Ready To Go (19 page)

“Or, he swallowed his food and he’s fine,” Daniel replied. “Relax. I can’t just go jumping in when everything’s okay. I’ll help him if he needs it.”

The waitress came by, and didn’t even look at the two as she dropped off the check. Her attention was focused on the man, who was now waving his hands wildly, gesturing to his throat. “Sir, do you need assistance? Is anyone here a doctor?”

Nicole glared at Daniel, who now stood from the table. “I’m a doctor,” he said, a small lie, but close enough. He stepped over to the man, wrapped his arms around him from behind, and tried to push out the food lodged in his throat. It didn’t go as perfectly as it had in the last basic first aid course he’d taken. He pushed harder, but all that happened was the man’s eyes bulged out a bit. He then became dead weight in Daniel’s arms, his face taking on a bluish tinge.

“Call 911!” Daniel said to the man’s wife. She already had her cell phone out, her face white with worry, and she was quick to dial the emergency number. Daniel turned to see that the other patrons of the restaurant had gathered around him. “Back up! I need room.” He glanced at the waitress, still standing nearby, her hands gripping her order pad tightly to prevent shaking. What the hell was he supposed to do? “I need a sharp, clean knife, and a clean straw,” he told her. Tracheotomies, he reminded himself. Cold, clean, clinical.

The waitress pushed her way through the crowd to get the items. Daniel lifted the unconscious man out of his chair and laid him on the floor, struggling a bit with the dead weight. He noticed Nicole watching him. He had to save this man.

As he waited for the waitress, he tried to remember the steps of a tracheotomy. If he’d met Nicole just one day earlier, this wouldn’t be possible. If he’d managed to
watch
that presentation in class, maybe he wouldn’t fuck this up now, but he couldn’t think about that. He felt the man’s throat for the right spot to cut, and kept his fingers pressed there as he took the knife and straw from the waitress’s hand. He made a small incision, and the blood pooled out. He felt bile rise up in his throat and his vision blurred a bit, but he kept going. He jammed the straw into the open cut. There were red smears on the plastic and on his hands. He leaned over and breathed into the straw, two deep breaths. The man’s chest began to rise and fall on its own. Daniel leaned back, shook his head to clear his vision, and slumped to the ground as the sight of the blood, red and gross and fucking everywhere, overwhelmed him.

The next thing he saw was a light shining into his eyes. “Sir, are you all right?” a woman’s voice asked.

Daniel blinked a few times and sat up a bit. The woman who had spoken was a paramedic, he noticed. “I think so,” he said. “I’ll get over this. Is that guy okay?”

“You’re lucky,” she said. “He’ll be fine. He didn’t
need
a tracheotomy, though, and now he’ll need stitches. His wife said you’re a doctor?”

“Not yet,” Daniel admitted.

“You’ve got a lot more to learn, kid,” the paramedic said. “If you weren’t so lucky, you could be in serious trouble right now. Finish school before you try being a hero, and maybe the next guy you ‘save’ won’t press charges.”

Daniel just noticed the blood on the floor and on another paramedic’s hand as she helped the man’s wife into the back of the ambulance. He shut his eyes to block it out. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “Okay.”

With his eyes still closed, he heard people talking around him and the siren of the ambulance as it left. He heard Nicole’s voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. A moment later, he felt something cold and wet on his hands. He cracked open one eye to see Nicole wiping off his hands with a dishtowel. She smiled at him. “I’m getting the blood off,” she explained. “That’s why you’re keeping your eyes shut, right?”

He smiled as he closed his eyes again. “Thanks. Why aren’t they taking me to the hospital? I probably should go, since I passed out.”

“It’s expensive,” she said, sighing. “You didn’t even hit your head, and once I explained you don’t like blood, the woman said you’ll be fine. You can open your eyes now.”

Daniel stood up slowly, and she held onto his hands to balance him. He looked at their table, empty dishes still sitting there with the unpaid check on top. “Damn. I still need to pay that.”

The waitress, still standing nearby, walked over and picked up the check from the table. “It’s okay. That man is alive because of
you
, we wouldn’t make you pay now.”

