And Call Me (Duet), page 15
Fruit. Oh, shit. No, no, no -- Eli looked, just to be sure. Zane’s shake had spilled over the floor, and there they were. Sliced red and perfect and juicy. Strawberries. Just the juice would have done it, and if Zane had swallowed a sliver --
Zane’s breathing made Eli think of fists tightening around flesh. Fighting. Losing. He swayed. Eli caught him. Only just, and Zane clawed at him, making it impossible to hang on. With uncoordinated arms that were beginning to seize up, Zane thumped his hip, searching, finding nothing. His eyes rolled back in his head.
EpiPen. Christ, that stupid shirt -- Zane didn’t have the EpiPen on him, and what the fuck was wrong with Eli that he hadn’t thought --
He dashed for Zane’s jacket, hung neatly on a chair. Dragged the chair over on its side but couldn’t give less of a fuck. The slim black EpiPen case was tucked in the inside pocket, too little for Eli to get a grip on, and Zane was far, far too still by now.
Eli wasn’t the praying type. He shot a quick one to the man upstairs as he sent the medicine into Zane. Phone. Fuck! That he had in his own pocket, and a good thing too because be damned if the EpiPen was working. Too late? No. Hell no. He wouldn’t let it be too late. He dialed 911, wedged the phone under his ear, and tried to remember he was a doctor.
“Anaphylactic reaction,” he said, interrupting the dispatcher’s opening lines. He garbled the address and had to repeat himself. “For fuck’s sake, get a move on.”
The dispatcher did what she could, and so did Eli. All he could. It had to be enough. Had to be.
If it wasn’t, the last thing he would have said to Zane was… nothing. Silence not filled with I love you.
God. Eli started CPR, and he kept praying.
* * *
Eli stomped his feet to keep them warm and cupped his hand around the lighter flame to guard it from the wind, lighting his fourth -- fifth? -- cigarette. Zane’s stash. Who knew why he’d grabbed them on his way out of Zane’s apartment. Who knew why he’d lit up? He didn’t smoke, never had. The smoke burned like hell going down.
Almost like he couldn’t breathe.
Eli took a lungful and held it. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Zane fighting to breathe. One sliced-up strawberry they’d found in the bottom of the cup. Just one was all it’d taken. Fuck.
A nurse elbowed open the crash door to the outside world. He knew her. Bernice, he thought her name was. “Dr. Jameson.” She held her gloved hands up so she wouldn’t contaminate them. “No smoking on hospital grounds. You know that.”
Eli blew out his smoke and snapped in a vicious drag. “I want to see him.”
He’d asked before. Repeating didn’t help. “And I already told you no. You need to stay out here and let us do our jobs. You’re a doctor. You know all of this.”
“The hell you say. He’s my -- Bernice, come on.”
“Stay here. Put out your cigarette and wait.” Narrow nosed and pointy chinned, with her hair slicked tightly back, Bernice looked all face and no smile on her small lips. All business. They’d worked together before, and he’d liked her then.
“You’re boning me, Bernice. You talked to Pearson, didn’t you?”
“Who? You mean that prick with the glasses?”
“See?” Eli pointed at her with the tip of his cigarette. A scratchiness in the back of his throat made him want to cough. “You’re trying to have it both ways. Treating me like a doctor and like a family member.”
“Far as I’m concerned, you’re family. You’re off duty, and the two of you are like brothers. I’m not having you in here getting in the way.”
“So this is your call, not theirs?”
“Dr. Jameson, do not discuss semantics with me. I don’t have time, and you’re too worked up to come in. End of discussion.”
“The hell you say. I kept Zane, Dr. Novia, going until the paramedics came.” And Christ, he’d never be able to forget that. He’d see it in his nightmares for the rest of his life. Zane, always full of life and tempestuous emotion, as colorless as wax and as limp as a rag doll. “Bernice, I’m begging you. I won’t even come in. I just want to be there.”
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” A shout from behind Bernice got her on the move again. “Stay, Dr. Jameson. I mean it.”
And then she was gone, just like that, Immaculate Grace swallowing her back up. Eli dropped the mostly burned-out remnants of his -- Zane’s -- cigarette into a puddle of slush and lit up another with shaking hands.
