Sybil burst out a staccato laugh. “I don’t even have my own life together. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m making ziti at midnight and have circles under my eyes that they could measure the diameter of in geometry classes.”
“Well, (a) that’s not true, I’ve never even noticed the circles, and (b) isn’t that a thing with therapists? Doesn’t everyone say that they are the most screwed up?” Zeke smiled.
“No, I don’t think everyone says that.”
“Well, you haven’t met mine. The one the team insists on.” He smiled wider, pleased to be entertaining her. Sybil found herself staring at him and he back at her, and she could hear the blood pounding in her ears, which is why—she realizedlater—she must not have seen or heard Betty slip back into the apartment and announce herself in the kitchen.
“Hello?” Betty said. Then repeated herself, only louder—a sharp bark that punctured the thick air in the kitchen.
Sybil was so startled that she jumped at least a foot in the air at the surprise, shouting “Jesus Christ,” and knocking the newly sharpened knife off the counter with the small of her back. Then watching in horror as gravity plunged it directly into the vortex where her big toe met the top of her foot.
If Sybil Foster had been listening to the scene on one of her podcasts, she would have known right then that this was an omen. Instead, the only thing she did was scream.
14
Night Five
Zeke
Zeke didn’t realizefor at least a solid minute that Sybil was bleeding or that she had a chef’s knife jutting perpendicularly out of her foot. Instead, he was staring at Betty, who was sheet-white and glassy-eyed when she stumbled into the kitchen.
“Betty, are you…okay? Aren’t you supposed to be at work? Did something happen there?” He took a step closer to her, surprised at how much he wanted to protect her. It was an unfamiliar feeling for Zeke—wanting to look out for someone else.
“I—” she started, then stopped. “I—had to run an errand by Grand Central and I thought I saw…but I’m not sure…I don’t—it doesn’t matter.” Her eyes shifted to Sybil, like Sybil would understand, which naturally made a lot more sense to Zeke. Zeke followed her gaze, and that’s when he noticed that there was blood pooling on his kitchen floor and Sybil was frozen, mouth half open, staring at her sliced sneaker, like she couldn’t believe it either.
“You’re bleeding!” he shouted. An obvious observation.Sometimes, he really was the dumbest person in the room. “Sybil! There is a knife in your foot!”
That seemed to startle Sybil out of her trance, and she jolted.
“Shit! Shit shit shit.” She allowed herself one beat to freak out, then got steady. He watched it happen in real time. “You need to take me to the hospital. Now.”
“We need to remove the knife!” Zeke shouted again. Jesus, was he not the person she’d want inherfoxhole; he was making that abundantly clear.
“No,” she said, and this time, he could see why she would have been a world-class surgeon. A total pro. Calm. Cool. A veritable cucumber. Good god, he hated himself, but…it was a turn-on. Maybe if they slept together, then they would actually sleep? His mind would finally find the balm it needed? “If we remove it here,” she said like she was onGrey’sfuckingAnatomy, “we run the risk of being unable to stop the bleeding and increase the chances of infection.” She looked toward Betty. “Can you drive?”
“I can drive,” Zeke said.
“You can’t. You’re already down one arm,” Sybil said. Correctly so. How was she the one thinking so clearly in this situation? She had a knife jutting from her foot. He hoped that when she thought back on this moment, she’d attribute his inadequacy to his sleeplessness.
Betty swallowed, then Zeke saw her spine stiffen, color returning to her face, as if she was happy to be useful, to prove that she could be as helpful as Sybil was so often helpful to the rest of them.
“I can drive,” Betty said. “I also know first aid. I mean, it’s self-taught, but can I help?”
“No, thank you, Betty. I just need you to drive.” Then: “Zeke,” Sybil shouted, as if she were the head surgeon in theOR. Zeke wanted to rip her clothes off. “Call the garage, have them bring your car around. We’re going to Mount Sinai. Mark will be working.”
“Mark, your husband?” Zeke asked. Now this plan immediately grew less appealing.
“He’s not a particularly good doctor,” she said. “But we’ll be seen quickly, and I can tell him what to do.”
“Remind me not to have an emergency at Mount Sinai,” Betty muttered as Zeke punched the phone number for the garage.
“Do you have crutches?” Sybil asked.
“How are you not, like, dying?” Betty said as Zeke scrambled to his gear closet where he did, indeed, have crutches from the time he came down wrong on his ankle in spring training.
“I nearly gave birth to twins without an epidural,” Sybil said, and Zeke almost got a hard-on. “Until Eloise, naturally, decided to be stubborn. But right up until the C-section, I was good to go. I wasfine.”
“Here.” He eased the crutches underneath her armpits, and she winced, but that was the only ounce of pain she betrayed.
