H2O: The Novel Part 5

"Don't move," someone mumbled above me. A spot of red glowed above my eyes, but I could see little through my rain-and-mud-spattered visor. I tried to move, ignoring the injunction, and pain shot through my neck.

"Stay still!" the voice commanded, spitting the red glowing thing away. I saw a white light behind the head, like a flashlight or bouncing headlight. It came closer.

"She alive?" a voice asked from somewhere behind the smoky head.

"Yeah. She's lucky. Bike's a wreck, though."

"Shame."

"D'you call it in?" the first voice asked, just in front of me. The reek of cigarette smoke grew and it filled my helmet. But that made no sense. I tried to move again and felt a hand on my shoulder, another under my neck.

"Ambulance is on the way," the second voice said. "Any bleeding?"

"None that I can see. Bring that light closer."

I heard steps, but the light dimmed, replaced by nightmares, sketchy s.n.a.t.c.hes of horrific dreams, and a wave of nausea. My last memory was of cold wetness, dark soil soaking through my back. I imagined that its icy fingers penetrated the leather of my jacket, slid into my organs, and clenched them in a fist. I screamed as an unseen hand drew me down into frigid muck.

"You've been out of it for a long time, Ms. Pepper," a tall physician said. "Do you remember the wreck?"

I'd traded my bike for a hospital room at some point. It was all a blur. I couldn't remember anything except cigarette smoke, the vivid colors of a rainbow . . . and a Voice. But beyond that? I tried to shake my head, but it hurt.

"No. Nothing. I . . . I've been blacking out lately. A lot."

"When?" the doctor asked. Young guy, probably a resident. Bags under his eyes, a white coat with a stethoscope hung around his neck, and a name st.i.tched in cursive above the breast pocket of his lab coat. Something Indian I couldn't p.r.o.nounce that ended with "M.D."

"Fainting here and there. I fell in the shower a couple of days ago, and slipped at a coffee shop. Got dizzy a few times, too. I thought maybe-maybe I might have been pregnant. I took a test. It came up negative."

He took a few notes, not looking up. I hated that about doctors.

"Was it a home urine test?" he asked. "Or a blood test?"

"Home test. Three of them. All negative."

He nodded as if he knew exactly what it meant to be pregnant and unmarried.

He has no idea.

"Nurse, get me a couple more tests with those blood samples, please." He pa.s.sed a slip of paper to the woman at his side, and then put a light to my eyes. My neck screamed when he touched it, but the rest of me seemed fine.

"You were just the other side of Monroe," he said. "Going pretty fast, according to the truckers who found you. Said you'd swerved around them too fast in the rain. They found you and the bike about a mile beyond where you pa.s.sed them illegally. Lucky for you."

"Lucky?" I asked.

"Yes. They were both EMTs once. Miraculous. I mean, how many truckers out there used to drive an ambulance?" He raised an eyebrow. "Count your blessings, Ms. Pepper."

"My bike? What about it?"

The doctor looked up at someone I couldn't see. I tried to roll left, but it hurt too much. A hand took mine. Long, bony fingers. It had to be Xavier. My heart leapt. He'd come!

"Bike's messed up pretty bad, Kate."

I craved to hear his voice.

Say more.

"You went off the bike and slammed into a pile of really soft stuff. Road sand, leaves, that kind of thing. The bike went straight ahead into a rock ledge. If you'd been on it-well-you wouldn't be here." He squeezed my fingers, moving into my line of sight. The doctor stepped aside, instructing me to follow his movement with my eyes as he wagged a finger from left to right.

"Have you ever been under anesthesia?" he asked. "Any negative side effects?"

I tried to shake my head but failed. Good thing I couldn't-my answer would have been a lie. I mumbled something and he asked me to repeat it.

"No-I mean-yes. I have. But no negative side effects."

"What kind of anesthesia?" he asked, his eyes still glued to the stupid report.

"An operation."

He looked up. Of course it had been an operation. He shrugged with that look of "go on."

"A long time ago. I'm sure it doesn't matter."

"Let me be the judge of that, please," he said, making eye contact for the first time. "What kind of operation? General anesthesia-where they put you to sleep? Or local?"

"I asked for a general. For some female stuff."

"Ms. Pepper, I really need you to be more specific. How long ago?"

" Twelve years." I paused. "I was seventeen. In college." I held his gaze for a long time, and he got the message. I didn't need to say more. The doctor turned back to his clipboard and made another note. As he did, Xavier's grip seemed to weaken, his fingers slipping from mine.

No! Don't leave. Not now!

I tried in vain to look up at Xavier, swords of pain stabbing me if I made the slightest move.

"The MRI says you're fine, Ms. Pepper," the doctor continued, setting the report aside and placing his stethoscope to my upper chest. Xavier moved away. I wanted him to pull me off the bed into a bear hug, no matter how much that hurt; I was desperate to feel his long fingers intertwined with mine, his arms wrapped about me. But he moved out of range. Always out of range.

