episode2

In Episode 1 of Tapestry...

We met the residents of Lantana. Hope can’t remember making love to her husband Blade. Felicia/Meave, who bears a striking resemblance to Hope convinces Dr. Meave Guthrie to prescribe more sleeping medication. The Lantana ladies: Jasmine, Myrna and Lacey discuss Guiding Light and various Lantana residents. Kendall strips at Club Excess and later has an unexpected sexual tryst with Vincent, Jasmine’s boyfriend, that ends with a marriage proposal. Rachel finds herself helpless and in labor during a tornado.

A Room Somewhere in the Hotel.

      “What did you have to talk to me about Jasmine?” Lacey was a vivacious woman, good-natured, intelligent and equally wild. Now however, she spoke quietly and nervously.
      The room was clandestine and cramped. Sparse, essential furniture was pressed against four bare walls. A window was the only thing elaborating the closet-like space, and outside the rain battled the wind and a powerful gray menaced the sky.
      “I was here this morning. Clark murmured something.”
      “That can’t be, he’s in a coma.”
      “And he has been in one for sixteen years; he was bound to start waking up sometime.”
     Jasmine appeared expressionless and unmoved as she gave Lacey the news. The latter began to pace from one end of the bed to the other. She paused on one trip and stared at the man lying clean-shaved and helpless, but strangely placid. It angered Lacey to see him so peaceful. “God I hate him. Jasmine, honey there has to be a chance Clark won’t remember what happened to him.”
      “I don’t know. I’m not a neurologist.” Jasmine did not like to see her friend so anxious so she made an effort to sound more optimistic. “I hope so Lacey. You do have to accept though that he could very well wake up tomorrow. It might not happen, but it is possible." That was the best she could do.
      “But he hadn’t shown any signs before right?” There was a hint of desperation in Lacey’s voice, which was drowned out by the storm outside.        “There has to be a way to stop this.”
     “That would be murder. Let’s not get dramatic.”
     “ I don’t wanna kill the guy. I just want him to stay like he is.”
     “Look. He squeezed my hand this morning and that is when I heard him murmur. It may be nothing. I just want you to be prepared for the worst should that happen.”
     “My daughter can’t ever know Jasmine. What am I going to do?”
Jasmine was not the warmest Lantana resident and though she tried to always remain pragmatic, Lacey was one of her closest friends and she had been helping her keep secrets for many years. Despite her Hippocratic attitude to most things, she could not help comfort Lacey. “Maybe things aren’t as bad as they see. Worst case scenario, maybe Marina can handle all of this.”
     “How would you take it if somebody told you that your entire life has been a lie? I just; I have to protect her. I know you understand.”
The storm intensified and the two women embraced. Even in turmoil their friendship endured as it always had.
     “Look.” Jasmine was startled for the first time.
      Lacey peered at Clark and dread radiated from her face. Clark had opened his eyes, and just as suddenly, a branch broke the window and a potent gust of wind knocked Jasmine and Lacey to the floor. They gasped and protected themselves with their arms as the wind and the rain, which now battled debris and glass from the broken window and flew through the room.

The Staff’s Private Living Room.

     Hours had passed but not once did Blade’s devotion to his books falter. He barely noticed the radio that sat indifferently on his desk playing music that he did not care about.

Radio Announcer: Do not go outside and stay away from windows. Tornados have touched down in western sections of Lantana nearest to Lake Tahoe. This is Bill Claiborne with WPPR Lantana Radio.

   Hope ran into the room, pulse racing and slightly disorientated. Since it was becoming more common for Hope to run erratically into rooms Blade did not notice her until she grabbed his shoulder with an odd strength.
    “Blade! Blade!” She called out.
    “What happened?” Startled, Blade stood from his books.
    “Rachel’s out in the garden! I have to go help her!”
    "You’re crazy. You can’t go out in this storm!”
   Hope ran out through the back door on pure adrenaline and into the storm as Blade, slightly annoyed but with sheer concern for his wife, ran after her.

The Garden Behind the Hotel.

    Rachel tried with little success to fight against the wind and walk back to the hotel. In one step her water broke, but all she could concentrate was getting her and her unborn baby to safety. If she could just make it to the garden shed nearby she’d be safe, at least temporarily. She would never make it back to Tapestry in her condition.
    “God," she said to herself. “I can’t lose another baby.”
    Luckily, Rachel was able to stumble into the wooden garden shed that was nearby. She had just enough strength to crawl fully into it before she collapsed. She figured she had to stay awake but found it increasingly difficult and painful. She began to cry and screamed for the first time. The pain of the coming child and the feeling of helplessness were a lot to endure.
    “She’s in here Blade!” Hope ran into the shed and kneeled before her friend. You’re going to be all right Rachel we’re here.”
   “Hope the baby’s coming, what do I do? She‘s two months early.”
   Blade who had rushed in behind his wife kneeled before Rachel and examined her. “Are you having contractions yet?”
   “Only one.”
   “Blade I don’t think this shed is going to hold we have to get her inside the hotel.”
   “I don’t want to risk going outside.”
   “The worst of it has passed; we have to get her to the hospital.”
   “You’re right. We’re not exactly equipped for this kind of delivery in here.”
    Before Rachel knew it, Hope and Blade had lifted her to her feet and outside into the dwindling storm. Tapestry was not too far off but in Rachel’s condition every step was endless. Quickly they fought against the storm made it through the back door where they laid Rachel down on the wooden floor.