Christ. It’d been years since he’d been on the other side of the swinging doors. The memories weren’t pleasant, and now he understood what he hadn’t before, even as recently as this afternoon. What Zane felt. He knew now, in his bones, the brokenness of a place where you learned to sever your heart at the door when you wiped your feet.
* * *
A taxi barreled to the curb. Diana scrambled out almost before it’d come to a complete stop, tossing cash at the driver. She flipped him off, slammed the door behind her, and made tracks toward Eli in heels so high she could have broken her neck.
The throat was an amazing thing. So fragile, really. Everything in the human body was. The things that could go wrong with one little…
Diana snapped the cigarette out of Eli’s hand and took a deep drag. “Eli, what the fuck? What happened?”
Cold seeped in abruptly, making Eli shiver and tighten his arms around his chest. “Zane. Strawberries. It was an accident. I didn’t --” He didn’t even remember calling or paging her. “They won’t let me in.”
Diana stood back and studied Eli. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed. “No kidding. I can’t say I blame them.”
The injustice of that struck hard and cut deep. “You too, huh?” Eli took the cigarette back and drew an angry jerk of smoke. Shredding his throat. “Then what the hell did you come down here for?”
“Asshole. Give me a chance to explain myself. You look like shit, you’re not being reasonable, and no, I don’t blame you. Zane is --” There she stopped. “You’ve seen it from the other side. People who care get in the way.”
Eli laughed, as bitter as Zane sometimes sounded. “No shit.” The cigarette was halfway burned down. “So, what? You came to spank me?”
“As if. We both know I’m not your type.”
“Don’t make me laugh. Christ.” Eli’s head pounded. “Why are you here?”
Diana had to stretch up on tiptoe to twist his ear, but she managed, and lightning fast too. “Idiot. Why do you think?”
For the first time, Eli saw that she’d thrown a lab coat on over her sharp dress clothes and clipped her hospital ID to the lapel. A stethoscope hung around her neck. “Let them try to keep me out. I’m on call tonight. As far as I’m concerned, someone just called me in.”
Eli’s lips were numb. Inside, he could hear raised voices, and they could have been for anyone, anything, but he wasn’t thinking. Couldn’t make his brain work. “You’re a cardiologist.”
Diana made an impatient noise. “Do you want me to go lend a hand or what?”
Anything he could say to that wasn’t good enough. Eli took Diana by the shoulders, pulled her to him in a rough attempt at a squeeze and kissed her forehead. “Yes. Please. Go.”
She pointed into his face. “As long as you stay. Got me? And for God’s sake, get some coffee to wash that smoke down with. If you’re going to brood and pace, do it right.”
“Diana, please.” Eli wanted to yank the door open and push her inside.
“I’m gone.” She reached for the pack. “No, give me one. Stick it in my pocket. I’ll be back out as soon as I can, and I’ll update you. Stay.”
Eli was gladder than anything that she’d be in there, that she’d help, but fuck if that didn’t leave him alone in the cold dark. Again.
* * *
Eli checked his voice mail as a matter of habit. Call him old-fashioned, but he still wasn’t totally on board with trusting a phone company whose CEO was young enough to be his son. Who knew how many calls he’d missed, spaced out in the darkness, floating in a sea of smoke as gray as Zane’s flattest stare?
No messages.
Frustrated and in need of something -- anything -- to do with his hands, Eli checked for texts. Nothing. E-mails.
There he found something. A communication from Dr. Kazaran. Marked “high importance.” He thumbed the touch screen, motivated by a sort of sick curiosity.
The search committee would like to schedule an interview…
Eli hit Delete. I cannot deal with this right now. And I don’t want it.
Don’t want anything but Zane, safe and sound.
* * *
At least until a second taxi disgorged its passengers at the curb. One of them was tall and blonde and slim, moving with quiet grace but still covering ground at a decent clip, followed behind by a dark, silent panther of a man.
“Eli.” Holly was suddenly there, hugging him, smaller but infinitely stronger right now, smelling of balsam and lilies. “I came as soon as I could.”
His arms went automatically around her. “Holly. What are you doing here?”