"You'll hurt in the neck and shoulders for a few days. You have a bad strain. But there's no sign of any damage. Again-count it a miracle that you survived, and had such good medical care on the way here."

"Thank you, Doctor. When can I-can I leave?"

He chuckled and then turned to Xavier. "Is she always in such a hurry?" he asked, as if they knew each other and had shared private guy jokes.

"Always," Xavier quipped.

Was I? Always in a hurry?

I'd craved to hear Xavier's voice, but not his sarcasm. Not now.

"Encourage her to rest, Mr. Morton. She can be discharged, but I recommend that she stay home for one week. Have her come see me in seven days."

Before I could slip in a question, the doctor with the strange name shook hands with Xavier and left the room. Not so much as a good-bye to the patient. I was invisible.

"I have a charity dinner to prepare!" I protested. Just raising my voice made me hurt everywhere above my neck. My forehead felt like it would explode.

Xavier grabbed my hand. My protest brought him to me.

"It's tomorrow, Kate. But I can reschedule, or get someone else to prepare the meal. You need the rest."

His voice hummed with strength. He'd put the event aside. For me. Tears welled in my eyes, and immediately the familiar shower dizziness returned. I dreaded fading out again.

Not now! Not with him here!

I squeezed his hand as hard as I could, struggling to clutch reality. To hold on to this moment-and, for better or worse, the only man in my life.

"Will you be there for me? To help?" I pleaded, eager for an extended answer, a long-worded profession of his deep caring in this dire moment. I'd lost control; my heart raced, craving his response.

He moved in front of the bed and smiled, a rare pursing of his rigid straight lips, revealing a beautiful dimple in his cheek. The deep blue of his eyes sparkled in the purple fluorescent light of the room. His reply was terse, but heartfelt.

"Yes. I'll be there for you. I promise."

CHAPTER SIX.

PHOENIX. A mythical firebird rising from the ashes of a fire of its own making. That's me. A two-legged phoenix standing at the sink in a stranger's kitchen on Sunday evening, sus.h.i.+ knife in hand.

A legend I remember from my tugboat chats with Gramps told of a rare bird from India. A tall bird with eye-popping red plumage, building a nest out of cinnamon twigs. "After five hundred years of life," he told me, "the bird will ignite the nest and burn itself to ash. From those ashes, the egg and the young life of its renewed self will rise."

If I had a fire of my own making, it would look like racing in the rain at night on the Ice Rocket, flying at seventy miles an hour into a pile of dirt and suffering a mental blank until the truckers-turned-EMTs shook me out of my daze. Now, despite my hopes, I was in my second life, back at my cutting board only a day after the accident. Despite the fire, I suspect that the charred Phoenix had felt a lot better than I did. Every muscle in my back and shoulders burned like those cinnamon twigs.

"You're nuts. You know that, right?" Andrea whispered to me, her shoulder brus.h.i.+ng against mine where she stood to my left. "You have serious issues, girlfriend." She chuckled and swirled a rag through the deep sink, flus.h.i.+ng out the last of our vegetable tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. "But, so do the rest of us. What gives? I thought he said he'd cancel this event."

I sighed. She was right, but I refused to admit it out loud. I'd lose my Phoenix status with Xavier, who'd lauded me to all his friends when I'd reluctantly agreed to get out of bed and support his charity event. He told me that I was the "sus.h.i.+ talk of the town," but I wondered if he'd really tried to find another chef. I had to travel halfway across Seattle to cook in another woman's obscenely expensive kitchen. More than anything, more than coaxing burning muscles out of spasm and more than rest, I wanted him. I wanted to be noticed. To be held.

"I've had issues for a long time, Andrea," I confessed.

A friend in Redwood City once told me, "You're a paradox. Strong, brave, and determined to break free. Yet, you slide so easily back into old habits. You let guys mistreat you." That friend, like Andrea, stuck with me through my issues. But they were both right. I was a mess.

I sighed and nudged Andrea in the ribs as I sliced carrots into tiny sticks. "You're a mess, too, by the way."

Andrea huffed. She knew exactly what I meant, my poking at her habit of trolling along dreamy-eyed in Justus's wake at work. But when Justus occasionally worked up the nerve to get more serious, she always played hard to get. A bizarre mating behavior, two sane adults in their weird cat-and-mouse game, repeated every day. Our own TV sitcom.

"I'm done," I said, and sc.r.a.ped the last carefully sliced carrots onto a serving dish. I picked at a thin slice of gari. The delicate shaving of pickled ginger was perfect now, a week after I'd made it. Five platters of my special sus.h.i.+ roll a.s.sortment sat ready to go. Some blending of rice and slicing of fish was all that remained for the final snack presentation. I handed my cutting board to Andrea and winced as I twisted at the hip. Every part of me screamed "lay down," but I'd progressed too far into the dinner preparation to quit now.

"Hand me the rice and we'll finish this up," I said to Andrea.

