1. Let's Call Cam
Enid was a mess. She stumbled up North 8th Street in fishnets and six-inch heels, repeatedly pushing away her boyfriend Pete's offer of a helping hand. He gave up after a couple blocks, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and studied the pavement. They passed over a Toynbee Tile. Pete couldn't read it, beneath all the Yuengling bottlecaps and Wawa hoagie wrappers. Enid didn't even notice.
"Ow! Hey!" She drew back, shaking her leg as if to fling trash off her shoe. "Fuck off, rando! My boyfriend is a cop! Pete!" She stomped her feet and bellowed: "Peeete! This man is harassing me! Arrest him! Arrest him for… I dunno… horniness?…"
Pete regarded the man slumped against the side of Enid's apartment building. He was cocooned in a leather jacket three sizes too big, shivering in the warm August night. His bony hands were clenched tight. As Enid continued to shake away some imaginary pestilence, the man had ample opportunity to stare up her plastic miniskirt. But his sunken eyes were distant and unengaged. Too far gone: or never inclined in the first place.
"Look, pal," Pete sighed. "I'm not gonna arrest you when I'm off duty, and all I see is loitering. But you can't stay here. D'you even know where you are?"
"Ph-Ph-Philly."
"Yeah, that's right. North Philly, near Poplar. You know this neighborhood?"
"Ugh!" Enid huffed impatiently. She stomped up and down the sidewalk, yanking back in dramatic 180 turns as if tethered to Pete by a bungee cord.
The man shook his head. "W-we lived… down on R-Rittenhouse Square…" His eyes, dull and jaundiced, began to shine with moisture.
Pete changed tack. "'Jeet lately?"
"Not hungry," the man whispered.
"Ugh…" Enid said again. Pete realized she was no longer voicing her disgust with him. Just then she dropped to her knees above a storm drain and heaved.
"Your lady calls," the man joked weakly.
"I'll take care a her," Pete said, "then come back and check on you, a'ight? There's a shelter right over on Fairmount. Or we could call someone?"
He didn't think it possible, but the man shrank back even further in his coat. His voice was barely audible over a gentle breeze off the waterfront.
"There's no one left."
Enid grabbed Pete's wrist- hard- and yanked him up the stoop. After fumbling to get them into her building, she draped her arm over his shoulder and hoisted up a leg. What, like she expected him to carry her? He let the arm stay in place, but gently tapped her knee until she set her foot back down.
"Wimp," she snarled. "Betcha Cam would carry me."
Aw geez, he thought. Not this guy again.
Lately it seemed Enid would not shut up about Cam, an old classmate from design school who had just moved up from Washington D.C.. Enid made him sound like the Hulk. Six-two, big hands, big shoulders. One time Dr. Jones, their kooky old Textiles 101 prof, fainted in class; Cam just scooped her up and carried her to the nurse's office.
Enid hung all over Pete in the elevator, stinging the side of his face with jagged gusts of citric acid and alcohol. "Did I ever tell you…" She tried and failed to stage-whisper. "That Cam's seen me… naked?"
"What were you, the mannequin for his term project?" Pete scoffed as Enid spun about, cackling. If she couldn't play this straight, even to try and make him jealous, then that only confirmed his suspicions. Enid couldn't ditch Pete for her big, strong Cam, because the guy was gayer than the front row of a Streisand concert on Super Bowl Sunday. After all, they did meet in fashion design school.
Enid celebrated their arrival at her front door by puking down the front of Pete's t-shirt.
"Shit! Enid, c'mon!"
He carried on swearing, but in a deliberate sort of way. Just loud and profane enough that Enid wouldn't call him a wimp again, but quiet enough to avoid a noise complaint from the neighbors. Poplar was a respectable working-class neighborhood up until pretty recently. And it was after midnight on a weeknight…
"Cam has seen me naked!" Enid proclaimed, raising her arms and swaying through the apartment like some caricature of a Pentecostal church lady. "I've seen Cam naked! We all saw Cam naked! That's what years of boarding school'll do to ya! Poor Cam. Ooh!"
She began jumping up and down with glee, sending high-heeled shockwaves through the creaky wooden floors. Pete openly rolled his eyes.
"Ooh! I know! Let's call Cam!"
"Let's not," Pete snapped. "Dammit, Enid, all I wanted-"
"Aww, c'mon, Petey! You just gotta meet… I mean, you will shit bricks…"
Enid flopped onto the couch with her cordless phone in her hands. She grew mercifully quiet as she focused on dialing the number. As he scraped paper towels over his shirt, Pete muttered to himself:
"Dammit, all I wanted was to see Billy Joel at the Tower, but Little Miss 'Ooh, since when do you have money for concert tickets' wanted to see fucking Depeche Mode, at the goddamn Electric Factory…"
"Cammie! Hi!" Enid squealed into the phone. "Oh my God, so like, my cop boyfriend- not, like, 'the white guy in Lethal Weapon', cop; but, like, 'Tastykakes on his coffee breaks' cop-"
"Excuse me?"
"He's so fucking useless and I am soooo fucking wasted, could you-" Enid didn't even have to finish the question. A big, soppy grin spread across her face. "Aww, thanks, babe! Mwah! TTFN!"
