Authors: Denyse Cohen
Kevin, Matt, and Tyler made a game of walking up-river several feet past a big rock near the other bank and floating down while trying to land on it, which proved rather difficult because of the strong current that pulled them away. From time to time, she glanced at them and at John who leaned against a tree drinking a beer. Under the warm sun, almost an hour went by, Kevin sat on the rock with a beer can in each hand. Matt, Tyler and John were talking near the water.
“Audrey let’s get in the water. It’s not too cold. You have to do it at least once for memory’s sake,” Matt shouted, startling her. She turned her face toward him and blocked the sun from her eyes with the book she was reading. The temperature was about fifty degrees, the sun felt warm, but there was still a cold bite in the air. No way the water wasn’t freezing.
“John hasn’t made any memories yet and I don’t hear you asking him to get in the water.”
John was fully dressed, sitting on the cooler, and holding a beer when Matt gave him a pleading look. John snorted, put down his can, and yanked off his boots.
“Yee-ha! It’s on,” Tyler said.
John stood and pulled his T-shirt over his head. Audrey propped herself on her elbows and inhaled deeply as his abdominal muscles expanded and the fabric, rubbing against his skin, revealed his bronzed shoulders and messed up his hair.
She wasn’t sure if what bothered her was he looked so attractive or that he was getting into the cold water to make her get in. When he stripped to his boxers, she had to remember to breathe. “Snap out of it! He’s not into you,” her brain warned her.
Without ever looking at her he stepped into the water. “Fuck,” he said, his skin raised in goose-bumps.
Even from far, she could see his body hair glistening against the sunshine, making him glimmer like a deity. When the water reached his knees, he turned to face them and fell backwards until it covered his whole body. Simultaneously, Matt and Tyler turned to her.
“Go Audrey. You can do it.” Kevin lifted his beer enthusiastically.
She placed her book on the ground. Okay, at least, you’re gonna put down that fire. She was wearing a yellow tank top and cargo shorts. She could just get in the water dressed, but she hadn’t brought a towel, and the thought of walking back to the bus soaking wet stifled her inhibitions. She unbuttoned her shorts; all eyes were on her. She gave Matt and Tyler an irked look, but focused her gaze on the water. She wobbled the shorts off her hips with her thumbs and it fell down her legs, revealing a purple leopard-print boy shorts-style panty. Then, she took her top off and adjusted the strap of the white bra that had fallen off her shoulder. Her eyes met John’s before he turned away and waded toward Kevin.
Disappointed her stripping didn’t seem to affect him as much as his had affected her, she walked casually toward the river. A wave of shock traveled through her body when she stepped into the water.
“I hate your guts,” she shouted as the air escaped her lungs. After the initial shock, numbness replaced the pain. She and Matt stumbled up the river carefully diving forward where the water seemed deep enough — no more than her waist line, both laughing whenever there was a slip and the other lost their footing.
“My feet hurts.” Matt turned around and floated his way down.
“Chicken.” She continued walking, but suddenly shrieked in pain and tumbled in the water.
“What’s wrong?” John said.
“Something on my foot,” she said, surprised at having him right beside her. She’d been busy trying to stand and steady herself against the current, she hadn’t noticed him coming to her aid. He must have darted from the rock to be by her side so quickly.
“Let me see, grab my shoulder.” He leaned forward so she could put her hand on his shoulder and reached down.
“I’m going to pull your foot out of the water so I can take a look.” A heartbeat passed, and he said, “You’ve got about a two-inch cut. I think you might even need stitches.”
“That’s a nasty cut.” Matt was leaning forward, too, coming closer.
“Let’s get you out of the water,” John said.
Audrey wasn’t expecting a ‘Let’s get you out of the water.’ He said it so protectively she wasn’t sure this was the same guy who had been ignoring her for nearly two weeks.
“Sounds good.” She placed her other hand on Matt’s shoulder, and they carried her out of the water.
She sat on a tree root while John knelt in front of her. He placed her foot on his leg. If it wasn’t for the pain shooting up her leg, she would have thought she was blushing for having him so close.
“Grab my shirt, Matt, will ya?” He pointed down the riverbank.
