The Doctor's Tale

by Claire Applewhite

  Her faded tank top looked around a size too small. Maybe two.

  “I’m in 2-B. Upstairs.” I thought I heard footsteps, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “I saw you and your girlfriend come in the other night. Maybe we could get together for a beer?”

  “Cynda,” a man’s voice demanded, “who you talking to out there?”

  She stroked her face, winced, and quickly, glanced over her shoulder. “It’s just the mailman, Sol. Go back to sleep.”

  “Can I do anything for you?” I said.

  “Cynda, I swear to God, I…” Heavy footsteps pounded from somewhere deep inside the apartment. Her eyes grew wide.

  “Bye,” she said.

  The door slammed. It appeared that our conversation was over.

  When I reached the top of the stair, I realized I should have come home sooner.

  “Gabrielle!” I said. “What…?”

  “Did you forget something?”

  I sure did.

  Gabrielle was dressed in a cocktail dress, black, with black patent sling back pumps that added another two inches to her 5’10” frame. Gorgeous.

  “We had a date, didn’t we?”

  “Did we?”

  “I brought the patrol car, but I see how important it was to you.”

  “Gabrielle, I just had a very bad two days, and I…why did you bring the patrol car?”

  “I thought you might like a ride in it.” She glared at me with a fresh rage. “But, I guess I was wrong.”

  “Look, I am really sorry about tonight. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  “Oh no, it’s not that easy. I’ll just wait while you get ready to take me out.”

  “I haven’t slept for almost two days. Can’t you understand that?”

  “I set tonight aside just for you, instead of someone else. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Look, if we’re going to have a relationship of any kind, you’re going to have to understand the kinds of demands I face every day. That’s just the way my life is.”

  “If we’re going to have a relationship of any kind, you’re going to have to understand a few things, too. You are not the only person with a stressful job and a life to live.”

  A gruff voice interrupted them.

  “Hey, shut up in there, will ya?” It sounded like Sol from Apartment 1-A. “I’m trying to watch National Gemorgraphic.”

  “I won’t be good company tonight,” I said. “If you want to come in for a beer or something, you’re welcome to do that. I just don’t have what it takes to go out.”

  Rosa was going to kill me, first chance she got. There was no doubt in my mind.

  “If I come in, what does it mean?”

  “It means I’m tired to the bone, and you understand.”

  Gabrielle took a deep breath and exhaled. She kicked off her heels. “I guess I could use a beer. Maybe order a pizza?”

  I turned and grabbed my keys from my pocket. “That sounds absolutely fabulous.”

  “What kind you like?”

  “Any kind you do. It’s your call.”

  ELEVEN

  “Lori, baby, what you gonna wear tonight?” Eddie hoped maybe she’d wear those white pants she used to wear, the ones that fit her so good. He liked those a lot.

  “Don’t know. Maybe my new dress Mrs. P. got me, Eddie. It’s real pretty. All kinds of flowers all over it.”

  “Yeah, okay.” He recalled those white pants. Starr wore white pants sometimes. She looked good in hers too, but not so good as Lori used to look. For just a moment, he wondered where those white pants ran off to. He’d look for them sometime, just as soon as he finished with this coming home party he was up and throwing tonight. Dang, it was good to have Lori home again. So good. And, this time, he wouldn’t mess things up. That Spezia guy was just waiting on him to screw up; he could just feel it. This time, he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Nope, nope, nope.

  “Eddie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You have enough ice for tonight? You know how you’re always forgetting the ice. Remember the ice.”

  “I got it covered. Starr’s bringing ice too. She’s even bringing shrimp to put on top of the ice. Ain’t that something? Guess what else she’s bringing us, baby? Fried okra. Like they got over at Howard J’s.”

  Lori didn’t say anything.

  “You hear me, baby? Okra! Starr knows where to get the best fried okra I ever did taste.”

  “I heard you.”

  “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You sound just like the Spezia guy. He talks like that.”

  “Like what? Doesn’t he like okra? Or doesn’t he like Starr?”

