Sweet Love (18 page)

A spray tan. Why haven’t I thought of that before? It’ll completely take care of the fish-belly problem with the black swimsuits and it’ll give me a healthy, golden, youthful glow that will peel years off. Plus, it’s so much cheaper than a new suit. Pure genius.

Then I remember Raldo, who’s a pumpkin-colored spray-tan addict and ask, “I’m not going to be orange, am I?”

What I expect her to say, I’m not quite sure.
Yes, you will be orange. Is that a problem?
Anyway, she assures me I’ll love it and that the orange people are people who use poor product or slack off in maintenance. Yap, yap, yap.

Next thing I know, I’m on a table, naked, and Lanelle’s rubbing sea salt scrub all over me to exfoliate. Very relaxing and yet invigorating at the same time. A conundrum. Even the tanning process itself isn’t too bad except halfway through, the following announcement comes over the mall intercom:

“ATTENTION: JULIE MUELLER. WOULD A JULIE MUELLER PLEASE MEET DR. DANDY AT THE C-RITE OFFICE IMMEDIATELY.”

Lanelle stops spraying. “Isn’t that you?”

I picture Mom pestering them to page me so I can give her my opinion on UV coating. Practical prevention or scam? “It’s only my mother. You can keep going.”

Finished with my left side, Lanelle is about to start on the right when:

“ATTENTION: JULIE MUELLER. PLEASE COME TO C-RITE IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY.”

A medical emergency? The dizzy spells. Suddenly, I have a vision of Mom flat out on Dr. Dandy’s floor.

“Gotta go,” I say, frantically trying to open the booth door.

“Wait!” Lanelle says. “You can’t leave now.”

“It’s my mother. Something’s happened. I’ll come back and pay you later.” I am heading down the hallway when Lanelle, in an athletic feat normally reserved for jaguars, sprints and hooks me from behind.

“Your clothes,” she gasps, panting, brown streaks emerging on her smock. “They’re back there. . . .”

Because mirrors are everywhere, every client in the salon—including one grinning preteen boy—is afforded a clear view of me in my pink bra and matching underwear with black lace. And let me say this: I do not always wear matching pink bras and underwear with black lace. It was seeing Liza changing the other day that inspired me to shape up. And now I’m a believer.

“Right,” I say, rushing back, throwing on my clothes and tossing two twenties at Lanelle, who assures me I can return to finish the tan anytime.

“Hope your mom’s okay!” she shouts as I dash out of Salon Goodbye and toward C-Rite, where I run into a crowd of people, onlookers gawking at—ohmigod—the Natick Emergency Squad rushing in with a gurney.

“Let me through!” I bark, jabbing my elbows here and there. “I’m Julie Mueller. Let me through.”

Incredible. People are actually reluctant to let me pass. Did they not hear the announcement? Do they not know who Julie Mueller is?

“I’m her daughter!” I yell. “Let me through!”

Finally, a security officer parts the crowd and pushes me toward C-RITE, where my mother is being strapped to the gurney. She is out cold. An oxygen mask is being attached to her face, and they’re wrapping her in blankets.

“She’s fine,” I hear someone tell me, though I don’t believe it. “She just passed out.” It’s not until I clutch Mom’s hand and feel her rapid pulse that I begin to calm myself. Asking the emergency crew questions proves futile. They completely ignore me since it appears my role is not to ask, but to answer.

How old is Mom? Does she take any medication? Is she suffering from any diseases? Does she have diabetes? Do I know the name of her doctor/ her health insurance provider? Is her husband alive? Can he meet them at MetroSouth Hospital?

I tell them seventy-five, tamoxifen and an aspirin a day, breast cancer survivor, no, Dr. Heller, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and yes, he’s alive though you’d never know it. I’ll call him and tell him to get off his &%#@ ass for once and be at his wife’s side.

With that, they’re gone, wheeling her past Banana Republic to the outside. It’s surprising how silent it is now that the police radios are gone, too.

Dr. Dandy is off to the side looking nervous and yet defensive. He’s young, in his late twenties, and my guess is Mom’s collapse is one of those experiences they didn’t prepare him for in C-Rite optometry school.

“We were giving her a cataract test. I blew in the air and the next thing I knew, she was out,” he tells me. “I’m sure it must be a preexisting condition.”

