The First Stone (20 page)

Leeza could have killed Carly.

It was bad enpugh that she had to endure the embarrassment of having her catheter changed four times a day, the agony of the impossible tasks Val asked her to perform during physio, the continued ambiguity of Dr. Dan's assessment of her progress, her roommate's bubbly “Cheer-up-it-could-be-worse” attitude and absolutely everything else in this godforsaken place. But this. This was too much.

“Reef,” said Carly, “this is Leeza Hemming. Leeza, meet Reef Kennedy. He's our newest volunteer.”

Leeza's face was on fire. Lying in her bed, she was sure she couldn't possibly look worse. Her hair was a mess, despite her mother's efforts to brush it. She hadn't worn makeup since the day of the accident, having found it too painful to apply it herself and too humiliating to allow anyone else to put it on for her. The nightgown she wore—at her mother's insistence, because Leeza saw no reason to put herself through the agony of dressing—was at least two years old and covered withridiculous images of cuddly bears dancing on puffy white clouds. And, of course, there were her fixators, which she'd left uncovered when Dr. Dan had finished examining her leg.

“Hi,” she mumbled.

“Hi. Reef,” Brett chirped. “Back again. I see. Glutton for punishment.”

Reef looked as awkward as he sounded. “I guess,” he said.

“Reef's agreed to help out in the unit, Leeza,” Carly explained. “I was wondering if you could show him around a bit.”

Leeza tried to freeze the nurse with her glacial stare. “I thought Brett already did that.”

“Only
part
of it,” Brett said. “He spent most of the time keeping the sixth floor safe from wheelchair jockeys.”

“Full-time job,” Leeza muttered.

The nurse laughed. “You
know
it.” she agreed. “So what's it gonna be, Leeza? Care to help Reef here complete his orientation?”

There was, of course, no way she could refuse. Doing so would have been rude, and although Leeza hadn't been a slave to courtesy these past few weeks—Brett could certainly attest to that—there was something in the guy's face that suggested he was as unhappy as she was to be there, which made her warm to him a bit.

“I'll need some help getting up,” she said.

“Sure,” Carly said. “Reef, could you wait in the hall for a minute?”

“No problem.” He sauntered out.

It took, of course, much longer than a minute for Leeza to get up and mobile. She had become adept at maneuvering her body down the plywood slide into her wheelchair, but the pain that caught her whenever she moved still took the wind out of her, made her pause to catch her breath and brace for the next onslaught. Dr. Dan had begun to decrease her dosage of morphine, and the result of this was never more apparent than when she transferred herself from bed to wheelchair or back again. She was trembling when she'd finally completed the process.

“Glad you could do this for me,” Carly said. “You're a lifesaver. I have too much to do to add tour guide to my duties.”

“I'm just sorry I have physio now.” Brett said elaborately, “or I'd be more than happy to take him off your hands.”

“I'm sure,” Leeza said as she absently adjusted her robe, her response clearly suggesting that even physio was preferable to this new task that awaited her.

“Look at it this way,” Brett said. “How often do good-lookin' guys come round askin' to take you for a spin?”

Leeza shot her roommate the most malevolent glare she could muster, and Brett's grin vanished. “Hey. don't blame
me,”
she continued. “I wasn't the one who brought him here.”

Somehow Leeza wasn't so sure of that. A look had passed between Brett and Carly that suggested Brett might have been more instrumental in Reef's appearance than she let on.

Well, if they thought she was going to put on a happy face for some stranger who'd clearly been coerced into taking her off their hands, they had another think coming.

“So you're Reef,” Leeza said after Carly had pushed her out into the hallway and then disappeared into another room.

“Mmm.” he said. He leaned against the wall, one foot crossed in front of the other and his thumbs hooked casually into the belt loops of his jeans. “And you're Leeza.”

