Wednesday's Child (4 page)

7.

I must have lain there in a fugue. I didn’t notice when Ilene awoke and turned toward me, leaning on her elbow, apparently intent on waking me with a kiss, until she noticed my ghostly countenance and virtual paralysis.  I know this because I was suddenly aware of her hovering over me, shaking me, her face inches from mine.

“Dylan, what’s wrong?  Talk to me.”  Less diplomatic than she’d been in Pho Nam, but effective.  I snapped out of my trance in time to prevent her from resorting to other means of rousing me. For Ilene, our conversation in the restaurant had occurred a few hours ago; there’d be no hiding reality from her now, but there wasn’t time for full disclosure, so I temporized with a partial truth, reaching for her hand. 

“I’ve been waking up not knowing what day it was, convinced that it couldn’t possibly be the day it turned out to be.  It’s happened three times, and it has me kind of spooked.”

Ilene just looked at me.  “Today’s Friday.  Last night was Thursday.  You picked me up at the airport, remember?”  I interpreted her gently mocking tone to mean she was trying to decide whether to take me seriously.

“I know.  I checked on the TV.”

“What day did you think it was?”

“I spent the night dreaming I was trying to decide whether it was Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I felt like I was running in circles chasing my tail.”  It wasn’t until she winced and jerked her hand away that I realized how tightly I’d been clutching it.

“What do you make of the fact that all three of your choices were wrong?”

I didn’t have an answer, so I shrugged.  “I’m just trying to figure out why it’s happening.”

Ilene favored me with a skeptical half-smile, then seemed to reach a decision. “We’ll talk more about this tonight.”  She was too smart and knew me too well not to realize there was more to this.  She must have concluded it was safe to let me out of the house alone.  Not incidentally, she wasn’t about to stay home and miss basking in the adulation she’d earned in Chicago.

I desperately wanted to believe that today being Friday meant the world was back on track, and Thursday preceding Wednesday had been merely a bump in the road.  I had no idea why it had happened, but my concern on Wednesday, that I had lost a day as a result of a neurological event seemed silly now.  I felt fine, physically. If I was delusional, it was a damn convincing illusion.

Confident that I didn’t constitute a danger to myself or anyone else, I would take one more day to figure things out on my own and tell Ilene about it tonight, but this morning, I had an agenda to attend to.  First, was finding out whether Thursday had turned out the way I remembered it.

Instead of a sticky note on my monitor, there was an email from Jim in my inbox dated Thursday at seven p.m. “Dylan – I never thanked you for dealing with the Romanelli thing.  With Gayle, too.  I went to see her after work and she was glowing through her painkillers.  Rough couple of days.  You all right?”

He might have been looking for me on Thursday and left the note when I didn’t turn up.  On the other hand, on my Thursday, I’d holed up in my office most of the afternoon, sending clear signals that I didn’t want company. Maybe he’d just decided not to disturb me.

Item two on my list was the irrational guilt I felt about not being able to prevent injuries to the courier and the surgeon.  I went over the whole thing in my mind, needing to be certain there was nothing more I could have done.  My absolution was tempered by feeling like I’d been scolded by my second grade teacher. 
All right, young man, I’ll let you off this time, but I’ll be watching you in the future.

There were so many outraged witnesses to Roger’s hit-and-run that the police had made a quick show of assigning an investigator to the case.   He sounded sullen when I reached him on the phone. 

“Did you see it happen?”

“Not exactly.  I was upstairs in my office.”

“I hope you didn’t call just to tell me you saw a red sports car speeding away.”

“Well…”

“Figures.  I have ten witnesses who saw the car but not one can tell me anything else about it.”  It was clear he’d rather have been chasing criminals than tracking down an irresponsible driver. 

“Would the license plate help?” I said, trying not to sound like a smartass. I didn’t have the slightest doubt that RED ZEEE was the right car.  Gregg had told me there was a six month waiting list for new red Z-cars, and only ten had been delivered in all of New York.