    Lacey and Dr. Fallow came rushing into the room still tense from the incident upstairs. Jasmine knew exactly what was going on however, and all else vanished from her mind. She ran over to Rachel, immediately taking over the delivery.
    “I can handle the delivery Dr. Fallow,” Blade protested.
    “I’m sure you can but she’s premature and that’s the least of her worries. Now step aside.”
    “Jasmine, can’t you give me something for the pain?” Rachel screamed, nearly out of breath.
    “I don’t have anything to give you. I wasn’t really expecting you to give birth today. How far along are her contractions Blade?”
    “I don’t know. Pretty far. She’s only had two this whole time.”
    “Is my baby okay?” Rachel yelled causing the others in the room to tense up in worry.
    “I need everybody to calm down.” Jasmine spoke with a dry, unnatural calm in her voice as she examined Rachel. “Blade, go call the hospital immediately.” Tell them I need an ambulance here yesterday.”

Near Club Excess.

    The tornado had passed and all that remained were memories of the storm. They fell as stray drops of rain and fell to the ground with varying degrees of intensity. Out of the remains of what had once been a restaurant     Vincent and Kendall, who had taken shelter there emerged. Neither looked happy.
    “I’m so embarrassed.” Kendall said, trying to walk rapidly away from Vincent.
    “You don’t have to be. And I’m sorry.” He turned her around but did not notice that she was deliberately avoiding eye contact with him.
    “I don’t know what came over me. I don’t usually go around accepting marriage proposals you know.”
    “Yeah. I don’t go around making them.”
    “ I should go. This was a mistake and I would rather forget about it.” She cringed at the thought of having made love to Vincent. She felt the repulsion and shame she always felt when she made love to any man. No matter how deep their inane connection had been only a short while earlier, in the end she felt that Vincent was no different from the other men at the club.
    “I wouldn’t just call it as a mistake.“ Vincent said, protecting his ego. “An hour ago you said you felt like you had known me your whole life.”
    “Vincent you’re a nice guy, a real catch and I can totally see why Sergeant Fallow likes you so much, but you‘re just not for me. Anyway I don’t really owe you any explanations. And that was not an hour ago. Don't flatter yourself.”
    “How long have you been stripping Kendall? I thought you were a model.” Vincent was still shirtless and trying to act suave as if nothing Kendall said really made a difference to him.
    “You have no right to ask me anything.” She scoffed. “I don’t even know you.”
    “We were just engaged five minutes ago. I don’t see why I can’t ask you a simple question and why you‘re being a complete flake.”
    “We just shared the same floor! And maybe there aren‘t any simple answers. Listen. You forget I was at the club and I’ll gladly forget you were there.”
    “Fine,” he said coolly. “There isn’t any reason Jasmine has to know about this anyway.”
    “Yeah. Just go on with your life and forget about me.” She began to walk away and realized how long she had been gone. She turned around, though not as confidently as before. “ Don’t look at this as anything more than it is. I need to use your phone. I left mine inside and I don’t want my sister to worry.”
    Vincent reached into his pocket and gave her his tiny cellular phone and a smug look in the process.
    “Oh shut up,” she told him as she snatched the phone away. “And your fly‘s down Romeo.” Then the color ran from Kendall’s face and matched the natural paleness in her eyes.
    “What happened?” Vincent suave demeanor betrayed him and concern appeared in his tone.
    “My sister’s in labor. I have to go.”
    "I’ll drive you.”

Lantana General hospital.

