Snowblind

Chapter 19: Hearts Can Break

Jacksonville, Florida

December 22, 1995

Jim Ramos, personal paramedic for Matt Tisdale, was buckled into the first-class seat immediately behind his boss/patient as the Boeing 737-300 lifted off from Jacksonville International Airport at 11:30 AM. It was to be a five hour and ten-minute flight, nonstop, to Los Angeles International—pretty much the maximum range of the aircraft. Though the plane was owned and operated by United Airlines, it was not a regularly scheduled passenger flight. It was a charter, arranged for by Matt himself. The tour had finished the last show of this leg the night before in the Jacksonville Coliseum and they were now on Christmas break until January 5^th, when they would start the next leg in New Orleans and then work their way through the south and southwest during the winter months.

National’s plan had been to fly Matt, the band, Greg Gahn, and Jim himself home by commercial air but leave the road crew and all the support personnel in Jacksonville and house them in cheap motels until it was time to head to Louisiana. Matt, upon hearing about it, had declared this plan “fucking bullshit” and tried to get National management to pay for the charter they were now on so everyone could “be home with their fuckin’ families and tappin’ their primary gash”. National refused, so Matt, in a rare display of Christmas spirit (aided by a half a bottle of Jack Daniels and several lines of Bolivian cocaine) decided to pay for the charter himself. Thirteen thousand dollars for each hour of flight time (or fraction thereof) was how much it cost to charter a 737. That was seventy-eight thousand dollars (plus applicable taxes and booking fees) for the flight to LA and then another seventy-eight thousand (plus applicable taxes and booking fees) for the flight back after the break was over. Matt did get National to kick in about twenty-five thousand of that—the amount it would have cost them to house sixty-eight roadies, techies, truck and bus drivers, and other support staff in double occupancy Motel 6 level accommodations for two weeks—but he paid for the rest out of his own pocket. He could have simply paid for everyone to have round-trip commercial tickets to LA and back for much less—around fifty-five grand total—but elected to go charter instead because it was pretty much impossible to get everyone booked on the same flights to and from. He even let Greg Gahn come along for the ride, despite the fact that Gahn was the one who kept passing along National’s denials to him.

Jim, by now a veteran of air travel, planned to sleep the entire way back to LAX. Life as part of a touring rock group was fun, exciting, and everything he had ever dreamed it would be (and quite a bit more), but it was exhausting. The days and nights rolled by in an endless stream of arenas and hotel rooms, charter flights and catered food, booze and groupie sex. Sleep was sometimes left on the back burner, particularly when they had multiple travel days in a row. Jim had fucked some of the most beautiful and uninhibited women imaginable throughout this adventure (though he had not kissed a single one after Matt advised him why he should not), sometimes two at a time, and, on one occasion, three at a time. But the trip was also taking a toll on his body. He hadn’t weighed himself since the trip started—he didn’t want to know the real number—but he was pretty sure he had put on at least ten pounds, maybe more. The lack of exercise combined with the catered food and the booze had stretched his waistline out and added a noticeable spare tire at his midsection. He had to buy a whole new set of jeans and shirts back in Baltimore because his old ones didn’t fit anymore.

I really need to hit the gym over the break, he thought as the plane climbed into the sky and settled on its first leg of the journey. Cut out the booze too. God only knows what this is doing to my blood pressure. That was something else he had not measured during this adventure, again, because he really did not want to see what the number was.

By the time the plane leveled out and started its cruise phase, Jim was asleep and snoring lightly. He did not wake up when the front flight attendant came around asking for drink orders. He did not wake up when the plane hit a particularly nasty pocket of clear air turbulence just north of Mobile, Alabama and several carry-on bags came tumbling out of the overhead compartments. He descended all the way down into REM sleep and likely would have remained there until at least New Mexico or Arizona, had duty not called.

“Jim!” a voice said into his ear. A hand was shaking his shoulder. “Wake up, dude! Matt needs you!”

Sleep fell instantly away from him, jerking him out of dream in which he had been trying to find his way out of a large house because something was after him. He blinked his eyes a few times and stared into the face of Austin Jefferson, the bass player. Austin looked scared. The words he had just said were processed and understood and Jim sat up straight in his seat. “His heart again?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Matt’s voice from the seat in front of him. “It’s fuckin’ doin’ it again, dude. This shit is getting old.”

“It” was the supraventricular tachycardia that Matt was plagued with, the reason Jim was employed by him as a personal paramedic. This was not the first time Matt had gone into SVT since Jim had joined him on the tour. He had had a brief episode after the show in Virginia Beach two weeks ago (right after snorting some post-show cocaine) but it had stopped on its own before Jim could even start an IV on him. And then, just the week before, before the show in Charlotte (more than ten hours after Matt’s last line of coke) it happened again. This time Jim was able to start an IV and give him six milligrams of Adenosine, which converted him back to a normal rhythm in about fifteen seconds. Despite Jim’s stern advice to the contrary, Matt had gone on with the show after the conversion, performing the entire set and then snorted coke and bagged himself a two by four afterword.

Jim quickly unbuckled and stood up. In addition to Austin, Greg Gahn, Corban, Steve, Jack Ferguson the security chief, and Diane the cute blonde flight attendant, were all standing around the general area, their faces worried.

Jim stepped forward and looked at his boss/patient. Matt was pale, a little sweaty, his seat reclined slightly, his expression one of resigned fear. A half empty glass of Jack and Coke stood on the tray table before him and the video screen was showing a movie with lots of scantily clad women in it.

“Did it just start?” Jim asked, reaching down and grabbing Matt’s wrist.

“Yeah,” Matt said softly. “About two minutes ago; started out of fuckin’ nowhere. It’s running like a freight train. I can feel it.”

Jim found Matt’s radial pulse with his fingers. He did not need to count it. Matt was right. It was running like a freight train. It was time to earn his money.

“Austin,” he said, “grab my football out of the overhead.”

“Right,” Austin said, reaching up and unlatching the compartment.

“How are you doing otherwise, Matt?” he asked. “Any chest pain?”

“A little tightness,” Matt said. “Not too bad.”

“How’s your breathing?”

“I feel a little winded,” Matt admitted.

“You do seem to be a bit tachypneic,” Jim agreed. “The air pressure at cruise altitude is kind of low. It’s like standing on top of a mountain. That might be what triggered it.”

“I don’t give a fuck what triggered it,” Matt said. “Just fuckin’ fix it.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jim said, taking the football from Austin. He set it down on the floor of the aisle and opened it. He pulled out the LifePak monitor and turned it on. While it went through its self-checks, he opened the pockets and pulled out the cables and a package of electrodes. “All right, Matt,” he said. “You know the drill by now. Get your shirt off.”

