Killer Pancake

The receptionist snapped the Social Security card with my old married name onto her clipboard and said to wait, she’d be right back. Well, excuse me, after notifying the federal government of the name change to go with my social security number, I had tried to get a new card. I had called the Social Security Administration numerous times after my divorce, when I’d resumed my maiden name. Their line was always busy. Then I’d called them thirty more times this spring, five years after the divorce, when I remarried and assumed the surname Schulz. Again I’d written to them about the name change. All I wanted was a new card. The line was still busy. If people died listening to that bureaucracy’s busy signal, did their survivors still get benefits?

The red-haired receptionist swished back out. Apparently my old ID had passed muster, because she led me wordlessly through the double doors of the CCU. Curtained cubicles lined two walls, with a nurses’ station at the center. I tried desperately to summon inner fortitude. Marla would need all the positive thoughts I could send her way. I was handed over to a nurse, who motioned me forward.

On a bed at the end of the row of cubicles, Marla seemed to be asleep. Wires and tubes appeared to be attached to every extremity. Monitors clustered around her.

“Ten minutes,” said the nurse firmly. “Don’t excite her.”

I took Marla’s hand, trying not to brush the IV attached to it. She didn’t move. Her complexion was its normal peaches-and-cream color, but her frizzy brown hair, usually held in gold and silver barrettes, was matted against the pillow beneath her head. I rubbed her hand gently.

Her eyes opened in slits. It took her a moment to focus. Then, softly, she groaned. To my delight her plump hand gave mine the slightest squeeze.

“Don’t exert yourself,” I whispered. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

She moaned again, then whispered fiercely, “I am perfectly okay, if I could just convince these idiots of that fact.”

I ignored this. “You’re going to be just fine. By the way, in case anybody asks, I’m your sister.”

She appeared puzzled, then said, “I’m trying to tell you, there’s been some mistake. I had indigestion. That’s all.” Denial, I knew, is common among heart attack victims, so I said nothing. “Goldy,” she exclaimed, “don’t you believe me? This whole thing is a misunderstanding. I woke up feeling just a little under the weather, and you know how damn hot it’s been.” She twisted in the bed, trying to get comfortable. “So I went for a jog around the lake. I started to feel much better. Nice and cool. Refreshed. Of course, I wasn’t going very fast. I was even thinking you and I could go out for lunch if you weren’t busy. And then I remembered you were doing that cosmetics lunch, which I had decided to skip because I felt so fat.”

“It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “Please, don’t upset yourself.”

“Don’t act as if I’m dying, okay?” Her pretty face contorted with anger. Once more she tried to heave herself up but decided against it, and sagged back against the pillow. “It doesn’t help. You know what my worst fear was when I heard the siren bringing those damn medics? That they would check my driver’s license. They’d know the weight I put down there was a lie. All these years, whenever I hear a siren, that’s what I think. I could just imagine some cop hollering, ‘Leave your vehicle and get on these portable scales! Marla Korman, you’re under arrest!’”

“Marla—”

“So let me finish telling you what happened. Before the paramedics came. I drove home real slowly from the lake. But at home I started to feel bad again—cold sweat, you know, like the flu. So I took aspirin and Mylanta, lots of both, and then I took a shower.” Her voice collapsed into a sigh. “Finally I called Dr. Hodges and he about had a conniption fit, probably because I hadn’t called him in ages. The man is a fanatic. He jumped to the conclusion that something was wrong. Those paramedics came roaring over, and before you knew it I was in this damn helicopter!” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I kept trying to tell them, I’m just woozy. I mean, how would you feel if you had your eardrums breaking with the whump whump sound of rotary blades?” The effort of talking seemed to exhaust her, but she plowed on. “And the sight of paramedics staring down at you? ‘Excuse me, ma’am, whump whump you’ve whump whump had a heart attack’? I said, ‘Oh yeah? What’s that I hear beating?’”

“Marla. Please.”

She wagged a finger absent of her customary flashing rings. “If they don’t let me out of here, they’ve seen their last donation from me, I can tell you that. That’s what I told the ER doc when I got here. He completely ignored me. ‘Look me up on your list of benefactors!’ I shouted at him. The guy acted deaf! I said, ‘Better ask your superiors how much Marla Korman gave this hospital last year! You don’t want to be responsible when those donations dry up!’”