Three Day Summer(12)

“Whoa. Okay, first of all: INDOOR VOICE, YOUNG MAN.” Anna is just as loud as the guy, and his eyes get saucer-wide at the sound of it. I suddenly recognize him as Peach Fuzz from the day before. In fact, I think I saw him making out with his blond girlfriend on my way over here.

“I’m sorry,” Peach Fuzz whispers.

“What’s your name?” Anna asks.

“Michael,” he whispers.

“And what did you take?”

Michael just shakes his head and presses his lips against each other hard. His eyes remain huge and dilated. I don’t think he has blinked once.

Anna turns to Michael’s two companions. “It’s all right. He won’t get in trouble. I just need to know so we can help him.”

“Acid,” the taller kid says.

“What color?” Anna asks.

Both of them think about this for a moment. “I think it was brown,” Rob finally says, and I realize I remember his name.

Anna notes it on her chart.

“When will it be safe to get old?” Michael whispers.

“Do we have to stay with him?” the taller kid asks, an unmistakable panic in his eyes. “The show’s about to start any minute now. . . .”

He trails off as a child of maybe about eight wanders into the tent, his left knee bleeding profusely. A moment later, a short, dark-haired woman comes meandering in after him. “Think we need a Band-Aid,” she says in a Southern drawl.

Unfazed as ever, Anna quickly ushers Michael toward a chair and motions for me to take some of his vitals. She then takes the mother and child to a separate corner. “Tell me what happened,” I hear her ask in her matter-of-fact voice.

I make sure Michael is in place before I take my penlight and stare into his glassy eyes. If it’s possible, they just get bigger. I’m surprised his tear ducts haven’t kicked in by now.

I look back at his two companions and see that their panic hasn’t abated in the slightest. The taller one is staring at the boy with the bloody knee and looks on the verge of a freakout himself.

“Hey, what are your names?” I ask them. “Actually, you’re Rob, right?” I smile at him. I’m not likely to forget that physique anytime soon.

“Yeah . . . ,” he says, eyeing me suspiciously before breaking into a grin. “Groovy. A psychic nurse.”

Clearly, meeting me was not as memorable for him.

“And you are?” I turn to the very tall guy standing next to him, the one who keeps staring at the child’s bloody knee.

Rob hits his companion in the elbow to get his attention.

“Evan,” he finally says, tearing his eyes away from the blood.

“I’m Cora. Honestly, I think this one’ll be a while, fellas,” I say as I feel for Michael’s pulse. “How about I keep Michael in here and you come get him at, say, around . . .” I look at my watch. It’s eleven a.m. “Let’s say one?”

“Oh my God,” Michael says and I see him staring agape at my watch, before turning his gaze back onto me. “You have caught time. In there,” he whispers as he points at my watch. “You are the master. How did you do it?”

“Better make that two,” I say. “Can you do that? Come back at two for him?”

“Yeah,” Rob says. Evan mumbles something unintelligible and then they both scramble out of there. I can almost see cartoon zoom marks in their wake. I sincerely hope they come back for Michael. It’s a big farm and it won’t be hard for him to lose his friends.

“Can you give time back to me?” he asks when I turn to him again.

“Sure. First, just open your mouth.” I use a tongue depressor and my penlight again. Then the otoscope to check his ears.

“Okay, Michael. So here’s what we’re going to do. First, I’m going to give you some tea.”

“Tea?” he asks.

“Yes. And then, we’re going to go for a little walk just around the tent.” Believe it or not, these are our actual instructions for dealing with freakouts. Which is why Anna handed him off to me so easily. Nothing a candy striper can’t handle, especially a veteran one.

I find a plastic cup and pour water out of the kettle that’s being kept warm on a small gas burner. Then I take a Lipton packet out of a bin and plop it in, dunking it a few times.

“Here you go,” I say. “Drink up.”

Michael goes to take a sip, but then looks at me suspiciously for a moment, squinting his light green eyes. “And then . . . you’ll show me?”

“I’ll show you . . . ?” I wait for him to finish his thought.

“How you lassoed time?”

“Oh, yes. Definitely. Time lassoer. That’s me.” I have discovered in my one day working here that it’s best to just go along with whatever is happening in our patients’ heads. As much as soberly possible, anyway.

“Finish that and we’ll have a chat all about it.”

Michael looks satisfied as he takes a sip of his tea. I think I finally see him blink.





chapter 14


Michael


Two enormous brown eyes are staring into mine. Thick lashes frame them. They look like feathers. Wait, no. They are feathers. They are the brown circular orbs found in peacock feathers. And now they are multiplying. There were two, now four. Only this bird is red and white, with thin stripes like rivulets of deep red blood going through every feather.