Ramola tries to be reassuring, soothing, without lying that everything will be all right. “I know sorry isn’t enough, doesn’t come close to covering it, but I am so terribly sorry. You’re almost here, yes? Then we’ll get you help—there you are now. Brilliant. Park next to the walk and we’ll swap seats. I’m stepping out the door now.” Ramola does not wait for Natalie to respond and stuffs her phone into her overnight bag. She looks once into her empty townhouse to make sure she isn’t leaving something important behind. Her laptop is closed, marooned in the middle of the kitchen table. She doesn’t need it but a wave of sadness swells as she has the urge to call her mum and dad to say sorry for giving them the rush off the call earlier.
Ramola opens the front door and darts outside into the overcast and cooling day.
Natalie’s white mid-sized SUV weaves through the small parking lot, tires squealing at the final turn, and jerks to a stop perpendicular to the end of the walkway. Ramola runs to the car. There is a consistent breeze and fallen leaves scurry madly in front of her feet.
The driver’s-side door opens. Natalie growls with pain and swears.
Ramola calls out, “Do you need help?”
“I got it. I’m out.” Natalie stalks around the car’s front, her right hand on the hood for balance. Her belly is significantly bigger than when Ramola last saw her at the baby shower. Natalie cradles her left arm, bent up at the elbow. Her sleeve is dark with blood from forearm to wrist. Her face is slack, haunted, and all red eyes. She says, “This is really bad.”
Ramola nods and clears her throat of whatever wavering, tearful greeting or response she cannot and will not give her friend. She says, “Come here. We need to get that sweatshirt off and clean where you were bitten.” She flips the towels onto the car’s roof, drops her overnight bag to the ground, and retrieves the water and soap bottles.
Natalie does as instructed, hissing as she peels the sleeve away from her wounded left arm.
“Bend your arm like this, make a muscle for me.” There’s a ring of small, ragged puncture wounds, surrounded by puffy, angry red skin. Natalie did not lose a chunk of herself; the man bit and released.
“Do we have time for this?”
Ramola doesn’t know, but she also doesn’t hesitate. She squeezes soap directly onto the wound and smears it around. “The rabies virus is not hardy and cleaning greatly reduces the likelihood of infection.”
“But this isn’t a regular rabies virus.”
“No, it isn’t.” Ramola, a full head shorter, flashes a look up into Natalie’s tear-stained face. Natalie doesn’t return the look. She nervously scans the lot and its surrounding environs.
In the distance, a burst of dog barks is followed by a chilling high-pitched wail of a coyote. Prior to moving to this Boston suburb, Ramola never anticipated that coyotes were animals she might encounter. Their calls are oddly commonplace at night. She’s never heard one cry during daylight hours, though.
Ramola chances a look over her shoulder at the townhouse complex. A curtain flutters in Frank Keating’s front window.
Natalie says, “A rabid fox attacked Paul’s moving car.”
Foxes were Ramola’s favorite animals as a child. She once famously scandalized a sitting room full of wine-drinking adults (her parents included, though they both were laughing as they admonished her) when she walked out of her bedroom, stuffed-animal fox in tow, intending to ask for a glass of water, but instead inexplicably announcing to the party that all fox hunters were toffs or tossers.
Ramola tries to banish an unbidden image of an adorable red fox, frothing and turned stumbling monster. She says, “We’re just about done.” Ramola flushes the wound with the bottle of water. She then wraps one towel around Natalie’s forearm. “I have a sweatshirt in—”
“I’m not cold. We need to go.” Natalie opens the passenger-side door and gingerly climbs inside.
Ramola strips off her gloves and tosses them to the ground on top of the bloodied sweatshirt, denying the urge to gather the contaminated material for proper disposal. She quickly dumps her bags into the backseat, and while doing so, she spies Natalie’s own fully packed emergency overnight bag on the floor behind the passenger seat. Ramola grabs the second towel from the roof and runs around the rear of the car to the driver’s door and opens it. She does a quick-and-dirty job of wiping the steering wheel, driver’s seat, and the door’s interior panel. She drops the towel to the pavement and climbs inside. The wipe-down job was not sufficient; the steering wheel feels damp in her hands. She can deal with her own risk of exposure later, after they get to the hospital. She admonishes herself for not wearing two sets of gloves. The exposure risk is minimal, given rabies is not blood-borne and the virus typically dies once the infected saliva dries, but at the same time, she needs to be smart, vigilant.
She’s sitting too far away to safely manipulate the pedals. Ramola blindly fumbles with the lever beneath the seat, attempting to slide herself forward. Ramola feels her own level of panic rising as Natalie whispers, “We need to go, we need to go.”
Ramola is about to give up and scoot her butt forward and sit at the edge of the seat when she finally pushes the lever down and the seat glides forward. She says, “All right. All right, here we go.” She turns the key in the ignition and there’s a terrible grinding sound from the engine, which is already running. Ramola’s hands fly off the steering wheel as though having received an electrical shock.
Natalie says, “Maybe I should drive.”
“Dammit. Sorry, sorry.” Ramola shifts into drive and the SUV lunges forward. The vehicle is bulky and unwieldy in comparison to her nimble little compact, but she manages to guide it through the lot and onto Neponset Street. There are no other vehicles on the usually busy road. The Honey Dew Donuts, rows of small businesses, and the residences lining or facing the street are darkened and appear to be empty.
“How are you feeling?”
“Just peachy.” Natalie holds her swathed left arm atop her belly.
Ramola pulls the seat belt across herself and buckles it. “Right. Yes. What I mean to ask—”
Natalie says, “I’m sorry. I’m just so scared. Thank you for being here, taking me to the hospital, thank you . . .” She trails off, stares out her window, shaking her head and wiping away tears with her right hand.
Ramola has the urge to reach out and pat Natalie’s shoulder or thigh, but she keeps both hands on the steering wheel. “Of course I’m here for you, and I will be here for you all day.” The sentiment is as odd and awkward as it sounds.
Ahead, the traffic light at Chapman Street turns red. Ramola eases off the accelerator and Natalie says, “Tell me you’re not stopping.”
“I’m not. Only making sure it’s safe to pass through.” Once she’s confident there are no cars approaching from their right, she speeds through the three-way intersection. Ramola chances a look away from the road at Natalie, hoping for a comment if not a joke. Natalie continues to stare out the passenger window.
Ramola asks, “Do you have a headache, or any body aches aside from your arm, of course? Any flu-like symptoms?”
“I have a headache and my throat hurts, but I’ve been yelling and crying nonstop.”