Nowhere Fast (A Mercy Watts Short) by A.W. Hartoin Read Free Book Online Page B

Tommy?”
    “No, they’re on that cruise.”
    “Oh, God.” She started to cry in short, tight bursts.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Gavin’s dead.” She said it slowly, in a kind of rhythm between her sobs.
    An electric chill went through me. Gavin dead at fifty-five. That couldn’t be right. “What happened? Where are you?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Dixie, please,” I said. “Where are you?”
    She continued to cry, but I could hear her pulling it together. From the sound of her voice, it took quite a bit of effort.
    “St. James’s,” she said after a moment.
    “I’ll be right there.”
    I burrowed out from under the duvet and brushed the hair out of my eyes. I’d forgotten to pull the shades and light streamed in through Mom’s gauzy curtains. They billowed up as the air conditioner kicked on and floated in the air, lazy and beautiful. It was silent other than the machinery and I was sleep-drunk and confused. It couldn’t be real. Dixie did not just tell me Gavin was dead. He couldn’t be dead. Plenty of people die, just not my people. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the phone sitting on the bedside table. It gave no clue whether or not I’d just been speaking into it.
    I flopped back onto Mom’s pillows, grabbed the phone and dialed St. James ER. I closed my eyes and listened to the ringing, imagining the clerks and nurses yelling at each other to pick up the phone.
    On the sixth ring someone did. “St. James ER. May I help you?”
    “This is Mercy Watts. I need to know if you have a patient there.”
    “Hey Mercy, it’s Evelyn. Who’s the patient?”
    “Gavin Flouder.”
    “Yeah, we got him,” she said.
    “Is he dead?” I asked, squeezing my eyes tighter.
    “Yep. He wasn’t one of yours, was he?”
    “No, he’s a family friend. Thanks, Evelyn.” I hung up and let out a whoosh of breath. It was real. I opened my eyes and looked around my parents’ room. I said it was my parents’ room, but it was Mom’s. It had her woven into its very fabric, its wood, its paint. Her Lalique perfume bottles glimmered in the light on her dressing table and I could smell their scent even at my distance. I lay there on The Oasis, the altar of the sacred bedroom, and wished she was there looking at her precious things and, damn it, answering her own phone.
    But, of course, Mom wasn’t there. Mothers are like cops, never around when you need one. So I slid out of The Oasis and landed painfully on my heels. The bed was four feet high. Dad built a step for Mom, so she could get into it.
    I leaned against the bed and rubbed my bare ankles. Crap. No decent clothes. The ratty T-shirt and the scrubs I’d worn home were lying in a pile and covered with unknown substances. I’d have to borrow something from Mom. She wouldn’t like that, but under the circumstances, how could she complain?
    I straightened up and trotted across the glossy wood floor dotted with various Oriental rugs to the wardrobe. It was an enormous beast, ten feet by six, and, at that time of year, held Mom’s summer clothes. I turned the large brass key and the right door swung open without a sound. That used to creep me out when I was a kid. My best friend Ellen and I spent rainy days crawling around in its depths, waiting for magic to happen. Dad told me Grandma George shipped it over from England and it was the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . I didn’t notice till I was ten that my parents’ bedroom furniture matched. All five pieces were the same dark walnut with delicate carvings of birds. I guess I was a dense kid, but I never thought about it. Lord knew nothing else in our house matched, not even the dining room chairs. How was I to know it was a family suite passed down five generations?
    The wardrobe glowed with a rainbow of colors. They were so Mom. To the far left I found a pair of black shorts and a crisp white linen shirt. They were only one size too big. I’d seen my future and it wasn’t half bad. I