She let the phone clunk heavily to the floor. Pete deigned his shirt to be beyond the rescuing capabilities of mere Quilted Northern. He peeled it off, threw it in the bathroom sink, and filled it with warm water and Ajax. Then he grabbed a bucket and returned to the living room. Enid absorbed into the sofa, while Pete perched in her tacky new living chair. She'd once proudly told him it was from some place called 'Ikea.'
He would've loved to leave, but he couldn't. This wasn't the best neighborhood for a shirtless white guy- who, admittedly, enjoyed more than the occasional Tastykake- to go walking around alone at 2 AM. But more importantly, he sensed it would be dangerous to leave Enid alone. Her breath was growing slow and quiet. Her hand hanging off the sofa was pale.
If Pete left and she puked again, before this Cam guy showed up… Or if Cam didn't show after all…
He was apprehensive about meeting Cam. On the one hand, Enid had seemed so put-together and ambitious when she first came to Philly; Cam might think that Pete was the bad influence here. In which case, he might feel compelled to rough Pete up. That would not end well. On the other hand, apart from the physique, Cam sounded remarkably nonthreatening- even downright nice. It wasn't just the campy stuff, either. Who agrees to check up on an old classmate on a small-hours bender, no questions asked?
Pete had just checked Enid's pulse again, and was passing the time by replaying "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" in his head, when there was a knock on the door.
"Helloo-o? Is anyone there? …Enid?"
It was a woman's voice: gentle, and polished. Pete felt himself relax with each step he took to the door. He opened it- and found himself looking up.
She was a head taller than him and, while long and lanky in frame, not the skinniest girl in the world. (Like he was one to talk.) She wore khakis and a Temple University sweatshirt, and carried a canister of something called 'Horlicks.' Her chestnut brown hair was straight, cut in a simple bob with blunt bangs. She wore gigantic wire-rim glasses.
"Oh, hi." She blinked down at him, the specs magnifying her brown eyes to doe-like proportions. "Gosh. I think I have the wrong apartment…"
"Not if you're looking for Enid, you don't. You here with Cam?"
She broke into a smile, warm and genuine- and a little buck-toothed. Suddenly, Pete was struck by the effect of it all: the retro hair, the goofy smile, the impossibly sweet eyes, the way she almost slumped in supplication with this can of 'Horlicks' stuff. She reminded him of an illustration from a kids' chapter book: something by Beverly Cleary or Roald Dahl. This was the kind of character you instantly knew was a 'good guy'- even if they were kind of weird.
"Actually, I am Cam," she said. She moved the Horlicks to one hand, and extended the other. "Camilla Rittenhouse Thayer."
Did she mean 'that' Thayer family? Or those Rittenhouses?
"I'm Pete Novak," he replied as they shook hands.
"And are you the allegedly useless boyfriend, Pete?" she gently teased.
"Afraid so."
Cam peeked past him into the apartment. "How is she?" she asked.
"Pulse seventy. About fifteen breaths a minute."
Cam frowned. "Both on the low side of normal."
"Yeah, that's right." Pete was mildly impressed. "Maybe we should get her on her side."
"I think that would be prudent, yes."
It was easy enough for the two of them to turn Enid over. Cam's smallest gestures caught Pete's attention. She took Enid's pulse like an expert; she rubbed her back like a friend. Maybe Cam had always been the 'sober one' at Corcoran. With friends like Enid, it'd only take a few years for her to have half the triage experience of a paramedic trainee.
"We'll keep tabs on her, and take her to the E.R. if she gets worse. Do you have a car?" she asked him.
"Yeah, but I live two miles away. How about you?"
She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I'm, uh, still learning to drive. But," she added brightly, "I know for a fact that there's an all-night SEPTA line right up Broad Street to Temple Hospital. You could spit out Enid's bathroom window and hit the nearest terminal."
The bathroom. Shit. "That reminds me," he clambered to his feet. "I should go air out my shirt…"
Cam had neither ogled nor smirked at Pete's bare torso. It was almost as if she hadn't noticed, until now. "So, how many screwdrivers did Enid hork up on you?" she asked wryly.
"I dunno, like, nine? I kinda lost her for awhile in the mosh pit…"
Cam sighed and rubbed Enid's back again. "Wow. You've really outdone yourself, old girl."
Then she sat back on her heels and started pulling off her Temple sweatshirt.
"I don't think we're gonna have time for your shirt, Pete. I'm not sure we'll even have time for Horlicks. Which is unfortunate, because just one mug of the stuff…"
The next bit was muffled by the sweatshirt around Cam's head, but Pete heard something about 'the U.K.,' 'converts for life,' and 'better than Ovaltine.' She emerged in a preppy, light green button-down blouse.
"Mum always stocks up when she goes back 'on holiday.' Anyway. I'm sure you don't want a sweatshirt after suffering the dreaded mosh pit. I hope you don't mind eau de nil."
"Eau de what now?"
Casual as you please, Cam began unbuttoning her blouse. Pete turned away. The next thing he knew the shirt fell gently over his head. When he dared to peek out from under it, Cam had pulled her sweatshirt back on and was pushing up off the floor. He lent her a hand. She took it, and smiled.
"Thanks, Pete. I'll call a cab to take us to Spring Garden Station. Oh, and hey: you're an officer of the law. Would you happen to know the number of that AIDS shelter down on Fairmount? There's a man out front who I think could use their hospitality."