Somebody Up There Hates You (17 page)

You know, you can think that, though. You can be pretty much ready and all—and Somebody still has a laugh or two planned for you. I mean, really. There might be a couple surprises, even yet.

It's dark out when I wake up:
blam.
Wide awake. My mom always says that all teenagers are creatures of the night, like we're all vampires or whatever. Guess it's true. I'm full of energy, like I could run a marathon. It's pretty quiet in my room now: everyone who's been floating around all day must have gone home. My mom is asleep on her cot. The only face I see is Edward's, and once again I don't think it's his shift. But he's sitting there anyway, snoring in the chair. The curtains in my eyes have been opened; there's lots of green, but no more black.

“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice low so that I don't wake Mom. I lean over the side of the bed. “Is this the most boring room in the place or what? Why's everybody asleep? C'mon, man. The night is young.”

Edward sits up and looks completely confused. “What?” He looks at me and his eyes get big. “Richard? Hey, man, nice to see you awake.” He stands up and puts his hand on my forehead. “Whoa. Still pretty hot, though.” He picks up a thermometer.

“Put that away. I'm fine.” And it's true. I do feel okay. I mean, relatively. I'm pretty light-headed and, I don't know how to describe this, heavy-chested. But really, not bad. Must be what big-breasted women feel like, it occurs to me, most of the time. Just sort of weighty there in the front.

He puts the thermometer down. “Really? You feel okay?”

“Yep.” I sit there for a minute. And then I say, “Hey, Edward, you ever feel like something's going to happen? Like there's something you're supposed to do? Like, something you forgot about, but it's important?”

He just raises his eyebrows. “I guess.”

“Well, I got something to do. I'm just not sure yet what it is.”

“Uh-huh. Well, anything I can do to help you do this thing?”

I think about that. “I think I better be mobile, you know? I better get into my chair. Got to be ready.”

Edward huffs a little about that, but I'm already swinging my legs—my fat, bloated, don't-seem-like-my-own legs—over the edge of the bed. So he
tsk
s and
humphs
, but he gets the wheelchair and he lifts me into it. And I mean lifts: I don't have to move a muscle, and just for a minute, I let my head rest on his shoulder. “Thanks, man,” I say.

I want to go into the hall. Don't know why. I mean, I know I can't get to Sylvie, and I know that my kiss won't wake her up anyway. But I also know that I've got to be out there, to meet whatever's coming.

And it turns out that what's coming is Sylvie's father. He's pacing the hall, staying to his side, when he spies me and Edward. He stands across the hall and glares at me. Even from here I can smell the smoke and alcohol on him. All around his head, a kind of orange light flickers. I shake my head and rub my eyes, but it doesn't go away, that light. So I guess it's real—dragon breath, held in. Maybe I'm the only one who can see it, but to me, it's clear as day. He's not quite breathing fire, but it's in there, smoldering.

18

S
YLVIE'S DAD STARTS TO
walk across the hall. He steps on the invisible line and keeps on coming. I feel like Edward's got his teeth bared. He's, like, growling. Like he's the papa bear and I'm his cub. I say, “It's cool, man. No worries.”

So Edward doesn't move and he doesn't push me away. He just keeps his hands on the wheelchair, ready.

Sylvie's father stops right in front of my chair. His suit hangs on him like some kind of wrinkled gray skin, way too big. It's got this little pattern of lines, like I never saw before on a suit: I see, all of a sudden, that this skin he's wearing is scaly. Reptile skin, I think. Like this gray thing is the old skin he's shedding; underneath, he is golden, I decide, with black stripes. Like I always pictured the Great Worm Smaug. I shake the green bubbles from my eyes and say, “Good evening, sir.”

