Page 97 of Here We Go Again
But Rosemary is on her knees on the bed beside him, leaning over him, pushing up and down on his chest.
Joe’s cheeks aren’t bright. It’s the last remnants of his drag makeup, not washed completely away.
It’s Remy who’s crying out—“It’s not working!”
“Keep using the bag valve mask!” Rosemary orders, and Remy fastens a plastic suction mask over Joe’s mouth and squeezes the bag with his hand as tears stream down his face. Rosemary interlaces her hands and presses down on Joe’s chest.
Odie is at the foot of the bed, watching the scene, whimpering, like he knows something they don’t.
And Logan is frozen by the bedroom door, watching, thinkingno, no, no.
It’s gas. Farts. It’s just gas again.
No no no.
Maybe she’s sayingnoout loud, because Rosemary turns toward her. Her eyes aren’t ice and they aren’t fire. They’re some third element, hard and faraway and completely in control. “Logan,” Rosemary says. “Go let the paramedics in.”
Logan is still asleep. She must still be sleeping. Rosemary isn’t even dressed. She’s on the bed in a pair of white cotton underwear and one of Logan’s tropical shirts thrown haphazardly over the top, her boobs exposed to Remy and Joe. Awake-Rosemary would never do that. This has to be a dream.
This has to be a nightmare.
“What happened?” Logan hears herself ask.
“H-he… he was gasping for air.” In Remy’s eyes, there is nothing but panic. “And then he just… stopped breathing.”
“The paramedics!” Rosemary shouts. “Show them inside!”
There are paramedics at the front door, a fire truck is parked in the swamp gutter. A gurney. For a body.
“Where is he?” someone asks.
Logan leads them to Remy’s room, clears a path as they go. One paramedic takes the bag valve mask from Remy. Rosemary slides out of the way, closing the tropical shirt over her chest. It’s the shirt with all the cacti on it. They look like prickly pears.
And this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. It’s supposed to beRosemarywho breaks her heart, not Joe. Not right now.
“What happened?” a third paramedic asks. He has a gentle hand on Logan’s shoulder. She gets the impression he’s been asking her this for a while.
“I-I don’t know what happened.”
The paramedic nods, and Odie whines and whines.
“We went to a drag show last night,” she tells him, because she’s not even sure what’s relevant at this point. “He danced and sang. He was alive last night.”
The paramedic nods again. “Why don’t you go get dressed?”
She looks down and realizes she’s naked, too.
“Is he dead?” she asks the paramedic. His hand is still on her shoulder.
Joe isn’t dead.
It’s still dark outside when Rosemary climbs into the back of the ambulance clutching Joe’s hand.
Remy is crying too hard to drive, so Logan gets behind the wheel of the Gay Mobile and shuts off all tears, all feelings. She puts on her sunglasses, even though there’s no sun, and she drives them both.
The hospital is across the street from the Rouses grocery store, which means she’s seen it a dozen times without registering what it is. They park close to the ER. A woman at the check-in counter tells them Joe has been admitted, but they can’t see him yet. Logan feels untethered to her body.
Now they’re moving him to a different floor. A different nurse comes to lead them through ghoulish, fluorescent hallways toward a waiting room.
