Herself Page 2

  “Help me get him on the deck,” Kelly commands the lifeguard, his voice dead calm; not even a hint of panic. I, on the other hand, am hysterical. If my heart were racing any faster, it would have sprinted out of my chest and been halfway to Cleveland already. “Tessa, call 911.”

  I don’t want to leave David’s side, but I dash around the deck to the lifeguard’s chair and the emergency phone. “I need an ambulance immediately at the Metropolitan Health Club. The pool. Someone’s having a heart attack.” I don’t know this for certain, but I’m not about to negotiate degrees of urgency with the 911 operator.

  “Male…six feet…age forty-three…look, it’s Congressman Weyburn, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Don’t you curse at me, miss!” snaps the operator.

  Two

  C’mon, sweetheart, hang in there. You can make it! I pray. You don’t want to die, baby; there’s far too much to live for. I’m too focused on the task at hand to cry. There isn’t time.

  By the time I reach David’s body again, I am sure I already hear the siren. Kelly is on his knees, applying CPR, having ascertained that the lifeguard, though certified, has never actually had to administer the technique. He’s giving David mouth-to-mouth and trying to keep the class at ease by making a jest, all the while working his ass off to save David’s life. “I’ve dreamed about this day, but I always thought he’d be conscious when we kissed.” Although Kelly’s joking, the Fox News camera is still rolling, and Suki Glassman keeps encouraging the shooter to get closer, while I shout to them to get back and give Kelly the room he needs. Unsuccessfully, I try to cover the lens with my hand.

  According to the giant time clock by the pool, EMS arrivesseven minutes after I’d placed the 911 call. They bustle in with their board and their gurney and immediately place an oxygen mask over David’s pale face.

  “I got him breathing again,” Kelly informs the paramedics. One of them, a burly freckled young man who looks like he played right tackle at Fordham not too very long ago, shakes his hand. “Good job,” he acknowledges, as he watches his team check David’s vitals. “Looks like you got him stabilized.”

  “You saved his life!” I exclaim, hugging Kelly. “Jesus, do you mind?!” I shout at the cameraman. “He did save Congressman Weyburn’s life, didn’t he?” I ask the EMT.

  “Let me put it this way. If the guy who looks like Moby hadn’t administered CPR when he did, you’d be planning a state funeral, ma’am.”

  There’s no time for me to get dressed if I want to ride in the ambulance to the hospital, which of course I do. I’m sure I make quite a picture when we arrive at the emergency entrance to St. Luke’s, a damp white towel secured over my still-wet swimsuit, my feet shoved into a pair of cheap flip-flops. I don’t even have my wallet; it’s back in the gym locker. Oh, yes, I’m also wearing a black rubber bathing cap. So was David, until Kelly gingerly removed it after the EMTs worked their magic.

  “Let me stay with him,” I plead, but the E.R. staff, which has now taken over David’s care, isn’t buying.

  “He’s going into the CCU,” a nurse curtly advises me. Her scrubs look like children’s pajamas, with cheery-faced cuddly lambs and crescent moons stenciled all over them: fine for the pediatric wing, but for the cardiac care unit?

  “How long do you think you’ll keep him there?” My heart is thudding uncontrollably inside my chest.

  “First we got to stabilize him. After that, it’s up to his doctor.”

  I’m aware that David has never seen a cardiac specialist in his life. “Which doctor?”

  “Whoever is on duty up there.”

  Damn, this is like getting into Fort Knox. “Give me his name—or hers; I want to check their credentials.”

  “I won’t know the cardiologist’s name until I get up there, miss. And every doctor who works here is a good doctor.”

  What a pain in my ass! “Do I have time to go back and get my street clothes?”

  “Depends on how far you’re going,” she replies as I scurry alongside the gurney to keep up with her.

  “Less than half a mile.”

  She nods. We arrive at a set of double doors marked “hospital personnel only.” “You can’t go any farther than this, miss. Check back in an hour or so, and we may have an idea of his condition then.”

