Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 34

On her side table she had brought in a dishtowel to use as a makeshift tablecloth, and it helped absorb condensation on the outside of whatever cold drink was there. There was a small basket in which there was the store of candies, packs of crackers, protein power bars, gum, Tic-Tacs, ballpoint pen, pad of Post-It notes, and whatever else what she thought of as "the duty reader" might need. There was a box of tissues the hospital put into every patient's room, as though Shane might suddenly sneeze or need to blow her nose. Nearly every horizontal surface of the room, and much of the limited wall space, was occupied by get-well cards, pots of flowers real and synthetic, and a small army of assorted stuffed animals. Carmen thought of the room as her "nest," readily acknowledging she was a nest-builder extraordinaire, never mind that its central object was a hospital bed with a comatose patient swaddled in bandages, monitored by beeping, flashing and tweeting machines and monitors, most of which did things automatically at regular intervals.

It was Day 14 of what Carmen and Alice had come to call "The Vigil." Two weeks since Shane had been wheeled into the operating room well after midnight with the left side of her skull crushed in. Nine days after Shane was brought out of her medically induced coma, nine days of "regular" coma, whatever that was.

* * *

When Lauren was well enough to have all her tubes removed, IVs withdrawn, drains detached, monitor wiring unclipped and be moved to a wheelchair, she was transferred to a rehab facility for the remainder of her recovery. They made a major event out of it. Marybeth and the Sheriff came up from Los Angeles, the San Francisco police chief and mayor were there, her family arrived, and the doctors, nurses and techs who kept her alive managed a few minutes away from their duties. Two television stations sent news crews with lights and cameras, the whole gang gathered in the lobby waiting for Lauren to be wheeled out of the elevator and across the hospital lobby to her waiting transportation. Carmen waited patiently in a corner, sipping her morning coffee and trying to stay out of the way of the news crews and reporters as well as the law enforcement and city big shots.

Out on the sidewalk, Alice and her broadcast crew were on the air live, talking about Lauren's pending release. She had already managed to snag a short interview with the ER doctor who had worked on Lauren from the moment she was unloaded from the chopper.

Finally the moment arrived. The elevator door opened and there was Lauren in her wheelchair, dressed in an attractive navy blue bathrobe, her right arm still in a sling, but with a smaller cast. Someone had pinned her medal of valor and her badge to her bathrobe. They had wanted her to wear her dress uniform LASD hat, but Lauren had said no, enough was enough, and she knew she didn't look good in it anyway. Bev was pushing the wheelchair, in accordance with hospital policy, although Lauren was surrounded by her family. At first she was blinded by the TV lights and put her good arm up to shield the lights, squinting and modestly waving a tiny hello toward the cameras as the TV reporters tossed her questions and poked microphones in her face to record her quiet answers. Yes, I feel fine, no, it doesn't hurt, yes, everybody was great, yes I'm happy to be leaving, no offense, all the doctors and nurses were great, no, she didn't want to talk about the case and the shooting of Gabe McCutcheon, yes, she knew Alice had been released, and finally, she said they should all spend a moment thinking about poor Jenny Schecter, Max Sweeney, Henry Hooker and Diego Ramirez Llosa, and especially pray for Shane McCutcheon. Thank you, thank you.

And then Bev wheeled her across the lobby toward the double doors being held open by Marybeth and the mayor of San Francisco. Just as she got to the doors, Lauren saw Carmen far back in a corner behind the TV crews, watching silently. Lauren raised her left hand to stop Bev for a moment and her face broke out in a broad grin. She held her hand up to her ear, little finger and index finger extended in the symbol for a telephone and silently mouthed the words "Call me."

Carmen grinned, winked and slowly, sensuously licked her upper lip in a way that made Lauren laugh. Fortunately it all happened in an instant, and no one else saw it.

* * *

"Last time you were here we reported on the Top Ten Lesbian Country and Western Songs," Alice said into the studio microphone at Station KPSF. "What have you got for us this week, Carmen?"

"Well, Alice, all those great love songs got me thinking about the greatest love song of all time--"

"Cackling Rosie?" Alice asked.

"Crackling, Alice, it's Crackling. But you were sooo close! No, the greatest love song of all time was written by a woman who had her heart broken by many tragic love affairs--"

"Elizabeth Taylor wrote a song?"

