Fed Up (6 page)

I’d left my cell phone in my purse in the car, and even if I’d been willing to leave Francie alone, I’d have had no idea where to find a phone upstairs in the house. “Josh!” I screamed. “Robin!”

I looked down at Francie, whose jagged breathing frightened me. “Francie?” I whispered. Then with near ferocity, I demanded, “Francie! Francie, can you hear me?” I uselessly dabbed the towel on her face.

Francie made a small, throaty noise and groaned softly. Almost inaudibly, she said, “Oh, shit.” Her eyes were barely open, and her skin had a gray tinge.

I heard footsteps and then Josh’s voice. “Chloe, is there another bathroom up here? I’m not feeling so great.”

“Josh! You need to call nine-one-one! Get an ambulance! Now!” Panic had set in. My own voice sounded distant and unfamiliar. “Get an ambulance!” I screamed.

Looking up, I saw Josh grab one of the yellow towels. Then he retreated to the hallway, where I could hear him being violently sick.

“Oh, God,” I whispered to myself. Then, in spite of the nauseating stench, I took a deep breath and bellowed, “Robin! Leo! Help! Call an ambulance!
Help! Help me!
”

Footsteps heralded the arrival of Robin and Leo, and I heard Robin say, “God, it smells awful here,” and then, “Josh, what are you doing?”

I was still kneeling on the floor next to Francie. Rising a little, I again pleaded for help. “Call an ambulance! Francie is . . . For God’s sake, call an ambulance!”

Instead of responding to the emergency, Leo stepped into the bathroom. “Francie?” he asked. “Francie, get up! You don’t want people to see you like . . . We’d better get you to bed. The smell in here is . . . what a mess!” He held his hand to his nose and mouth.

Robin poked her head in and quickly withdrew.

“Chloe,” Leo said, “can’t you open the window? And help get Francie—”

When I’d first seen Francie, I’d also failed to grasp the reality of her situation. Still, I was furious at Leo. “Never mind the damned window!” I snapped. “Call an ambulance! Now!” I reached and almost punched Leo on the leg. “Go! Call nine-one-one!”

“Chloe, shut up!” Robin called out. “Cut the hysterics!”

“This is an emergency!” I insisted. “Call an ambulance!”

Robin, apparently addressing Leo, said, “Well, now we know why Francie thought the food tasted bad. She was obviously coming down with a stomach bug. That norovirus thing. Is that what you call it? And she was starting to feel sick.”

“Josh?” I called out. “Josh, are you okay? Can you get to a phone? Please! Please call for help!”

Josh cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m all right now, I think.”

I looked down at Francie, whose eyes were now shut. “Francie? Francie?” I rolled her onto her back and shook her. At first she appeared to be unconscious, but when I leaned my ear against her chest, I didn’t hear the ragged breathing anymore. “Francie?” I was yelling now, repeatedly saying her name in the vain hope of rousing her. There was no response from her. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I practically had to leap over Josh to get out of the bathroom. Then I flew down the stairs, my heart racing and my vision nearly blurred. All I can remember is being hell-bent on getting to the phone that I remembered having seen on the wall near the stove.

When I burst into the kitchen, I almost slammed into Digger, who grabbed me by both arms. “An ambulance is coming,” he said. “What the hell is wrong? Is Josh okay? He ran out of here so fast.”

“He’s sick, too, Digger. I’m really scared,” I said. My eyes began to water as I leaned into his chest. “I think Francie is dead.” I was almost whispering. “I have to sit down.” I was starting to feel queasy myself. Maybe Leo had been right about opening a window. The sickening odor seemed to cling to me. Or maybe fear was wrapping my stomach in knots. Digger led me to a chair just as Josh entered the kitchen. He now looked more grim than ill, and I thought that I knew why: if Francie were still alive, Josh wouldn’t have left her alone.

I found myself sitting next to Marlee, whose presence I hadn’t even noticed. She was rubbing her forehead with one hand. Her face was pale and damp. “My stomach is really hurting,” she said. “I’ve got terrible cramps, and I think I might throw up. Is there a bathroom downstairs?”

Digger moved the trash can next to her. “In case you don’t make it to one,” he said. “I might need it, too. I could hurl any second. I think we’ve got food poisoning.”

“From the way I feel, you’re probably right,” Marlee agreed. “There’s got to be a bathroom down here. Leo?”

For the first time, I noticed Leo, who was leaning against a wall as if propping himself up. He looked frozen in place, and his face was blank.

“Leo!” I said sharply. “Is there a bathroom downstairs?”

He shook himself and pointed to a doorway. “Through there.” Sounding like a robot, he added, “I’m going back upstairs. Maybe I can . . .”

“Here, Marlee, I’ll help you.” Robin took Marlee’s hand and led her out of the room.

As I watched them leave, I noticed to my horror that Nelson was standing in the dining room doorway with his face hidden behind his camera.

“Nelson, turn that camera off!” I demanded. “Stop it! This is no time—”

“Cannot do. I’m filming reality here. Raw reality! This is great!”

Glaring at him, Josh said, “Yeah, this is a great, Nelson. It’s goddamn perfect.”

“Nelson,” I said, “the average rock would have more sensitivity than to film us right now. Turn the camera off! Unless you want me to grab it and shove it—”

Josh interrupted me. “There’s the ambulance. You hear the sirens?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thank God.”