  Having dressed and retrieved David’s street clothes from a staffer who used a passkey to open David’s gym locker, I sprint back to the hospital, drenched in sweat, since there are no taxis to be had, and I’m wasting precious time standing on a street corner in the sweltering heat trying to hail one for a mere eight-block ride.

  “I’d like some information on a patient,” I pant to the E.R. receptionist.

  “You’ll have to wait your turn, ma’am.”

  I lean in and lower my voice. “My brother…Congressman Weyburn…was brought in here about thirty-five minutes ago.”

  Her expression changes immediately. “Oh!” She checks the intake sheet on her clipboard and taps some information into a computer; the monitor is so antiquated that it’s got a monochromatic DOS screen. She stares at the greenish glow for a few moments. “He’s still in the CCU.”

  “How’s his condition—Nellie?” I ask, reading her name tag.

  She glances at the screen again. “Stable.”

  “Did they—”

  “That’s all it says here. I don’t have no more information than that.”

  “I need to go back and see him.”

  “Family only,” Nellie says.

  “I told you, I’m his sister.”

  “I need to see some ID.” I flash her my driver’s license. “That don’t say Weyburn, Ms. Craig.”

  “I’m married,” I sigh exasperatedly, lying through my teeth. I can tell Nellie’s deciding whether or not to buy it. “That’s a great necklace, by the way. Is that a guardian angel?” Nellie beams. “I’ve got one of them hanging from my rearview mirror. I mean, you never know,” I said, cracking a wan little smile.

  “You need ’em a lot around here,” Nellie replied resignedly. “CCU’s on the fifth floor. Go through these doors and take the elevator straight at the back.”

  Pale as marble, David looks like a many-tentacled Frankenstein monster (sans neck zipper and still much handsomer, however), tethered by tubing to numerous machines recording a zillion statistics, such as heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, and then some.

  I glance at the metal clipboard hanging over the railing. Dr. Magali Gupta appears to be the attending cardio. As I try to guess Magali’s gender, a stunning copper-skinned woman in a lab coat approaches me. “I’m Dr. Gupta,” she says extending her hand.

  “Tessa Craig.” Mercifully, Dr. Gupta doesn’t ask for my relation to the man on the bed beside us. I hate lying, and it’s no one’s business that he’s my lover, not to mention that the fact is more or less a state secret.

  “He’s stable for the moment, Ms. Craig, but we are going to need to do an angioplasty as soon as possible; there is a blockage in his coronary artery. It’s quite a common procedure these days—we just insert a balloon catheter into the artery—but Congressman Weyburn has not been alert enough in the past half hour to sign a consent form. You are his next-of-kin, according to his medical records.”

  Good grief, I’d forgotten that! We’ve listed each other as such for a couple of years now because we’re the ones we would most trust as a “first responder.” In the “relation” box adjacent to “next-of-kin” we just write “friend.”

  “Are you asking me to sign off on the procedure, Dr. Gupta?” I see David blinking his eyes and trying to lift his hand (into which an IV drip had been connected) to say hello. I lean over to smooth his dark hair off his brow. “Honey, they want to do an angioplasty,” I murmur, forgetting myself in the stress of the moment.

  Dr. Gupta explains that the benefits of such a procedure far outweigh the risks and David tries once again to raise his right hand. “I’ll sign it,” he says groggily. His spidery signature on the co
nsent form is nothing like the purposeful one his constituents see at the end of his monthly newsletters, but it’s good enough for Dr. Gupta.

  “Keep the media away,” he advises me, his voice a low rasp. “I don’t want this turning into a circus.” He reaches for me and I clasp his hand.

  “I’ll be here when you wake up,” I promise. “Or as near to here as they’ll let me be.” I run my index finger along the top of his hand, our code for “I love you.” He wiggles his index finger in reply.

  If there is a God, He—or She—or It—tends to listen selectively. First and foremost I had been praying for David’s survival. I got it. Big whew! Not too terribly far down the list, I’d added, “Oh, and David—who would do it himself but he’s under general anesthesia at the moment—asks that you keep today’s events from becoming a media circus.” God was evidently listening to Rupert Murdoch’s orisons at that point, because the five-o’clock local news, which I caught on the TV in the CCU waiting room, led off with a Ringling Bros.-style spectacular.

