"Interesting," he muttered. "Sounds like you need to ask Tracy about this, but maybe you've hit upon it."
"Wow," I said, shaking my head, thinking that Tracy was going to be pissed if that was the truth.
Tracy was installed in a hospital bed in my Dad's den since her old room was upstairs and moving her up and down would have been damn near impossible. Her chest tube and her IV had been removed before leaving Reno and she was given strong oral analgesics in place of the Demerol that she'd been taking.
The catheter remained and Mom was given instructions by the nurse on how to empty it and how to keep an eye on the output. She was given a supply of bedpans for her other bodily functions. The nurse was scheduled to stop by twice a day to check on her, give her a sponge bath, and to make sure she was healing up. Arrangements were made for further treatment at a local hospital and later, at a local physical therapy facility.
We moved in a TV, a stereo, and her record collection, putting all of it in easy reach. We brought in books, magazines and everything else we thought would make her comfortable in her little prison. She was obviously not happy to be bedridden but her spirits seemed high as she settled in. She fell into an exhausted sleep shortly after dinner so I never had a chance to be alone with her, to ask her what I suspected.
Though I was tired myself I was also going into withdrawal from not having seen Nina in nearly a week. I called her up and she came over. We spent two hours on the porch swing just talking, occasionally sharing a kiss. She went home around ten o'clock and I went by Tracy's new room on the way upstairs. My sister was snoring the snores of those on narcotics. I went upstairs and fell asleep the moment I was undressed and in bed.
The next morning was Saturday. Mom prepared one of her famous, high cholesterol though nearly as good as sex breakfasts. Dad and I ate at the table while Mom ate in the den with Tracy. After all of the dishes were done and put away Tracy said she was going to read for a while and then maybe catch a nap before the nurse showed up to check on her. Her morning medication was working strongly upon her and she seemed quite cheery.
Mom and Dad flipped on the TV and went about the task of reading the newspaper. I wandered out of the room and into Tracy's. She was lying awake in the bed, a book open on her chest, the radio playing the local rock station softly.
"Book no good?" I asked her.
She smiled. "I don't know," she said. "This medicine they gave me has got my mind a little fuzzy. I read two pages of it and then realized I couldn't remember a single thing I'd just read. Music is a little better, much better in fact." She raised her eyebrows and I noted that I could actually see her right eye a little now. "In fact, I think a little Pink Floyd would go nicely with this stuff. You think maybe I could borrow a few of your albums?"
"What's mine is yours," I told her. "I'll go get them in a minute. Do you mind if I sit down for a second?"
"Sure," she said. "What's up?"
I grabbed Dad's desk chair and pulled it over next to the bed. "I've been thinking about all of this fate stuff," I told her.
"Yeah," she said, disgusted. "Fucking fate."
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah," I said. "Anyway, I was kind of thrown for a loop by the fact that you'd been in cabs before in Berkeley and you never had any problems with that. In light of what happened to you, doesn't that strike you as a little strange?"
"As a matter of fact," she said, "it does. I've been wondering about that myself. I didn't see cabs as a threat so I willingly climbed into them more than once. If fate was out to get me then why didn't it go for me earlier?"
"We thought we had all the pre-conditions for your accident worked out," I said. "Water, drunk driver, automobile. We thought that was everything. But what if that wasn't everything?"
She looked confused. "What do you mean? What else could there be?"
"On those other times you got into the cab," I asked her, "had you ever been drinking on any of those times?"
"Drinking," she asked, "what does that have to do with anything?"
"Were you?" I repeated.
"I don't think so," she answered after a moment's thought. "Usually it was when I was heading for the airport to go home on the holidays or returning from the airport. You know, when I had luggage and shit with me? Why…" Her eyes widened as she realized what I was saying. "Holy shit."
I nodded. "In my previous life, when you were killed on graduation night, you had a blood alcohol level of point oh nine. The papers made a big deal about that in their article about teenaged drinking. David Mitchell's attorney made a big deal of it at his trial, as if the fact that you were drunk too excused the fact that he'd killed you and abandoned you in the water. When your boyfriend at college drove into the Bay in the car that you were supposed to be in, you had been drinking. And when you got into the cab in South Lake Tahoe you'd been drinking too."
"Oh my God," she exclaimed, sitting up a little in the bed. Her book tumbled off and fell to the floor. "Are you saying that I had to be drinking too in order for the accident to happen?"
"I don't know," I told her. "You tell me. Were you drunk or had been drinking on any of your other cab trips? Or on any other time you'd gotten into a car with someone since graduation?"
She thought long and hard about that, her face scrunched in concentration. "Only once," she finally answered. "The night that Darren had his accident, the accident I was supposed to be in, I took a cab home instead of riding with him. I was drunk then. But other than that, never."
"Hmm," I said thoughtfully. "That fits. On the night of Darren's accident, fate had already arranged something for you. All of the conditions were met but you didn't get in the car. You got in another car. The fact that you were drunk was probably cancelled out by the fact that you hadn't gotten in the car you were supposed to have gotten in. Interesting. Are you sure there are no other times you got into a cab or another car while you were drunk?"
"Well, another car yes," she told me. "Quite a few times. But never while the driver was drunk too. And I never got into a cab while I was drunk at all. After you told me about graduation night and especially after Lisa Sanchez died, I made sure that I never got in a car with someone who was drunk. If Cindy and I went out, one of us would always stay sober, I made sure of it. When I went to college but before Darren's accident, I did the same thing. I made damn sure that if I was drinking someone else who had not been was doing the driving. On all of the cab rides I took before except for that one, I was stone cold sober since they were usually to or from the airport. Jesus Bill, do you mean to say that I could have been riding in cars all of this time as long as I wasn't drunk?"
"It kinda seems that way, doesn't it?" I asked.
"Fuck me," she muttered, shaking her head.
"But again Tracy," I qualified, "we don't know the exact rules here. I could be wrong."
"Doesn't it feel right to you?" she demanded.
"Yes," I admitted.
"Fuck me," she said again.
Mike stopped by for a few minutes the next day. He asked about Tracy and was glad to hear she was doing okay. He told me he couldn't stay long because he and Maggie were going downtown to catch a movie.
"You and Maggie are getting along pretty good huh?" I asked casually.
"Yeah," he said, his eyes beaming. "She's great. We've been out every day since the boat trip, doing something. You were wrong. She doesn't have a boyfriend at all. Hasn't had one in a while in fact."
"Cool," I nodded. "Guess my information was wrong then."
"Guess what else happened while you were gone?" He asked.
"What?"
"I got a job at the fire department."
"A job? What do you mean?"
"I'm gonna be what they call the courier. The position was open and the battalion chief at the station where I was at called and asked if I wanted it. I'll start next Monday. I'll drive around in one of their little trucks delivering the inter-station mail and the supplies. It's five days a week, about four hours a day and it pays five-fifty an hour."