Chapter 4

“Damn, this thing is stubborn,” Lily exclaimed. Once she discovered the false ceiling, she expected to be able just to tear it away and climb through the gap into the next store. But it was firmly affixed to the concrete above with a grid of metal braces. They had been working for what seemed like an hour to loosen just one panel so they could crawl up inside.

In the center of the room, the ceiling was low enough for Anna to stretch her arms up and reach it. Lily had located a plastic chair on which to stand, though it teetered precariously where she had it wedged between the fallen floor and the dirt wall. Each time they pushed, pulled or pounded, the ceiling gave a little but always returned snugly to its place. On one occasion, Lily reached through the opening when it was pushed upward and determined there was only about a foot of space between the ceiling tile and the actual ceiling of the shoe store. That would be barely enough room to maneuver, but first they needed access.

Trying valiantly to keep their spirits up, Lily had been jabbering on about how they could have picked up souvenirs along the way, emerging from the rubble in dirty white wedding gowns with tennis shoes and cheap earrings. One thing she recalled clearly was the red satin teddy in the window of the lingerie store. “Just imagine what we could pick up in Lacy Lady.”

Anna was the one who was quiet now, probably mired in thoughts of her marriage problems, which she hadn’t really explained other than to acknowledge their existence.

“Pardon me, am I keeping you awake?” Lily asked, still trying to inject levity into their predicament.

“Sorry. I was thinking about something. What were you saying?”

“I was saying why don’t you finish telling me why you’re so worried about things with your husband? Maybe it would help to talk it out.” Lily continued to tug at the ceiling tile.

Anna sighed, and plopped down on the sloping floor. “It’s humiliating enough without anyone else knowing about it. I haven’t even talked to my sister about this, and I usually tell her everything.”

Lily couldn’t imagine what was so terrible that Anna felt she had to keep it all inside. “You don’t have to be humiliated on my account. Just try getting it off your chest. Maybe you’ll feel better. I’m not going to judge you.”

“Well, it’s... you see, I... I learned right before Christmas that my husband had fathered a child with another woman.”

Lily had a feeling there might have been someone else in the picture, especially since Anna had been so reluctant to talk about it. A stepfamily didn’t have to be an insurmountable problem, but Lily knew from her legal work with blended families that some people had trouble adjusting to new family members, especially when it meant having contact with former spouses or partners. “So all of a sudden you have a stepchild you didn’t even know about.”

“It’s not the child. It’s the circumstances.”

“Is there an ex-wife in the picture?”

“Yes... no. Not an ex-wife—an ex-girlfriend. But this child was only a year old last July—which means he was conceived right after Scott and I got engaged... and after we had been intimate with each other.”

“Oh, I get it now. No wonder you’re upset.” Lily stepped down off the stool to pat Anna’s shoulder. “But you shouldn’t be the one feeling humiliated. You didn’t do anything wrong. And just for the record, I now disagree with what you said about your husband being a very nice man. Nice people don’t pull shit like that.”

“It’s complicated.” Now that the dam was broken, she seemed ready to talk. “The woman was his old girlfriend. He said they had been drinking, and he didn’t know about this baby until we ran into them back in November. She never even told him she was pregnant.” Anna sighed. “And I’ve been sleeping in the guest room ever since.”

“Being drunk is no excuse. People have to be responsible for their actions.”

“I know, Lily, but people make mistakes. He’s really not a bad person.”

“True. But screwing around is a deal breaker for most relationships.”

“Yes, and it would have been for us if I had found out about it before the wedding. But I didn’t. And since we got married, he hasn’t done anything to break his vows, and he swears he never will. So I feel like I made a promise and I have to honor it. Maybe I should quit beating both of us up and get over it.”

Lily was starting to understand Anna’s dilemma. She was hurt by her husband’s cheating, but bound by her own sense of commitment. “Those vows might have been spoken at your wedding, but they were implied the minute he asked you to marry him and you said yes. No one in their right mind would expect you to honor a commitment under these circumstances. The real question is whether or not you still love him enough to stay married.”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

Lily climbed back up on the chair and started working on the ceiling again. “What does your husband want?”

“He wants me to pretend it never happened.”

“Can you do that?”

“Of course not. And he can’t pretend he doesn’t have a son. He’s excited about it, just as he should be, and he wants to be part of the boy’s life. Even if he didn’t, it’s an obligation he can’t ignore.”

Flecks of dust and debris rained down from above and Lily brushed it off her hair. “But is that the issue? That he has a son? Or that he fooled around with somebody else when he was supposed to be committed to you?”

