150 Pounds Part 7

Noah had dropped off small silver bowls with colorful handfuls of ingredients. Carlos was fidgeting with the dials to turn on the stove. "This is about the only thing I can't turn on," he muttered, making Sarah and Alexis giggle.

Alexis picked up various s.h.i.+ny instruments that were lying on the table, like they were performing an operation. There seemed to be different-shaped knives, a few tools made from wood, and something that must be for pressing garlic. Or an egg. She wasn't very savvy in the kitchen, having never cooked before.

She leaned toward Sarah. "Can I help do something?" she asked.

"Sure!" Sarah's brow was furrowed. She clearly had no idea what she was doing, either. Yeesh. You'd think this Noah character would give a little more instruction. Right now he was standing with another nearby group of all women, laughing and touching one on the shoulder. Alexis rolled her eyes. She'd never learn how to make healthy chili at this rate.

Sarah handed her one of the s.h.i.+ny knives from the table. "Want to chop these onions here into small pieces? If the knife doesn't work you can bash them with this wooden mallet thingy. Just be careful, the knife is really sharp."

Carlos looked over from where he was now was.h.i.+ng cilantro in the small sink attached to their island counter. "Hey, you can use the mallet on Aldo if he doesn't do diaper duty!"

"Totally!" Sarah responded, laughing and pus.h.i.+ng her dark curls off her face.

"Hey, so what the h.e.l.l do you think scorpion sauce is?" Alexis asked. "It sounds really weird. I can't imagine it makes for very good chili. What are we, living on top of a mountain or something?" I'm trying too hard, she thought. She was trying to be funny, but she had a bit of a Valley girl voice and the joke came out sounding b.i.t.c.hy.

"Beats me," Sarah responded cheerfully. "Can't wait to find out, though. Maybe it will clear up my sinuses. I've had really bad allergies lately."

Alexis began chopping, wondering if Billy had recorded The Real Housewives of New York City. She hoped so. She'd shown him how to work the TV but half the time he came home from either a shoot or work tipsy and would press all the wrong b.u.t.tons. Plus, he'd gotten red nail polish on the remote and she couldn't get it off, so the play b.u.t.ton stuck. She was lost in thought.

The hum of chatter was all around her, women's laughter. Music was playing, something by Bob Marley that Alexis didn't know the t.i.tle of. Just as she was starting to enjoy the cla.s.s despite the unusual ingredients, she suddenly felt a sharp pain on her right hand, like someone had bitten her.

"Oh, honey, you're bleeding!" Carlos exclaimed, walking quickly to her side and taking her small hand in his own. Sarah looked down, and indeed, she'd cut herself pretty deeply.

"Oh!" she said, as though the screaming-red blood now coursing over her finger and wrist had surprised her somehow. Like the knife had betrayed her.

Suddenly a flock of women crowded around her, fussing over her finger, which Alexis realized with alarm was looking worse by the second.

"Here's some paper towels!"

"Put pressure on it!"

"Lay on your back and hold your legs up in the air!" Carlos shouted.

"That's when you're trying to get pregnant, dumba.s.s!" Sarah shot back. "And I should know!"

Alexis found herself giggling, despite the situation. She probably should have eaten more than a few slices of turkey breast for dinner. Blood was seeping out of the paper towel Carlos had wrapped around her finger and dripping onto the floor. So much for super absorbency, she thought. Her finger pulsed in time with her heartbeat, a steady rhythm.

She felt a pair of strong hands wrap around her shoulders, and just as she realized how dizzy she was, she found herself staring into the warmest pair of chocolate-brown eyes she'd ever seen.

"Let me take you to the hospital," Noah said in a calm, steady voice.

"You'd make a good politician," Alexis told Noah, slightly giddy from the blood loss. She suddenly felt like being silly. "Like, okay, America, stay calm. Lock your doors. Go under your house into the bunker and lay on the floor." She giggled even more. Carlos and Sarah exchanged a worried look. Alexis never acted silly. She must be near death.