"Ready to go," she replied, pa.s.sing a bowl of sticky white stuff. Miles of granite countertop and a hanging rack of gray Calphalon pots surrounded us-like on a television set for some famous cooking show. But I didn't like it. Give me my wooden board and tiny kitchen. I didn't need all this glitz, though I did l.u.s.t for some of the hostess's hyper-expensive cutlery.

" Two hundred of these rolls and we're done, Kate," my friend said, shoulders slumping. We'd both been there for four hours on a Sunday afternoon, slaving away and, until half an hour ago, working alone. Xavier breezed through the kitchen, headed to an early start at the host's wine bar. I'd be asleep in half an hour if I joined him, alcohol my certain sleeping pill. Fatigue's tendrils pulled at every sore muscle. I promised myself a ma.s.sage day tomorrow-a day of rest, away from the office.

Sus.h.i.+ preparation is more complex than most people think, a combination of fish and rice blended in an art form all its own. Andrea set a bowl of water to my right. She'd slice the fish in quarter-inch-thick portions, and I'd press raw meat and rice together in a tiny roll. If we worked fast, and we usually did, we could each knock out two snacks every minute. Less than an hour from now, we'd be done. I couldn't wait.

"Platter's ready. Let's rock," Andrea announced. The guests would arrive in ninety minutes, whether we were finished or not.

I dipped my hand into the water bowl to moisten my fingers. Palms lightly watered, I could press the sticky rice and fish together without becoming part of the meal. As my fingers slipped into the bowl, I felt deep fatigue gnaw at aching shoulder muscles, the part of me that suffered the brunt of the attack when I'd hit the dirt traveling at a mile a minute. I rolled my shoulders, mentally tallying the minutes until we'd be done. Andrea sliced the first slab of fish for the snack presentation, handing it my way, while I spread water on my palms and reached for a dollop of rice.

Andrea gasped, her mini-scream pealing in my ears though I could see nothing.

I remembered seeing the white of cooked food in her bowl, imagining the sensation of sticky grains as I would squeeze them in my palm to make an oblong ball, forming the viscera beneath a pink slab of Liam O'Malley's special albacore. I remembered the cool drip of the water on my fingertips when my hand reached out to the water bowl. Then blackness consumed me.

A crash of splintering porcelain hit my ears as her bowl smashed on the tile floor of the ultimate kitchen. Andrea yelled my name. Blind, I reached out, a modern Helen Keller seeking to locate a familiar face or point of reference.

In that split second of blindness, a lightning bolt ignited in my head, the explosive herald of the strange images that followed. On the heels of a searing light, I could see a river, black and brown baskets floating in the water, filled with crying babies. No, it was a single baby. A hungry baby who reached up to touch me. And water everywhere, a broad expanse of roiling brown that surrounded the child. In my mind's eye, I imagined I reached down to pluck the baby from the water. I stumbled blindly into Andrea, clambering like a babe. As we touched, it was as though a switch turned on in the room and I could see again. The image evaporated, child and all.

Andrea's eyes were wide with fright.

"What's the matter over there?" Xavier yelled. He had that aggravated tone, the kind he got after a little wine loosened his famous temper. I touched my fingers together on my right hand, feeling the familiar gum of sticky rice grains. It all came back.

"What happened?" Andrea asked, grabbing at my hands. "Are you okay?"

"You broke her bowl!" Xavier yelled, his voice thrown like an uppercut. I knew that tenor, the "I'm going to show you how to behave" tone as he rushed to correct me. He had no idea how to squeeze a ball of rice and a slab of albacore into a dinner delight, but he'd let me know he could do a much better job if somehow I wasn't up to the task.

"Dizzy again," I said, unsure what had distracted me. I lied; I hadn't been the least bit dizzy. My eyesight had failed for only a microsecond, but long enough to knock a thirty-dollar ceramic mixing bowl to the floor and reduce it to shards. And I had no idea why.

"Kate?" she asked again, gripping me above the elbow.

"Clean it up," Xavier demanded, umbrella eyebrows scrunched in a fierce scowl. His breath reeked of red wine, his face too close. "How'd you manage to do that?"

Andrea's grip tightened as she came to my defense, ever my protector.

"She shouldn't be here," she hissed, moving to separate us. I hoped that Xavier would get the hint.

"Fainting again?" he snapped. "I thought you were over that."

Thanks for nothing, X.

He looked at his watch, ever ruled by his obsession with time, then looked back up at me. "The early folks might be here in an hour." He stood still, penetrating blue eyes all business. The gentleman I'd fallen for always vanished when money came into play. Tonight promised a new contract if Xavier could raise the cash for their favorite charity, and the presentation had to be good. Very good. The higher the stakes, the better the meal, and the meaner he'd grow. Dollar madness.

"I'll be fine, X. Just a little tired, that's all."

"You're exhausted, Kate. You said so two hours ago." Andrea's tone bled raw, and she turned to s.h.i.+eld me from him.

"I can do it, X. Just let me freshen up a little. I admit, I'm tired. But we're almost done."

"No we're not."