Carousel Nights (10 page)

“But you did a great job with Ross. He talked about it all the way home.”

He did?
Ross was so sweet, he almost made her wish she had a child just like him.

“That's different,” she said.
Very different
. “He's enthusiastic and a willing participant. Besides, you must be a good instructor. How else would our summer maintenance workers learn how to do their jobs?”

“That's easy,” Mel said, grinning and raising one eyebrow. “Got a couple of retired teachers on my staff. I put them on the job of training new guys every year. They have the patience of saints and understand how to teach. I don't.”

“So, on top of being a top-notch maintenance man, you're a good delegator, too.”

“And I'm best friends with the boss. Helps me keep my job,” Mel said.

“Jack's no more your boss than I am,” June said, smiling and stepping closer.

“Maybe I wasn't talking about him.”

“Do you really consider me your boss?” she asked.

Mel shook his head. “I was talking about your sister. Evie has developed her penchant for accounting into a full-scale assault on all fronts. I think she's getting ready to take over the whole place.” He winked at June. “Wouldn't want to tangle with her.”

June curled her fingers and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

“Then you better get to work,” she said. “We're all on the clock.”

CHAPTER TEN

T
HE
SHOWS
HAD
been open for a week, and June was convinced they were a success. Ushers counted the number of audience members at each show and, compared with last year's information, attendance was up.

New costumes, music, theme and choreography were part of the draw—the part June felt justified taking credit for. But she had to hand it to this summer's group of performers. They could sing, dance and smile with some of the best she'd worked with on Broadway. If they were using this as a proving ground on their way to something bigger—and they were, of course—they had great careers ahead of them.

June attended shows in each theater every day, pretending she didn't know the whole show inside and out, imagining what it must be like to see it for the first time. From front rows, back rows, side rows with pillars partially obscuring the stage, she tried to see each show from a theater patron's perspective.

Today, she was watching from backstage at the Starlight Saloon. She'd dashed over from a meeting with her brother and sister and was too late to grab one of the tables. As she leaned against a wall she'd painted black herself, June crossed her arms and watched the girls smile and dance a circle around the guys in the show. A country and Western–theme show with gadgets and gears giving it a trendy steampunk feel, this show had several solo singing performances.

One of the girls, Christina, had a perfect voice for the venue. Patrons set down their drinks and listened. It was hard to believe someone so thin could produce that kind of volume.

Usually.

But something was off today. June pushed off the wall and focused on the performers on stage. Christina sang the familiar country tune, but without any gusto. She skipped the second verse. Even though her smile never faded, she waved to the audience and left the stage.

June briefly noticed the other dancers scrambling to ad-lib in her absence, but it was soon the last thing on her mind. Christina clutched her chest and staggered to her knees as soon as the side curtain hid her from the audience.

“What's wrong?” June whispered urgently, hurrying to her side and kneeling next to her.

“Heart. Racing. Can't breathe.”

June laced an arm under Christina's shoulders and raised her to her feet.

The girl weighed nothing.

June persuaded her into the green room behind the stage and flipped on the light. Loud music from the show was thumping through the wall, but June's heart was thudding in her ears. She lowered Christina onto the couch and took a good look at her. She was ghost-white, a clammy sheen of sweat covering her skin. She still clutched her chest and struggled to breathe.

Hands shaking, June called the central dispatch at the Point and made an urgent request for the fire office scooter. They were close by, an access gate not far from the Saloon led right to the fire office and maintenance building.

June propped open the back door so the firefighters could easily find them and returned to Christina.

“What can I do?” June said, kneeling in front of the girl, willing her to breathe.

Christina shook her head.

“Do you have a heart condition? Has this ever happened to you before?”

The girl shook her head, still clutching her chest, her breathing worsening.

“Do you need medicine? Can I look in your bag for it?”

June would have raced up the stairs on any roller coaster in the park at that moment if only Christina would keep breathing until the firefighters got there. CPR. She'd taken a course several years ago to refresh her memory from the lifeguard training she did when she was fifteen. She could do it.

If she absolutely had to.

“Christina, tell me what happened. Did something happen?”