But Noah frowned. "My car's parked just out front. I think you're going to need st.i.tches."

"You can't just leave your own cla.s.s," Alexis said meekly. Sarah found a white towel and wrapped it around Alexis's finger.

"My cla.s.s, my responsibility," he said firmly.

"We can hold the cla.s.s next week instead," Carlos told Noah. "There's an opening during the week."

"Done," Noah said definitively.

And before she could protest any more she was being ushered up the aisle between stoves and felt hands clap her gently on the shoulder from all the women in the cla.s.s as Noah led her gently by the elbow through the room and out the doors.

His rusty blue Subaru was parked in front of the gym, a small detail which Alexis was grateful for, as she really was beginning to feel quite dizzy. She'd bled a trail through the gym as they walked.

"Uh, what's that?" Alexis asked, gesturing to a yellow boot on Noah's right front wheel, which was quite deflated.

"Oh, I just put that on so I can park wherever I want," Noah said distractedly, as he removed it and threw it through the back window. There was an orange kayak strapped to the roof.

"So it's like a fake boot?" Alexis asked.

"Yeah." He quickly unlocked her door for her before running around to his side and sliding behind the wheel. He was so tall his head touched the roof.

Alexis was amused. She liked people who beat the system.

Maps and water bottles were strewn everywhere, and the car smelled distinctly of dog.

"I figured I'd take you to NYU, it's close," he said. He drove quickly, never hesitating before turning or looking in the mirror. He drove forcefully, Alexis thought. She imagined him in bed, bossing her around. She had to look out the window at a wet New York evening to avoid smiling, despite the pain in her finger.

"What?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Oh! Nothing," she said. "Just thinking about ... chili."

He shot her an odd look.

"How's the finger?" he asked. He had an old-school CD system in his car, the kind one had in high school where the deck pops out so no one can steal it. He pressed play and strains of Phish rang out.

"Fine. It's really not a big deal, you know, I could have just taken a cab. I feel bad that you had to interrupt your cooking cla.s.s. You won't get paid now."

"What, and let you never find out what scorpion sauce is?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Oh. She hadn't realized he'd been listening.

"So, what's your name?" he asked, pulling into NYU Medical Center's emergency entrance.

"Alexis. Alexis Allbright."

She realized she'd introduced herself the way her father had taught her to do when she was little, and inwardly cringed. Always reach out and shake hands, Alexis. Then look the person right in the eye and state your full name, first and last.

"I'm sorry to bleed all over your car. What year is it?" Her finger really hurt and it relaxed her to quiz him.

"I don't know, to tell you the truth." He grinned at her, and it was like the sun coming out. She was surprised by the effect it had on her. "I won it playing cards with a buddy back in Colorado, where I'm from."

What kind of guy didn't know what year his car was? Interesting. "So what else do you do, Noah, other than chauffeur girls around who cut themselves in cooking cla.s.s?"

A taxi cut him off. "Big dummy!" Noah yelled out the window, shaking his fist.

Alexis raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Is that the worst insult you can throw?" she asked. "Wow, you really are a country b.u.mpkin."

"Sorry," Noah said sheepishly, pus.h.i.+ng a stray curl off his forehead. "I can't stand the way people drive here."

Looking for a place to park near the emergency room entrance, Noah was squinting, which made him look even cuter, like a sailor. The wipers worked sporadically, and he had to manually roll down his window and stick his arm out to wipe off the winds.h.i.+eld.

"Sorry," he said again, as they waited for someone to pull out of a spot. He reached over and put one of his large hands on her shoulder. "Just another minute and we'll get you right in there and fixed up. That must hurt."

She didn't say anything. His hand had brushed against hers a few times when he s.h.i.+fted gears, and it felt as warm as it did now, touching her sweater. It made her forget about the pain in her finger.

Alexis felt silly going through the big revolving doors with the loud red EMERGENCY sign above them. Surely there were people here much sicker than her. But she had bled all the way down the front of her sweater, which she attempted to wipe off as she strolled into the emergency room.

