Come Out Tonight (5 page)

“How long will you be in town?” I asked.
 

“A day, maybe two,” he said, scanning me again with those steel-blue eyes.
 
“There isn’t much we can do.”
 

At that he stood up, and I got up with him.
 
We moved over to the bedside, where he took his wife’s other hand.
 
Sherry was lying there exactly as she was before.
 
Nothing moved except the slight elevation of her chest as she breathed.
 
We stood there gazing down at her.

“Sherry, darling.” he said to his silent daughter.
 
“Just remember how much we love you.” Why did I have the feeling this was for my benefit, not hers?

HENRY

I heard Sherry’s parents came out to see her.
 
But it must have been for such a short a time that I missed them entirely, even though I’d been there every minute I could spare. The nurse said that Dr. and Mrs. Pollack flew in from
California
, watched Sherry sleep for awhile, talked to that Detective Sirken and left early that same evening.
 

What kind of parents can they be to leave their only child alone and comatose in a hospital bed and
just go home
?
 
To not care how Sherry might feel, waking up in a strange place, alone and disoriented?
 
That’s why I’d been there so much - just so that she could see a friendly face the moment she opened her eyes. I’d come and sit by her every night and every weekend, watching for the flutter of her eyelashes, waiting for the moment when her eyes would focus and she would all of a sudden make out my smiling face. I watched and I waited, but nothing really changed until a couple of weeks after she was hurt.

“Come quickly, Mr. Jackman,” the nurse said as I rounded the corner of the nurse’s station that evening.
 

“Something happened?”
 
I asked.

“See for yourself,” she said.
 

I half ran into Sherry’s room.
 
There she was, still lying there, this time on her back.
  
I didn’t notice much until I came right up to her.
 
Her eyes were open.

“Sherry! You’re awake!”
 
I shouted and went to take her in my arms, but she didn’t react.
 
Her eyes seemed to track me for a moment, and then they went off somewhere else.

“Sherry!”
 
I cried.
 
“It’s me!
 
Henry!”
 

Her lips seemed to curl into a smile, but then they didn’t.
 
I didn’t know what to think.
 
The nurse was standing there, confused as well.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I thought by the time you came, she would be fully awake.”

I wasn’t really listening at this point.
 
I was holding Sherry’s hand, whispering in her ear, kissing her face: anything to get her to focus on me.
  
She was there but she wasn’t there.
 
It was maddening.
 
Meanwhile, the nurse went out and came back with Dr. Mehta.
 
I backed off while he examined her reflexes and shined lights in her eyes.

“Could you get me a pin?” he asked the nurse, who nodded and went out of the room. I was about to speak, but he waved me off.
 
We stood around for a couple of minutes until the nurse came back and handed him a pin.
 
He pricked Sherry in the arm.
 
I thought I saw her pull her arm away.
 

“Notice the increased heart rate and respiration,” he said to the nurse.

“Is that good?” I asked.

“She’s in a vegetative state,” he said.
 
“Wakefulness without consciousness.”

I must have done a double-take.
 
“But they’re the same thing.”

“It’s a misconception,” Mehta said.
 
“Consciousness is awareness, while waking is a state of arousal where our eyes are open, our muscles are toned, and we are physically able to interact with the world.
 
The two usually occur together, but in actuality, they are separate.
  
Only in abnormal states like vegetative states and sleepwalking do they disassociate.
 
Anyway, patients usually go through a vegetative state on their way to full waking.
 
Hopefully, she’ll progress to full waking within the month.”

“But it’s already been two weeks,” I said.

“It’s hopeful,” said the doctor.
 

“Will she recover?” I asked.

“Let’s wait another month,” he said.
 
No statistics.
 
No probability.
 
I didn’t have a clue.

“Sherry,” I whispered in her ear.
 
“It’s Henry.
 
I’m here.”
 
But she didn’t answer.

*
    
*
    
*

By ten o’clock the next morning, there was already a long line of people waiting to hand in their prescriptions.
 
Carl and I were both filling orders.

“He says to wait another month,” I grumbled, closing a package.

“But she opened her eyes, Henry!
 
It’s good news,” Carl said.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t look at you.
 
She doesn’t do anything.
 
It’s almost worse.”

“You told me the doctor said it’s hopeful.
 
Henry, you want to hand me that bottle?
 
The little green one.”

“I wanted her to wake up.
 
But not like this. She’s like a zombie....”
 
I stopped to count out thirty Lipitor, and slid them into a vial.
 
“I can’t sleep.
 
I can’t eat.
 
I come to visit her every day, but all she does is lie there.
 
The doctor says she’s got normal sleep/wake patterns...”

“Well, there you go!”

“Yeah, but all that means is eight hours her eyes are closed, eight hours her eyes are open, eight hours closed, eight hours open.”

“It’ll be okay, Henry.
 
Be patient... Hey, someone’s over by the register.”

I walked over to the front where a young blonde in tight Capris and a belly-button ring was hitting the bell over and over.
 
“Hey, anyone there?” she called and hit it again.

“Okay. We’re here.
 
We’re here,” I said running over.

