I blinked. "Fifteen."
"She needs a doctor. Someone call a doctor!"
I let my head fall back on the pavement again while Dana dug a cell out of her purse and Mrs. R made me take deep breaths and count backwards from ten. I'm pretty sure that was the standard routine for someone who'd ingested too many margaritas, not a woman who'd been hit by a car, but that moment I wasn't in a position to argue. At least the counting kept my mind off the pain, now slowly spreading up my thigh and settling into a throbbing rhythm as the shock wore off.
Ten minutes later our little crowd had grown to include half the people in Beverly Hills, or so it seemed as the paramedics fought their way through the looky-loos and eyed my legs. I was infinitely glad that I'd shaved them that morning.
The taller paramedic, a dark haired guy with freckles, crouched down beside me and gingerly wiggled my left leg.
I saw stars and thought I might faint.
"This doesn't look good," Freckles said. "It looks like it could be broken."
Great. Some women cruise Beverly and go home with a pair of Jimmy Choos. I go home with a broken leg.
"Are you sure?" I whimpered.
"Not until we can get X-rays. Can you wiggle your toes?"
I concentrated on wiggling.
"The left toes."
"I am wiggling the left toes."
Freckles and the other paramedic shared a look, then he frowned down at my leg again. "Nope. Not good. We're going to have to cut this boot off."
"No!" I sat straight up. "I'm fine. It's getting better. Really. I'm okay. No need to touch the boots. Look, I can just unzip it here," I reached down and started to unzip. Bad idea. Pain shot up my leg and the crowd began to swim before my eyes. I dropped the zipper and took a deep breath, trying not to vomit my nachos all over the sidewalk.
"Ma'am, your leg is swollen. It could be broken. We're going to have to cut the boot off."
"Do you have any idea what you're saying? These are Gucci! I had to design three pairs of Disney princess water shoes to pay for these."
Freckles exchanged another look with his partner. "Ma'am, you're in shock. Please lie still."
"No, wait. I think I feel the swelling going down already. Just give me a minute. I'm sure I can get the zipper down."
"Ma'am, don't make us strap you down."
"Wait! Please, I… I… Dana?" I appealed to my friend, giving her my best helpless face. (Which, since I was currently pinned beneath a muscle car, wasn't all too difficult.)
Dana bit her lip. "Geeze, Maddie, it looks really bad. Maybe you better just let them cut it."
I thunked my head back down on the pavement. What else could I do? I shut my eyes, trying not to cry as I felt Freckles pull out a pair of scissors and desecrate my Gucci's.
"Three months?" I blinked at the on-call doctor in her white coat, thick glasses and messy ponytail. Praying I had heard her wrong. Unfortunately, since I haven't been to mass since last Easter, it was no surprise that God completely ignored me.
"Three months." The tight-lipped doctor nodded her head, consulting the manila folder in her hands. She was sans makeup and her thick, brown hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail so tight it made her eyes crease. "You've got a tibial shaft fracture. You're going to need to wear the cast for at least three months to give the bones time to set. After that, we can discuss a regimen of physical therapy. Keep your weight off it and keep it elevated whenever possible to reduce swelling, especially in the first 48 hours."
I looked down at the big, blue, foam boot covering my left leg from my very unmanicured toes all the way to hemline. From the knee down I looked like a bloated Smurf.
After slitting my Gucci right up the middle, the paramedics had whisked me away in their ambulance to the nearest hospital of my insurance company's choosing. Mrs. R had insisted on riding along, seeing as how she felt responsible and all. (I didn't point out that's because she actually was responsible.)
After waiting a mere thirty-five minutes in a tiny white room at the back of the ER, a nurse had wheeled me to X-ray, where they'd twisted my leg into all sorts of uncomfortable positions to take black and whites. Then I'd been wheeled back to the sterile room to wait while the on-call doctor reviewed my films. Which had taken another forty minutes. All of them spent listening to the teenagers in the room next door puke their guts out after easting bad sushi at the Westwood mall.
That was about the point where I told Dana I was fine and she should just go to her audition. She argued a little at first (because I was clearly not fine), but I knew how much she wanted that street walker part. Besides, there wasn't anything she could really do to help.
Now, though, surrounded by Mrs. R's Birkenstocks and Doctor Ponytail's loafers, I was kind of wishing I had an ally who understood just how badly this boot was going to clash with my entire wardrobe for, apparently, the next three months.
"What about showers? Can she take the thing off to shower?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked. "My fourth husband, Lenny, broke his arm once and he couldn't shower for two whole months. I tell ya', that sucker started smelling pretty ripe by the time they cut it off him. I think Lenny was starting to mildew a little."
I heard myself whimper.
"Baths would be preferable, and, no, no taking the boot off to bathe. You'll have to wrap it in plastic and stick it outside the tub."
I did another whimper.
"I'm going to prescribe you some pills for the pain," she continued, scribbling in my chart. Then she turned to a cabinet behind her and pulled out a pair of tall, metal crutches. "You'll need to use these to get around. They're a little awkward at first but trust me, you'll get used to them," she said, adjusting the height.
I took them, sticking one under each arm. Great. Not only was I a Smurf, now I was Tiny Tim.
The doctor looked down at my one good Gucci and a frown settled between her un-plucked eyebrows. "And I'd suggest saying away from high heels until the fracture stabilizes."
"Hold on!" I put one hand up. "What do you mean 'stay away from heels?'"
"Besides the difficulty balancing, the elevated position of the other foot puts too much stress on the injured leg. Flats only for the next three months." And with that Ponytail left the room, still scribbling.
I stared after her, my mouth hanging open, tears starting to form behind my eyes. No heels for three months? Could this day get any worse?
As if to answer my question, the door flew open again.
"Oh, my poor baby!"
I looked up to see my mother burst into the room, head down, arms out, tackling me for a rib crusher hug.
"Oh my baby, are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Sort of.
"I came as soon as Mrs. Rosenblatt called. Oh my poor baby, you could have been killed!"
"It's the damned clutch," Mrs. R said. "Too many pedals down there. I couldn't figure which one to press when. They need less pedals in them sports cars."
"Mom, I can't breathe."
"Oh, sorry," Mom stepped back. And for the first time I got a good look at her outfit.
I love my mother dearly, but let's just say I'm glad I didn't inherit her fashion sense. Today she was dressed in a pair of skinny jeans (clearly made for someone three sizes skinnier than her), a blouse covered in tiny white ruffles and a pair of black L.A. Gear high-tops formerly seen on M.C. Hammer circa 1989. She topped it all off with a shade of lipstick I could only describe as neon magenta and blue eye shadow that reached all the way to her plucked eyebrows. When I was fifteen I sent applications to Oprah, Ricky Lake, and Jenny Jones hoping one of them would take Mom on their "Please give my mother a make-over" shows. No such luck. These days, I usually just cringed in silence.