Passage

  “How can you tell if it’s on and not just on standby?” she asked.

  Vielle looked at it. “It’s on,” she pronounced. “Did you want to call and check on your uncle?”

  “No, that’s okay,” Kit said. “Mrs. Gray has your number. I’m just a little nervous. He gets disoriented sometimes when I’m not there.” She turned to Joanna. “Sorry. I know we’re not supposed to discuss things like that at Dish Night. What are we supposed to discuss?”

  “Movies,” Joanna said, “or, rather, movie. I had a little difficulty at Blockbuster. They didn’t have Glory. Or Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” She handed the video to Vielle. “It’s a comedy. With Julia Roberts.”

  “Runaway Bride,” Vielle said, reading the box.

  “Bride?” Kit echoed.

  “Have you already seen it?” Vielle asked.

  “No,” Kit said, but in a tone that made Joanna wonder if she had and was lying to protect their feelings. Her cheeks had gone very pink. “I haven’t seen any movies at all the last few years, and I loved Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. And Flatliners.”

  “Except that in Flatliners she needlessly risks her life,” Vielle said, looking at Joanna.

  “And ends up with Kiefer Sutherland,” Joanna said lightly. “I thought Kevin Bacon was a lot cuter.” She took the video away from Vielle. “This one’s got Richard Gere in it.” She stuck it in the VCR and turned on the TV. “So let’s get this show on the road. Kit doesn’t want to be gone too long,” and the cell phone rang.

  Kit dived for it. “Hello?” she said anxiously, and to Joanna and Vielle, “It’s Mrs. Gray.”

  “You can take it in the bedroom if you want,” Vielle said, and Kit nodded gratefully. Vielle led her in and shut the door behind her.

  “Oh, I hope Mr. Briarley hasn’t gotten so upset she has to go home,” Joanna said. “She was looking forward to this so much.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Vielle said. “You said there was a problem with the session today? Who with?”

  “Not me,” Joanna said, and Vielle immediately looked relieved. “And I shouldn’t have said ‘problem.’ Nothing went wrong.” She looked at the bedroom door.

  “And what about your sessions?” Vielle asked. “Are you telling me nothing went wrong with them either?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you come racing down to the ER white as a ghost and demand to know whether there’s an engine-stopping scene in Titanic, and then when I find out for you, you’re not even interested, you’re just afraid I might have told somebody. And then Barbara from Peds tells me she saw you in the walkway up on fifth the night before and you looked like you’d just seen a ghost.”

  Of course. Good old Gossip General, and this was exactly why she couldn’t tell Vielle. Because there was no such thing as a secret at Mercy General. “Did she also tell you I’d just found out Maisie Nellis had coded again?”

  “She told me she was worried about you. I’m worried about you. It’s the project, isn’t it? You’re seeing things in your NDEs. You’re seeing the Titanic, aren’t you?”

  No, Joanna thought, apparently not. “No. I’m not seeing the Titanic.”

  “Then what are you seeing?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna said. “It’s—”

  The door opened, and Kit came out, all smiles. “Mrs. Gray just wanted to call to try the phone out, so I’d know it was working, and to tell me how Uncle Pat was doing.”

  “How is he doing?” Joanna asked.

  “Not too bad. He keeps looking out the window for me and asking her where I am.”

  I would have thought someone so much like Mrs. Troudtheim would have enough sense not to tell her that, Joanna thought. It will only worry her, and it must have shown in her face because Kit said, “If she’d told me everything was fine, I wouldn’t have believed her. I want her to tell me the truth.”

  She sounds just like Maisie, Joanna thought, and, as they settled in to watch Runaway Bride, She looks like her, too, with her short blond hair and thin arms and shoulders. But it was more than that. She also had Maisie’s courage, her charm, her earnestness. She watched the movie as attentively as if Mr. Briarley would be giving one of his notorious finals on it.

  Joanna, on the other hand, found her mind wandering. If it wasn’t the Titanic, what was it? An amalgam of ships and ship-related images, Richard had said. What ship-related images? She’d grown up in a completely landlocked state. She’d never been on a ship in her life.