     Lets move we need to operate now.” Though Dr. Fallow was her best in times of crisis's she had to try her best to remain calm so to not upset her friend whom she wheeled into the operating room with her nervous friends nearby. “ I need you all to wait outside.”
     “Jasmine, what is with all the secrecy? Why won’t you tell anyone anything?” Blade helped the other staff push Rachel’s gurney. As one of Jasmine’s prized medical students, he was allowed to watch and observe.
     “I didn’t want to upset them. Remember when I told you that the baby being premature was the least of her worries. It’s because this is a breech birth.”
     “What?”
     “This baby is coming feet first.”
    Rachel lay motionless as she was wheeled into the OR. There were doctors, nurses and other technicians swarming around with an air of panic and professional courtesy. Rachel’s graying eyes, which still retained their ethereal quality, saw all of the tumult in slow motion. Monitors flashing, people yelling, pulling, pushing. Rachel’s eyes caught it all; including a man who was being momentarily wheeled beside her. He appeared to have been in a car accident and for a moment in Rachel's shock he seemed hazily familiar, but his face was covered in blood so she quickly glanced away while they took him into another room. Rachel’s vision then caught Jasmine’s astute eyes. The doctor actually looked frightened for her.
    “Jasmine,” she said weakly. “I can’t lose her.”
    “I haven’t lost one yet,” Jasmine told her. “Let’s get her sedated,” she ordered.

Lantana General Hospital Waiting Room.

    “Mom I came as soon as I heard.” Marina instinctively went to her mother who met her with a hug. All of Rachel’s other friends were gathered, desperately awaiting news on her condition.
    “Well I can’t understand why they don’t tell us anything.” Myrna waved her hands dramatically as she walked over to Hope whose mind seemed to be wandering. “Hope honey, you’re lost in the forest.”
    “Oh, sorry.” Hope stumbled out of her trance.
    “Now when do you suppose Blade’s going to come out here with some news?”
    “I really don’t know.”
    “Are you alright hun, you look a little dizzy?”
    “I’m fine Myrna thank you.” Hope replied with slight annoyance at Myrna’s prying and quickly scurried off.
Kendall ran into the waiting room. She could not hide the fact that she had dressed in a hurry and she was still flustered from her adventurous afternoon. The women in the room, particularly Myrna and Lacey noticed.
    “Where's Rachel? Is she ok?”
    “We don’t know anything," Lacey told her. “Your sister was outside in the garden during the tornado.”
    “Oh no, what about the baby?”
    “She went into labor but Hope and Blade managed to get her back to the hotel and then we got her here to the hospital. She’s in the operating room now .”
    “Lacey, and how was she? I mean when they brought her in? She really wants this baby.”
     Lacey used extreme tact when answering Kendall. “Darlin, you know your sister. She was hangin’ in there, like she always does.”
     “Now Kenny,” Myrna went to Kendall. “Why don’t you go get some coffee and then I'll help you get those twigs out of your hair when you get back?”
     “yeah.” Kendall felt suddenly embarrassed. She knew she did not look notably elegant in her old jeans and tank top that reeked of alcohol, cigarette smoke and other sins from club Excess. the twigs in her hair certainly did not help. She felt especially self-conscious when Vincent then came through the doors aloofly, about five minutes before his entrance would have been deemed coincidental and not convenient. Instinctively, Kendall slinked out of sight.
     “Something happened there," Lacey remarked sassily to Myrna. “The body language says it all.”
     “You’d know all about that wouldn’t you Lacey. I’m just teasin.’ Besides I think you’re right. I love both of Ruth’s children as if they were my own but that girls looser than the cork on your flask.”
     “Glass houses Myrna,” Lacey replied. “Just remember that.”

Operating Room.

     The only thing Rachel knew was that she was in the operating room with Jasmine and a team of Lantana’s finest doctors working on her. She was there but her spirit wandered. She wanted very much to be in the sanctity of her garden or her Tapestry. Even feeling every minute of the surgery would have been preferable to her than the memories Rachel sleepwalked into. She saw herself, a fourteen-year-old girl lying in a cold, sterile hospital room. Rachel almost didn’t recognize herself staring blankly at the ceiling but she recognized Nick, her ex-boyfriend who had been the father of the baby she had lost and out of sheer fate, the baby she was fighting for. Dark haired, wide-shouldered with a handsome chiseled face, his hazel eyes obscured by a pair of thin, black glasses. How different he had been back then, so sensitive. It angered her to think how he had come back into her life last autumn only to abandon her again. Rachel saw Nick slowly approach the bed where the younger image of her lay silent.
     “Rachel?” He called out to her softly. “I brought you something to eat.”
     “The baby Nick.” Rachel turned slowly to him, uncertainly. “How is Lily?”
     Nick did not answer her. He simply put the brown bag that Rachel remembered had contained a hastily prepared ham and cheese sandwich and headed for the door.
     “She’s dead isn’t she?” Rachel was horrified as she relived the single most painful moment in her life. Only months before she had lost her parents in a plane crash, but she simply could not forget knowing the exact moment that Lily had died. Jasmine had later told her the baby had contracted anemia, but she never forgot the look of blame in Nick’s face. No matter how hard they had tried to move on from Lily’s death she was never able to forgive him for not staying with her and telling her what had happened.

