Arts & Entertainments: A Novel (28 page)

“Wait your turn, like everyone else,” said a girl about Melissa’s age. Then she recognized him and called out, “It’s Handsome Eddie!”

Eddie continued pushing ahead.

“What are you doing here?” the girl asked.

“I’m here to see my wife give birth.”

The people who’d been resisting him now surged to push him toward the hospital. A line of security guards stood at the threshold, but the crowd overwhelmed them, carrying Eddie into the revolving door. The lobby was filled with people, in
cluding more guards, but they didn’t seem to notice him, and the ones from outside hadn’t made it through the door. Eddie ran to the reception desk.

“My name is Edward Hartley,” he told the woman there. “My wife has gone into labor.”

She made a show of looking the name up, though she must have known exactly who he was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve had strict orders from the patient’s family not to let unauthorized visitors up.”

“What family?” Eddie asked. “I am her family.”

The receptionist signaled to someone behind him, and Eddie turned to find a row of guards approaching. He couldn’t see any way through them. If somehow he did manage to get by, there would be more coming. He didn’t even know where Susan was. He had no chance of getting to her. He was preparing to surrender himself when an arm wrapped around him protectively. Martin Dell stepped between Eddie and the guards.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Dell said.

“I want to see my wife.”

“Moody told me to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Are things all right with Susan?”

“I’m not a doctor,” Dell said. Reluctantly he added, “She was asking for you.”

Eddie sensed an opening in Dell’s tone.

“Do you remember what I told you about Susan in our first interview?” he asked. “It might have been the only honest thing I’ve said in the past two months. I need her, and she needs me. Right now this isn’t about the show. It’s about real people. My wife wants me to be up there.”

Dell shook his head, as though angry with himself.

“The only way I can help you without losing my job is if it looks like you snuck your way in.”

“How do we get around Moody?”

“Moody’s on a flight from L.A. He’s been tying things up with Justine’s family. We were planning to induce tomorrow. The timing was a surprise, and everything is pretty chaotic.”

“So what should I do?”

Dell looked briefly around the lobby. He waved at the guards, who let them through to a small pocket of open space near the elevators.

“Go back to the door and run up to the desk again. After the receptionist turns you away, sprint toward the elevators. I’m going to try to grab you, and you push me away. When you get to the elevator bank, you see the guards and run for the stairs. We’ll get an aerial, from upstairs down the stairwell, and you’re running up. We’ll send some guards up after you, about half a floor behind. She’s on the sixth floor. You barge in the door and say, ‘Where is my wife, is she okay?’ How does that sound?”

“Do you think it’s going to work?”

“It’s the best shot we have. Moody’s on the ground in half an hour. This is all live, so if you’re in the picture by then, he can’t pull you out of it.”

Eddie retreated to the doorway to wait for his signal. He was grabbed again, this time by Yuri, who taped a mike under his shirt. Dell brought the cameras and lighting into place. Eddie wasn’t sure if they would cut to him live or save the footage to show Moody later. Either way, he had to make it work. Dell waved his arm and Eddie ran to the desk.

“My name is Edward Hartley,” he said. “My wife is in labor.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hartley,” the receptionist said. “We have strict orders not to let you up.”

Before she’d finished, Eddie had turned and headed for the
elevators. When Dell stepped in his way, Eddie tossed him aside with more force than he’d intended. The line of guards waited at the elevator bank, but Eddie slipped by them into the stairwell. He took the first two flights as quickly as he could, listening for the sound of pursuers. Approaching the third landing, he realized how long six flights would be, and he slowed to catch his breath. He would have stopped entirely, but there was a camera above him. The person he was playing wouldn’t stop to catch his breath. Eddie’s chest was pounding and his throat began to constrict, but he pushed on. Between the fourth and fifth floors, he heard something pop in his leg, and a shooting pain went through his body.

Hal waited on the sixth floor with a camera on his shoulder. He waved Eddie through the door and into the waiting area, where another camera captured his arrival.

“Where is Susan?” he called out. “Is she all right?”

