Authors: Tara McTiernan
Pain, previously under cover, bolted bright, a knife stabbing into her hip. "Ah!" she said, before the velocity of the rolling mass took her with it. A pointed thing, a high heel, jammed into her back, breaking skin right through Lucie's blouse. The mass was another person. Slam, slam, slam, and they banged into the marble floor.
Lucie's shoulder lit up with pain, the brunt of her fall on it, and she felt stung and a buzzing numbness everywhere. She felt paralyzed, unable to move.
"Oh, my God!" A woman shrieked. And then all the voices rose together, motion and rushing forward of people. Someone, a man, yelled something about nine-one-one. Was anyone a doctor?
Someone was leaning over Lucie. She tried to move. She could, legs and arms, and felt relief flood her. Her shoulder hurt, but it wasn't that pain she knew so well from a severe injury. Her hip throbbed now, the knife gone. It was the same angry but not dangerous pain as the night they had danced. She was pretty sure it was the same. Wasn't it? She got up on her good arm and looked around, wincing and grinding her teeth a little.
There at her feet was Kate, who instead of rising as Lucie had, was curling up on her side. It had been Kate who had fallen: Kate and her baby. Lucie saw Kate's hands go to her stomach, her continued silence frightening.
Corona
Crossing the emptied-out bar beside Bianca, Kate felt her legs trembling as if they were going to collapse. How were they this weak? She would have to practice wearing her heels daily until she was more assured on them the way the other women were. Although she expected her toes to hurt - and they did - she didn't expect to feel like a newborn calf, barely able to stand. How did some women walk around in these things all day? It obviously took practice.
She was still shocked that Bianca had done such an about-face back there at the table, asking every kind of question about the baby and encouraging such a lengthy discussion about her pregnancy. After Bianca's earlier attitude and warnings, it was as if something changed her mind completely. Kate confused but glad. She didn't want to fight with Bianca, but she couldn't stop talking about the baby. Now they were simpatico again, two friends in agreement, and all was right with the world.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she realized she had to say one last thing to Bianca to make the evening perfect. She had to fix her mistake. She should have never told Bianca about her fears about Grant. They were probably hormonal from being pregnant, the lipstick and other so-called clues all caused by innocent things she would probably discover soon. She didn't want to worry Bianca, and besides, her marriage and any problems in it were between her and Grant.
Thinking of Grant, Kate couldn't wait to get home, curl up in his arms in bed, and feel him nuzzle and kiss her neck. He was so affectionate, so loving - how could she doubt him? She was ashamed of herself.
Giving a little reassuring nod to herself, she turned to Bianca. It was shocking to see her friend looking so...plain. Bianca's appearance tonight was so different, so subdued, it made Kate wonder if there was something bothering her friend. But no, she would have told Kate if something was wrong. Bianca was an open book.
Feeling her ankles wobble more dangerously, Kate reached for the banister for support and said, "Bianca, I just wanted to say, about the other day? You don't have to worry about Grant and me. Really?"
Bianca shook her head dismissively and said, "No, no, no. Really. Please forget what I said. Come on, Lucie's waiting for us. We don't want to keep her."
Kate stared. But Bianca had said that, back there over cocktails, about her marriage? Maybe she didn't mean it that way? "Oh? Okay? You're sure?"
"Yes! Yes, I am. Please, let's go," Bianca said, nodding and waving at the stairs.
Kate smiled, feeling happier than ever. She was right, she knew it! All her worries boiled down to her overactive hormones making her imagination run wild. And Bianca, Kate couldn't ask for a better friend. Kate said, "You're my best friend ever?"
"Kate! Please!" Bianca said, looking almost anxious.
"Oh! You're right? Lucie's waiting?" Kate said, realizing that Bianca was worried about Lucie. Poor Lucie who could barely walk. Of course Bianca would think of Lucie, worry about her. Kate cringed, realizing how selfish she was being and started down the stairs. The spiral staircase would be tough to maneuver, but she had to start somewhere. Kate focused on keeping her ankles strong, putting two fingers on the banister for balance.
A warm pressure hit her back and then Bianca shouted, "Kate! Watch out, you're going to fall!"
But it was too late, Kate was already falling. Her arms went out instinctively and she dropped her bags as she reached for the banister, now needing it, but it sped by too fast to grab. She was flying. And then she wasn't.
Her hands connected briefly on one of the carpeted steps before sliding off as the carpeting was sleek and silky. Arms stretched out in front as if she was diving down the stairs, Kate's rear end whipped around and slammed into the low outer wall of the staircase, causing a sharp pain in her hip which seemed to echo through her abdomen.
She tumbled and rolled down the stairs, trying to tuck in her legs and protect her belly, but she was moving too quickly. Then she hit something soft. It was Lucie. She could smell the sweet fresh scent like honeysuckle, Lucie's scent. A little scream came from her friend and then they were together, almost one, as they fell. The final bang into the hard marble floor was the most painful, the wooden staircase and carpeting soft in comparison, and Kate felt the echo again in her belly.
There was a lot of noise and people crowding around them, but Kate wouldn't move, wouldn't even look up. The echo was growing, radiating outward through her pelvis and hitting her hip bones. If she stayed very still, it might stop. It had to stop. Baby, sweet baby! No!
