Panic(24)

“I could ask you the same thing.” She let the eggs sizzle and came over to him, and gave him a big smack on the cheek before he could pull away. “Why are you up so early?”

He could see traces of makeup. So. She’d been on a date last night. No wonder she was in a good mood.

“Didn’t feel like sleeping anymore,” he said cautiously. He wondered whether his mom would admit to going out. Sometimes she did, if a date had gone really well.

“Just in time for eggs. You want eggs? You hungry? I’m making some eggs for Dayna.” She shook the scrambled eggs onto a plate. They were perfectly scrambled, trembling with butter. Before he could answer, she lowered her voice and said, “You know all that therapy Dayna’s been doing? Well, Bill says—”

“Bill?” Dodge cut in.

His mom blushed. Busted. “He’s just a friend, Dodge.”

Dodge doubted it, but he said nothing.

His mom went on, in a rush: “He took me out to Ca’Mea in Hudson last night. Nice tablecloths and everything. He drinks wine, Dodge. Do you believe that?” She shook her head, amazed. “And he knows someone, some doctor at Columbia Memorial who works with people like Day. Bill says Dayna’s got to go more regular, like every day.”

“We can’t—” Dodge started to say, but his mom understood and finished for him.

“I told him we couldn’t afford it. But he said he could get us in, even with no insurance. Can you believe it? At the hospital.”

Dodge said nothing. They’d gotten their hopes up before—new doctor, new treatment, someone who could help. And something always went wrong. A pipe burst and the emergency fund would dry up replacing it; or the doctor would be a quack. The one time they’d managed to see someone in a real hospital, he’d looked at Dayna for five minutes, done nerve tests, banged on her knee and squeezed her toes, and straightened up.

“Impossible,” he’d said, sounding angry, like he was mad at them for wasting his time. “Car accident, right? My advice is: apply for a better chair. No reason she should be wheeling around in this piece of junk.” And he’d toed the wheelchair, the five-hundred-dollar wheelchair Dodge had busted his ass for a whole autumn trying to purchase, while his mom cried, while Dayna lay curled up every night on her bed, fetal, vacant.

“So you want eggs or not?” his mom said.

Dodge shook his head. “Not hungry.” He picked up Dayna’s plate, grabbed a fork, and carried both into the living room. She had her head sticking out of the open window, and as he entered he heard her shout, “In your dreams!” and then a burst of laughter from below.

“What’s that about?” he asked her.

She snapped around to face him. Her face went red. “Just Ricky, talking stupid,” she said, and took the plate from him. Ricky worked in the kitchen at Dot’s, and he was always sending gifts up to Dayna—cheap flowers, purchased at the gas station; little teddy bear figurines. Ricky was all right.

“Why are you staring at me?” Dayna demanded.

“Not staring,” Dodge said. He sat next to her and pulled her feet into his lap, began working her calves with his knuckles, as he always did. So she could walk again. So she would keep believing it.

Dayna ate quickly, eyes on her plate. She was avoiding him. Finally, her mouth crooked into a smile. “Ricky said he wants to marry me.”

“Maybe you should,” Dodge said.

Dayna shook her head. “Freak.” She reached out and punched Dodge’s shoulder, and he pretended it had hurt. He was overwhelmed, momentarily, with happiness.

It was going to be a good day.

He showered and dressed carefully—he’d even remembered to put his jeans in the wash, so they looked good, crisp and clean—and took the bus to Nat’s neighborhood. It was only ten thirty, but the sun was already high, hovering in the sky like a single eye. As soon as Dodge turned onto Nat’s street, he felt like he was stepping onto a TV set, like he was in one of those shows from the 1950s where someone was always washing a car in the driveway and the women wore aprons and said hello to the mailmen.

Except there was no movement here, no voices, no people hauling trash or banging doors. It was almost too quiet. That was one thing about living in the back of Dot’s: someone was always yelling about something. It was kind of comforting, in a way, like a reminder that you weren’t all alone in having problems.

Nat was waiting on her front stoop. Dodge’s stomach bottomed out as soon as he saw her. Her hair was fixed low, in a side ponytail, and she was wearing a ruffled yellow jumper-type thing, with the shirt and shorts attached, that would have looked stupid on anyone else. But on her it looked amazing, like she was some kind of life-size, exotic Popsicle. He couldn’t help but think that whenever she had to use the bathroom she’d have to get totally undressed.

She stood up, waving at him, as though he could possibly miss her, wobbling slightly on large wedge heels. She wasn’t wearing her ankle brace anymore, even though he knew she’d screwed her ankle up again running away from Donahue’s house. But she winced slightly when she walked.

“Bishop and Heather went to get iced coffees,” she said as he approached her, doing his best not to walk too quickly. “I told them to get us some too. Do you drink coffee?”

“I’d shoot coffee, if I could,” he said, and she laughed. The sound made him warm all over, even though he still felt a weird, prickling discomfort standing on her property, like he was in a One-of-These-Things-Doesn’t-Belong drawings. A curtain twitched in a ground-floor window, and a face appeared and disappeared too rapidly for Dodge to make out.