I’d somehow expected help to pour in through the back door, but when the doorbell rang, Josh went through the dining room, opened the front door, and took charge of directing the newcomers upstairs to where Francie lay on the bathroom floor. I felt certain that she was dead, but medical personnel and the police could hardly be expected to take my word for her condition, and there still remained a chance, I told myself, that I was wrong. The possibility made me feel guilty: what if I’d abandoned Francie when my presence might have comforted her?

While I could still hear the sounds of feet pounding up the stairs, Marlee reappeared from the bathroom. Her color was worse than it had been before. She had a greenish tinge, and her damp hair clung to her cheeks. “I heard the ambulance,” she said. “Chloe, get someone to help me, would you? I’m sick. I’m so sick.”

You and everyone else,
I wanted to say. What I actually said was, “I’m not too well myself, and neither are—” I broke off. What if Marlee was becoming as horribly ill as Francie had been? “I’ll see if I can get someone,” I promised. With that, I made my way to the front hall, where the outside door stood open. Through it, I could see more official vehicles than I expected: two police cruisers and two big ambulances. As I stood there wondering how to summon help for Marlee—holler loudly? actually venture upstairs?—a handsome young EMT came bounding down, and at the same time, Josh appeared through the wide doorway to the living room.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said to the EMT, “but there’s someone in the kitchen who wants help. She’s sick, too. And so are—”

“I’m going to check everyone out,” he assured me, “and then we’re probably going to take all of you to the emergency room.”

“I’m fine,” Josh claimed.

“No, he’s not,” I insisted. “He threw up all over the place.”

“Yeah, I did throw up. I feel okay now, though. I’m fine.”

“Josh, you don’t know that!” I insisted. “But the one who’s feeling really bad is Marlee. And Digger is sick, too.”

“Give me a minute,” the EMT said.

“We’ll be in the kitchen,” I told him. “It’s in there, through the dining room.”

The EMT hurried out through the front door. As Josh and I were on our way to the kitchen, we paused in the dining room to exchange a few words.

“Francie?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They had to do their thing, but . . .”

“I thought so,” I said. “Oh, Josh, I was with her when she died. Maybe that’s why I feel sick. Maybe I don’t have the same thing as everyone else. I can’t even tell.”

“Hey, we’ve got to get these guys to take a look at you. Like he said, get you to the hospital.”

“Marlee’s the one I’m worried about. She looks terrible. Not as bad as Francie was, but I’m scared that she’s—”

Josh held a finger to his lips. “Let the EMTs worry about her.”

“I have to see how she is,” I insisted.

When we entered the kitchen, I was relieved to find Marlee no worse than she’d been before. She was sitting at the table with Robin and Digger.

“Marlee, one of the EMTs will be here in a minute,” I said.

Robin spoke up. “I’m really queasy, too. I don’t feel right.” She was slumped in her seat and was idly fingering her drooping ponytail. “I can’t believe this. Is Francie really . . . ?”

Josh nodded. “Yes. Chloe was with her when she stopped breathing.”

“Oh, my God, Chloe! Are you all right? Come sit down here.” Robin pulled out another chair from the table.

“I’m okay.” I still felt weird, but I was too embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t tell whether I was sick or terrified.

Just as Josh opened his mouth to start arguing with me, the handsome EMT entered the kitchen in the company of a uniformed police officer, a large, muscular man with a neatly trimmed mustache. Before either of the men had a chance to say a word, Josh put a hand on my shoulder. “Chloe, you’re not okay.” Addressing the EMT, he said, “You need to take a look at her.”

I caught the EMT’s eye and gestured to Marlee. “I’ll be okay, but Marlee’s the one who really needs help.”

The police officer’s radio crackled loudly. He stepped to the far end of the kitchen and began muttering incomprehensible words. Interrupting the EMT, who was speaking softly to Marlee, he called out, “Where’d you get the food?”

“Natural High,” I answered. “The Natural High right near here.”

In an effort to be helpful, Josh began to give a detailed description of all the food we’d bought and all the dishes he’d prepared with such enthusiasm. I could hardly listen without crying for him. In the background, I heard heavy footsteps and the sound of the front door opening and closing. For a moment, everyone was quiet, as if we’d tacitly agreed to observe a moment of silence as Francie’s body was carried away. My head was spinning, and everything seemed to be simultaneously happening in slow motion and at warp speed. I couldn’t think clearly.

I don’t know whether the EMT responded to me, to someone else, or to the whole situation, but I clearly remember that he said, “Okay, let’s get you all to the emergency room.” I also remember that he let Nelson have it: “And turn off that camera!”

Until then, I’d all but forgotten Nelson’s existence. Wishful thinking?

“Man, look at it this way,” Nelson said. “I’m just doing my job. Pursuing my art, okay? I’m a filmmaker, and I’m not going to miss this. That’s what a documentary is about, right? Reality. Whatever happens. No matter what, you get it on film.” The glee in Nelson’s voice made me feel queasier than ever.

The cop was more effective than the EMT had been in getting Nelson to quit filming. Instead of giving Nelson an order, he did nothing but look at him, raise a hand, point his finger, and utter one word: “You!”

Nelson turned tail and vanished through the dining room.

The next thing that happened was that I stood up and . . . and . . . Well, what I definitely did
not
do was faint. For one thing, as a person who had completed a whole year of social work school and was thus a mental-health professional in training, I couldn’t possibly have passed out from anxiety. For another thing, although I’d been feeling sick to my stomach, I hadn’t lost any bodily fluids and thus couldn’t have keeled over from dehydration. And for yet another thing, I wasn’t the swooning type. So, let’s just say that one moment I was rising from a chair in the kitchen, and the next moment, the next one I can remember, anyway, I was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. But not, not, not because I had fainted.