Emergency Contact(27)
“What about numbness?”
He shook his head.
“Sam?”
Sam nodded. He was Sam, it was true.
“We’re going to take a walk now.”
He shook his head.
He felt her grab his arm and sling it over her shoulders. She was soaking wet, and where his sweaty bare arm met her neck it was slippery. He put weight on his legs so he, a grown man, wouldn’t have to be carried by some lady again.
“I’m going to take you somewhere so someone can examine you, okay? I’m parked real, real close. Walk with me. Please?”
“Okay,” he said.
? ? ?
Fifteen minutes later, they were in front of a MedSpring Urgent Care.
The AC was blasting and Sam was soaked though otherwise calm. He wanted badly to go home and take a nap.
Penny was silent. Even in his peripheral vision, she seemed agitated. Her hands were clutching the steering wheel so tight her knuckles were white. He couldn’t believe that Jude’s mute, macabre roommate had saved his life. He wondered if he’d have to get her a small taxidermied spider or something for her efforts.
“I’ll be right here,” she said, staring straight ahead.
Sam didn’t want to explain to her that he couldn’t afford ambulances, hospitals, or the cheaper emergency clinics in crappy strip malls.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“No you’re not.”
“I don’t have health insurance,” he admitted.
“Oh.”
“I swear to God I’m fine now,” he said after a moment. “I don’t know what that was. Probably heat stroke.”
“Have you had heat stroke before?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know that if you’ve had heat stroke once, your brain remembers the circuitry so it’s easier for you to get heat stroke again? Maybe way easier than before?”
He shook his head and recalled Penny’s earlier jokes about apps making apps. She was apparently a huge nerd.
“So . . . ,” she said. Penny’s dark eyes were shiny, and pink bloomed on her cheeks. “Wait, did you have a panic attack?”
“What? No. I don’t have panic attacks. Never in my life.” Jesus, give a girl WebMD and she starts thinking she’s a physician.
“You had a goddamned panic attack,” she said, turning away from him again. “The sweatiness, the heart-attack feeling. Oh my God!” She slapped the bottom of the steering wheel with her left hand. “It’s obvious. And you didn’t eat today. Caffeine. So dumb!”
“Okay, hold on.” He threw his hands up. “Why are you so angry?” Sam reached out to touch the back of the hand closest to him, but she jerked away, exhaling noisily.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shoulders slumping. “It’s adrenaline. Rage is my usual fear response.”
“That,” he said, “is a nifty quality.”
Nifty?
“I know,” said Penny. “Everybody just loves it. Ugh.” She groaned, rubbing her face and smearing lipstick across her chin.
He nodded. He didn’t know what to do about the lipstick. Maybe he’d get away with not saying anything until he got home.
Penny handed him a bottle of water. He took it gratefully.
Then she grabbed her black and gray camouflage backpack from the backseat, plopped it onto her lap, and rummaged through it. She handed him a small bag of raw cashews from a blue zippered bag filled with other small, compact snacks.
“Uh, sometimes it’s triggered by caffeine or low blood sugar with me,” Penny said, explaining the snack.
Okay, he had to tell her.
“You’ve got lipstick everywhere,” he said, pointing toward her chin.
She angled the rearview and sighed again.
In another compartment of her bag, this time from a black zipper bag, she pulled out a small packet of moistened wipes. A green, plastic cable tie sprang out of it and onto her lap.
“EDC,” she said, quietly putting it back.
“EDC?”
“Everyday carry,” she said. “Stuff I have on me at all times. Go bags, for emergencies.”
“As in, an apocalypse go bag, go bag?”
“Correct,” she said.
There was that incorrect, correct thing again.
“But I have this on me every day. Usually, the EDC community are guys with concealed firearms and flashlights, which I think is dumb since we have phones with a flashlight function. . . .” Penny trailed off. Sam had wondered why chicks had such big bags. He figured it was their makeup, not soft cases filled with doomsday rations and zip ties of varying length.
“Snacks are important,” he said. “And you can never have enough plastic cables.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked.
“No.” He shook his head vehemently and took another handful of cashews. “Not at all. I respect the shit out of it. Your EDC is saving my ass.”
She had a small scar above her left eyebrow and he wanted to ask about it. Maybe she’d had some bizarre things go down in her life. It would explain her whole style.
“Did everything sound all underwater?” she asked after a second. Her lips were wiped clean, and Sam noticed they looked better without all that gunk on them.