“Richard,” he says. He smiles and bows to me, a little formal bend from the waist. His teeth are stained and his breath stinks. “I heard you were—let us say—rather unwell today. But here you are, looking hale and hearty, I am pleased to see.” Edward starts to speak, but Sylvie's dad interrupts. “Would you perhaps like to pass these wee hours with a game of cards, Richard?” He looks at Edward. “In the family lounge, which is, of course, neutral territory? Are you up for a game of chance?”

You bet I am. Chance is all I've got, right? But Edward is arguing: “I'm sorry, Mr. Calderone, but this young man is in no shape for —”

“How about you let the young man speak for himself? How about you shut the fuck up?”

I think that maybe Edward will leap over the wheelchair and strangle Sylvie's father with his bare hands. So I have to intervene. “Hey. There is no call for that,” I say. “I am in perfect shape for a game of cards. Let's do it. Let's roll.” I start to push on the wheels of my chair. This is nothing but a bluff because I'm way too weak to propel myself, but it pulls Edward out of his paralyzed rage.

He takes a deep, deep breath and says, “Richard, you will not go anywhere with this man.”

Sylvie's dad shakes his head. He smiles now, all friendly and reasonable. “I am so sorry,” he says. He rubs his eyes. “The strain, it makes me crazy. Forgive me.” He even looks a little bit sorry. Really, the guy is a shape-shifter. “All I'm proposing is a friendly game of poker. With others, of course. Just to pass these long hours.” He looks behind me and says, “You, sir. Perhaps you'd join us?”

I turn around and there's Mrs. Elkins's son. He nods. “Absolutely. Yeah, sure.”

“Wonderful. I'll go set up a table.” Sylvie's dad almost trots down the hall, he's so pleased.

“C'mon, man,” I whisper to Edward. “Let me play. I want to beat that man's ass into the ground. I want to trample his face into mush. Please. Give me this one last chance, okay?”

Edward groans. But he, too, wants to see that man beaten into jelly, I know it. So he's going to let this game happen. Really, he has no choice, does he? You going to turn down the last wishes of a dying boy? I don't think so.

***

It's confusing to me how everyone gets there. I mean, by the time I've calmed Edward down and we've arrived at the lounge, it's sort of packed with people, all sitting around a folding table. There's Mrs. Elkins's son and Sylvie's father and, to my complete and utter surprise, the harpy. Her white hair is in a huge cloud of frizz around her face, and she's wearing something that looks like a long white nightgown. She smiles at me. “Hello, Richard,” she says. She's shuffling cards and her hands move like lightning.

I just gape at her. “Why are you here so late?”

She shakes her head. “I'm here with my sister. I often stay overnight.”

I shake my head. “Your sister?”

Edward leans down and whispers in my ear. “The woman in a coma. Room 306. Didn't you know that? They're
twins
, Richard. Why do you think she sits here all day, playing that music?”

Okay, so my jaw is about to hit the floor. The harpy and the woman in the coma are twins. One dying, one strumming her heart out, every damn day. The mind boggles. I can't say a word. But I try to cover up my abysmal ignorance with words, anyhow. “Cool,” I say to the harpy. “Glad to have you. Hey, what about the old guy in 304? You know, we played with him the other night? Let's ask him.”

Everyone in the room goes quiet, and they all look at me. “Oh, Richard,” says the harpy.

I close my eyes for a minute. The things I don't know. I think I'm so smart. But there's a whole lot here I've been missing. I pull my chair up to the table.

Edward says, “I am not joining this game. I'm just here to watch over Richard.”

Sylvie's father grins. “Ah, King Richard has brought his body servant. What's next, a food taster? No matter. Let the games begin.”

It's plain old poker, nothing fancy. We don't have chips, so Sylvie's dad has come up with substitutes, stuff he's apparently lifted from the supply room. Piled in front of him, there are little plastic pill cups, small gauze pads and big gauze pads. We all look at him fingering the piles. The harpy lays down the pack of cards and asks, “So, what are these items worth? I mean, what are we playing for here? I like to know the stakes.”

