Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,10
hurrying up the steps to her building, she slipped, flailed for balance, and brought the back of her hand down on the stoop’s iron railing, igniting a searing flash of pain. She went to his apartment anyway and, for the duration of the evening, hid her throbbing paw in her lap, or, when they were in bed, out to the side, as if to protect a coat of nail polish that wasn’t yet dry.
In the morning, her palm was blue.
At home, she waited all day for the swelling to go down, then gave up and went downstairs to hail a cab for the nearest emergency room. The driver took her to Hell’s Kitchen, where for two hours she sat in a waiting room crowded with binge drinkers and homeless people feigning psychosis in order to remain inside where it was warm. Around ten, an intern called Alice’s name and led her to a gurney, where he clipped her great-grandmother’s ring off her swollen middle finger and tapped each of her knuckles to ascertain where it hurt. “There.” Alice hissed. “There!”
When the X-ray came back, the intern held it up and said, pointing: “It’s broken. Your middle metacarpal—”
Alice nodded; her pupils rolled back, and, after teetering for a moment, her body pitched slowly forward and to the side, like a discarded marionette. From here she journeyed many miles to remote countries with barbarous customs and maddening logic; she made and lost companions, spoke languages previously unknown to her, learned and unlearned difficult truths. When she came to some minutes later, struggling against a nauseating undertow that seemed to want to pull her down through the center of the earth, she became remotely aware of machines beeping and tubes scraping the insides of her nostrils and too many seconds elapsing between the asking of questions and her answering them.
“Did you hit your head?”
“Did you bite your tongue?”
“Did you wet yourself?”
There was a damp spot on her sweatpants where she’d spilled the little paper cup of water someone had given her.
“You’ll have to get in touch with a surgeon first thing Monday morning,” the busy intern said. “Is there someone you can call to come and pick you up?”
“Yes,” whispered Alice.
It was nearly midnight when she walked out into a fresh flurry, fat flakes sailing down at an urgent slant. Holding her hand as though it were made of eggshell, Alice walked to the corner and looked up and down and then up again for a cab.
CALLER ID BLOCKED.
“Hello?!”
“I just wanted you to hear what my humidifier is doing. . . .”
“Ezra, no, I broke my hand!”
“Oh my God. How? Are you in pain?”
“Yes!”
“Where are you?”
“Fifty-Ninth and Columbus.”
“Can you get a cab?”
“I’m trying!”
When she arrived he was wearing black silk long underwear and had a Band-Aid on his head. “What happened?”
“I had a mole taken off. What happened to you?”
“I slipped on my stoop.”
“When?”
“This morning,” she lied.
“Was it icy?”
“Yes.”
“So you could sue.”
Alice shook her head sadly. “I don’t want to sue anyone.”
“Darling, the best hand guy in New York is Ira Obstbaum. O-B-S-T-B-A-U-M. He’s at Mount Sinai, and, if you want, I’ll call him tomorrow and ask him to see you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Meanwhile, you’re going to take this for the pain. Will you be able to sleep?”
“I think so.”
“You’re a brave girl. You’ve had a shock. Just remember: I’m here, I’m fine, I have the warmth and comfort of my bed.”
Alice began to cry.
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to cry.”
“I know.”
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m sorry. You’re being so nice to me.”
“You’d do the same for me.”
Alice nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Darling, don’t continually say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Next time you feel like saying ‘I’m sorry,’ instead say ‘Fuck you.’ Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Got it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So?”
Alice sniffed. “Fuck you,” she said weakly.
“Good girl.”
After swallowing the pills, Alice sat down on the edge of his bed, still wearing her coat. Ezra sat in his reading chair, legs crossed and head pulsing to the side, watching her darkly. “They take about forty-five minutes to work,” he said, glancing at his watch.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Sure you can stay. Want something to eat? We’ve got applesauce, bagels, tofu-scallion cream cheese, Tropicana with Lots of Pulp.”
He got up to toast her a bagel and watched her eat it with one hand. Afterward, Alice lay down to face the snow, which in the light of his balcony was falling more calmly now, stealthily and evenly, like an army of parachuting invaders. Ezra returned to his chair and picked up a book. Three times the silence