“Name?” she said.
“I’m not registering,” Gregor told her. “A friend of mine was just brought in here with a broken arm and I think one or two contusions. I’d like to know where she is.”
“Are you related to her in any way?”
“Related?”
“Husband? Father? Brother? Uncle?”
“No. We’re not related. We were together at this party—”
“You were together at the party but she came to the emergency room by herself?”
“She was brought here by the paramedic team—”
“A paramedic team had to be called to this party?”
Gregor took a deep breath. “Let’s take this from the beginning,” he said. “My name is Gregor Demarkian.”
“Oh, my God!” This was a voice from behind the nurse he was talking to. Gregor couldn’t see the speaker.
“This friend of mine, Bennis Hannaford, and I were at a party in Society Hill given by Congresswoman Julianne Corbett—”
“Congresswoman.” This was the nurse right behind the glass. She was sitting up very straight in her chair now.
Gregor was glad to have found out what made her move.
“Right,” he said. “Congresswoman Corbett. There was some kind of small bomb—”
“I’ve heard about that. What did you say your name was again?”
“Gregor Demarkian.”
“The Armenian-American Hercule Poirot,” hissed the voice behind the nurse. “Don’t you ever read the papers?”
The nurse ignored the voice. “What was the name of your friend again?”
“Bennis Hannaford.”
“Just a moment, please.”
“You can’t make him sit there and wait,” the voice said, sounding scandalized. “He knows the mayor. We’ll all be in major trouble.”
The nurse Gregor could see went on ignoring the voice. She stood and walked away, leaving nothing but a blank wall behind her. Now Gregor wondered where the other voice was coming from.
He turned around in his chair and looked back out on the waiting room, on all the tired people, on all the pain. Was this a good hospital? He didn’t know. He only knew that the waiting room depressed him, the way cities in general had depressed him. He thought of Fox Run Hill with its gates and its guards, and sighed.
The nurse came back and sat down behind the bulletproof glass again. “That will be fine,” she told him. “You need to go down this corridor to your left all the way to the end and present this pass at the fire doors. Then you go through the fire doors and to the right until you reach Room E143. Do you understand that?”
“Down here to the left to the fire doors. Present the pass. To the right until Room E143.”
“That is correct. Are you carrying any firearms on your person?”
“No.”
“Are you carrying anything else that might be used as a weapon?”
“I’m not carrying a knife or anything of that kind, if that’s what you mean. I have a comb.”
“You will be required to pass through metal detectors at the fire doors,” the woman went on, ignoring everything he had said. “The guards there are authorized to confiscate and retain any item you may have that they consider a potential danger to the hospital, its patients, or yourself. Any such item will be returned to you when you leave. Do you understand this?”
“Yes,” Gregor said. “Yes, I understand it.”
The woman pushed a bright green paper card through the narrow slot under her window and watched carefully while he took it. Then she looked over his shoulder to see who was next in line.
Gregor got up and started walking heavily down the wide corridor toward the fire doors. The corridor was deserted and the fire doors were bright polished metal, hard-surfaced and grim.
He couldn’t imagine spending any time here, or trying to get well in this place. He couldn’t imagine being able to get well in this place.
He just hoped Bennis was all right, and that she wouldn’t have to spend much time here. He wanted to take her home tonight.
TWO
1.
IF HENRY HADN’T INSISTED on going shopping with her again, Evelyn would never have been wearing her sun hat when the big red Lincoln pulled into the driveway of the brick Federalist that morning. She didn’t like wearing hats in cars, but she didn’t want to take this one off in front of Henry either. It was a hot day and Henry had the Lincoln’s air-conditioning turned up full blast. Cold air streamed up under the thin fabric of her cotton dress and around her massive thighs. The dress was beginning to feel a little tight, and that scared her. It was a size thirty-two. How much longer would this go on? Would she just get fatter and fatter and fatter until she could no longer fit through the door of the house? She thought about that woman they had done the piece on on 60 Minutes, the one who weighed a thousand pounds. Then she felt a sharp stab of hunger in her stomach, and wished Henry away, far away, where he wouldn’t be able to see her eating. When people saw her eating, they said things to her. Even if she had the money, she couldn’t go into McDonald’s or Burger King and sit down and have a hamburger. For one thing, she no longer fit into the seats too well. She didn’t fit into the ones that were bolted to the floor at all. For another thing, people passing by her chair said things to her. “No wonder you’re so gross,” they would say even though they were carrying a couple of Big Macs and a large fries for themselves and she had nothing on her table but a cheeseburger and a Coke. It was as if they thought fat people had no right to eat, ever. It was what Henry thought too.