Carla wondered what Max’s wife had explained; she didn’t ask.
While she waited, she thought about Max’s injured brain. Max was already so smart the idea of his brain swelling sounded all the more painful to her. She knew that was ridiculous; it made her laugh at herself; she felt lighthearted. She knew she ought to be ashamed of her mood. Although she was frightened about Max’s health, she was giddy, eager for action.
Brillstein arrived first. “Here you are,” he said as he entered, his small eyes scanning to make sure no one else was about. “Quickly. What happened? Just between us.” Brillstein put the flats of his narrow hands together and rubbed gently. The furtive sound of their friction was like a small animal digging a home for itself. He glanced back at the door suspiciously and then at her. “What did he do? Try to kill himself?”
Carla didn’t like him. She couldn’t understand how he could be Max’s lawyer — it made perfect sense that he was Manny’s. “How did you get here so fast?” she asked. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes since she had spoken to Manny.
Brillstein’s hands stopped. He cocked his head to the right and stared at Carla as if he had just noticed something surprising. After a moment, his mouth sagged open. The worry in his beady eyes went away. They seemed to widen and become curious. “Luck. I was in Staten Island when your husband beeped me. Incredible luck. I’ve been lucky lately.” Brillstein backed away. He leaned against the phone, resting one arm on its top. “I don’t know why everything’s been breaking my way. Don’t want to think about it, you know? Jinx it. How are you? You look very well for someone who’s crashed into a brick wall at fifty miles an hour.”
“I’m okay,” Carla said, now feeling a little uncertain of her dislike for Brillstein.
“Listen. We don’t have much time. I bought us some by telling the cops not to bother you now about the accident report. They may call you tomorrow or maybe I can deal with them. But still, Mr. Klein could be in trouble. I’m his lawyer. He picked me to represent his interests. You know that. He trusts me. I’ve got to know — what happened?”
“He didn’t try to kill himself. He was proving something to me.”
Brillstein nodded. He gestured with his right hand, a slow wave from her to him, silently asking for more.
“He was showing me I couldn’t hold on to Bubble no matter what.”
“Hold on to your son?” Brillstein shook his head with his eyes shut as if he were struggling to wake up; abruptly he opened them and his head was still. “You mean in the plane crash.” Carla nodded. Brillstein looked astonished. “Didn’t you know that? I told you it wasn’t your fault. They should have had a working seat belt in his seat and of course you couldn’t have held on, especially in a plane crash—”
For several seconds Carla had been shaking her head no to alert him he was on the wrong track before Brillstein finally noticed and stopped talking. He shut his lips and nodded at her. “I opened my hands to clap when we started to land,” Carla told her secret calmly. “When it looked like everything was going to be okay, I started clapping. I wasn’t holding on to him tight.” She could say all that without crying, without rage. She felt sad, she still felt Bubble’s sweaty head bobbing under her chin, but she was able to keep on talking to the short nervous lawyer and hold together. “Also,” she said after a swallow, “I always thought he must have been alive in there. After I got out…while it burned. I always thought—”
Brillstein shook his head firmly. “He would have been killed instantly.”
At that Carla had to cry. She covered up and let go. Only the sad fact of her loss was in her heart — no pain. She felt something soft brush against her cheek. Brillstein was offering tissues. She had just finished using them when Manny came in. He was carrying a white bag with Burger King written on it.
“She asked me to bring food,” he explained defensively to Brillstein instead of saying hello.
“Give it to me,” she said.
“At least she’s talking to me,” Manny commented to Brillstein as he passed him to give Carla the bag.
Carla was annoyed by what Manny had brought. He knew that she didn’t like fast-food crap. Even wrapped in foil inside the paper bag the hamburger’s smell was nauseating. She took out the French fries and the Pepsi.
“Here,” she held the bag with the hamburger still inside to Manny. “You can throw this out.”
“Throw it out yourself,” Manny said. He leaned back against the wall underneath the heart-patient poster and slid down onto his haunches.
“I’ll take it,” Brillstein said, obviously nervous that they were going to get ugly. He grabbed the Burger King bag. “I’ll check on what’s happening and come back. We have to talk more about the seat belt and everything,” he added in a solemn tone.
“What?” Manny said to the lawyer as he left. Brillstein didn’t respond. Manny said it again to Carla after the lawyer had gone. “What?”
Carla ate a french fry. It was hot and salty — she liked it. “Thank you,” she said about the food. She took a sip of the Pepsi.
“What the fuck is going on?” He said this hopelessly, sliding down even farther onto his heels. He put his hands in his jacket too. He had made himself into a ball, all round, hiding any part that could be wounded. “How did you get into this accident? What are you doing to yourself?”
She told him, just as she had told Brillstein, only this time she had no tears, no unhappiness about it. Manny stayed in his crouch while listening, his hands hidden, his head down. He peered out at her from under the hood of his dull black hair. He was like a cornered animal deciding whether to believe the voice coaxing him to come out from his hiding place.
At first Manny said nothing when she was done. He looked away from her and down at the floor. When Manny did talk he was hoarse. “He crashed the car to prove that to you?”
“I was out of my mind,” she said.
“And now?”
“And now…” she ate another french fry. She could feel the grains of salt, there was so much of it. She sipped the sweet soda. “And now I’m not,” she said at last.
Carla didn’t get to see Max. Brillstein told her that the doctors had decided to let Max’s skull be, at least for now. They were optimistic, despite his high fever. He was still in intensive care and couldn’t be visited.
“Is his wife here?” Carla asked.
Brillstein said she was; and added that she had asked him to make sure she didn’t meet Carla.
“Why’s that?” Manny said. “She thinks it’s Carly’s fault?”
Brillstein didn’t look Manny in the eye. “No, no, no, no,” he said so fast the nos were hummed. “She’s upset and frightened — she wants to be alone. She doesn’t want to see anybody.”
Carla knew from the lawyer’s manner that Max’s wife must have told him about Max’s crazy avowal of love.
She hates me, Carla thought, and understood.
“Let’s go home,” she said to Manny. She felt tired all of a sudden. Although her body didn’t hurt, she sensed that it would soon.