Noah walked very closely to her as she gave her name to a plump and cheerful Hispanic nurse named Inez who wore purple scrubs with Goofy on them. Noah had to help her get her wallet out of her purse to present her insurance card. She was led to a small, curtained-off area where she could see the s.h.i.+fting of shapes and colors through the flimsy white mesh meant to give patients the illusion of privacy.

"I'll wait right here for you," Noah said, taking a seat in a blue plastic chair at a low table meant for children in the waiting room. He looked oversized, like a giant. His legs were a mile long. On the table was a wooden game with different-colored b.a.l.l.s you ran over a wire, and a stuffed bunny. Noah held up the bunny. "Just call us in if you need us. The bunny has a strong stomach."

Alexis giggled. "Um, you look really uncomfortable in that chair."

He s.h.i.+fted around. "What do you mean? It's great. Me and this chair are copacetic."

"Let your boyfriend hold your purse for you," Inez said, before she turned and said something about going to get the doctor.

"Oh, no, he's not-" but Inez was already gone in a flash of colorful scrubs.

"Just think, we can tell this story to our grandchildren," Noah said. He nonchalantly picked up a copy of the children's book Leonardo, the Terrible Monster and riffled through it.

"What story?" Alexis asked.

"The tragic tale, of how you hurt yourself in my chili-making cla.s.s, and how I heroically whisked you over to the hospital for st.i.tches. It will make a very romantic story, I a.s.sure you."

She rolled her eyes, but secretly felt a little spark of excitement. "You're crazy," she said.

"I remember being in the hospital when I was a kid, I was always breaking something and my mother would drive me, yelling and pinching my ear, she was so mad I'd hurt myself. I was more afraid of her than of the doctors. I broke the same arm three times in the third grade."

"Doing what?"

"Oh, you know. Rollerblading. Biking. Doing backflips."

"Backflips?"

"Of course. Off the roof of our garage. And one time I had to be brought in because I had one of those bugs in my ear, an earwig?"

Alexis sat in one of the little plastic chairs opposite him. It hurt her b.u.t.t. "I thought that was a myth," she said.

"Oh, no. They crawl inside your ear and eat your brain. That's why I'm so crazy now." He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

Despite the pain, which was now creeping up her hand, Alexis laughed out loud.

Inez had come back. "Come, dear, the doctor's almost ready for you."

"Knock 'em dead," Noah said. "Rabbit and I are rooting for you." He held up the stuffed animal and made its paw wave to her.

Inez put her arm through Alexis's and steered her down a hallway with green footprints and a sign that read FOLLOW THE FEET TO ER. She sat her on a cot and drew a curtain around her in a circle so she was finally alone for the first time since she'd left her apartment what seemed like forever ago. Alexis reached for her phone to call Billy, only to see that she had no bars, and therefore no reception. A bright red splotch was coming through the paper towel on her finger, like a Rorschach test. She scooted on the cot, holding her finger in the air. The sheets felt scratchy beneath her.

The squeak of a gurney being pushed down the hallway filled her ears. Far off, someone was screaming, and the sound carried to her muted, like she was underwater.

A chart taped to the wall read WHAT IS YOUR PAIN LEVEL, ONE THROUGH TEN? The levels appeared to coincide with smiley faces, which ranged from very happy, to maybe you didn't get the Justin Bieber tickets you wanted, all the way to your boyfriend is s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g your best friend.

The screams faded out, and the sound of a heart monitor's beeping once again rushed into her ears. There was an elderly Indian woman lying inert behind the next curtain over. Someone, perhaps her son, slumped over the side of her bed, asleep. The woman stared at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling to the rhythm of the monitor. She seemed defeated, somehow. Like life had let her down. The red dot on the middle of her forehead matched the color seeping from Alexis's bandage.

