Flight #116 Is Down Read Online Free Page B

and broken glass.”
    Laura had fallen mildly in love with Patrick, who assisted his father in the instruction. Everybody had to take turns being victim and being rescuer. Laura wanted to be Patrick’s victim, but of course somebody else got Patrick. Laura ended up, time after time, with Ty Maronn.
    Just because you both wanted to be ambulance volunteers didn’t mean you had anything else in common.
    Laura and Ty couldn’t abide each other.
    Laura said Ty had no personality. “He’s sort of like an undershirt,” she would say. “You could fold him up, or stuff him in a corner, or wear him inside out, and you’d never notice one way or the other.”
    Ty felt Laura had far too much personality. “She can’t stand anything unless it’s her show,” he said to any other trainee who would listen. “She has to be in charge. If she’s not in charge, she certainly wants to be the one most seriously hurt, getting the most attention.”
    Saturday afternoon was sluggish and gray.
    Winter had lasted too long; everybody was sick of it; everybody wanted to be in Florida or the Bahamas. But what with school, and lack of money, all they could do was party.
    Laura and Ty were at the same party. This particular party had started too early. It had no purpose and no plan: just a bunch of people in the same living room, drinking sodas right now but getting bored, looking around for more; ready for beer, for cruel gossip instead of chatter, for sex instead of laughter. It was not a particularly nice party. Nice people, Laura thought, I like all these people. But any minute now the party’s going to go bad.
    She was not sure what to do about it. She’d come with a girlfriend and therefore didn’t have her own car. The girlfriend had vanished, and it was not the kind of party where Laura felt comfortable poking in dark rooms looking for somebody.
    Laura was on call Mondays. It being Saturday, she did not have her scanner with her. She was not thinking of rescues or fires. She was thinking drearily of the paper she and her parents had signed about them coming to get her if there was drinking and drugs, no questions asked. She was thinking—But nothing is happening. I can’t call them when nothing is happening.
    Which, perversely, made Laura feel like starting something. Everybody in the room was ready to start something. The group was working itself up, teetering on the edge. The decision was in the air—whether to join in and even goad the others along when trouble started or whether to deflect it.
    Saturday: 5:35 P.M.
    Heidi was waist-deep in dogs. She was not in a dog mood. Her mother had ankle biters; miniatures with wrinkled bodies like stacked pancakes. Heidi could hardly tolerate Winnie and Clemmie. She didn’t even consider them dogs, just little yippy things she wished would run away and forage in the woods. Her father’s dog was a long, lean, award-winning Irish setter who required brushing, grooming, de-ticking, walking, and love. Fang could not go ten minutes without whining for more attention. (Heidi knew how that felt, but tried to keep herself from actually whimpering out loud.)
    “Come, here, Fang,” she said resignedly, and the dog, tail brutally whacking furniture, climbed all over her.
    Heidi was sturdier than she wanted to be.
    Fashion these days required you to be anorexic. Her short friends were size three, and her tall friends were size eight. Naked or clothed, you couldn’t tell they needed bras. Their clothes fit perfectly. Heidi was dramatically curved. She had read that men liked this, but you couldn’t prove it by Heidi. All she knew was that her clothes did not fit perfectly.
    Everybody else took aerobics and jazzercise. They hopped and danced and flung and arched. “I’d need a shelf under my bosom to do that,” Heidi said, and the gym instructor, whose shape was basically inverted, said, “Nonsense, Heidi.”
    Heidi never wore makeup. She had naturally red cheeks, long lashes, and bright