“The issue is that my husband now has a whole life that’s separate from ours. I didn’t plan to share the man I married with another family. And seeing Sara that night with the baby—he looked exactly like Scott—it was just... I don’t know, bizarre. I felt like an outsider.”

Lily’s instincts said Anna should cut her losses, but Anna didn’t need relationship advice from someone with her track record. With a strong jerk, she broke off a corner of the sturdy tile and reached above it. “Shit.”

“What?”

“It’s no wonder this ceiling is so hard to break through. It’s held together with braces on every tile. We’re going to have to break out three or four of them just to get up here.”

“Can we do it?”

“Eventually. But I’m tired. You mind having a turn?” She put her hand on Anna’s shoulder as she stepped down from the chair.

“Thanks for listening to my morbid story. I actually do feel a little better now that I’ve talked it out.”

Lily heard bits of tile being snapped off. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. I’d say it depends on how you feel about each other. Besides, you definitely don’t want to be taking advice on your love life from someone like me.”

“Oh, right. I forgot I was in here with The Heartbreak Kid.”

“That isn’t what I said. I make bad decisions. Repeatedly.”

“So tell me your sordid tales.”

“You’ll think I’m pathetic,” Lily groaned. “Hold the chair. I think I can get a better angle up here. Maybe I’ll feel even better if your luck’s been worse than mine.”

“Okay, but you’re going to think I’m such a loser. And I’m only telling you the B-version. That’s the one my mother gets.”

Anna chuckled. “That’s fine. I’ll fill in the blanks.”

“My first girlfriend...”

“No boyfriends ever?” “Boys are icky,” she said, enjoying Anna’s laugh. “My first girlfriend was a young woman named Melanie. I met her my sophomore year at UCLA and fell in love immediately.”

“Right, the U-Haul thing.”

“Except Melanie wasn’t a U-Haul kind of girl. She was one of those college lesbians, the ones who fooled around with women because it was cool. Eventually, they all find boyfriends.”

“And Melanie found a boyfriend.”

“Or two. Then my first year in law school, I met Becca Silby.”

“I know that name.”

“She was UCLA’s All-American point guard.”

“That’s right. And she turned down the WNBA to go play in Europe.”

“Who’s telling this story?”

“So is that how your relationship ended?”

“Correct.” A piece of tile hit Lily in the head. “Watch it.”

“Sorry. Any more after that?”

“I saved the best for last. My darling Beverly.” Lily didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm. “I met Bev right after I got out of law school. She was ten years older, and had a five-year-old son who I just adored. So I thought, ‘Great, someone mature for a change.’ We lived together for about two years, until I suggested maybe we should have some sort of commitment ceremony. You would have thought I’d asked her to move with me to a straw hut in Zimbabwe.”

“Not the marrying kind, huh?”

“Worse than that. As soon as I mentioned commitment, our relationship was over. But she couldn’t just break up. No, she had to make me the bad guy, so she’d pick fights with me and then get mad whenever I lost my temper or walked away from her.” Lily couldn’t believe she was confessing to such a poor choice for a girlfriend. “And she told all of our friends that she asked me to move out because I was becoming a bad influence on Josh... which was a big fat lie.”

“Why do people have to do things like that?”

“Because they can’t ever admit they’re wrong.” Lily realized she was getting worked up, as she often did when she spent too much energy dwelling on her time with Beverly. Two years had passed since their awful parting, but the feelings were still raw. “So I’m a three-time loser,” she finished. “If I ever do really fall in love, I seriously doubt I’ll be able to tell if it’s real. Now you see why I say you shouldn’t ask me for love advice.”

“You don’t sound like a loser to me. You sound like somebody who opened up her heart and people just took advantage. Your turn again, okay? My arms feel like they’re going to fall off.” Anna had successfully removed another portion of the tile.

“Sure,” Lily said, trading places with Anna on the chair. “Every now and then, I start feeling like I’m over that Beverly thing and then I hear all that anger in my voice when I talk about it.”

“It’s funny how some things get to us and we just can’t let them go.”

“I need to, though. Negative energy doesn’t serve any purpose.” She pulled down a large piece of the tile. “Except when I’m able to take out my anger on tile ceilings. I think this hole’s big enough to crawl through.”

“Ready when you are.”

“Only two more stores to go, Anna.”

“What if we’re still underground?”

“We won’t be.”

 

Lying prone inside the false ceiling, Anna wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and go to sleep. She was exhausted, sore, hungry and thirsty, but Lily showed no signs of wanting to rest, so Anna couldn’t bring herself to suggest it. Dehydration was their biggest worry now.

