Sugar Time Read online

  Nurse Nancy helped me back into bed and smoothed the damp hair back from my forehead with a cool hand that smelled like the Jurgens lotion my bubbe Tessie used. When she was my age, she was already dead. Then I did cry—just a little.

  “It’s okay, you’re going to be fine, really you are,” said the nurse. Then she adjusted my blanket with a brisk snap and went out.

  O’Neill hadn’t changed his green pajamas. He looked like he’d been up all night, not saving lives but cramming for a final. I had shoes that were older than he was.

  “When can I get out of here?”

  “What’s your hurry?” he said, like a policeman who’s just pulled you over for speeding and really seems to hope you have a reason he hasn’t heard before.

  Since I didn’t have one—I’m due at the White House, Aliens are chasing me, or even the only one that ever worked with a cop, I’ve just started my period and I have to get to a drug store—I asked if I could at least use the phone.

  “Sorry, there are no phones in the CCU. The nurse will be glad to call for you if there’s someone you need to reach.”

  “Thanks, but I’d just as soon do it myself. You didn’t answer my question. When can I get out of here?”

  “We’ll move you out of here as soon as there’s an aide to do it. We need the bed. But I want to make sure you’re okay before I release you. Monitor things for a day or so, run a couple of tests. Who is your regular doctor?”

  “Uh…I don’t actually have one. Unless a plastic surgeon counts. I’m a very healthy person. Really.”

  “Is there someone at home to take care of you?”

  “Why? Will I need to be taken care of?” Maybe Rosa, my once a week cleaning lady, could come in for a couple of days.

  “It might not be a bad idea.”

  It would be a terrible one. “Why? How sick am I?”

  “Your ECG looks pretty normal and there doesn’t seem to be any major damage to the heart muscle. It may be just unstable angina. Were you exercising when you started to feel pain in your chest?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t do anything I can’t do in three inch heels. What’s unstable angina?”

  “A temporary condition that happens when some of the heart muscle isn’t getting enough blood. With a heart attack, the blood flow is cut off. If it were regular angina, you’d have a pattern of attacks, although not usually this severe. Have you felt anything like this before?”

  “Never. Believe me, I’d have remembered. So it wasn’t a heart attack? I’m okay?”

  “I didn’t say that. Stable or not, angina increases your risk of having a heart attack. Obviously you have some kind of cardiovascular disease. That’s not uncommon in women your age. Is there a history of heart disease in your family?”

  I shook my head.

  “Have you been under a lot of stress lately?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Do you smoke?”

  “Not really.”

  He looked skeptical. “One or two a day,” I admitted.

  “Eat lot of fatty foods? Besides the kung pao chicken, that is.”

  “Hardly ever.” Not if you didn’t count pizza, pasta alfredo, and Krispy Cremes. “You know, the French, who eat a lot of fat, have fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans,” I told him.

  “You don’t say. Do you drink?”

  “Just red wine occasionally, with dinner. Italians, who drink excessive amounts of red wine, also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.”

  “Your point being?”

  “You might as well eat and drink what you like. It’s speaking English that kills you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” he said dryly. But he nearly smiled, which made me feel a little better. “So you don’t get much exercise, huh?”

  “You mean besides running off at the mouth and leaping to conclusions?” That got another smile—a real one this time. “Well, I walk my dog every day.”

  He made a few notes on a clipboard. “You need to get on a regular exercise program. Eat healthier. Stop smoking—entirely. And we’ll put you on some medication. If you take sensible precautions, there’s no reason you can’t get this under control. We’ll talk some more after we’ve run a few tests.”

  “I’m a little tired now. I think I’d like to sleep.” I had a lot to think about. And if I went to sleep, I wouldn’t have to.

  O’Neill came in again after they moved me into a room at the opposite end of the floor from the CCU. I ‘d had a chest x-ray and a stress test, blood drawn so many times by so many different people that I felt like a fugitive from an Anne Rice novel, and I was bored, hungry and cranky.

