Nerve Damage Read Free Page B

in for a couple hours? We’ll try to figure something out.”
    â€œYeah?” said Skippy. “Hey. Thanks.” His right hand twitched like it knew handshaking might be appropriate. But no handshaking happened. Skippy backed toward the door. “Thanks a lot.” He opened the door, went out, closed it. Then came a knock.
    â€œCome in,” said Roy. He never locked the door. The knob turned but the door didn’t open. Somehow Skippy had locked it. Roy opened the door.
    â€œLike what time?” said Skippy.
    â€œHow’s two?” Roy said.
    â€œCool,” said Skippy.
    Â 
    Jen walked into Pescatore, looking great. Roy got up, pulled out a chair for her, helped push her to the table. She shot him a quick glance over her shoulder. “What’s with you?”
    â€œJust my normal self,” said Roy.
    â€œRight.”
    The mountain rose outside the window, some of the lower runs lit for night skiing. The moguls on Wipe Out cast rounded shadows, like hundreds of little black holes. A skier in white landed a perfect daffy, veered right and vanished behind a grove of spruces.
    â€œHow does champagne sound?” Roy said.
    Jen made a little bubbling noise.
    Roy laughed and ordered a bottle of Pommery. He didn’t know anything about champagne, but Pommery was what Krishna served at openings where he really believed in the artist.
    â€œThis is nice,” Jen said, taking a sip. “Did your ship come in or something?”
    Roy tasted the champagne; really nice, but it went down the wrong way, tickling his throat just a little. This was the moment for saying, Maybe it’s just about to; and Jen would ask what he meant by that; and he’d pop the question. And it probably would have happened just like that, except for the tickle in Roy’s throat. He coughed, a delicate, quiet cough at first, setting down his champagne flute and covering his mouth with his napkin. But the cough was just getting started, like a powerful engine revving up. It dipped into a deep, ragged register and kept going, on and on.
    â€œDrink some water,” Jen said, passing him a glass, her eyes widening.
    But by that time, Roy had noticed the tiny red drops on the white linen. He made an excusing-himself-from-the-table gesture and went to the bathroom.
    No one there. He hurried into a stall, bent over the toilet, surrendered to the cough. The cough got to work, this time really showing him what it could do. Blood filled the toilet bowl, in splatters, strings, gobbets.
    â€œHey, buddy,” said someone outside. “You all right in there?”
    The cough died at once, as though it preferred privacy. Roy gasped in some air. “No problem,” he said, but in a voice that sounded much older than his own.
    Silence. Then came slow footsteps on the tiles—footsteps he’d missed on their way in—followed by urinal sounds, sink sounds, door sounds. Roy left the stall, just a little wobbly. He had the bathroom to himself again, himself and his image in the mirror: a pale image with a dark glimmering dawning in its eyes. Roy splashed water on his face, drank from the tap—cool water soothing on his raw throat—and went back to the table.
    â€œYou all right?” Jen said.
    â€œFine,” said Roy.
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œFine,” he said again, and picked up as though nothing had happened. Jen ate salmon, Roy lamb; they drank champagne; split a piece of a cake called chocolate sin; and had a good time. Roy told a pretty funny story about a collector he’d met, her pet cheetah and a pizza delivery boy. But he didn’t pop the question.

Three
    It wasn’t that Roy was a particularly acute reader of facial expressions. But he knew that people liked delivering good news; their eyes lit up with it. Therefore a lack of lighting up was a bad sign. No light in Dr. Bronstein’s eyes: they were dark, thoughtful, maybe a bit