About an hour ago, they had climbed into the narrow crawl-space above the false ceiling. The support structure for the suspended tiles, a grid of metal frames and braces, was difficult to navigate, especially in total darkness. She was struggling with every move, her long legs constantly scraping against the bolts and sharp metal protruding from the frames. Progress was slow in the limited space.

“Damn it!” Lily said, slapping her hand against one of the braces. “We can’t get to the middle part from here.”

“Why not?”

“We can’t move forward. All the braces run crossways.”

“Can you tell if the wall sags enough for us to get through?”

“I think it does, but it’s going to be close. I can squeeze my fingers through here”—she pushed them through a crack and slid them sideways—“but not here. So I’m hoping that means it slants more toward the middle of the store.”

“I hope so too.” Anna sighed and started to wiggle backward. “We’ll have to go back to that row where the light fixtures were. It’s the only one without the crossbars.”

Lily groaned. “I’m so tired. Why don’t you grab my ankles and drag me?”

Anna lent the request more serious consideration than Lily had probably intended, figuring it wouldn’t be that hard to pull her backward. Her plan dissolved, however, when she discovered that touching Lily’s feet made her giggle and jerk uncontrollably. “I can’t believe you’re ticklish. I thought we agreed lesbians were supposed to be tough.”

“You’re pretty tough. Are you a lesbian?”

The question came as a shock, not because it bore any trace of sincerity, but because it was a stinging rebuke of her stereotyping remark. “I never thought about it. Maybe that’s my problem.”

“I’d say that’s definitely something you ought to share with your marriage counselor.”

Anna was about to remark that her marriage counselor was her office at Premier Motors when Lily gasped.

“I can’t believe I just said that. Anna, I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For... I don’t know, making fun of your marital problems. I wasn’t even thinking at all. It just—”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is. I was a jerk. An insensitive jerk.”

“I knew that hours ago when you said I peed like a ruptured water pipe.”

They both began to laugh.

“I can’t believe you mentioned peeing again,” Lily said, her voice a squeak.

“Me neither.” Anna shifted when she reached the corridor that housed the light fixtures. “I’m going to back up some more and let you lead the way. You can do this faster than I can.”

“Okay. Let me know when you think I should turn in toward the wall again.” On the second try, Lily found the widest part of the opening. “The wall’s crumbling here, but it still isn’t big enough for us to get through. I think we’re going to have to break it away like we did with the tile.”

Anna crawled along the adjacent corridor until they were side by side, chipping away at the drywall with their fingers. “I wish we still had that shoe thing we used to break the tiles.”

“Maybe I should go back and get it,” Lily said.

“You’re going back to pee again, aren’t you?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” she asked, squeaking again. “Why don’t you take a nap or something while I’m gone? It’ll probably take me half an hour to get down there and back. Then I can rest a little while you use the shoe sizer.”

“A nap would be nice.”

“Try not to dream about your bladder.”

“I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

 

Crawling out backward and finding the shoe sizer proved to be the easy part of Lily’s task. Getting back up into the crawl-space without help was more of a challenge than she wanted to admit. It took her a half dozen tries to get enough leverage to pull herself up, and when she finally did, she was exhausted.

Worse than that, the crawl space was filled with dust, bugs and rodent droppings. The stagnant air and exertion combined to produce the tickling wheeze she had dreaded since discovering she was trapped. As she scooted closer to where Anna was waiting, she erupted in a violent coughing fit.

“Are you all right?” Anna asked, her soft voice a sign she had been asleep.

“I’ll be fine.” Lily rasped as she crawled into the narrow space beside Anna. “I’m having a little trouble with my asthma, but if I rest a little bit, it probably won’t get any worse.”

Anna took the shoe sizer from her and began pounding at the edges of the crumbling drywall. Lily insisted on doing her part too, though her coughing spells were getting worse. As much as she needed to preserve her strength, she also needed to get out of this confined space.

“What can I do?” Anna asked.

“Nothing.” She drew a shallow, raspy breath. “I just need to get out of here and get some fresh air.”

Anna took the sizer and began to work feverishly on the wall. She refused Lily’s further attempts to take a turn, banging away until the hole was large enough to pass through. “Okay, I’m going first.”

Lily couldn’t have moved if she had wanted to. Had it not been for Anna’s hands hooking her forearms and pulling her through the opening, she might have drifted off in the crawl space. As she slid forward, she heard Anna groan in agony, presumably from bearing extra weight on her injured leg.

“It’s okay, Lily. We’re almost at the end. The air’s better in here. You’ll be okay.”

Lily was taking rapid shallow breaths and coughing profusely. “I need to... prop up... breathe better.”

