"You'd better believe it."
He promised to notify everyone concerned and to issue a statement to the press, which had been having a field day speculating on her whereabouts.
"That's fine, but hold off until tomorrow after the surgery, okay? No matter what the outcome, we'd just as well tell them everything at once." He agreed before hanging up.
After the connection was broken, Stevie felt terribly alone. The silence in her house was depressing, so accustomed was she to hearing the pecking noise of Judd's typewriter in the background.
The framed photos on the walls, picturing her holding aloft trophies of victory, seemed to jeer at her. Memorabilia of her career mocked her from bookshelves and etageres. The prize from The French Open, so recently acquired, no longer seemed to belong to her.
"Too late to reconsider now," she reminded herself as she went into her bedroom and began packing a small suitcase. Then, like a prayer, she whispered, "Stevie, your life is in God's hands."
God had a lot of helpers.
At least there were innumerable people who got their hands on her before she ever made it to the operating room the following morning. By then she had been stripped of all dignity and privacy.
Leaving Judd's car locked in her garage-it wouldn't do to have it stolen twice in one day- she was conveyed to the hospital by taxi.
In Admittance, she had to attach her signature to an endless number of insurance forms, as well as to a note to Jennifer. "My twelve-year-old daughter wants to grow up and be exactly like you," the star-struck receptionist told her.
From there she was taken to be x-rayed.
Wearing nothing except a paper poncho, she was placed in a room as cold as a meat locker and instructed to wait, which she did for over an hour before an unapologetic technician came in to x-ray her lungs.
"There, that wasn't that bad, was it?" another technician asked as he slipped the syringe from her vein, from which he'd drawn what looked like a quart of blood. "You can relax now," he said, working her fingers out of the tight fist she'd formed. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," she replied gruffly. "I just don't like needles."
She was finally placed in a private room, but was granted little privacy. A stiff, no-nonsense nurse came swishing in with a sheaf of yet more forms to be signed. "They showed you the video tape downstairs?" she asked dispassionately.
"Did you understand it?"
"Yes." The tape had explained all the things that could go wrong during abdominal surgery, each possibility more terrifying, irreversible and deadly than the last.
"Sign here, here and here."
The hospital chaplain came in next. "You're the celebrity in our midst," he said, flashing a glorious smile. After discussing the best remedy for tennis elbow, they bowed their heads over their clasped hands. He prayed for the skilled surgeon and her full, rapid recovery.
Stevie prayed for Judd's stone-bruised heel, forgiveness for stealing his car, protection from strangulation when he caught up with her and for a lawsuit against the hospital on her behalf if she should die on the operating table. She thought somebody should hold the institution accountable even if she'd signed forms absolving it of responsibility.
Her gynecologist came in next and explained the surgical procedure. "If the tumors are be nign, and I have every reason to believe that they are, we'll remove them and you'll be as good as new." 'And if they're not?"
"Probably a complete hysterectomy, followed by treatment."
"What kind of treatment? Radiation?"
He patted her hand. "Let's get through the surgery first. Then if we have to discuss options, we will."
The anesthesiologist, who disturbingly reminded her of Count Dracula because of his steep widow's peak, came in and sat down on the edge of her bed. "First thing in the morning, you'll be given a sedative. We'll put in two IVs, one in your arm, the other on the back of your hand."
"I don't like needles," she said in a choked voice.
"I promise to send in my painless assistant. By the time you reach the operating room, you'll be drowsy. Sleep well tonight."
Sleep well? What a joke. She was cleansed from the inside out-a humiliating experience- and given a shot to make her sleepy. She refused anything to eat, even though it had been lunchtime that day since she'd had a bite.
Didn't any of these efficient ghouls realize that she couldn't possibly go to sleep without the distant and reassuring sound of Judd's typewriter?
But he was miles away, stranded in the farmhouse.
What if it caught fire and he couldn't get away? What if it began raining hard enough to cause a flash flood and he had no means of escaping high water? She tortured herself with hideous possibilities.
She must have slept, however, because when she was awakened by a smiling nurse, she was dreaming that Judd was chasing her with a foot-long hypodermic needle that was shaped like a tennis racquet, laughing maniacally and sneering that he'd teach her the consequences of stealing his car.
In a remarkably short time, she was prepped for surgery and, feeling like a pitifully abused pincushion, wheeled into the operating room.
Where last night the hours had seemed to drag by, now everything accelerated to a rapid clip that panicked her. The surgeon squeezed her hand reassuringly and smiled from behind his mask.
"Everything is going to be fine, Stevie. Just relax now. Take deep breaths and start counting backward from ten."
Ten. She wanted to halt things. Nine. She needed more time to think. Eight. She needed Judd. Seven…
She weighed ten thousand pounds and these morons were ordering her to scoot across the bed. "That's it, roll to your other side, Miss Corbett. No, don't pull on your IVs. Just relax your arm. That's fine. Right there. Your operation is over."
"Is her catheter in?"
"Yes."
"Isn't her hair pretty?"
"Hmm. Ever seen her play?"
"Are you kidding? I can't afford the tickets."
"I meant on TV. Miss Corbett, did you hear me? Your operation is all over."
Clatter and clank of metal. Jarring motion.
Light. So much light. Too bright. Telephones and activity and racket. Why didn't they just be still and quiet and let her sleep?
"Time to turn over again, Miss Corbett."
A groan. Her groan. No, don't make me move. A monster in green scrubs was insisting that she cough.
"Cough, Miss Corbett. Come on now. You've got to cough to clear your lungs." Let them stay clogged. "Miss Corbett. Cough."
She made a feeble attempt just so they'd leave her alone. Her reward was to have something very cold crammed between her thighs. "… to keep the swelling down." Someone jarred her bed again. Klutzes. They were all klutzes.
Her hand was tucked beneath the nurse's arm while she pumped the bulb of the blood pressure gauge. "That's good." The binding pressure around her arm was removed. "Miss Corbett, we've got to change your ice pack now."
"A drink?" Her mouth was sprouting cotton.
"You can have an ice chip."
A spoon, cold and hard, was crammed against her teeth, jarring her whole body. Precious ice.
She sucked greedily.
"There, just that one. Turn over."
"I can't."
"Sure you can. Cough for me again."
"No." 'Cough,' She did. "Good girl. And here's a fresh ice pack.'
Thanks for nothing. My thighs are already numb.
"… can't come in here!! "I'm in."
Stevie was aroused by the familiar voice, but opening her eyelids was nigh to impossible. Had they weighted them down with something, fifty-cent pieces like they did corpses in Western movies?
"Visitors are only allowed in Recovery every odd hour at ten till. That's the rule."