Read The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus Online
Authors: Sonya Sones
And even though
both of us see a nurse
dashing down the hall
to try to get here before the doors close,
neither one of us
makes a move
to press the button
that would hold them open.
The doors slip closed,
like the velvet curtains
of a confessional.
We
are completely
alone.
As we begin
our ascent,
Griffin turns to gaze at me.
I don't know
which is rising fasterâ
the elevator or my blood pressure.
We pass the second floorâ¦
the third floorâ¦
the fourth floorâ¦
And then, without warning, we jolt
to a halt between the fourth
and fifth floors!
My knees
nearly buckle
as a slow smile
spreads across Griffin's faceâ
a smile
that somehow makes me feel
like he's the wolf
and I'm Little Red Riding Hood.
Or maybe
I'm
the wolf!
Orâ¦
shit!
Maybe I'm the
grandmotherâ¦
Oh,
I
don't know.
It's all so confusingâ¦
Griffin strokes his chin, studying me.
Then he cocks his head to the side,
points a slender finger at me, and asks,
“Is
someone
a little claustrophobicâ¦?”
And a split
second laterâ
the lights flicker,
sizzle,
and go out!
But that's the least of my troubles.
I am so lit with terror and temptation,
I'm surprised I'm not glowing in the dark.
“I'mâ¦fine,” I manage to squeak.
A faint red emergency button
pulses on the wall next to me,
like the dim tip
of a cigarette,
barely casting enough light
for me to make out
Griffin's silhouette
as he takes a step closer to me.
I scramble to press the button.
Nothing happens.
I press it againâ¦Nothing.
“Damn it!”
I hiss.
“Are you okay?” Griffin asks in a throaty voice.
“No! I am
not
okay!” I say,
struggling to catch my breath.
“There are
so
many reasons I am not okay⦔
“Don't worry,” he murmurs, “I'm right here⦔
“I know!” I say, “That's one of the reasons!”
And I guess he thinks that's pretty funny,
because all of a suddenâ
he's chuckling.
That please-God-make-it-stop
chuckle of hisâ
so shrill, so earsplitting,
so divinely ardor-dampening,
my path
becomes blazingly clear:
if I want to be able
to resist Griffin's charms
I am going to have to keep him
chuckling.
Grasping at straws,
I tell him one of the cheesy jokes
the cabbie told me
in the taxi on the way over hereâ
the one about
what the doctor says
to the invisible man in his waiting room:
“Sorry. I can't see you now.”
Amazingly, this totally cracks him up!
So I tell him the one about the nurse
who tiptoes past the medicine cabinet because
she doesn't want to wake the sleeping pills.
And the one about
what one doctor says to the other doctor
when they greet each other in the hall:
“You are fine. How am I?”
But then,
while I'm wracking my brain
to remember more of the cabbie's jokesâ
Griffin. Stops. Chuckling.
That's when I notice
the delicious woodsy scent
of his aftershaveâ¦
pineâ¦
and spiceâ¦and smokeâ¦
and rumâ¦
andâ¦
oh, geez!
He smells exactly
like Peter Levineâ
the boy
I had an obsessive crush on
in ninth grade!
“I love a woman
with a good sense of humor,” he says.
I tell him my
husband
does too. But this does not deter him.
He comes closerâ¦
And closer stillâ¦
And, suddenly,
Griffin's hands are on my shoulders!
“Aw⦔ he says. “You're shakingâ¦
You
are
claustrophobic.”
My heart's beating so fast
it could win a world's record.
“You need a hug⦔ Griffin says.
“Come here⦔
He starts to wrap
his arms around me.
And it would be
so easyâ¦
so easy to just let myself
melt into them
and give in
to this urgeâ¦
this wicked urge
to press my lips to his
and devour them
like a prisoner devouring
her last mealâ¦
I think of Michaelâ¦
of his paint-speckled cheeksâ¦
and I force myself
to push Griffin away.
“Please⦔ I say.
“Don't.”
But Griffin
doesn't seem to have heard me.
He reaches for me
again.
“Stop!”
I say.
But Griffin doesn't stop.
He places his hands
back on my shouldersâ¦
and thenâ¦
thenâ¦
And the elevator
lurches to lifeâ
carrying us safely up
to the fifth floor.
When the doors slide open,
I burst through them with my honor,
my self-respect, and my marriage
miraculously intact.
An instant later, I whirl around,
and Griffin's right behind me.
