He stops. We’ve arrived at the bathrooms. “Because I hope I make it easier for them. To move on. Get closure.” He releases my arm. “But I’m guessing your missed appointment means you won’t be needing my services?”
“No. I . . . I mean, I don’t think so.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
I thank him for the escort and enter the building. It all takes a bit of maneuvering. I make a mental note not to drink much of anything tonight so I won’t have to repeat the process. Of course, I shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at all. Because I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. What will it take for me to really believe this? How can it be true after all this time? Now?
I struggle out of the stall. When I get back outside, Ben is there. Talking to Mr. Fletcher.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Ben turns toward me. “You were taking so long, I came looking for you.”
My heart is beating like a drum. “Mr. Fletcher was kind enough to help me walk across the grass.”
“He said.”
“It was nice talking to you, Ben,” Mr. Fletcher says, and walks away.
“Can you help me back?” I say to Ben.
I loop my harm through his, and we walk onto the grass. My heels dig into the soft grass, thoroughly moistened earlier today by the fire crews in case the worst happens.
“How do you know Mr. Fletcher?” I ask.
“He’s an old friend of my folks. Have you . . .”
“Yes.”
“What?” Ben drops my arm. A siren wails in the distance.
“I don’t want to lie to you. So yes. I had an appointment with Mr. Fletcher. But I didn’t go to it. And I told him I wouldn’t be needing his services. Because I won’t.”
“You had an appointment.”
“It was the only way I was going to bring myself to leave.”
“And that was so important to you? Leaving?”
“It felt like it was.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“I’ll speak as loud as I goddamn want.”
“I told you I wanted to split up. What did you think I was going to do?”
“I didn’t think you really meant it.”
“Well, I did.”
We stand there, trapped by our anger and frustration. And then it hits me.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But it’s the truth, right? You never forgave me for hiding those tests results from you, and now I’ve done something worse. You’re not going to get past that. So what’s the point?”
“What’s the point? Are you seriously asking me that right now?”
“I’m not asking you anything! I’m telling you the truth.”
“The truth. Ha! You don’t even know what that word means.”
“That’s what you really think of me, isn’t it? I’m just a lying, cheating mistake who abandoned you when things got too hard.”
“Well, didn’t you?”
This statement is such a mixture of truth and misconception that it stops me. Stops me cold.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I say.
“You can’t believe it? Jesus Christ, Elizabeth. You’re the one who made it happen!”
“I made a mistake. One mistake. And you’ve been blaming me for it ever since. I don’t deserve this. I don’t.”
I turn to leave, and Ben reaches out for my arm. I shrug it off.
“Let go of me.”
“Everything okay here?” Andy asks. He’s wearing his firefighter gear and is slightly out of breath.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Ben asks.
“Stop it, just stop it. Andy’s never done anything but be there for me.”
“Oh, right. Because that’s what I haven’t done. I wasn’t there for you. I’m not here for you now. I’m the bad guy.”
“Will you two stop it!” Andy says. “We need to evac the tent.”
My eyes go automatically to the mountain. Flames are dancing along the ridge, an orange flickering band that would be pretty if it wasn’t a disaster. The sirens I heard in the background are now an approaching wail, and they match the panicked rhythm of my heart.
“When did it crest?” I ask Andy.
“About ten minutes ago. The wind swept it right past the firebreak. Two men down.”
Two men. Two men I probably know. I push that thought aside.
“What do you want us to do?”
“We need to get everyone out of there without causing chaos.”
The tent is the worst kind of place to evacuate, full to the brim with older people who’ve had a few drinks and with only one point of egress.
“Will you help?” I say to Ben.
“Yes, of course.”
The three of us run across the lawn. I stumble over my shoes, and Ben arrests my fall. I kick them off, and we resume our sprint.
When we get there, Kate Bourne is still at the microphone, but now John Phillips is standing next to her. He’s almost unrecognizable in a pair of dark pants and a dress shirt, and he’s holding a massive check for $105,000. He looks petrified.
“It’s superimportant that nobody say the word fire,” I say to Ben quietly.
“What do we do?”
“We have to get up to the stage,” Andy says examining the doorway we’ve just come through for a way to make it larger. “We’ll say we need to evacuate the tent and ask people to disperse in an orderly fashion. It’s the only way. Even then—”
“We can do it,” I say. “You deal with the door, and I’ll go up.”
Andy and I make eye contact, agreeing on a course of action. He walks toward the bar to enlist the help of the waiters to open the doorway and stabilize it. If we don’t handle this properly, the tent could easily collapse.
Ben and I walk briskly toward the stage. The uneven floor scratches at my bare feet, and the sirens’ moan fills my ears. A few people give us curious glances, but most seem intent on the food in front of them.
We reach the stage and climb the stairs. Kate stops midsentence.
“What’s going on?”
“I have to make an announcement.” I place my hand over the microphone and speak quietly to Kate. “The fire’s crested the ridge. We need to get everyone out of here.”