“I have a prescrip...Hey, it’s you!” the girl exclaimed, a big smile on her face.
 

“I don’t think we’ve...”

“Yeah, yeah!
 
Pacha last Friday night.
 
You were the guy sitting at the table under the strobe lights.”

I could hear Carl laugh.
  
“Don’t think so!
 
Last Friday night Henry would have been in his pajamas watching Antiques Roadshow...,” he called from the back.

“Cut it out, willya Carl?
 
Miss, I really don’t...”

“Edward, right?
 
You remember me.
 
My name’s Heather!”

I didn’t know what to make of this.
 
I had never seen this person in my life.
 
“My name is Henry,” I said.

But she didn’t even stop talking long enough to listen. “Geez...I mean it’s not like we don’t know each other,” she went on.
  
“My place was practically across the street.
 
You mean you don’t remember coming up afterwards?”

“I’m sorry, miss, but...”

“Miss!
 
Stop with the miss! My name is Heather!
 
And
you
said you’d call me!
 
You wrote my number down on your hand.”
 
At this point, she grabbed my left hand, pulled it to her, and turned it over.
 
She looked disappointed when she saw there was nothing written there.

“My name isn’t Edward,” I said, pulling my hand away as gently as I could.
 
“I never went to...What is Pacha?”

She looked into my eyes for a long time, puzzled.
 
Her own eyes lined in black and shaded in purple, were bloodshot.
 
Her mouth was pouting, until suddenly, a crafty little smile turned the corners up.
 
“I get it.
 
You promised you’d call, but you didn’t.
 
You’re pretending not to know me.” She shrugged.
 
“Have it your own way.” She pivoted, started to sashay out, before she turned back.
 
“Wait!” she said.
 
“I need my prescription.”

“Name?” I asked, as if none of this had just happened.

“Heather Kuznitz,” she said.

I reached behind me and riffled through the scrip carton.
 
“Abernathy, Black, Epstein, Kuznitz,”I said, pulling out the right bag.
 
Birth control pills.
 
“Forty-seven forty.”

She passed her debit card through the slot.

“Sign here,” I said, handing her a pen.

She signed.

I extended the package to her, but she didn’t take it.
 
Instead, she grabbed my hand again and turned it over and, with the pen I had given her, wrote her telephone number on my palm. Then she gave me the pen back, and with the same crafty little smile, said, “Well, it’s there
now
.
 
Call me!”
 
She turned to go, then twisted her head around coquettishly.
 
“
Edwar
d
.”

Just after she left, I felt Carl’s big paw on my shoulder.
  
“So now I see why you’re so sleepy all the time.
 
You’ve been out clubbing every night!
 
He pointed toward Heather’s receding butt.
 
“How was she?”
 
He laughed.

I shoved his hand off my shoulder.
 
“That’s not funny.
 
I never saw her in my life, and I never did anything with her.
 
I go see Sherry every night.
 
Every night.
 
That’s my life.
 
Here and the hospital.”

Carl shrugged.
 
“That’s not much of a life.
 
You’re a young guy, Henry.
 
Maybe you
should
go out clubbing. ”

I ignored that.
 
Carl’s a nice guy, but he just never understood what I felt for Sherry.
 
I didn’t want anyone else.
 
“Anyway, the reason I’m so sleepy is my Somnolux ran out.”

“Oh?
 
Didn’t know you took that stuff.”

“Well, you should.
 
You filled it last month for me.
 
I had thirty pills, but I’m out now, and it says no refills.”

“Yeah.
 
That’s because they’re addictive.
 
Better than the benzodiazepines, but still addictive.
 
You shouldn’t use them more than ten days in a row.”

“Well, with Sherry in the hospital for the past month I can’t sleep for shit,” I grumbled.
 
“I tried all the over-the-counter stuff - Sleep-Eze, Sominex, Nytol.
 
Nothing works for me.
 
All I get is constipated and drowsy the next day.
 
Except when I use too much, and then I get wired and don’t sleep at all.”

“Rebound drowsiness, yeah.”

“So, I’m sleeping, like two hours a night.”

“Too bad,” Carl said.
 
“Well, so go see your doctor.”

“Don’t have time.
 
I’m here, then I’m at the hospital.”

“If you’re nice to me, I just might call your doctor for you.
 
Tell him I’m your pharmacist and get him to renew over the phone.”

“Wouldja?
 
That’d be great.” I wrote the doctor’s name and number on a strip of paper and stuck it on the counter right in front of him.

“Right after I finish this scrip...”
 
We went back to work.
 
Suddenly, Carl laughed.
 
“Did I ever tell you about the time my wife and I were at the mall, and this bodacious babe came up to me and threw her arms around me?”

“No, I...”

“Yeah, threw her arms around me.
  
Wife pulled her off me so hard she practically hit the floor, at which time she took a good look at my face, and said, “Sorry.
 
Thought you was Mike.”
 
Carl laughed again, and picked up the strip of paper with the number.
 
“Hey pal, I’m doing this for you, but only until Sherry wakes up, and you lose all that stress.
 
Capeesh?”