Mandy used both, received a third, and then nodded.
“Now, we’re going to do all we can to contact your father; we’ll get some people working on that right away and they can be doing that while we’re working with you, but right now we have to ask questions and do some tests and do all we can to isolate the problem. Will you help us do that?”
She wanted to trust them. She nodded again.
June remained seated at the computer, typing away while Angela asked Mandy a whole string of questions:
Full Name: Mandy Eloise Whitacre.
Age: Nineteen.
Address: Mandy could recite it without a hitch.
Next of kin: Her father, Arthur, and there was also her aunt Josie, her dad’s sister who lived in Seattle. June typed in all the phone numbers and addresses.
Height: Five-four.
Weight: 108.
On any medications? No.
Any allergies? None that she knew of.
Any past surgeries? No.
Medical problems? She fell off a horse once and sprained her ankle.
When was her last menstrual period? Just finished it last week.
So not much chance she was pregnant? No chance at all, since she’d never had sex.
Was she in school, working? She was attending North Idaho Junior College, pursuing theater, and working in the research library to offset her tuition.
“And when did everything become different? Do you remember what time, how long ago?”
That was easy. Mandy recounted the whole story, throwing in lots of details just to show her mind was sharp.
Angela listened, nodded, then asked, “Do you remember being in any accidents where you hurt yourself, where you may have hit your head?”
“My girlfriends and I went on some rides at the fair.”
Angela perked up a little at that. “What kind of rides?”
“Uh … the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Chair-O-Plane … and that thing that looks like a hammer on both ends and the cars tumble around while the big hammer spins—you know what I mean?”
Angela stepped back and looked her up and down. “Have you ever heard of a CAT scan?”
“I don’t think we went on that one.”
“Well, I’m talking about—”
“I’m kidding. But can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“What year do you people think it is?”
Angela looked around the room until she spotted something. “Let me show you, and you tell me what you think.” She stepped over and moved an IV pole that had been half covering a wall calendar, one of those charming calendars with a Norman Rockwell painting for each month. She pointed at the precise date. “Today is right here, September seventeenth, 2010.”
Mandy studied the calendar. The year 2010 was printed plainly over the month. No doubt she could touch that calendar and it would really be there. She was a little surprised at her own reaction, a strange, incredulous chuckle. Why shouldn’t it be 2010? By now they could have told her she was on Mars in an experimental futuristic city under a huge plastic dome with artificial weather and that would have fit in just fine with everything else. “What’s a cat skin?”
chapter
----
4
FIERY WRECK KILLS MAGICIAN
Mandy Eloise Collins, best known as the witty and offbeat wife and partner of Dane Collins in the magical duo Dane and Mandy, was killed yesterday and her husband, Dane, injured when the Collins’s car was sidestruck by another motorist, also killed in the crash. Dane Collins, riding in the passenger seat, escaped and was subsequently injured trying to rescue his wife from the burning vehicle… .
T he news story went on recapping their career, identifying the drunk driver, quoting a police spokesman, covering the lesser details, blah blah blah. Dane could read only so far before the real world with its real pain returned, overrunning the stupor of the painkillers and the drug-induced oblivion of the previous night.
The photo was difficult enough. Arnie sent the Las Vegas Sun some promo pictures and an eight-by-ten for them to crop, resize, whatever they wanted, but of course it was the wrecked BMW
“Now, we’re going to do all we can to contact your father; we’ll get some people working on that right away and they can be doing that while we’re working with you, but right now we have to ask questions and do some tests and do all we can to isolate the problem. Will you help us do that?”
She wanted to trust them. She nodded again.
June remained seated at the computer, typing away while Angela asked Mandy a whole string of questions:
Full Name: Mandy Eloise Whitacre.
Age: Nineteen.
Address: Mandy could recite it without a hitch.
Next of kin: Her father, Arthur, and there was also her aunt Josie, her dad’s sister who lived in Seattle. June typed in all the phone numbers and addresses.
Height: Five-four.
Weight: 108.
On any medications? No.
Any allergies? None that she knew of.
Any past surgeries? No.
Medical problems? She fell off a horse once and sprained her ankle.
When was her last menstrual period? Just finished it last week.
So not much chance she was pregnant? No chance at all, since she’d never had sex.
Was she in school, working? She was attending North Idaho Junior College, pursuing theater, and working in the research library to offset her tuition.
“And when did everything become different? Do you remember what time, how long ago?”
That was easy. Mandy recounted the whole story, throwing in lots of details just to show her mind was sharp.
Angela listened, nodded, then asked, “Do you remember being in any accidents where you hurt yourself, where you may have hit your head?”
“My girlfriends and I went on some rides at the fair.”
Angela perked up a little at that. “What kind of rides?”
“Uh … the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Chair-O-Plane … and that thing that looks like a hammer on both ends and the cars tumble around while the big hammer spins—you know what I mean?”
Angela stepped back and looked her up and down. “Have you ever heard of a CAT scan?”
“I don’t think we went on that one.”
“Well, I’m talking about—”
“I’m kidding. But can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“What year do you people think it is?”
Angela looked around the room until she spotted something. “Let me show you, and you tell me what you think.” She stepped over and moved an IV pole that had been half covering a wall calendar, one of those charming calendars with a Norman Rockwell painting for each month. She pointed at the precise date. “Today is right here, September seventeenth, 2010.”
Mandy studied the calendar. The year 2010 was printed plainly over the month. No doubt she could touch that calendar and it would really be there. She was a little surprised at her own reaction, a strange, incredulous chuckle. Why shouldn’t it be 2010? By now they could have told her she was on Mars in an experimental futuristic city under a huge plastic dome with artificial weather and that would have fit in just fine with everything else. “What’s a cat skin?”
chapter
----
4
FIERY WRECK KILLS MAGICIAN
Mandy Eloise Collins, best known as the witty and offbeat wife and partner of Dane Collins in the magical duo Dane and Mandy, was killed yesterday and her husband, Dane, injured when the Collins’s car was sidestruck by another motorist, also killed in the crash. Dane Collins, riding in the passenger seat, escaped and was subsequently injured trying to rescue his wife from the burning vehicle… .
T he news story went on recapping their career, identifying the drunk driver, quoting a police spokesman, covering the lesser details, blah blah blah. Dane could read only so far before the real world with its real pain returned, overrunning the stupor of the painkillers and the drug-induced oblivion of the previous night.
The photo was difficult enough. Arnie sent the Las Vegas Sun some promo pictures and an eight-by-ten for them to crop, resize, whatever they wanted, but of course it was the wrecked BMW
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