The Queen of Hearts(69)
Hannah, who was nearly four inches shorter than me, nodded into my chest, hiccupping a little as her sobs quieted down, giving me the oddly maternal comfort of being able to soothe someone else. We kept holding each other, ignoring the sad, hushed chatter vibrating through the courtyard and the bloodstains and the police and the muted city sounds, until finally I became aware Ken was patiently idling nearby.
We were almost to the car when I caught sight of a bright iridescent flash in my peripheral vision: Georgia. She was charging toward us, wearing a lime green rhinestoned pantsuit under her white coat, her flaming hair in a fat bun secured by metal chopsticks, her forehead and eyebrows creased by confusion. Across the quad, Rolfe and Landley took notice of Georgia’s presence and began shuffling toward us too.
Georgia reached out uncertainly. “Dudes,” she said. “Why is everybody crying?”
Chapter Twenty-nine
A GOOD WAKE NEEDS HARD LIQUOR
Autumn, 1999: Louisville, Kentucky
For a moment nobody could answer. Georgia’s eyes traced across the yellow police tape down to the oily dark patches on the stone, then over to Rolfe, who had almost reached us. “Who—” she began. She stopped. “What is all this? What happened?”
Rolfe looked wrecked. For the first time I could ever remember, there was not a trace of his insouciant light; he was lifeless and dull. Landley gestured toward him and mouthed to me, Can’t talk about it.
“Can’t talk about what?” Georgia cried. “Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Graham is dead,” Landley said. “He shot himself.”
We waited while Georgia cycled through the facial gymnastics of shock: incomprehension, disbelief, pain, and finally openmouthed horror. Her vivid features crumpled on themselves in dismay as Landley, in a low voice, filled her in.
After a terse consultation, everyone agreed to reconvene at my apartment that evening, with a backup plan in place—Rolfe’s—if Emma objected.
Ken swung the growly sports car back into the street, alighting a short time later under the porticoed ambulance entrance to the ER. At first it looked as though only Nick was there, inexplicably re-dressed in a white cape, but as we drew up, it became apparent he was wrapped in a coarse blanket from one of the ER’s warmers. Emma huddled underneath it, her face mashed against his chest, her hair in its two long French braids giving her the appearance of a young child. She did not open her eyes as they tucked her into the backseat next to me.
Nick and Ken had a hushed conversation at the driver’s-side window, their deep, low voices indecipherable but soothing, somehow, like the barely heard sound of protective grown-up voices murmuring outside your room when you are small. I saw Nick hand Ken a slip of paper (a prescription?), which he folded and tucked in his pocket. Beside me, Emma was a frozen lump, her harsh breathing the only sign she was alive.
—
By seven o’clock my friends were convened in our apartment. The rooms glowed with candlelight, warm air suffusing through the tidied open kitchen-living space, which I had hastily purged of random Graham paraphernalia: Sports Illustrateds, which had accumulated in the bathroom, providing Emma and me with a source of long-running mockery—what did guys do in there that took so long?—enormous stinky shoes and socks, which tended to fester under the grubby plaid reclining chair Graham favored; on the kitchen counter bottles of creatine, which Graham took for some dubious workout-related benefit; baseball caps clinging to doorknobs; faded, soft Graham-smelling T-shirts; a few nasty tins of snuff, which many of the guys took at the hospital when required to stay awake for obscene periods of time; and, sadly, Graham’s white coat, embroidered with his name, hanging with forlorn droopiness in the tiny foyer, waiting in vain for his large form to fill it again.
All of this and more I scooped up and placed in a plastic storage bin under my bed, giving each little everyday object a bittersweet caress, not wanting Emma to be confronted with Graham detritus at every glance. But I didn’t have the audacity to enter Emma’s room, where, of course, most of Graham’s things resided.
“A good wake needs hard liquor,” Landley said, morosely draped over the edge of the sofa. “Whaddaya got, Fletch?”
“I think there’s some Four Roses above the fridge,” I remembered. I fetched it along with some shot glasses and handed them to Landley, who distributed them. “To Graham,” he intoned, and we raised our glasses, holding them in the air for a great deal longer than the usual toast, as if waiting for Graham to materialize and join us.
Instead, the door to Emma’s room opened and she drifted out, bumping slightly against the doorframe on the way. Her braids were down and her beautiful hair waved around her, floating halfway down her back. Nick had indeed given her a prescription for Xanax, which went a long way in Emma’s virgin system; she drooped over to the couch and plopped down, half onto me and half onto Landley, the back of her head frizzed up and a tiny bit of dried drool crusting the corner of her lower lip. But the medicine had its intended effect: she was very calm.
“I love you guysh,” she mumbled, and closed her eyes.
“We love you too, Em,” said Georgia, stroking Emma’s foot from her spot on the floor. “Anything you need . . .”
“Emma.” Rolfe stood up and began meandering around the room, picking things up and setting them down, as restless as Emma was blunted. “Should we not talk about it?”