Matt pulled off the Gator Bar t-shirt he had picked up in St. Petersburg three nights before, revealing his bare chest and the upper parts of his full sleeve tattoos. Jim quickly applied the sticky electrodes to the front of both shoulders and to both sides of his lower abdomen. He then looked at the monitor screen, which was, by now, showing a display. He did not need to print out a strip to analyze the rhythm (but he did so anyway, for documentation purposes). It was a classic SVT, trucking along at 210 beats per minute.

“Yep,” Jim said. “It’s the SVT all right. Let’s see how the blood pressure is doing.”

He pulled the blood pressure cuff and the stethoscope out of the football and fastened the cuff around Matt’s left upper arm. He put the stethoscope in his ears and the bell to Matt’s inner elbow. He pumped up the cuff to 180 and then slowly released the air, listening for the beat of the artery to return, his eyes watching the needle of the gauge. The beat returned at 106. It disappeared again at 62. Jim nodded happily and let the rest of the air out of the cuff.

“Well?” Matt asked.

“You’re not hypotensive,” he reported. “One-oh-six over sixty-two.”

“You won’t have to light me up then?” Matt asked.

“Not as long as you convert with the Adenosine,” Jim told him. “Let me get an IV started.”

“Do it, dude,” Matt said holding out his arm.

Jim reached back into the football and pulled out a bag of normal saline and a set of IV tubing. He opened the packages and started to assemble them.

“Should I let the captain know we have a medical emergency?” asked Diane, the flight attendant. She looked even more nervous about all this than Matt.

“Naw, baby,” Matt told her. “I’ll be all right in a few minutes, as soon as my man here gives me the shit.”

“The shit?” she asked.

“He should be okay,” Jim told her. “We’ve been through this before.”

“That’s why Jim is here,” said Austin. “He fixes hearts.”

She looked doubtful about this but stayed where she was.

Jim handed the IV bag with the tubing now dangling out of the bottom to Corban. “Here,” he said. “Hold this up.”

“Right,” Corban said.

Jim opened the clamp until the saline started to drip out of the end of the tubing and then closed it again. He then pulled a 10ml saline flush and saline lock out of the football. He screwed the latter onto the former and then flushed the lock of air. He set it down next to him and then pulled out an IV start kit and opened it. Inside was a blue latex tourniquet, a couple of sterile 2x2 pads, two alcohol preps, a sterile transparent dressing, and a small roll of medical tape. He tore three strips of the tape and stuck them to the leg of his pants, right at the thigh. He then took the tourniquet and tied it around Matt’s upper arm, above the elbow. Matt had good veins and he had a variety to choose from. When giving Adenosine, however, the closer the vein was to the heart, the better the medicine worked. It only had a half-life of a few seconds once injected, so the shorter the trip and the faster it was infused, the better. He touched the large antecubital vein right in the crook of Matt’s elbow. It was fat and springy. It was the same place Jim had started the IV last week as well. The fading bruise of that cannulation was still visible.

He opened one of the alcohol preps and swabbed the area vigorously, making the vein stand out even more. He then pulled one of the 18-gauge IV catheters out of the holder and opened the packaging. “Here we go, Matt,” he said. “Big poke. Hold still.”

Matt held still. Jim got an immediate flash of blood in the catheter’s chamber, indicating he was in the vein. He slid the catheter downward, until the hub was flush against the skin, and pulled out the needle, leaving the catheter behind. Needles that safed themselves after use were still a few years in the future, so Jim dropped the sharp on the floor and put his foot over it to keep anyone—particularly himself—from getting accidentally poked with it before it could be secured in the sharps container. God only knew what kind of nasty bloodborne diseases Matt Tisdale might be carrying. He pushed forcefully down on Matt’s vein above the catheter to keep blood from oozing out and then, with the mechanical skill of one who has performed the maneuver hundreds, maybe thousands of times before, he picked up the saline flush and popped the cap off of it with one hand. He then plugged the end into the catheter and released the pressure on the vein. Carefully, he flushed a little bit of saline in, making sure the IV was patent. It was. He then disconnected the syringe part of the flush, leaving the flush tubing and the catheter in place. He dropped the syringe next to the foot covering the exposed needle—it would be placed in the sharps container as well—and then covered the catheter portion with the transparent dressing from the start kit. He then taped everything in place with the tape strips from his leg.

“All right,” he said. “Give me the end of that IV tubing.”

Corban reeled it in and handed it over. Jim removed the cap and screwed it into the hub on the saline lock he had just installed. He then reached over and opened the clamp on the tubing. He looked at the drip chamber and saw the fluid was infusing rapidly. Another confirmation that the IV was correctly placed in a vein. He then looked at Matt’s arm and felt the area just downstream of where the catheter was. There was no swelling or other signs that the IV fluid was extravasating. It was a good line.

“I’m in,” he said. He then looked over at the monitor. Matt was still in SVT at 210.

“Let’s do this thing, dude,” Matt told him. “Give me the shit.”

Jim reached in the football and got the shit. He pulled out a vial of Adenosine and a 10ml syringe. He put a needle on the end of the syringe and then popped the cap on the vial. He drew up two milliliters, which contained six milligrams of the drug. He then recapped the needle, removed it from the syringe, and set it aside in case he needed to use it again. He opened the second alcohol swab from the start kit and used it to sterilize the hub on the IV tubing, the one closest to the end that plugged into the catheter. He then screwed the syringe of Adenosine onto that hub.

“You ready, Matt?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Matt said softly, taking a deep breath. “I really hate this part.”

“Me too,” Jim said. He pinched the IV tubing just above the hub and then rapidly pushed the entire syringe full of Adenosine into the tubing. As soon as it was in, he un-pinched the tubing and glanced at the drip chamber to make sure it was flowing again. It was. He then turned his eyes to the monitor. The Adenosine usually worked in less than ten seconds.

Ten seconds came and went, and nothing happened. The tracing continued to blast along at 210 beats per minute.

“What’s happening?” Matt asked. “I don’t feel that funky shit in my chest like before.”

“It didn’t work,” Jim said.

“What the fuck do you mean, it didn’t work?” Matt barked.

“I mean it didn’t work,” Jim said. “It happens sometimes. Your heart doesn’t want to convert this time.”

“What the fuck do we do now?” Matt demanded.

“I’ll give you another dose,” Jim said. “Twelve milligrams this time.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Matt said, shaking his head. “You’re not earning your fuckin’ Christmas bonus here, dude!”

Jim screwed the needle back on the syringe and opened another vial of Adenosine. This time he drew up four milliliters of the drug. He swabbed the hub with the alcohol prep again and fastened the syringe.

“All right,” Jim said. “Let’s hope it works this time.” He pinched the tubing, injected the medication, and then un-pinched. A quick glance at the drip chamber and then his eyes went back to the monitor screen.

This time, something happened. Matt’s heartbeat stopped completely for the better part of five seconds. Jim glanced over at him and saw he was even more pale.

“Ohhhh, fuck, I hate this shit,” Matt groaned.

