While I'm Falling Part 9

"GOOD MORNING." The words were said sweetly, and very softly. Gretchen stood over me, still wearing the shirt with the kitten on it. Sunlight reflected off the enormous mirror beside Jimmy and Haylie's bed. I was lying on top of the covers, my coat thrown over me like a blanket.

"How you feeling?" She reached up to move her hair out of her eyes. A bloodstained paper towel was wrapped around one of her fingers, a hair elastic holding it in place. "I have aspirin in my purse."

"What happened to your hand?" My voice was croaky, hard to hear. My tongue felt large and dry.

"Oh." She looked at her hand. "Some idiot threw a bottle. I don't even know who he was. I picked up some of the gla.s.s."

I squinted at her, but said nothing. I was taking in information. There had been people in the house even Gretchen didn't know. Bottles had been thrown. I sat up quickly. "The wine rack," I said. What Jimmy considered very expensive would be irreplaceable for me.

She waved her bandaged hand. "Relax. I rolled it into the pantry before things got too crazy. It's fine. n.o.body even saw it."

"Oh." My head felt heavy. I lay back down. "Thanks." I sat up again. "Oh no! What time is it?"

She looked at her watch. "It's half past nine."

"My dad is picking me up at eleven." My cheeks felt raw, sc.r.a.ped by stubble. I looked down. I was still dressed, zipper zipped, b.u.t.tons almost all b.u.t.toned. The boa was still around my neck. "He's picking me up at the dorm."

"I'll give you a ride." Her voice was much calmer than mine. She gave me a worried look. "To be honest with you, Veronica, that's uh...that's not what I thought you were saying 'Oh no' about." She reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small piece of paper. "Clyde asked me to give you his number."

I didn't take the number from her. She let it fall to the bed. I brought my knees up and pressed my face into my coat. I wanted to go down into the wool, so dark and soft, to somehow crawl inside the material. "What happened?"

"That's what I was going to ask you."

She was laughing. I didn't laugh, and she stopped.

"Nothing happened," she said. "He came downstairs and told me you fell asleep. I think you hurt his feelings. Think of it." She leaned over and lightly punched my shoulder. "Third Floor Clyde. Mr. Beautiful. You hurt his feelings. You'll be famous for this."

I looked up. "People saw?"

She nodded slowly, eyebrows raised.

I looked away. I already knew all this. I hadn't been that drunk. But I had no other explanation. What had seemed a rational and sensible action the night before no longer seemed rational or sensible at all. I stared up at one of Jimmy's framed paintings, a watercolor of a severed hand.

"I'll make coffee," Gretchen said, already starting down the stairs. "Take a shower if you want. But prepare yourself. We've got some cleaning to do."

I tried to stand, but the air around me smelled like stale beer, and my stomach lurched until I sat down. I reached for my phone and checked my messages. The first was from my mother.

"I am trying to apologize." Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, and she paused to sniff. Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, and she paused to sniff. "I talked with Elise. I am very angry at myself for hanging up on you yesterday. If you want to punish me, that's fine. But get it over with, Veronica. Okay? Answer your phone." "I talked with Elise. I am very angry at myself for hanging up on you yesterday. If you want to punish me, that's fine. But get it over with, Veronica. Okay? Answer your phone."

People have always said my mother and I sound exactly alike on the phone. I didn't think we sounded the same. I certainly didn't want to sound as whiny and shaky as she did now. But when I lived at home, we confused people. Even my father had been fooled sometimes, calling from the office to say he would be working late.

I erased the message, pressing the b.u.t.ton harder than I had to.

Tim had left a message just after midnight. He was out at a bar with the younger faction of his extended family. Chicago was freezing, he said. He'd heard we'd gotten some bad weather, too, and he wanted me to call to let him know the drive to the airport had gone okay.

I was sitting cross-legged on the bed, my shoulders rolled forward, my phone a few inches from my ear. I looked up and caught a glimpse of myself in Jimmy Liff's framed mirror. I looked stupid. Literally. My mouth was open, and my eyes were dazed. I was a stupid person, perhaps, not just with chemistry but with life in general. At the very least, I was a person who did stupid things, despite all my anxious intentions and fear.

The last message was my mother again. She'd called again early in the morning. She no longer sounded like she was crying.

