Five Years of Fame [COMPLETE]

39. A Last Minute Road Trip

So many things about that night reeked of bad luck and yet Dani made it to the city with very little traffic and even found a parking spot right in front of the hospital uptown, far away from the tourist rush clogging up the city for the holidays.

She didn't stop for a breath. She didn't even stop to realize this was the first time she had driven down to the city alone. For a few years when they were younger, her parents took Dani and Olivia down every Christmas to see the lights and catch a Broadway show. After her dad left, the money became tighter and the trips less frequent. But once Olivia got her license, she had made a pack with Dani that they would make it down to New York at least once a year. They hadn't gone since she got signed. This was their first time fulfilling that pack in almost three years. What a way to keep a promise.

Dani rushed into the emergency room, the usual chaos expected for a New York City hospital all around her. She tried the front desk and was told to wait. She grabbed one of the passing nurses and was told to wait. She finally got hold of an administrator on her way to the bathroom, trying to get information as to where her sister was being treated. She was told no reporters were allowed past the main doors.

The woman slipped out of her grasp before Dani could yell at her that she wasn't a reporter, that Reeve Keller was her sister and she had been her emergency contact.

Finally, Hilda, Olivia's assistant, appeared from beyond the swinging doors. Security had called up to their floor to alert them that someone was trying desperately to see Reeve Keller. Dani signed at the familiar frown and would have wrapped her up in a hug if the short, stout, sour woman didn't immediately lock eyes with Dani and then turn on her heel to retreat the way she came with a terse "Come with me" as her only greeting.

Dani followed Oliva's unpleasant assistant up three floors, the air in the elevator tense. The floor they exited out onto was much quieter than the chaos they had left behind.

"Stay here."

The assistant barely paused to point to the empty waiting room before retreating down a long hall and disappearing into a room, presumably Olivia's room. Dani tried sitting but was pacing at the first sight of magazines over a year old.

A TV was mounted in the corner playing some rerun of a corny family game show. Nothing could distract her movement, the obsessive back and forth of her steps as she paced across the waiting room in every direction.

Five minutes was as long as she lasted. She couldn't take it anymore and walked up to the nurses' station, prepared to do whatever to get some information.

"Olivia Keller. What room is she in?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am but that's privileged information. Family and immediate associates only. No reporters."

The head nurse could have been the assistant's long lost soul sister. She didn't even bother looking up from her paperwork when Dani spoke. Dani reached into her pocket and pulled out her license, shoving it into the nurse's face.

"Danielle Florence Keller. I'm her freaking sister! Now! What room is Olivia Keller in?"

"Ma'am! Back up or I'm going to call security!"

"Let me see my sister!"

"Security!"

One of the other nurses appeared around the corner and stepped in just as the scene was about to erupt. She even waved down the security guard from his post at the elevator.

"I've got this, Ken. Candace, go take a break. I'll handle this."

The older nurse scowled at Dani and Dani scowled right back until she disappeared around a corner. The new nurse was younger, almost Dani's age and she was smiling sympathetically.