This Close to Okay(63)

“What can I do? How can I help?” a man in a bee costume bent down and asked.

“Okay, okay. Go out to the street and direct the ambulance here,” Tallie said to him, speaking for the first time since it all happened. The bee flung his bobbing antennae in the leaves and ran. The heat whipped through the cool air. Someone threw a bucket of pool water on the fire pit, then another, until it finally fell dark. The back of Tallie’s hair splashed cold on her neck.

“Li, are you okay?” Zora asked, from her knees.

Emmett touched her shoulder. “He’ll be okay.”

“Are you okay?” she asked him. Emmett was nodding as soon as she opened her mouth.

Lionel hissed and groaned, mumbled incoherently. Emmett touched his face, talked to him in a measured, soothing voice, like he was a small child. Tallie was scared to look at his body again; she could smell the burning flesh. She sat down next to them and echoed Emmett in words and movement. Looking only at Lionel’s face and talking to him, reassuring him they’d called for help. She told him how much she loved him and that he’d be okay. Lionel’s best friend, Ben, was next to them doing the same thing until a siren pinched the air and whirling red lights dizzied streaks across the sea of trees encircling the house.

“Hey, Li. Li, look at me, man. Help is here already, and God sees us. He’s not going to let anything else happen to you. This was it. We’ll be right here with you,” Emmett said.

“Li, you’ll be okay. Don’t move. Just don’t move, okay?” Tallie said, repeating it like a charm. Zora did the same. Emmett put his hand flat on Lionel’s chest and kept his mouth close to Lionel’s ear. Tallie watched Emmett’s whispering mouth move. Lionel grunted, sucked in a deep breath, sobbed it out. Tallie hadn’t seen her brother cry since they were kids. Seeing Lionel cry scared her more than anything else. She shivered on her stockinged knees next to Emmett. The ground tilted beneath them, didn’t it?

“Help is here, Li. Help is here,” she said to him. Was he nodding? “Don’t move.”

“Hold still,” Emmett said.

“Li,” Zora said through tears.

The costumed crowd was silent now save for crying and reverent whispers. Someone had turned off the music. The glowing water licked the swimming pool, ticked like a slowed clock. The projection screen flickered blue.

“Dear God, please, please, please let him be okay,” Tallie prayed aloud, standing once the EMTs jingled up and clanked through the leaves, the night grass, onto the stone.

*



Once Emmett and Tallie were at her car, she got her phone from her purse in the trunk and called her parents, told them what had happened, what hospital they were following the ambulance to. Emmett was driving. Tallie had taken his face in her hands and made him stare into her eyes, double-checking to see if he was too impaired. “I’m fine, Tallie. Tallie, I’m good,” he’d said, loosening his tie and slipping it out of the collar. He’d tossed it in the backseat before starting the engine and putting the car in reverse. Zora’s brother and sister were staying behind at the house to keep an eye on things. The partygoers who were okay to drive had stuffed themselves into cars, disappearing into the night. The too-drunk or too-stoned ones who weren’t passed out were left wandering around the house in a daze. The world was so loud again—engines and slamming car doors and tires slicking the wet pavement—the sharp shift in mood still vibrating the air. They followed the ambulance down Lionel’s street, turning onto the main road and gunning up the highway ramp.

“Do you really think he’ll be okay?” Tallie asked. She was shaking. She’d started when Lionel caught fire and hadn’t stopped.

“Yes,” he said calmly and nodded.

“You…you just sprang to action. How’d you know what to do?”

“It’s important to get the person on the ground. Our natural impulse is to remain standing or to run, which makes everything worse.”

“Shit. Thank you,” Tallie said. “Are your hands okay?” She took his right hand in hers, turned it over. Emmett winced and returned it to the steering wheel. His clothes clutched a fiery funk she could taste.

“We’re almost there. He’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.”

*



At the hospital, Zora was with Lionel, and everyone else sat in the waiting room. Tallie’s parents and stepmother walked through the automatic doors at the same time.

“Zora’s back there with him,” Tallie said as she went to them.

“But he was awake? Talking to you?” her dad asked. He and Glory stood there in jogging suits, squeaky sneakers, and raincoats.

“Right after it happened, he was talking to Emmett. Emmett put his jacket around him and got him on the ground. He put the fire out,” Tallie said, pointing toward Emmett, who was sitting in a chair by the wall. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his tender hands curved in c’s, straight out in front of him. Tallie had begged him to let a doctor look at his hands, but he’d refused. His palms were red and raw. She’d gone across the street to the twenty-four-hour drugstore and gotten aloe, antibiotic ointment, and gauze. Talked him into letting her tend and wrap his hands herself as they waited.

“So Lionel’s okay? Is Emmett okay? Is anyone else hurt?” her mom asked, furiously chewing her nicotine gum.