The Rom-Commers(38)
Charlie shook his head. “I’m pig-sitting. Just while my wife’s out of town.”
“Ex-wife,” I corrected. Then I said, “Why is he in a tiny little fabric barn?”
“They like to hang out in little hidey tents. My ex has a whole collection. A circus tent, an igloo, a beehive. Even one shaped like an Airstream.”
“But—doesn’t he escape?”
Charlie shook his head. “He’ll stay like that for hours.”
“Did you say he has a brother?” I asked, looking around.
“His brother just died,” Charlie said. “So he’s pretty depressed. They’re herd animals.”
I looked at Cuthbert, and Cuthbert looked at me.
“Can I pick him up?” I asked.
Charlie shook his head. “They don’t like the feeling of being lifted up,” he said. “It makes them feel like they’ve been snatched by an eagle.”
“How do you know how guinea pigs feel? About anything?”
That’s when Charlie Yates, divorced custody-sharing guinea pig sitter, said, “I know what I know.”
This was definitely a shocker. Charlie Yates with a pet.
But Charlie wasn’t shocked at all.
He watched me watch Cuthbert for a minute, and then said in a stage whisper, “It’s two in the morning. Go back to bed.”
* * *
BUT I DIDN’T go back to bed.
Instead, I went back to my room, studied my bride-of-Frankenstein reflection in the mirror, and then tried to de-humiliate myself by putting my hair up, and brushing my teeth, and retying my robe—attempting to retroactively make myself presentable.
Somewhere in all that, I realized that the earthquake was still happening.
Everything was still shaking, I mean.
Except it wasn’t everything. It was just me.
More specifically, it was my heart. Doing that crazy new thumping thing again. I put my hand over it and felt it hurl itself against my palm over and over, like I’d trapped some magical beast in there—and it desperately wanted to get out.
Without much hesitation, I shuffled back to where Charlie was. Flip-flops on the correct feet this time.
Charlie stood this time as I showed up again—as if one random middle-of-the-night interruption was tolerable, but two was cause for alarm. He was in sweatpants, I now noticed, and a T-shirt with a Stephen King quote on it that said, THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH ADVERBS.
Were those his pajamas? It was such an odd sight. But did I think he slept in an Oxford and corduroys?
“I’m so sorry,” I said, making my way closer to him. “Can I ask you another question?”
“Sure,” Charlie said.
I closed the distance between us—very glad now that I’d brushed my teeth and tied back my hair—and I looked up into Charlie’s curious face.
I put my hand over my chest like I was about to start the Pledge of Allegiance. “Can you just put your hand here like this?”
Charlie nodded, and put his hand over his own heart.
“Not on yourself,” I said. “On me.” I clapped my hand against my chest to show him where.
Charlie’s eyes widened a little. “You want me to put my hand…” His eyes dipped down. “There?”
“This is for medical purposes,” I said. “I think I’m having a problem.”
“Is it a problem we can use words for?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I also need a physical assessment. If you don’t mind.”
He did mind. He clearly minded.
But he did it anyway, bringing his hand toward me with the energy of someone who has to reach down to fish something out of a garbage disposal.
He slowed as he got closer, like he might chicken out, so I grabbed his hand, pulled it the rest of the way, pressed his palm against my chest, and held it there.
“Can you feel that?” I asked.
Charlie looked a little panicked. “Feel what?” he asked.
“You tell me.”
Charlie held still for a minute, his gaze resting on our two hands. Then he said, “Are we talking about your heart beating?”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Yes,” I said. “Exactly. This is what woke me up.”
“Your heart beating is what woke you up?”
I nodded, like How crazy is that? “It was beating so hard, it was shaking the bed.”
“That’s why you thought there was an earthquake?”
“But it’s still going. You feel it. Right?”
“I feel … something.”
“Do you think I’m having a heart attack?”
“I don’t know much about heart attacks.”
“Can I feel yours?” I asked.
“Feel my what?”
“Your heart,” I said as I reached out to press my free hand against his chest.
Charlie blinked, like he couldn’t quite catch up to what was happening.
“Your heart’s beating, too,” I said.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “They do that.”
“But I mean, thumping. Pretty hard. Like mine is.” We couldn’t both be having heart attacks, could we? That seemed statistically … improbable. Could we have been—I don’t know—poisoned? Or something?