I stare into his deep brown eyes,
flash him my sultriest smile, and ask,
“What did the woman say to the doctor
after he tried to take advantage of her
while they were trapped together
in an elevator?”
“I don't know⦔ he says coyly.
“What
did
she say?”
I lean in, letting my lips graze his earlobe,
and whisper, “You'reâ¦fired!”
I take a quick step back,
so I can see his jaw drop.
Then I dash down the hall,
yank open the stairwell door,
and chuckle
my way
down all
five flights.
It turns out that when you
casually mention sexual harassment
to the powers that be in a hospital
it's shockingly simple
to get your mother transferred
to another wing.
Before the end of the day,
she's been installed
in a freshly renovated private room
replete with sheer curtains, a flat screen TV,
and wallpaper so flowery
it could give you hay fever.
Now that she has no roommate
chanting “help me, God,”
my mother seems calmer.
Though she also seems bewildered.
“This hotel is
trés chic
,” she says,
“but why are all the maids dressed like nurses?”
My mother's new attending physician,
Dr. Gold, taps on the door,
then steps into the room to introduce himself.
We have to spend a few minutes
convincing my mother that he's not
the hotel's general manager.
But once that's accomplished,
she stops tearing at the hem
of her hospital gown,
and Dr. Gold starts asking her questions:
“How many children do you have, Myra?”
“And how many grandchildren?”
She warms right up to him, telling him
about me and about Sam and about how much
she treasures her Thanksgiving visits with us.
I warm right up to him, tooâ
he's at least seventy years old,
short, round, bald:
perfect.
And it's such a relief
to not even have to worry for a split second
about what he
really
means
by “talk.”
He offers me
a cup of peppermint tea.
And I offer him
one of Samantha's brownies.
When he takes the first bite,
his whole being lights up.
“Wow⦔ he says. “If
these
don't get
your mother eating again,
nothing
will.”
“Actually,” I say, “I offered her one yesterday,
but she saidâ¦she said she wasn't hungry.”
And suddenly I feel so overwhelmed
that I begin sobbing.
Dr. Gold hands me a box of tissues.
And a moment later, when I glance over at him,
I see that he's wiping away a tear of his own.
This man isn't just a doctorâhe's a saint.
On Sunday morning, I'm trying
to coax my mother into eating a brownie,
when Dr. Gold arrives to examine her.
She regards him warily,
tugging hard
on a strand of her hair.
He asks her to close her eyes
and touch her right forefinger to her nose.
Then, to do the same with her left forefinger.
“Do you know why I'm asking you to do this?” he says.
And when my mother shakes her head,
he tells her he's checking her brain function.
“Your brain is functioning very well indeed,” he says.
Then he gives her a kindly smile,
and she stops tugging on her hair.
Next, he takes a small hammer out of his pocket
and lightly taps each one of her knees.
“Do you know why I'm doing
this?”
he asks.
“To test my reflexes?” my mother says.
“That's exactly right,” he says.
“And your reflexes are perfect.”
Then he places his hand
on her left earlobe and gives it a gentle tug.
“Do you know why I'm doing
this?”
he asks.
When my mother says she doesn't,
Dr. Gold shrugs and says,
“Neither do I.”
And when, for the first time all weekend,
my mother bursts out laughing,
I want to fling my arms around
this brilliant little potato dumpling of a man.
Dr. Gold meets with me to discuss her options.
He tells me that the Prozac doesn't seem to be working.
And that if my mother isn't eating within two days,
he's afraid they'll be forced to insert a feeding tube.
“So,” he says, with a sympathetic smile,
“since we don't have the time
to try a new antidepressant,
I think we should consider shock treatments.”
“Shock treatmentsâ¦?!”
An image flashes through my headâ
my mother strapped to a table, her eyes bulging,
her body rigid, archingâ¦
“I know people think they're barbaric,” he says.
“But, really, they're not anything like in the movies.
And the results can be dramaticâwe might even
see some improvement after just one treatment.”
“Are there any side effects?” I ask, swallowing hard.
“Maybe some short-term memory loss,” he says.
“But if all goes well, she'll be out of here in time
to commandeer your kitchen at Thanksgiving.”
I picture Samantha,
arriving home for the long weekend,
flinging herself into
her beaming grandma's arms.
And when Dr. Gold
hands me the consent form,
I scribble down my name
before I can change my mind.