"Nooo, but once again you were so, so close. No, the greatest love song of all time just has to be French, and was written by the late great Edith Piaf. Here, put these on and let's get into it." Carmen reached into a bag and brought out two pair of pink sunglasses, with lenses shaped like hearts. She put one on and handed the other to Alice. "Control room, music, s'il vous plait."

They sang, belting out La vie en rose, vamping dramatically, grabbing each other and singing, looking into each others eyes like two teenagers in the back seat of a drive-in, pouring out the lyrics together and taking turns, first in French then in English:

Quand elle me prend dans ses bras (When she takes me in her arms)

Elle me parle tout bas,(And whispers in my ear)

Je vois la vie en rose. (My rosy hue, my rosy view)

Elle me dit des mots d'amour, (She tells me she loves me)

Des mots de tous les jours,(The simplest words she knows)

Et ca me fait quelque chose (It thrills and chills me so)

Elle est entre dans mon Coeur (She owns my heart, my soul)

Une part de bonheur (My happiness)

Dont je connais la cause. (Who knows the reasons why)

C'est te pour elle. Moi pour elle (That's it, she's the one for me)

Pour toute nos vies, (For all our lives)

Elle m'a juré pour la vie (She's sworn herself to me)

Et des que je l'apercois (And when she come into my view)

Alors je sens en moi (I can feel inside)

Mon coeur qui bat (My beating heart)

* * *

Carmen checked her e-mail while she waited in Shane's room for Alice to arrive at the hospital. The monitor was humming along quietly as Shane slept. Physically she was healing very well, the doctors said. She had been removed from the ventilator and was breathing just fine on her own. Her head wound was healing well, at least on the outside. She just wouldn't wake up, that's all. Her body had progressed so well they had moved her out of ICU and into a standard room. If she didn't snap out of the coma in the next week, the doctors said, they were going to transfer her to a long-term convalescent center; the hospital couldn't keep a bed occupied for what might turn out to be be months and maybe years. The only medical issues they had to deal with were the usual ones for long-term patients: body sores, nutrition, pneumonia, and so on. As for the inside of Shane's head, no one knew. There could be long-term brain damage, there could be mild impairment. She could be one hundred percent mentally fit as a fiddle. Statistically it was all a crap shoot. For what it was worth, her diagnostics all looked good. She just refused to wake up.

There was an e-mail from Carmen's cruise ship company. Carmen still had another month of shore leave scheduled before she was supposed to ship out again, but something had come up. A cruise director on one of the around-the-world trips had just discovered she was pregnant, and couldn't go on her trip. There had been an emergency meeting to re-staff the position, and everyone had been unanimous: Could they get the fabulous DJ La Pica, the Spicy One? It was LA to the Far East, around the Horn of Africa, a run through the Med, then Great Britain and Scandinavia, then Iceland, Greenland, Halifax, down the St. Lawrence and back out, down the East Coast. through the Caribbean. They wouldn't transit the Panama Canal; instead, they go down to Brazil, then Uruguay, Argentina, around the Horn, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, eventually back to LA. It was 164 days, 31 countries, 54 stops. It was a six-month commitment. She'd have her own reasonably large stateroom, a small office, and of course the cruise director's staff. The hours would be grueling; that went without saying. But it was the cruise of a lifetime, if you didn't mind working like a maniac for most of it.

On the other hand, she'd get to see the world. She'd circumnavigate. She's sail around the Horn. We hate to rush you, blah blah blah, but we need to staff this right away, and if you say no we have to start finding our next candidate, like, yesterday. Can you give us an answer in 24 hours? Sorry, but we really have to move on this. The cruise leaves LA in two weeks.

Alice came in and set down her bag of supplies and goodies she routinely brought, plus a sheaf of flowers to change out. "Hey, babe, anything new? How's she doing?"

"She's just ticking along like a Swiss watch. Nothing new medically. If she doesn't wake up soon they are going to move her to a long-term facility that handles comatose people."

"Yeah, I figured that was coming sooner or later. I had some discussions with all the lawyers and the hospital people."