“He’s alive because I got lucky,” Daniel replied. He turned to Nicole. “Do you think you can drive now?”

“Of course,” she replied. “Give me the keys.” He handed them to her, and the two walked out of the restaurant. Daniel still leaned on her a little bit for balance. “You’re sure you’re going to be okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “This actually isn’t the first time I’ve passed out.” They reached the car, and she opened the door for him. “You’ve gotta be thinking I’m a pussy,” he said.

“Well, I’m more thinking that’s kind of an offensive term,” she replied.

“Sorry.”

“Not important.” She went around the car to get in the driver’s side. Once her seatbelt was on and she was comfortable in the seat, she faced Daniel. “I think you’re amazing. You saved a man’s life.”

“I screwed up and got lucky,” he replied. “I’m not that great. I passed out because of a little blood. He
should
have died. I don’t know why he didn’t.”

“To be honest, it was making me a little sick too,” she said. “I don’t blame you. But you
did
save him, and you didn’t even pass out until after he was okay. I could tell you were trying to stay awake.”

He smiled. “So, are you impressed by my manly heroism, then?”

“A little bit,” she admitted. “Took you long enough to impress me, though. I mean, if you’d saved a life the first day that we met, I would’ve totally slept with you.”

“Does that mean sex tonight?” he asked, his smile growing.

She glanced away from him to adjust the rearview mirror. She started the car, and as she pulled it out of the parking lot, she replied, “No. Not with you leaving tomorrow. It’s just going to hurt too bad.”

“It would be good, though,” he said. “At least during.”

“Oh, totally,” she agreed. “I’d so rock your world.”

He laughed, but only for a few seconds. “You’re right, though,” he said when he stopped laughing. “It’s going to suck to leave you. And it would suck worse if we did have sex first.”

She grinned at him, but quickly looked back to the road. “I’m going to miss you,” she said.

“I’ll miss you too,” he replied in a soft voice.

“You know, any guy I meet in LA is going to have a lot to live up to,” she said. “He’s gonna have to save a busload of people to impress me now.”

“Yeah, if you meet a guy who saves that many people, you should definitely go out with him,” Daniel said.

“You will save that many people, won’t you?” Nicole asked. “I mean, doctors save lives every day.”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m pretty sure now I don’t want to be a doctor.”

“Because of the passing out?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was lucky there were other people around and the paramedics could take care of that guy. I can’t be the only one responsible for someone’s life if I can’t see them bleed and I make fucking stupid mistakes. I don’t know what would have happened if I wasn’t there, but I also don’t know what would have happened if the paramedics weren’t there.”

She nodded. “It wasn’t
that
bad, but that actually makes sense. You don’t want to risk someone’s life. That’s a good thing. Any idea what you will do?”

“The only thing I ever wanted from being a doctor was a moment like that,” he said. “I wanted to be a hero. Kind of sucked that I spent my moment unconscious.”

“You’re definitely a hero,” she said. “Whoever that guy is, he’s going to be thanking you the rest of his life.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he muttered. “I can’t get that money back if I’m not a doctor. I think I’m just going to have to go home, beg my parents for the money, and do whatever else they decide is a good career for me.”

They drove on in silence for a while. Daniel couldn’t help but wonder
how
he’d get that money back now, if he even could. Begging was probably the only way, but his parents had been so set on him being a doctor. They could tell him to just get over the blood, and he knew that he couldn’t.

He suddenly noticed that Nicole had been silent as well. “You’re really quiet.”

“How can you just go back to your parents and let them control you again?” she asked. “I don’t want to say anything bad about them, I don’t know them, but you can’t let them guide your life until you die.”

He sighed. “I know. I’m not
happy
about this. I just don’t see another option. I can’t do what they want, and I can’t do what
I
want, if I even knew what that was, so I just have to get them to change their minds.”

“So you’re just going to be unhappy all your life?” she asked.

“I guess.” The car suddenly gave a small ding and a light came on. “We need gas,” he said.

“Do we have enough money for it?” she asked.

“We’ll manage.”

