apparently where she’d dropped it. A pile of clothes was on the floor.
Thank God! Diana fell to her knees by the bed, overcome with relief. She’d been girding herself for another impossible loss.
She turned on the bedside lamp. Ashley winced. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes. Diana slid her hand under the covers and pulled out Ashley’s arm. She pressed her fingers against Ashley’s wrist. The pulse was strong and steady.
“Ouch!” Ashley pulled her hand away.
“Sorry, hon,” Diana said.
Ashley opened one eye. Then the other. She shrieked.
“What?” Diana said.
Ashley just pointed at Diana’s head. It took a moment for Diana to realize what she was going on about.
“So? I’m a blonde.”
“I guess. You cut it yourself?” Ashley’s eyes widened farther still. “You’re here? How . . . ?”
“Don’t you remember? We talked on the phone. Fifteen minutes ago. I said I’d come over.”
“You drove?”
“I can, you know,” Diana said. “I even have a driver’s license.”
“Sure you do.”
Diana ignored the sarcasm. “Are you okay? I’ve been so worried.”
“My head.” Ashley touched her forehead and grimaced. “Jesus, this feels like the mother of all hangovers.”
The old Superman theme started playing.
“What the hell is that?” Ashley asked.
“It’s a bird, it’s a plane . . .” Diana said, offering Ashley her BlackBerry. “It’s your phone.”
Slowly, painfully Ashley raised herself on one elbow and stared at the cell phone, which was lighting up neon blue.
“Don’t you remember?” Diana raised the cell phone the way the improv participants had saluted the hotel. “Copley Square?” She looked at the readout. “Lucky you. It’s Mom.”
“Don’t answer it. I’ll call her Monday.”
“Ashley, that’s next week. It’s Tuesday already.”
Deep furrows formed in Ashley’s forehead as her eyebrows came together.
The phone rang again. Diana answered. “Hi, Ma.”
“Diana?” A pause. “Did I call you? Because if I did, I didn’t mean to.”
“You called Ashley. I answered the phone. She’s”—Ashley shook her head a little too vigorously and winced—“not feeling too well. She’s hungover.” Ashley rolled her eyes. “Or something.”
“Or something?”
“She’s fine. Really. She’ll call you back, okay? Tomorrow?”
After a few more back-and-forths, Diana managed to get her mother off the phone. By then, Ashley was sitting up in bed.
“It’s Tuesday?” she said. “How could that be? Where have I been?” Diana heard the distinct note of panic in her sister’s voice.
She took Ashley’s hand. It felt cool and dry. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to reach you. I was here yesterday and it looked as if you’d come back. Do you remember coming back to your apartment? Picking up your mail? Changing your clothes?”
Ashley shook her head and raised her hand to wipe away a tear that trickled down her cheek.
“Hey, don’t cry.” That’s when Diana noticed the mottled bruise on the back of Ashley’s hand. “What’s this?”
“How’d I get that?” Ashley asked.
Diana ran her fingers gently over the tender spot, right where veins branched. “I don’t know.”
“I . . . I don’t know either.” Ashley shook her head and winced again.
Diana stood. She handed Ashley her purse. “I found this in the backseat of your car. You parked in one of the visitor spots in front of the building.”
“I didn’t. I never park there.”
“Well, someone parked your car there.” She set the purse in Ashley’s lap. Ashley just stared at it. “You want to check that everything’s still there?”
Ashley pushed herself up and rummaged through the bag. Found her wallet and checked the billfold. Sifted through the magazines and file folders. She drew out an oversize mailing envelope.
Ashley looked baffled. She tore open the seal and pulled out some papers. The top page was a form labeled IN-PATIENT RELEASE.
“Can I see that?” Diana said. She recognized the mother-and-child logo of Neponset Hospital. It had been one of Gamelan’s earliest clients.
Ashley handed her the sheaf of papers. The form on top began:
Patient Name: Ashley Highsmith
Ashley had been released from the hospital in this condition? What had the doctors been thinking? And why hadn’t someone called her? She was Ashley’s emergency contact.
Diana scanned the rest of the page. “According to this, you were checked in to the hospital on Friday night after eleven. Checked out yesterday morning.”
Ashley’s eyes widened. “Was I sick?” She rummaged in her purse again and came up with a compact. She opened it and looked in the mirror. “Am I sick?”
“You look fine,” Diana said, even though Ashley looked far from it.
She examined the rest of the hospital documents, trying to penetrate the thicket of charges. “They gave you blood tests. A CT scan. Echocardiogram.