Sylvie's dad raises his eyebrows. “Oh, didn't I make that clear? We're playing for days.”

We all stare at him.

“Come, people, it's very easy to understand. A pill cup equals one day. Small gauze pad, two days. Large gauze pad, three. Got it?”

Mrs. Elkins's son clears his throat. “Yeah. But. Days of what?”

“Days of life, of course. For our loved ones. Or for ourselves.” He stares at me. He's so tired and so wasted away that his face looks just like a skull. A grinning, clacking skull. “For whatever patient on this floor we represent.”

The harpy's eyes glitter. “Fine,” she says. “You're on.”

I think for a minute. One day, two days, three. Multiply that times however many go into the pot. Times however many times I can win. That's plenty, I think. Plenty of time for the science geeks to do their thing. To come running up this hallway with beakers full of snake-venom magic. To sprint in here with a cure. Listen: I want to
be
for Christmas, too. For my birthday, even. Like everybody else, I want to
be.

So this is very, very cool. Here's the thing I haven't mentioned: except for that night with the old guy playing gin, I've always been super-lucky at cards. I mean, ever since I was a little kid—a champion. I was beating my mom at Go Fish when I was four, no kidding. Weekly poker nights with my friends in junior high—I won nearly every week. Eventually, they wouldn't play with me anymore. Late-night games with roommates in whatever hospital room I was in—I won. I always win. And we're playing for days. I am psyched. I'm going to win a whole lot of days. No joke.

“Let's play,” I say. And the harpy deals, slapping down the cards like she's working in Vegas.

Don't worry, I'm not going to bore anyone with the whole play-by-play thing. I'm not doing some cheesy Texas Hold 'Em broadcast here. It's standard poker and, at first, everyone's winning some and losing some. We're just playing, that's all. Pretty relaxed, to start. That harpy, though, I got to say, she's tough. Can't read a wrinkle on that face; she is dead, solid serious. I can see that she wants to win her sister more time, big-time, though I can't imagine why. I mean, really, “Long Time Gone.” But there's no reasoning with people about this kind of thing, is there? Life is life, until it's not, right?

Mrs. Elkins's son, he's pretty half-assed about it. Yawning and fiddling with his cards. I bet he's ready for his mother to check out—she probably is, too—and he's just messing around here. Makes sense to me.

But Sylvie's dad? He is dead-ass serious and scary as shit. He's not playing cards; he's in a war. His skin gets grayer by the minute, he's got stubble sticking every which way out of his face, he smells like someone pissed Wild Turkey all over him and there's this weird glow around his mouth. Couple of times I catch him staring at me and I shudder. I mean, the man is on fire. I wish I could take an infrared photo of him so everyone else could see the little flames leaping off the man's ears. I can see them, that's for sure. So, what with that and trying to push the green lights out of my sight, trying to focus on the hearts and spades and clubs and diamonds that keep leaping around in my eyes, I'll admit that I get myself into a pretty weirded-out mental state. I start to believe that Sylvie's dad really is the essence of evil, and somehow we're not just playing for days. We're playing for my soul. Not, like, days. Eternity. And that surely is enough to shake a guy's confidence, whether he's bluffing or not.

By, let's say, five
A.M
., Mrs. Elkins's son has dropped. He's flat asleep in his chair, head back, snoring like a chain saw. The harpy? She started to curse, last hand, when she drew crap cards, and then she threw her cards onto the table and marched right on out of the room, nightgown sweeping behind her. Edward? He's crashed on the couch, curled up like a baby, sound asleep.

Of course. This is how it was meant to be, all the time. It's down to Richie vs. the Dragon. Screw Hatfield vs. McCoy. This is the real thing. Highest stakes in the world. Dawn's just coming into the sky outside, finally. There are whole heaps of days lying on the table between us, and we're both out of anything to add to the pot. It's the moment. The one where everything is just hanging there, waiting to tilt in one direction or the other. Waiting for just that one tiny nudge.