She shook her head, unable to speak between gasps. Her tiny frame shuddered with the effort. June wrapped her fingers around the girl's wrist, trying to find and follow a pulse. There was no flesh on her skinny arms.

Reality slapped June in the face.
Why hadn't she seen it?
The bane of professional dancers.

“Have you had anything to eat today?” June asked.

Christina's head snapped up for a second and then she returned to watching the floor as she struggled to breathe.

June heard movement behind her and the buzz of a radio.
Thank goodness
.

“What do we have?” a firefighter asked. June knew him, an older man who'd worked summers at the Point for years. She glanced at his name tag. Of course. Andrew. She knew that. But she was so panicked she hardly knew her own name right now.

Andrew gently moved June aside and took her place right in front of Christina, where he could evaluate her.

“Medical history?” he asked June.

“No idea. None I know of, but I don't know.”

He felt the victim's pulse and watched her struggle to breathe for only five seconds.

“We've got to move. Now.” He scooped up the frail girl and walked out the door as if he carried a doll. June followed, numb with shock. Andrew placed the girl on the cot and his partner got in the driver's seat of the scooter.

“Get in,” Andrew said, nodding at June and indicating the front passenger seat.

June jumped in the scooter and they took off. The younger firefighter said something over his radio. When they approached the gate that led to the fire office and maintenance area, Mel was there holding the gate open. June's cheeks were cold and she realized it was the combination of tears and the breeze created by the fast-moving open scooter.

The scooter pulled up right behind the ambulance. It was already running. Mel probably started it, too. The firefighters loaded Christina in the ambulance while June stood nearby, devastated by watching the girl try to breathe. They both got in the back with her.

Mel raced up on foot. Andrew leaned out the open back door and eyed Mel. “Can you drive? We could use two people in the back on this one, and the other squad's already on a call at the marina.”

“Yes,” Mel said. He headed for the driver's seat.

“You come, too, ride up front,” Andrew said to June. “Let's move.”

June climbed in the front seat and Mel put the ambulance in gear and drove swiftly out of the lot.

“Don't run the siren on the outer road,” Andrew said. He stuck his head in the pass-through from the cab area of the ambulance to the back. “You can hit it as soon as we get to the parking lot.”

“Andrew,” June said, catching his sleeve. “I think she has an eating disorder. Maybe anorexia or bulimia. I've seen it before with dancers. Does that help you understand what's going on with her?”

“I know what's going on with her. Her heart's way out of rhythm and we'll be lucky if we're not using the defibrillator before we get to the hospital.”

Mel's fingers ran over the switches on the dashboard as he tried to watch the road. They were all labeled with their purpose.

“I'll do it,” she said. “I see the one labeled siren and overhead lights. I can run them.”

“Thanks,” Mel said grimly, carefully navigating the curves around the amusement park. The blue lake sparkled on their right as they rounded the peninsula, but there was nothing to be cheerful about.

“I've driven this vehicle before, for maintenance and such, but never for something like this.”

“Are you...licensed or anything for driving an ambulance?” June asked. Her voice shook and she let the tears roll freely down her cheeks.

“No. But I sure as hell wasn't going to refuse.”

June's hands still trembled, but she leaned forward and found the siren switch as soon as Mel reached the front parking. Her cell phone rang and Evie's picture popped up.

“It's Evie,” she said. “I'll call her back in a little while.”

Mel nodded, focusing on driving as they passed the tollbooths and started across the Point Bridge. It would only be ten minutes, tops, until they got to Bayside Hospital.

“I should have realized weeks ago that something wasn't right,” June said. Over the siren, she couldn't hear what was happening in the back of the ambulance, and she was afraid to look.

“What do you mean?”

“I'm afraid Christina has an eating disorder. You can't believe how much of that there is in the dancing world.” She took a deep breath, trying to control her sobs before they broke free. “It's so competitive.”

Mel took one hand off the wheel and closed it over June's hand. “Did she confide in you or ask for help?”

“No. I can ask the other dancers if they had any idea, but my guess is she was hiding it. That happens too much.”

“Don't blame yourself. You were there when she needed you most. You may have saved her life.”

“I hope so.”