The cop thanked me profusely for breaking the case, then asked if I’d be willing to testify. I had a sudden flash of standing before a judge, explaining. 
Yes, Your Honor, I recognized the car that caused the accident the day after it occurred, though it might have been the day before, depending on your point of view.

One of Gayle’s team leaders, a bright young guy named Wilson, came in and stood fidgeting like a kid who had to go to the bathroom as I was finishing with the detective.  He had my proposal, complete with Gayle’s annotations.  “Can I go over a couple of things with you, Dylan?  I tried Gayle, but the nurse on station wouldn’t put the call through.”

“Sure,” I said, trying too hard to sound casual, and told him what I thought Gayle had been trying to communicate with her scrawled margin notes.  I had to restrain myself from ripping the papers out of his hand.  “Can I get a copy of that?”

I’d written the first proposal on Thursday morning, the second on Wednesday evening, saving that one via remote connection to my office computer so it could be printed there the next morning.  If Wilson had Wednesday’s version, it must have somehow replaced Thursday’s.  If he had Thursday’s version…my head spun.

The word processor’s date/time stamp on the copy Wilson dropped on my desk said
9:21 am, Thursday, July 17
. Since I didn’t complete Thursday’s until after eleven, Wilson had to have been holding Wednesday night’s version.  Who had printed it and what had happened to the one I’d written on Thursday? I searched, but it wasn’t on my computer.

***

On beautiful summer Fridays in New York, the office emptied out after lunch, especially since many of the people we dealt with were in parts of the world in which the work week had ended already.  The resulting inactivity allowed me to reconsider my suddenly shaky world view. 

However much I might have wanted to believe the last few days were an aberration, I was certain they weren’t.  Neither were they symptoms of an illness.  I thought they must signal something whose purpose would reveal itself over time.  Events as momentous as days occurring out of order couldn’t happen for no reason, could they?

That made perfect sense until I imagined saying it to Ilene.  She’d give me frown number three, the derisive one. “Why would the universe single you out that way?  I love you, Dylan, but face it, you’re not that special.” 

I was still feeling chastened by my imaginary dialogue with Ilene when she called to ask how I was doing.

“Maintaining my equilibrium.  It’s no big deal.”  She seemed to buy that, but I knew I was going to have to spill my guts later. I’d need my head on straight when I did.

Instead of obsessing about the whys, I concentrated on trying to infer the rules of my new reality and figure out how the proposal Wilson was working from fit my significant event theory.  Perhaps Wednesday’s proposal had been able to replace Thursday’s because it hadn’t altered Thursday in a significant way, which enabled me to live Friday without worrying that I’d missed anything important.

By two o’clock, I felt like I’d been through a wringer.  I decided to visit Gayle.

8.

Forty-eight hours after her accident, Gayle seemed to be her old self, rejecting medication, snapping at nurses, demanding to be discharged.  I heard her from fifty feet away: “Damn it, I want out of here now!  Where the hell is he?” 

She must have been angry because her surgeon hadn’t revised his schedule for her convenience.  Gayle could be quite a handful when her dander was up.  It wasn’t uncommon to see people mouthing, “Bitch!” after she passed them in the hall.

Personally, I liked Gayle just the way she was.  I usually knew what to expect from her.  I knew, for example, that her moods could persist long after whatever had caused them was no longer relevant.  It would take her a while to come down from this one.  She wouldn’t direct her petulance at me, but it would swirl around me until she was ready to let it go.

The moment she saw me, however, her eyes took on the same softness I’d seen on Thursday when I brought her the proposal.  When she held out her arms again, I took one of her hands and perched on the edge of her bed, which had been cranked into a sitting position.

“Dylan.”  I’d heard her say my name a hundred times, but never like that, and never with the disquieting effect she was causing now. 

“Your memory seems intact,” I quipped, pretending not to notice. 

