The pain worsened. She vomited up a bitter substance that left her mouth sour. At some point, she dropped the wet washrag she was holding against her face and acknowledged to herself that she had a fever. She called Theda.

At the emergency entrance of the hospital she could barely walk. A nurse pushed her into a wheel chair.

“Where?” the doctor was asking irritably. “Now, wait! Where did it start? Here? Here?”

A blood count was taken. She held Theda’s hand and stared up at the white ceiling. “Her appendix is about to blow up,” someone said nearby.

“Prep,” said the nurse and shaved off her pubic hair. An intern put a needle in her arm. She was wheeled into an elevator. Theda’s long worried face was the last thing she saw, until a kidney-shaped white enamel pan tried to eat her. She threw up, gripping her belly, “Oh, Oh!”

“Here,” said the nurse. A glass straw protruded from a glass of ginger ale. It was morning. A mustachioed man was looking down at her. His white coat was heavily starched, especially over a breast pocket from which protruded a pen.

“How do you feel?”

“Awful.”

“It was pretty rotten. I’m surprised you didn’t have warning earlier. It’s a good thing your friend brought you when she did. You might have gotten peritonitis.”

She tried to smile since the worst hadn’t happened.

“Gassy?”

“It hurts.”

“It’s gas. This little tube will help no end. Or I should say, help your end.” He permitted himself a little medical heehaw.

Later, Theda was sitting in a chair near the window. The dark circles around her eyes aged her. In her partly drugged awareness, Annie suddenly saw Theda all alone. How tired, how strained she looked! Theda was staring at a picture on the wall of a vapid Pierrot. Slowly, she turned her head and saw that Annie was awake and looking at her. She got up and came to the bed.

“And what do you intend to do for your next number?”

Annie smiled weakly.

“I’ve gotten you a private nurse for a couple of days until they take that tube out of you. My new job has started, otherwise I’d stay. Don’t look so scared. It’s over. Cletus is bringing you books in a couple of days. Max is coming tomorrow. He’s taken care of telling the shop foreman you won’t be in for a while. I think you’ll get some kind of sick pay. Don’t worry.”

A nurse came in, and Theda left.

At night, Annie waited for the shadow of the nurse to fall across the doorway. That shadow brought oblivion. When she made sure she was alone, she moaned. There was pleasure in moaning. Then she discovered that she was not alone. An elderly nurse was dozing by the window. “Are you there?” whispered Annie.

“I’m here,” a voice whispered back.