Dream & Dare (2 page)

Bibi routinely called him on his shit, so she wasn’t at all surprised to see him look disappointed to meet her in the hallway. “Mrs. Elliott.”

“Doctor. Were you scheduled to come today?”

“No.”

That was it. No explanation about why he’d been to see her husband unannounced. “No? There a problem?”

“Dr. Mitson asked me to check on him. Your husband isn’t making the cognitive progress he should be. The skull needs to be repaired, but the anesthesia for that procedure could further compromise cognition.”

A piece of Hoosier’s skull had been removed to give room for his brain to swell and recover, or something like that, and they’d implanted it in his abdomen. It was all mysterious and macabre. But Bibi knew that they were anxious to put Humpty Dumpty back together. So was she. What Philpott was monotoning, though, made no sense. “And what the hell does that all mean?”

He sighed, and Bibi could see him pulling up his manners. “Your husband is seventy-three years old. Prolonged anesthesia at that age can cause substantial cognitive losses. It can trigger dementia, even in patients without no previous brain trauma. It’s important that we restore the fragment as soon as we can, but we’d hoped that he would at least be speaking again before we did so. From what we can tell, his memory and contextual associations are still weak. We’re running out of time to wait.”

Gritting her teeth against the vitriol she wanted to unleash on this superior asshat, Bibi took a breath. “I’m askin’ again, Doc. What does it mean? For Hooj? For me? What can I do?”

“It means that we are going to have to restore his skull soon, and the more improvement he can make before we do, the better his chances of recovering…everything. What you can do is try to help him. Talk to him. Help him remember. Help him…” Philpott stopped and looked away, past her. When his eyes met hers again, he looked pleased, like he’d thought of something. “He needs to have something to say. Try this. Did you have a good marriage? Happy?”

Jesus God, this son of a bitch needed a good, hard slap. “We
do
have a good marriage. We’re still havin’ it. Yeah, we’re happy. Why’s that your business?”

“Tell him the story of it. Like he’s someone who wasn’t there. Tell him all of it. He responds most and best to you. I’ve heard you talking with him. You tell him about your life now. He doesn’t remember that life. Try to access his most important memories. Lead him back to the present.”

Bibi stared at the doctor. Never before had he said anything so
metaphorical
before. And for the first time, he’d said something that made sense to her. She thought she understood what she could do for her man.

But God, it would hurt. Because what if that life was simply lost to him? If it was lost to him, it would be lost to her, too.

The life they’d lived these forty-two years, she’d made herself ready for the day she’d have to carry on without him, the day he didn’t come home. But she’d never prepared for days like these, when he was just on the other side of that thick, glass wall. Tantalizingly close, but beyond her reach.

“Okay, Doc. I’ll try.”

Philpott nodded brusquely and gave an awkward pat to her arm. “Good. I’ll be in touch.”

When he had gone down the hall and turned the corner, Bibi went into Hoosier’s room.

Though the thought of losing even more of him terrified her more than she could think, she would be glad when his skull was repaired. The burn scars didn’t bother her. The cannula he needed to wear all the time to get enough oxygen barely registered in her notice, but even after three months, she had not become used to the sight of his oddly sloping head, or the ungainly lump in his belly.

He was sitting up in bed. The television was on, as it always was. He watched, but he never reacted to what he saw, and he didn’t seem to care what program was on. When she came in, though, he turned to the door. His eyes lit up, and he smiled the smile that was the first thing she’d ever known of him.

Remembering that night, so very long ago, when she’d turned away from the bar in a basement club in East Hollywood and nearly collided with a leather-clad chest, she smiled. She could still feel his hands over hers as he’d steadied the beers she’d been holding. And that smile had been just above eye-level. Hoosier wasn’t quite six feet tall, but Bibi herself was no Amazon, so she’d had to tilt her head back to see the face holding up that knowing smirk.

It had been a good face. Those dark eyes. The straight nose. The dark hair, a little bit shaggy. He’d managed both to stick out and fit in in that grimy punk club.

Now, in this unfortunate present, Bibi went to the bed and planted a soft, lingering kiss on her old man’s lips. He pursed them, all he would do to kiss her back these days. But when she straightened up and moved to set her bag down, he grabbed her hand and held on.

His eyes fixed on hers. He was pleading. She could almost hear him, in the distance, deep inside his head, shouting to be freed. Begging for her help.

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she let her bag just drop to the floor, and she patted his hand. “You know what, darlin’?” With her free hand, she dropped the side rail. When she was seated on the side of the bed, facing him, she lifted his hand, roughened and gnarled by a long, hard, physical life, spotted with age and sun, and now scarred by fire, and kissed it. His rings were gone, even his wedding ring, which she’d given him on their first anniversary. They were all in a little bowl on the dresser in Faith and Demon’s guestroom, where she lived.

Because she was homeless. They had lost everything.

Except each other. And their family.

Thinking of little Tucker, so fierce and protective already, so resolute and serious, thinking of how quickly he’d grown and caught up once he’d been allowed to live in love and be nurtured by family—and how his father had been healed in the same way—Bibi smiled. “You know what, darlin’? I am goin’ to tell you a story today. It’s the best story I know.” She kissed his hand again and squeezed it hard.

“Once-a-time,” she began.