"Veronica," she said. " she said. "People make mistakes." There was such a long pause I thought the message was over. It wasn't. " There was such a long pause I thought the message was over. It wasn't. "I am still your mother," she added, exactly three times, like a mantra she was chanting to herself. she added, exactly three times, like a mantra she was chanting to herself.

Within half an hour, I was showered and redressed, still a little bleary, but pretty much presentable, my hair pulled back in a perky ponytail that I hoped would make me feel perky as well. But after a quick tour of the downstairs, I didn't feel perky at all. Gretchen was right: the town house was in bad shape. Cans and bottles and plastic cups rested on every horizontal surface. A large plant had been overturned on the stairway. And there was trouble in the kitchen: Gretchen had tried to clean the stainless steel counters in the kitchen with a spray she'd found under the bathroom sink, and a thick, streaky residue stretched between the oven and the espresso maker. Most worrisome was the blood from Gretchen's finger that had somehow gotten on one of the white curtains in the living room.

"Oh no," I said.

Gretchen was at the base of the stairs, trying to repot what she could of the plant. "Your phone rang while you were in the shower."

I took my phone out of my back pocket. My mother had called again. I closed it and put it back.

Gretchen was still looking up at me. Her hands were full of soil, the overturned plant by her knees.

"What?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"It wasn't Tim."

"Okay," she said. But she kept her gaze on me, and I looked away first. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the mess around me, the overturned chair, the cigarette b.u.t.ts swimming in cups. Gretchen seemed calm, and that was rea.s.suring. The party and my incredibly brief fling with Clyde probably seemed pretty tame in her mind. She went to parties where people did cocaine in bathrooms and had s.e.x with strangers in the guest rooms, no big deal. But I didn't. I wasn't used to waking up feeling sick and achy and embarra.s.sed. To me, this was a very big deal; and it would be a big deal to Tim. I would need to eat something soon. I felt sick.

I knelt on the floor beside her and cupped soil into my hands. "I'll have to tell him myself," I said. "Before."

She nodded, still moving soil. "That would be considerate."

"He's going to break up with me."

I waited for her to tell me this was not necessarily true. She did not. All around me, the soil was ground into the beige carpet.

"Well," she said finally. "Maybe that's what you wanted."

I understood what she meant. I had performed my idiocy for an audience. What had I thought would be the result? She was right: some part of me that was scared and anxious had wanted to ruin things with Tim. But not all of me. Not now.

I dropped the soil into the pot and patted it around the base of the plant. It had suffered from its fall-one of its long leaves was bent behind it like a broken arm. I didn't see how we would ever get all the soil out of the carpet. I looked up at the cathedral ceilings. The air smelled like cigarettes.

"I think I just really screwed up," I said.

I worried she would laugh. She didn't always read my face and voice so well. She sometimes thought I was serious when I was joking. She thought I was joking when I was not. But I must have looked so miserable that she knew not to laugh at me then. She only patted my arm, and then we got back to work.

When we were done, we carried the plant up the stairs, easing it back onto its wrought iron stand. We stood back and looked at it anxiously. It was okay. We'd repacked enough soil at its base so that it stood upright, and only a few of the long leaves looked crooked. I didn't know what kind of plant it was. In my physiology cla.s.s the previous semester, we had studied all kinds-fungi, moss, deciduous, and evergreens-dissecting stems and stamens, peering at cellulose under microscopes. The tests had been hard, but I'd liked what I was learning. Afterward, I'd looked at any kind of greenery with more awe and respect, having some understanding of all that was going on inside, all that xylem and phloem, all that constant regeneration so perfectly contained. Even on that achy, sad morning, I was especially impressed with Jimmy's plant having survived its tumble down the stairs. It was still alive, shiny leaves extended, and therefore, under all that quiet greenness, it was working hard, and still growing.

My father and I got a booth by the window. "YA'LL COME ON IN!" was written in neon across the gla.s.s, the words encased in a cartoon bubble unreasonably placed over a drawing of a cow who was not only smiling, but wearing lipstick. We both ordered steaks. I was thinking that protein would help. My head no longer hurt, but I still felt foggy inside, my limbs tired and slow to respond. Between sips of soda, I smacked my lips together, moving crushed ice from cheek to cheek. Third Floor Clyde, I had to admit, had been a very good kisser.

