Corruption in the Or

by Barbara Ebel

  He nodded. “I’ll refrain from commenting then, like a knight in shining armor. You are obviously knowledgeable and capable of what you get yourself into. Hope you have fun out there.”

  She leaned over her pile and tugged on her orange life jacket and snapped the buckle. “I’m Viktoria. Thanks again.”

  “Any time. And I’m Rick.”

  He backed away and watched her from his previous perch at the railing. Wearing water shoes, she waded in a short distance. Too quickly, it became too deep. She scrambled into the one-seater and immediately used the oar to push away. He stared her way for a mere five minutes and then continued on the walk he had begun before.

  Before an hour was up, he headed back to his car. The bright, small kayak was on its way in, the short waves pushing it along, albeit erratically. Viktoria struggled skillfully with the oar, stroking whichever side was needed to keep the water craft headed inland. When the nose hit the sand, it kept inching backwards as she kept trying to place her foot down.

  Rick could not help himself from rushing down to the water’s edge. If she didn’t want or need his help, she could tell him so. “Do you mind?” Without waiting for a response, he put his hand on the handle at the front of the kayak. His sneaker was already wet, so he hoped it was not for naught.

  “Under the circumstances, not at all.”

  With an adept tug, he yanked the kayak along for a good two feet. Viktoria held up her hand, placed both feet down, and walked forward with the kayak between her legs. They both pulled it forwards until it was completely on sand. She looked squarely at his face.

  “Were you watching me the whole time? Afraid Connecticut would gain a Long Islander tonight?”

  “No, truly, I’m not stalking you. I happened to notice you on your return just now.”

  “However, is that the correct terminology? Can you stalk someone who is on the water?”

  “Good question. How about I help you strap this baby up on your car, and we go get a beer, a bite to eat, or both, and we’ll figure it out. My treat, of course.”

  A slight smile crept over her lips as she considered his offer.

  “Really,” he added, “you must be famished after all that hard work.”

  “Work? No way. That was pure exhilaration. Sure, I’d love to grab a bite, but only if we each pay Dutch treat.”

  “You’re on.”

  -----

  Rick stepped off the bar stool, dropped a bill on the counter for Sally, and left, satisfied after the beer, pita chips, and dip. He walked around the block for his car and stopped in front of the very restaurant he and Viktoria ate at the day they met. With big, bold gold lettering which said “Captain’s by the Water,” and four seasonal black tables out front, nothing had changed.

  As Viktoria sat sideways from her vehicle that late afternoon eight years ago, she had changed into dry shoes as Rick waited. They left her car with the kayak on top and walked with no particular place in mind. When they came to “Captain’s,” they shared a glance and nodded.

  Viktoria studied the menu taped to the window longer than Rick. “I’m aiming to eat dinner, so don’t mind my pickiness.”

  “No problem. Anything grab you?”

  “Hands down. Crab cakes.”

  Rick opened the door, they marched in, and stole a bench by the window. They skipped a menu from the waiter and asked for the same two dinner selections and drinks.

  “So, what do you do when you’re not kayaking?” Rick asked.

  “Put people to sleep.”

  He had no idea what she meant. If she meant it to be a joke, he didn’t find it funny. “You are not the least bit boring. I don’t see how anyone can fall asleep around you.”

  “No, no, not literally in that sense. I am the provider of anesthesia. The anesthesia puts patients to sleep.”

  He scrunched his brow. “Don’t doctors do that?”

  “Some types of nurses do too, but I’m a doctor. I’m not that long out of residency and now I practice on my own.”

  “Damn. That was a long haul, wasn’t it? Longer and more challenging than the solo kayak haul you just did.”

  “Sure was. In so many ways, I’m finally reaping the rewards. What do you do?”

  His head spun. The woman across from him was probably brighter than anyone he ever gone out with before, if he could call their dinner “going out.”