Annie and Tomaka and Rex sat together, none of them talking. They looked up at him but didn’t answer. Eddie crossed the room to them.

“Where is she?” he asked again. “Is everything all right?”

“The doctor just left,” Annie said. “You barely missed him.”

“I was downstairs,” Eddie said dumbly, still trying to catch his breath. “I was waiting there.”

“We know,” Annie said.

“What’s happened?”

“There’s been some kind of complication.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t really know. The doctor didn’t say much. Only that things weren’t going smoothly. He wanted to talk with family, and I told him you were on your way. But he couldn’t wait any longer.”

“Is she in danger?”

“It’s tough to tell. You know how doctors are. He said he’d be back soon.”

Eddie looked into her face, trying to determine how much of this was real. If Tomaka or Rex had been talking, he might not have taken it seriously, but he didn’t think Annie would lie to him. He was still out of breath, and his leg was burning.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “If the doctor comes, don’t let him leave. Tell him I’ll just be one minute.”

He limped to the bathroom, found an empty stall, and vomited. First he emptied his stomach of his burger and his drinks. After that he kept gagging, bringing up only bile. When he’d finished he stayed crouched over the toilet, looking at the mess in the bowl and crying. He turned to find the stall door open and Hal pointing a camera at him. He stumbled past Hal to the sink, where he washed his mouth and wiped his face before walking outside. Annie had moved to open a space between her and Rex. Eddie sat down. It seemed strange to introduce himself to the man who was supposed to be sleeping with his wife, so he only nodded in greeting. Rex nodded back. Up close he was astonishingly handsome, not quite real, and Eddie felt the strange urge to reach over and touch his face.

The doctor arrived a few minutes later with a manila folder and a look of tired concern.

“Mr. Hartley?” he asked.

“That’s me,” Eddie said. “Can I get in to see my wife?”

“I’m Dr. Rupert.” The man looked at Eddie, and then at one of the cameras. “Perhaps you could walk with me for a moment.”

Eddie wondered whether he was just trying to make things more dramatic or actually expected some privacy. They walked down the hall while Hal followed a few steps behind.

“They told me there’s been some complication.”

“I’m afraid your wife has ruptured her uterus. There’s been some hemorrhaging.”

“Is this for real?”

“Very much so. The truth is that it may be quite serious.”

“The babies?”

“The babies should be all right in any case. That’s the good news. Obviously they’re a bit premature, but we expected that with multiples. Our real worry at this point is the mother.”

“What does that mean, our worry?”

“She’s lost quite a bit of blood, and she’s still bleeding. The first thing they’re trying to do now is get that bleeding stopped. But it’s a serious situation.”

“Could she die from this?”

The doctor answered the question with a moment of silence.

“The first step is to get the bleeding stopped,” he said finally. “Then we’ve got to get her a transfusion. We’re trying to find some matching blood on the premises. I’m not sure how much we’re going to need.”

“I’m a match,” Eddie said. “I can give blood.”

“We’ll need to get you straight to the tenth floor. I’ll call up. They’ll be expecting you.”

Eddie started to walk away, but the doctor grabbed his arm.

“We’re going to do our best here,” he said, seeming to look both at Eddie and beyond him. “No matter what happens, you’re going to have three healthy daughters.”

As the elevator doors closed, Eddie took a deep breath. Susan would want him to pray for her, he thought. There had to be some special prayer for difficult childbirths, but he didn’t know that prayer, so he said the Hail Mary. He said it to himself, without closing his eyes or bowing his head or moving his
lips, so that anyone watching would think he was just standing there, doing nothing. He finished just as the doors opened on the tenth floor, where a nurse was waiting.

“Mr. Hartley,” she said. “We’ve got a room set up for you. I just need to ask a few questions first.”

“All right.”

She went through a series of impressive and frightening diseases—HIV, hepatitis, blood cancers—asking whether Eddie suffered from any of them.

“No,” he said.

“Have you ever been an intravenous drug user?”

“No.”

“Have you had multiple sexual partners within the past year?”