Jim understood. It undoubtedly felt terrible when your heart was no longer beating. But at least the medicine had worked this time. As long as Matt’s heart started back up, everything should be good.

Two wide-complex beats fired off on the monitor screen. There was another long pause and then two more fired. A shorter pause and then three narrow, inverted beats fired in rapid succession. After that, normal complexes began to fire at a reasonably regular rate of ninety-two per minute. Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

Matt’s sigh of relief was even bigger. “Fuck me,” he said. “My chest feels normal again and I can breathe. Did it work?”

“It seems like it did,” Jim said. “You’re back in a normal sinus rhythm.”

Matt nodded. “My man,” he said. “That’s why I keep you around.”

“He’s better now?” Diane, the flight attendant, asked carefully.

“It seems like it,” Jim said. “Let me just check his blood pressure again.”

Jim put the stethoscope back in his ears and pumped up the cuff once again. This time, Matt’s reading was 162/90, which Jim suspected was his normal pressure that he walked around with day in and day out.

“How are you feeling, Matt?” Jim asked him.

“Better,” Matt said. “Much better. Go ahead and get all this shit off of me now.”

“No way, Jose,” Jim said. “I’m keeping this monitor on you and that IV in your arm and this football open until we’re on the ground. And when we get there, I want you to go to the hospital immediately.”

“Fuck that shit,” Matt said. “I just want to finish my drink and then catch a little sleep.”

“I’m going to have to insist this time, Matt,” Jim said. “You’re having these episodes way too often now and they’re getting harder to break. You need a cardiology workup.”

“You don’t get to insist anything, dude,” Matt told him. “You’re here to do what you just did, and I thank you for it.”

“Listen, Matt,” Jim said. “This is some serious shit you’ve got going on here. Do you want to die? Because this might very well kill you one of these times.”

“We all gotta go sometime,” Matt said.

No one had noticed that Diane had disappeared. At least no one noticed until she came back with a middle-aged balding man in a white uniform in tow.

“Hello,” the man said, his voice stern and unamused. “I’m Michael Bordon, the captain of this aircraft.”

“Shouldn’t you be flying the fuckin’ plane then?” Matt asked plainly.

“My copilot has got it under control at the moment,” Bordon said stiffly. “Right now, I’m a little more concerned that one of my passengers is having a medical emergency involving his heart.”

“It’s cool, dude,” Matt assured him. “It’s happened to me before. My man Jim here fixed me up. Everything’s back to normal now.”

Bordon looked at the monitor beeping away, the IV bag that Corban was still holding aloft going into Matt’s arm, the opened packages and debris lying on the floor of the aisle. “It doesn’t look like everything is cool to me,” he said. “It looks like a serious medical issue is occurring on my aircraft and that makes me responsible. I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if I were to make an emergency landing as soon as possible and have an ambulance waiting for you on the ground.”

“How fast could you make that happen?” asked Austin.

“Austin!” Matt barked. “What the fuck, dude?”

“I think the man’s right, boss,” Austin told him. “We’re way up in the fuckin’ sky here. And Jim’s the shit, I’ll be the first to agree, but this is your heart, man!”

“We’re flying over southeastern Texas right now,” Bordon said. “I can have us on the ground at Houston Intercontinental in twenty-five minutes.”

“Texas!” Matt nearly screamed. “No fuckin’ way! Bad shit always happens to me in Texas!”

“I’m sorry,” Bordon said. “I’m afraid I don’t have a choice here.”

“You don’t understand, dude!” Matt told him. “Texas is a fucked-up place! I had a bunch of good old boys kick the shit out of me at a truck stop in Texas and then me and Jake Kingsley got sent to jail for it. And, once in that jail, a couple of cops beat my head in with a telephone book just because I asked one of them if his daughter took it up the ass!”

“That’s all very unfortunate,” Bordon said, “and perhaps even understandable if you indeed asked the man that, but the fact of the matter is...”

“That ain’t all though!” Matt interrupted. “My bud Darren—God rest his soul and may Kingsley rot in hell—fuckin’ blew himself up on stage in Texas! And he fucked up the end of our show there too! And, as if that shit ain’t enough, the first time my heart ever did this SVT shit and some medic had to light me up like fuckin’ Hiroshima 1945, was in Texas! In Houston, Texas as a matter of fact! You can’t take me down there!”

“Those are all incidents that sound regrettable and traumatic,” Bordon allowed, “but nevertheless, I don’t really have a choice. When I am told that one of my passengers has a heart condition and it was required in-flight that he receive intravenous cardiac medications because of a life-threatening arrythmia, my hands are kind of tied. We’ll be landing in Houston in about twenty-five minutes. An ambulance will be there waiting for you at the terminal. It is your choice whether or not to get in that ambulance, but you will not be going any further on this aircraft than that.”

With that, Bordon turned around and walked back to the cockpit. He closed the door behind him.

“Man, what a rip,” Matt said, shaking his head.

“I think it’s for the best, Matt,” Jim told him. “Truth be told, I wasn’t that thrilled about finishing out the flight after what just happened.”

“I would’ve been fine,” Matt grumbled. “I always have been before, right?”

The captain used the overhead intercom to announce that the plane was making an emergency landing at Houston Intercontinental due to a medical emergency aboard, that descent would start immediately, and ordered everyone to buckle back into their respective seats. Diane, the flight attendant, tried to get Jim to stow the monitor back in the overhead compartment but he refused.

“No way,” he told her. “I’ll string it back here and buckle it into the seat next to me, but it’s going to stay attached to Matt so I can monitor him.”

She agreed to this plan as long as she got to inspect how it was buckled and the rest of the football was closed up and stowed back in the overhead. They had hardly even begun this task when the sound of the engines decreased and the nose of the aircraft dipped downward, reducing everyone’s weight by an eighth of a G or so.

Matt’s heart rhythm continued to bound along at a rate that, while not quite sedate, was at least not dangerous. Matt himself continued to insist that he felt fine and that all of this shit was unnecessary.

“But you’ll go to the hospital, right?” Jim asked him several times.

“Yeah,” Matt grumbled. “I’ll fuckin’ go, if only to get you to stop nagging me about it like a bitch.”

“Deal,” Jim agreed.

The plane landed normally and taxied to one of the gates in Terminal C. As promised, there was an airport fire crew and an ambulance crew from the City of Houston Fire Department waiting for them. The EMS crew and two of the firefighters boarded the plane and, at Diane’s direction, stopped at Matt’s seat. Jim, by now, had unbuckled and was standing up, the LifePak back on the floor. The paramedic—a young male in his late-twenties with short, neatly cropped hair—looked first at the monitor and the IV bag (raising his eyebrows a bit at the sight of them) and then took a good look at his patient. It was plain to see that he recognized him.

“Matt Tisdale?” he asked, surprised. “No way!”

“Way,” Jim told him. “We were on our way back to LA from Jacksonville and had to make an emergency landing here. I’m Jim Ramos, Matt’s tour paramedic.”

