Chương 5
She wished he would put the call on speaker and was equally grateful that he didn't.
Valerio's jaw tightened.
“I don't care what Veronica said.”
Mara glanced at him and then politely concentrated on the monitor in her hand.
Alessia's stomach contracted.
“What did Veronica say?”
Valerio ignored her.
Into the phone, he said, “She cannot feel her foot.”
The answer on the other end was loud enough that Alessia caught one word.
Dramatic.
She closed her eyes.
Valerio's voice dropped.
“Do not say that to me again.”
Silence followed.
It was the most dangerous tone Alessia had ever heard him use, precisely because there was almost nothing in it.
Her mother spoke more slowly.
Valerio listened.
“No, I'm not discussing blame with you in an elevator.”
He ended the call.
Alessia opened her eyes.
“That went well.”
Valerio slipped the phone into his pocket.
“She is upset.”
“My mother's permanent condition.”
“She heard a different version.”
“Whose?”
He gave her a look.
“Right.”
The elevator doors opened into the hotel lobby.
Mara started pushing the stretcher forward.
Valerio fell into step beside them.
Alessia said, “What did she say happened?”
“Later.”
“No.”
“Alessia.”
“Tell me.”
The wheels clicked softly over the seams in the polished floor.
A family near the front desk moved aside.
Two children stared until their father touched each of them lightly between the shoulders and redirected them.
Valerio looked ahead.
“She said Veronica told her you had been drinking, lost your balance, and accused her because you were embarrassed.”
Alessia made a small sound.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite disbelief.
“I had half a glass of champagne.”
“I know.”
“She knows that.”
“Probably.”
“No, she knows.”
Mara pushed through the automatic doors.
Night air touched Alessia's face.
The ambulance waited beneath the covered entrance, red lights reflecting across the hotel windows.
Valerio stopped beside the rear doors while the paramedics prepared to load her.
Alessia looked at him.
“Call Nina.”
“Now.”
“Alessia, you're going to the hospital.”
“And Veronica is already rewriting it.”
Mara adjusted a strap across Alessia's waist.
Valerio took out his phone.
“I don't have Nina's number.”
“Daniel might.”
Valerio dialed.
The rear doors of the ambulance were open behind Alessia.
She could smell antiseptic and plastic.
Daniel answered quickly.
Valerio said, “I need Nina's number.”
He listened.
“No, don't send me the video.”
Alessia turned her head.
“Why not?”
Valerio covered the microphone.
“Because I don't want it passed around.”
“What if she deletes it?”
“Nina has it.”
“You don't know Nina.”
“I know she just refused Veronica in front of forty people.”
“That doesn't make her brave tomorrow.”
Valerio's eyes shifted.
He uncovered the phone.
“Ask her not to delete the original, not to edit it, and not to send it to anyone except Alessia if she asks.”
He listened.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“And tell her to back it up.”
Alessia relaxed by perhaps one inch.
Valerio ended the call.
Mara said, “We need to go.”
Valerio looked at Alessia.
She grabbed his wrist.
The movement surprised them both.
“I don't want to go alone.”
His face softened.
“Then I won't let you.”
Mara raised a hand.
“You can ride if there's room, but you need to stay out of the way.”
“There is room,” her partner said.
Valerio climbed in.
The doors shut behind him.
The ambulance began moving.
For several minutes Alessia said nothing.
The city passed in fragments through the rear windows.
Streetlights.
Traffic signals.
A delivery cyclist waiting at an intersection.
Two people laughing outside a restaurant.
The ordinary world continued with insulting confidence.
Mara checked Alessia's blood pressure.
“Any change in sensation?”
“No.”
“Any tingling?”
“No.”
“Pain level from zero to ten?”
“Six.”
“Earlier?”
“Seven.”
“Good.”
“Is that actually good?”
“It means it isn't worse.”
Valerio sat on the narrow bench with his knees spread because there was no other way for him to fit.
His black suit looked too formal for the ambulance.
Alessia noticed a tiny white petal caught near the cuff of his trousers.
A rose petal from the ballroom.
She stared at it.
“Take that off.”
He followed her gaze.
“What?”
“The flower.”
Valerio brushed it away.
It fell to the ambulance floor.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
He nodded as if that made perfect sense.
The hospital was less than fifteen minutes away, but by the time they reached the emergency entrance Alessia had lost all sense of time.
Movement became procedural.
Doors.
Questions.
Her birth date repeated to three different people.
A bracelet tightened around her wrist.
Insurance information.
A nurse asking whether she could be pregnant.
Another nurse cutting away the ankle strap of her shoe when swelling made it impossible to remove normally.
Alessia watched the silver leather fall into a plastic belongings bag.
“That shoe cost four hundred dollars.”
The nurse paused.
“I'm sorry.”
“No, don't be.”
Alessia looked at the ruined strap.
“I hated it fifteen minutes ago.”
The nurse smiled.
“Then we did you a favor.”
That made Alessia laugh once.
It hurt her ribs even though she hadn't injured them.
Valerio stood near the curtain while the nurses worked.
At one point someone asked him whether he was her husband.
“No,” Alessia and Valerio said simultaneously.
The nurse glanced between them.
“Brother?”
“No.”
“Friend?”
Valerio said, “Yes.”
Alessia said nothing.
The nurse wrote something on the chart.
When they were alone again, Alessia asked, “Did that offend you?”
“What?”
“Friend.”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“I was trying to determine whether there was a more accurate answer.”
“There isn't.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
He looked away first.
A physician arrived after imaging had been ordered.
Her name was Dr. Shah, and she spoke in a calm, economical voice that Alessia appreciated immediately.
She examined the leg, checked pulses, tested sensation, then repeated several parts of the examination.
“I'm going to order X-rays, and depending on what they show, possibly additional imaging.”
Alessia watched her face.
May you like
“Do you think it's broken?”
“I think something is injured.”