  “New York’s favorite son rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery!” announces Monica Terwilliger, one of the anchors. “We open to night with the shocking news. Forty-three-year-old Congressman David Weyburn, whose parents survived the Nazi holocaust, and whose constituents on the Upper West Side of Manhattan often describe him as having the looks of JFK Jr. and the vision of Barack Obama, suffered an apparent heart attack during a campaign appearance in his district earlier today. We go to Suki Glassman with the report. Suki, what happened this morning?”

  The newscast cuts to Suki standing right downstairs from me at the hospital’s emergency room entrance. “Well, Monica, it started out like any other campaign day for Congressman Weyburn: a meet-and-greet with a number of his constituents. But what at first seemed like a walk in the park, or should I say a jog in the pool, turned disastrous, and nearly fatal, for the handsome politician who many think may someday call the White House home.”

  There is a cut to a couple of seconds of footage of David signing autographs and pressing the flesh at the MHC front desk, followed by about ten seconds of Kelly’s class.

  “Congressman Weyburn was participating in a popular exercise class in the swimming pool at the Manhattan Health Club when the mood suddenly went from buoyant to bleak. In the middle of the aqua aerobics class, choreographed to popular show tunes by former Olympic diving medalist Kelly Adonis, Weyburn apparently began to experience chest pains.”

  And wouldn’t you know the sound bite Suki’s editor had selected was of David singing his handsome heart out during “Send in the Clowns,” just as he began to grimace.

  “…Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late—in my career…”

  “Congressman Weyburn was rushed to a nearby hospital, and we have just learned that he underwent surgery this afternoon to repair a blockage in one of his arteries. We have also learned that the 911 call was placed from the poolside by Congressman Weyburn’s head speechwriter Tessa Craig, herself a member of the Metropolitan Health Club. Now, according to one of the EMS responders, the credit for really saving the politician’s life more appropriately goes to that famous former Olympian, Kelly Adonis.”

  They cut to an interview with the big beefy EMS guy I had seen that morning. Apparently his name is Kevin McMillan, and he has a Brooklyn accent as thick as a pastrami sandwich from Junior’s. “Yeah, the fitness instructor pretty much had ’im stabilized by the time we got there. If he hadnuh known what tuh do, things woulduh come out a lot different.”

  This pithy quote is followed by an interview with Kelly. It had been shot right by the pool, while Kelly was still shirtless, his pecs and six-pack abs a veritable commercial for regular exercise. I was sure the set-up had been deliberate, and although Kelly is certainly proud of his torso, I’d bet the instructions came from Suki Glassman’s producer.

  “Do you think you’re a hero?” Suki is asking him, her pupils dilating as she shoves a phallic-looking mic right up in Kelly’s face.

  “Sweetie, you’re a bit too close with that thing. You don’t know me that well,” Kelly jokes. “Never mind me, it’s just leftover nervous energy. Do I think of myself as a hero? No, I don’t. Saving someone’s life is a double no-brainer with no twist.” I bury my face in my hands. This is a disaster. Kelly is always “on,” which is fine when he’s encouraging (at top volume) twenty-five doughy figures in spandex to step up the pace, but not in a nightly news interview.

  “Did you ever think you’d be saving a congressman’s life?” Suki asks him. God, what a fucking moronic question!

  “Well, Suki, I consider myself a patriot, and I’m just happy to have been able to have served my country today. I’ve dreamed about getting that close to Congressman Weyburn; I’m just sorry it didn’t happen under happier circumstances.”

  By the end of Kelly’s interview I am in such pain that I consider checking myself into the hospital.

  Three

  Following several hours of post-surgical observation in the recovery room adjacent to the O.R., David is admitted to a private room on the cardiac care floor, which is where I am re united with him. A uniformed NYPD officer is stationed outside his door and requests ID from me before he’ll permit me to enter. Before he was wheeled into surgery David had left a short list of visitors’ names with the head nurse, and this information has made its way into the policeman’s pocket. I tell the cop not to let anyone else in until I leave, and then close the door behind me.

