“She wants a slice of the big pie.”
“The what?”
“She needs the incredible Buck Fuck.”
Marty couldn’t believe Buck’s insensitivity, not that he was Michael Bolton himself. “She hates you, that’s why she was ignoring you.”
“You don’t know shit about romance,” Buck hiked up his pants, ran a finger over his teeth, and wiped it on his shirt. “Stay here, I don’t want you cramping my style.”
As Buck marched off to offend Angie, Marty lay back on his cot and sipped some orange juice.
The cut on his forehead stung. He’d need stitches. The scar would give him character. And as he thought about it, Marty realized maybe Buck was right. He didn’t know much about romance, not that the “incredible Buck Fuck” qualified.
Five years ago, Marty was still single and living as a freelance reader, taking a stack of scripts home each week to synopsize and critique for various studios. He was sitting in his apartment one day, reading a buddy-cop screenplay he was going to trash in his report-a script that would, two years later, become one of the highest grossing movies of all time-when his phone rang.
It was the UCLA Medical Center Emergency Room. Beth had been hit by a car in Westwood and gave his name as an emergency contact. They needed him to come down right away.
All at once, he experienced a string of cliches: his heart skipped a beat, his knees wobbled, and he had trouble breathing. Those feelings he expected. What surprised him was the terror. The idea that he nearly lost her, that she might be suffering right now, made him want to scream.
Marty demanded to know details, what kind of injuries she had, how badly she was hurt. But the nurse wouldn’t answer his question; she just told him to come down as soon as possible.
He made the drive from their apartment in West LA up to Westwood in about fifteen minutes, running two red lights and nearly hitting a bike rider himself. Marty could barely see through his tears or think past his terror.
He was her emergency contact? He didn’t know that. When did that happen? When did she decide to give him that responsibility for her? When did he become more important to her than her family?
Marty parked, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and told himself to be strong. For her. He was her Emergency Contact.
Family Feud was on the TV in the ER waiting room as Marty rushed in. None of the worried people sitting in the stiff, plastic chairs were watching it. He knew his face looked just like theirs.
Marty went up to the desk, told them he was Beth’s emergency contact, and they led him to one of the large rooms. Three gurneys were separated from one another by curtains. A little boy was sobbing, clutching his parents, as a doctor removed a nail from his foot. A woman in her twenties lay in a bed, covered with hives, reading People Magazine. And on the next gurney was Beth, her eyes closed, a big, open gash across her chin.
Her blouse was splashed with blood. Her legs, arms, and cheeks were covered with scratches. He swallowed a scream and rushed to her side, afraid to touch her.
“Beth?”
Her eyes opened and she smiled, grabbing his hand. “Oh, Marty, I’m so sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?”
“Scaring the shit out of you. I’m fine.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “God, don’t worry about it.”
“I told them not to call you, but they insisted,” she caught him staring at all the blood on her clothes. “It’s nothing, Marty, really. It’s from this cut on my chin. Nothing’s broken, just a lot of scrapes and bruises.”
Marty was so relieved, he thought he might start crying again. He willed himself not to. Emergency Contacts don’t cry. They provide strength and reassurance.
“What happened?”
“I was crossing the street and this car came charging around the corner. You would have loved it, I dived out of the way like T. J. Hooker,” she smiled again, which opened her chin wound like a second mouth. “Only T. J. would have gotten the guy’s license number.”
The cut on her chin was deep, right down to the bone, and still bleeding. His chin hurt just looking at it. He hurt everywhere she did and he wished that was enough to take the pain from her, to transfer it to him. If he could do that, he would.
“What do the doctors say?” Marty asked.
“They want to take a bunch of x-rays, just to be sure, and they want to stitch my chin. I don’t know if they’re listening to me, so promise me you won’t let one of the interns sew me up. Get a plastic surgeon.”
“Okay.”
“Make sure it’s a plastic surgeon. A scar could ruin my acting career.”
If she was worried about that, she really was fine. “A little scar didn’t hurt Harrison Ford.”
“He’s a man,” she said, “it’s different for them.”
Marty smiled and squeezed her hand. He wanted to hug her, to let her know how full of love and relief he was right now.
“What are you smiling about?” she said, stifling a smile of her own.
“Nothing.”
“I’m in pain here.” She squeezed his hand back.
“I know.”
“You’re still smiling.”
“Marry me.”
The words came out of him with no warning, no thought. But when Marty heard himself say it, he didn’t want to take it back or turn it into a joke. He knew it was right and that he meant it.
“What did you say?” she stared at him.
“I said marry me.”
“I’m not going to die,” she said, her lip trembling. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. I realize now I should have done it a long time ago. I’ve taken you and what you bring to my life for granted. I never will again.”
Tears streamed out of her eyes, but not from the pain or fear. She smiled. “I suppose if the marriage doesn’t work, I can always say I was under duress and on drugs when you asked.”
“Is that a yes?”
She nodded. He leaned down, and as gently as he possibly could, kissed her.
A plastic surgeon did sew Beth up (and, years later, the scar was barely visible) and while she was being x-rayed, a nurse played on Marty’s concern for Beth and got him to donate blood for accident victims not as lucky as his wife. In an odd way, giving blood made him feel a lot better, the same way it did now.
Lying on the cot, on the football field of Fairfax High School, a landscape of destruction between him and Beth, he almost felt as though he could touch her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
12:32 p.m. Wednesday
Marty was anxious to leave and wasn’t going to wait around to have his wound stitched up. He did his bit for the disaster relief effort and wanted to get moving before they tried to get him to do more. There was still the Santa Monica Mountains and a smog-choked valley between him and Beth.
He got up and looked for Buck, which meant he had to wander among the wounded with his eyes open and his head up, really seeing their faces for the first time. They were all the same. It didn’t matter whether they were injured or not, or how seriously they were hurt. They all shared the same body language, the same expression. It wasn’t terror, sorrow, or pain, though there was plenty of that, too. They all looked lost. Everything they were connected to was gone. Their homes, their jobs, their families, their own bodies, the ground beneath their feet, all shattered.
Marty remembered walking away from that collapsed overpass after rescuing Franklin. The first thing he noticed was Bob Baker’s Marionette Theatre and he couldn’t figure out how or why it existed. Back then, he didn’t see the relevance of puppetry in a modern world. Now he did.
They were all puppets, animated by the properties, responsibilities, and relationships they were tied to, all the things that were missing now. The earthquake cut all those strings.
Marty knew he wasn’t any different. He was grasping for that one string he had left, the one that led back to Beth.