Page 54

TWO

A lbert’s hands shake at his sides as he and Eddie stand outside Cookie’s room, in the hallway of the intensive care unit, surgical masks over their mouths and noses, watching her through the little window in the door.

Her room is dim—lights low, shades drawn—and they’ve erected an oxygen tent around her, really just a clear plastic canopy over her top half. She looks like a museum exhibit, Eddie thinks, like a relic sealed off from the world, something to be protected, untouched. She is asleep, hooked up to a thousand wires and tubes, her blood coursing with who knows how many medications. If you squint your eyes, blurring everything around her, she looks almost peaceful in her slumber, but then every now and then her body twitches and the machines beep and you’re reminded where she is, where you are. What is she dreaming about? Is she dreaming about her life? Is she dreaming about her death? Is she conjuring a friend—Dorothy, Tallulah? Is she dreaming about Eddie?

“I hate this place,” Albert says abruptly. “I hate hospitals. Hospitals are where you come to die.”

A day ago (week, decade, century) Eddie would have found a reason to leave Albert and go walk around, but today Eddie stands next to him. They are partners here.

“Is that my tote bag?” Albert snaps.

“Is it?” Eddie answers.

“Chrissakes,” Albert says, then turns back to Cookie.

They stand and watch, counting Cookie’s slow breaths. One, two. One, two. One—

She twitches, losing her breath for a beat, then settles back into a rhythm. One, two. One, two. Her breaths seem to sync with the clicks from Albert’s watch. One, two. Tick, tock. One, two. Tick, tock.

“The oxygen will help her,” Eddie says, in response to no one, because it feels like he should say something optimistic, if only to soothe himself.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Albert says, sarcasm thick in his voice. An orderly pushes past with a pair of IV towers in tow, brushing against Albert.

“Excuse me,” the orderly says without slowing.

Eddie can almost feel a retort rising in Albert, and is relieved when it doesn’t come. The last thing they need is to cause a scene in the ICU.

“I can’t stand here staring at her anymore,” Albert says. “I’m going down to the waiting room.”

Eddie stalls for a moment, unsure if he should follow. What if something happens?

“They’ll call us if anything changes,” Albert says, reading Eddie’s thoughts. He points to the stairwell. “Come on.”

They descend to the fourth-floor waiting room, which is nearly empty. Albert falls into a cast-plastic chair with a dramatic sigh and a heavy thud. Eddie chooses a seat nearby but not too close, leaving a few empty seats between them. He stares out the window and across the linden trees lining the avenue.

Neither of them says anything for a while, until Albert breaks the silence.

“I’m breaking a promise today,” Albert says, his voice soft with sorrow. “A promise I made forty years ago, never to spend a single minute in a hospital ever again. We thought hospitals were just a place you’d go to die. I meant it when I made it, but now look at me, strapped into this mask that doesn’t even match my tunic, like an extra in a low-budget hospital melodrama, breaking that promise.”

Albert’s pensive tone disorients Eddie, because he’s so accustomed to Albert’s bitter mode. There’s something unsettling about it. But they’re here in a hospital, just the two of them, and Eddie feels a responsibility to respond.

“Who did you promise?”

“Someone I loved. Someone who loved me. But he is gone now. Just a memory.”

Eddie blinks out at the linden trees. What if Albert was right? What if hospitals are just a last stop? What if Cookie is only here to die? “You didn’t break your promise on purpose,” he says. “You had to be here, for Cookie. He would understand.”

“He loved Cookie almost as much as I did,” Albert says, his voice breaking. “She took him in, just as she took me in. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, she called him. She loved us both, and never stopped.”

“She still does,” Eddie says.

They stop talking again. Albert checks his watch every few minutes, sighing aggressively. Eddie taps his foot slowly, rhythmically, like a metronome. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it. It’s warm in here. If only he could open the window. Fresh air. He closes his eyes, trying to conjure the memory of being on the river with Francis. It was just last night (year, lifetime), but it doesn’t work. The vision won’t come into focus. The hospital—the buzzing fluorescent lighting, the strange beeps of distant machinery, the hurried footsteps of nurses and orderlies—all intrude on his imagination. He can’t picture Francis. All he can picture is Cookie, alone in a room upstairs. He’s been trying to remember, in detail, that last conversation with Cookie. He’s trying to remember exactly what he said, and exactly how he said it. He’s sure it was worse than what he remembers. He’s certain he hurt her. His worry and guilt tangle together, strangling him, and sitting here in silence only tightens the knot at his neck.

“I have to apologize to her,” Eddie blurts abruptly, surprising himself. Saying it out loud loosens the knot, just enough for a breath.

Albert arches an incredulous brow. “Apologize? For what?”

“Forget it,” Eddie says, realizing that he doesn’t actually want to talk to Albert about it. Thoughts of Francis keep seeping out of the safe where Eddie’s tried to lock them. Just hours (years, decades) ago they were entwined, connected, safe. And then, suddenly, it was over. Shouldn’t Francis appear? Send a message? Do something to reach Eddie, to explain the abrupt ending, to ask when they can see each other again, to see if Eddie’s all right? Maybe in a normal world. But Francis is not part of the normal world. And maybe, neither is Eddie. Put him back in his safe, Eddie. Take control and put him back.

“Apologize for what, Eddie?”

“Nothing,” he lies.

“Oh, relax.” Albert fumbles through his shoulder bag. He pulls out a package of Juicy Fruit, unwraps a stick, and folds it into his mouth. He doesn’t offer a stick to Eddie. “Whatever you said to her, she’ll get over it. She probably already has. That’s how she is. I know this about her. She is my wife, after all.”

Eddie pretends not to hear him. He doesn’t want to talk to Albert right now. Conversations with him never go well, and his mind is tangled enough already.

But he feels Albert studying his face intently, searching for curiosity, looking for an opening. He’s not going to let go.

“Did she ever tell you how we met?” Albert asks.

Eddie shakes his head, eyes fixed on the window.

“Well?” Albert says.

“Well what?”

“Well what? Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know how the queeniest queen in Manhattan ended up marrying your great-aunt Cookie?”

Eddie doesn’t answer.

“He’s not interested,” Albert says to the air as he fiddles with his watch. “But he doesn’t have anywhere to go. He’s stuck here just like I am. So I’m going to tell him anyway.” He clears his throat, and Eddie listens.