  “You said I didn’t have a heart attack, and you’ve taken enough blood for a vampire, can I go home now?”

  “What? And miss dinner?” he replied, noting my untouched tray, which contained the kind of lunch you make for yourself the day after you try on bathing suits. “I want to get some pictures of your heart.”

  “Oh, drat, I left my 5 by 7’s at home.”

  “Hmm. Yes. Well, I’m sure they would have been helpful.”

  He seemed to be waiting for me to ask him more questions, but I didn’t. I wasn’t uninterested—I just didn’t want to know, not right then, anyway. Sooner or later I would have to, but since there wasn’t anything I could do, any decisions to make, at least not yet, why bother?

  “Well then, I’ll see you in the cath lab later,” he said. He took my cell phone from my hand and put it in the drawer of the night table. “Meanwhile, please use the hospital phone if you want to call someone.”

  Sure, and let everyone with caller ID know where I am. As soon as he left I retrieved my cell and scrolled down the numbers, then punched in Robin’s. “There you are,” she said, a reproof in her voice. If I hadn’t reported in by the end of the day, she’d have sent out the Marines. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Hedley called. She said Nelly loved the script.”

  “She said that last week.”

  “Well, she said it again. It’s still too early to get a commitment for the pilot, but she said everyone there is very high on it.”

  It would be two weeks before the networks announced. I hadn’t made it to this stage with a series in fifteen years. If the pilot got made—if the talent was right—if the stars were aligned with the planets and the zeitgeist was with me and the network meant it when they said they were looking for a show exactly like this one, then maybe there was a chance.

  “I’ve been thinking we should tweak it a little,” Robin said. “That scene where Amelia has dinner with Jean Paul, before he realizes who she is, that could use some work.”

  “No tweaking. We gave it our best shot. Listen, Robin, I’m going out of town for a few days.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  “I haven’t seen my mother in a couple of months, I thought I’d run down to Boca. I’ll be back Sunday night.”

  “But what if we hear something? How will I reach you?”

  “I’ll be checking my messages. We won’t hear anything. Don’t worry.”

  Just then the hospital intercom went off. “Dr. Friedman to the ER, Dr. Friedman.”

  “What’s that?” said Robin. “Where are you?”

  “At the airport. Gotta’ go, they’re calling my flight.”

  I spent what seemed like the rest of the day on a wheeled table in a drafty hallway. No phone, no book or newspaper, not even Oprah and Dr. Phil to while the hours away. Finally a young Hispanic man in a green scrub suit that managed to cling to a beautiful pair of buns hooked me up to an IV pole. “What’s that?” I asked, as he filled the flaccid plastic bag above my head.

  “It’s a sedative,” he said. “A little Valium.”

  “A lot would be better,” I replied, and he grinned.

  A few minutes later he wheeled me into a room and positioned the table under a large camera that was hooked up to a flat screen computer monitor while a nurse pulled back the sheet
covering my body from the waist down. She shaved a little hair from my groin, not that there was much of it left: My once thick, springy black bush looked like a stubby winter garden these days. I’d heard Melatonin was good for that; I don’t usually need anything to help me sleep but I’d been meaning to pick up a bottle of the pills at Duane Reed and see if I could coax my pussy hair back. Then she sprayed something cold where she’d shaved me.

  “This will only sting for a second,” said O’Neill, sticking a needle down there. Behind the surgical mask his eyes looked sympathetic, which I didn’t take as a good thing; I liked it better when he was being a smart ass, or even a stuffed shirt.

  “I don’t usually get this personal on a first date,” I told him.

  “Neither does he,” muttered a nurse standing next to him. The technician chuckled, and O’Neill blushed all the way to his receding hairline. It was a regular little Gray’s Anatomy in there.

  Four small monitors were strategically positioned around the table. “We’re taking pictures of your arteries. In a few minutes, you can see them,” O’Neil explained.

