The Ring Chapter 11

 

MARGO LOUD STEINER

MARGO WOKE. WHERE was she?

Light filtered through the wooden slats on the outside window shutter slats opposite the single bed she lay in. Her head felt like a perfect definition of the word groggy.

It was a hospital. Through the slats she could see an ambulance turn next to the building she thought she was in. Across the street were brick apartment buildings like the kind Hemingway might have rented in the 1930s.

Her foot ached. When she kicked the covers off with the non-aching foot, she noticed a blue plastic cast.

Then it came back to her: the fall, the pain, the vernissage, holding court in a chair. She’d talked to three people who wanted plates, one who wanted a tea set, and one who wasn’t sure what she wanted, but knew it was something.

Margo knew that clients who didn’t know what they wanted could be really difficult but could turn lucrative. Despite her pain she remembered little red stickers had been placed on many of the pieces.

The card of one of those women, the one with the chignon and scarf, said she was from Belgium. Chantal whispered that she was a countess. Margo should have known by the classy but understated clothes. She’d dealt with enough wealthy and upper-class women to rank their position in society.

A doctor had been at the vernissage. He hadn’t ordered ceramics. He took her to his clinic where she vaguely remembers a shot and then very little until just now.

A knock at her door was followed by Bethany and Marie-Noëlle, who carried a tray with coffee, a clementine and a croissant. “We brought everything to the cripple with a cast.”

Marie-Noëlle had been Margo’s friend since forever and was hosting both her and Bethany during the vernissage. “How are you feeling?”

“I hurt.”

“The doctor who took you to his clinic left a prescription for a pain killer.”

“If it makes me feel this sleepy, I don’t want any.”

“I told you she would say that.” Bethany said to Marie-Noëlle. She turned to her mother. “I think you should come back to Germany with me. Dad said he could put you up.”

“I want to get to work on my orders.” Margo swung her legs out of the bed. When the room moved, she paused in her flight to the toilet. Now she remembered: the x-rays and shot. She didn’t remember the blue plastic cast going on, but that could have been after the shot. Maybe she could wait a day or so before flying home.

“You could stay here, too,” Marie-Noëlle said.

Margo watched her friend and daughter exchange glances. All she wanted to do now was head for the bathroom, and damn it all, she would need help. That annoyed her.