Susan Squires: A Twist in Time

“Hey!” an orderly yelled as he took a balled fist in the eye.

“Get me some gas,” the doctor shouted as a nurse pulled on his gloves. “I want this guy out now!” Another man in green ran up and pulled down a plastic mask as he checked some dials. The mask was shoved over the patient’s face. He struggled harder, right until he went limp.

A tech tightened some rubber tubing around her guy’s bare thigh just at the groin.

“Don’t tie the tourniquet, for God’s sake,” the big nurse snapped. “He’ll lose the leg. Leave it loose, so it’s there if we hit an artery.”

Lucy started forward as though she could help. The big nurse strode over, took her by the shoulders, and firmly turned her around. “You,” she said to the paramedics. “Take her outside.”

The blond paramedic took Lucy’s arm and guided her back out to the registration area. Lucy noticed for the first time that there were several gurneys in the hallway with patients on them. “They got him now. They know what to do. He couldn’t be in a better place.”

“You just fill out the paperwork. Let them do the tough stuff,” the other one said. They sat her down in front of a tired-looking Asian girl behind a glass barrier with a round hole for speaking and a slot at the bottom. “We’re outta here.”

“Good luck to you.” They disappeared. Lucy was left staring at the expectant Asian girl.

Paperwork. On a time traveler .

Not good .

The girl’s nameplate said: Bernice . Not exactly Asian, but in San Francisco she could be a fourth-generation immigrant. Bernice pushed a clipboard through the slot. “Just fill these out.”

“Well, uh, that’s going to be a problem.” The truth wasn’t going to do anybody any good here. It might get her locked up, with people feeding her happy pills.

“Just the basics. You don’t have to know his Social Security number or anything. Did they give you his personal effects? An insurance card from his wallet would be great.”

Lucy was tempted to say she’d just found him somewhere in an alley. He had no ID. He could be a homeless person. But with no connection to him, they’d never let her see him, and she had to keep him close until she could get him fixed up and back to his time. Okay. She’d make up a connection. And how to explain the chain mail and the very big sword? Best to go with the paramedic’s first impression. Reenactment.

“He’s a cousin visiting from . . . from . . .” Someplace obscure . “From Finland. I don’t know what kind of insurance they have there.” Was Finland a socialized-medicine state? The girl frowned. Lucy rushed on. “I’d be glad to guarantee payment for his care, though.” She wasn’t sure how charity cases worked, but she didn’t want them kicking him out if he couldn’t pay. “I’ll give you a credit card.” She began digging through her bag.

“Social Services can contact his family and find out the details. I’m sure you won’t be on the hook for it.” But she took the credit card. She ran it through the machine.

Lucy glanced around at the waiting room full of old people of several nationalities, mothers with crying babies, Mission District denizens looking entirely zoned out. Those patients on the gurneys must have been waiting for admission. “You’re really busy.”

“Tuesday nights are usually slow, but tomorrow being St. Patrick’s Day, we’re almost up to weekend busy. I wouldn’t want to be here if St. Patrick’s Day was on a weekend. We’re the official knife and gun club.”

What did she mean, St. Patrick’s Day? Lucy concentrated on filling out the forms. At least she could manage the date. She had that one memorized. November 9, 2009.

“Okay, we’re good.” Bernice handed the card back.

Lucy wrote “Bjorn Knudsen” in the space for the name on the form. That sounded Finnish. Knudsen was the name of the local dairy that made her favorite ice cream. Now for a town. She couldn’t think. Make one up. Helgard. Yeah. Why not? “I can’t remember his street address.”

“We’ll get details from him when they’re done with him.”

Good luck with that . “I can give you my info. He’s staying with me.” Was that a mistake?

“Put that down under the ‘Responsible Party’ section.”

Lucy printed her info carefully. She shoved the clipboard back through the glass.

Bernice scanned the sheet. “You put down the wrong date.” She looked up at Lucy, curious. “It’s March 16.” She raised her brows at Lucy’s blank look. “St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow?”

Lucy felt her stomach drop. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Two thousand ten,” Bernice said slowly, careful now, as though she was dealing with a crazy person. “You . . . uh . . . lost a few months there.”

Lucy managed a shaky smile. “Oh. Of course it is. I . . . I guess I’m more shaken up by all this than I thought.” She not only hadn’t come back to the place from which she’d left. She also had lost four months of time. Brad must be crazy with worry. She’d better call him. And he was just the one to help her get her time-traveling companion back to his own year. Of course her phone had no charge. “You have some pay phones around here?”

“Sure. Down by the cafeteria.” Bernice pointed down a hallway absently as she changed the date on the form.

“Thanks.”

Lucy headed down the hall following the overhead signs to the cafeteria. She spotted the phones. But suddenly she felt as though she wanted to vomit. She held out her hands. They were shaking. She needed to sit down, pronto. She headed to the cafeteria, filled with neon lights too bright on orange and purple plastic furniture. Enough to make her stomach turn flip-flops. She sat in the nearest chair and put her head down. Shock. She was just shocked by all this traveling through time and battles and bringing back a half-dead warrior and lying to everybody.

She took deep breaths until she felt like sitting up. She needed something in her stomach, even hospital food. She bought some onion soup and a Diet Coke and loaded up on crackers. She sat at a table by some windows, black now with night. The soup wasn’t half-bad. Or maybe it was the Diet Coke that settled her.

She found herself staring at her reflection in the dark window as if it were that of a stranger. She was short and . . . curvy. That was the kind word for it and the main reason she always wore black. Why hadn’t she gotten her father’s wiry build along with his height? Brad was a runner and was always urging her to take it up, presumably to transform her into someone with a runner’s body like his. Wasn’t going to happen. What she did instead was walk. She had walked the hills and hollows of San Francisco as if she was looking for something ever since her father died. She just didn’t know what she was looking for. Her hair wasn’t the dark auburn fashionable at the moment, either. It was red. Really red. Carrot red. Well, darker than carrot. But still really, really red. And curly. She wore it long because she’d grown tired of watching some poor stylist try to make something of it. Now it tumbled to her waist and she could trim it herself. She always wore it in a long braid to confine it at least, but curling tendrils popped out around her face, especially in San Francisco’s damp weather. And then there were her freckles. If you were a redhead with very pale skin you couldn’t escape them. She may have gotten the Italian name from her father, but her looks were from her Northern European mother, dead now for . . . what? Sixteen years.

A wave of shame washed over Lucy. Once she would have known to the hour how long it was since her mother had succumbed to ovarian cancer. Sometimes Lucy missed her as sharply as if she’d died yesterday. Lucy missed her mother’s balance. Her life had been slowly gyroscoping out of her control since she was fourteen. Her father had tried so hard to make her into his own image even though she had no interest in physics. Then, with his death, everything just seemed to fall apart. Maybe because she had no purpose to replace the one her father tried to give her. Brad too. But Brad was easier to resist than her father. True, she liked her work, searching across history and cultures for connections between people, their thoughts, their emotions, through the books they wrote. It wasn’t that. It just didn’t seem like enough.