  She tried to concentrate on the movie. Richard Gere was being introduced to a gaggle of giggling women. “I’m Betty Trout,” one of them said, and Joanna thought, Betty Peterson. She sat next to me in second period. And she had been an A student. She would definitely remember the name of their textbook. She might even remember what it was that Mr. Briarley had said. But it’s not the Titanic, so he isn’t why you’re seeing it.

  “It’s not fair,” Vielle said.

  “What isn’t?” Joanna said, jolted out of her reverie.

  “That,” Vielle said, gesturing at the screen where Richard Gere was kissing Julia Roberts. “She has five gorgeous guys to choose from and I can’t even find one, unless you count Harvey the embalming expert.”

  Kit stopped with a handful of popcorn halfway to her mouth. “Embalming expert?”

  “Yes, and a scintillating conversationalist,” Vielle said. “Did you know Ajax is the best thing to use to get teeth shiny and white?”

  “Ajax?” Kit put the handful of popcorn down on a napkin.

  “Rule Number Eighteen,” Joanna said. “No discussing embalming techniques at Dish Night.” She reached for some popcorn. “What about Officer Denzel? This police officer Vielle met who looks like Denzel Washington,” she explained to Kit.

  “And who she can’t think of a way to meet again,” Vielle said. “Maybe I’ll get lucky, and another rogue-raver will shoot up the ER,” and immediately looked sorry she’d said it.

  “Vielle works in the ER,” Joanna explained to Kit, “the most dangerous place in the hospital. I keep telling her she needs to transfer out—”

  “And I keep telling her she has no business playing Flatliners,” Vielle said, pointing at Joanna.

  “Flatliners?”

  “She means the research project I’m working with Dr. Wright on, but it’s nothing like Flatliners,” Joanna said.

  “Except that you’re having near-death experiences,” Vielle said.

  “They’re drug-induced hallucinations, and they’re perfectly safe,” Joanna said. “Unlike working in the ER where people get shot and stabbed—”

  “Rule Number One,” Vielle said, rewinding to the kissing scene. “No talking about work at Dish Night. Isn’t that right, Joanna?”

  “Right. Which of Julia’s wedding dresses do you like the best, Kit?” Joanna asked, changing the subject.

  “I don’t know,” Kit said, leaning forward to make sure the cell phone was still on. “They’re all pretty.”

  “The one with the train,” Vielle said. “I definitely want a dress with a train. And a big wedding, with all the trimmings. Bridesmaids, flowers, the works. Do police officers get married in their uniforms?”

  “You’re thinking of the military,” Kit said.

  “And counting your chickens before they’re hatched,” Joanna said. “She hasn’t even found out his name yet, let alone gotten him to the altar, and a lot can happen in between, right, Kit?”

  “I think I’d better call and make sure my uncle’s okay,” Kit said, standing up.

  “I thought you said calling upset him,” Joanna said.

  “I know,” she said uncertainly.

  “Do you want me to take you home?”

  “No, that’s okay,” she said and sat back down. “I’m sure he’s okay. And Mrs. Gray said she’d call if there was a problem.” But as soon as they finished the movie, she insisted on leaving. “This has been great, but I think I’d better not stay too long,” she said. “It’s
tempting fate.”

  “I hope you’ll come again,” Vielle said. “We promise next time we won’t talk about work.”

  “Or embalming,” Joanna said, and Kit smiled, but when they got in the car, Kit said seriously, “I have a question to ask you.”

  “About embalming?” Joanna said, starting the car.

  “No,” Kit said. “About your research project. If that’s okay. I mean, I know you have a rule about discussing work.”

  “Which we obviously don’t follow,” Joanna said, pulling out of the parking lot. “And, besides, Dish Night’s officially over.” She turned onto the street and started toward Kit’s. She explained the way the project worked. “It’s not Flatliners, if that’s what you were going to ask.”

  “No,” Kit said. She was silent for almost the length of a block, and then, as Joanna stopped at a light, said, “What does the Titanic have to do with your project? Do you think it’s what you’re seeing when you have these near-death experiences?”