"What are you doing with your mouth?" My father squinted at me from across the table. "You okay? You've been quiet this morning. Even for you." He seemed more amused than worried. He was looking at me the way he often looked at me-a little starry-eyed, his lips curved in a half smile. His long-sleeved T-shirt looked stiff, almost starched, with a neckline that was too high. He always looked nice when he was going to work, but when the weekend came, and he had to go casual, he had trouble dressing himself.

"You sure you didn't hit your noggin on the steering wheel?" He reached over and lightly mussed my hair. "I wonder if we should go get you checked out. We can stop by one of those walk-in clinics and just have them take a look at you. Sometimes you can have a concussion and not even know it."

"I'm just tired." I looked over my shoulder, searching for the waitress. I was hungry. I was more than ready to eat.

"You look like you have a rash or something on your chin. What's that? And you cut your lip."

I moved my finger to the cut on my lip. "That was later," I said. "Not from the car. That was when I fell. On the ice."

His nostrils flared. He set down his water gla.s.s. "Right. When you were getting out of the truck. The truck driven by that degenerate..." He paused, pointing at me. "...who, so help me G.o.d, if I ever find..." With his other hand, he squeezed his napkin, which, being paper, didn't put up anywhere near the kind of fight the actual truck driver might. Still, I was touched by the sentiment. He seemed anxious, his eyes moving in a repeated circuit-over the salad bar, across my face, and then left, to the neon letters in the window, and then up to the sky beyond. It was a bright and sunny morning, cloudless; but outside, the branches of trees were newly bare. The wind was blowing hard and cold.

"So...tell me again." He put his napkin in his lap and moved his hand over his mouth. "Tell me again what happened after you got out of the truck."

I c.o.c.ked my head. I was unclear on why he needed this information again. I didn't see why it would matter, what it had to do with the ident.i.ty of the truck driver, or the likelihood that my father's insurance would cover the bill for Jimmy's car. But I knew, from vast experience, that my father didn't like to be thwarted from a particular line of questioning. "I..." I shook my head at him numbly. "I fell on the ice. I got up, and he was already driving away."

He made a quickening motion with his hand, as if I were purposefully delaying what was important. He was about to speak when the waitress appeared, setting a plate before him.

"Sir? The Maverick? Well done?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but she had already turned toward me. "Seven-ounce?"

I nodded quickly, hoping to give her time to flee.

"Erin, I think we're out of steak sauce here." My father loosened the half-empty bottle from its little cage in the middle of the table. "Other than that, we're all set here, Erin. It all looks very good."

I shielded my eyes so he wouldn't see me wince. It would do no good to tell him to stop. When I was seventeen, my mother had tried to convince my father that people who worked in restaurants didn't necessarily appreciate it when he read their name tags and used their names casually, as if he'd known them forever. She'd been met with strong resistance.

"You sure about that, Natalie?" he'd asked, putting his hands behind his head, an elbow jutting out on each side, the left one accidentally nudging Elise's head. We were all in a booth, having brunch at a pancake house, and everyone was a little tense; earlier that morning, we had gone to my grandmother Von Holten's nursing home to wish her a happy ninety-first birthday. My grandmother hadn't recognized anyone except my mother, which made sense, as my mother was the one who had looked in on her the most for the previous three years.

"You're saying working people don't like to be called by their Christian names?" He'd looked at my mother through narrowed eyes, his elbows moving farther out. Elise, home from college for fall break and already feeling claustrophobic in every sense, growled under her breath and pushed his elbow away from her head. My father apologized and looked back at my mother. "You basing that claim on any actual evidence? Or are you just, you know, more empathetically empathetically down with the working folk than I am?" down with the working folk than I am?"

My mother kept her eyes on her menu. "I'm basing my claim on how uncomfortable they look when you're so familiar with them."

"That waiter?" My father pointed behind him. Our waiter, a very bored-looking man in his thirties wearing a b.u.t.ton that read "Ask me about our crepes!", had just disappeared in that direction. "He was smiling, wasn't he? He didn't look uncomfortable."

"He has to smile. That's his job. If he doesn't smile, he might not get a tip."