“How bad is it?” Audrey asked.
“Definitely needs stitches…Hang on.” He squeezed her ankle and pressed his fingers into the cut.
Feeling the pain, she reflexively tried to pull her foot away, but he held her ankle and he pulled a green piece of glass from the cut.
“Looks like it’s from a beer bottle. Heineken.”
“Yuck, I hate Heineken.” She gave the faintest smile and he responded with a small chuckle, a surprising sign of laughter completely foreign to her.
“At least, it’s not rusted metal,” Matt said, arriving with the T-shirt.
“Wait …” she said as John swaddled it around her foot. “Don’t get your shirt” — she muttered in defeat — “dirty.”
This time, John smiled at her.
“I guess we will have to leave now, huh?” Kevin said approaching them.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, your highness,” she said, bowing her head.
“We have to take you to a hospital.” John stood and offered his hand.
“I’ll grab our stuff.” Rob turned away followed by Tyler.
John helped her up and, in a quick motion, drew one hand behind her back, the other around her knees, and lifted her on his arms.
“Whoa, John.” Audrey threw her arm around his shoulder. “This way both of us will get hurt.”
“You shouldn’t put pressure on that foot, it might worsen the bleeding.” He walked up the bank with little effort.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re welcome.” He looked into her eyes.
She felt her cheeks blotch but she wasn’t about to complain. For one; he was actually talking to her, and two; she was in his arms, against his bare chest, feeling it expand with the quickening of his breathing as he carried her to the bus.
• • •
After she filled out the admission form, the nurses assessed the situation of her foot and sent her back to the waiting room to wait for a doctor. John waited with her, while everyone else went to a grocery store they’d driven by on their way to the hospital.
“We need supplies,” Kevin had said, which literally translated to alcohol and cookies.
She sat beside John, not knowing what to say. She wished Matt had stayed as well; he would fill the silence with his usual chitchat, but she hadn’t asked. It wasn’t like her to ask people for anything.
“I hope I haven’t bled out completely by the time they’re ready to stitch me up.” Audrey regretted her attempt at small talk as soon as the words came out. She wasn’t bleeding very much, and the new bandage the nurse dressed her foot with was almost clean.
“More likely, you’ll die of infection by then.”
“I appreciate you waiting with me. You didn’t have to.”
“I’m going to see it to the end.” John gave her a sideway glance.
“You handled yourself pretty well in an emergency.”
“Thanks. I have two younger brothers.”
“I have to say, your help — although greatly appreciated — was most unexpected.”
“Oh.” He looked down at his feet.
“I’m sorry I don’t mean to nag, I thought, uh — ” She wasn’t sure she should go down that path. “I mean, you haven’t seemed to particularly care much for me.”
“You don’t have to apologize, I know I haven’t been exactly friendly, I just don’t … converse well with new people,” he said, blushing.
“We’ve been inside the Winnebago for two weeks.”
“I know, but you’re a girl. A pretty girl.” He rubbed his boots together, face turning purple and looking as if he was about to hide behind a chair.
“Are you telling me you’re shy?”
“Some people call it that.”
“But you’re in a band. On a stage. In front of heaps of people.”
“That’s different. On stage I’m performing, you know? Just doing my job. Besides I’m more focused on the music than the audience.”
She nodded, staring at nothing as if the invisible pieces of a puzzle were coming together in front of her.
“And I close my eyes a lot.” John smiled at her.
“Hmm, yes, you do,” she said, smiling back.
She had never pictured him as a shy person; if anything, he appeared self-assured and proud — a snob. He didn’t try to prove himself or to take part in a conversation as shy people sometimes feel compelled to. On the contrary, he detached himself from attention, but the band swarmed around him like bees in honeysuckle.
After John’s confession, they eased into conversation, and when the nurse called out her name, they were twenty minutes into talking about their childhood cuts and scrapes.
“See? Still alive,” John said.
Audrey smiled and hobbled toward the nurse, who held a large wood door open.
Halfway there, she turned to John. “Will you come with me?”