They stopped at a gas station just at the border between Nevada and California. Daniel went inside to pay, and when he returned, Nicole was already pumping the gas. “I figured I could help,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said. “There’s a slot machine in there.”

She laughed. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “You want to play some?”

“I’m out of cash because
someone
let the mechanic steal it, remember?” she asked bitterly. “If you’ve got any left, you can play.”

“I’ve got twenty five cents, that’s it for cash now,” he said. “I think it’s just a nickel machine. Come on, you can play on my quarter. It’ll be fun.”

“Why are you so eager to gamble?” she asked. The gas stopped flowing and she hung up the pump.

“Gas cap,” he reminded her before answering her question. “I don’t know. It’s not like me, really, but I figure at this point, we can’t lose. It’s just a quarter.”

“A quarter can pay for a cup of coffee some places,” she pointed out.

“Can’t pay for anything in LA,” he said. “Trust me, it’s not a waste. And maybe we can win a little bit.”

“Fine,” she said, holding out her hand. “You said I could play? Give me the quarter.”

Daniel pulled the coin from his pocket and dropped it into her hand. “There you go.”

Nicole headed inside and started laughing when she saw the machine. “There seriously is a slot machine in the gas station? California is a weird state.”

“We’re in Nevada still,” he pointed out. “Go on, win some big money.”

Of course, she didn’t win big. But the machine had a lot of flashing lights and jaunty music as she played, and Daniel could see her smile as she pulled the lever the few times that she could. The final result was just a few dollars, but it was enough for them to get a snack for the road. And he could tell that Nicole had fun. That was more important.

They drove on, eating the chips they’d bought with their winnings. Nicole turned up the music on the radio and began singing along. She was mostly singing “la”s as she didn’t know the words, but she didn’t care. Daniel watched her, and he knew she saw him watching, but she didn’t stop singing this time.

“It’s good you’re not going to try to be a singer,” he remarked.

She gave a fake pout. “Are you saying that I’m a bad singer?”

“Yes I am,” he replied, laughing at her expression.

She joined in the laughter and said, “Yeah, you’re right. I know I’m not good, but I’m not terrible, am I?”

“You’re okay,” he said. “But just okay. I like listening to you, but I don’t know about other people.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “As long as you’re not going to tell me to shut up now. I like this music, I want to keep singing.”

“No problem,” he replied. “I’ll just listen.”

She kept singing, but her voice only lasted about thirty seconds before she abruptly stopped. “Okay, you threw me off. It’s weird singing when you’re
listening
.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “What if I sing with you?” He launched into loudly singing the next song.

Nicole didn’t sing, still. She just listened to Daniel. “You know, you’re actually really good.”

He shook his head. “I’m no better than you. I’m just having fun.”

“No, seriously,” she said. “You need to be the one that’s a singer.”

“No,” he said. “I would really rather be a doctor than a singer. The whole being famous thing is
not
for me.”

“Why not?” she asked. “I mean, you clearly don’t hate attention.”

“I don’t want to lose my privacy,” he explained. “I don’t mind attention, yeah, but I like having my life be mine. Can’t do that if I’m famous.”

“You’re weird,” she proclaimed. “I’d give up my privacy to be that rich. If I had any talent, anyway.”

“Be a famous artist,” he suggested. “You can get money and keep your privacy. Be anonymous or something.”

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t turn to look at him, instead still facing the road. “I’m not
good
. You’ve never seen a really good piece of art, have you?”

“Well, not really,” he admitted. “But you are good. You’re too modest about it.”

“Modesty isn’t a bad thing,” she replied. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m not going to be an artist.”

“Can you draw a picture for me?” he asked. She actually took her gaze away from the road for a moment to look at him, confused, and he continued, “I mean, one that little kids don’t scribble all over.”

“Yeah, sure,” she replied. “If you really want one of my sucky drawings.”

“I do,” he said. “Something to remember you by when I go back to Pennsylvania. I’m not going to forget you, I’ll probably be calling you every day, but I won’t get to see you.”

“I’m not drawing myself,” she said. “And there’s Skype, anyway. I just need to get a computer first.”

“Oh, yeah.” He gave a grin. “I don’t know. I just want a picture from you.”