“Diana paged me. And called me from the taxi. You know Diana.” She let go enough to look Eli in the face. “How are you?”
Keith, Holly’s husband, came up as a sturdy presence behind him. They barely knew each other, but he offered Eli a firm shake, the good kind, the one where a guy had nothing to prove and offered no more than simple solidarity.
“How is he?”
No words came. All Eli could do was take Holly’s small, cool hand and hold on.
Holly took that in her stride. “Diana’s in with him? Good. She’ll find out what’s going on now. Tell me what happened then.”
“Milkshake. Fucking stupid in this weather. Fruit cut up on the bottom.”
“That much I did know.” Holly’s gaze was calm but intense, not letting him dodge. “Diana called Taye too, and Taye called me. He’s with Richie right now. Richie’s beside himself.”
“Yeah? He can join the fucking club.” Eli pulled away from Holly. “I’m going to kill that kid. I told him no strawberries, and he fucking --”
“Eli. Stop. We will find out what happened, but you’re not thinking clearly right now, and that’s why neither Taye nor Richie are here.” Holly didn’t let Eli withdraw. Just like Zane. Unlike Zane, she closed back in as relentlessly calm as ripples smoothing over a rock thrown into a lake. “You know they’re doing the right thing not letting you in.”
Eli was thoroughly tired of hearing that, but with Holly, who couldn’t be argued with and couldn’t be lied to, he couldn’t deny the truth. “I know.”
“Are you calmer now?” Holly rested her hand over his heart again. Checking his pulse, Eli thought. “Good. That’s very good, Eli.” Christ, she had a soothing voice. “Put your cigarette out. We’ll go inside to the doctor’s lounge where it’s warm, and we’ll get you something to drink.”
“And then?”
“And then we wait. If you like, you can pray.”
“I’m not the praying type,” Eli said, nevertheless flashing back to how many times he’d done so on the way from Zane’s apartment to Immaculate Grace, following in his own car because they wouldn’t let him in the fucking ambulance.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Holly cautioned, grounding Eli until he came back. “Breathe with me. There, that’s better.” She waited for him to steady himself. “Don’t make yourself sick too, Eli. Zane will be fine.”
Eli scoffed. “Don’t patronize me. Anaphylaxis is serious fucking business, Holly. He could die.” Christ. Saying it out loud…
“He could,” Holly agreed, the living embodiment of that serenity prayer that infected the world. “I don’t think he will. Do you know how people fight harder when they have something to come back for?”
She wouldn’t take no answer for an answer. Eli nodded.
Holly cupped his cheek. “You see? Zane won’t leave you.”
He covered her hand. No more denials. What did they matter? “Everyone does know, huh?”
“Not everyone. Some already made up their minds a long time ago. Some will still simply believe you’re just close friends. Whatever truth is told is up to you, Eli.”
“Goddamnit, Holly.”
“Shh,” she soothed. “Keith, help me get him inside. It’ll be all right. I promise.”
God help him. Eli wanted to believe her so much that he almost did. And if a woman like Holly said a thing would be so…
* * *
Then maybe it would be so.
Eli stood in the doorway to Zane’s room and watched him from a distance. “Still,” he said to Keith, who’d shadowed him even when Holly left to check up on Taye and Richie. “So still. Look at him. You wouldn’t know he’s alive if it weren’t for the machines.”
Keith nodded without a word. Still on a respirator -- just to make sure, Diana had said, words he’d delivered himself to too many people to count -- Zane was almost as pale as the sheets drawn up to his chest, his arms lying slack on the outside. An IV trailed from the back of his hand to a dripping bag of Eli didn’t know what. Couldn’t remember the name, too wiped out to think.
“I want to go in,” he said to Keith. It was like talking to Holly in a way. They fit together. So many people did, and he’d never seen it. “But my feet are stuck to the floor. Isn’t that the damnedest thing? Now that he’s okay, I should… Christ, Keith, what does that say about me?”
“I think just that you’re human.” Keith kept one hand on Eli’s shoulder to steady him. “He’ll be okay. You too.”
“Almost wasn’t.” Zane had flatlined. They’d have called it if Diana hadn’t been a pushy bitch and ignored their scolding to get the job done. If it weren’t for her…
He couldn’t even finish a thought. Christ.