She’s dead isn’t she? The words haunted her, even as she awoke in her garden. Gregory was there. He was Tapestry’s first guest and actually enjoyed walking with her. They only made love once, in the garden and it was the only time Rachel had ever felt safe. She now saw herself lying on the grass; the summer was in its purest form with only the deep blue sky presenting a hot, lively sun. Greg was next to her holding her hand. They were deliberately not talking about anything and she remembered his eyes looking into hers, reading her, much to her discomfort, but she couldn’t turn away from him. She had fallen in love with those eyes but never told him because she had grown so accustomed to being lonely that she did not trust them. Rachel saw him kiss her; the memory was far more vivid than the last on, having happened only a year before.
     “Eden. That’s a name I always liked. You really can’t go wrong naming a kid that. Means peace.”
     “I don’t know if I would trust the Bible in the naming of my children. You know who Rachel was don‘t you? In the Bible I mean?”
     “Not off the top of my head no.”
     “This man had to work Rachel’s father’s land for seven to be able to marry her and then he accidentally married her sister and had to work another seven years to be able to marry her .”
     “Are you saying I have to work seven years to be with you?” Greg smiled. Typically womanizing but already unhappily married to Gina Holly, Greg had been falling in love for the first time and Rachel knew it. She was not used to that sort of romance.
     “You get to wait longer. But if I ever do have another baby, and I probably won‘t I'll think about the name Eden, only because it means peace and we could all use a little of that.”
     “Why do you doubt you’ll have another child?”
     “I don’t know. You know that Rachel gave birth to a son, Joseph and died giving birth to the second one, Benjamin.”
     “Oh come on,” Greg laughed. “You’re not basing your life’s plans one little parable are you?”
     “No, but with my track record I’d rather not tempt faith.” She managed a bitter-sweet smile.
    Greg and Rachel kissed for a long time. For a moment Rachel wished she could stay watching forever. Then she remembered that the kiss wouldn’t last. It would soon get too scorching outside and eventually, Greg would leave her too.

“She’s dead isn’t she? She’s dead and it’s my fault.” The memory of that moment, eleven years before became more vivid suddenly and it startled Rachel. “My fault?”

     Rachel then saw herself back in the present. There was still an air of panic in the operating room and she consciously avoided looking at herself. She kept her eyes on Jasmine the whole time.
“She’s going to flat line,” Jasmine alleged. “This cannot happen. she dies, you’re all fired.”

Lantana General Hospital Waiting room.

     Kendall rejoined her friends in the crowded waiting room. She was gripping a mirthless and not too appetizing, steaming cup of coffee, a drink to which she was woefully addicted. Vincent was leaning against a wall, somewhat apart from the rest of the company; he knew, after all, that he was an outsider and that if he ever broke up with Jasmine he would never see any of those people again. Kendall rushed right past him and stood alone, against another wall and silently sipped her coffee. Lacey and Myrna were next to each other while a disapproving Marina hushed their gossiping. Hope, who had still been pacing was the first to see Blade, who burst through the doors of the operating room, his face looking aged with anguish and perspiration.
     “Blade what's going on in there, we’re all going stir crazy in here waiting for news.” Myrna was the first to run to him, for all intents and purposes, Rachel was her daughter.
     The rest of Rachel’s friends and family hovered around. while Vincent remained against his wall, no less concerned. He did not know her that well but she had been extremely nice to him in the few months he had known her.
     “It’s a breech. Jasmine noticed the baby was not headfirst and was going to do an external cephalic version to turn the baby around, but that's usually done after 36 weeks and, well naturally we weren’t expecting her to be in labor so soon.
     “Blade just tell us in English,” Myrna protested.
     “The baby is in a complete breech position.”
     “What does that mean?” Kendall asked lowly but strangely as if she were trying to avoid Blade but still felt she needed him, if only to ease her concern.
     “It means that the baby is cross-legged. Jasmine is performing an emergency c-section right now.”
     Concern mixed with confusion and hovered around the room. Everybody spoke at once but nobody said a word. The consensus was that Rachel had been through enough in her life. This was truly the last thing that she needed. Their internal dialogues were shattered however when Hope fainted, uttering her husband’s name as she fell to the floor.
     “Hope!” Blade yelled, running to his wife as concern momentarily shifted to her. Whether her fall was real or just another one of the theatrics Hope was becoming known for was not clear to anyone, but Blade picked her up and put his hand to her forehead trying to stop the blood that streamed out.

Will Rachel and her baby survive the difficult labor? Who or what is behind Hope’s sudden fall? What other secrets could Kendall be hiding? What other mysterious guests will make their way to the tapestry hotel?

Find out the answers to all of these questions next week on Tapestry. In the meantime, head on over to our forum to discuss the latest plots and characters or get involved in the latest happenings of Lantana by visiting our interact page.

Episode Two.

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