"When have I ever not tipped?" He held his raised palm halfway across the table. "I'm an excellent tipper! What are you talking about?"

She was still looking at her menu, at a glossy picture of an enormous, syrup-drenched Belgian waffle. "I know that, Dan," she said. "We all know. We all know that you are an excellent tipper. I'm saying that waiters and waitresses smile because most people will tip them according to how friendly they are. They don't smile because they like you, or because they think it's funny when you use their d.a.m.n names."

Elise and I exchanged glances. My mother wasn't normally one to say "d.a.m.n." She was still gazing at the waffle, the tips of her thumbs rosy, her grip on the menu tight. That morning at the nursing home, the nurse had walked us out to the lobby and told us that despite the evident senility, my grandmother's vital signs were all quite strong. "She's a tough old lady," the nurse had said. "I have a feeling this is far from the last birthday." I had looked up just at that moment and caught sight of my mother's silent reaction-a deep wrinkle in her brow, a parting of her lips-her fear and fatigue apparent for just a moment before she looked down, searching through her purse.

"Okay." My father leaned forward on the table, his face maybe six inches from the tip of my mother's menu. "So calling someone by his name is now giving them s.h.i.t? I'm going to need a new etiquette manual, then. Maybe you could write it for me, Natalie. Because there's no way I understand the logic of that."

"You don't need a manual, Dan." Her voice was monotone, pointedly unruffled. "Just think about it. Or put yourself in his shoes. Ask yourself how you would feel if you had to be nice to someone because that was your job, and then that person kept saying your name over and over as if he knew you, when really, he didn't." Now, finally, she looked up at him. Her cheeks were pink, her jaw clenched. "Ask yourself how you would like that."

He stared at her for a long moment and then drew back, holding his menu up like a barricade. "Well," he said quietly. "Maybe you ought to consider that not everyone feels the way you do."

Elise pumped her fist. "The King of the Last Word speaks!"

My father put his menu down. "I just don't think he looked uncomfortable!" He turned to Elise, and then to me. "Girls? Did you think the waiter looked uncomfortable?"

"I know I'm uncomfortable." Elise smiled at her menu, then looked up at me. "Veronica looks really uncomfortable. Maybe we need to get our own booth."

My father gave her a sideways glance. "Maybe you need to pay your own bill."

"Maybe you should keep dreaming."

My mother and I both sighed, the exact same way, at the exact same time. We looked up at each other and smiled. This banter between my father and Elise was normal, playful, nothing to cause any worry. In fact, it had a calming effect, at least for me, after the far more unusual bickering between my parents. I was used to Elise pushing back at him, giving him a hard time. But my mother, when she did disagree with him, usually did it softly, and with a smile.

"Thank you so much." My father took the new bottle of steak sauce and, after the waitress walked away, gave me a look. "Easy there, Jaws. n.o.body's going to take it away from you."

I held my napkin up to my mouth. "I'm hungry."

"Okay. Well." He made the hurry-up motion with his hand again. "Sing for your supper, at least. You were saying what happened. After the truck."

"I went into the Hardee's."

"Right." He cut into his steak. "And then what?"

"I went to the bathroom."

"And then what?" His eyes seemed tender, sympathetic. The air around me seemed to go still and quiet, though I could still hear the restaurant's music playing, the soft tw.a.n.g of a steel guitar.

I took another bite. I chewed, swallowed. He waited.

"And then I...called you."

He nodded. "Wait, I'm a little cold." He put on a tan sports coat. He had a pen in the pocket, and he paused to make sure it was fastened in. "Okay. You get yourself away from the truck. You fall. You're bleeding. You go into the restaurant to use the phone. Who'd you call first?"

For a moment, I thought this was what he was getting at. I actually thought he was hurt because I had tried to call my mother first. And I was relieved, even touched. It was just that old divorce story-each wounded parent wanting to be the chosen one. I considered lying, but I got scared.

"Dad. I knew you would be in court, or at least working. And Mom was closer."

He nodded. "And what did she say to you?"

I swallowed. It was a trick question. We both knew it.

"Elise told you."

We sat without talking for several seconds. The people in the booth behind us were laughing about something. A child's shrill voice cried out.