Izzy held the baby’s head in her hands, supporting it, guiding the baby as she turned her head to the side.
“ It’s time, Marlan.” Izzy steeled herself. “One more push.”
“ I’m ready.”
And then the baby came, crying into the world.
Lila watched Eisenhower deliver the baby from the safety of the parking garage as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Then she pulled the pistol from her backpack. She never used the same kind of weapon twice. And she never carried it far from the scene of the crime, preferring to drop them in the nearest trash can.
However, this was Reno and there were security cameras everywhere. She was lucky to find a spot not covered to watch Eisenhower birth the baby from, but she didn’t want to trust carrying the weapon to a trash can and be recorded dropping it in. She’d have to leave it here.
It almost seemed a waste to lose such a good weapon on such an old woman, but Lila’s mind was made up. She sighted in on Eisenhower’s chest, aiming for the heart. She watched for a few seconds, thinking this was a fitting ending for a heart surgeon. Then she pulled the trigger.
Chapter Three
Izzy was cold. She curled her knees to her chest, subconsciously seeking warmth and found none. She moaned, dreaming of snow. She was outside in a brisk Reno winter. She was naked, lying in the snow. Her teeth were chattering, she was powerless to stop it.
She had to pee and now she was in one of the campgrounds on Highway 49, between Susanville and Shasta City in Northern California. She was in front of an outhouse, but the door was jammed. She had to get in, couldn’t. She had clothes on now and she wet herself and all of a sudden she knew she was dreaming and that she’d just wet the bed.
“ No,” she muttered, awake or in her dream, she didn’t know. Her throat was dry, like she hadn’t had a drink in forever. “No,” she muttered again. She had a headache, like she’d had too much wine, but the deep pain she’d been living with for the last few months was gone. She had to be dreaming, otherwise it would be front and center, reminding her of the cancer that was going to take her life in a few month’s time.
But it didn’t feel like a dream. The hangover was real, but she couldn’t remember drinking enough last night to cause it. The cold was real, too. She’d never been cold in a dream before, not like this. And the warm wet between her legs, that was real.
She opened her eyes to a hazy, green, cocooned kind of place. She was under the covers and the light was on, filtering through a green sheet.
She didn’t have green sheets.
She wasn’t in her bed.
She pulled the sheet back and gasped.
She knew where she was straightaway. She’d been here before, several times, though it had been years. She recognized the fans whirring above her head, the green room, the sterility of it. She looked right, saw that familiar door. She looked left, saw a body covered in a twin of the sheet which covered her.
She sat up in a panic, threw the sheet aside. She was naked and her right toe had been tagged. She was in the hospital morgue at St. Catherine’s, waiting to be transferred to the county morgue. She didn’t feel dead. On the contrary, she felt more alive than she had in years. Then she saw her legs and gasped.
“ What the-”
These were not old lady legs. She looked down at her breasts. They’d been sagging for the last three decades, but they were jutting out now, like a teenager’s. And her nipples were hard, like she was sexually excited.
She was excited, alright.
And she had to be dreaming.
But the puddle of warm urine she was sitting in felt real.
She pinched her cheek. That felt real. She pinched her thigh. That felt real. She took a deep breath, waiting for the pain to shoot through her lungs. Didn’t happen.
She bent forward, surprised to find she could reach the toe tag without bending her knees. She’d studied ballet when she was young. Back then she could touch her head to the ground without bending her knees. She pulled off the tag, instinctively knowing her body was in that kind of shape now.
There was a case number on the tag. That she expected. Date and time of death too, she also expected. Cause of death: Gunshot wound to the heart. That was a shocker, she’d expected cancer.
She looked down again at her breasts. Beautiful and perfect, no sign of a gunshot wound.
She shook her head, testing the hangover, which seemed to be gone now, but something not gone was the mane of hair that swished around her shoulders. She tugged on it, expecting the wig, but the hair was real.
“ Okay, Isadora, let’s figure this out.” She got off the gurney, half expecting her legs to buckle. They didn’t. She picked the sheet up off the floor, went to the deep sink, ran some water on a dry part of it, cleaned the urine away.
She wanted a mirror, wanted to see her face, but that would have to wait. She needed to get out of here before someone discovered she wasn’t dead, before they discovered that something very strange had happened. She’d been around long enough to know if she were found-dare she even think it, with her youth restored-that they’d lock her away. Then they’d poke, prod, test and retest her till they found the secret.
She didn’t want to be poked and prodded.
She didn’t know why this had happened, but it had. She’d always taken things as they’d come, played the hand she was dealt. Lately she’d gotten some bad cards, now she’d been dealt a royal flush. These were her cards now and she was going to bet them like there was no tomorrow.
To do that she had get out of this room, away from this hospital. But first she needed clothes. Fortunately she knew the hospital as well as she knew her own home. She padded to the door, opened it. The office was empty. She went to the door, checked the hallway. Not a soul, but for how long?
She jogged down the corridor to the stairway. Safely inside the stairwell, she went up two flights, opened the door a crack, saw an intern with blood on her scrubs enter the intern’s locker room. That was her goal.
She counted to thirty, guessing that would be enough time for the woman to shed her scrubs and get into the shower. Then she gave herself a count to fifteen, before stepping out of the stairway and crossing to the locker room. Inside, she heard the shower running and she found the woman’s locker open.
Izzy pulled out a pair of scrubs, stepped into them. She spotted a couple pair of grey Nikes, one pair well worn, one pair obviously new. She grabbed a pair of socks, put them on, then slid her feet into the new pair. Her new body demanded the new shoes, but unfortunately they were a little tight. Beggars can’t be choosers, she thought as she laced them up. In less than a minute after she’d entered the locker room, she left it and was back in the hall, heading this time for the elevator, which would take her to the ground floor and freedom.
She decided to leave the hospital through the emergency room exit, but when she got there she saw attendings, interns and nurses galore, standing at the ready. Something bad had happened and they were waiting to try and right some of the wrongs.
“ What happened?” Izzy heard a young nurse ask.
“ Gangbanger shot into a car full of people, caused a major accident at the Spaghetti Bowl,” a much older nurse answered.
She couldn’t leave with them standing there, not dressed the way she was. And she couldn’t turn her back and walk away either. She was wearing scrubs and though she had no name tag around her neck, she looked like a doctor. All she could do was stand and wait till the casualties arrived, then make her way out of the hospital during the confusion.
She heard sirens. Any minute the ER was going to be a beehive of activity. She couldn’t stand around unnoticed. She’d be required to do something. She looked around, headed for the restrooms. She’d hide out in the women’s till it was safe for her to make her exit.