Eddie looked over at the camera before answering, “I have not.”

“Have you eaten something in the last few hours?”

He told her he’d eaten a full dinner, and he didn’t mention that he’d just thrown it up.

“Follow me.”

Eddie had never donated blood. It seemed at first like giving a sample at the doctor’s office, but they filled two bags instead of a syringe. It frightened him to think that Susan might need that much blood. He couldn’t believe he’d had so much to give up. Watching it leave his body, Eddie felt sick. His throat was still itchy with vomit, which he struggled to swallow down. Hal stood in the corner, moving his camera between Eddie’s face and the blood leaving his arm. When the second bag was full, the nurse brought Eddie a cookie and a Dixie cup full of orange juice, like something from lower school snack time at St. Albert’s.

“This will get your glucose back up a bit,” she said. “Take your time, sit until you feel comfortable.”

But Eddie couldn’t eat, and he didn’t want to sit. He had to get back to the sixth floor, to find out how Susan was doing. As soon as the nurse left, he tossed the cookie in the trash and stood up. He rushed out of the room, still dragging his bad leg. He was halfway down the hall when he collapsed.

WHEN HE WOKE IN
the dark room he first felt the warm pinch of an IV in the crook of his right arm. Next came the burning throughout his face. One of his eyes had swollen shut. Dried blood clogged his nostrils, straining his breath. He reached to clear it out and found a splint taped over his nose. When he pushed at it, a shock of pain jumped to the back of his eyeballs and reverberated through his head. He let out what he thought would be a yell but sounded only as a low moan. A shadow in the corner seemed to move in response.

“What happened?” Eddie asked in its direction.

“You fainted.” He recognized the voice but thought he must still be dreaming. “You fell facedown and broke your nose. Chipped a tooth as well. The whole thing looked a lot worse than it actually is, I’m told. Blood everywhere.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“You were in and out through the night,” Moody said.

“It’s morning?”

“Past noon.”

“How is Susan?”

“She’s great. So are the girls. Everyone is just fine.”

Relief deadened all the pain for a moment. This was followed by the bitterness of the possibility that he would be kept from them.

“Shouldn’t you be up there overseeing things?” he asked Moody.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I wanted to have a few quick words.”

“You mean you wanted to stop me from seeing them?”

“Quite the opposite, Eddie. We’re all one big happy family.”

“So you won’t be suing me?”

“Suing you? For what?”

“For busting past security? For telling that nurse I never slept with Melissa?”

“That’s all behind us. Why would I try to sue the most popular man in America?”

“I thought I was the villain?”

“When was the last time you went online?”

Eddie tried to remember. There had been no computer in the hotel room, and his phone had disappeared.

“It must have been while I was still at the Cue.”

“Then you’ve missed a lot. Your penance is done, Eddie. People are moved. You gave it all up at the height of your fame. You said good-bye to Melissa. Gave away your possessions to the needy and spent your days sitting outside with some kind of street corner guru. You’ve attained wisdom. People think you’re some kind of saint. You’ve put a lot of us to shame. If Eddie Hartley can change, there’s hope for all. The video of you crying at Justine’s memorial has more than a million views.”

“You drove me to that memorial.”

“Of course I did. But you did a lot of the work yourself. With the luggage, and whatever was going on with that bum outside the school. You’ve always been better when you didn’t know.”

“You’ve had cameras on me all week?”

“That’s what I’ve been paying you for, Eddie. It’s in the contract.”

“Then why did you try to stop me from seeing Susan?”

“Try to stop you? I walked you right to her, Eddie. I was producing the whole thing live.”

“Dell said you were in L.A.”

“Did you think I would be on the other side of the country just when my biggest star is ready to pop?”

“You were with Justine’s family.”

“Justine is the past, Eddie. We’re worried about what comes next.”

“So that was another lie.”

“You’re still thinking about things in the wrong terms, Eddie. It was great television, is what it was.”

“Was Susan really in any danger?”

Moody sighed. In the darkness, Eddie imagined the cigarette bobbing in his grinning mouth.

“For our purposes, she was.”