Her hand flies to her mouth, and Ben steps in front of her, pushing her back, fencing her in so she doesn’t cause a panic.
I take my hand off the microphone and speak in my most soothing voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the tent in an orderly fashion. This is merely a safety precaution. Move rapidly but carefully. If you need assistance, please stay at your table and someone will be there to help you shortly.”
“What’s going on?” someone yells.
A plane rattles overhead, and now the crowd is muttering and looking around.
“Fire!” another voice yells. He stands and points toward the window. “I can see the fire!”
The room erupts in shouts and shrieks. Chairs scrape back. Several glasses are overturned, the red wine they contained staining the white linen beneath them.
“Please remain calm,” I say loudly into the microphone. “Please listen to the instructions I’m about to give you . . .”
I stop because it’s hopeless. My voice is being completely drowned out by the crowd. Three hundred people want out of here, stat, and they aren’t going to wait patiently for instructions.
Everyone is standing now, jostling, pushing. I see an older man get knocked over. I look to our table but Ben’s parents aren’t there.
“Ben!” I shout, but it’s Andy who comes to my side.
“People are getting hurt,” he says, his eyes skimming the room, trying to find a solution.
“Do you have something to cut the tent?” I ask.
“Good idea.”
“What?” Kate says, havi
ng escaped from Ben. “No, we’ll lose our damage deposit and—”
“I don’t think that’s the most important thing right now.”
Andy takes out his pocketknife and flips it open. He jumps down off the stage and walks to the window. He stabs a hole in the plastic and slides the knife down until it punctures the tent itself. He’s able to cut through a couple of inches but then gets stuck.
I drop down next to him and take the other end of the fabric in my hands.
“Rip in the other direction.”
We both start straining on the fabric. I lean back on the heels of my feet, putting my body weight into it.
The fabric lets go in one big roaring sound, and the release of tension tips me over onto the ground.
Ben is there to help me up.
“What are you doing?” he yells so I can hear him.
“We need to widen this. Can you help us?”
“Let me do it. You should get out of here.”
“I’ll never make it through the crowd. Where are your parents?”
“I can’t find them.”
“Let’s open this,” Andy says, “then you can look for them.”
They work quickly together, pulling back the fabric and cutting the bottom so there’s a second exit. Andy goes to the people nearest to us and directs them to turn around and follow him.
“Can you get them out of here?” Andy asks me, pointing to John Phillips and Kate, who are still standing on the stage, rooted to the spot.
“Where should we go?”
“Bring them to the arts building. We’re sending buses there.”
“Give me your knife for a sec.”
He hands it over. I hold my skirt away from me and slash at the fabric near my knees. I put my hand into the hole and rip with the help of the knife until the bulk of the dress has tumbled to my feet. I kick it aside so no one trips on it. I give the knife back to Andy and turn to Ben.
“You need to find your parents and make sure they’re okay.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay here and make sure everyone gets out.”
“That’s not your responsibility.”
“Of course it is. Please, Ben. I’ll be fine. We’ll meet up after, okay? Just be careful.”
I hug him quickly as smoke flows through the opening in the tent like bellows are propelling it. I turn away from Ben and haul myself back onto the stage. I grab Kate with one hand and John Phillips with the other.
“We have to get out of here.”
I tug, and they follow me down the stairs to the opening. Andy’s standing to one side, holding onto the fabric, shouting at people where to go when they get outside.
Our eyes lock for a moment. “Be safe.”
“I will. Go.”
I pull Kate and John through the opening like toddlers. The flames are over the ridge now. I stop long enough to watch pink-colored water pouring from the belly of an aircraft. The smoke billows up from the doused flames. Then I turn my back to the Peak once more and give a tug in the right direction to my charges.
“Run!”
DAY SIX
CHAPTER 36
All Through the Night
Elizabeth
I leave Kate and John at the arts center, then turn and run back to the tent. There’s a broken line of people hurrying across the lawn, and I stop to help an older couple. The man has a graze across his cheek. His wife’s hands are shaking. When I get them back to the center, there are two EMTs doing triage and three big yellow school buses in the parking lot. An EMT wipes the blood off the man’s face. He has only a small nick on his chin, so a quick bandage is applied and blankets are placed over both of their shoulders. Then I help them onto a school bus and into a seat.
“Where are you taking them?” I ask the driver.
“Mason,” he says, giving the name of the next town over. “Everyone’s being moved to the rec center.”
I climb off the bus and hustle back to the arts center to see if I can help. Orderly lines have formed now, and I don’t see anyone in need of immediate assistance. I lean against the side of the building to catch my breath. My ears are ringing from the howl of sirens and the near-constant air bombardments. The air around me seems tinged with the pink dye they put into the water drops to make it easier to see if they’ve hit their targets. There are small droplets of it staining what remains of my dress.
