Crazy for Cornelia by Chris Gilson

Author:Chris Gilson [GILSON, CHRIS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446930789
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

Part Three

Code Green

Chapter Fourteen

No comment,” Kevin told the feral-looking stalkarazzi waiting outside.

He left the hospital glowing from the painkillers, which acted to block the nerves. Real linebackers, these pills were. His head began to congeal as if wet cement were pouring in and hardening. A ringing like a chorus of crickets began in his ears, canceling out the yowl of the photographers and a rap version of “Silver Bells” playing somewhere on a boombox.

“Kevin, you sure you’re okay?” Marne had come to meet him. Now she pointed him toward the curb, and stuck her fingers in her mouth to whistle for a cab.

Kevin stared out the window of the rattling taxi. New York at Christmas could be beautiful, like a fairy tale with sparkling lights. Trust welled up inside him. Everything was good. Everyone was fine. He turned to his sister, that Joan of Arc in her Fire Department Athletic League team jacket, who saved infants and old people from burning buildings. He gave Marne what he imagined was a beatific smile. Her green eyes scanned his face in the half-light, while waves of neon darted across the inside of the cab as they wormed through traffic, then reeled down Second Avenue.

“Dad came off work and waited in the ER for you as long as he could. He had to go back, but I called him to say you’re fine. Helen, too. Kevin, what happened?”

“I helped a girl, that’s all.”

She sighed and looked past his face at the street. “A screwed-up deb. Kevin, she’s not somebody you ought to be doing for. She’s got serious problems.”

“What? She’s got money, so she can’t have feelings?” He surprised himself, letting Marne push his buttons. Especially when the Peres made him feel as charming as a game show host.

“It’s not money,” she told him. “It’s class. Like Dad says, Old Money comes from a different planet. I’ll give you an example, you tell me if I’m wrong. I’m working a fire at the old Ivy Club, trying to get a guy out of his guest room. Sweet old man, barefoot in his bathrobe, face full of soot with the eaves falling down around him. So I’m helping him through the burning timbers and putting my coat down so he don’t burn his feet, and I yell to my partner, ‘He don’t have shoes.’ And the old guy stops and looks me in the face and says, ‘He doesn’t.’ I say, ‘sir?’ He corrects me, ‘He doesn’t have shoes.’ He was looking down his nose at me while I’m saving his life, Kevin. He doesn’t, he don’t. Two different worlds.”

“Marne,” Kevin said. “I’m not interested in her.”

“Yeah?” Marne chuckled without humor. “Well, good. ‘Cause if you’d gotten killed, she would have stepped over your body and gone crying home to Daddy.”

As she spoke, he felt the sweet party of the painkillers wearing off. His ear felt like it had expanded to the size of a cantaloupe and his shoulder throbbed. They alternated, like parts of a toy man, swaying mechanically back and forth to punch him.

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