“How is she, Gene?”
“She’s doing fine, at least I hope to God she is. The pain’s bad, but she’s hanging in there.” He turned away from the driver to her. “I’m sorry, Eden, but we can’t give you anything for the pain yet. The trauma team has to check you out first. Just hold on, hold on. Squeeze my fingers, think about my fingers and squeeze when you hurt real bad. We’re almost there, almost there.” Gene wondered if Taylor was her husband. Dear God, the man would be in for a shock when he saw his wife. She was a model. He looked at the right side of her face. It was difficult to tell how bad it was smashed because of all the blood. He held her hand more tightly. Gene O’Mallory wanted her to be all right. He wanted it very much.
There were six people standing over her, three men and three women. They were cutting off her clothes, speaking to each other, jabbing at her, prodding and poking, but through it all, there was someone’s hand on her forearm gently stroking and there was a soft woman’s voice with that stroking, saying over and over, “It’s going to be all right. You’re here with us now and we’ll make sure you’re okay. Do you understand me, Lindsay? It will be all right.”
Someone else said, “She’s that fashion model, Eden. First things first, but, Elsie, call Dr. Perry. Tell him to get over here on the double.”
Elsie said, “Gene called him from the ambulance. Perry’s on his way.”
Lindsay felt cold on her skin. She knew somewhere in her mind that she was naked, just as she had been so long ago in Paris. But she felt too much pain to care. Just to take a single breath was beyond anything she could ever have imagined. But the gentle stroking on her forearm continued and she tried to concentrate on it.
A man was very close to her face. He said, “Lindsay? Good, listen to me now. You’ve got a collapsed lung. A broken rib punctured it. So we’ve got to cut a little incision over here between your ribs—near your side, yes, right here—and stick in a tube. We’ll hook it up to a lung machine and it will reinflate your lung. It won’t hurt. It’ll all be over in just a few minutes and you’ll be able to breathe again without the pain. Okay? You understand?”
The fingers paused on her forearm.
“Yes, I understand.”
“Okay, let’s get it done, guys.”
Five minutes later, Lindsay took a breath that didn’t feel like she was going to die. She even managed a smile at the man bending over her.
“Better?”
“Yes, much better.”
“Now, you’ve got two broken ribs. We’ll leave them alone, but they’re going to hurt for a while. We’ve been giving you morphine through the IV. Do you have any more pain?”
It was odd, but she didn’t. “My face?”
“Your face—yes, Dr. Perry’s here and he’s going to take over now.”
The gentle fingers on her forearm stopped and Lindsay felt panic. “Where are the fingers?”
Someone said, “What’s she talking about?”
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, she means Debra. Deb, get back over here!”
The fingers were on her arm again. She closed her eyes.
It was all right. The voice came again, soft and warm.
Dr. Perry identified himself. He was a plastic surgeon and he specialized in facial reconstruction, he said. They were going to take her to CT scan and then they’d see exactly what the problems were. She wasn’t to worry. If she felt any pain, she was to sing out.
Lindsay was fully prepared to sing, but the pain she felt was so slight compared to what she’d already endured, she didn’t say anything.
Time passed. Debra didn’t leave her. Lindsay said to her, “Taylor. He’s my fiancé. Could you call him?”
“After I see you safe into surgery, Lindsay. Then I’ll call him, I promise. Give me his number.”
Dr. Perry was back and he spoke gently and slowly. “You’re lucky, Ms. Foxe. The flesh on your right cheek isn’t very damaged, which means little to no scarring. However, the blows you took smashed the bones here and here and here.” He lightly pointed to his own face to show her. “We need to go in right now and fix them. You’ll be good as new in three weeks.”
“Can I see?”
“I don’t think you should.”
Lindsay thought about that. The right side of her face was numb. She raised her right hand, but Debra grabbed it and forced it back to her side. She leaned close. “No, Lindsay, don’t. Just lie still, that’s it.”
Dr. Perry’s voice came again. “I’ll need you to sign the surgery consent forms, Ms. Foxe.”
She did. Within fifteen minutes she was being wheeled to surgery. She felt no pain. Her head was cloudy. She wasn’t scared.
The explosion had happened at twelve-thirty.
She was in surgery by three-thirty.
Demos stood in the hospital corridor, leaning against the wall near the door to what would be her private room, once she came out of surgery, once she came out of recovery.
It would be some time now before she was out of surgery. The surgery was on her face, being performed by a Dr. Perry, one of the top plastic surgeons in the country, the nurse had assured him, not once but four times, one of the very best, and he’d said the bones were situated ideally to be reconstructed and slipped back into their proper place and they weren’t to worry, which sounded disgusting to Demos. But why, Demos had wondered, why operate on her face now?
The nurse was patient with him, explaining that if they hadn’t done it immediately, there would be swelling that would preclude doing it for a week, at least. Lindsay had agreed, naturally.
“But how could she agree?”
“She was conscious, Mr. Demos. Dr. Perry did an immediate CT scan on her face and her head. You’ll have to speak to him, Mr. Demos. But she should be out of surgery around seven o’clock and then it’s recovery for about an hour. Why don’t you go have dinner?”
Demos and Glen went to the hospital cafeteria and stared at each other over open-faced roast-beef sandwiches.
“I’ll never forget that damned phone call as long as I live,” Glen said, his hands shaking.
They’d gotten the hysterical call from one of the ad-agency people at precisely ten minutes to one. They’d gotten here as fast as they could, but they hadn’t seen Lindsay. It wasn’t allowed. Everything was being done for her. Not to worry. Demos had filled out paperwork on her. Then he’d realized he had to call Taylor. Let Taylor deal with her family, with Sydney. He was engaged to her, let him do it. Demos knew Lindsay’s number by heart. He’d started to punch out the buttons, then stopped. He looked at those numbers, and they didn’t mean anything to him.
“Glen, help.”
Glen had shoved him aside and quickly pressed the numbers.
Two rings and then, “Hello, Taylor here.”
“Taylor, this is Glen.”
“Yeah, Glen. What’s up?”
“Oh, God, Taylor, you’ve got to get here right now.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Where’s Demos? What’s going on?”
Glen had nearly thrown the phone to Demos. “Taylor, this is Vinnie. There’s been an accident and Eden’s hurt. Hurry, man, get here now. I don’t know anything, just hurry.”
Demos hung up the phone and leaned his cheek against the cold steel. He heard a man say, “Does anyone know a Lindsay or an Eden?”
“I do,” Glen said.
“I was with her in the ambulance. She asked me to call Taylor. I’ve been asking around, trying to find out his phone number, but nobody knows. Do you know who he is?”