He scrapes a chair away from the table and slouches into it. “So you fell in the canyon, eh? You’re lucky you didn’t land in the creek. People die like that every summer.”
“I know. Sugar? Milk?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“So where do you know Candice from? You look too old to be in her class.”
“We’re in the same grade.” He bites the words off. She takes the cue and searches for a change of topic. He beats her to it. “She tell you I’m training for the Olympics? Diving. Won the bronze by a half point at the PanAm Games this summer.”
“Really? This summer? That’s ... incredible.” She stares over her shoulder at him as she fills the kettle.
He grins and flicks a wet lock of hair from his eyes. “Man, you look totally amazed. Like you didn’t think I could be good at anything.”
The kettle spills over. Karen hastily switches off the tap and plugs the kettle into an outlet. “Yes, well, you don’t look like you could ... I mean, you look so normal, so average...” She blushes.
The telephone rings, loud and shrill.
Saved by the bell, Karen thinks as she leaps to answer the phone, forgetting in her fluster her one-legged state.
As her full weight thumps down on her casted ankle, she slips, grabs for the counter, catches the kettle instead. There is a brief, fragile resistance as the plug halts her fall for a nanosecond. Then, with the alarming image of the silver kettle descending upon her forehead, she plunges to the floor.
Pain and blackness.
She couldn’t have been unconscious for long, for the first thing she becomes aware of is the sound of the answering machine clicking on. In fact, as she listens dizzily to her own recorded voice inviting the caller to please leave a message, she speculates that on the whole she couldn’t have been unconscious for more than sixty seconds.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me. I’m over at Gloria’s, school project, you know? I won’t be home till later, so don’t make me anything for dinner. Besides, I’m on a diet, a totally serious one this time. Maybe a salad, but that’s all. Ciao.”
Click.
Then another voice, much closer. “Mrs. Morton? Mrs. Morton? Shit! Mrs. Morton?”
She licks her lips, tastes blood, and carefully opens one eye. She winces at the stab of pain produced by the kitchen lights.
“Karen,” she hoarsely whispers. “My name’s Karen. Mrs. Morton is my husband’s mother.”
“Shit! You all right? Want me to phone for an ambulance or something?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” she says quickly. “I can’t go to Emergency twice in two days. They’ll think my husband’s beating me.”
“Yeah, but —”
“Could you just help me up? I’ll be fine.”
“You sure about that? You got a real double whammy there. The kettle bounced right off your head. I mean, it totally flew across the kitchen. And then you cracked your skull on the floor.”
“No, really,” she says with as much reassurance as she can muster, for by now she is starting to feel ill. “I’ll be fine.”
He shrugs. “If you say so.”
“Could you help me up?” She extends a trembling hand. He frowns, shrugs again, grabs her hand, and pulls.
Kettle water all over the floor ...
Her feet skid out from under her as if she’s on ice, and she shoots between his parted, braced legs like a professional skater. He loses his balance, cries out, then topples onto her; this time, instead of seeing a kettle descend upon her forehead, she watches Egret’s crotch plummet towards her.
More pain, a great deal more, as his groin lands fully onto her face, and the back of her skull thunks against the floor again. It feels as if a truck is trying to take her head off; hot electricity courses down her spine.
“Fuck!” he yells, and scrabbles on top of her, slipping and sliding like a Jell-O wrestler, the fly of his jeans scraping against her lips. He gets off her, flustered and red-faced. “Slipped,” he mumbles. “Sorry.”
“S’okay,” she whispers, closing her eyes as the vise against her head tightens until she thinks she’ll faint.
“Maybe, uh, maybe I’ll just wipe up the water first,” he says.
She hears movement, followed by swishing sounds.
“Hey, you okay, Mrs. Morton? You aren’t looking too good.”
“Not feeling good,” she croaks, keeping her eyes closed, feeling dizzy, feeling vomit burn against her throat. “I think I should go to bed.”
“You sure you don’t want me to call the ambulance?”
“No. Bedroom.”
There is a pause. Her cranium could be an acorn in a nutcracker; her spine might as well have been scalded with hot oil. He mumbles something; she can’t concentrate on what he is saying and doesn’t much care to. Then his hands grope clumsily under her armpits and he hoists her into a sitting position. She feels his knees against her back, hears him suck in a deep breath, and then the kitchen turns bright orange and slanted as he whooshes her upright.
“Slower!” she cries hoarsely, and vomits across the floor.
“Shit!”
To his credit, he doesn’t release her but continues to hold her upright.
“This is not good! C’mon, Mrs. Morton, let me phone someone, a neighbour at least!”
“Stop calling me that! Karen, my name’s Karen!”
They stand in silence for a moment. Lightning and thunder rage inside her head. She keeps her eyes fixed on the splatter of vomit on the floor. At least no peas show up in it, she thinks inanely.
“Could you pass me something to wipe myself with, please?” she eventually asks.
Without a word — and still holding her upright — he stretches towards the paper towel rack and yanks off a ream. She accepts it without turning and gingerly wipes the sour flecks from her lips and chin. Crumpling the soiled paper, she lets it fall to the floor. Silence hangs between them.
“I’m sorry,” she finally whispers. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Hey, no problem. You cracked your head. You’re not feeling too great.”
“It’s just that I’ve had a very strange day.”
“Understand totally. I mean, a blow like that would’ve knocked most people into last year. You must have one tough brain box.”
She lets that sink in for a moment, uncertain if it’s a compliment. “Yes, well,” she eventually says, “I’m sorry if I shouted at you. And vomited in front of you.”
“Forget it.”
His chest moves behind her — a shrug, she guesses.
“You still want me to take you to the bedroom?”
“Yes,” she whispers. And, unaccountably, she flushes.
As if handling a brittle, unpredictable jack-in-the-box, Egret carefully places Karen on her bed.
Shit, does she look white, a totally unhealthy sort of white, he thinks. The kind of white that floods the Man’s face if he goes without a drink for a couple of days.
Egret looks down at Karen as she lies there, still as a brick, eyes squeezed