  “Lori, don’t start a fight like this. All Starr’s trying to do is help out and welcome you home. You know, celebrate.”

  “I don’t like fried okra, Eddie.”

  “Well, I guess she’s bringing it for me.”

  “Nice of her.”

  “Sure is.”

  Lori appeared in the doorway. The dress “with all kinds of flowers all over it” hung in folds on her gaunt frame, just like the sallow skin on her scrawny neck. Slowly, she twirled around to show Eddie her new dress from all sides. The full skirt swooshed ever so slightly. “Like it?” she said.

  Eddie stared at the new dress. He knew it could be pretty. Just like Lori used to be in her white pants. To Eddie’s way of thinking, that gaudy dress and his wife didn’t go together—not like they should.

  “Eddie? What do you think?”

  “Haven’t seenyou in a dress that pretty in a long time, Lori,” Eddie said.

  Lori stood in front of the refrigerator and recalled the day it arrived. Her mother gave it to Eddie and her for a wedding present, seven years ago now. Now covered with magnets and smudged indelibly in prominent spots, it continued to hum. Clumps of ice cubes in quart-size baggies lined the freezer. Lori’s numb fingers clawed at the frozen lumps as she struggled to cram a few into her glass. About then, she heard a woman’s voice. Lori couldn’t be sure, but she thought it came from the bedroom she shared with Eddie, down the long hall, off to the left.

  “Eddie,” the woman said, “you stop that!”

  Giggles and screeches and more giggles resounded in the cluttered kitchen.

  “Eddie, she’ll hear us. Now, stop!”

  When Lori tiptoed past the chrome kitchen table, the glass of water with ice chunks sloshed, and clink, clink, clinked. Where was Eddie? Her eyes burned somewhere back in her skull. Eddie was inside the house, talking to someone right now. She was sure of that.

  “Baby, she can’t know nothing about us,” Eddie said. “I told you way b’fore, when this all started, I ain’t gonna leave her, not while she’s so sick. I can’t.”

  Lori frowned. She? Who was she?

  “Well, so how much longer, huh? I thought this all would have been over and done by now. Yeah, I surely did.”

  “I can’t kill her Starr. I’m doing my best now.”

  “Yeah, well…maybe you’re doing a little too much. Ever think about that, huh, Eddie Raines? You oughtta be spendin’ more time thinking about me and our good times. Like the first night we had together, when we stopped for the fried okra.”

  “That was a good night we had, first time I tried that okra,” Eddie said. “Yeah, it was.” A long pause lapsed, followed by a sigh.

  Lori tiptoed down the hall, just a few steps closer. Her body felt hot, simmering and smoldering, despite the icy condensation that dripped between her fingers.

  “Well, Eddie Raines, there could be a lot more of those times, if we was together all of the time. And Lori—well, I hate to say it, but she just might live a whole lot longer than Dr. Pizza thinks.”

  “Well then, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, Starr.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Deep down, I don’t think you do either. You’re just trying so hard to do the right thing. And you know what,
Eddie? You’re not making nobody happy.”

  “Sure, I am. I’m doing what I said I’d do from the start. You know, ‘in sickness and in health,’ something like that. That’s what’s right, Starr.”

  “Not when it’s hurting the one you really love, Eddie Bear.”

  “I love you, Starr. You know that. But, Lori’s my wife. I love her too.”

  A shrill peal of laughter floated down the hall, and pierced Lori’s heart like a poison arrow.

  “Sure you do, Raines,” Starr said. “That’s why you got all a those Playboy magazines piled so deep under y’all’s bed. That’s fine with me, now; don’t think otherwise. But it’s just amusing as hell to watch you sit there and tell me how much you love Lori, when you turn to me and Playboy for what you really need. ‘Cause you sure ain’t getting that from your wife—you know, the woman you love so much.”

  “I’m doing what I gotta do, okay? Can’t you stick with me a little longer?”

  “Sure thing. Just do me a favor, will you? Stop telling me how much you love Lori all of the time. ‘Cause we both know that just ain’t so.”

  “I do love her. It’s just different with you.”

  “Yeah? And how is it different, Mr. Playboy?”