TWO

“You remember Gina?” Bibi asked, not expecting any response. And she didn’t get one, but still, she had Hoosier’s perfect attention. “Damn, I haven’t thought about her in a long time. I wonder what she’s up to now.”

Bibi paused, thinking about the roommate she’d found in the personals section of the paper. The first friend she’d had in L.A. “Remember how she used to call me Natchez? Drove me fuckin’ nuts. But she was great. She shocked the hell outta me when I first met her. But I wouldn’t’ve met you if I’d followed my first impulse and backed slowly out of her place.”

Bibi had ended up alone in Los Angeles the way lots of girls seemed to end up alone in that town: she’d gone with a boy from their hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. Within two months of her first sighting of the Hollywood sign, and within the same two months of her high school graduation, she’d been alone and homeless. Her people had been so angry and judgmental about her decision to go west. Her father had told her that if she left she could never come back, and he wasn’t a man who made threats lightly. So she couldn’t ask for help.

She’d stayed the first couple of nights in an awful hotel, crying herself to sleep and wondering whether she’d end up turning tricks or something when her little bit of money ran out. And then she’d answered Gina’s ad.

The East Hollywood apartment wasn’t that much nicer than the hourly-rate hotel, but the rent was cheap, and Bibi had a room of her own and there was parking for her car. Moreover, she and Gina had hit it right off—which had surprised them both. Bibi had come up in a fairly affluent, conservative family, and she’d been a little bit of a princess, the only daughter with three older brothers. Her style had been prairie skirts and poofy sleeves. She’d been a cheerleader, and Joel, the boy who’d abandoned her, had been on the football team. They hadn’t been King and Queen, but they’d been in the Court. They were both all over their high school yearbook.

Gina was…different. Her bright red—that day—hair was stiff and sticking up in all directions, her makeup was heavy and dark, her clothes were ripped, even her tights. She had lots of piercings in her ears, and she had tattoos. Bibi had never met a girl with tattoos before. For that matter, she didn’t think she’d ever met a boy with tattoos, either.

Gina was the first punk Bibi had ever met.

Two years later, when Bibi met the man who would almost instantly change her life, she knew many, many more punks. Including herself.

~oOo~

Bibi turned the last of the four locks to open the apartment door and then shoved her shoulder into it until it finally gave up its hold on the jamb. All but falling into the room as the door swung open, she turned and shoved her shoulder into again to get it to close all the way. Then she turned all the locks. Twice they’d been broken into already, once when Bibi was in the shower and alone in the apartment, so now they kept all the locks locked. And considered the door that had warped out of true during the last earthquake an extra level of security.

Gina moved into the doorway to the narrow hall that led to their rooms and the bathroom. Wearing nothing but a pair of destroyed fishnet tights, she put one hand on her hip while the other smeared wine-colored lipstick over her mouth.

“Damn, Natchez. It’s almost eight.”

“I know.” Bibi kicked off her sensible black pumps. “I told you, we had a staff meetin’. And you need lip liner if you’re gonna wear that color.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “I need you to put it on for me. You know I can’t get it on right. I look like a drunk three-year old colored my lips when I do it. And you need a much cooler job. I started without you. Want a tab?” She loved to trip when they went clubbing.

Bibi was a little more cautious about that. She’d had a bad trip while they were out the year before, and she’d managed to get herself well and truly lost and alone in Hollywood on a Saturday night. On acid. Scariest night of her whole damn life.

She went to the prehistoric refrigerator and pulled the handle. “My job keeps us from eatin’ nothin’ but ramen and Skittles.” She worked at a makeup counter in the Century City Nordstrom. The cosmetics company that was her actual employer had just instituted a new policy that required their ‘associates’ to have college degrees or be working toward them. That policy had been the focus of the meeting. Bibi had no degree and no money to seek one. So she’d probably be losing that decent job pretty soon.

Bending down to search the scant interior of the fridge, Bibi swore. “Fuck it all, Gee. You drank my last Dr. Pepper!”

“Sorry. I needed sweet. I’ll get you back.” Gina had come into the kitchen. Now she had on a vintage black-lace bullet bra with her ripped up tights. Gina worked at a vintage store. She didn’t get paid on any kind of regular schedule, and sometimes her boss just sort of forgot to open the store. Gina compensated for these fiscal challenges by lifting any merchandise she liked.

“You hate Dr. Pepper.”

“Yeah. It’s disgusting.”

“So quit drinkin’ mine!”

“Any swill in a sweet-tooth crisis. Crikey, Natchez, you’re uptight tonight. You seriously need to trip.”

“We got any weed left?” Weed sounded safer. And calmer. Calm would be good.

Gina grinned guiltily.

“Judas Priest, I don’t know why I love you like I do.”

“It’s so cute when you swear in Baptist. And you love me because I’m EXCELLENT. And Tony’ll have good shit.” She came in and bumped hips with Bibi. “C’mon, do a tab, get out of that straightjacket, and let’s tear shit up tonight.” Gina grinned and batted heavily-mascaraed eyelashes at her. “You can wear the striped dress.”

Bibi loved that dress. It was a sundress from the Fifties. Red and white stripes on the bias, a halter top, and a full, swirly skirt. Gina had brought it home from the shop and asked Bibi to punk it up for her. Bibi had taken more than a foot off the length and added a red crinoline under it. She’d replaced the fabric straps of the halter with studded leather made out of collars from the sex shop downstairs.