  “I have a bachelor’s degree in physical education. I am the only personal trainer in the YMCA’s huge gym a couple of miles from here, but I also run the gym and athletic programs there.”

  “Sounds like fun. I’m not a member there, but I understand its state of the art.”

  “You should come by sometime. If you like what you see, become a member. I also know a damn good trainer for when you’re not knocking people out.”

  A waitress set down two iced teas from a tray and another one came forward and set down their dinner plates.

  “Can I get you anything else?” the second waitress inquired while taking a step back.

  “I’m good,” Viktoria said.

  “Makes two of us,” Rick said.

  Rick snapped out of his thoughts from eight years ago, and stepped aside. A couple breezed past him on the sidewalk and went inside “Captain’s by the Water.” As he turned away from the restaurant, he marveled at how harmonious that Saturday had progressed, the day he and Viktoria first met. It was as if his being at the marina, her kayaking expedition, and their walk and dinner had been pre-programmed ahead of time. Sometimes fate takes over, he thought, and destiny takes hold.

  -----

  Rick pressed his key fob and jumped into his car, ready to go home. The sunset and the choppy waves from the sound seemed to stir the breeze up the narrow streets, and he quickly slammed his door. He heard a ding on his phone. Looking down, Viktoria barged into his evening again.

  “I’ll let you wash and wax my Honda as well,” she answered to his reference about washing his car. “When I get home, that is.”

  “It’ll be another long drive for you when you leave Pennsylvania, so no problem. What did you do today?”

  “Went to a wedding. Not bad for being out of town.”

  “How’d it stack up to ours?”

  “No comparison. This one was lavish and extravagant.”

  “It’s the couple that matters. Bet we outshone them in every way.”

  “Perhaps, but they did make a handsome couple.”

  “Who were they anyway?”

  “Two CRNAs in the group.”

  “Hmm. Do they show each other favoritism on the job? Like extra breaks?”

  “Good point. There may be a trace of that kind of behavior.”

  “How’s the dog?”

  “Buddy’s fine. A true friend.”

  “How can an animal who can’t even talk be a true friend?”

  Viktoria frowned. She could hear his voice say that in a nasty tone. The tone which would ramp up with more sarcasm and more volume, like a continuous escalating hill, with the more weed that would get into his system.

  Rick looked up and observed a stationary car, the driver waiting for his parking spot.

  “Better go,” he wrote, “someone’s waiting for my spot.”

  “Where are you?”

  “By the water. Walked around a bit.”

  “Bye,” she signed off, knowing his car had not been washed, and hers wouldn’t be when she got home in three more weeks.

  CHAPTER 21

  After texting with Rick, Viktoria pulled her legs up Indian style on the bed and Buddy joined her. She ran her fingers through the long, silky hair on his chest as he lay sprawled supine anticipating every stroke. He was like therapy for her, allowing her to chill and shake off the still overtly memorable experience of finding a fellow physician hung from a ceiling fan twenty-four hours ago.

  She pushed her cell phone to the edge of the bed. Hopefully, she was done with Rick for the night. At least when she was away from home, she succeeded in t
hinking about him less often. Of course, he wasn’t in her face, which made it a lot easier. Sometimes she couldn’t believe how far the relationship had deteriorated.

  Eight years ago, when she met him, he was just what she needed. She had fended off any relationships during med school and residency, always staying aloof to the opposite sex, always aware that a relationship during training could divert her undivided attention and cause her training to suffer.

  When she began practicing independently and met the sporty man during a kayak excursion on the North Shore of Long Island, she was open-minded to dating. Had the timing been different, she would have never ended up with him.

  “I wonder how nice husband Rick is going to be with you,” Viktoria said aloud to Buddy. “If he treats you the same as me, he’ll be passive and sweet one minute, and blow at you the next. Of course, he was not always like that. I’ll have to watch your situation with him closely.”