“Possibly.” I’m curious as to whom he called first: 911 or his lawyer.

There’s no answer at Mom and Dad’s house, so on my way to the car, I call Teenie, who tells me Dad’s truck is gone. Great. No doubt he’s at a construction site “supervising”—his pretend job where he finds various road projects and stands around with other old men, their hands in back pockets, chewing the fat.

Teenie will call Lois, who will meet me at MetroSouth. I try calling Em but, per usual, my message goes straight to her dreamy voice mail.

She has turned off her phone instead of keeping it on like I’d asked.

Honestly, what is the point of paying sixty bucks a month for her to have a cell phone if she only uses it to call me and ask
me
for favors?

The next few hours are a mishmash of fighting traffic to get to MetroSouth, filling out paperwork, and staring at NASCAR on the waiting room TV until I’m allowed to see Mom. Throughout it all I feel sick with worry and anxiety. For all I know, she could be in serious, serious trouble, even—no, I can’t think it—
the ultimate
, and they haven’t yet told me.

You never know what you’re going to run into in an emergency room. It’s not like the regular part of the hospital where most of the drama happens behind closed doors. Here, all that separates you from bloody car crash victims, emergency tracheotomies, and sudden death are a few pale blue canvas curtains.

Finally, I’m allowed to see her. Mom is at the end of the hall, propped up with a black blood pressure gauge on her arm‚ sipping red fruit juice from a straw and surrounded by scary equipment. A cardiac monitor above her head reports regular triangles. An IV sticks out of her arm. And she’s in a hospital gown. Despite that, she has never looked better.

“You’re here, finally.” She takes her mouth off the straw and curls a lip. “What’s wrong with your arms?”

“Are you okay?” Instinctively, I stroke back her thinning gray hair and say a silent prayer, so glad, so very glad she’s alive. “Have you seen a doctor yet? Do they know what happened?”

“Either my eyes are still not back to normal or . . . those arms of yours are two different colors.” Mom seems not to know that she’s in an emergency room. “Julie Ann Mueller, you fell asleep on your side suntanning this afternoon, didn’t you? How many times have I told you not to do that? Skin cancer is no laughing matter. Remember Irma Fishbine? Beautiful girl, very pale . . .”

The curtain yanks back and in comes another young doctor. She’s dark and beautiful, with a ponytail and glasses and a name tag that says DR. BAJAJ. Definitely the type to run marathons and abstain from sugar, alcohol, and fat.
She
wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown in Macy’s swimsuit department.

Moving past me and going straight to Mom, she shouts, “How are you doing, Mrs. Mueller?”

Mom murmurs she’s fine, that it was the stupid cataract test that made her pass out. “You’d think if they could send men to the moon, they wouldn’t have to blow air into a person’s eyes.”

“I don’t like those, either. Yuck.” Dr. Bajaj checks the papers on her clipboard. “Do you know where you are?”

“You’re the fifteenth person to ask me that.”

Dr. Bajaj is undaunted. “And the answer is?”

“The emergency room of MetroSouth Hospital. My sister, Charlotte, died here.”

The doctor makes a tick mark and holds up her hand. “How many fingers?”

“Five.”

“Who’s the president of the United States?”

“Good question,” Mom says, getting ornery. “I’ve got my personal opinion about that, if you have a half hour to spare.”

I whisper into Dr. Bajaj’s ear that this is a subject better not explored. Nodding, Dr. Bajaj asks, “Have you been eating today?”

“Of course,” I interject again. “This is Betty Mueller you’re talking to.”

Dr. Bajaj gives me a tolerant smile. “Are you a relative?”

“Her daughter.” And then, to cement my status, I add, “I filled out all the forms.”

“Okay, then, your mother’s blood sugar is very low. Do you mind?”

Two terms I never thought I’d hear in the same sentence: “your mother” and “low blood sugar.”

“Did you eat today?” Dr. Bajaj asks again.

“No,” Mom says. “I forgot.”

She forgot? That’s like the earth forgetting to rotate around the sun. A physical impossibility. Mom never starts the day without half a grapefruit, black coffee, and a bowl of Grape-Nuts.

Dr. Bajaj says they’d like to keep her a little longer to run an EKG and maybe a CAT scan to make sure everything’s hunky-dory before they release her. Meanwhile, Mom should continue to rest.

