“I ...” A sob escapes. “I think I broke my foot.”
“What?” Though that’s not the most important question when dealing with flight crew. She could be anywhere in North America, so I follow with, “Where are you?”
“I’m down the hill. I wanted to walk to my crash pad from the airport since it’s sunny today, but a scraggly-looking man tried to talk to me, and I panicked. I was afraid he might want to mug me and scratch my retinas, so I yelled for him to leave me alone and ran. Then I fell.”
I grab my keys and race out the door. “You’ve been jogging quite a bit lately. I’m surprised you broke your foot.”
“I’m wearing heels.”
“Oh ...” Hopefully, she only sprained an ankle. “I’m on my way. You might lose connection for a second as I start my car.”
I climb into my Toyota truck, painted the color Mudbath, toss my phone on the charging station, and press the Start button. I’m already backing out of the driveway when her voice comes over the loudspeaker.
“ ... tried to call my roommates, but the only one who answered is in Duluth.”
“Don’t worry about it. I got you.” I head down the hill. “Which side of the street are you on?” The sky bridge is on this side, but her apartment complex is on the other, so she might have crossed over already.
“I’m in front of ...”
“The 7-Eleven.” I see her. She’s a crumpled heap.
Thankfully, I don’t see any scraggly-looking men threatening to scratch her retinas. If I weren’t so concerned about her well-being, I’d laugh at her oddly specific fear.
Her cries hold the wildness of relief. “I’m so sorry.”
I shift to a stop and delay answering until I can do so in person. I hop out and circle my vehicle.
She looks up with the sheen of defenselessness in her eyes. Her bun has drooped to one side, she’s clutching her foot in a position that makes it very fortuitous that she wore slacks instead of her normal skirt, and her suitcase has rolled into the grass and toppled over.
I’m not even going to think about it. I’m just going to act.
I open the back door of my truck so she can elevate her leg on the back seat during the ride, then I scoop her up. She wraps her arms around my neck with a whimper and the kind of softness I can never unfeel. As for her scent of cherry blossoms, I’ve already struggled with unsmelling it.
I’m not even going to breathe. I’m just going to act.
I deposit her gently, then retrieve her bags. After I throw them into the bed of my pickup, I pause to check on her.
I will not make a soda-in-sock joke. I will not make a soda-in-sock joke.
In my efforts to refrain, I lean forward, palm her wet face, and search her serious brown eyes. “He didn’t get your retinas, did he?”
A laugh bursts from her lips, and as close as I feel to her at the moment, I should have probably gone with the soda-in-sock joke. I drop my hand.
“No.” She bravely wipes at her tears, but her voice still cracks. “I’d been warned about protecting my retinas, but nobody warned me about running in heels.”
I look down toward her old-fashioned Mary Janes. “Can I take a look?”
She hugs her left foot to her lap. The skin appears to have puffed up between openings in the T-strap. “My feet are hideous,” she stalls.
I glance up at her lovely face, wondering how she can worry about my judgment of her feet when she’s in pain. Also, her feet can’t be that bad. “The hospital is on the other side of the airport. Just a ten-minute drive.But you’ll probably be better off if you remove your shoe and elevate your foot to slow the swelling on our way there.”
She grips the buckle, but before she can pull the strap far enough to unhook the connected prong, she yelps and releases it. “This is the foot that had surgery. My trigger toe locked up.”
I reach for her foot and pause before touching her. “May I?”
She nods and presses her lips together, probably to keep from yelping again.
As gently as possible, I unhook the strap and slide the shoe off. Her feet aren’t hideous underneath the nylon socks, but the knuckles on her toes seem enlarged, some of the veins stand out, and the area around her big toe is red and swollen. I’m afraid to ask whether the red swelling around her big toe is normal, because I don’t want to make her even more self-conscious about her feet. So I settle for, “What do you think?”
