“E-everything hurts,” she moaned.
“I’m not surprised. You were doing aSleeping Beautyroutine for quite a while. But the good news is now that you’re awake, I’m optimistic about a full recovery. You’re an incredibly lucky young woman. Do you remember what happened?”
“I-I was crossing Mercer Street… it was snowing, I think.”
“You were sideswiped by a passing car,” the doctor said, taking her chart out of a plastic holder on the wall next to her bed. “It spun you around like a top, and you banged your head on the street pretty hard when you fell, which caused your brain to swell and the resulting coma.”
He referred to her chart. “You’ve been out for eighteen days. You have a couple of lacerations on your face and a hairline fracture on your right arm, but you’re healing nicely. You also had surgery to stop some internal bleeding. The procedure is called a thoracotomy. I made a small incision along your left ribcage to get at the bleeding, but everything went well, and in another year, you’ll hardly notice the scar. The rest of your body is basically one big bruise, so hurting means you’re healing. As I said, you were very, very lucky.”
“I’m back,” Goldie mused, looking toward the window but not really seeing anything except the rooftop of another building.
“Yes, you are,” the doctor said, not aware of her total meaning. “You’re hooked up like theBride of Frankenstein.You’ve got a catheter, we’ve been feeding you through a tube, and you’ve got a saline drip going. We’ll start to get you unplugged in a little while. But first, would you like some water? Ginger ale, maybe?”
“Ginger ale would be great.”
“I’ll have one of the nurses bring you some. And we’ll notify your family and friends that you’re awake.”
“M—my friends?”
“Markie Santina and entourage. He wanted to be notified as soon as you woke up and handed out hundred-dollar bills to the nursing staff like Hershey bars to make sure that happened. He’s also paying for all your expenses, considering you have no health insurance.”
“So—that ginger ale is gonna cost about thirty bucks, huh?” Goldie joked.
Doctor Zawicki smiled. “Markie Santina, he’s kind of a mobster, isn’t he?”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
The physician shrugged.“The Daily News, The Times, The Post,the chief of hospital security, and my uncle, the cop.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Doc,”
The doctor looked at her with a half-smile of disbelief.
“Fake news, huh? Okay… you rest up. I’ll see what I can do about that ginger ale.”
Within an hour of waking up, Goldie had some ginger ale and Jell-O, her catheter, feeding, and saline tubes were removed, and she’d been walked to the bathroom, where she discovered she had blonde hair on her head again. There were also some large scabs on her forehead and left cheek. As Stu Frey had promised, she remembered everything that had happened in 1942, but she was glad to be back in modern times and familiar surroundings. She’d awakened at 8:33 a.m. on December 12th, a Thursday. By 9:40, Markie Santina came into her room, accompanied by two bodyguards who waited outside the door. One of whom was Bruno Carmichael, whom she had last seen in the lobby of the condominium she had shared with Markie.
Markie breezed in wearing an expensive black leather waistcoat reminiscent of Tully’s, a red silk scarf, and an olive turtleneck with black slacks. He also carried a dozen pink roses in a vase and had that Richard Gere smile that she traditionally found irresistible.
“There she is!” he greeted warmly with his thick Bronx accent. “How ya doin’, baby? You scared the bejesus outta me, you know that?”
“Ay, how ya doin’, Markie?” she reciprocated weakly, eying the roses. “Those for me?”
“And those, and those, and those,” he replied, pointing out other flowers and plants in the room. “I mean it, Goldie. I was scared sick. But don’t worry ‘bout nothin’. I’m taking care of all expenses. Everythin’. You just concentrate on gettin’ better.”
He set the roses down on the windowsill, then went over to the side of her bed, leaned over, and gently kissed her. She accepted the embrace, but was confused by it.
“So—what does all this mean?” she asked after the kiss. “The flowers, the private room… did you and The Queen of Frump from NYU have a fallin’ out?”
“We spent seven years together, Goldie. I promised I’d take care of you, and I’m still doin’ it. I also feel terrible about the way we left things the day you ran out. I feel partially responsible for what happened.”
“Oh, don’t feel that way, baby,” she chided. “Feelentirelyresponsible.”
“Iamsorry, Goldie. Really and truly sorry.”
She looked into his brown eyes and gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“Okay… thanks for keepin’ watch over me while I was out of it.”