“Tour paramedic for Matt Tisdale?” the Houston medic asked. “That’s tight! How’d you get a job like that?”

“I just kind of stumbled into it, really,” Jim told him. “Anyway, Matt is a thirty-six-year-old male with a history of PSVT episodes, sometimes requiring cardioversion, sometimes treatable with Adenosine. He is also a habitual cocaine user, heavy marijuana smoker, heavy cigarette smoker, and a card-carrying alcoholic.”

“Damn, dude,” Matt said. “That’s harsh. Ain’t you got anything nice to say about me?”

“I’m giving report to the medic who is going to be taking care of you,” Jim told him. “I have to give him your history.”

“I’m down with that,” Matt said, “but can’t you throw in some of my good attributes as well?”

“Uh ... sure,” Jim said. He turned back to the Houston medic. “He’s also a badass guitar player, a great singer, a boss who pays me quite well for the job I do, and he scores more and better pussy than a firefighter like yourself could probably even imagine.”

“That’s saying a lot,” the medic said respectfully.

“Isn’t it?” Jim asked. “Anyway, this is what happened today:” And, with that, he explained about Matt’s latest episode of SVT and what he, Jim had done about it.

“You have Adenosine, huh?” the Houston medic asked. “That’s cool shit. We’ve been trying to get the EMS authority to give us that for years.”

Jim did not mention that the legality of him carrying and using the Adenosine was questionable at best. “Yeah, the doc who oversees me is onboard with all the latest. Anyway, the captain insisted that we land here and get Matt to the hospital. Matt is reluctant, but he agreed to go.”

“Sounds good,” the medic said. He then went over the entire story with Matt one more time, just to make sure they were all on the same page. While he assessed the guitarist, his partner and the fire crew took a set of vital signs on Matt and then replaced Jim’s Lifepak with one of their own. Jim handed the medic several printouts he had recorded when Matt had been in the SVT.

“Do you want us to stay with you, Matt?” asked Austin as the medic got ready to walk Matt off the aircraft.

“Fuck no,” Matt said. “You all just stay on the plane and get home to those you want to rail. I’ll be all right. I’ll let them do their thing at the hospital and then I’ll be on another plane later tonight.”

“I’ll stay with you, Matt,” said Greg Gahn. “It’s my job as...”

“No fuckin’ way!” Matt said. “The last thing in the world I want to deal with now is a hypocrite Mormon tour manager. You stay on the plane with everyone else.”

“But who is going to arrange for hotel rooms and travel for you?” Greg asked.

“I can do that shit myself,” Matt said.

“But...”

“Don’t worry, Greg,” Jim said. “I’m going to stay with Matt through this.”

Greg looked at him. “You are?”

“I am,” Jim said. “It’s my job.”

“You don’t have to stay with me, dude,” Matt told Jim, though he seemed rather touched that the paramedic had made the offer.

“I know I don’t,” Jim said, “but I’m going to. It’s what you pay me for, right?”

Matt smiled. “Right,” he said.

The ambulance took him to Houston Methodist Hospital, the same facility he had been taken to after his first bout of SVT during the Next Phase tour. The trip took a little over thirty minutes. Jim rode in the back, in the airway seat behind the driver’s compartment, but offered no contributions to the care being given by the Houston Fire medic. It would have been uncouth. Instead, they talked mostly about their jobs, the Houston medic giving Jim a rundown on how their department and the Houston EMS system worked and Jim giving the Houston medic a rundown on how it worked in his little corner of southern California. He then told a few anecdotes of his travels with Matt Tisdale. The Houston medic was much more interested in these tales—in which he was told why you should never kiss a groupie and what exactly a two by four or a three by six entailed.

As fate would have it, the same doctor who had treated him before—Dr. Goldstein—was on duty in the emergency room when they wheeled Matt in.

“Hey, doc,” Matt greeted him. “Bet you never thought you’d see me again, huh?”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Tisdale,” Goldstein said, “I’m amazed it took so long.”

They went through a standard cardiac workup. An EKG was done. Matt’s complete blood count, electrolytes, and a dozen other labs were checked. They checked his urine for infection and drugs of abuse. His labs came back remarkably similar to the last time he had been there. Red blood cells, white blood cells, and electrolytes were all normal. His hepatic enzymes were elevated to a level that indicated Matt’s liver was not particularly happy with him. His drugs of abuse screen came back positive for marijuana and cocaine. His cardiac enzymes were just a point below what would be considered positive for heart damage. His chest x-ray, however, revealed something quite significant.

“You have cardiomegaly,” Goldstein told him.

“What the fuck’s that?” Matt asked.

“It means your heart is enlarged,” the doctor clarified. “It is quite apparent on the chest x-ray.”

“What’s wrong with having a big heart?” asked Matt. “The more the better, right?”

“Wrong,” Goldstein told him. “A big heart is a less efficient heart. It doesn’t pump blood as well as a normal heart. The condition, if allowed to continue, will eventually lead to heart failure and more than triples your risk of sudden cardiac death; particularly when you add in your correctable risk factors.”

“My correctable risk factors?”

“That would be your cocaine use primarily, but also your smoking of cigarettes, your alcoholism, and your poor diet.”

“Oh ... I see,” Matt said. “Well ... how did my heart get so big in the first place?”

Goldstein looked at him pointedly. “Again, that would be your cocaine use, primarily, but also your smoking of cigarettes, your alcoholism, and your poor diet.”

“No shit?” Matt asked.

“No shit,” Goldstein assured him. “In effect, you have aged your heart decades past your physical age. The constant use of stimulants and tobacco have caused your heart to have to work harder than it was designed for. This causes gradual and cumulative stretching in the cardiac fibers and enlargement of the heart.”

“What a rip,” Matt said, dejected.

“Rip or not,” the doctor said, “that is the situation you are now facing. Last time you were here, you refused admission and cardiac workup.”

“I had a show to do in Dallas,” Matt said.

“I remember the conversation,” Goldstein said. “Will you allow me to admit you this time? I really think a complete cardiac evaluation is warranted so we can tell you exactly how bad the damage is.”

“Well ... I was planning to catch a plane home tonight,” Matt said. “I’ve been away for a few months now and Kim—that’s the bitch I fuck—is expecting me to come home and slip her some schlong for Christmas.”

“Slip her some ... schlong,” Goldstein said slowly, as if pondering the meaning of the phrase.

“He’ll stay,” said Jim, who was sitting in the visitor’s chair next to the bed.

Matt gave him a dirty look but did not contradict him. “All right,” he sighed. “I’ll stay.”

“Very good,” Goldstein said. “I’ll get our cardiologist involved and we’ll get you tucked in for the night.”

The cardiologist was a balding man in his late thirties, fit, handsome, with skin that was almost, but not quite, olive colored. He had a strange accent but spoke English flawlessly. He wore a shirt and tie underneath his sparkling while doctor’s coat and had an expensive looking stethoscope hung around his neck. He introduced himself to Matt and Jim as Doctor Rostami.

