ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME

by McQuestion, Rosary

  Reaching on top of the refrigerator, I grabbed my lighter.

  “I need to talk to you.” He paused then softly said, “Guess I’ll have to wait till I get back in town.”

  Things were not getting any easier. I just wanted everything back to the way it used to be between us. Maybe he’ll change his mind about Vanessa and want me back.

  Stop thinking like the desperate woman you used to be.

  I gazed at the box of Krispy Kremes sitting innocently on the kitchen counter. C’mon, open me! I’ll make you feel better they seemed to say. I grabbed the box along with the pack of cigarettes, lighter, and chucked it all into the garbage.

  “Good riddance! Dating a cheater could be hazardous to one’s health!”

  Thirty-two

  Seated at the conference table in the boardroom Fendworth and I were well into our second hour of discussing a pending civil lawsuit case with Mr. Garafino, a new client. The guy didn’t seem like he was on the up and up, and he definitely wasn’t wearing Brooks Brothers IBM attire. His gray pinstripe suit looked custom made by some little old Italian man who probably couldn’t speak English very well. By the size of the diamond ring on his pinky and his tough Philly accent, he gave the impression he’d be more comfortable hanging out at the Bada Bing club as opposed to running a fortune 500 company.

  While staring at the fuzzy brown mole on Garafino’s cheek wondering if I were wrong and that soon it would sprout legs and crawl off his face, I couldn’t help but feel anxious knowing Gavin would soon arrive back in town.

  “So, what do you think, Aubrey?” Fendworth asked, as he kicked back in his chair. One black leather loafer stuck out from under the conference table and shined like glass.

  “I can assure you everything will be fine, Mr. Garafino,” I said. “Although opposing counsel wants to start court proceedings with a deposition from your CEO, after I take you through a rehearsal, you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

  “So I’ve heard, Ms. McCory. Your exceptional reputation in such legal matters precedes you,” Garafino said, with a wink.

  Fendworth jumped in to discuss some procedures, while I barely paid attention. The thought of having to soon speak to Gavin was weighing so heavily on my mind that trying to remain focused was as difficult as trying not to blink when a sharp object is headed straight for your eye.

  For two days, I’d been rehearsing what I’d say. I volleyed with the idea of letting him speak first. Maybe he’d apologize, say he didn’t know what he was thinking when he took Vanessa with him on his business trip. That it was just some stupid reaction to him being scared knowing he was head over heels in love with me, and thinking that I wasn’t in love with him because I’d never told him. Maybe he was just trying to protect his heart.

  Right! And pigs can fly.

  As the long arm of the clock inched its way toward two in the afternoon, I became more apprehensive. Gavin’s plane was due to arrive at Green International at 3:00. I prayed he wouldn’t stop by my office. A public confrontation would be humiliating. After hearing what he had to say on my home recorder the night before, I suspected that he knew that I knew something about him and Vanessa.

  “Isn’t that right Aubrey?” said Fendworth.

  I snapped to attention and blinked like a startled owl, as the client and Fendworth pushed back from their seats and got to their feet.

  “Um, yes absolutely,” I said, and shook Garafino’s extended hand.

  “Come on,” Fendworth said, addressing Garafino. “I’ll walk you to the lobby.”

  As soon as I approached my desk, I noticed the red flashing message light on my phone. Mr. Burns a friend of Mr. Davis’s who worked in Gavin’s office was on my voicemail. He left his phone number and said to call him back. A foreboding feeling similar to a phone ringing in the middle of the night crept into the pit of my stomach, as I punched in the phone number.

  “Hello, Mr. Burns?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Aubrey McCory. You left a message to call you.”

  “Oh, yes. I don’t know if anyone has contacted you, but I know Mr. Davis is a good friend of yours. So I wanted to be sure you knew he was rushed to the hospital last night.”

  “Oh my God, no I didn’t know! What happened? Is he all right? What hospital is he at?”

  “He’s had a severe heart attack. He’s in a coma. The doctors have him in the critical care unit at Rhode Island Hospital, but at least they were able to stabilize him.”

