Page 95 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

Did he pull the Protech people together for this? I wait, feeling annoyed, leaning on the gap in the barrier. Hammers ring out above us. Workmen shout from somewhere in the distance. Traffic whizzes by behind me, the screeches of massive trucks and busses, honking horns.

“Is this honestly something that we can’t handle in the restaurant?” I ask, impatient. “I’m taking this meeting as a courtesy. My mind is made up. You won’t change it. Neither will Juliana.”

“This is really important,” he says, holding his phone up, screen faced toward me.

I take off my glasses and squint; I can’t see it. “What is this?”

“I’m sending it to you. Check your mail. It’s critical.”

I pull out my phone and open my mail. “I don’t see anything.”

“I just sent it,” he yells over the screech of more traffic.

I’m squinting, looking for whatever ridiculous thing he wants me to see. The mail hasn’t come through. The next thing I feel is pressure on my chest. Two hands shove me backwards—into the traffic.

My phone flies from my grip. I can’t get my balance.

Time seems to slow. I’m aware of a massive hulk of steel barreling down on me. The last thing I see are Aaron’s crazy eyes.

Twenty-Two

Francine

He won’t wake up.They don’t know when he’ll wake up, and they don’t knowwhyhe won’t wake up. It’s a head trauma—that’s the word they keep using. He lies there, motionless. His head is bandaged and his leg is in a cast, elevated by a sling that hangs from the ceiling. Tubes snake into his arm.

I’m in some sort of shock. I’ve gone completely numb. Everything seems unreal, almost translucent and far away.

I hold his hand in the folds of the sheets. I trace a soft finger over his beautiful lips, over his forehead. “Come on, Benny.”

He’s been unconscious for four hours now. I heard somebody use the C word: coma, and something about it being a bad sign if he’s unconscious for more than six hours.

I tell him everything that comes into my mind. I want him to know I’m here. I try to sound bright and chipper, but I’m so scared. We just found each other—how could this have happened?

Waves of disbelief move through me, over and over.

Sometimes I lean over and just put our cheeks together. I don’t want to jiggle the machines or anything, but I want him to feel me, to feel my skin, to feel my heart near his.

It’s unbearable to see him so motionless. Unresponsive. Unable to ward people off with his scowly demeanor. Unable to be his intensely private self. He’d hate these tubes. He’d hate these lights. He’d hate so many strangers.

His nurse arrives. “It’s a good sign that your husband is breathing on his own,” she reminds me.

She’s a woman of maybe forty with close-cropped brown hair, and she used to be in the Army. We talked a little bit about that on her last time through.

“He doesn’t need a ventilator. It’s a very good thing.” She’s hooking up something orange to the tube in his arm—an antibiotic of some sort. Apparently his blood pressure is good as well. They sometimes tell me he’s lucky, considering he was hit by a bus going at full speed.

He needs to wake up.

Thank goodness we’re married. I don’t think they’d let me in to see him otherwise.

I was preparing our celebration dinner at his place when Aaron called me. Apparently they were to meet at a restaurant. Aaron was waiting, and when Benny didn’t show up, he started walking toward the penthouse. There was all this commotion in the street—cars stopped. People gathered around. Apparently Benny had stepped out into some traffic.

Benny’s phone was found nearby. He’d been immersed in his email and tripped or something. It’s hard to believe he’d be so careless. It’s true that when Benny puts his attention on something, that attention is total, but he’s lived in the city for years. He knows you don’t go bumbling into traffic while you’re looking at your phone.

I tell him about my meeting with Sevigny, and about quitting the tour. Sevigny was upset, but people in the dance world get it about injuries. “I’m helping my understudy, Daneen, on my part,” I say. “Of course my colleagues are upset, Benny, but I feel like it’s right. I know it’s right. We can do so much together now!” I squeeze his hand. “Right? Annie and the whole company, they deserve somebody who’s operating at full capacity for the tour.”

I scrub away a tear.

He just lies there, face ashen. I pull out my phone and put on a playlist that I made and downloaded, based on all of his favorite music. The nurse said it was okay as long as the phone stays in airplane mode.

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