Who knew eyeballs had that much white on them? Amanda’s (ample) chest begins to rise and fall like a drunk frat boy playing with a shake weight.
“Andrew,” she says in a deadly voice.
My brother turns on his heel and walks right out of the room, head down, pretending to text. Amanda spins around, too, and follows him, calling back, “I’ll get Shannon a latte and be back in a minute.”
“That was weird,” I say to Shannon.
She looks around the bed furtively, then motions to me, pretending to write.
Ah. Pen and paper. I reach for my phone, open a notes app, and hand it to her.
What are those two doing? she types.
“Hell if I know.”
Follow them.
“I’d rather drink battery acid than see what they’re about to do, Shannon.”
Don’t make jokes about burning throats, she writes.
Shit.
Does he like her? she types.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Why doesn’t he ask her out? she writes.
I take the phone from her, read the question, and then look at her. She’s so pale, her face covered with an oxygen mask. She’s hissing like Darth Vader and wearing a pulse ox monitor.
“Honey. Shannon,” I say, sitting on the bed next to her, careful not to disturb the tubes. “Andrew and Amanda’s screwed up relationship really, really shouldn’t be the center of your attention right now.”
Tears fill her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I am so, so sorry,” I say, finally able to give her the quiet devotion she deserves. “I am an idiot.”
She just nods assent.
“A fool.”
She agrees.
“A lovesick dumbass.”
She purses her lips and tries to sigh. It sounds like a car backfiring.
A commotion in the hallway is punctuated by a shrill woman’s voice that says, “I don’t care that she’s an adult and has privacy protections, I’m her mother and I demand to know where she is!”
Marie.
“Shannon!” she shouts. “Shannon, where are you?”
Fuck, Shannon mouths.
Heard that. Loud and clear.
“We’re in here, Marie,” I say calmly, pulling the curtain aside.
“My baby!” she gasps, rushing to Shannon, who is wheezing again. “Did you get stung again?”
“Not exactly,” I mumble.
Someone in scrubs, wearing a clipboard, comes up behind Marie and—of course—Jason. “You can’t just barge in here like this.” The hospital official looks at Shannon, who gasps, “S’okay.”
“This is her mother,” I tell the worker.
“And you are?”
“Her husband.”
Marie comes to a dead halt. She could be in a wax museum. “Husband?”
The worker wanders off. Marie gawks at me, then looks at Shannon, who is bent over and focused on getting more oxygen into her. I’d imagine that the stress is going to make breathing that much harder, and start to analyze at what point I need to become a giant asshole in an effort to protect Shannon.
“You got married without me?”
Sooner rather than later, apparently.
Amanda appears from behind the curtain, her hair ruffled and lipstick smeared. “Marie?” she says, clearly relieved. “You got my text?”
“We did,” Jason says. He’s wearing cutoff jeans, flip-flops, and a Jimmy Buffet t-shirt. His knees have actual dirt on them. “Marie came out of the house screaming that Shannon was in the ER again and we jumped in the car as fast as we could.”
I take a second look at Marie. She looks like Two-Face, from Batman.
“I was in the middle of my beauty regimen! Jason was about to shower and we were going to see Blue Man Group, when Amanda texted me and I’d only put on one set of eyelashes—”
That explains it.
Marie gives Amanda the once-over. “Why do you have your shirt on inside out?”
Andrew appears at the door and catches my eye. “You need me? Because I’m getting calls from Singapore about the—”
“You would seriously abandon your brother at a time like this?” Amanda snaps at him. “What kind of person are you? Who does that? Shows up for a brief and shining moment and then just bails when it’s most important?”
Is Andrew’s shirt on backwards?
Wait a minute. What’s going on with them?
Before Andrew can answer, in walks a tall, vaguely Slavic-looking guy a few inches taller than me and built like a Russian hockey player, but without the broken cheekbones. And he has all his teeth.
All the women in the room make a sickly sucking sound just like Shannon’s breathing.
“Hi, everyone,” he announces. He’s wearing a white physician’s coat and a hospital badge. “I’m Dr. Derjian, and I’ll assess—” he looks at the clipboard at the end of the bed “—Shannon’s case.”
Jason sticks out his hand to introduce himself. “Jason Jacoby. I’m her father.” They shake hands and I realize I need to engage in this masculine ritual that is akin to the female air kiss.
Formality dispensed with, Dr. Derjian examines Shannon’s file while Amanda and Marie examine him.
Marie lasers in on him, eyes flitting from his left hand to his face. “You ever see a case like this before, Dr. Derjian? A swallowed engagement ring is pretty out there, isn’t it?”
He smiles, a broad, white grin that makes Marie look like she’s about to hump his leg. “Oh, this is pretty par for the course when you work in the emergency room. I’ve seen some pretty strange items in some really weird places.”