Good Riddance(56)

“Where is it now?”

I gave his arm a nudge with my elbow. “I had to run into my apartment for my coat and bag, didn’t I, before jumping into the ambulance?”

He smiled.

“I know. She’ll kill me.”

Whatever his reaction was, it had to wait because her father was walking back toward us. We reset our expressions to Good Samaritan. I asked, “Good news?”

He seemed to have acquired some manners, perhaps due to relief. “They stitched her up here”—tapping his own scalp—“keeping her for an EKG. Also, they’re x-raying her elbow. So thanks. You can go. How about if I get you an Uber?”

I said yes he could, that would be very nice.

Jeremy asked if they were keeping her overnight.

“Doubt it. They don’t keep anyone overnight anymore. I had a cabbage and I stayed for one night! Jesus! You’d think they’d want the business!”

“Cabbage?” Jeremy repeated.

“Coronary bypass surgery,” Wisenkorn said. “Which, by the way, I came through like a man of forty. That’s what they told me.”

“Did you get to talk to her?” I asked.

“About what?”

Could the man not answer the most logical question? “About what happened to her—whether she fainted and hit her head or slipped and knocked herself out on the way down?”

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you,” he said.

“It’s safe with us,” I said.

“Okay, but this is as far as I can go: It’s a condition she doesn’t like to talk about.”

I said, “As her neighbors, we should know in case this happens again. I think we would be, like, a safety net—”

“Daphne’s a teacher. She knows first aid,” said Jeremy.

Mr. Wisenkorn seemed to be weighing caretaking versus the wrath of Geneva. He sat down again. “Okay. She has a condition. We used to call them petit mal seizures. She’d just go blank, stop in her tracks, once in a while lose consciousness. It’s why we never let her get her driver’s license. Now they call them”—he fished out a small square of paper and opened it—“absence seizures. Whatever.”

“So this has happened before?” I asked, earning me a lecture on Geneva’s productive, healthy, accomplishment-filled lifestyle. “She’s making a film right now,” he said. “Working day and night. About a yearbook.”

Jeremy and I went silent. I refrained from saying, Oh, really, like I didn’t tell you fifteen minutes ago that I was dragged kicking and screaming into a stupid podcast titled The Yearbook?

Jeremy took over, asking in born-yesterday fashion, “A film? Did she tell you anything more about it?”

I felt this was my cue to add, “Jeremy is an actor. When he hears ‘film’ his ears perk right up.”

I could see Jeremy weighing his options: either go along with Daphne’s riff on film or set the record straight. He said, “A slight correction: Your daughter’s project may’ve started out as a documentary in her mind, but that went nowhere so she started a podcast—”

“And you’re producing it!” I said.

“I am? Me? I’m the producer?

“It just means you bankrolled it.”

“I thought ‘podcast’ meant ‘documentary,’ but what the hell do I care? She asks me to fund her projects and I usually say yes.”

“Even without asking for the details or who it might hurt—” I started to rant.

“Uber? Now would be good,” Jeremy said.

Mr. Wisenkorn took out his phone, tapped to unlock it, and handed it to Jeremy. “Here. You do it. Andrew calls them for me.”

“Andrew’s your husband?” I asked.

His yes was delivered warily, as if unsure of my sympathies.

“Good for you,” I said. “Belated congratulations.”

Jeremy said, “All set . . . We have Zahid a block away.”

I asked Mr. Wisenkorn when he thought Geneva would be released. Would be back in her apartment, discovering the larceny.

“Now. Today. But she’s coming home with me for a day or two at least.”

“Which is where?”

“Woodmere.”

“Will you be stopping by the apartment for her things?” I asked.

Fortunately, that sounded to her father like another caring gesture, an offer to gather and pack what Geneva might need during her Long Island convalescence.

“Thanks, but she keeps stuff at our place.”

He surprised me with a hug and a thank-you that finally, apologetically, had some warmth to it.

We ran out the door to Tenth Avenue. Zahid was already there, double-parked and asking “Mr. Myron?” We said yes, close enough. I wondered aloud on the short ride back to our building what would happen when Geneva discovered that the yearbook was missing.

“Why? You didn’t take it.” He smiled. “She probably misplaced it. It’s hard to keep track of things after a whack on the head, right?”

“You’re saying I’ll deny it?”

“Sure. She would. And when she keeps accusing you, you tell her to come over and search your apartment. Ransack it. See what she finds, which will be diddly-squat.”