Beyond the curtain, Dr. Bajaj takes me aside. “It says here your mother’s husband is still living with her.”

“Yes, my father. He’s, uh, out on a job.”

“Look, she can walk out on her own, but my preference is not to release her until he’s here to pick her up. I’ll need to give him some instructions for her care over the next twenty-four hours. They could be crucial.”

Good luck, I think. “She’ll probably go home with me, then.”

“Has your mother passed out before?”

“She’s been dizzy lately. I don’t know if she’s completely passed out. But just this morning she had a spell and had to sit down. What’s wrong with her?”

Dr. Bajaj shrugs. “Right now, I’m not sure. She seems fine, but she should come back next week for a follow-up. We need to rule out a few other possibilities.”

“Like what?” I clench my fists, prepared for the worst.

“It could be anything. The fact that she didn’t eat this morning. The heat. That she’s dehydrated.”

These, I know, are wimpy, made-up diagnoses, answers to keep me from flying off the handle. “Okay. I’ll make sure she comes in.”

“Good.” Dr. Bajaj is about to go, when she turns and says, “Your dad . . . is he on his way, do you think?”

“Coming. It’s her friend Lois you should talk to, though. She helped Mom through a bout of breast cancer a few years ago. She’s almost like family. Better, really. If there’s anything you need to know about Mom, Lois is your Shell Answer Girl.”

“I see.” She nods, getting it. “I see.”

This Dr. Bajaj is no dummy.

A nurse is hooking up Mom to the EKG, pasting electrodes to her chest, when I return. I hate to see her like this in a hospital johnny with an IV in her arm. She looks so small and vulnerable, more like a child than my mother. I want her to be home in familiar surroundings, not in this clinical place that smells of urine and chicken soup.

“She’ll be here for at least another hour,” the nurse tells me. “So if you need to make any phone calls or something, now’s the time. I wouldn’t expect her to get out of here until well after five.”

Five already? Shoot . . . it’s past four! Em and Nadia’s movie ended long ago and they’re probably wandering the mall figuring I’ve dumped them.

Assuring Mom that I’ll be right back and she’s not to leave without me, I tell her I have to get the kids.

She nods and gives the nurse who’s sticking on the electrodes a dirty look.

It’s another traffic battle outside MetroSouth during which I call Michael and leave a message on his home answering machine telling him there’s no point in him waiting, that he should see his mom without me. My own mother’s in the hospital and I’ll probably have to take care of her all night.

With a heavy heart, I say good-bye and hang up. Adulthood sucks.

This time I don’t park far away in the mall lot for exercise, but flagrantly pull my car right up to the door and put on my flashers with the vain hope Em might be outside waiting. I have dialed this kid repeatedly and still no answer. After fifteen minutes pass I decide that, dammit, I’m going to have to get out, go in the mall, and hunt her down.

“Hey, Mom!” Em is sipping another carmellato outside the food court, right where I told her to be. “Where were you? The movie was over an hour ago.”

Then, seeing my expression of unadulterated fury, she yells to Nadia, “She’s on the warpath. Run!”

Nadia, though, is too preoccupied with the window display of Victoria’s Secret to care. Or, rather, having enough brains to spot a mom on a rampage when she sees one, she effectively plays dumb. Not much of a stretch when you’re Nadia.

“I’ve been calling you every two minutes,” I say, grabbing Em’s arm like she’s six. “Why is your cell off?”

Em swallows hard. I never spanked her as a child and I rarely yell at her as a near adult, so my public display of anger is a new and unnerving experience. “It’s not off,” she scrambles. “I mean, it
is
off, but that’s not my fault. The battery’s dead.”

“That
is
your fault, Em. Keeping your phone charged is part of the responsibility of ownership. Tomorrow, I’m calling up Verizon and canceling it.”

I can’t get over how much I sounded like Mom just then, right down to the responsibility line and the empty threat.

“No!” Em hisses, motioning for me to keep my voice down. “I promise. From now on I really will take care of it and keep it on and everything. I swear. Just don’t cancel my phone.”

“I needed to get hold of you this afternoon, Em. It was an emergency.” Then, forcing myself to be more gentle, I say, “Grandma collapsed at her eyeglass appointment. She’s at MetroSouth’s emergency room.”