Hollie Porter Builds a Raft

2. YouTube Famous

2

YouTube Famous

“Hollie? Hollie Cat, wake up, sweetie. Look at me. Look at Dad. Come on, kiddo.”

Ryan holds my hand, leaning over the seat in the row in front of us, while my dad, a nurse (yeah, yeah, my dad is a nurse) pats my cheeks to bring me around. I smell barf. Which makes my stomach want to give a repeat performance.

Why am I on the ground?

A new voice. “Step aside. Excuse us. Oh, hey, Mr. Porter. And Ryan! Wow, hey! Wait—is that Hollie?”

No. No. No.

I did not just pass out in the middle of the Moda Center. They did not call the paramedics. And that is not Keith, my paramedic ex-boyfriend, standing over me with his stethoscope around his neck. This is too rich.

I have to sit up. I’ve made enough of a spectacle of myself.

“Nooooo, you don’t. Stay put, Hollie,” Keith says. Just perfect. His moment to shine. There are hundreds of paramedics in the city of Portland, and I get THIS one. Further proof that I did something really terrible in my last life, and now all the important deities are giggling and nibbling on appetizers at their collective golden table in the sky.

Blood pressure is low. Duh, I could’ve told you that. Just ask the stars floating around my peripheral vision.

A hundred questions about what’s going on, answered by my dad and Ryan taking turns. “Could she be pregnant?” Keith asks. This pisses me off, even if he is just going through the EMS 101 cards.

“NO,” I say loudly. “It was the hot dog. Why are you even here?”

“We’re the team on call in the arena tonight. Hockey’s a brutal sport. But I don’t gotta tell you that, do I,” Keith answers, flirting with Ryan. I’d be embarrassed for him, except vomit.

The arena announcer tries to return everyone’s attention to center ice because the weird girl in section 103 is going to be okay. Like show biz, the game must go on. I don’t want to be responsible for a delay-of-game penalty.

It doesn’t take much longer for stadium security and Keith plus cohort to load me onto their little board and get me the hell out of there in case I have something communicable, most probably because I’m throwing up and it’s really gross.

“I’m so sorry about my new jersey,” I say.

“Porter, we can get you a new one.” Ryan winks and squeezes my hand.

If only I’d known the hot dogs were bad, I could’ve fed them to Mangala and then waited for the humanitarian awards to fly through the mailbox, like letters from Hogwarts, in thanks for my contribution to making the world a better, safer place for humankind. Then again, hundreds of milligrams of codeine didn’t kill him last year—the radioactive hot dogs probably would’ve given him superpowers and he’d have turned into the Goat Hulk. Or a Republican.

Ryan is so wonderful. He doesn’t let go of my hand and pushes my hair out of my face, even as the bumpy gurney ambles toward the waiting ambulance.

“You went almost an entire year without having to be in a hospital, as patient or visitor,” Ryan says next to my ear. “I’m impressed.”

“Reset the DAYS SINCE GENIUS HOLLIE’S LAST MEDICAL INCIDENT board.”

He laughs. I throw up again.

Ryan gives Dad the keys—he’ll follow in the rental car to Emanuel Medical—and makes him promise to stop apologizing about the hot dogs.

“It’s fine, Dad. It’s just food poisoning. I wish you guys would let me get up. This is stupid.”

“You lie still, Hollie,” Keith reprimands. Oh god, he is so loving this. “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”

I answer with my middle finger.

“Such a classy girl,” Keith says to Ryan, who at this point, even under his playoff beard, looks a little green around the gills himself. Thank heavens he didn’t eat the hot dogs too. One geyser of goo is plenty.

In the ambulance, Keith makes a show of explaining every little step to Ryan, though not missing an opportunity to speak in a manner more appropriate to a room full of kindergartners: “This is the IV, full of fluids that will get our girl back on track.” I’m not your girl. I’m Ryan’s girl. “And I’ll give her medicine so her tummy will stop hurting and the pukies will slow, although it’s best to get that stuff out, right, Hols?”

Don’t call me Hols.

“Ow! Jesus!”

Keith smiles. “Squeamish with needles, this one.”

“Because you’re supposed to aim for a vein, not the bone, i***t,” I say, trying to yank my arm away.

