Wendy blinked. The entire incident-the nightmare and the fit of hysteria that followed-had been erased from her memory. She supposed it was just as well. She had enough nightmares stored in her gray cells as it was.
“Is there anything you need?” the nurse asked.
“I’d like to get out of bed, use the bathroom.”
“Okay, hold on. You’re going for a ride.”
The nurse cranked up the bed till Wendy was in a sitting position, then lowered one of the side rails. She took Wendy’s hand and helped her get up. For the first time Wendy noticed that her palms were bandaged. She remembered shielding her face from flying glass when the windshield blew apart.
The semiprivate room had its own half-bath. Wendy found the nurse waiting for her when she emerged.
“I’m wide awake now,” she said. “I don’t need to go back to bed.” But as she took a step forward, she tottered with a wave of vertigo.
The nurse steadied her. “Looks like you do. The tranquilizer hasn’t worn off completely.”
Wendy allowed herself to be eased back under the sheets. She sat upright, a pillow at her back, fighting spirals of dizziness.
“Which hospital am I at, by the way?”
“Cedars-Sinai.”
“My home away from home.”
“Well, you can go back to your real home soon enough. I’m sure you’ll be discharged as soon as the Valium is out of your system… and as soon as the doctor has had a chance to look you over, of course. In the meantime relax and take it easy.”
“Not much else I can do.”
“If you get bored, call your friends.” The nurse nodded to the telephone on the nightstand. “I’ll bet a lot of people will be anxious to hear from you.”
She shut the door on her way out.
Wendy sighed. She wished the nurse had been right. But with Jeffrey dead, how many people did she have in her life who cared about her? Was there anyone? Anyone at all?
My parents, she thought with a chill of concern. If they’ve heard the news…
And they probably had heard by now. The Gryphon had been a national story; what happened to her must have been on all the morning shows back East.
She picked up the handset, dialed an outside line, and punched in a long-distance number with a 513 area code, charging the call to her phone-company credit card. The phone at the other end of the line rang three times before her mother’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Mom? It’s Wendy.”
“You’re calling awfully early in the A.M.," Audrey Alden said in a dry, needling tone. “Must be six o’clock out there.”
“Yes. I… I just got up.”
“Something the matter?”
They knew nothing, obviously. That was good. Better to learn about it over the phone than from a TV newscaster.
“Yes,” Wendy said carefully, “you could say so. I mean, there was something the matter, but it’s all right now.”
“Speak English, will you? What did we send you to that college for, if you can’t make yourself clear about the simplest things?”
“I’m sorry.” What was she apologizing for? “A lot has happened, and I guess I’m confused-”
“Boyfriend trouble, I’ll bet. That Jamie’s no good for you.”
“His name is Jeffrey, and you’ve never even met him, and-” And he’s dead, she wanted to add, but she couldn’t force the words out.
“Those photography people are all, you know, peculiar,” her mother went on, unhearing. “Of course I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”
“What… what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re not getting any younger, and with all the trashy sweet things out there in Hollywood sashaying around on Sunset Boulevard, you’ve got to settle for what you can get.”
Wendy shut her eyes, swallowed her anger. “I only called because I have something important to tell you. Last night-”
“It’s Wendy,” Mrs. Alden said suddenly, her voice muffled. “Yes, calling this early. Sounds half asleep, but then she always does. Pick it up on the extension, why don’t you?”
A moment later her father’s voice came on the line. “I’m on my way to work,” he said without greetings or preamble, “so I haven’t got much time. What’s the matter, darling? Short of cash?”
“No, I-”
He chuckled. “Figured you might be, what with that job of yours. How much are they paying you there? Twenty-five, is that it? Nobody can get by on twenty-five a year, not these days, not in the big city. There are jobs that pay a whole lot better, but a person’s got to have gumption to get ahead in this world, is what I say.”
“I make thirty grand a year,” Wendy said coldly. “Not twenty-five. And I’m not calling about money anyway. For Christ’s sake, don’t you people own a television set? Don’t you-”
“How dare you address your father in that tone of voice,” Mrs. Alden interrupted. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain-where did you learn manners like that?”
“Not from us, that’s for certain,” Stan Alden put in.
“From that Jamie, I’ll bet.”
“Shut up!” Wendy hissed. “Can’t you just listen to me for once? I’m trying to tell you-”
“Keep this up and you won’t be getting any money from us, daughter of mine,” Mr. Alden said darkly. “Not one red cent.”
“I don’t want any money. Why do you keep talking about money?”
“Ease off, Stan,” his wife told him. “The girl is upset. She’s got boy trouble.”
“No, I do not have boy trouble! That has nothing to do with… with anything.”
Wendy was losing her composure. Suddenly she was a small child again, helpless, intimidated, being told what she thought and what she wanted and what was wrong with her, and being given no choice in any of it.
But I’m not a child, she reminded herself as she tightened her grip on the hard plastic shell of the telephone handset. Not anymore.
“Look.” She kept her voice low and even. “I got into some trouble last night, and I wanted you to know-”
“Trouble?” her mother interrupted, a strange note of eagerness in her voice. “What sort of trouble?”
“Whatever kind of jam you’re in,” her father said sternly, “it’s up to you to get yourself out of it. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t bail you out every time. I’m not made of money, you know.”
“Are you pregnant?” Audrey Alden asked. “Or is it AIDS? That’s it, isn’t it? AIDS? That Jamie-I knew he was one of those types. The artistic ones always are.”
“If you’d learn to keep your head on straight and not act like such a damn fool,” Mr. Alden said, “you might be able to take care of yourself for a change.”
“I warned you about Jamie, but did you listen?”
“All it takes is the sense God gave a goat, but sometimes I think that’s more sense than you’ve got.”
Wendy took the phone away from her ear, looked at it for a long moment, then raised the mouthpiece to her lips.
“Mom,” she said quietly. “Dad.”
There was something in her voice, some quality of steely hardness, that silenced them.
“For twenty-nine years”-she listened to herself from some great distance, wondering what she was about to say-“you’ve been taking out your problems on me. Giving me grief because it’s all you’ve got to give. Making me crazy.”
“We never-” her mother protested, but Wendy cut her off.
“I don’t want to hear it. Any of it. I’m not putting up with your bullshit anymore. You hear me? I’m through being treated like a nobody. Because I’m not a nobody. And if you can’t understand that, then it’s your problem, not mine.”
The line was quiet save for the buzz of the long-distance connection.
“Is that what you called to tell us?” her mother asked finally in a small, oddly subdued voice.
“Yes,” Wendy said after a moment’s thought. “As a matter of fact, it was.”
“Then what was all this guff about the trouble you’re in?” Her father sounded as if he didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry.
“You can read about it in the paper,” she said coldly. “On the front page.”
She hung up before they could say anything more.
Then she threw her head back on the pillow and marveled at what she’d done.