Since Shane had no known living relatives except Shea, and no significant other, no one had medical or other power of attorney for her. There was no one to make medical decisions. Alice and Shane's lawyer, Bernie McFadden had talked it over with Shane's business partner, Chase, and with Carmen. They'd have to go to court, but in the end they had all agreed Alice should apply for and receive power-of-attorney, backed up by and in consultation with Bernie and with Chase. There had been brief discussion of Carmen, but Carmen had immediately bowed out, for one thing because she had a career in a different city 450 miles away from LA and was out at sea on a cruise seven to ten months a year. And she insisted she had no other kind of relationship with Shane, anyway. Not now, not ever. She was just an ex, that's all, and god knows, there had been a lot of them.

"There is some news, though," Carmen said.

"Yeah? What?"

Carmen handed Alice her cell phone so she could read Carmen's e-mail from the cruise line.

Alice read it, handed the phone back, and began to unpack her supplies: book, magazines, sodas, snacks, radio scripts she needed to work on, and so on.

"You can't say no," Alice said.

"I know."

"Hand me your phone back."

Carmen did. Alice tabbed the "Reply" button and typed "I'm in." She handed the phone back to Carmen. "Hit 'Send,'" she said.

Carmen read the message. She looked at Alice.

"No," Alice said. "No."

"No, what?"

"No, don't give me that sad, self-pitying look. That torn, don't-know-what-to-do look. That can't-decide look. That who-will-take-care-of-Shane look. No."

Carmen looked at her.

"I've got this," Alice said, gesturing toward Shane. "Hit 'Send.'"

Carmen looked at Alice, then Shane, then Alice again. Then she hit "Send."

* * *

"Shane, we have to have a serious talk," Carmen said. "There's been a lot of discussion about the hospital needing the bed space and if you don't wake up soon they are going to move you to some vegetable farm somewhere, where they store brain-dead people in comas. The put you in some of those creepy containers you see in science fiction movies about long-distance space travel, and they pipe Lawrence Welk into the PA system. I know you don't want that. I've already read to you the complete works of J. K. Rowling and Leo Tolstoy, and if you don't wake up I'm going to have to order Proust from Amazon, and neither of us wants that.

"Of course, the good news is you aren't brain-dead. They hook up all these wires to your skull and they look inside your head and they put the results up on the monitor. There's all these squiggly lines and it says your brain is perking right along, no dead spots, no clots, no seizures. Your libido is swollen to the size of a grapefruit, but I told them it was that way since you were 13 years old, so they aren't too worried about it. Everybody you've ever met has been here to visit you. Your business partner, Chase, a lot of the staff at the salons you've trained. They say there's some celebrity twat out there starting to get a little fuzzy and in need of your special, high-priced sugar trim. Bernie, your lawyer, and his assistant have been here. She's very attractive, I must say, but I don't think she swings our way. The West Hollywood chapter of the Gay Pride committee has sent a delegation of young, up-and-coming lesbians just now coming of age and who have yet to experience the famous McCutcheon Back Alley Quickie, so that's now on your to-do list. Word is, Gay LA has gotten pretty horny since you've been away, and three women have gone straight, hoping to find an orgasm somewhere in the straight world. Yes, we both know they'll be disappointed, but that's how desperate things have gotten. I think they just wanted you to feel guilty.

"Oh, one other thing. I'm leaving in two weeks to sail around the world. I'll send you a postcard from Mozambique, when we get there. Alice is getting life-or-death power-of-attorney, and she's going to be living at my place fulltime while I'm gone. So, you know, sleep or wake up, it's your call."

* * *

"Shane, you're really starting to piss me off," Alice said. "It's been two weeks. More than two weeks, coming up on three weeks. They say the brain swelling has gone down. They put the bone thingy back in your head. You're gonna be fine, if you ever wake up. Carmen and Lauren have been married for several years and they have three kids and a dog, and they live happily in Encino running an antiques store. The kids are named Carmie Junior, Alice Junior, and the baby is little Shaney Junior. Okay, none of that's true, but it will be one day if you don't wake up. So think about it, you know?"