“Rostami?” Matt said, repeating the name back. “You a wop?”

“I beg your pardon?” the doctor said.

“Italian,” Matt clarified. “Rostami sounds like a wop name.”

“Uh ... no,” Rostami said. “I am from Iran originally.”

Matt’s expression darkened. “Iran? Home of the ayatollahs and the jihads and death to America and all that?”

“My family are Christians,” Rostami told him. “We fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution and I was educated here in the United States.”

“Oh,” Matt said. “I guess that’s okay then.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Rostami said blandly. “Now then ... how about we discuss your heart?”

They discussed his heart, and his cocaine use, and how the latter had undoubtedly led to the problems he was now having with the former. Matt did not really want to hear this.

“All you doctors keep trying to tell me that the coke is what causes all this,” he grumbled.

“Do you think, perhaps, the fact that we’re all telling you that might be meaningful?” Rostami asked.

“Well ... maybe,” Matt allowed.

“Here’s what is going to happen,” Rostami said. “You’ll spend the night in the telemetry unit and the first thing in the morning, we’re going to give you a nuclear stress-echo exam. That’s a test where we inject you with some mildly radioactive dye and then have you exert yourself on a treadmill until we get your heart rate up above one hundred and fifty beats per minute. We will then put you in a machine that will measure your cardiac output and blood flow so we can determine how bad the damage is.”

“That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun,” Matt said.

“You’re here to have your cardiac function evaluated,” Rostami told him, “not to have fun.”

Rostami left to go make the admission arrangements. Matt, now wearing a hospital gown and hooked up to a beeping monitor, sulked and grumbled for a bit and then seemed to return to at least a shadow of his former self.

“Well, you might as well get out of here, dude,” he told Jim. “Find yourself a nice hotel and use the credit card in my wallet to pay for it. Book a suite. That’s what you’re used to.”

“Uh ... okay, sure,” Jim said. “I’m sure there’s something near the hospital.”

“One other thing,” Matt said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“What’s that?”

“There’s a couple hundred dollars in my wallet. Take it and see if you can score me some coke.”

Jim looked pointedly at his boss. “You’re not talking about the cola, right?”

“Fuck no,” Matt said. “Cocaine. I’m gonna need some to get me through this shit.”

Jim closed his eyes tightly and then slowly reopened them. “Matt,” he said softly, “putting aside the fact that I would never deliver cocaine to someone admitted to a hospital for a cardiac workup, I would not even know where to find cocaine, how to buy it, how much to pay for it, or whether or not it is real cocaine. And even if I did, if I were to be caught buying or possessing cocaine, my license to practice as a paramedic would be permanently forfeited.”

Matt looked at him. “You’re not going to do it then?”

“No, I’m not going to do it.”

“What a rip,” Matt grumbled. “Maybe I should’ve let the fuckin’ Mormon stay after all. He would’ve scored for me—especially if I told him he could pinch a little.”

“I’m going to leave now, Matt. I’ll come check on you in the morning.”

“Fine,” Matt said with a sigh.

As Jim reached the door of the ER room, Matt called his name one more time. Jim turned around and looked at him.

“Thanks for saving my ass,” Matt told him.

“It’s what I do,” Jim said with a smile.

Dr. Rostami did a very thorough workup of Matt the next day. He did the nuclear echo test twice, once under resting conditions and once under stress. Both tests indicated that there might be some areas of Matt’s cardiac muscle that were not receiving adequate blood flow. He then got him to the cardiac catheterization lab and inserted a catheter into the femoral artery in Matt’s groin.

“My schlong is usually a lot bigger than that,” Matt told the nurses during this procedure (after being floored with a combination of fentanyl and Versed in his IV line). “You should see it when it’s ready for action.”

“I’m sure it’s impressive,” replied the cute brunette nurse who was monitoring the medications and the IV. “Now hold still.”

“Have you ladies ever heard of a two by four?” he asked them.

They had not, but before he could explain it, they put a little more Versed in his IV and he drifted off into a twilight sleep.

After the procedure, Matt had to lay still on his back for three hours to make sure the artery in his leg had closed up properly. He was then taken back to his room, where Jim was now waiting for him, freshly shaved and showered (and with no fucking cocaine!).

Matt ate his tasteless dinner of some kind of pressed chicken breast with vegetables and longed for a Jack and coke. Just after the dinner dishes were taken away, Dr. Rostami came into the room to discuss the results of the day’s testing.

“The first thing,” he explained, “is that you have significant arteriosclerotic plaque occluding most of your major coronary arteries, including the left anterior descending artery, which provides blood flow to the majority of the left ventricle. It’s actually quite remarkable for the buildup to be that significant in someone your age—even with your stimulant use, diet, and cigarette smoking taken into account.”

“When I do shit, I do it right,” Matt said with a frown.

“Apparently so,” Rostami agreed. “The second thing is that you have significant cardiomegaly, or enlargement of your heart. Only a change in lifestyle is going to make that situation any better.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Matt promised. “What about the fucking SVT episodes? Did you figure out why that shit is happening?”

“Well ... again, the underlying cause is undoubtedly your habitual cocaine use, but I was able to identify an area in the atrioventricular node of your heart where the tissue has been damaged due to the stretching of the myocardium.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Matt asked.

“It means that as your heart stretched and grew in size, an area of the AV node, which is where the electrical signal that makes your heart beat is regulated, became damaged due to a small loss of blood flow to the region. This created an area of non-conduction that causes the signal from your sinus node to occasionally bypass the AV node, which creates what we call a reentry loop, which is what causes your heart to beat so rapidly.”

“Oh ... well, now that you explained it,” Matt said sarcastically, “is there anything I can do about it?”

“The standard first-line of treatment for PSVT episodes is pharmacological,” Rostami said. “We can put you on Verapamil or perhaps another of the calcium channel blockers and hopefully that will...”

“I tried that shit before, doc,” Matt interrupted. “I couldn’t perform on stage when I was taking that shit. I’d get out of breath.”

“I see,” Rostami said. “Well ... there is also a new procedure, something developed at Stanford that we’ve been working on here at this facility. It’s called cardiac ablation.”

“What’s that?” Matt asked.

“It is still kind of experimental at this stage,” Rostami said, “although it is receiving more and more acceptance across the country. The idea is to insert a catheter inside of you, much like we did in the Cath lab earlier today, but the goal is to advance the tip to the area of damage in your AV node and then ablate that region, restoring the signal path.”

“Ablate? What exactly is ablating?”

“Ablation,” Rostami corrected, “and it means to burn away.”

“You want to burn my heart?” Matt asked, just to be clear.