  * * * *

  The glass hospital doors jerked and slid open automatically. I stepped through, hesitated, and like a guillotine, the doors sliced shut behind me. A short, heavyset woman crashed past me, bumping into the old man in front of her. Thoughts of death and dying seeped into my head, as I hurriedly walked over to the receiving desk, told the receptionist I was there to see Mr. Davis, and thanked her after she gave me instructions on how to get to the ICU.

  Walking down corridors lined with empty gurneys, some with black cracked cushions, I saw what looked like a spot of blood on a retractable metal rail. The spot seemed to gleam under the bright lights. The nauseating odor of chloride and carbolic acid used as disinfectants regurgitated memories of seven years before, and suddenly it felt as if I were in an encore nightmare of the day Matt died.

  I passed a man standing in the corridor, his hands fidgeted, jingling the coins in his pants pockets. His eyes darted back and forth from the big clock on the wall to a nurse who sat at her station talking on the phone. A doctor wearing green scrubs hastened toward the man. My stomach felt queasy, as I recalled seeing those same green scrubs and same sympathetic look in the doctor’s eyes who pronounced Matt dead.

  Finally arriving at the critical care ward, I hurried toward the circular station desk that was buzzing with staff reading charts, while medics wheeled a woman on a gurney down the hall.

  “Excuse me,” I said to who I assumed was a nurse standing behind the desk. “Could you tell me if Mr. Davis is in this ward? He was admitted yesterday--he had a heart attack.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Davis. He’s in stable condition, but still in a coma,” she said, peering at me over her reading glasses. “And you are?”

  “Aubrey McCory. Can you direct me to his room?”

  The woman scanned the paperwork on a clipboard lying on the desk next to the phone. “I’m sorry,” she said while running a stubby finger down a list of names, “your name is not on the approved visitor’s list. Only immediate family members are allowed to see him.” Removing her glasses, she let them hang from the silver beaded chain around her neck.

  “Thank you doctor,” I heard a woman say behind me.

  Looking over my shoulder, I saw a sophisticated fifty-something woman with sculpted cheekbones arched high. Her mocha complexion was flawless, her warm sepia eyes expressive. She had an exotic, Lena Horne look, and when she walked up to where I stood the nurse behind the desk greeted her.

  “Ms. DuBois you’ve been here all night. Why don’t you go to the cafeteria and get a bite to eat? I promise that if Mr. Davis wakes up I’ll send someone to get you.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but you know Mr. Davis?”

  “And you are?” asked Ms. DuBois.

  “I’m sorry. My name’s Aubrey McCory.” I dug in my purse, pulled out a business card, and handed it to her. “I’ve known Mr. Davis for several years.”

  She stared at me with a quizzical look. “So you’re the lawyer!”

  “Um, yes, I said, trying to figure out why she’d be familiar with who I was.

  She extended her hand. “My brother has mentioned you several times. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Althea.”

  As I shook her hand, I was surprised to know Mr. Davis had a sister, and that he had mentioned me to her. “It’s nice to meet you as well. I apologize for being so bold.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, while waving her hand dismissively.

  I nodded. “So, how’s he doing?”<
br />
  “The doctor said he’s strong and that he has seen signs that lead him to believe that Otis might rouse from his coma soon.”

  It sounded funny to hear him referred to by his first name. “That’s wonderful news. When he comes out of his coma, could you please let him know I was here.”

  “Of course,” Althea said, through softly painted lips.

  As I walked out of the hospital that day and crossed over the circular drive to step onto the grassy boulevard, I stopped under the maple tree and turned back to look at the building. Nine floors of windows spanned from left to right on the half hexagon shaped hospital. As I stared at the building, I wondered about all the people who had died there and of those, how many had never found their way out. Are spirits roaming hospital corridors night after night? A morbid thought of Matt being lost and roaming the corridors of South County Hospital had flashed in my mind.

  * * * *

  As I pulled my SUV into the driveway at my parents’ house, my father zoomed past on his riding lawnmower as if he were racing the Daytona 500, his long gray hair waving in the wind like a checkered flag.