• • •
“Can you believe how gratuitously doctors prescribe antibiotics these days?” She waved the prescription in the air, lying on the Winnebago’s couch while they drove to Augusta. The drive back to a hospital in Columbia had altered their plans to camp for the night.
“I know, isn’t it great?” Kevin said, sitting at the table with Matt. Tyler drove. Rob and John sat on the bed in the back.
“Great, if you want to raise an army of pharmacologically induced zombies,” she said.
“Ah, soldier, you may be on to something now.”
Audrey looked at Kevin, ticked off.
“It’s America,” Matt added.
“You know, now that I’m thinking about it, I remember my father coming back from Brazil with at least a few boxes of amoxicillin. I think you don’t need prescriptions there if you know what to ask for.”
“Are you going to fill your prescription?” Matt asked.
“Not sure yet. The doctor said I should start taking the antibiotics in case it gets infected, but if it never does, I still have to take the pills for ten days to finish the treatment.”
“Just wait and see, then,” Matt said.
“But if you wait and it becomes something worse, you might have complications. Besides, we might be in the middle of nowhere, and you’d have to wait to go back to a doctor. You should take it.” John stood and leaned against the door.
She considered what he said for a moment. “I’m going to wait. I’m like my mother; I hate taking medicine.”
Without replying, he walked to the front and sat on the passenger seat by Tyler.
“Okay, so your mother — who is from the drugs-for-all country — hates taking medicine? That’s ironic,” Kevin said.
“Those drugs still cost a lot of money. Some people still have to rely on popular wisdom and herbs to get better.” Audrey put her earbuds in and turned her head away.
The night in Augusta was a chilly one. She wanted to crank up the heater in her room but couldn’t make herself get out of bed. An erratic tug on her foot kept her awake, she propped it on top of two pillows and lay on her side in almost a fetal position, with her thumb pressing her lips. Why wasn’t Tylenol helping? Usually two pills were enough to make her relax. She never had insomnia and, after the day she had, it was unbelievable her dissolute mind wouldn’t give in to her body’s exhaustion.
She made an effort not to think at all and only contemplate the supple shapes created on the sheer drapes by the shadows outside. They morphed and merged on the fabric that danced to the rumbling air coming from the air-conditioning unit right below the window. A silhouette walked by, engulfing the tiny shadows in darkness like a towering giant. She stretched her neck like a flamingo and rested on her elbows. The stream of light coming from under the door was blocked by whoever stood in front of it, then moved in the direction it came from.
“Hello?” She shouted before the shadow could disappear into the opaque wall.
Gone. She flopped down into the bed, hating herself for hesitating.
“Audrey, are you awake?” John’s voice came from the door. “I brought you water.”
Audrey hopped her way to the door. John had two bottles of water and a Snickers bar in his hands.
“What time is it?” She asked.
“Not sure. About one, I think.” He handed her one of the bottles and the candy bar but didn’t move, like a vampire waiting for an invitation.
“Thanks. Stay a while if you’re not too tired.”
He stepped inside and closed the door.
She unwrapped the chocolate and took a big bite. “I think this is what has been keeping me awake all night. There is nothing like a midnight snack.” Her mouth overflowed with chocolate and she lifted a hand to cover it up. John chuckled and, for a moment, she was caught up in his smile.
Oh, wow. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
Something had just changed; amorphous feelings started to take shape. It was that split second in someone’s life when love becomes tangible even if not recognized or understood. Her heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t act under any illusions on that account. Instead, she hopped back to her bed and John lay down on the other one. They stared at the ceiling and, for a few minutes, the only noise in the room was the humming of the decrepit air conditioning unit.
“What were you guys doing?” Audrey finally asked.
“Nothing. We were hanging out in the bus. Tyler was trying to come up with an alternative for Red Bull and vodka using Mello Yello from the vending machine and tequila.”
“Really? And?”
“Not good. Now we’re out of tequila. We had to do shots to wash out the bad taste.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being on that bus?”
“Not yet, I guess. I’ve been waiting for a long time for this.”
“I see.” She sat up on the bed, opened her water bottle, and drank half of it with large gulps. “Have you ever thought about doing something else?” She wiped her mouth with her arm.