CHAPTER 38
Susan
Welcome to day eight zillion in Under Big
Blue, where things seem to get suckier and
suckier.
Susan had found it
was comforting to write web logs in her head. And the weirder
things got, the more she wrote.
So she was writing a
lot.
It was weird being
back in the hospital. Actually, it was weird to be on the hospital
roof—Jennifer seemed to like lurking up there, and Susan liked
being able to see all around. It should have been nerve-wracking,
all that space, but it was comforting instead.
“You would not even
believe the ridiculous conversations that have taken place at this
hospital lately,” Jennifer was saying, resting on her forearms and
looking over the parking lot. “Slapping, whore-insulting, sex
comparisons, dragon-slugging . . .”
“Sounds like I came
back just in time.”
Without looking
around, Jennifer reached out and squeezed Susan’s hand. “You
did.”
Susan smiled. “I
guess I didn’t handle Gautierre’s death very well.”
Jennifer turned to
look at her. Her eyes were very big. “Who said you were s’posed to?
He was one of the few nice things about being stuck in here; think
I can’t relate to that? I’d give anything to be stuck under this
shitheap with Eddie.” She paused. “When Gautierre died, holing up
across town by yourself seemed pretty sane to me. It’s just,
everyone needed you, is all. I needed you to know that.” A short
pause, then she added, in a tear-choked voice unlike any Susan had
heard from this, her oldest and dearest friend, “I needed you so
bad.”
Susan said nothing.
Another nice thing about friendship: often, you didn’t have
to.
She rubbed her
friend’s back, and they both pretended Jennifer wasn’t crying
bitter, angry tears.