Alexis knew how the woman felt-not alone, and yet very much so. She felt hungry and tired. Estranged from her parents, and making a living out of telling people a message they didn't want to hear ("You're overweight and it's killing you!"). Noah was in the waiting room and Alexis wished he'd leave. She was exhausted and felt awkward about him being there. Alexis was quite used to doing things on her own. Sometimes Billy accompanied her grocery shopping, or scouting for a bathing suit, or for a gla.s.s of wine at a new restaurant she'd read about in New York magazine, but most of the time it was just solo Alexis. She prided herself on walking around this great city without needing a gaggle of people with her.

Just last week she'd tried a new noodle bar in the East Village for dinner, sat on the counter with her elbows propped, and read The Sun Also Rises while enjoying ramen soup. All the while, as couples held hands on the sidewalk and she received a few glances while eating her dinner, inwardly she'd felt pride, a shameless pride, that she was able to enjoy herself, by herself. You can read all the articles in women's magazines that tell you to be independent, but actually living with very few people in your life can be hard to do. After dinner she went to the Suns.h.i.+ne Cinema to see a foreign film with subt.i.tles, which she enjoyed. (She liked the big, overdone expressions and wild gesturing.) Alexis lay there on top of stiff, starched sheets and people rushed past her curtained-off cot, and machines beeped, and wheelchair wheels squeaked past her, and all the while she hated this seedling of an emotion that had been growing inside her since she walked through the doors to the hospital. She took pride in fending off loneliness but as she lay on her back Alexis suddenly felt the overwhelming urge for Noah to come sit with her. It must have something to do with being in pain; her defenses were down, Alexis mused. She'd bounce right back to her old b.i.t.c.hy self in no time.

She startled when the curtain whisked back and a short, chubby man who had a pudgy baby face strode confidently over to her cot. White hair stuck up on either side of his head like waves. "I'm Dr. Whisk," he said. His smile lit up his whole face, relaxing Alexis immediately. "Like the tool you use to make a cake."

"You must have to say that a lot," she said dryly, s.h.i.+fting on the cot to sit up. Her finger throbbed.

"Never get tired of it," he said, still smiling and not missing a beat. He'd dealt with cranky gang members with multiple gunshot wounds. Alexis with her att.i.tude was nothing. "Now, what happened here?" he asked.

"I cut my finger during a cooking cla.s.s," she said, gingerly holding it out to him.

He went to a gleaming white cabinet behind her cot and opened it. He reached inside and pulled out a kidney-shaped metal bin. "Well, what'd you do that for?" he joked cheerfully.

Alexis sighed. She didn't do banter. Not well, anyway.

"Sorry," Dr. Whisk said. "Started my day over in pediatrics. So I'm a little jazzed up and still have the happy face on."

Alexis decided to extend an olive branch. "How long have you been working here?"

He cheerily unwrapped her finger, whistled at the cut, and dumped the soaked bandages inside the basin. "I'm sixty-one," he answered. He winked at her. "I'm retiring to a small Rhode Island town soon, to deliver babies. I can't wait. The emergency room can wear a man down."

He gently took off the wrap she'd received when she first arrived (now soaked through with cherry-lollipop-red blood), then got down to the paper towels given to her in Noah's cla.s.s.

"I have three sons. Two are doctors, and one is in clown school at Coney Island."

Alexis burst out laughing. "Well, it could be worse. He could have done what everyone else in his family did, and not follow his heart."

"You are a very wise woman," Dr. Whisk said.

Suddenly the sound of pulling back her curtain.

"Hey, is this where I can find New York's next top chef?" Noah peeked his head around. "Hey there, Doc," he said.

She felt a rush at seeing him. Suddenly the white of Dr. Whisk's coat looked brighter. She smiled, then hid it with her hand. The day tilted on its axis, seeming less sad, less dreary. She felt a shot of optimism course through her. If only he wasn't so d.a.m.n cute.

"I told your boyfriend it was fine for him to sit with you, this will only take a minute," Dr. Whisk said, busying himself with rummaging around in the nearby cabinet.

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend," Alexis said, laughing nervously.