Barely taking his eyes off the road, Mel raked her with a quick glance. “You'd never do that, would you? Hurt yourself to compete in New York?”

“Of course not,” June said. She smoothed her skirt over her knee with a guilty sinking feeling.
It isn't the same thing. Right?
She had to keep her thoughts on Christina and what they could do to save her right now.

June watched the traffic ahead and blew the air horn as they approached an intersection.

“You're pretty good at that,” Mel commented.

“Desperation,” June said. “I'm glad you're at the wheel. I couldn't drive right now if my life depended on it.”

“Yes, you could. You're strong enough to survive the dog-eat-dog world of Broadway.”

If he only knew how close she'd come to causing permanent damage to her knee.

June swallowed. “Two years ago, a dancer who was in the same production as me died suddenly. They figured out later she'd been hiding an eating disorder and had been slowly damaging her heart for years.”

“Did you know her very well?”

“No, but she roomed in the same building with a lot of the company.”

“I'm sorry,” Mel said. “I'd think her friends or roommates might have noticed.”

“I wish they had.” June thought of her three closest friends in New York. Would she notice if Cassie, Macy or Ian had a serious problem?
I'm never letting this happen to someone again if I can help it.

Mel steered into the emergency entrance of the hospital and parked. He unhooked her seat belt and then his. They both heard the back doors of the ambulance open. “I'll be right by your side,” Mel said.

A crew from the emergency room was waiting and they worked with the firefighters to whisk Christina inside. June followed, glad to have Mel's arm around her.

* * *

M
EL
AND
J
UNE
waited in hard plastic chairs outside the emergency room. The Starlight Point firefighters had left as soon as they could, needing to get themselves and the ambulance back in service.

“You should call Evie back now,” Mel suggested. “She'll wonder what happened, and we're eventually going to need a ride back to the Point.”

“I'll step outside,” June said.

“Want me to come with you?”

She shook her head. “I'll be okay.”

June didn't look okay to him. Tear-stained cheeks, shaking hands, eyes that looked like they'd seen a ghost. He'd find a machine and get two cups of coffee while she made her phone call. It was all he could do.

Lucky for him, he had several dollar bills in his wallet and the coffee machine was close by. He was waiting for June, hot coffee singeing both his hands, when she returned.

“Evie's on the way,” she said. “She heard what happened with Christina and wanted to know how she is. I wish I knew.”

“Maybe we'll hear something soon.”

They were halfway through their coffee, sipping in silence, when a nurse called for the family of Christina Bertram.

“She's stable right now,” the nurse explained when June and Mel had followed her into the hallway of the emergency room. Gloomy fluorescent lights illuminated curtained rooms in long, solemn rows. “The doctor wants to talk to a representative from her family.”

“I'm not family,” June said, “but I'm her employer and I work with her.”

“Can you get her family contact information?”

“Yes, my sister is bringing it. She'll be here soon.” June touched the nurse's arm. “Will she be okay?”

Please let her be okay
, Mel thought. Ever since he had a child of his own, his heart had found a whole new dimension. He looked at everyone and remembered they were somebody's child, and that somebody loved them desperately. He wondered if Christina's parents knew about their daughter's medical condition. They had to.
They would now.

The nurse glanced from June to Mel and back. “I can't say much, but I can tell you she's going to need a lot of treatment.”

Evie arrived soon after Mel and June returned to their plastic chairs. She hugged June so tightly a bystander would have thought it was June who'd just escaped death.

“I'm so sorry about Christina,” Evie said. “Do you know if she's going to be okay?”

June told her sister everything they knew, which was very little. Evie gave the hospital staff the emergency contact information and offered to stay until Christina's parents got there. She had already called them before she left the Point, and they would be there in less than two hours. The nurse said it wasn't necessary for them to stay as Christina would be resting anyway.

“Can I see her before we go?” June asked.

Mel thought June was braver than he was. He just wanted to go hug his son and take him to lunch. Let his five-year-old smiles erase the pain he'd witnessed.

“Just for a minute,” the nurse said, “but she's sleeping. You can take a peek.”

“Want me to go with you?” Mel offered.