LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed at her. “Really? You’re just bitter. Not that I blame you, but I hope you can work this out. I love Phil. I know he has to be punished, but I love him. If I didn’t love you more, I’d take him off your hands.”

      They approached the door. “He watches himself brush his big, beautiful teeth, splatters all over the mirror and everywhere. He snores like a locomotive and farts in his sleep. He blows his nose in the shower and poops three times a day.”

      “Oh, he’s regular, that’s good. That’s one of the things I’ll be looking for in a man,” Andy said with a laugh. Then she knocked on Sonja’s door.

      “Knowing what you know, you could not have a man like Phil.”

      “Sister, if I could get a man down to one infidelity per twenty-five-year marriage, I’d think I was queen of the universe.” Andy knocked again.

      “I’m not ready to laugh about this yet,” Gerri informed her. “Where the hell is she? She’s usually pacing outside my door at least five minutes early. Hit the bell.”

      “I don’t want to wake George. He doesn’t get up before six.”

      “I wonder how he gets away with that, being married to the hyper one. Ring it, anyway.” When there was still no answer, Gerri pounded on the door. “What the heck,” she muttered. “Andy, see if you can see in the garage windows, see if there’s a car in there.”

      Andy handed off her coffee cup and jogged to the front of the garage. She had to jump up and down to get her eyes up to the windows in the garage door. Then she stopped and turned toward Gerri. “Just her car,” she said. “You think they went out for a whole night somewhere?”

      “She would’ve scheduled that with us three weeks in advance,” Gerri said. Then she pounded again and yelled, “Hey, Sonja! Sonja, come on!”

      “They’re not home,” Andy said.

      “She would’ve called. You know her—she’d pull herself off the operating table and call to say she’s running a little late because of major surgery.” She pounded and yelled again.

      “You’d better get in there,” a voice said from behind them. They turned to find BJ standing on the front walk. BJ shrugged. “She’s never missed a morning. She’d never be a no-show. She’s relentless.”

      Andy and Gerri exchanged looks, knowing how true that statement was, wondering for only a split second how BJ, who didn’t know them at all, would read the situation so accurately. So quickly.

      “Don’t you women have keys to each other’s houses? Because something’s gotta be wrong. If she’s not in there, maybe she is in the hospital. But you’d better find out.”

      “What could be wrong?” Gerri asked herself as much as the others.

      BJ shrugged. “I don’t know. But she’s wound a little tight.”

      Again, Gerri and Andy exchanged glances. Then Andy bolted across the street to get the key to Sonja’s house that she kept in her desk. She ran back across the street, leaving her front door standing open.

      Gerri opened the door slowly, peeking in. The house was still. Quiet and dark, all the blinds drawn. She stuck her head in and called, softly, “Sonja? George?” Then turning she said, “I don’t think anyone is home.”

      Suddenly BJ was there, brushing past them and striding purposefully into the house. She paused in the great room, looked right and then left, then headed down the hall toward the bedrooms. Gerri and Andy followed a bit more slowly, unsure if searching the house was the right thing to do, even under these circumstances. Then BJ yelled, “In here!”

      Whatever visions Gerri and Andy might’ve had as they raced to the master bedroom, nothing could have prepared them for what they found. Sonja sat on the floor between the bed and the bureau, her back against the wall. She wasn’t wearing her usual perfect, colorful walking togs but rather a skimpy little outfit, the type she’d wear to her yoga class. BJ was kneeling in front of her, then backed away as the other women came closer, letting them in. Sonja’s hair was limp and stringy, her face red and damp as if she was sweating, her eyes glassy. Her breath was rapid and shallow; she was hyperventilating. She almost smiled when she saw her friends, but instead, put one of her hands out toward them, showing nails gnawed down so severely they were nipped into the skin, pink and sore. “I bit them all off,” she said weakly.

      “Sonja! What’s the matter?” Gerri asked. “Are you sick?”

      “I’m okay,” she said. “I just need to move pretty soon. I have to get up,” she said, yet made no effort to rise.

      “Maybe she had a seizure or something,” Andy said.

      “Ask her if she took anything,” BJ said from behind them.

      “Sonja, did you take something? Medicine? Maybe a whole bunch of your magic herbs?”

      She shook her head, remaining against the wall.

      “Where’s George, Sonja? Has he gone to work?”

      “George,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor George.”

      “Sonja, what? What about George?” Gerri demanded.

      “Get her to the hospital,” BJ said from behind them. “She’s having some kind of psychotic break.”

      Gerri turned and looked at BJ. She was shocked that BJ would catch this before her, with her master’s in psych. But looking back at Sonja, it was obvious. Everything was all wrong—she wouldn’t have put on yoga clothes to walk in the morning, but she did have an afternoon class three days a week. She might’ve been like this since yesterday. But where was George? And the torn-up nails, the sweating face and greasy hair...

      Instead of asking any more questions, she said to Andy, “Get your car. Pull into her drive. Let’s go.”

      “Maybe an ambulance?” Andy asked.

      “Get the car. Right now!” Then to BJ she said, “Help me here,” and they each took one arm and slowly lifted Sonja to her feet, urging her to walk. “You’re going to be okay now,” she murmured to Sonja, leading her out of the house. “It’s going to be okay—just come with me.”

      BJ left them to take their friend to the hospital. Gerri sat in the back with a Sonja she couldn’t even recognize. She asked her questions all the way to the hospital, but didn’t get any answers. Sonja would sigh softly or whisper, “Poor George,” or just shake her head and turn unfocused eyes toward Gerri.

      It took quite a lot of confusing explanations at the emergency room before they put Sonja in an exam room. Gerri called her house and Jed answered. “Listen, I didn’t walk this morning, I’m—”

      “I know, Mom,” he said. “Some lady came to the door and said you had to rush Sonja to the hospital. But she didn’t say what was wrong. What’s wrong?”

      “We don’t know, she hasn’t seen the doctor yet. It’s like she’s drugged or something. I have to find George. Get my address book out of the kitchen drawer and see if his cell number is there. Look under Johanson. I know I don’t have it in my phone.”

      “Sure,” he said. “Want me to get Jessie and Matt to school? I can be late for class.”

      “Please. I should stay here until—”

      “Here it is,” Jed interrupted, reciting the numbers.

      “Thanks, honey. You’re in charge. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I won’t go anywhere else without calling your cell or leaving a note at home.”

      “Want me to run your purse and phone by the emergency room?”

      “Could you? That would help.”

      It was a long, tense hour before George entered the E.R. and went directly to the nurses’ station. He produced

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