“That is the idea,” Rostami told him. “The problem is that the insurance companies are reluctant to cover the procedure at this point in time. It is still considered experimental and they won’t authorize it until a year’s worth of pharmaceutical therapy has been completed and determined to have failed. That is why it would be in your best interest to start back on the medications and give them a chance. If you take the calcium channel blockers for a year and continue to have these episodes, then the argument for ablation becomes much more compelling and harder for the insurance company to reject.”

“You’re telling me that the insurance company is the one who gets to say whether nor not I get this ablation?” Matt asked.

“Unfortunately, that is the way the system works in the United States,” Rostami said.

“Fuck that shit,” Matt said. “How about if I just paid for this thing myself? Can you do it then?”

Rostami seemed taken aback by this suggestion. “Pay for it yourself? I don’t think that is feasible, Mr. Tisdale. A cardiac ablation is quite expensive.”

“How expensive?” Matt wanted to know.

“Uh ... I don’t have the exact figures in front of me,” he said, “but I would think that the use of the Cath lab, the procedure itself, the two-day stay in the CICU after ... that would have to run pretty close to a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Shit,” Matt scoffed. “Is that all?”

“Is that all?” Rostami asked, astounded.

“I’m a rich motherfucker, doc,” Matt told him. “I just paid more than that to fly the roadies and the rest of the crew home and back for Christmas. Have your people shoot me an estimate and I’ll have my accountant wire the money in. Let’s get this thing booked.”

“Are you serious?” Rostami asked.

“Dead serious,” Matt assured him. “Let’s do this thing.”

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Laura Kingsley was on her way to a hospital as well. In this case, the facility was Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but Laura herself was not the one who needed medical attention. She was going in response to a phone call she had received on her cellular phone from Eric Pale, Celia’s violinist. The young musical prodigy had gone to the emergency room by ambulance six hours before after suffering a severe panic attack. He was doing better now and was being discharged, but, since they had given him medications to chill him out, and since he had no car with him anyway, he needed someone to drive him home.

“What about that chick he lives with?” Jake had asked after she told him what her mission was.

“She’s at work,” Laura said.

“So ... that makes this your problem?”

“I don’t mind,” Laura told him. “I like Eric. He’s like ... I don’t know ... a little brother or something.”

“He’s kind of weird,” Jake replied. “Not weirder than Charlie—that would be saying a lot—but weird all the same. And this panic attack thing. He is unable to cope with day-to-day life without going to the hospital. Are we sure he’s going to work out on a long tour?”

“He’ll be fine,” she said. “He just has breakthrough attacks every once in a while. It sounds like he had a bad one today.”

Jake had simply shaken his head. He did not understand the whole panic attack thing. How could you panic over nothing? And if you realized that you were, in fact, having a panic attack, shouldn’t that go a long way toward solving the problem?

The traffic was heavy as Laura made her way slowly to the west on Santa Monica Boulevard. Rain came down in a steady pour and the windshield wipers on her Lexus thumped rhythmically back and forth, barely keeping up. The defroster vents blew warm air, keeping the condensation from forming on her windshield and cutting the chilly air.

It was this winter storm, blown in from the Gulf of Alaska and moving inland earlier this morning, that was the reason she and Jake were still in LA at all. Rehearsal for the upcoming tour was now done. The road crew would begin practicing the roll-in/roll-out procedures the day after Christmas and would leave for the first show in Miami on December 28, but the band itself was free until New Year’s Day, when they would hop on a plane for the cross-country trek. Jake and Laura had planned to spend that time at their Oceano home on the cliff, but the storm and the winds it brought were a little more than Jake was comfortable flying in. And the snow on the mountain passes made the thought of driving home unpleasant as well—that and the fact that if they did drive home, they would have to drive back at some point to get the plane. And so, they were staying in their Granada Hills house until the weather cleared. And that was why Laura was in a position to pick up Eric when he called.

She had never been to Cedars-Sinai before but the facility was well marked with directional signs and she had no problem finding the emergency room. She parked in a small parking garage and then strolled across a hundred yards of open area, gripping her umbrella tightly to keep the wind from ripping it away, but getting fairly wet anyway. She went inside the building and found herself in a crowded waiting room full of people of all walks and stations in life, of all ages, of all races and creeds. There were businessmen in suits sitting next to homeless ragpickers. Some were holding bloody bandages to body parts. Some were holding green vomit bags to their faces. Many were in wheelchairs looking miserable. In one corner was a family of five that were eating fast food from the local McDonalds franchise. It was unclear at a glance which of the five was here to be seen in the ER.

She waited in a line for a few minutes until she was able to speak to a clerk behind a pane of bulletproof glass. The clerk directed her to another line where she was finally able to talk to a uniformed and armed security guard. He took her name and her driver’s license, gave her a large green sticker that read VISITOR for her to put on her jacket, and then made a phone call to the back. She was asked to step aside. A few minutes later, another armed guard came through a secure door and called her name. He then led her into the bowels of the emergency department until they reached a hallway lined on both sides with gurneys, most of which contained a human being having some sort of real or perceived emergency. One of these people was Eric, who was laying under a white blanket and snoring lightly.

“Are you here to pick up Mr. Eric?” a voice asked her.

She looked up to see a dark-skinned black woman of healthy proportions. She was in her mid-thirties or so and wearing dark blue scrubs. Her name badge declared that she was Barbara Jenkins, RN.

“Yes,” Laura told her. “I’m here to take him home.”

“Perfect,” Barbara said with a smile. “Are you family?”

“No, a friend and a colleague,” she said. “Eric and I are musicians.”

“He did mention something about being a musician,” she said. She then chuckled. “He tried to convince me that he plays violin for Celia Valdez.”

“Uh ... well, actually...”

“I’m assuming he has schizophrenia?” Barbara asked. “It wasn’t in his medical history, but he’s obviously having some delusions indicative of it. In addition to playing violin for Celia Valdez, he claims he flew on a helicopter to Jake Kingsley’s house on an ocean cliff and had Thanksgiving dinner with Kingsley and his wife and Kingsley’s parents.” She shook her head a little. “Where do they come up with this stuff?”

“That does sound rather fantastic, doesn’t it?” Laura asked lightly.

“It does,” Barbara agreed. “Is he supposed to be taking medication for this? Some Risperdal or Zyprexa maybe?”

“No,” Laura said. “He’s not schizophrenic.”

“Schizoaffective then?”

“No,” she said. “He has social anxiety disorder and that’s about it.”

“But what about the delusions?”

“They’re not delusions,” Laura said.

“Excuse me?”

She smiled. “Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Laura. Laura Kingsley.”

Barbara’s eyes widened. “Laura ... Kingsley? You mean... the Laura Kingsley? Jake Kingsley’s wife?”

“That’s right,” she said, showing Barbara her left hand, upon which she wore her wedding ring, which—though Jake had never told her the price of it—undoubtedly had cost more than Barbara Jenkins RN made in a year. “I play saxophone for Celia Valdez and Eric is the violinist. We’re getting ready to go out on tour on New Year’s Day.”