  You don’t have to tell her, Joanna thought. You can tell her the results of the project are confidential. But, like Maisie, she’d already figured it out, and, like Maisie, she deserved a straight answer.

  She wished Kit had asked the question the way Vielle had, so she could say no. But I do think it’s what I’m seeing, in spite of the First-Class Dining Saloon being the wrong colors, in spite of the officer naming the wrong ships. And it has something to do with what Mr. Briarley said. He, and Kit, are my only chance of finding out what.

  “Yes, I think I’m seeing the Titanic,” she said, and Kit sucked in her breath. “But I don’t know for sure, and if I read about the Titanic to find out—”

  “You won’t be able to tell if reading about it is what made you see it. The Titanic,” she murmured. “How terrible.”

  “It’s not really,” Joanna said. “The visions are very strange. They feel utterly real, but at the same time, you know they’re not.” She looked at Kit. “You’re afraid of what this means in regard to your uncle’s hallucinations, aren’t you?” she asked. “This isn’t the vision the malfunctioning brain normally produces. It seems to be peculiar to me. Most people have a warm, fuzzy feeling and see lights and angels. That’s why I came to ask Mr. Briarley what he’d said in class, because I think my mind saw some connection between that and what was happening in the NDE, and that connection is what triggered this particular vision.”

  “But Uncle Pat was a Titanic expert. Wouldn’t he have made the same connection?”

  “Not necessarily.” Joanna explained about the acetylcholine, and the brain’s increased associative abilities. “Dr. Wright thinks it’s a combination of random images out of my long-term memory, but I’m convinced there’s a reason for the vision, that the Titanic stands for something.” She looked at Kit. “If you don’t want to be involved with this anymore, I completely understand. I sound crazy even to myself when I try to explain it, and I had no business asking you. Or bothering Mr. Briarley.”

  It was a relief to have told her, even if Kit did say, “I’d rather not be involved,” or look at her as if she were an NDE nutcase.

  But she did neither. She said, “Uncle Pat would have loved to help you if he could, and since he can’t, I want to. Speaking of which, I still haven’t told you about the engines stopping. I think I found the thing you mean. It’s in Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember. The passengers noticed that the hum of the engines had stopped, and they went out on deck to see—wait,” she said, fumbling in the pocket of her coat. “I brought the book with me so I could read you the part—”

  She pulled out a paperback book, and Joanna switched on the overhead light and then looked anxiously toward the house, wondering if Mr. Briarley would see the car and Kit, haloed in the light.

  “Here it is . . . ‘wandered aimlessly about or stood by the rail, staring into the empty night for some clue to the trouble,’ ” Kit read, and Joanna looked at the book.

  It was an ancient paperback, dog-eared and tattered, with the same picture of the Titanic that had been in Maisie’s book: the stern rising out of the water, the boats in the foreground full of people with blankets around their shoulders, watching in horror, the picture that was on every book about the Titanic, except that this one was in red, like a scene out of hell: the sea blood red, the ship burgundy, the enormous funnels black-red.

  She had seen Mr. Briarley brandishing the book dozens of times, making a point, reading a passage. It was as familiar as her sophomore English textbook had been. But that wasn’t why she stared at it. It had been there, in Mr. Briarley’s hand, that day. He had shut it with a snap and dropped it on the desk. It hadn’t been the textbook, after all. It was A Night to Remember.

  But the textbook had been there, too. She could see its blue cover and gold lettering, and a paperback didn’t make a snapping sound when you shut it, didn’t make a thud when you let it drop. But it was still the book.

  “ ‘ . . . their dress was an odd mixture of bathrobes, evening clothes,’ ” Kit read, “ ‘fur coats, turtle-neck sweaters—’ ”

  “Kit,” Joanna interrupted, “was the First-Class Dining Saloon the only dining room on board?” No, of course it wasn’t, there had to be second-class and steerage dining rooms, too, but the silver and crystal, the piano had to be first-class. “I mean, the only first-class dining room?”

  “No,” Kit said. “There were several smaller restaurants. The Palm Court, the Verandah Café—”

  “What about stairways? Would there have been more than one?”

  “Passenger stairways or crew stairways?”

  “Passenger,” Joanna said.