As her mind protested, a cramp ripped through her, and she felt something release. It was hot and it was running like a stream down through her. No!
To show herself it was her imagination, yet more hormones confusing her, Kate finally moved, propped herself up on her elbow to see. Looking down, she saw the spreading stain on her dress, darkness pooling and dragging her down with it.
Chardonnay
Lucie had to lean against the side of her Audi to unlock the door, allowing the grime that had settled on it over the last two weeks as it sat parked and abandoned in their apartment complex's lot to rub up against her jeans and leave a mark. But she didn't care. She was free at last, able to walk again without crutches, able to get behind the wheel of her car and drive somewhere. She was officially on the mend.
Part of it was Adrienne, the physical therapist who had come to her father so well recommended. Those recommendations had turned out to be right; Adrienne really was a miracle worker. If Lucie hadn't had her fall, she might have been walking normally by now or at least with less pain. Of course, during their sessions together Lucie was in agony, but the improvement afterward made the teeth-gritting, muscle-trembling, sweat-inducing struggle of it worthwhile.
The other part of it was Ryan. Although she'd imagined their long-overdue heart-to-heart taking place in their apartment's living room, it began in a curtained cubicle at the emergency room at Greenwich Hospital, the thaw sudden as they embraced, and then the necessary words came on their way home, Ryan driving. He admitted to her then that he'd been planning to move out, that he was going to tell her of his decision that weekend. When her call came, he was cleaning up at the bar, and he'd considered not answering.
"What the hell," Ryan said, shaking his head, his eyes on the road. "Those were my words. I saw it was you, decided to tell you right then, not wait. I hate to say it, but I was done. I was so pissed, I couldn't see straight. I thought you were on my side, that you believed in me."
"But I did! I do," Lucie said, curled up on her side in the passenger seat with the seatbelt wrapping around her back so that she didn't put any weight on her bad hip. She tried to stay completely still, every movement causing what felt like broken glass shards to penetrate more deeply, but the car itself shook her and she had to fight to focus and stay in control. She was glad now that they couldn't give her pain meds due to her alcohol consumption that night. She didn't want to be loopy. She added, "And I was going to tell you. Tonight, I was planning to wait up."
"Who knows what would have happened, though, even if you did? I was shut down. But when I saw you just now, you were so strong. I was sure you'd be a mess, bawling and pitiful. You just looked up at me, so beautiful, and I remembered everything all at once. How you are, how smart and cool and amazing you are. Us, how it works. I thought: this woman's worth fighting for. We are. I knew I couldn't leave."
"I wouldn't have let you."
"But your father, I can't take-"
"Don't," Lucie said, feeling tears choking her throat and swallowing them down. "Don't make me choose. He's my father. He's all I have left of my family. And Flo and Erin."
Ryan clutched the wheel, the muscles in his forearms visibly working. "I'm not asking you to choose between me and them. I'm asking you to choose yourself. Your father will love you even if you don't do exactly what he tells you to do."
"I just want to make him happy. Let me try."
"Oh, Lucie. Look what it's doing to you! You can't even walk!"
"I just fell down a staircase in a bar! What does that have to do with my Dad?"
"You know you were having trouble before that. He's pushing you too hard. More, more, more. That's all he ever seems to want from you."
"Please? Let me try? And no, he's not impossible to please. I've seen him happy with me. I can do this. I want to. For Mere, too."
Ryan looked over at her, shook his head, but then shrugged. "Okay....do what you need to. But don't ever forget that I'm part of this, too."
And he was. Part of her recovery was his endless support and help. He lifted her up both physically and emotionally, her help-mate and cheerleader. He even backed down about her father, an eye-roll his only comment when her father called and visited. He stopped confronting and prodding Donald Scott, choosing instead to distract himself with his iPhone whenever the conversation started to bother him. Ryan did tell her that at some point he would say it like it was again when her father was around, but that a cease-fire was better for her healing and that was their priority.
Without the constant challenging from Ryan, her father seemed less powerful, less almighty. Lucie started to question the edicts and pronouncements her father made. The most recent pronouncement, made this last Saturday morning over the phone, had been that he had made an appointment for her at the local cable station to meet with the programming manager and informed her that she would go in and wow him.
"No, Dad," Lucie said, surprised at the firmness in her own voice. "I mean, I'd love it, but not now. I'm in no shape to 'wow' anyone. Thank you so much, though."
"You're going, it's already scheduled. This next Friday at ten. I called Adrienne and she told me you'd be off your crutches and even driving by Wednesday, so you can get there without all the hoopla."
"I may be driving, but I'll still be limping, really badly. Worse than before my fall. All I can say is that I'm glad all these jobs have been cancelled. I wouldn't be able to fulfill them."
"You're not pushing yourself. When I was in college, I had pneumonia and mono-"
"And you were on the Dean’s List and you propped your eyes open with your fingers to study. I know. You're made of stronger stuff than I am, Dad."
"That's not true. You're incredibly strong. And bright. And capable. You have so much going for you! I can't understand your attitude. Flo and I just want the best for you. I know you can do this. You will. Just go. It'll work out."