“No kidding?” Barbara said.

“No kidding,” Laura assured her. “How is he doing?”

“Who?”

“Uh ... Eric?”

“Oh ... right, him,” Barbara said, chuckling again. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little star-struck just now. Who would’ve thought all that stuff he was telling me was true? Anyway, he’s doing fine. He had himself a good old panic attack with hyperventilation. The medics got him mostly talked down by the time he got here, then we gave him a little ride on the van and fixed him right up.”

“A ride on the van?”

“Ativan,” Barbara clarified. “We gave him two milligrams intramuscularly and then topped it off with a Xanax. He will panic no more, at least for the rest of the night. He is rather sleepy though, as you can see.”

“I see that,” Laura said.

“That’s why we had to have someone come pick him up, and why I had to verify someone was here for that.”

“Well ... I’m here now,” Laura said.

“You certainly are,” Barbara agreed. “Let me go get his paperwork and I’ll get you going.”

“Thank you,” Laura said.

Barbara disappeared for a few minutes, leaving Laura to watch the show in the ER hallway. It was a rather interesting show with an interesting cast of characters. Finally, she returned, a clipboard and a sheaf of papers with her. She walked over to Eric’s gurney and put the side rail down. She then gently shook him awake.

“Hey, love-muffin,” she said softly in her nurse voice. “Laura’s here to take you home.”

“Laura?” he said sleepily, his eyed creaking slightly open.

“That’s right, hon,” Barbara said. “Looking just as pretty as a flower too. And you know what? She tells me you really do play violin for Celia Valdez.”

“You ... you didn’t believe me?” Eric asked.

“Well ... let’s just say I hear a lot of stories in this place. I hope you forgive me. Now then, how about we get you on your feet and I’ll go over your discharge directions.”

“Right,” Eric said with a yawn. “On my feet.”

She went over the discharge directions with him, but Laura doubted he was going to remember any of it. He remained quite groggy. As for the panic, however, he was miles away from that.

“All right, Mrs. Kingsley,” Barbara said. “Get him home and tuck him into bed for the night. And good luck on your tour.”

“Will do,” Laura said. “And thank you for helping him.”

“It’s what I do,” Barbara said. “God bless.”

Laura smiled and led Eric back through the bowels of the ER. She had to ask for directions twice, but eventually found her way back out to the waiting room and, from there, back to the parking lot. The rain was still coming down and the wind was still blowing as they made the walk back to her Lexus in the parking garage. Once again, the umbrella offered only marginal protection from the deluge and both of them were moderately damp by the time they made it.

Eric got into the front passenger seat and immediately tried to go back to sleep.

“You need to stay awake,” Laura told him as she started the car and got the defroster working.

“How come?” he groaned.

“Because I don’t know where you live,” she said.

“In Toluca Lake,” he said with a yawn. “Take the 101 to Vineland.”

“And then what?”

“Wake me up at that point,” he said, and then promptly fell asleep.

Laura sighed and put the car in gear and started heading for the 101.

The house where Eric rented a room was in a well-established suburban community tucked into the middle of Toluca Lake, a fairly well-to-do neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. It was a single-story bungalow with a well-maintained front yard and a couple of tall palm trees. Eric’s car, a ten-year-old Honda Civic, was parked in the driveway. Laura pulled her Lexus to the curb and then stepped out into the rain. She had to shake Eric, who was trying to go back to sleep, to get him out of the passenger side.

They trotted to the front door, which was locked tightly.

“Where’s the key?” Laura asked.

“Uh ... I left it inside when the paramedics took me to the hospital,” he said.

“I see,” Laura said slowly. “What about your landlord? Do you think she’s home now?”

“What time is it?” Eric wanted to know.

Laura looked at her watch, finding that there was a layer of condensation inside of the glass. She sighed. You had to love rain in Los Angeles. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did ... She peered closer and found she could just see the hands through the blur. “Six-fifteen,” she said.

“She should be home then,” Eric said, yawning again. “She leaves the clinic at five-thirty and usually is home by six.”

“All right then,” Laura said. “How about we ring the bell?”

“Okay,” he said, his eyes drooping shut again.

Laura pushed the button and heard the sound of chimes from inside the house. A moment later, she heard footsteps approaching. There was the clanking of several locks and then the door opened, revealing a short-haired brunette woman who appeared to be in her early-thirties. She was dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and a long t-shirt. Her breasts were moderately sized and the way they jiggled made it obvious to Laura that she was not currently wearing a bra. The dampness of her hair and the smell of apples about her seemed to indicate she had just finished taking a shower. Her expression went from one of puzzlement to one of concern when she saw who was standing on her front porch.

“Eric?” she said. “I was wondering where you were and why your car was still here. What happened? Another panic attack?”

“Yes,” he said meekly. “Around ten o’clock this morning. I called the ambulance.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said in a motherly tone. “Get inside out of the rain. Are you better now?”

“Yes,” he said. “They gave me Ativan and a Xanax. I’m just sleepy.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said, hustling him inside. “Now, go get changed out of those clothes and into bed.”

“Okay,” Eric said, wandering in the direction of the hallway, his gait not entirely steady.

The woman then turned her attention to Laura. She looked her up and down for a moment and then smiled. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Molly Stevens. I own this house and rent a room to Eric.”

“Nice to meet you, Molly,” Laura said. “Eric’s told me a lot about you. I’m Laura Kingsley.”

“You certainly are,” Molly said. “He’s told me a lot about you too. Thank you for taking care of him.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Luckily, I was still in town. The storm you know. We couldn’t fly back to Oceano today.”

“I guess it all worked out in the end then. Why don’t you come in and sit down with me? Get warmed up.”

“I really should be getting back home,” Laura said.

“I was just going to open a bottle of chardonnay,” Molly said with a smile.

“Well ... maybe I could stay for a bit,” Laura said.

Molly nodded happily and then stood aside to let her enter.

The house was small, but tastefully decorated and very clean. The furniture was modern, with leather couches and glass tables. The flooring was polished wood with several strategically placed throw-rugs. A thirty-two-inch television was sitting on an oak entertainment center along with a stereo system and a couple of speakers.

“You can hang your jacket on the coat rack there,” Molly told her, pointing at the foyer. “And then grab a seat. I’m going to go check to make sure Eric made it into bed and then I’ll pour us some wine.”

“Sounds good,” Laura said, stripping off her wet jacket.

She found a seat on the leather couch and made herself comfortable. Molly was gone for the better part of five minutes. When she returned, she had a chilled bottle of white wine and two glasses in her hands. She sat down on the couch next to Laura and poured them each a glass.

“Sorry for the way I’m dressed,” she told Laura as she handed her the glass. “I just got home from work and showered.”

“I understand,” Laura said. “And you look just fine.”

“Thank you,” Molly said, seemingly pleased. “I’m officially off work now until after Christmas. You gotta love that.”