"Okay, the real thing I wanted to talk to you about was this great idea I had. I want to write a book about Jenny's murder, and how you, Carmen and Lauren solved it and got me out of jail. I'm going back and forth between a thinly disguised novel, you know, maybe with some names changed, or an actual non-fiction true-crime thing. Right now I'm tending toward the novel, but who knows, I'm looking for an agent, and he or she may decide something else. But anyway, I wanted you to know about it and give me your blessing, and of course I'll need you and Carmen and Lauren to tell me all the details and stuff. Marybeth told me a lot of it when she got me out of Humboldt, but I need to hear it from you guys, too. My working title is Who Killed Jenny Schecter?' I know, I know, it's not the greatest title in the world, but Murder on the Orient Express and In Cold Blood were already taken. So was Crime and Punishment. I thought about Fifty Shades of Pussy, but I think it's too derivative. And I'm working on the screenplay of it at the same time. What I wanted to ask you was, what did you think of the cast Jenny had for her movie about all of us? I really can't stomach the idea of Niki Stevens playing Jenny, I know we'll have to find somebody else, and anyway, Jenny's character dies right at the beginning, so Niki wouldn't agree to play it if she only had two minutes of screen time, you know? I never saw any of Jenny's movie, obviously, or even any of the daily rushes, but what did you think? Did you like Cammie Rodgers, the girl who played you? Did you like Susan Somerville, the girl who was supposed to play me? I always thought Parker Posey should play me. What do you think? Who should we cast for Carmen and Lauren? Sarah Shahi played Carmen in that TV show, but I don't know if we can get her. You know who I'd just love love love for Lauren? Jessica Biel. Same problems, though, availability and salary. But just think about it. Sarah Shahi and Jessica Biel, with all that lezzie chemistry. O, M, G, I'm creaming my jeans just thinking about them. Okay, my time's up and I gotta go. Hey, don't tell Carmen what we talked about. I don't want her to know just yet. But I just wanted you to know I'm working on the book and the screen treatment, and I need you to wake the fuck up, okay? Okay."

* * *

Shane opened her eyes about ten minutes after noon on the nineteenth day. She looked up at the ceiling and turned her head slightly left and right. She saw that she was hooked up to some sort of IV, and that there were bags of fluid hanging from a pole just at her right shoulder, and nearby the monitoring device that was adjusting the flow rate of her IV drip. She became aware that she had a tube in her nose, blowing oxygen in. On her left side was a large display monitor with lots of squiggles and lines on it, and she understood that it was displaying her heart rate and other functions. Her lips felt dry. She knew there was no one in the room, and wondered where everybody was. She vaguely remembered the far, far end of a dream, something about a giant black jungle cat, a jaguar, maybe. Then it dissolved and she couldn't remember what it was.

She tried to remember what had happened, and why she was in a hospital room, but couldn't. She remembered something about going to San Francisco, and she knew she had talked to Carmen. She felt she had something urgent to tell Carmen, but couldn't remember what it was. She wondered if Carmen was still mad at her or would ever forgive her for abandoning her right before they were supposed to be married. She wondered what Carmen had looked like in her wedding dress -- bet she looked like an angel. She was in love with Carmen -- that's what it was she was trying to remember. Had to find her and tell her.

She didn't know why she was in a hospital bed, but she had some sense that it was better to lie there and wait for a doctor or a nurse to come talk to her, rather than try to get up. She wasn't sure she could get up anyway; her body felt stiff and awkward, and that was kind of weird. She became aware that she had bandages on her head, and wondered what that was all about. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had a headache, one of those dull, achy ones somewhere in the back of your skull. Shane didn't think they put you in the hospital for just a headache. She wondered if she'd slipped in the shower and hit her head, or been in a car accident. If the nurse came in, maybe she'd ask for some Motrin or something. For some reason, she thought of the word "cholera." Could she have caught cholera? She hardly even knew what it was or how you caught it.

She felt weak and sleepy, and she watched the clock on the far wall. She could see that next to the door of her room someone had taped up a big sheet of Manila paper upon which a child had drawn some sort of picture showing a stick figure lying on a bed with a big white turban on her head. Across the bottom she could dimly make out the childish letters that spelled out "I love you Auntie Shane get well love Angelica." Angelica. Yes, she was Tina and Bette's daughter. Her goddaughter. It was coming back to her. Angelica had made her a get-well card. That was sweet. Shane felt she would like to be a parent some day. She remembered somebody telling her she would make a good parent, but she couldn't remember who or where or when. But Carmen, now there's someone who would make a great parent, a great mom. She wondered if Carmen was interested in having children. She would have to ask her. That is, if Carmen was even speaking to her. She hadn't seen Carmen since the disaster in Whistler nearly four years ago.