fletcher. She was asleep, listed as stable. Jane stood for a few moments at the end of her bed trying to see Daniel in her face. She wondered if Daniel had ever told his mother about the girl he’d once met in Battery Park.