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “I never take a good picture. The camera hates me.” I closed my eyes, gave myself up to the Valium, floated off to fantasyland, and barely noticed when they rolled me back to my room.

  By the time O’Neill came in, though, I was wide awake, hung over and really starving this time. Visions of soup dumplings from Joe’s Shanghai danced in my head and I was seriously considering ordering them in. All Nurse Nancy’d brought me was a pitcher of water, which she refilled twice. “You want to clear the dye from the rest out of your system,” she told me, and consequently I’d been peeing almost constantly since being wheeled back to my room.

  O’Neill was Mr. Efficiency this time—no small talk, he’d probably used up his quota with me already. “You had minor blockage in one chamber,” he said.

  “The House or the Senate?”

  He ignored what I personally thought was a snappy comeback. “One of your arteries was about 20 percent closed. That’s what’s causing the angina. You didn’t have an infarct. There’s no damage to the heart muscle…not yet. You were very lucky.”

  Great. I should have bought that lottery ticket yesterday.

  “You can go home tonight if you want to, although I’d advise you to wait until tomorrow,” he said.

  “Oh, damn, I’m supposed to go hang gliding tomorrow.”

  “There’s no wind forecast, you might as well cancel it and go mountain climbing instead.” Well, maybe he did have a sense of humor in there somewhere. A person can be smart, interesting, accomplished and attractive, but if they can’t laugh, especially at themselves, they’ll never get very far with me. “I want you to take it easy for a few days,” he added. “Only short walks at first. Don’t exert yourself. Eat regularly, take your medication, and try to avoid stress.”

  “What about sex?” I asked.

  I don’t know why I said that—to make sure he noticed I wasn’t ready for the senior scrap pile yet? To reassure myself? I could tell he was embarrassed—women probably didn’t ask him that question very often, or maybe the idea of someone who was old enough to be his mother having sex unnerved him.

  “Maybe not for a few days, but after that there’s no reason you can’t resume your, uh, normal schedule.” When it came to sex, my normal schedule was seldom to rarely, something I tried not to obsess about.

  “I’d like to get out of here tonight,” I told him. “Is there any real reason I shouldn’t?”

  “I’ll get the nurse to give you your discharge instructions,” he said, “although I think you’d be better off getting a good night’s sleep.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” I said. “What kind of instructions?”

  “Diet, exercise, medication, that kind of thing. Just use your common sense. I want to see you in my office in two weeks, unless you have more chest pain. If that happens, come in immediately. Don’t ignore it. Heart disease kills more women than breast cancer. And you might ask whoever’s taking you home to stick around till tomorrow.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “No, but it’s not a bad idea. It’ll keep you from worrying.”

  “I’m not worried.” I stared at him defiantly.

  “Good,” he said. “Right now there’s no need to be. Call my office in the morning and set up your follow up appointment.”

  It was close to eight o’clock when the aide wheeled me downstairs to the front door. A cab was just pulling up. Stuffing the discharge instructions and the pills from the hospital pharmacy into the pocket of my jacket, I got in. The interior smelled like cheap perfume and Mexican food, so I opened the window and breathed in fresh New York air—roasted nuts, exhaust fumes, dog pee, brine, and excitement. We were stuck behind another taxi, and I watched people hurrying past on the street, never making eye contact with each other, intent on their errands or plans, wondering if the video store had the DVD they wanted or how to tell the wife they’d just been fired or whether that guy they gave their number to in the bar last night would really call. Rap music blared from boom boxes and passing car radios, and horns blared in response and somewhere someone shouted, “Watch it, mother fucker.”

  I sucked it all in greedily. It felt like I’d come back after a long absence. Back from the dead. You’re being an idiot, I told myself, and gave the driver my address.

  When I came in Mrs. B. was in the lobby, replacing someone’s copy of Time—she does that, darts in and out of her apartment when she thinks nobody’s looking and borrows other people’s magazines from the table next to the mailboxes. She puts them back after she’s read them, but by the time I get my New York the “Sales and Bargains” column is out of date.