“Eric told me you’re a physical therapist,” Laura said.

“That’s right,” Molly said. “I work over in Pasadena at the Stromsburg clinic.” She shrugged. “It’s a good job. The pay is decent, and I feel like I’m actually helping people every now and then. It’s not as depressing and soul-sucking as working in the hospital.”

“How long have you been doing that?” Laura asked.

“Let’s see...” she said, pondering that for a moment. “I finished my masters when I was twenty-four and started working in the hospital when I was twenty-five ... so ... I guess that’s fifteen years now.”

“Fifteen years?” Laura said, surprised. “That means you’re ... you’re...”

“I turned forty last month,” Molly told her.

“You’re kidding me,” Laura accused. “You look like you’re in your early thirties at best.”

“Thank you,” Molly beamed, “but I assure you, I’m forty years old. I have a twenty-year-old son in college to prove it.”

“Wow,” Laura said. “That’s hard to believe. You do not look old enough to have a son in college. Not even close.”

“I try to keep myself in shape,” Molly said. “I’ve always been a runner. And these last few years I’ve gotten into aerobics and kick-boxing.”

Laura took a drink of her wine. It was not bad, but it was not quite up to the standards of what she normally drank. She shrugged this off. Not everyone could afford seventy-dollar bottles of wine for everyday drinking. “How did you and Eric meet?” she asked.

She shrugged. “He answered an ad I put in the paper for a room to rent,” she said. “I was really not looking for a male roommate, I can tell you that, but I gave him an interview just so I wouldn’t be accused of sexual discrimination or anything. After I talked to him, I realized he was actually the perfect roomie—if you know what I mean.”

“That he’s a very polite kid?” she asked.

“There’s a lot to be said for that,” Molly agreed. “But most important, he’s gay. Gay men make wonderful roommates for a single woman. They’re not always hitting on you or trying to peep on you while you’re in your bra and panties, and they tend to be neat and fastidious.”

Laura smiled. “My roommate I had when I met Jake was gay too,” she said. “And he was the best roommate I ever had—even though he wasn’t all that neat and has a terrible sense of fashion.”

“No kidding?” Molly said. “I guess we have a lot in common, huh?”

“It seems like it,” Laura said, taking another sip.

“I’m going to miss him when you all go out on tour,” Molly said. “You know ... it’s funny. Until just now, when you showed up at my doorstep with Eric, a part of me thought that Eric was ... you know ... making all of this up about playing violin for Celia Valdez and going to Thanksgiving dinner at Jake Kingsley’s house. I mean ... I noticed he was bringing in more money all of a sudden—he wasn’t late with the rent anymore and was able to buy new clothes—and he certainly seemed happier now that he wasn’t spending time at that awful recording studio with all those predatory men, but the whole story just seemed so ... unbelievable.”

“It’s all true,” Laura said. “But what’s this about predatory men?”

“He didn’t tell you about the men at the Aristocrat building?” she asked.

“No. What about them?”

“Well ... apparently there are a lot of aggressive homosexuals in the music industry.”

“I’ve heard that,” Laura said.

“Well ... Eric is a young, shy, good looking male homosexual who has trouble ... well ... speaking up for himself. I’m afraid he is easy pickings for them.”

“Easy pickings?” Laura asked, wide-eyed.

“They take advantage of his nature,” Molly said. “In short, they pass him around like a joint. He was extremely happy to get out of there and start working for Celia. He thinks the world of her, and he absolutely loves you. You’ve actually brought him out of his shell a bit. When he first moved in here, I could hardly get him to say three words in a row to me. Now, he’s always talking about how rehearsal went, how the tour is going to be, how nice all of you are.”

“We all like Eric,” she said. “He’s a very talented violinist.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, a little sourness in her tone. “He’s never played for me.”

“Really?” she asked. “You simply have to come to the show when we’re here in LA. That’ll be ... oh ... I think in early March or sometime around there. I’ll make sure you have tickets.”

“That would be awesome,” she said sincerely. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“And I think he would be happy to have you there. There is one thing though...”

“What’s that?” Molly asked.

“These panic attacks he has.”

“What about them?”

“How often do they happen?”

She shrugged. “His meds usually keep them under control, but ... oh ... once a month or so he gets a really bad one and has to take a Xanax. And then, once every few months, even the Xanax doesn’t do it for him and he ends up in the hospital like tonight.”

“I see,” she said. “And they’re triggered by him being in social situations?”

“Mostly,” she said. “Sometimes—like today, I’m thinking—just the thought of being in a social situation triggers one. It’s really a terrible thing, really.”

“Yes, it is,” Laura said. “What I’m worried about though is ... well ... he’s about to go on tour with us. Every night he’ll be asked to get up on a stage for two hours in front of fifteen to twenty thousand people. Isn’t that kind of an extreme social situation?”

“It is,” Molly agreed.

“Do you think he’ll be able to handle it?”

“Did you ask Eric this?” she countered.

“A few times, me and Celia both. He says he’ll be all right as long as he’s got some Xanax available in case of emergency.”

“I guess you’ll have to trust him on that then.”

“Yeah,” Laura said. “I guess so.”

They talked of more neutral topics for a while as they finished their wine and then poured some more. They spoke of how Jake and Laura had met, how they had not liked each other at first, and how her attraction to him started to blossom once they started playing music together. And as they spoke, Laura found herself sneaking glances at Molly’s braless breasts jiggling away beneath her t-shirt, at her pouty lips and pink tongue, at the skin on her neck. She really was an attractive woman. And she still had trouble believing she was forty years old.

“So, that’s my love life in a nutshell,” Laura said as they neared the end of their second glasses of wine.

“That was a good story,” Molly allowed. “It sounds like the real Jake Kingsley is much different than they portray him in the entertainment reports.”

“He couldn’t be more different,” Laura agreed. “He’s a very intelligent, gentle man and he’s very good ... well ... you know...”

“In bed?” Molly asked.

“Yes,” Laura said, blushing.

“That’s a good attribute in a husband ... I suppose,” Molly said.

“How about you?” Laura asked. “I’m guessing you’re divorced, right?”

Molly shook her head. “We were never married. I got knocked up with Jason when I was nineteen, a dumb mistake. His father has never really been in his life at all.”

“That’s too bad,” Laura said.

“Not really,” Molly said. “I’m sure it was for the best.”

“And you’ve never found the right man since then?”

Molly chuckled a little. “Well ... as it turns out, there really is no right man for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m not into men.”

Laura’s eyes widened. Her heart started to beat a little faster in her chest. “You mean ... you’re ... you’re a...”

“I’m a lesbian,” Molly said plainly. “Does that bother you?”

Laura shook her head. “No,” she said, smiling, her eyes now shining brightly. “That doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Not at all?” Molly asked, her brows going up a bit.

“Not at all,” Laura repeated. “In fact, I find that very interesting.”