Lisey's Story(34)
Amanda gave first Lisey, then Darla her haughty, red-cheeked, Queen Elizabeth look. "I prefer to see him alone," she said.
"Of course, your Grand High Mysteriousness," Lisey said, and stuck her tongue out at Amanda. At that moment she didn't care if they kept the scrawny, troublesome bitch a night, a week, or a year and a day. Who cared what Amanda might have whispered at the kitchen table when Lisey had been kneeling beside her? Probably it had been boo, as she'd told Darla. Even if it had been the other word, did she really want to go back to Amanda's house, sleep in the same room with her, and breathe her crazy vapors when she had a perfectly good bed of her own at home? Case smucking closed, babyluv, Scott would have said.
"Just remember what we agreed on," Darla said. "You got mad and you cut yourself because he wasn't there. You're better now. You're over it."
Amanda gave Darla a look Lisey absolutely could not read. "That's right," she said. "I'm over it."
9
The car-accident folks from the little town of Sweden arrived shortly thereafter. Lisey wouldn't have counted it a good thing if any of them had been seriously hurt, but that did not appear to be the case. All of them were ambulating, and two of the men were actually laughing about something. Only one of them - a girl of about seventeen - was crying. She had blood in her hair and snot on her upper lip. There were six of them in all, almost certainly from two different vehicles, and a strong smell of beer was coming from the two laughing men, one of whom appeared to have a sprained arm. The sextet was shepherded in by two med-techs wearing East Stoneham Rescue jackets over civilian clothes, and two cops: a State Policeman and a County Mounty. All at once the little ER waiting room seemed absolutely stuffed. The nurse who had called Amanda dear popped her startled head out for a look, and a moment later young Dr. Munsinger did the same. Not long after that the teenage girl went into a noisy fit of hysterics, announcing to all and sundry that her stepmom was gonna murdalize her. A few moments after that the nurse came to get her (she didn't call the hysterical teenager dear, Lisey noted), and then Amanda came out of EXAMINATION ROOM 2, clumsily carrying her own sample-sized tubes. There were also a couple of folded prescription slips poking from the left pocket of her baggy jeans.
"I think we may go," Amanda said, still in haughty Grand Lady mode.
Lisey thought that was too good to be true even with the relative youth of the doctor on duty and the fresh influx of patients, and she was right. The nurse leaned out of EXAMINATION ROOM 1 like an engineer from the cab of a locomotive and said, "Are you two ladies Miss Debusher's sisters?"
Lisey and Darla nodded. Guilty as charged, judge.
"Doctor would like to speak to you for a minute before you go." With that she pulled her head back into the room, where the girl was still sobbing.
On the other side of the waiting room, the two beer-smelling men burst out laughing again, and Lisey thought: Whatever may be wrong with them, they must not have been responsible for the accident. And indeed, the cops seemed to be concentrating on a white-faced boy of about the same age as the girl with the blood in her hair. Another boy had commandeered the pay phone. He had a badly gashed cheek which Lisey was sure would take stitches. A third waited his turn to make a call. This boy had no visible injuries.
Amanda's palms had been coated with a whitish cream. "He said stitches would only pull out," she told them, almost proudly.
"And I guess bandages won't stay put. I'm supposed to keep this stuff on them - ugh, doesn't it stink? - and soak them three times a day for the next three days. I have one 'scrip for the cream and one for the soak. He said to try and not bend my hands too much. To pick things up between my fingers, like this." She tweezed a prehistoric copy of People between the first two fingers of her right hand, lifted it a little way, then dropped it.
The nurse appeared. "Dr. Munsinger could see you now. One or both." Her tone made it clear there was little time to waste. Lisey was sitting on one side of Amanda, Darla on the other. They looked at each other across her. Amanda didn't notice. She was studying the people on the other side of the room with frank interest.
"You go, Lisey," Darla said. "I'll stay with her."
10
The nurse showed Lisey into EXAMINATION ROOM 2, then went back to the sobbing girl, her lips pressed together so tightly they almost disappeared. Lisey sat in the room's one chair and gazed at the room's one picture: a fluffy cocker spaniel in a field filled with daffodils. After only a few moments (she was sure she would have had to wait longer, had she not been something that needed getting rid of), Dr. Munsinger hurried in. He closed the door on the sound of the teenage girl's noisy sobs and parked one skinny buttock on the examination table.
"I'm Hal Munsinger," he said.
"Lisa Landon." She extended her hand. Dr. Hal Munsinger shook it briefly.
"I'd like to get a lot more information on your sister's situation - for the record, you know - but as I'm sure you see, I'm in a bit of a bind here. I've called for backup, but in the meantime, I'm having one of those nights."
"I appreciate your making any time at all," Lisey said, and what she appreciated even more was the calm voice she heard issuing from her own mouth. It was a voice that said all this is under control. "I'm willing to certify that my sister Amanda isn't a danger to herself, if that's troubling you."