“Four girls?” Llona interrupted. “What were you doing with four girls?”
“It was a publicity bit making the hottest spots in town with them. You see, they’re the finalists in the ‘Nymph Centerspread, Contest.’ ”
“Oh. You mean for that magazine. I’ve heard about that. But what do you have to do --?”
“I’m the promotion man for Nymph,” Pierre Strongfellow explained. “This contest is my baby and getting maximum exposure for the girls is my job.”
“From what I’ve seen of the magazine. they couldn't expose themselves much more maximally,” Llona remembered. “But what has all this got to do with Archer?”
“Well, he was standing at the bar and already pretty loaded when we came in. He looked like a guy who had something eating at him. Was he disturbed about something, Mrs. Hornsby?”
“I suppose so. He’s been having—umm-—job troubles.” Llona saw no reason to reveal anything more of their private life.
“I see. Well, he began muttering to himself about some guys hoarding all the women while others didn’t have any. After seeing you, Mrs. Hornsby, I hope you’ll allow me to say that he didn’t have any cause for complaint -- none whatsoever.” Pierre Strongfellow let his gaze travel up and down the terrain of Llona’s body.
“Thank you.” She blushed. “Please go on.”
“Well, I sort of ignored him. I mean, he wasn’t really bothering us at first. He kept his comments pretty much to himself. But then he actually started homing in on the conversation. So I began to get annoyed.”
“That was no reason to beat him up!” Llona was indignant.
“Of course it wasn’t. And I didn’t beat him up. I only hit him once. And that came later. Let me tell you how it evolved.”
“Okay.” Llona subsided.
“You see, one of the girls was teasing me about my French heritage. I’m half French on my mother’s side.”
“I’ll be damned!” Llona murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
“Anyway, that was when your husband butted in with some nasty remark about ‘oversexed frogs.’ I let it pass. I really wasn’t looking for trouble. Some more time passed with him just sort of still muttering to himself. Then one of the girls mentioned my first name and he picked up on that.”
“What do you mean? Picked up how?”
“Well, she said something unimportant like, you know, ‘Pass the peanuts, Pierre,’ or something like that. And he jumped in with both feet. ‘Pierre?’ he said. ‘Pierre? Is that really your name?’ I admitted it was and asked him why he was hooting the way he was. At this point, I was starting to get annoyed. He said something about how it figured my name would be Pierre and I’d have four women while he didn’t have any. I just sort of laughed it off and turned away from him. I thought if I ignored him he’d lose interest and let us alone. But I was wrong.”
“What happened then?”
“He came right out with it. He said, ‘Is your last name Strongfellow?’ I was surprised he knew it, but I admitted it was. The next thing I knew, he was shouting something about his wife-I’m sorry, but he did—and he started swinging at me. I tried to back away, but he was pretty persistent. He was throwing pretty wild punches, but finally he landed one in the midriff, and that got me mad. I slugged him—-a lot harder than I mean to, I’m afraid. He went over sort of sideways and his leg went out from under him. Right away you could see it was broken. And he was out like a light.”
“He still is,” Llona said. “You must have hit him awfully hard.”
“I suppose I did. Still, part of it is that he must have had quite a lot to drink. I’m not trying to minimize my responsibility, understand. I used to be an amateur boxer at college, and my responses are automatic—quick and hard, I’m afraid. I still keep in shape working out at the gym, and I guess I still pack a wallop. Believe me, I’m sorry. But he asked for it.”
“I’m not blaming you,” Llona sighed.
“Why did my name make him so mad?”
“It’s a long story.”
“You had a pretty funny reaction to my name when I called too,” Pierre remembered.
“Yes. Well . . .”
“What did you mean when you said you made it up?”
“Look, some other time, do you mind? I mean, I’ve got more important things on my mind right now. My husband is lying in there unconscious with a broken leg . . .”
“Of course. I’m sorry.” Pierre Strongfellow smiled sympathetically. “Well, if there’s nothing else I can do, I guess I’ll be going now.” He took Llona’s hand and kissed it again. “Feel free to call on me if I can help or anything.” He handed her a card. “And again, I’m sorry to have been responsible for your misfortune.” He left.
Alone, Llona settled down in the waiting room until she was notified that Archer was conscious. It was midmorning before that happened. In the interim, she dozed. “Mrs. Hornsby?”
Llona awoke with a start to find a doctor in a white hospital coat standing over her. “Yes?”
“Your husband is awake. You can see him now. Just take the elevator over there. Room five-oh-three.”
Llona followed the directions and a few moments later she entered Archer’s room. His leg was in traction suspended from the ceiling and he was propped up against two pillows at the headboard of the bed. A tray was balanced on his lap. Two dishes and two glasses stood on it. One dish contained something brown and gooey like baby food. It took Llona a moment to realize it was mashed prunes. The second dish was filled with a white lumpy paste that resembled something a sick puppy might upchuck: hospital oatmeal. One glass contained either separating pineapple juice, or a specimen-—it was hard to distinguish~—and the other was filled with something liquid, hot and thick and chalky. Later Llona learned it was tea with milk.
Archer was surveying the tray like a man who fears that his hangover has driven him to hallucinate. He looked up at Llona as if silently pleading with her to confirm that this mess was real. “Where am I?” he groaned without too much originality.
“In the hospital,” she told him.
“What am I doing here?”
“You’ve got a broken leg.”
“How did I break my leg?”
“You picked a fight with, the wrong man.”
“You mean I tried to kick him and broke my leg?”
“Not exactly.” Llona went on to tell Archer the details of the fight as Pierre Strongfellow had told them to her.
“Now I remember!” Archer snapped his fingers weakly. “I bumped into your lover!”
“He wasn’t my lover. I never set eyes on him before last night,” Llona told him truthfully.
“Don’t lie! I caught his name! I know who he is.”
“Now-now-now-now!” A fat nurse waddled over. “We mustn’t upset the patient,” she chided Llona. “Not while he’s eating. You’ll upset his tumtum!”
“My tumtum is already upset.” Archer pointed at the tray and made gagging sounds. “Take it away,” he begged. “I’m not ready for this kind of reality.”
“All right.” The nurse was soothing. She removed the tray. “Now just let me slide this under you.” She fished a bedpan out from under the bed and groped under the sheets.
“Yikes!” Archer’s stomach popped up, “That’s cold!”
“There we are.” The nurse beamed. “Now we have to move our bowels, don’t we?”
“No, we don’t!” Archer was firm. “We don’t have to do any such thing.”
“Of course we do. It’s time. We have to stay on schedule. Hospitals run that way; we know that, don’t we? If everybody doesn’t go on time, we can’t stay on schedule, and then we’ll have chaos.”
“I don’t care! I can’t and I won’t.”
“Are we this difficult at home?” the nurse asked Llona.