  From upside down, Buddy’s eyes opened half-mast, but he shut them again when she quieted. She remembered one of the turning points in the marriage as far as his job was concerned. True to what he told her, he made the perfect personal trainer and handled the business aspect of the gym and sports’ programs at the Y like an expert.

  One day he came home and announced that they hired another person with a physical education background and he was the one to show the guy the ropes of the job. The Y wanted to expand and someone else needed to know as much as Rick.

  “He’s not going to take your job, is he?” she had joked.

  Rick had always been easy going and non-irritable but, that year, his personality began changing by the week. “Why the fuck would you say something like that to me?” he barked at her. “I don’t tell you that other anesthesiologists are a threat to you.”

  She let his nastiness go unanswered. Little did she know, that the “new guy” did just that. Over a few months’ time, Rick lost the tasks of putting together the summer soccer programs; then the swimming teams, events, and hiring of coaches, and then the scheduling of gym programs like yoga and exercise classes.

  One day, with only personal training clients left on his daily itinerary, he rolled his eyes at a woman customer, and told her not to “waddle over to the treadmill like a fat penguin.”

  Later, as that woman complained secretly to the director, Rick simultaneously told a teenage client “you’re as feminine as a fruit loop and you’ll never grow muscles like a guy.”

  The young man was so hurt, he weaseled out of the rest of his hour with Rick and went to talk to the director to ask about a substitute trainer. As he overheard the “waddling” woman inside the man’s office complaining about Rick, he asked to join them. The teenager walked inside, closed the door behind him, and the director heard their complaints in full.

  The man in charge now had more ammunition to fire Rick. After all, one of the Y’s most important employee assets had taken a spiraling tumble over the last year as far as work ethic, punctual and skillful performance of duties, and civility to customers and families. He had no idea why the man’s personality had changed, and he didn’t care to find out. Now Rick’s rudeness and deplorable social skills had gone too far. The fine reputation of the organization on Long Island was at stake.

  At five o’clock sharp, the director found Rick stacking dumbbells on the rack. “I’d like a word with you,” he said, pointing towards his office.

  Rick grimaced. What now, he wondered. As a personal fitness trainer, no one could usurp him. He followed the man, not worrying about a thing.

  The director swung the door closed himself and sighed. “I’m giving you two weeks’ pay, which is what I’m required to do. I’m letting you go. Grab your things from your locker now on the way home because you are officially fired from your job. Don’t report back tomorrow.”

  Rick stood dumbfounded. A few times during the day, he had sneaked outside and smoked a joint. He grappled with the buzz inside his brain as he made sense of his boss’s remarks.

  “You’re giving me the ax?!”

  “Unequivocally.”

  For the time being, Rick was too preoccupied with his own delusions of grandeur to think about his “career” disintegrating or what effect it would have on his marriage. How could the organization no longer be honored to employ and use his superior skills in the gym?

  Instead of blowing up, Rick thought it too preposterous to argue about. Clearly, the Y would regret their decision and come crawling back to him.

  But they didn’t.

  Viktoria held her tongue at home for six months while Rick made the weakest pursuits to find a similar job. Although she tried to cut herself some slack, the anger she felt towards her own stupidity grew. Every time she mumbled to herself that she was the stupidest smart person she knew of, she reminded herself that Rick excellently camouflaged his reefer use when they had met, dated, and married. He never lied to her that he didn’t use it because he never told her that smoking pot was a part of his life. And he had her fooled for quite a long time.

  Because his marijuana usage ramped up behind her back during his six months of total unemployment, his mood swings became more troublesome. They leveled off when he finally “switched” careers. Since physical education interviews were few and far between, and went badly, he found work as an insurance salesman, and somehow put together an online art auction program.

  Meanwhile, for her, Rick became more unbearable to live with. After speaking to a truthful divorce attorney, she learned the bad news. Since she was either the only or the main breadwinner, she’d be paying him plenty in alimony if they split. And since he was an addict, chances were he would be plenty thirsty to have a chunk of her paycheck paid to him, all to support his dope habit.