She felt Anna scooting close behind her, and she leaned back against her chest. Soft hands smoothed the short strands of hair from her face, and Anna rocked her gently. For Lily, it was familiar relief. When she had severe asthma attacks as a child, her mom would hold her close and rock her while she wheezed. Lily knew she was in big trouble. Without her inhaler, the attack could get much worse. Anna needed to keep moving.

“You need to go on now,” she rasped. “Send someone back.”

“Not a chance, Pygmy. Like you said, we’re going out together.” Anna hugged her loosely. “Just get some rest and calm down. You’ll feel better.”

Lily closed her eyes and tried to relax, hoping Anna was right. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when an attack this bad went away on its own.

Something was different. Anna awoke to Lily’s vicious coughing spell. She helped her sit up and rubbed small circles on her back to comfort her as she gasped for breath. Anna looked around the gift store. A faint but definite glow was evident at the back edge of the wall going into the next store.

“Lily, I can see daylight. Look.” Anna turned her in the direction of the patch of light. “Let’s go.”

Lily shook her head, apparently unable to move. “Go, Anna... I can’t.”

Anna was frozen with fear. She couldn’t leave her. Lily had saved her life.

“You have to get help.” She gasped for breath then coughed violently. “I need to... get... an inhaler,” she stammered.

Anna squeezed Lily’s hands and kissed her bloodied forehead. “I’ll be back. It’ll be okay, I promise.” She stood stiffly and hobbled toward the faintly lit crack.

The dividing wall between the last two stores had separated from the concrete blocks that lined the back of the store, but the opening was too narrow to squeeze through. Anna rummaged in the darkness among merchandise that had fallen to the center of the room, feeling for something she could use to tear through the wall. Her hands wrapped around a wooden figure... a carved giraffe, she guessed, about three feet high. Holding onto its head, she pounded fiercely on the sheetrock until it began to crumble, her leg screaming in agony with every swing. With each clump of wallboard that fell away, the room grew brighter and brighter. Frantically she hammered, until finally she was able to squirm through the hole, elated to see a solid beam of light coming in from a quarter-sized opening at the apex of the room, about nine feet above the floor on the far wall.

“Help!” She screamed louder this time than she ever had. Looking about in the barely lit store, she spotted an extension rod used by clerks to reach items on the higher displays. Stretching it to its full length, Anna poked it through the hole to the outside. Up and down, side to side.

What if no one was there?

No, they had to be there. They had to be searching the building for survivors. It was too soon for them to give up.

After almost fifteen minutes, there was no response. She could hear Lily coughing in the next room and she yelled again.

But still no one heard. No one came.

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, and she spotted a mannequin at her feet, dressed in a red satin teddy. Anna pulled the extension rod back inside and tied the teddy to its end. Shoving it back through the tiny hole, she again waved it up and down, side to side, screaming for all she was worth.

The pole suddenly stopped moving as someone grabbed it from above. Anna pulled it back through, and yelled again. “Can you hear me?”

“We’re here. We’re going to get you out. Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right. My friend needs help. She’s having an asthma attack. Please hurry.”

“You need to stand back. We’re going to make this hole bigger. Get as far away as you can. Tell us when you’re ready.”

Anna scrambled back to the passageway. “Go ahead! I’m ready.”

The next ten minutes seemed like hours, but finally the searchers had widened the hole enough to illuminate the entire room. “It’s going to be a few more minutes. We’ll need to use some machinery to break through this cinder block,” a man’s voice assured.

“My friend can’t wait,” she pleaded. “She needs an inhaler now for her asthma. She can’t breathe.”

A few long seconds later, a head emerged through the hole. “Where is your friend?” the emergency medical technician asked.

“She’s in the next store, back there.” Anna pointed toward the hole through which she had previously climbed.

He disappeared, but soon the hole in the ceiling was filled by another man. “We want you to stay here. It’s too dangerous for you to go back there. When we get the hole widened, we’ll pull you out and send in one of the firefighters.”

Anna was filled with a sudden rage. “Give me the goddamned medicine now! She’s dying.”

The man retreated and the EMT reappeared. “I’m going to pass it to you in a pouch. Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes,” she lied. She figured Lily would know, and she didn’t want to waste another second getting safety instruction from people who had no idea what either of them had been through.

Moments later, a red pouch dropped through the hole to the floor below. Anna hurried to pick it up and shouted upward. “I’m going back. You can do whatever you want. I won’t be in the way.”

With the hole now larger, the light extended dimly into the gift store, enough for Anna to make out Lily’s form. By her lack of response, Anna feared she was on the brink of unconsciousness. She scooted again behind her and pulled Lily’s head onto her lap. “Stay with me, girl. I’ve got the medicine, but I need your help.” The EMT had assembled the inhaler for immediate use, and Anna held it to Lily’s mouth.

