“Shouldn’t be? Why not?”
“A million reasons. I saw it at orientation though. He just didn’t fit. We should have seen it in the interview. We didn’t. I knew the minute he walked on this campus that he wasn’t going to last more than a year. Now it seems he’s going to last less.”
“You don’t expect him to recover from this sufficiently to return to classes?”
“I expect at least one of those drug tests to come back positive, and when it does I have every intention of expelling him. The only reason I haven’t expelled him yet is because I had to be careful about the legal situation and about the reputation of the school. A woman like Elizabeth Toliver can do us a lot of damage if she wants to.”
“She could still do it.”
“Of course she could. But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” Peter said. “You know and I know that after this there’s going to be no hope that we can keep it all out of the papers. It was hard enough to keep Michael’s suicide out. But Jimmy Card’s stepson takes a drug overdose and nearly dies in his dorm at Windsor Academy? Please. We’re about to become a national sensation. And I’m about to become unemployed.”
“Was it a drug overdose?” Liz Toliver asked.
The two of them both turned toward the swinging fire doors at once. Gregor thought, rather uselessly, that he hadnever seen Liz in winter clothes before, and at the same time that these were probably not the clothes she wore in New York. She was dressed in jeans and L.L. Bean hunting boots and a big quilted jacket in an odd color that was neither red nor orange. Her hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck. She was wearing no makeup.
Peter Makepeace nearly leaped forward and held out his hand. “Ms. Toliver, I’m so sorry. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m—”
“You’re Peter Makepeace. You’re the headmaster. I remember you. Gregor? Was it a drug overdose?”
“I don’t know,” Gregor said, “the doctor isn’t telling us anything. He probably shouldn’t; I don’t know if he’ll tell you.”
“The nurse said he was all right,” Liz said. “Do you think that?”
“Yes,” Gregor said. “That I can definitely tell you. He’s not dead, and from what they’ve told us, he’s not likely to suffer permanent damage; but he’s in bad shape.”
“Right,” Liz said.
“Ms. Toliver,” Peter Makepeace said.
“Mr. Makepeace,” Liz said, “right this second, between what I heard from Mr. Demarkian earlier this evening on the phone, and what I’ve heard since about Mark’s trip to this place, I’d suggest that it was far and away the better part of valor for you to just shut up. I’m going to take Mr. Demarkian here. We’re going to go in to see my son. Then we’re going to talk to the doctor. You are not welcome in either place; and I’ll discuss the details of the lawsuit I’ll be filing against Windsor Academy at some later date. Have I made myself clear?”
“I don’t believe the doctor will talk to you,” Peter Makepeace said. “I think his position is that you’ll need to hear anything that is to be heard from the regular ward physician when he comes on in the morning.”
Gregor saw Liz give him the kind of look God probably gave souls trying to bullshit their way out of purgatory. She then turned back to the swinging doors.
“He’ll talk to me,” she said, dragging Gregor behind her.
2
Liz Toliver was not usually a high-handed woman. In fact, in Gregor’s experience, she was usually anything but. This was not a usual circumstance, and Gregor did not blame her for using what clout she had to get the answers she needed about Mark. It was, though, truly remarkable to behold her operating at full-tilt boogie. He’d never seen her that way before. She pulled him up to the nurses’ station, spent less than thirty seconds arguing with the nurse on duty about calling the doctor out of emergency, and then started down the hall in the other direction to find Mark’s room.
“I want him moved to a single as soon as possible,” was the last thing she said to the nurse. “My husband’s due up here in the morning. My husband’s Jimmy Card—”
The nurse looked startled.
“—the musician,” Liz went on, “and as soon as he arrives a complete circus of press is likely to arrive with him, so there are going to be issues of security. Get Mark moved within the hour.”
Gregor had no doubt that the nurse would get Mark moved within the hour, and probably faster. He followed Liz down the hall. The rooms all seemed to be full, with two patients each. Everybody seemed to be sleeping.