And I'm looking at the three jacks I'm holding in my hand: three strong young lads. All mine. Sweet. And he's looking at?—who knows? Well, really, he's looking at me, that's what. He's waiting for it—the blow to fall and wipe him out. He hasn't got a thing, I know it. I can tell. Here's a little trick I'll pass on: it's not the eyes, like some people say, that give away the bluff. It's the lips. Lips tremble, you know? When you really, really, absolutely, positively, no shit
have to win
, lips betray you every time. And Sylvie's dad, his mouth looks like a pair of bat's wings, all fluttery.

I look hard at the pot. I figure there's four, five weeks of life there. Maybe more. More than enough time for the scientist-dudes to come through, right? More than enough for all kinds of stuff to happen.

And I've got the winning hand, no question. I'm just about to lay it down and claim my days—
my
days—when the man pulls the nastiest trick I've ever seen. First, he lays down his hand, faceup. He's got a pair of queens. Clubs and spades. Both dark-haired, dark-eyed ladies—beautiful, both of them. Then he leans across the table and looks right into my eyes. Real quiet, he says, “She's fifteen, Richard. Fifteen.”

In other words, I've already had two more years. Hits me like a slap in the face. I already lived something like seven hundred and thirty more days than Sylvie. I look at my three-of-a-kind: Jack Spade, Jack Diamond and Jack Heart. Two of them are those shifty one-eyed guys, little skinny mustaches, slicked-back hair, look like pimps. Third one, Jack Diamond, he faces me head-on; he's the good guy. Solid. I think about Sylvie's tiny breasts, soft as baby birds in my hands, how she trusted me, let me in.

Took me a while, didn't it, to get it? What we're really playing for here? Hearts and souls. Hearts and souls.

I fold my cards up and put them on the table, all their faces hidden, those three young dudes invisible. Doesn't matter, Sylvie's father is not going to look. Can't stand to look. Doesn't want to know. “You got me, sir,” I say. “Congratulations.”

Sylvie's father sweeps all the days into his arms. He's laughing like a hyena. Tears running down his face. He grabs the days and he takes off, running down the hallway toward his daughter's room.

I sit back in my chair. For that one minute, grabbing those gauze pads and pill cups, Sylvie's dad looked just like her. She grabs, too. For that one minute, I feel like I could love him, too. I mean, think about it. Isn't that how a father should be? I mean, what wouldn't
you
do, if Sylvie was your child?

***

Next morning, I'm back in my room, tied to the bed with oxygen tubes up my nose. But, even so, I keep my ear open and the floor gossip reaches me. I hear that, overnight, the harpy's sister died. And so did Mrs. Elkins. “Tough night,” people are whispering. Tough night. I don't think, really I don't, that there's anything, like, supernatural or spooky about those two checking out. I figure that both of them most likely hurried to do it, get it done, while their watchers were out of the room playing games. People do that, I hear, all the time—wait until they're alone. Makes sense to me. When you're all alone and you finally got some privacy, that's when the strings that fasten you to earth go
snap
, and then you got liftoff. Not sure I'll ever shake off my mom, though. She's, when you come right down to it, she's just as fierce as Sylvie. And that's okay. Actually, I'm fine with her being here now. Glad about it. And it's funny—the harpy is still playing, I can hear her. She's still there.

And there's other news, too—and it's amazing. Turns out that, overnight, even with all that
snapping
going on around her, Sylvie rallied. Mrs. Jacobs comes in to tell me that Sylvie's awake. Sylvie's sitting up in bed, drinking coffee. That's what she asked for. Not water, not ginger ale—coffee. Hot, black and full of caffeine. Said it was time to wake up. That's my girl.

I know for sure she'll grab that four or five or however many weeks I won her. That girl is crazy-fierce. Hey, she's got dragon's blood running in her veins. She'll grab every one of those days and run with them. She's going to walk on out of here, I know it. She's got things to do.