Lily fumbled a bit then wrapped her hand around the instrument and pumped it once into her mouth, breathing deeply. The reprieve was instant. She took three or four deep breaths, and pumped the device again.

Anna almost cried with relief when she felt Lily push herself up. “We’re about to get rescued. Are you ready?”

“You bet,” Lily whispered.

Together, they ambled to the passageway. As they crawled into the lingerie store from the separated wall, Anna was overjoyed to see a firefighter descending a ladder, carrying blankets and first aid equipment.

“Anna!”

She squinted and held her hand above her brow to shield her eyes from the bright sun. Scott was shouting to her as she emerged from the hole the rescuers had made in the crumbling wall. He pushed past the security guard and broke into a run. Moments later, he was there, holding her to his chest, and she felt a convergence of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her completely.

“Thank god, Anna. Oh, thank god!” was all he could say as tears streamed down his cheeks.

Anna returned his hug, crying now as well. Over his shoulder, she spotted her sister Kim, who joined them seconds later in a group embrace. “I’m okay now. It’s all okay.”

Their joyful reunion was interrupted by the EMT, who was directing Anna to a waiting ambulance. Instead, she turned back to the rescuers as they brought Lily through the opening on a stretcher, an oxygen mask affixed to her mouth and nose. She was slender and blond, with small features that belied her toughness. A nasty gash crossed her forehead above her left eye, which was swollen and black, and her clothes were covered with blood.

“Scott, write my phone number down on something. Quick!” Anna hobbled over, crouching as low as she could to the stretcher, and took Lily’s hand.

Lily reached for the mask and pulled it aside. “Thank you, Anna. I couldn’t have made it without you.”

“And I wouldn’t have made it without you. You saved my life.” Taking the paper scrap from Scott, she brought Lily’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “Here’s my number. Call me as soon as you’re better. We’re going to be great friends, Pygmy.” She stuffed the paper into the pocket of Lily’s skirt.

An EMT leaned over and swabbed a dirty patch of skin on Lily’s forearm.

“Is she going to be okay?” Anna asked anxiously as he inserted a butterfly clip.

“I think so. We’re just going to get some fluids into her as soon as possible. This is the best way to do it.” His voice was reassuring. “You should probably have some too.”

“Will I see her again at the hospital?” she asked as she staggered toward the waiting ambulance, still shaking from her ordeal.

“I doubt it. I think you’re going to Cedars and she’s going to St. George. We need to get her asthma treated right away.”

“But she’s going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” He smiled as he guided her into the arms of another attendant. “She’s going to be just great.”

Anna turned back to watch Lily’s departure. An older woman now crouched over her, crying and smiling, obviously joyous to have her loved one back. Anna liked knowing someone had been waiting for Lily after all, someone who clearly loved her very much.

Scott was still grinning at her and Kim was already on the phone sharing the good news. “Will you guys meet me at Cedars?” Anna stepped up gingerly into the back of the ambulance. She didn’t want to go alone, but she didn’t want to ride with Scott either.

“Of course!” they blurted, as they turned and ran for the car.

Anna peered through the window one last time as the rescue workers lifted Lily’s stretcher into the ambulance. She couldn’t wait to see her again, to hear her laugh and tease.

 

Lily had dreamed this earlier, just before Anna had come back with the medicine. They were both rescued and swept up by the people who loved them. But then she and Anna had climbed into a car and driven off together.

She had gotten only a fleeting glimpse of the woman who had saved her life. Long dark hair... beautiful blue eyes. Her dirty cheeks had been stained with sweat and tears, but it was the kindest face Lily had ever seen.

Her eyes opened suddenly as something stung the cut on her brow. She was in an ambulance, where a strange woman was wiping her forehead.

“Stings a little, I bet.”

Lily was too tired to answer. She just wanted to sleep. She could hear the radio crackle behind her head.

“Sounds like we just got a change of plans,” the woman said. “St. George is full, so we’ll be going to Valley.”

“My mother...”

The woman looked out the back window. “She’s still behind us.”

Lily dozed until she heard the door open at her feet. The next few minutes were a blur, as her gurney was wheeled through glass doors and into a curtained room, where the EMTs hoisted her onto a bed. A nurse came in and gently removed her clothing, placing it in a plastic bag.

“What name do you want me to write on this?” she asked, her pen poised to scratch an ID into the white space on the bag.

“Just throw them away,” Lily answered tiredly. Her bruises and scars were souvenirs enough.