  Again and again, the giggles and laughter stung Lori’s ears. The glass s-l-i-p-ped ever so slowly between her tapered fingers; in the bedroom, the creaky mattress whined. It’s just different… Did Eddie really say that?

  The room began to spin, her head felt airy, a buzz sounded somewhere to the left—no, giggling. That’s what it was. Almost sounded like… She needed Eddie to come right now, before her knees collapsed. They felt like rubber; no, they felt more like melting wax. She needed her husband, her Eddie. Where did he go?

  The bedroom door opened and Eddie emerged, dressed in pressed white jeans and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He spotted his wife, but not before she noticed the satisfaction on his face. She hadn’t seen him that relaxed in well, a very long time.

  “Lori, what are you doing standing, out in the danged hall?” he said. “People are going to be showing up any second.”

  Lori ached to open the bedroom door—her bedroom door. At that moment, she felt very alive and jealous. Did Eddie buy himself some white jeans while she was away? Certainly looked like it. Funny thing, they looked just like Starr’s. So much, they could have been Starr’s. No. Now that was crazy!

  The doorbell chimed. Eddie looked relieved. “I’ll get that, Lori,” he said. “Why don’t you freshen up?”

  “I don’t need to,” she said. “You must be thinking of someone else.”

  Eddie stared at her for a minute, maybe two. “I’ll get the door, Princess.”

  A glance through the living room window revealed a crowd of visitors, bearing angel cakes and platters of homemade cookies, shrouded in cellophane.

  “Baby Girl!” Dottie Pennybaker said. “You in there? There you are. Baby Girl, why did you invite Miss White Pants to your party?” Mrs. Pennybaker picked a piece of fried okra from the pile of food on the flimsy paper plate. “And what are you letting Eddie poison us with tonight?”

  Lori stared at the limp piece of okra. “I don’t know what Starr is doing here. I surely didn’t invite her or her okra.”

  “You sure you ought to be at home, Baby Girl? ‘Cause you don’t look at all well to me. You know what I think? I think that weasel of a husband of yours got sick of visiting hours. Yep, if you ask me, he’s just lazy.”

  “What’d Miss Piggy say about Eddie and my okra?” Starr stood behind Lori with a beer bottle in her hand, her eyes ablaze with a raging fire fueled by a fresh fury.

  Mrs. P. glared at her with an intensity that could melt steel. “Why, you little tramp!”

  Starr smiled, ever so sweetly. “Calling me names? Is that all people like you can ever think to do? Let me tell you something. People like me and Eddie drive to the damn hospital and do the visiting, while you sit at your church luncheons and gobble little turkey sandwiches. I’ll tell you what—you wanna know who does the real work ‘round here? Just take a look at your backside, and then take a look at mine—I don’t need to say no more. Go on, call me a tramp, Miss Lotsalumps. Everybody here knows the real truth. And yeah, I brought the okra. If you don’t like it, give it to Eddie. He does. I told Lori I’d help take care of things while she was laid up, and I do what I say I’m going to do—and more.” She tossed the empty beer bottle on a heap of trash in the corner. “I need another beer.” She stared at Mrs. P. “Want one? Wait. I don’t suppose you drink beer, am I right ‘bout that?”

  Dottie Pennybaker turned her face away from Starr. “Of course you’re right about that. I like to know what I’m doing.”

  Starr chuckled, a deep belly laugh. “I’ll just bet you do. And I’ll bet you know what you’re doing 24/7. You sleep in that girdle, do you?”

  To Lori, the room seemed to grow smaller, then larger, and then, smaller again. She didn’t understand why the voices seemed to grow so loud, and then fade to a faint whisper, just before they grew loud and faint at the same time. Then, she heard nothing…nothing at all.

  TWELVE

  “Dr. Spezia,” Mary said, “I seen a lot of cases at this hospital in twenty-six years. It’s hard to fool me—maybe impossible. This makes me fighting mad.” She circled “Lori Raines” on the list of new patients. The fury in her voice was barely contained. “I knew that husband wouldn’t take care of her right.”