“Almost isn’t, is,” Keith said, and Eli was tired enough to laugh at that. “Take your time. He’ll be here.”
Eli snorted. His mouth tasted like stale cigarettes and sour coffee and an ineffective Tic-Tac. He stank, and he had a streak of tomato soup on his sleeve. No. Strawberry juice.
“Or maybe you should sit down.” Keith caught Eli before his knees gave out. As he guided Eli to the visitor’s chair inside the room, he kept up a low, steady monologue. Eli only caught bits and pieces, but he did hear this clearly: “It’s natural, Holly tells me. All that adrenaline. It’s going to leave you shaky. Sit down and breathe.”
“Fuck.” Eli sank his head into his hands. “I feel like an idiot.”
Keith shrugged. “Doesn’t seem that way from here.”
Eli craned his neck to look up at Keith and turned somehow in the middle of the move to look at Zane, and once he’d looked there, he couldn’t look away. So quiet. So still. Respirator taped to the lips Eli had kissed -- Christ, was it only a few hours ago? He thought it might be close to dawn outside.
“Never know what you’ve got until it’s almost gone, do you?” he asked. Rhetorical question. Keith still nodded.
A thought, somehow sharp and clear, pierced its way through Eli’s mind. “Keith,” he said, looking for the right words. “You do something with computers, right?”
Keith chuckled like a cave bear, a low rumble just as easily mistaken for a growl if he hadn’t gently thumped Eli’s shoulder. “Like you do something with medicine, yes.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it. You’ve had a rough night.”
“Not as rough as some.” Eli rubbed his cheek against the grain of his stubble. Google search: Paris culinary arts. There was someone else who needed to know. Not just this, but all that Zane had become. What kind of man he was. “Could you do a favor for me? There’s someone I need to track down.”
* * *
The sun had risen fully, shining unforgiving even through the blinds by the time Diana came by. Eli would have thought he’d be asleep in his chair by then. He wasn’t.
One look at her and Eli knew she didn’t bring good news. His heart jumped into his throat.
“Stop. It’s not about Zane.” Diana crouched beside him. She barely came up to his ribs that way. “He’s doing great. They’ll have him off the respirator in a couple of hours, probably.”
Eli had to clear his throat, a raw and nasty sound, before he could respond. “Whatever you’ve come to tell me isn’t anything good either, is it?”
“Not so much.” Diana took his hand. “I figured you should hear this from someone you wouldn’t want to punch in the nose. After all, you owe me.”
More than he could ever pay. Eli steeled himself. “Let me have it.” He expected to hear he’d been fired for causing a scene. Maybe reports that a mob was out for the queer doc’s head. People laughing at their expense. Whatever.
He didn’t even think about the possibility of what he got.
“The free clinic’s closing at the end of the month. No money,” Diana said. “I’m sorry.”
The last bit of wind Eli had left in his sails whooshed out. “Fuck. It never rains but it fucking pours, doesn’t it?”
“Such a fucking filthy mouth.” Diana pressed his hand between both of hers, more of a slap than a caress, but gentler than Eli had gotten from her at any moment he could remember. “Are you with me?”
Eli rarely saw this side of her, the competent doctor, and the tea and comfort were more Holly’s forte, but Diana was trying as hard as she could and they both knew it. Everyone in their own fashion. Made the world go ‘round.
Diana waited to be sure before she drew a deep breath and nodded decisively. “I’m telling you because you have to be the one to tell him when he wakes up. Don’t let him hear this from anyone else.”
Eli’s chest ached. “Diana…” He wanted to tell her. Everything. It wasn’t enough of a thank you; still, it’d be something.
“Shut up.” She pinched the inside of his wrist. “Like I don’t already know. We all saw it, Eli. Long before you two did. Why do you think we pushed so hard? Not for shits and giggles. Though there were plenty of those.”
Eli started to laugh. Once he’d begun, he couldn’t stop, and Diana joined him. They slumped in place and hooted like a pair of hyenas until the charge nurse came to snap at them, because sometimes you got a choice in how you cracked, and this was a hell of a lot better than screaming.