They both turned to watch a nurse roll a cart filled with medications down the hallway, the clink of containers providing an almost musical counterpoint to their awkward silence. When the nurse turned the corner and the unintentional rhythm of the cart had vanished, the two teenagers turned to each other again.

Surprisingly, Leeza found she shared Brett's assessment of the volunteer. Wearing a T-shirt, he was, indeed, a “good-lookin' guy.” His upper arms rippledinto broad shoulders, and his chiseled face and dark coloring reminded her of the young Greek men whose pictures filled the decorating magazine her mother had brought by earlier that week. The theme of the issue had been the neo-Mediterranean style that was currently the rage in the homes of the rich and famous, but Leeza was sure the women who bought the magazine were more impressed by the male Mediterranean models than the furniture they sat on. She suddenly felt even more frumpy than she looked, and she shifted nervously in her wheelchair.

“So, uh …” she began, then faltered, regretting she'd ever agreed to this. “What do you want me to show you?”

The young man blinked. “I don't, uh …” Now he seemed to be the one faltering. “I ain't sure.” He ran his fingers through his hair, the dark curls rearranging themselves as soon as he removed his hand. “What do you wanna show me?”

Leeza raised an eyebrow. “Depends on what you haven't seen yet, doesn't it?”

The young man's eyes widened and, clearing his throat, he glanced around the hallway. “Well, I, uh … I've seen plenty already.”

Leeza looked down, horrified to find that her robe had parted, revealing not only her fixators but also an unobstructed view of her crotch and her catheter, which were no longer covered by cuddly bears and puffy clouds. Her slide on the varnished plywood hadhiked her nightgown nearly to her waist, something neither she nor Carly had noticed when she'd tugged her robe around her. And because of her fixators, she was not wearing panties.

If her face was on fire before, it was positively volcanic now. “Oh. My. God,” she moaned, yanking the edges of her robe together, then burying her face in her hands.

“There's one thing,” the young man said after a moment.

Ears ringing with embarrassment, Leeza did not look up. “Obviously,” she muttered into her now-covered lap.

“No,” he said, and he made a noise that was somewhere between a gasp and a gargle. “That's not what I meant.”

Peering through her fingers, Leeza could see he was trying hard not to laugh.

“Not that,” he said, and he made the noise again. “The lounge.”

She had no idea what he meant. “Lounge?”

“Yeah. Brett said somethin' about each floor havin' one.” His eyes shifted from Leeza to the wall behind her and back, and she could tell he was being careful not to look in her eyes. “I ain't seen yours yet,” he said.

Maybe it was the way the left side of his face quivered, as though he were biting the inside of his cheek. Or maybe it was the way his eyebrows knitted together in a portrait of strained concentration. Or maybe itwas just because she really had nothing left to lose. Whatever the reason, she said the first thing that came to her mind: “Oh, I think you have.”

Then they were both laughing, loud gusty whoops that echoed up and down the hallway. And they continued laughing, Leeza gulping back sobs, Reef wiping his nose, both of them gripping their sides, and before long curious patients and nurses were drawn into doorways to see what had caused such uncommon hilarity.

“Quite a view,” Reef said as he looked out across Winter Street and Aberdeen Road. Far below, pedestrians in shorts and sunglasses were enjoying the August sunshine. In the distance, a patch of harbor glinted beyond office towers in the downtown core.

Leeza rolled her wheelchair over to the window. There was no one else in the lounge, which was fine with her. “Certainly prettier than the one you had earlier,” she said, and then the two were laughing again.

Leeza struggled to remember the last time she had laughed as hard, really laughed with no holding back, and a memory surfaced of Ellen on the day Leeza passed her driver's test. In her excitement to show her sister her new Registry of Motor Vehicles license, she'd pulled quickly into the driveway and, pressing the gas instead of the brake, rammed her mother's Subaru into the garage door. Diane had been livid and was wellinto a lull-volume lecture about motor vehicle safety when Ellen had appeared. Seeing her, Leeza had held up her license and shouted, “Look! I can drive!” and the irony of the moment struck both sisters at the same time, sending them into simultaneous gales of laughter. Even Diane, in the midst of her tirade, had begun to smile, then chuckle, then burst into wheezy gasps. All three had laughed hysterically for several minutes, clutching each other weakly for support. It was the last time Ellen had had anything to laugh about. She'd been diagnosed with cancer the following week.

