Derailed

ELEVEN

After Lucinda left, I went to the doctor.

It was 130 blocks uptown from the Fairfax Hotel. I walked because the man had taken my wallet and all my cash in it.

I had a broken nose and a bloodstained jacket, but no one seemed to notice. There were other things to look at, I suppose — a homeless man with no clothes on, for instance. A woman on Rollerblades dressed entirely in purple. A black man shouting about something called the Sons of Jonah. My swollen nose and bloody jacket slipped right under the average city dweller’s radar.

A funny thing happened as I walked. And walked and walked.

I started counting blocks but ended up counting blessings.

Because there were blessings. I was alive, for instance. That was blessing number one. I’d been half-sure the man was going to shoot me. So being alive was a blessing. And then there was my wife and daughter. Blessings, both of them. My unknowing wife, blessedly ignorant of the fact that I’d just spent the morning in room 1207 of the Fairfax Hotel with a woman other than her. Watching that woman get brutally and repeatedly raped, of course — but still.

And Anna . . . how could I have done a thing like this to her? I felt as if I’d been deathly sick for a long time and that my fever had finally broken. I could think clearly again.

Dr. Jaffe asked me what happened.

“I fell getting out of a cab.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Jaffe said. “You’d be surprised how many times I hear that.”

“I’m sure.”

Dr. Jaffe set my nose and gave me a sample bottle of codeine. “If the pain gets bad,” he said.

I felt like telling him that the pain was already bad, but then I was kind of welcoming the discomfort. Like the 130 blocks of arctic air I’d just stepped out of, it grounded me.

I walked all the way to the office. I suppose I could’ve gone home, but I was going to make this a day like any other. A late-starting day, a day with a morning I’d rather not think about, but wasn’t there a whole afternoon ahead? And another morning and afternoon after that, and so on? I was jumping back in with both feet.

When I got to the office, I trotted out the same story for anyone who asked. And everyone who saw me did. Winston, Mary Widger, and three-quarters of my creative group. The cab, the street hole, the unfortunate fall. They were all sorry for me; they all tried not to look at my nose and the two raccoon like rings appearing under both eyes.

When I finally sat down in my office, I felt the kind of relief that comes with being back in your own environment, an environment that had been feeling a little sad and hopeless lately, but suddenly felt warm and welcoming. Life itself feeling warm and welcoming—richer than I’d been willing to give it credit for. There were all my things, for example. My very own phone and computer and couch and coffee table. And all those industry awards I’d managed to garner—gold and silver and bronze—and who could say, despite recent setbacks, that there wouldn’t be more to come? And on my desk, a photograph of us: Deanna and Anna and me, taken somewhere on a beach in the Caribbean. My family, secure in the knowledge of my love. And I did love them.

But looking at that picture made me think about that other picture, the one in my wallet. The one the man had ogled, then polluted by holding in his hand. The one he still had with him.

“Darlene,” I called.

“Yes?” My secretary appeared at my door, wearing a look of motherly concern.

“I just realized I lost my wallet. It must’ve fallen out when I broke my nose.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Can you call the credit card companies for me and cancel the cards?”

“No.”

“What?”

“No.You’ve got to call them yourself. They’ll only listen to the cardholder.”

“Oh. Right.” I probably should’ve known that. I probably should’ve known a lot of things. For instance, that shabby-looking hotels look shabby for a reason—because they are shabby. The kinds of places that attract lowlifes and persons with criminal intent. Persons who loiter in stairwells, waiting for persons with adulterous intent to cross their paths. I was in my forties and still learning.

I called the card companies. American Express and Visa and MasterCard. Canceling your cards is an easy thing to do these days; you just tell them your mother’s maiden name — Reston — and poof. Your card number ceases to be. And I pictured the man standing in some store being told that his card was no good. That one, too. And this one as well. All of them no good.

Only I suddenly pictured Deanna in a store, being told the same thing. I had to call her. It was after three — she’d be home.

She picked up on the fourth ring, and when I heard her voice saying, “Hello,” I was overcome with a kind of gratitude. Grateful to God, I suppose—assuming that there was one, assuming that he’d care enough to see that I’d made it out of the Fairfax Hotel in one piece. Minus a whole nose, maybe, minus a lover, sure, but other than that, reasonably intact.

“You won’t believe the day I had,” I told her. And she wouldn't have believed it.

“What happened?”

“I broke my nose.”

“You broke your what? ”

“My nose. I fell down getting out of a cab and broke my nose.”

“Oh, Charles . . .”

“Don’t worry. It’s okay, it’s fine. The doctor set it and gave me enough codeine to sedate a horse. I’m feeling no pain.” That wasn’t true—I was feeling pain, but this pain was a kind of penance and tempered by that other thing I was feeling, which was unmitigated relief.

“Oh,Charles. Why don’t you come home?”

“I told you. I’m fine. I have a few things to do here.” Like say three hundred Hail Marys and lick my wounds.

“You sure?”

“Yes.” I was moved by the obvious empathy in her voice, the kind of empathy made possible only through years of sticking together through thick and thin. Even if we couldn’t communicate it lately — even if we couldn’t physically express it — it was there. It had always been there. And I nearly felt like confessing and throwing myself on the mercy of the court. But then I’d never have to, would I? Life was back where it started, before I’d looked up from my paper and noticed a white thigh and swinging black pump.

“One other thing,” I said.

“What?”

“I lost my wallet. When I fell out of the cab. I told you, you wouldn't believe the day I had.”

“A wallet’s just a wallet. I’m more concerned about you.”

“I already called the credit card companies and canceled them. Just wanted you to know — you better cut them up and throw them away. They’re going to send us new ones by tomorrow — at least they say they are.”

“Fine. Consider it done.”

I said good-bye, whispered, “I love you,” and started to hang up.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Vasquez called.”

“Mr.Who? ”

“Mr. Vasquez. He said he had a business lunch with you at the Fairfax Hotel. He forgot to tell you something.

“Charles . . . ?”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t he call you at the office?”