Normally, that would have earned me a smirk.  Today it got me a warm smile, and she continued to hold my hand, leaving me mystified.  She was dressed in hospital garb, one brace-enclosed leg discreetly elevated this time.  The hospital gown plainly outlined her breasts, and her prominent nipples made me acutely aware that there was nothing under it.  In all the time I’d known her, even when we’d traveled together on business, I’d never seen her when she wasn’t fully dressed, and I wondered now if she was aware of the picture she presented.

I didn’t know where this was going, but the longer it went on the more culpable it made me feel.  It couldn’t lead to anything positive.  I probably waited a little too long to extricate myself and wound up dropping her hand like it was sun-baked iron, rising awkwardly from the side of her bed, with nowhere to go in the crowded hospital room.  Gayle looked startled, and then awareness seemed to set in.

“I’m sor…” she began, her expression a mixture of misery and contrition.

“Don’t, Gayle.  It’s okay.  We’re both having emotional weeks.  I shouldn’t have over-reacted.”

“You too?  What’s going on?”

“I’ve…”  I almost blurted it all out.  She must have gotten to me more than I realized.  “Just stuff piling up.  Nothing as serious as what you’ve been through.”  I wanted to change the subject.  “You sounded upset when I was coming down the hall, before.  Your doctor keeping you waiting?”

“No, he already signed the order to send me home.  It’s Rod.  God, he can be an asshole sometimes.”

Oh.  If it was her anger at Rod that made her reach out to me the way she had, I’d have to be careful not to be drawn into whatever was going on between them.

She grimaced in the direction of her elevated leg.  “I’m stuck here like this until he gets around to picking me up.  I hate being dependent!”  The last four words were almost a shout.

“When do you expect him?”

“He said he’d get here when he could.  Another of his mysterious projects.  They always come first.”

Rod was employed by a think tank whose name was an acronym that’ll never appear on any stock exchange.  He traveled half the time and worked from home when he was in town.  I’d had only limited contact with him, but he always seemed surrounded by an air of mystery, helped in no small measure by his swarthy, brooding countenance.  I had a knee-jerk aversion to his aloofness the first time we met.  Still, I thought it best to play devil’s advocate.

“I’m sure it must be something urgent,” I offered, lamely.  “He knows how badly you want out of here.”

If Gayle’s anger hadn’t been dowsed, most of her energy had.  She looked defeated, and I felt a pang inside.  We were friends. I cared about her and it hurt to see her so unhappy. 

I knew she hadn’t been seriously coming on to me, earlier.  She wouldn’t behave that way with her friend’s husband and she wouldn’t allow such feelings to invade our professional lives.  She was obviously embarrassed about the way she had been acting.

My watch said 3:13.  Ilene wouldn’t be home till at least 7:00.  Gayle lived on the Jersey side of the river, about twenty miles northwest of us, near the New York State line. 

“Let’s call someone to help get your things together.  I’m taking you home.”

“But…”

“But nothing.  If they don’t let me sign you out I’ll put you in a wheelchair and we’ll just walk out on our own.  What are they going to do, shoot us?”

“We’ll have to take a cab thru the tunnel.  I’m obviously not going anywhere by train today.”

“We won’t need a cab.  Jim arranged for a limo to take you into town and back once you get your walking cast.  Let me see what I can come up with.”

A nurse helped her dress while I made some calls from the visitors lounge.  She left a message for Rod telling him she’d find her own way home from the hospital and I found a limo driver who was free until a late gig ferrying some execs out to the Hamptons for the weekend.  He said he’d be outside the hospital at four.  I reached Ilene, but could barely hear her over the background noise.

“Sounds like a party.”

“You know how lawyers like to celebrate big paydays.  We’re all down at Monahan’s.”  I waited through a slightly-too-long pause and she said, “You could come down and join us.”

“I’d just be an extra wheel.  This is your day to shine.  Besides, Rod never showed up to take Gayle home and everyone in my place took off early, so I volunteered.”

“I was feeling a little guilty partying while you were so distressed, but you seem to be doing fine.”  If there was a dig in that I ignored it.  Normally, it wouldn’t have troubled her that I went out of my way to help Gayle, as long as it wasn’t at her expense.

