I’VE BECOME EXHIBIT A AROUND HERE. THERE ARE MORE AND more doctors all the time, a Great Wall of clipboards surrounding the bed. Whether this was provoked by my present condition or my lifelong one, I couldn’t begin to tell you. They smile a lot and take notes and leave, often returning with eager reinforcements in a matter of minutes. Everyone has remarked on this, even Mrs. Haywood, the tight-lipped southern lady in the next cubicle, who can barely contain her resentment over all the attention I’ve received. I’ve been gracious about this so far, but I’m on the verge of telling her to fuck herself.
Renee arrived this morning with Mike Gunderson in tow. She finally worked up the nerve to call him, and they had their first quasi date last night—dinner in the hospital cafeteria. She was so pleased with herself. She looked the way a cat looks when it drops an impressive corpse on its owner’s doorstep. Which is not to say our Mike is even slightly inert. He exudes a vigorous midwestern earnestness that Renee interprets as “a great personality.” I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Last night, while Renee and Mike were at dinner, Jeff came by and dropped a small bomb on me.
“Don’t get mad,” he began.
“What is it?”
“I know what you told me, but…”
“What, Jeff?”
“Neil is outside.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“He left a note on the door. I had to tell him.”
“Left it where? Here?”
“At the house.”
“What did it say?”
“He just wondered where you were. He’s a great guy, Cadence.”
“You’ve talked to him?”
“Some. Yeah.”
Don’t ask me why, but I immediately got paranoid. The very thought of those two guys getting together to discuss me was supremely unnerving. I had no choice but to bully Jeff with sarcasm. “Have you two been bonding or something?”
“Cadence…”
“You have, haven’t you? That’s cute.”
“Piss off.”
“You’ve been reading to each other from Iron John.”
“Do you want your purse?”
He held it in front of me without waiting for an answer, so I took it from him and began fixing my face.
“You know,” he said, sulking, “that shows how little you know about me.”
“How’s that?”
“Iron John is the last thing I’d read. Fags don’t need that Hairy Man shit. We’ve always been tribal.”
“Who cares? How do I look?”
“Even.”
“Even?”
“The lipstick is on the lips, Cadence. What do you want me to say?”
I stuck out my tongue at him.
“I’ll send him in,” he said.
Neil was in his nice gabardine slacks, looking ominously well shaven and dressed. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You look good,” he said.
“Better than you expected?”
He shrugged, smiling.
“You heard about…the caper?”
He nodded.
“Pretty nuts, huh?”
Another nod, another smile.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” I said.
“I figured.”
“You’re such a pussy.”
“I know.”
“Well, stop it, then,” I said. “It’s not healthy to be that scared.”
Unfinished business hung in the air like ozone after a thunderstorm.
“I plan to tell them about us,” he said.
“Forget it.”
“No. I want to.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know…but it does.” He sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. “I should’ve brought you flowers. These are nice.”
“I’ve got flowers out the ass,” I told him. “Or somebody does. I left a bunch back at my dressing room.”
“I’ll bet you did.” He reached over tentatively and stroked the side of my face. “I brought you something else, though.”
“What?”
“Is this a good time?”
“Well, no,” I said, “now that you mention it, but a week from Thursday might work out.”
“I just wondered about disturbing your roommates.”
“What is it, for God’s sake?”
He smiled and stood up. “I’ll get it.”
He left the room and returned sheepishly a moment later with a bulky wooden four-wheeled object that had to be turned on its side before it would fit through the door. I didn’t realize what it was until he rolled it across the floor and I saw two sturdy little steps jutting out from one side.
“My stage,” I said.
“Or pedestal…whichever you prefer.”
“My stage-pedestal.”
“See…” He knelt next to the thing and fiddled with something at the bottom. “I put a little brake down here that stabilizes it once it’s in place….”
“So I don’t slalom into the audience during the big finale.”
He laughed. “Exactly.”
“Good thinking.”
Curiosity, I noticed, had gotten the best of Mrs. Haywood, who was leaning so far out of her bed she looked as if she’d hit the floor any second. “It’s a pedestal,” I yelled.
“For what?” she called back.
“For me.”
“Oh.”
“She hates me,” I told Neil under my breath. “She was the star here until I arrived.”