  For the time being, and also a few years ago, Viktoria put thoughts of a divorce on the back burner. She had decided to get away from him on a regular basis. She gave notice to leave the anesthesia group she had practiced with, and signed up to be a locum tenens doctor. A doc on the road.

  -----

  The term “sky blue” was totally descriptive of the view above as Viktoria set out from her hotel suite Sunday morning with Buddy at her heels. Although plenty of cars dotted the parking areas, the grounds were quiet and none of the weekday workers were around. Buddy spied one of the squirrels darting to the back and yanked too exuberantly on his leash. She harshly scolded him and, as they headed to the coffee shop, the dog trotted nicely at her side, nudging at her knee to make amends.

  None of her favorite baristas were at the shop, and she walked the dog back to the hotel with a refill coffee in hand. She opened the door to the front office and stepped in with Buddy.

  “You must live here,” she said to Mason, who had the Sunday newspaper spread open on the counter.

  “Just about. How are you today?”

  “Not bad for an out-of-towner. It’s awfully quiet around here. Don’t even see the car out there for my complaining next-door neighbor.”

  “Lucky for both of us, he checked out this morning. Said your dog made a ruckus yesterday while you were gone, and disturbed the hell out of him. He wanted a fifty percent reduction in his bill for staying here.”

  “I am so sorry,” she said grimacing at the dog. “Do you want me to compensate you?”

  He smiled and fiddled with his mustache. “I wish everyone was considerate and dutiful like you. He got no discount from me. That was his ploy all along—complain about your dog, who gave him no trouble at all, and come in here and cry wolf. I was here when you pulled out yesterday and not a peep of a bark sounded from your room while you were away.”

  Mason dug his hand into a container under the counter, slipped around, and presented the Border Collie with a biscuit. When Buddy finished gobbling up the strewn pieces he’d broken off, Viktoria squatted and hugged him. She looked up at Mason. “People really are despicable, aren’t they?”

  “Always have been, and always will be.” He extended his hand and courteously helped h
er up. “I tell you what you can do, next time you visit Masonville, be sure to book here again. You are the kind of customer that makes my job easy. My boss likes decent folks staying here too. He has other real estate properties, and he has to deal with a lot of skulduggery.”

  “He owns other hotels like this?”

  “No way. They go downhill from here. This is his Taj Mahal.”

  -----

  Viktoria passed Jeffrey Appleton’s office on Monday morning as he stood near the door hanging up his sports coat. The somber look on his face disappeared when he spotted her.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I hoped to see you this morning.”

  “Aren’t you here extra early? I thought business people don’t keep the same hours as anesthesiologists.”

  As if letting go of a burden, Jeffrey let out a big sigh. He pointed to the newspaper sitting on a circular table and shook his head. “I saw it coming. The bad press for the hospital with Dr. Winter killing himself on Friday night. It was in Sunday’s paper, and they went ahead and did another mini-story today. Cathy Banker wants to see me in five minutes and the entire board is meeting after that. People like them get up at eight a.m. and are lucky to be functional for any meeting by nine a.m. I am still an early bird from my days of working in the OR.

  “Which means,” he added, “that they are taking the matter very seriously. The CEO is no fool. I bet she’s got a team of professional media people already hired to put out the fire. In a way, she’s a middle man like me, and she better beef up the public’s perception of Masonville General Hospital or patients are going to be headed up to the Lake Erie area for their hospitalizations. After all, a pregnant woman comes here to deliver her baby after nine months, only to find out that her doctor is swinging from the ceiling in a room on the premises. The articles downplayed his divorce problems and focused more on his role in a physician’s practice and as a staff obstetrician and gynecologist at this hospital.”

  “Jeffrey, this will blow over in a few months, if not in a few weeks. While the adults are trying to slant the story away from the real issues, the person who’s going to suffer the most is his daughter.”