“Don’t make me use the restraints.” Keith smiles. I want to stab all the needles in the ambulance into his dumb face. I also hate noticing that he looks better than I remember—the tire around his middle is gone, his dumb face thinner and the angles sharper. I’d almost say handsome, but knowing him like I do, let’s not get carried away.

Ryan leans close to my ear. “Almost there. You okay?”

I nod. He smells so much better than I do. I’d yank his face closer but I reek like gastric juice and discarded putrid foodstuffs.

At the hospital, my dad is in his element. The cougar mishap made Ryan and me—and my dad—minor celebs among Dad’s hospital crowd. Bob Porter’s little girl Hollie saves a famous hockey player from certain death, and then they fell in love. Awwwww. As such, his cronies gather round to check on his barfing baby girl. People shake hands with Ryan and ask about his arm, if he’s ever going to be able to play his beloved game again.

Thankfully, Keith disappears when his phone screams out “Karma Chameleon,” the same stupid ringtone he’s had the whole time I’ve known him. Blood tests are done—confirming finally that I am not pregnant, as if there were any doubt—and it’s agreed that it’s nothing more than a rather excitable case of bad hot dog, likely caused by Staphylococcus aureus, based on its very quick onset. Fluids, a preventive course of antibiotics, medicine to stop the diarrhea (I told you this was fun), and because it’s a slow night at the ER, they’re going to let me stay in an isolation room all by myself until someone worse shows up and boots me out.

Ryan, the dear, runs water in the room’s tiny stainless steel sink to soak my jersey. “You’ve seen enough of my bodily fluids for one night.”

“I love your bodily fluids,” he says, kissing my forehead.

“There is something definitely wrong with you, then. Go back to the game and catch up with your friends. I’m so sorry I screwed up your night …”

“Don’t be silly. My friends can find me another time when you’re not puking out your kidneys.”

“Then go to the hotel. My dad will bring me around when this is all over.”

“Hollie …” He’s got one hand in his pocket.

Where the ring box is.

I shake my head. “Wait. Not yet.”

When I started this little episode, he was proposing. To me. On the Kiss Cam. In front of my dad and thousands of crazed hockey fans. And I threw up and fainted. Surely that cannot be a fortuitous way to start a life together?

We’ve talked about getting married, and we both know now it’s not a matter of if, but when. I wanted this day more than anything, and a tiny hope bubble in my heart had her tiny bubble fingers crossed that Ryan would use this special trip to Portland to pop the question.

But now I feel awful that I’ve foiled not one but two attempts to get the ring on my finger, his face looking a bit disappointed as he pulls his hand out of his pocket.

“I’m so sorry, Ryan. But not like this. I don’t want to ruin this amazing moment any more than I already have. I want it to be perfect, for you. The world’s greatest concierge deserves a vomit-free moment in the sun.”

He nods and looks down at his feet, chuckling.

My dad moseys into the room and interrupts the weirdness.

“How are we doing in here?” He steps in front of Ryan and squeezes the IV bag, drops a hand across my forehead. “If you’re not feeling dizzy anymore, you can have a shower. Get the vomit out of your hair.”

Wonderful. Ryan was going to drop to his knee again whilst I have regurgitated hot dog in my hair?

Ryan’s phone rings. “Hey, Mom …” He turns away and talks quietly into the phone. “Porter, I’ll be back in a sec. Can I get you anything?”

I shake my head no and watch him step out into the bustle of the ER. I hope Miss Betty isn’t mad at me for screwing up her darling son’s big moment.

My dad is helping me to my feet when the door to the room opens again. “Keith, what? You did your job. Go away.”

He’s smiling again—he’s had his teeth whitened. Someone is definitely playing the Keith Skin Flute. Gotta be the only reason he’s so manicured and tidy. I had to remind him about regular dental hygiene and changing his underwear when we lived together.

As he steps into the room, I clench my fists and jaw, a Pavlovian reaction. Which makes me want to punch his lights out. I could plead not guilty by reason of being goaded by my annoying ex.

Without saying a word, he crosses the short distance from door to bedside, his outstretched hand cupping his phone. He presses play and holds it up before me.

I’m throwing up on YouTube as my gorgeous boyfriend is down on one knee. And then I disappear from the camera while everyone scrambles around to gawk at the dumb dirty-blond who ate a bad hot dog and is face down in her own sick.

When I joked to the Ouija board in seventh grade about being famous? This was definitely not what I had in mind.