  “Hi Grandpa,” Nicholas shouted as he waved out the passenger window.

  “Mom,” said Nicholas, as he hoisted his backpack over his shoulder. “Grandma asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I brought a picture of the interactive pet robot dinosaur to show her.”

  “Where did you get a picture?”

  “I found it online and printed it out.”

  “There’s my boy,” said my father, letting the lawnmower idle, as he opened the door and helped Nicholas out of the vehicle. I got out and walked over to my father. “Hey,” he said, while hopping back on the lawnmower. “Just a warning, your mother wants you to try out one of her newest concoctions.”

  “You mean those fruity smoothies she’s testing for your new business venture?”

  “Sort of,” he said with a grimace, as he took off on the lawnmower.

  As I walked through the garage and opened the door that led into the laundry room, I heard the loud whir of the blender and found Mother in the kitchen. She’d been experimenting with fruit drink concoctions and tasty vegetable drinks for weeks. Only ten days before the grand opening of “Good Vibrations,” their new juice bar business, and she wasn’t one hundred percent sure they had enough flavors on the menu.

  “Aubrey, what do you think about wheatgrass juice with a twist of lime?” she hollered over the high-pitch, noisy blender that whirled a foamy dark green mixture. “One ounce of this juice has the nutritional equivalent of two and a half pounds of vegetables.”

  Sounded great, but one would have to imbibe the slimy looking green monster to get those benefits. Mother turned the blender off, poured a sampling of the juice into a shot glass, and did her signature Cher flip to toss her hair off her shoulders.

  “Here, taste it,” she said, practically putting the glass up to my face.

  “Um, I trust it’s good. Don’t think I need to,” I said, wrenching my neck to get my face far away from the glass.

  “Please,” she said with a pathetically sad look on her face.

  Taking the glass of juice, I examined its lumpy texture. “I take it this isn’t going to taste like the fruity smoothies or delicious tomato basil drinks you’ve been testing on Nicholas and me.”

  “Hmm, it might have a little bite. It’s more along the lines of a healthy herbal drink. One that has lots of vitamins,” she said, while anxiously waiting for me to try her new concoction.

  On the count of three, I chucked it down my throat like a shooter. Within a matter of seconds, my face must have contorted into not less than ten different expressions of disgust. Mother seemed totally oblivious as she smiled at me in anticipation of my comments. All I could think about was that the taste was probably equivalent to drinking sweat.

  “Well,” she said.

  I clucked my tongue and swallowed repeatedly. “Let’s just say it isn’t exactly a-party-for-your-mouth kind of taste.”

  “So, is that a no?” she asked, looking disappointed.

  “Grandma, look what I have,” Nicholas said pulling the page he’d printed of the toy dinosaur out of his Spider-Man backpack. It was a remote controlled, new-age silver plastic-bodied, head turning, tail whipping tyrannosaurus rex. Not exactly the traditional looking dinosaur we’d seen at the museum.

  “Wow, that’s pretty cool!”

  “I know Grandma; this is what I want for my birthday. It has a laser tracking system that draws his path to the prey, and he can also play tug of war.”

  I mused at the thought of perhaps convincing Nicholas a toy like that qualified as a pet, so I wouldn’t have to get him that rabbit he had wanted.

  As they jabbered on about his birthday, I was hoping Nicholas wouldn’t bring Gavin into the conversation. I still hadn’t decided how and when I was going to tell him Gavin was no longer in our lives. Equally bad was the thought of telling Mother. I was certain she had secretly stashed bridal shower gifts somewhere in the house.

  Thirty-three

  Morning dawned and I had awakened from a morose dream about Mr. Davis in the hospital sharing a bright yellow urine-filled Foley bag with Matt.

  My surroundings registered in fragments. Slowly turning blades on the ceiling fan straight above…night table to my right…alarm clock facing me. It was six-ten in the morning. The beginning of daylight seeped into the room through a slit in the drapes. I felt sweaty, as if I’d just run a marathon. Throwing the sheet off my body, I happened to recall the conversation I had with my parents the evening before.

