driver comes running around the car, at the same time that Pete comes bursting through the front door of the residence hall.
“Here, Heather.” He thrusts the reception desk first aid kit at me, his dark eyes wide. “I got an ambulance on the way, too.”
“Is he dead?” the limo driver asks nervously, a cell phone to his ear. Undoubtedly he’s on with Jordan’s dad.
I hand over my envelope from Banking to Pete, then rum mage through the first aid kit, find a rolled up Ace bandage, and shove that into the wound. It turns dark red almost immediately.
“Go get me a towel, or something,” I say to Pete, still in this strange, calm voice that sounds so unlike my own. Maybe it’s my future voice. You know, the voice I’m going to use in my medical practice, after I get my degree. “There are some linens left over from summer conference housing in the package room. Go get me a couple towels.”
Pete is off like a shot. People have started to gather around, Fischer Hall residents as well as people from the chess circle in the park. They all have plenty of medical advice to offer.
“Lift up his head,” one of the drug dealers urges me.
“No, lift up his feet,” someone else says. “If the face is red, raise the head. If the face is pale, raise the tail.”
“His face is red, mon.”
“That’s just from all the blood.”
“Hey, isn’t that Jordan Cartwright?”
Pete returns with several clean white towels. The first turns red after only a minute or so. The second seems to do the trick. Blood stops gushing out so alarmingly as I press the towel to Jordan’s head.
“How did it happen?” everyone keeps asking.
A man from the chess circle volunteers: “I saw the whole thing. You’re lucky you weren’t killed, lady. That thing was heading straight for you. If you hadn’t jumped outta the way—”
The police arrive before the ambulance, take one look at what I’m doing, and apparently approve, because the next thing I know, they’ve started shooing people away, telling them the show is over.
I say, urgently, “Take statements from the witnesses! This thing didn’t just fall, you know. Somebody pushed it!”
Everyone gathers eagerly around the policemen, wanting to tell their story. It’s right around then that Rachel comes running out of the building, her high heels clacking on the pavement.
“Oh, Heather!” she cries, picking her way through the shards of cement and clods of dirt and geranium. “Oh, Heather! I just heard. Is he—is he going to be—”
“He’s still breathing,” I say. I keep the towel pressed to the wound, which has finally stopped bleeding. “Where’s that ambulance?”
But right then it pulls up, and the EMS workers leap out and, thankfully, take over. I’m more than happy to get out of the way. Rachel puts an arm around my shoulders as we watch them take Jordan’s vital signs. One of the cops, meanwhile, goes inside, while the other one picks up one of the larger chunks of planter and looks at me.
“Who’s in charge here?” he wants to know.
Rachel says, “I guess that’d be me.”
“Any idea where this came from?” the cop asks, holding up the slab.
“Well, it looks like one of the cement planters from the Allingtons’ terrace,” Rachel replies. She turns and points up, toward Fischer Hall’s facade. “Up there,” she says, craning her neck. “Twentieth floor. The penthouse. There are planters like this lined all around the terrace.” She quits pointing and looks at me. “I can’t imagine how it could have happened. The wind, maybe?”
I feel really cold, but it isn’t from any wind. It’s as warm a day in fall as any.
Magda, who has joined us, seems to agree.
“There is no wind today,” she says. “On New York One they said it would be mild all day long.”
“None of those planters ever blew over before,” Pete says. “And I been here twenty years.”
“Well, you can’t be suggesting someone pushed it,” Rachel says, looking horrified. “I mean, the students don’t even have access to the terrace—”
“Students?” The cop squints at us. “This some kind of dorm, or something?”
“Residence hall,” both Rachel and I correct him automatically.
The EMS workers load Jordan onto a backboard, then onto a stretcher, and then into the back of the ambulance. As they are closing the doors, I glance at Rachel.
“I should go with him,” I say to her.
She gives me a little push toward the vehicle. “Of course, you should,” she says kindly. “You go. I’ll take care of things here. Call me and let me know how he is.”
I tell her I will, and hurry after the EMS guys, asking them if I can hitch a ride to the hospital with them. They’re totally cool about it, and let me take the passenger seat of the cab.
From the front seat, I can look back through this little door and see what the paramedic who isn’t driving is doing to Jordan. What he is doing to Jordan is asking him what day of the week it is. Apparently, Jordan’s regaining consciousness. He doesn’t know what day of the week it is, though, and only grunts in response, like someone who’d really like to go back to sleep.
I think about suggesting that they ask him who he’s engaged to, but then decide this would be too mean.
As we pull away from the hall, I notice that Rachel, Sarah, Pete, and Magda are all huddled on the sidewalk, gazing worriedly after me.
I realize then, with a kind of pang, that yeah, okay, maybe I don’t have a boyfriend.
But I do have a family.
A weird one, maybe.
But I’ve got one.
18
You got me crying
With all your lying
Why you gotta be
So mean to me?
Baby, can’t you see
You and me were
Meant to be?
Instead you got me
Crying
And you’re not even
Trying
Baby why you gotta
Be this way?
“Crying”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