“I am.  Call me when you’re on your way home?”

Dressed for the July heat in a tee shirt and a short culotte that Jim had picked up at Macy’s for her, Gayle signed the necessary releases and we were out of there.  The Town Car was no problem, but the rigid brace covering her right leg to above her knee made getting her into my car a little tricky, even with the limo driver’s help.  Helping support her weight as she struggled to get her injured leg into the car, my hand wound up under her bare thigh.  It was accidental, and my hand didn’t linger any more than necessary.

“Sorry,” I said.

We engaged in office chatter as we drove north from the train station.  Then there was a minute of silence, and she said, “I know I’ve been making you uncomfortable.  I don’t know what got into me.  It was just that…”  Her voice trailed off.

When we slowed to a crawl approaching a toll booth, I turned to her.  “Just what, Gayle?” 

“It was everything.  I know that’s no excuse, but sometimes…sometimes I dream about being rescued.  I owe you an apology.  I had no right to lay that on you.  I felt like everything was coming apart and you were there like you always are.  You know I’d never come between you and Ilene, don’t you?”

I paused for a long breath.  “I do.  We all have our moments, Gayle.  If I were prosecuted for every idle fantasy I ever had, I’d be in a lot of trouble.”

We were more relaxed after that.  Her twins were still at camp when we reached her house, and Rod still hadn’t been heard from.  I got the crutches she’d borrowed out of the trunk, then opened Gayle’s door and looked down at her uncertainly.

              “How do we do this?” I said.

              “I can get myself out of the car, but I’ll need to lean on you.  You’re going to have to catch me if I fall.  Except for practicing with the nurse, I’ve never been on crutches before.”  She saw the expression on my face and said, “C’mon, Dylan.  How can I rely on you if you’re afraid to touch me?” 

When I still didn’t move, she said, “Give me your hand.”  I helped her up and got one arm around her.  Then, she used one of the crutches and leaned on my arm instead of the other one.  We made it to her front door without falling, and once inside she hobbled to the living room and dropped gratefully onto her couch.

“Could you do one more thing for me, please?” Gayle asked.  “I’m not ready for the basement stairs.  There’s a sealed brown folder filled with papers on my desk down there.  Would you get them for me?  My office is on the right off the staircase.”

Ilene and I had been in Gayle’s house before, but the tour had always conspicuously omitted the basement.  Gayle had brushed it off with, “It’s such a mess down there.”

The stairs were narrow; Gayle wouldn’t have made it in her present condition.  The basement had the same footprint as the main level of the house, at least fifteen hundred square feet. The stairs led into a playroom that occupied the front half.  Behind the stairs was a laundry room, Gayle’s office, and what, from the layout, must have been a large room with a locked door all the way in the back.  The door was obviously not an ordinary wood and composition construct like the others.  It looked like oak, but when I rapped my knuckles against it, I realized it was steel, fit snugly into its frame with no airspace around it.  It must be Rod’s office and he must be very paranoid about it.

I commented on it as I handed Gayle her files and sat down beside her.

“The kids call it the fort,” she said.  “We’ve been in this house six years and I’ve only been inside twice, when he was having stuff moved in.  He has a heavy-duty safe in there that would pass muster in a bank.  He says it’s because he has to handle classified materials that have to be secured to Government specifications.  He won’t discuss it, and I only know the safe exists because I was here when it was delivered.”

That explained his secretiveness, but not his overall behavior.  Still, I defended him again.  “I used to have that kind of clearance.  He has no choice, and believe me, the less you know about that room, the better.”  That was what I said, but privately, I thought, why the hell doesn’t he find a secure place to work outside the house?  He should be shielding Gayle and the kids from that stuff.  The way I’ve always done.

I’d tried to be subtle, but Gayle saw through it easily.  She put her hand on my cheek.  “You really are a good friend, Dylan.  I don’t want to lose that.”

With that, the front door burst open and two blonde-haired, nine-year-old whirlwinds exploded into the room.  She hugged her boys and looked back at me.  “Go home.”