In all the chaos, I’ve lost track of Ben. His parents weren’t in the arts center. I’m hoping they were near the entrance of the tent and took their car home with Ben in tow. I reach into my skirt for my phone, but I don’t have a pocket anymore. The pocket of my skirt is somewhere in the tent.
The night air surrounds me like a furnace, my dress is in tatters, and my feet are swollen and bruised. But we got everyone out. We won’t likely know till first light whether the fire’s going to be held at the Peak. Everything that can be done is being done.
I try not to think about what that means for my house.
I look out across the field. A line of fire and smoke outlines the Peak against the night sky. The firefighters’ headlamps wink like fireflies. The wind has picked up again, rattling the tent against its poles like it’s sitting atop Everest. I tell one of the firemen I’m going to make a last check of the tent, and race away from the building before he can tell me no.
The tent looks like a speakeasy after Mardi Gras. Overturned tables, the air perfumed by spilled wine and burned-out votives. It’s a miracle, really, that no one was seriously injured and the whole tent didn’t go up in flames.
I walk tentatively through the space, sweeping for anyone missing, keeping my tender feet away from the broken china and glass. The rough edges of the tent flap behind me, snapping loudly.
I find the remains of my dress next to the side of the stage. I lift the skirt, but I know already from the weight that it’s empty. I get down on my hands and knees to search. A large gust blows against the side of the tent, pressing the fabric to my face. I push it aside and peer under the stage. Something shiny is there. I lie flat on my stomach and reach as far as I can. My fingers brush the edge of what I’m certain is my phone.
As if brought alive by my touch, it begins to flash with an incoming call. I stretch farther, but I can’t reach it. I flatten myself against the ground and inch under the stage. I can see the screen. Ben’s calling. I use my hands to inch myself forward as a large ripping sound fills the air. The wind shrieks, and I can feel the sides of the tent expand and contract like a set of lungs. My hand closes around the phone as my ears fill with sound. The stage buckles above me, thudding against my head, and I have just long enough to think about what a stupid idea this was before everything goes black.
“Ms. Martin?”
I blink awake, coughing, inhaling the smell of canvas and wine and smoke. It must’ve been a crazy night on the work site, celebrating the end of the fire. I can’t even remember going to . . . Hold up.
Where the hell am I?
“Ms. Martin? Stay still while I move this.”
I can’t place the familiar voice, but I obey it.
I open my eyes. I can see, but I can’t. Everything is black, and my eyes are stinging. Something also seems to be pinning my shoulders to the ground.
“Fire,” I say. My voice sounds loud in my head and swallowed outside of it. “Fire,” I say again.
“It’s okay. There’s no fire in here. You just stay still.”
“Ben?”
“No, ma’am. I followed you over from the arts center. Seemed like this was a bad place for anyone to come by themselves. Good thing I did, leastaways.”
I turn my head slightly to try to see who’s speaking, and that’s when the pain hits. My head is throbbing, my neck feels compressed, and a large cramp ripples through my abdomen.
Oh, God. Oh no.
“Need to get out.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’ll just be a minute.”
“Get . . . help.”
br /> “I shouted, but everyone’s taking care of the fire and loading the last group onto the buses. I don’t have a phone.”
Something clicks.
I squeeze my hand. I’m holding a phone. I slide my fingers over the screen.
9-1-1
“State the nature of your emergency.”
“You saying something?” he asks.
“I . . .”
“Is anyone there? Do you need help?”
“You got a phone in there?”
“If you can’t talk, please try to press one of the keys on your phone. Press it once for yes, twice for no. Do you understand me? Once for yes and twice for no.”
I move a finger and press emphatically. Yes.
“Do you need help?”
A long beep.
“Is this Elizabeth Martin?”
Yes.
“Our system indicates you’re near the base of Nelson Peak. Is that correct?”
I press a long note again, then say as loudly as I can, “Tent.”
“You’re in a tent?”
“Party. Tent. Collapsed.”
“A tent collapsed near the base of the Peak?”
Yes.
“Are you injured?”
Another beep.
“How badly are you injured? On a scale of one to five. One being low, five being high. Give me a beep for each.”
One. Two. Three. I pause. Four.
“Pregnant,” I manage to gasp. “I’m pregnant.”
“All right, ma’am. Assistance is on its way. Our emergency services are stretched tight this evening, but we’ll get to you as quickly as possible. Please remain calm. Someone is coming.”
The object pressing me into the ground digs into my back and then lifts before I can get the cry of pain out of my mouth.
I breathe in and out deeply, aware for the first time that I hadn’t been able to take a deep breath before. My stomach cramps again. I try to reach down, but all I succeed in doing is losing my grasp on the phone.
I know where I am now. Trapped under the stage in the tent because I went looking for my stupid cell phone. Because of Ben. I needed to call Ben. At least I know he isn’t in here. But if he got out, why didn’t he come find me?
“Ms. Martin?”