He had been singing along to Madonna when Anatoly brought him into the chaos.
No one spoke when Mary Ann and I entered that waiting room. Anatoly just looked at me and slowly pulled his hands out of the pockets of his motorcycle jacket and I fell against him. Nothing could make me feel better, but at least I knew he would hold me up.
“She’s in surgery,” he said, his voice low, his slight Russian accent much more soothing than his words. From the corner of my eye I could see Marcus turning away. “They said the bullet hit her spinal vertebral casing, the bony spinal column, and pushed a fragment of bone into her spinal cord.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. The fluorescent lights were too bright and bringing unwanted attention to the ugly pattern on the gray carpet and the cheaply upholstered red chairs. Mary Ann was now sitting by Monty’s side. He was just kissing her hair as she cried.
“It means,” Anatoly explained, “that she’s going to live. They have the head of neurology working on her and we’re in one of the top hospitals in the country.”
“So she’s going to be okay? Her legs are going to work and everything?” I asked.
Anatoly pulled away slightly, his brown eyes held me as if trying to steady me for the impact of a shot of bitter realism. “It means,” he said slowly, “that she has the best chance possible. It means we have the right to be optimistic.”
“But not certain,” I said angrily.
“Sophie, there is no such thing as certainty. It’s as fictional as human perfection.”
Marcus put a hand to his stomach and dropped his People magazine onto one of the dusty brown side tables. “I do believe I’ll be throwing up now.” And with that he quickly exited the room.
Jason burst into laughter. It had a dark, hysterical quality to it and I saw Mary Ann instinctively pull closer to Monty.
“All this time I thought I was jaded and fucking cynical,” he gasped. “I thought I saw through all the phony middle-class idealism. I thought I understood brutality!”
I studied him quietly from my place in Anatoly’s arms. Jason’s jeans were torn and his T-shirt depicted a pre-World War II campy B-movie poster with the words Assassin of Youth printed in bold white letters. The slightly smaller print and pictures made it clear that the phrase was a reference to the dangers of marijuana (which Jason wore sardonically) but still the words made me cringe.
“But now I know I was as delusional as any of the fucking suburbanites I condescend to.” He wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked frightened. Maybe even terrified. “I thought…I thought…”
“What did you think?” Mary Ann asked, her voice hoarse.
“I thought this couldn’t happen. I thought some things just didn’t happen. I’m not cynical at all. I’m fucking naive. Even now I can’t accept this. I don’t understand brutality at all!”
Mary Ann pulled away from Monty and offered Jason a shaky hand. “We have to pray.”
“I don’t believe in God,” Jason choked out.
There was a moment of quiet as we all paused to take inventory of our own personal beliefs.
“I believe in God,” Anatoly said slowly, “but not divine intervention. I’ve seen too many good people suffer to believe in that.”
“So what do we do?” The note of desperation in Jason’s voice was harsh and unsettling. “Shit, I always thought my atheism was so fucking liberating but now…who do I pray to? Who can I rail against? What am I supposed to do?”
“What you do,” Anatoly said thoughtfully, “is believe in Dena.”
“Yes,” Monty said, finally joining in the conversation. “Like Tinker Bell.”
Jason did a quick double take. “What?”
Monty drew himself to his full height. He had the black hair and coloring of his Mexican father, the delicate, almost aristocratic features of his French Canadian mother and the blindingly bright, optimistic energy that could only be cultivated in America. “We all remember Peter Pan, don’t we?” he asked. “Tinker Bell came back to life because those who loved her believed in her.”
“Dena,” Jason said between clenched teeth, “is not some kind of insipid, weak-ass little fairy! Dena is…”
“A fighter,” Monty finished. “Tinker Bell drank poison to protect Peter Pan and then right before collapsing she called him an ass for not taking care of himself. That’s not Dena?”
Jason hesitated a moment before looking away. “I didn’t realize that Tink was so cool.”
“Well, she is,” Monty said determinedly. “And Dena’s cooler and I do believe in her so…” He raised his hands in the air and clapped.
Anatoly’s grip tightened around my waist as he saw my hands clench into fists. “You are not seriously clapping because you believe in fairies!” I hissed. “Not while a team of people are working on my best friend’s spine in the next friggin’ room!”
“I believe that the magic of positive thinking can help,” he said as his open palms continued to slam into each other. “At least it can’t hurt.”
Jason shook his head like a wet dog and walked to the other side of the room. “This is insane.”
“Exactly!” I said, finally pulling away from Anatoly.
“If only I was a vampire,” Jason moaned. “Then I could give her the gift of eternal life.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Dena didn’t like normal guys. She liked kindhearted freaks like Jason. For her sake I had to suppress the urge to whack him upside the head.
“Monty,” Mary Ann said softly, quieting his hands by taking them into hers. “I love Tinker Bell, too, but right now I need someone to pray with me.”
Monty sighed in what sounded like mild disappointment and kissed Mary Ann on the forehead. “Of course I’ll pray with you, sweetie. It’s just that Tink is so much less complicated than God. I thought it would be easier to appeal to her spirit than that of the Holy Ghost.”
I sat down on one of the unsightly chairs. “I’ll pray with you, Mary Ann.”
Mary Ann whispered her words of entreaty to God, each one coming out with more force and urgency. And then, when she could think of nothing else to say she whispered, “Amen,” and leaned her full weight against Monty. “I have to call her parents.”
I looked up at the ceiling and tried to imagine how this call was going to go. Dena’s parents had retired to Arizona almost ten years ago. They were both very active in their church. Dena’s mother, Isa, was once a nurse practitioner but now toured the high schools and various junior colleges in her personal mission to preach abstinence for unmarried people. And Dena owned a sex shop. It was unclear if Dena’s need to make a career out of the oddities of human sexuality was an act of rebellion or if Dena’s parents’ escalating crusade against immorality was a reaction to their daughter’s eccentricities. Either way it made for a contentious relationship.