  Gavin’s name came up once, but I quickly changed the subject and told them about Mr. Davis having a heart attack. My father said he’d go to St. Theresa’s and light a votive prayer candle for him. Mother was going to perform a Buddhist chant.

  As the blades of the ceiling fan slowly whirled above me and cooled my body, I was overcome with dread. It was Black Friday, the day I would end my relationship with the man I had thought was my soul mate. I tried to convince myself I didn’t care. Who wants a procrastinator, a boyfriend wannabe, someone who drools when he sleeps and enters Forrest Gump territory every time the TV is tuned to a sports channel?

  I turned on my side, adjusted the pillow under my head, and gazed at the pink ballerina snow globe on my dresser. You could always play hooky from work again, she seemed to say with her relentless stare.

  I got out of bed and marched through the house, woke Nicholas up for school, made him a bowl of oatmeal, had a cup of coffee, showered, dressed and got Nicholas on the school bus. As I drove to work, I practiced my breakup speech to Gavin.

  Oh, you want to know why I haven’t returned your calls. Well, let me just sum that up in one word--Vanessa! By the way, as far as her attributes, I think most people would agree she’s like the prize in a Cracker Jack box--a cheap throwaway. However, if you prefer that kind of woman to someone who has done everything but balance a three-legged stool on the tip of her nose to show you she loves you, then fine--you deserve each other. So now it’s over, that was then, and (deep sigh) this is now.

  By the time I had reached the office, Gavin’s deceitfulness weighed so heavily on my mind, I felt as if I could spit rocks. I planned on setting up our talk for early evening. I’d made arrangements; Mother was picking Nicholas up from school. I couldn’t wait to rid myself of the constant ball of tension I’d carried inside me for the past five days.

  Barreling off the elevator, I charged down the hall in a huff, mumbling to myself. As I reached my office the fast-paced click, click, click of my stilettos hitting the hardwood flooring, came to an abrupt halt.

  Speak of the devil!

  My heart pounded like a jackhammer, while looking at the back of Gavin’s head. He was in my office occupying the black leather chair that faced my desk. Slightly angled, I could see his arms folded across his chest, legs stretched out with ankles crossed.

  “Good morning Aubrey,” Ashley called. She was standing
in the alcove next to the printer.

  “Morning,” I said, as my stomach tightened. This was not a good way to start my day. I wasn’t fully prepared. My immediate thought was to turn around and walk away before he noticed me. Just excuses, I told myself, for not wanting to have to say goodbye.

  Get a spine McCory.

  “Ashley, how long has Gavin been waiting for me?”

  “I don’t know. He was here when I came in.”

  “Thanks.” Taking a deep breath of courage, I opened the door and breezed into my office.

  Gavin glanced over his shoulder, uncrossed his ankles, and sat straighter in the chair. Wanting to savor his strikingly handsome face, and great body dressed in pressed blue jeans, a bright white dress shirt and navy sports jacket, I quickly looked away. His clean, just showered aloe scent filled the air like a Glade Plug-in. This had to be why breakup via text messaging had become so popular. Nevertheless, it was going to take more than his physical attributes and my desire for him to squelch the fury I felt inside of me.

  Even in the airy openness of the sun-filled room, it was as if the walls were closing in. I felt his eyes on me, as I slipped past him and walked around to my desk. Placing my briefcase on the credenza, I sat down and began straightening a stack of papers when my gaze meandered across my desk and then up at Gavin.

  “Okay, Aubrey I’m here. Is this what you wanted? Now can we talk?”

  As our eyes met, I’d forgotten everything I’d rehearsed in my head. My mind was like a blank canvas. Although I could pick up the brush, I was unable to make even the smallest of strokes.

  “I guess I’ll go first,” Gavin said, his voice sounding weary. “You want to tell me what’s happened in our relationship to make you treat me like I’m some kind of leper? You don’t return my phone calls. You don’t explain your behavior toward me. Nothing. You’ve kept me in limbo for almost a week. Why?”

  I thought I might as well cut to the chase. “Well,” I said softly, “about last Sunday, didn’t you tell me you were going to do some work at the office?”