  “Yes, Mary,” I said, “I saw that.” I knew better than to look up from the safety of the charts.

  “You ain’t thinking ‘bout letting her go on home again, are you, Dr. Spezia?”

  “I don’t know.” My gaze never wavered. “I will deal with that issue when the time comes, Mary. Don’t worry.”

  Without a word, Mary turned her head and strode down the wide hallway. This time, the issue was squarely in my corner.

  First, though, I needed to meet with Dean Skelton.

  “Dr. Spezia,” Dr. Skelton said, “I have read the account of the shooting in the Emergency Room. Quite sensational, I must admit. Of course, you do realize this incident could end your career—in its current mediocre state, that is.”

  On the green plaster wall, I noticed a collection of diplomas, and a portrait of a young man, clad in a starched white coat. He was, in fact, handsome. I stared at the wrinkled face before me. Had Dr. Skelton ever been young? Could it be?

  “Speak up, doctor. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  I hung my head. “I have a few things to say. They may not change your mind.”

  “Let’s hear them, quickly. I’m on a tight schedule.”

  The glass on the photo of the young man in the white coat reflected the morning sunshine; and, for a moment, I thought it emanated a certain glow. “I felt I had no choice. If I hadn’t shot that man, he would have taken my life, and maybe the others in the room as well.” I shrugged. “He definitely intended to shoot my patient. I’m sure of that. I firmly believe I had no choice but to act as I did.”

  Dr. Skelton leaned forward and folded his hands. His voice grew somber. “Let us be clear on one point, Dr. Spezia. We—you—any physician, always has a choice. A physician must also have impeccable, unwavering judgment. At this moment, Dr. Spezia, your judgment genuinely concerns me.”

  “Dr. Skelton, up to the final moment before I fired the first shot, I opposed guns.”

  “Really? Can you explain how you came to possess one?”

  “I grabbed it when it fell on the floor. It belonged to someone else.”

  “Now, you’re beginning to amuse me, Doctor. Who owned this firearm?”

  I didn’t want Mary to lose her job. She needed it as much as I did.

  “It could have belonged to the patient. Perhaps it belonged to one of the shooters. At any rate, when it slid across the floor, I grabbed it.”

  “And you never fired that gun before this incident? Spezia, do you expect me to believe this n
onsense?”

  “Dr. Skelton, I don’t know what I expect you to believe. I can hardly believe it myself. I had to take charge of the situation to save my patient, myself and everyone around me.”

  “And, did you, in fact, save your patient?” The doctor seemed to spit the words from his mouth.

  “For a while, yes.”

  “For a while? What do you mean? Either you saved him or you didn’t. Either your efforts were successful, or they were not.”

  “When I saved his body, I couldn’t save his mind. His next of kin decided against life support.”

  “Hmm.” Dr. Skelton stared at the portrait of himself in the white coat, all those years ago. “You had quite a night, Spezia. How many people died?”

  “Two, sir. My patient, and the man who shot him.”

  “Hmm. I see. Two problems with two separate resolutions. Quite a lot of pressure for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.” Dr. Skelton grinned, ever so slightly. “So, tell me something, Dr. Spezia. Are you satisfied with your decisions?”

  “Yes sir, I am.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay, then. I can appreciate your decisiveness. One must decide and move forward, right or wrong. No regrets. It seems that you have gotten the hang of it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’ve been wondering about something, Spezia. How is Lori Raines doing these days?”

  Again, I hung my head.

  “Doctor? Answer the question.”

  “I discharged her a few days ago. According to her wishes, sir.”

  “So?” The Dean clasped his hands together and peered at me intently. “And? How is she doing?”

  “She was admitted again sometime last night. I saw her briefly this morning, and her condition is stable. But, I don’t believe she should be released to home care ever again.”

  “Hmm. So, you are not satisfied with your decisions?”

  I stared back at him. “Can a physician ever be satisfied with failure? Lori Raines is dying, while I am forced to stand by and observe her slow demise. That is failure. But, short of finding a cure, I don’t see that there is anything else I can do about it.”