Jennifer Greene: Kiss Your Prince Charming

“Ms. Martin?”

Finally a live body answered at the other end of the receiver, but the call proved worthless. Greg was still “undergoing tests.” His condition was labeled “serious.” No one would say exactly what his injuries were, or when he’d be settled down in a room and okayed for visitors.

Rachel heard out all the hospital rules, hung up, jammed the ice cream in the freezer and then simply hurled out of the house again for her car. Never mind their rules. Never mind anyone’s rules. Greg had put her pieces back together when she thought she was too broken to mend. It wasn’t his fault that he was one of the Enemy Species with that unfortunate Y chromosome. He was still the best friend she’d ever had—and nobody was going to stop her from seeing him.

Naturally St. John’s was one of the oldest hospitals in the city, which naturally meant it was way downtown, which naturally meant she had no idea how to get there. She knew where to shop, how to locate the art and entertainment centers, could find Rudy’s—the die-cast company where she worked as an engineering secretary—in her sleep. But Milwaukee’s industrial section was a tangle of tanneries and foundries, railroads and shipping canals. Roasting hops from the downtown breweries added an alien, bitter smell to the humid night air. Rachel never had reason to become familiar with these inner-city neighborhoods—nor would she be driving them alone in the dark if she had a choice. Tonight, of course, she had no choice, but fear of getting lost only made her more anxious, and her tummy was already roiling with nerves.

By the time she was parked and galloping through the hospital’s entrance doors, though, that problem was forgotten and another one nipping on her mind. If anyone questioned her claim about being Greg’s sister, Rachel figured no one was going to believe her lie. Obviously lots of siblings looked dissimilar, but man, she and Greg were drastic opposites in physical appearance.

He was a hefty six foot three; she was five foot four—in heels. He had to tilt the scales past two hundred and fifty pounds, where she only weighed one hundred and ten if she wore a winter coat and clunky shoes. She was small-boned; he was a natural defensive end. Their personal styles were even more night and day. Greg often claimed that she looked like a younger Meg Ryan. That wasn’t true—he was just being a sweetie—but she did have the blondish hair and blue eyes, and people had been annoyingly labeling her as girl-next-door “cute” since she was six. Greg.. well. There was nothing wrong with his looks—nothing—but he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who cared about his appearance. His jet-black hair was whacked off in a dorky style; his glasses were usually broken, and his clothes looked like something twenty years out of date—and lacked all claim to taste even then.

Still, as she started asking questions at the hospital’s front desk, no one seemed inclined to challenge her claim to be a relative. Possibly it helped that she looked so pitiful, with her limp hair straggling to her shoulders and her wilted suit and the run in her stocking. Who’d go out in public looking so wasted if they didn’t have to? Cripes, she hadn’t even stopped to put on lipstick. But it wasn’t as if Greg would ever care or notice what she looked like. The only thing that mattered was finding him.

Questions eventually led her up one set of elevators, then down a mile-long hall, where she searched for room 315. Her spirits lifted just knowing he’d been settled in a regular room. At least he wasn’t in surgery or worse. Maybe he was just a little battered up, she tried to reassure herself.

Only, her heart stopped when she poked her head through the doorway of room 315. The room looked like a clone of all the others—a mutated melon color, linoleum too ugly to wear out, inescapable antiseptic smells. It wasn’t that bad. It was just the usual two-bed hospital room...and only the far bed by the window was occupied.

But the occupant in that bed was a long, long way from just “a little battered up.”

She would never have recognized Greg at all, if it weren’t for a glimpse of jet-black hair and the lumberjack shape under the sheets. She tiptoed closer with her heart in her throat. Bandages completely covered his face, except for a narrow strip around his eyes. He was connected to tubes all over the place. There was some kind of contraption affecting his jaw and neck. His left arm was raised on a pillow and immobilized in a splint.

“Hey.”

Rachel almost jumped when she heard his voice. He was lying so still that she feared he was unconscious. But the kindest blue eyes in the universe had suddenly opened to half slits and looked drug-dazed. His normally strong tenor was barely a cracked, strained whisper.

“Hey, back.” She plastered on her cheeriest smile and touched his right hand. She was afraid to touch anything else. She didn’t want him to know how frightening he looked. “You can go right back to sleep, Stoner. I’m only going to stay a minute. I just had to know for sure how you were. And I’m not positive you should even be trying to talk—”

He motioned to the constraining bandages affecting his jaw. “I can talk—because nothing hurts. They just dosed me up with morphine. But I can’t seem to speak any louder or clearer than this mumbling...and I guess I’ll be eating dinner out of a straw for a while. Don’t look so scared, Rach. Everything’s mendable. I’ll be fine.”

Rachel wanted that promise in blood from a doctor. “This is a heck of a way to get time off work, you lazy slug.”

“You know me. Any excuse to loll around.”

Yeah, she knew him. He lumbered around with his glasses askew and a chronic distracted air, looking like the stereotype of a bumbling, absentminded professor. But it was so easy to misjudge Greg based on his appearance. The neighbors all camped out on his doorstep whenever there was a community problem, because he was just one of those people who quietly stepped up and took charge.

She’d learned that—firsthand—the day she moved in. Unfortunately there was no denying that she’d been a mortifying disaster that afternoon. The thing was, she’d married Mark with the foolish, naive idea that marriage was forever, and discovering his relationship with the bimbo had emotionally leveled her. She’d taken off with a wild hodgepodge of belongings. A lamp, but no table to put it on. A mattress, but no bed. Her grandma’s sacred red-velvet antique love seat, but no silverware. A few dishes, but nothing she could boil water in. Greg had asked if he could help her carry things. She’d snarled out a no.

He’d chosen to ignore her and simply started toting things in, making trip after trip for no thanks. Eventually it became obvious—even to her—that a puppy could have packed better than she had. For all the stuff she’d mounded together, she lacked even the basics to get through a single day. She didn’t have a broom, didn’t have a spoon. And when she realized that she’d been so stupid as to even forget shoes—plenty of clothes, but no shoes beyond the pair on her feet—she’d plunked down on the porch steps and cried. Greg had plunked next to her and doled out tissue, as if coping with a rude, fruitcake neighbor having an out-of-control crying jag was nothing unusual in his day.

Looking at his white-bandaged face now made her feel fierce and angry. He’d been there for her so many times. She wanted to shoot whoever had done this to him, strangle them with her bare hands, do something. Not just because she owed him, but because she loved the big lug. “Are they giving you enough pain juice in those tubes?” she asked lightly.

“Too much. My head’s in la la land. You don’t have to stand there, Rach, sit...”