Eleven minutes after Cal’s student had called Palm Beach Fire Rescue, two paramedics were at Tess’s side. Squatting catcher-style, the first one, a slight woman whose name tag read R. Ponte, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Tess’s upper arm. Her partner, a stubby man packing an extra fifty pounds, unraveled several feet of oxygen tubing, connected it to a mask and then fitted it squarely over Tess’s nose and mouth.
“What happened?” Ponte asked. “Was she hurt?”
“No,” Cal answered. “She was fine until about ten minutes into the workout when she…she just passed out and fell from her bike.”
“She didn’t hit her head?”
“No, I caught her before she hit the ground.”
“What’s her name?”
“Tess Ryan.”
“Tess, can you hear me?” Ponte asked.
Cal said, “Her eyes began darting back and forth like that a few minutes ago.”
Ponte placed a tourniquet around Tess’s biceps and waited for a suitable vein to pop up. Without looking up she asked, “Do you know if she has any serious medical conditions?”
“I don’t think so. She’s been working out with me for almost a year. She’s never had a problem.”
“When did that begin?” she asked, gesturing at Tess’s legs.
Unsure of what he was being asked, Cal’s eyes shifted to Tess’s lower body. His breath caught. Under her black leggings, her calf muscles rippled erratically as if they were being shocked by repeated bursts of an intense electric current.
“I don’t know. It…it must have just started,” he answered, swallowing hard against a throat that had suddenly become as dry as cotton.
“The IV’s in and her vital signs are okay. We can roll,” Ponte told her partner. Together they transferred Tess onto the stretcher, locked it into position, and hurried toward the exit.
“I’ll call her husband,” Cal said. “What hospital are you taking her to?”
“Southeastern State University.”
“Her husband’s going to ask. Do you…have any idea what’s wrong with her?”
“Well, if we were out in the Everglades, I’d say she’d been bitten by a rather large poisonous snake.”
Cal walked across the room and sat down at a wooden desk that was beyond restoration. The three-foot, artificial and unornamented Christmas tree standing next to the desk did little to add to the spirit of the season. He didn’t have to announce the class was over. In an awkward silence, the other students gathered their gym bags and moved toward the door. Lost in the moment, Cal rested his chin on his steepled fingers, half listening to the wail of the ambulance’s siren fading into the morning.
He tried to reassure himself that Tess Ryan would be fine, but for all his efforts he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that he might never see her again.