  Caught in the act, she went on the offensive. “You look terrible,” she said.

  “Thank you for that vote of confidence, Mrs. B,” I said. “By the way, have you finished my Vanity Fair yet?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, scuttling away like a pigeon, which in fact she resembled, with her pouter bosom and tiny feet in their clunky black shoes. Nice going, Sugar, next you’ll be taking candy from babies.

  Once inside my apartment I sank heavily into the couch. Tory jumped into my lap, sniffing my unfamiliar antiseptic smell and fretting at the plastic strip on my wrist. I felt her body shaking the way it does when something spooks her, and nuzzled my face next to hers. “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay,” I said soothingly.

  A dog is the perfect relationship for a single woman. It loves you unconditionally, even when you haven’t brushed your teeth yet, it doesn’t hog the remote or ask you for money, and it gets you off your ass and out of the house at least a couple of times a day. Unlike cats, who give their affection sparingly and on their own terms, dogs have no boundaries; they come when you call them, not when they feel like it, which makes them my kind of pet.

  I never expected to own a dog again, but I woke up one morning with a powerful urge to complicate my life, which for a long time had been blessedly free of responsibility for anything more demanding than a philodendron. I didn’t have the patience for a puppy—I was tempted, but I knew better. While they’re cute for a few months, pretty soon everything you own has been chewed into confetti or dotted with yellow rings. “What I want is a grown dog,” I told Peggy. “Healthy, housebroken, and trained. Like a well-behaved teenager that somebody else raised.”

  Peggy found Tory for me at a kennel near her country house in Woodstock. “She’s a six year old spayed female,” she said. “The owner’s looking for a good home for her. She used to be their best breeder, but she’s been replaced by a younger bitch.”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  Peggy has a Portuguese water dog named Jung, a sweet, slightly goofy animal I’m very fond of, so we went to the kennel where she got him to meet Tory. The first time I saw her she took my measure, sizing me up with startlingly blue eyes that gleamed with intelligence. Then she incline
d her head slightly as if to say, We’re beyond all that pet and master nonsense, aren’t we? and bounded into my lap with a single graceful leap, her snaky black Medusa-like curls quivering under my touch just like they were doing right now.

  That was five years ago. It’s trite to say a dog is your soul mate, and if I heard anyone I knew make that statement I’d think, how sad—that’s like thinking the people in your favorite TV series are your friends, which of course is what we want you to think. But Tory is incredibly tuned in to my emotional frequency, as if I’m broadcasting feelings only she can pick up. So maybe she was spooked by the sense that something about me was different, the same way I was—sort of.

  We weren’t the only ones. The readout on my answering machine indicated that Paul had called six times—the first time, I noted, was at 7:30 the previous night, just when the octopus was doing its thing. That must have been the call I couldn’t answer.

  There was a message from Jessie, too, but it didn’t sound urgent, just whiny, and since I didn’t think I could drudge up the requisite empathy, I put off returning it. Paul, though—that call wouldn’t wait. While Jessie sometimes seems to read my mind, Paul knows me—knows us all—on a deeper, more visceral level. Since he was a kid he’s always had an uncanny sense of our physical selves; he knew when one of us was sick or hurt almost before we knew it ourselves. Once I was in a car accident, and Paul told Ted about it even before I did, which was after I’d been X-rayed and had my wrist set. And there was the time Jessie was at summer camp in Nova Scotia, and Paul, hundreds of miles away, called us to say there was something wrong with her just before the camp director notified us that she’d been taken to the hospital with appendicitis.

  “Hi, darling,” I trilled gaily when he answered the phone. “Sorry I didn’t call you back earlier—I’ve been in the country at Peggy’s for a couple of days.”

  He sounded relieved. “That’s good. I had this…you know, my thing.”