  “I know there were at least two,” Kit said, turning to the back of the paperback, “and maybe—rats, this is one of those books that doesn’t have an index. I can run inside, and—”

  “No, that’s okay,” Joanna said. “I don’t need to know this second. You can call me when you find out.”

  “You want to know how many staircases and how many dining rooms?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “Specifically, I want to know if there was a dining room with light wood paneling, a rose carpet, and rose-upholstered chairs.”

  “And you want to know the other ships the Titanic tried to contact,” Kit said.

  Joanna nodded. They’ll turn out to be the Baltic and the Frankfurt, she thought, scarcely hearing Kit’s thanks and good night. I need to see if Betty Peterson’s in the phone book, and if she’s not, tomorrow I’ll look on the Net.

  She was in the phone book, and still living in Englewood, and when Joanna called her from the office the next morning, she sounded overjoyed to hear from her. Joanna asked her if she remembered the name of their textbook. “I should,” Betty said. “It was blue, I remember, with gold lettering, and the title began with an M. And there was an ‘and’ in it. M Something and Something.”

  But when Joanna asked her about the Titanic, she said, “All I remember about that class is that Mr. Briarley made me redo the footnotes on my term paper four times. Why don’t you ask him?”

  Joanna explained about him having Alzheimer’s. “Oh, yes, that’s right,” Betty said, “I remember hearing about that. How sad.”

  “Can you remember who else was in that class with us?” Joanna asked.

  “Gosh, in that class . . . ” Betty said, considering. “Ricky Inman. Did you know he’s a stockbroker now? Can you imagine?” Joanna couldn’t. “John Ferguson, no, he’s in Japan. Melissa Taylor?”

  Melissa Taylor was a possibility. “What about Candy Simons?” Joanna asked. “The one we called Rapunzel because she was always combing her hair. Do you know where she is?”

  “Oh, Joanna,” Betty said, sounding shocked. “I guess you didn’t know. She died two years ago. Of ovarian cancer.”

  “No,” Joanna said, thinking of Candy, endlessly combing her long blond hair. Her hair would have come out during the chemo, she thought, appalled.

  Betty chattered on, talking about various students, n
one of whom had been in second-period English, and about herself. She worked for a computer company, was married, had three children. “I can’t believe you’re not married yet,” she said, sounding just like Vielle, and Joanna told her she had to go and gave her her number, “in case you remember anything else.”

  “I will,” Betty promised. “Oh, wait. I do remember something about the book. It had a picture of Queen Elizabeth on it in one of those ruff things.”

  Queen Elizabeth? Not a ship? “Are you certain?” Joanna asked.

  “Positive. The reason I know is I remember Ricky Inman drawing glasses and a mustache on her.”

  Joanna vaguely remembered that, too, but she also remembered a ship. So did Melissa Taylor, whom Joanna called after lunch. Which proved what? That memory is extremely unreliable, Joanna thought.

  Her pager went off, and when she called the hospital switchboard, it was Vielle, saying, “I have a you-know-what for you.” An NDE or another series of questions? Probably both, Joanna thought, and decided to call her instead of running down to the ER, so she could hang up if Vielle started grilling her. But first she needed to call Mrs. Haighton. Her housekeeper said she was at a fundraiser for the Denver Theater Guild.

  Joanna called the ER. The phone rang a long time. I’m going to have to go down there after all and talk to her, Joanna thought, and was about to hang up when a man answered. One of the interns, Joanna thought, to whom Vielle will say, “What do you think you’re doing?” in a moment and snatch the phone away from him. “This is Dr. Lander,” Joanna said. “Is Vielle there?”

  “Vielle?” the young man said in a tone of blank surprise. Definitely one of the interns.

  “Yes, Vielle Howard. Can I speak to her, please?”

  “I . . . just a minute . . . ” Joanna could hear a muffled conversation in the background and then another voice, a woman’s, came on the line. “Who is this?” the woman asked.

  “Joanna Lander. I’m trying to reach Vielle Howard. She left me a message to call her.”

  “Dr. Lander, hi. Vielle’s not here. She said if you called to tell you she went home sick.”