Passage

“People standing out on deck, wondering what’s happened and asking the steward why they’ve stopped, some of them in evening clothes and some of them looking like they just got out of bed. And not frightened or shouting, not trying to get up to the Boat Deck, just standing there.”

“Got it,” Vielle said. “I don’t remember anything like that in the movie.”

I don’t either, Joanna thought. “Can you watch it tonight?”

“No,” Vielle said. “It’ll have to be tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Oh, there’s a stupid meeting tonight,” Vielle said carelessly.

“What about?”

“I don’t know. ER safety or something. Apparently they didn’t think their memo was enough, so now they’re going to subject us to a seminar. ‘Be alert to your surroundings. Avoid sudden movements.’ I wonder if that includes jerking awake after you’ve nodded off during the seminar.”

“Don’t make jokes,” Joanna said. “The ER is dangerous. You have to ask for a transfer out of here.”

“Can’t,” Vielle said breezily. “I’m too busy watching videos for my friends.”

“I’m serious,” Joanna said. “You’re going to get killed one of these days if you stay down here. I think you should—”

“Yes, Mother,” Vielle said. “Now, what am I looking for again? People standing in the hall in their PJs talking about hearing the engines shut off?”

“Out on deck. Not in the passages. How soon do you think you can find out?”

“As soon as I can get out of here tomorrow night, get to Blockbuster, and fast-forward through the first two hours of Leo and Kate hanging out over the railing and saying lines like, ‘I’m so lucky to be on this ship,’ ” Vielle said, miming sticking a finger down her throat. “Eight o’clock?”

Eight o’clock tomorrow, Joanna thought, wishing it were sooner. “Call me as soon as you find out.”

“You’re sure one of your volunteers didn’t see the Titanic?” Vielle said, looking worried.

“I’m sure. Where did you say Christmas Lights Guy was?”

“CICU.”

“CICU,” Joanna said and left before Vielle could ask any more questions. She didn’t have any intention of interviewing Christmas Lights Guy till she had this figured out. She’d just asked where he was to get Vielle off the subject of the Titanic, though if she wanted to get his NDE she really needed to do it now, get it recorded before he’d confabulated the—

I haven’t recorded mine, she thought, appalled. She’d been so distracted by wanting to prove the images hadn’t come from the movie, she’d forgotten where she’d been going in the first place. And all this speculation about where the memory came from and what it meant would be useless if her NDE wasn’t documented.

I need to get it down now, she thought, before any more time goes by, and ran up to first to the cafeteria. Halfway there, Lucille from CICU stopped her in the corridor. “Did Maurice Mandrake find you?” she asked. “He was looking for you.”

“Where did you see him?” Joanna asked.

“Up in CICU. He came up to interview a patient.”

Of course, Joanna thought, and there goes Christmas Lights Guy. But at least if he was up there, he wasn’t in the cafeteria. She thanked Lucille and went on down. The cafeteria was closed.

Of course. Joanna yanked on the locked double doors and then stood looking through them at the red plastic chairs upended on the Formica tables, trying to think where else she could go. Not her office, obviously, and not the doctors’ lounge. She couldn’t run the risk of anyone overhearing her talking about the Titanic. The visitors’ lounge in outpatient surgery was usually empty this time of day, but she’d have to go through three corridors and two walkways to get there, increasing the risk of running into Mr. Mandrake.

I need someplace deserted where Mr. Mandrake won’t think to look for me, Joanna thought, which was where? My car, she thought, and fumbled in her cardigan pocket for her car keys. She didn’t have them. The only key she had was to her office. Her car keys were in her bag in the drawer of her desk, and her car was locked. And it was too cold to sit on the hood.

The stairway, she thought, remembering the blocked-off stairwell she and Richard had sat in the day they met. But surely they were finished painting it by now, and people were using it again. Still, it was comparatively private and out of the way.

And warmer than the parking lot, Joanna thought, taking the service elevator up to third. And if she sat in the middle of the landing, where she could see both doors, she could hear people coming in plenty of time to stop recording, so she wouldn’t be overheard.

The elevator door opened. Joanna leaned out cautiously, looking for signs of Mr. Mandrake, but there was no one in the corridor. She walked down the hall and across the walkway, turned the corner, and started through Medicine.

“…and then my uncle Alvin said, ‘Come,’ ” a woman’s voice said from the half-open door of one of the rooms, “and he stretched out his hand to me and said, ‘There is naught to fear from death.’ ”