Before she knew it, Leeza was sobbing. Images of Ellen in the driveway laughing and Ellen in the hospital dying alternately blurred and focused in her memory. It was like looking at those 3
-D
pictures hidden in two-dimensional drawings—it was only when you stopped trying to see them that they rose off the page, sudden and surreal.

The young man turned from the window. “Uh, look, uh …” he began when he saw she was crying. He shifted awkwardly, obviously unsure what he should do. “I, uh, I'm sorry if I, uh …” He trailed off.

She shook her head. “No, it's nothing,” she choked. Then she sobbed even harder. Dr. Dan had warned her there would be times like this, times during her rehabilitation when the physical damage to her body would unexpectedly trigger a release of raw emotion. It was like wires crossing, he'd told her—two completelyunrelated things would suddenly connect and the floodgates would open. Leeza had thought he'd been speaking metaphorically at the time, but, trying now to wipe away her tears with the sleeve of her robe, she was no longer sure that was true.

A tissue appeared under her nose. She looked up and saw the young man holding a Kleenex box he'd taken from the table by the window. “Here,” he said, and something about the gesture, the contrast of the soft tissue in his large, rough hands, touched her.

“Thanks,” she said.

“So, how'd today go?” Colville asked when Reef climbed into the truck.

Jesus
. Was every day gonna be like this? Two seconds in the truck and already the third degree. Reef hated the thought of taking the bus back and forth, but it beat being grilled each afternoon by Constable Colville. He sighed, slumped back in the seat. “Okay,” he said finally.

“Just okay?”

Christ Almighty
. Reef ignored him and stared out the window. Cyclists and skateboarders were out in full force, their lithe bodies sweeping past them in the heavy traffic. Reef thought about bikes, thought about never having had one of his own. He'd stolen a few over the years, of course, ridden them a day or two before ditching them. But it wasn't something youcould enjoy. You always had to be watching for cops, could never just forget everything and pedal, the wind tugging at you, pulling everything out and away.

Colville steered the pickup expertly through traffic, stopping at a crosswalk to let two small children and a woman pushing a stroller cross the street.

Reef watched as the woman maneuvered the stroller down off the sidewalk. The two children with her each placed a hand on the stroller, one on either side, and the procession moved slowly but purposefully across in front of them. When they reached the other side, the woman knelt down and said something to the children, then kissed both of them, and Reef remembered how he had knelt by the wheelchair in the sixth floor lounge.

It had been weird how, in the middle of all that laughing, the girl had started to cry. And not just a few sniffles. Once she'd got started, the sniffles had become sobs, her shoulders shaking like branches on a windy day, and he'd wanted to leave her there, call the nurse to come deal with that shit, tell her it wasn't his job to babysit loonies who belly-laughed one moment and then bawled the next.

But he hadn't. Had, instead, found the Kleenex and given it to her, listened to her apologize over and over. And then, out of nowhere, begin to talk. About her sister. She'd cried even harder then, telling between sobs what it was like to watch the cancer eat her sister alive. And he'd said, without even thinking, wasn't it morelike watching someone burn up, watching the flame become a flicker then go out altogether? And she'd looked at him and nodded, asked him how he knew, and he'd begun talking about Nan, about what she'd been like before, about the first signs that something wasn't right, about the doctors and the drugs and the hospitals. And the funeral home.

She'd
known
that funeral home. Proule's on Pinehurst. Had sat in the same “slumber room” with her sister. Had watched people come in and go out, get on with their lives, while she'd left so much of hers behind.