  Looking somewhat drained but otherwise alert, David is watching one of the eleven-o’clock newscasts.

  I lean over and kiss his lips. They’re dry, so I hand him the plastic sippy cup of water. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

  “Like Howard Dean,” he mumbles. He doesn’t need to explain or expound. A mere couple of clicks on the TV remote control confirm the reason. David’s exuberant baritone on the Stephen Sondheim couplet from “Send in the Clowns” is featured on the late-night news of every major network. Dean’s Iowa yowl was better suited to the chorus of “Oklahoma!,” and it’s safe enough to say that the media’s lurid love affair with the sound bite was a factor in the tanking of his 2004 presidential bid.

  The Fox News producer must have made the determination to share his team’s footage of David’s singing and of Kelly’s subsequent poolside resuscitation with the competition. Highly unusual not to treat the “event” as a scoop, unless there were an ulterior motive for making the tape available to their rivals, but it doesn’t take an Einstein to guess what that motive might be. Fox’s conservative bent is notorious, and David has long been a thorn in the right wing’s side; not because he’s a dreaded (to them) “liberal,” but because his personality, his integrity, and his pragmatism have made him such a uniter that on most issues he has a solid base among voters on both sides of the ideological debate.

  “I’d say you’ve had better days,” I say, switching off the TV. “You’ve seen enough for one night. I don’t want you to suffer a relapse. America needs you. I need you.”

  “C’mere.” David pats the bed and I perch on the mattress beside him, fearful of disturbing any of his tubing. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Tess. Do you have any idea how special you are?”

  Oh-so-gingerly I try to lie beside him. “I haven’t the vaguest,” I murmur. “Tell me.”

  He chuckles. “Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a trained seal; you know I tend to bristle at performing on cue.”

  Some politician. I get off the bed and pull up the chair. “Thanks for your honesty.”

  “Now don’t get like that, Tess.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know what. You never actually pout, but—you should see yourself sometime—it’s like you curl up inside your clamshell and shut yourself down when you don’t hear exactly what you want to.”

  This conversation is stressing both of us out. I rise from the chair and shoulder my purse. “Maybe I should let you get some rest.
Do you think you’ll be back on your feet in a week? You’re scheduled to announce the Cruise Ship Accountability and Culpability Act in front of Pier 90 next Monday.”

  David reaches out his hand and waves me toward him. “Don’t leave, Tess. Please. Okay: you’re the most amazing woman I know, and that includes my mother, and I’m incredibly lucky to have you. And, yes, I’m still intending to go through with the cruise ship dumping speech. Did I vet the latest draft?”

  I nod. “Though I still think it could use some tweaking. I’d like to rehearse a Q&A as well, even if we have to do it in the car on the way to the pier. And you need to decide whether you want to go with the provocative open, which is guaranteed to get bleeped on the news.”

  “Perfect. The very fact that something’s being bleeped will grab people’s attention. It’s also a funny first line. Once everyone is chuckling, particularly my detractors, their defenses are down, and they’ll be more receptive to the announcement and to the bill itself.”

  There’s a knock on the door. “Don’t get up, I’ll get it,” I joke. I open the door a crack. “Yes?”

  A nurse is standing there holding a little plastic cup. “I have to give Congressman Weyburn his medication, miss.” She goes over to David’s bed, takes his temperature, and notates the readouts on each of the machines to which he is attached. “Visiting hours are over,” she admonishes.

  “Can she stay the night?” David asks.

  The nurse frowns. She’s all business. “It’s against hospital policy.”

  David tests the waters. “But can she do it anyway?”

  “Where’s she gonna sleep? That chair? I don’t want no trouble.”

  She’s right about the chair. There’s no alternative, unless I ask if they can bring in a cot for me, and we’ve determined that my presence at present is already against the rules. “Perhaps I should go,” I say, noticing a dried bloodstain on the floor and hoping the DNA isn’t David’s. The linoleum looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the first term of the Giuliani administration. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” I assure him, and wait for the nurse to leave first. “I’ll see if I can find out how long they’re planning to keep you here.” Now I’m wishing I’d gotten Dr. Gupta’s pager number.