I rolled my neck, remembering the tiff we had pertaining to her funeral dress. She wanted me to get something from her favorite boutique, knowing how much I hated shopping at brick and mortars. If I had to shop, I preferred to do it online. “It’s on backorder in your size. I should probably order a size down. Twenty—fifteen pounds equals a downgrade in dress size.”
“They can pin it underneath me in the coffin. Contact my tailor to do it. He works wonders with a needle. The way he made my work dresses flow over my form like silk….I made many a man weep from the moment I walked in the room.” She weakly pinched my side. “We’re very lucky we won the genetic lottery and received our shapes; the shape of a woman. The shape you’re bent on losing. You nearly have. Eat something, daughter. Please. You look thinner than the size you were when you came back here. What about your dress? Have you gotten it yet?”
I shook my head.
“Are you still refraining from venturing out?”
I looked at my short stubby nails, hoping she’d forget my answer.
“Diouana?”
I sighed deeply. “I hate it when you call me that.”
“You hate it when I call you by your given birth name? What should I call you? Dominique? Nikki? Gah! Your father’s choice for your middle name. Absolutely hated it back then, and I truly hate it now.” She smiled with her eyes. “The things you do for love. Allowing a man who knows nothing about naming a child to give your first, and only, born a middle name.” She waved off the thought before growing quiet. Pausing shortly, she looked at me. “Unfortunately, the fuel in this economy doesn’t run on love. It runs on finance. Have someone who looks the part and whose bank account behaves the part—I don’t want you to ever compromise your position, or who you are to survive in this world. Not like I have. There are many things I’m not proud of.”
“Did you ever stop to think that I like being referred to as Nikki, because it sounds so close to Nicole?” I asked a rhetorical and redundant question to stray her off the topic of my nonexistent love life, and the even darker subject of the sacrifice she made for me.
“If I wasn’t already dying…” She tossed her head from side to side as she delicately chuckled. “Don’t wear black. I always loved turquoise on you.”
“Wearing a bright color to your funeral will call too much attention to me for the wrong reasons.”
“Tell them it was my wish.”
“I don’t want to wear turquoise.”
“You wear black on a daily basis. You’re attending a funeral nearly every day.”
“I’m wearing a white shirt, and my jeans are barely black.”
She flourished her hand at me and sunk into her hospital bed with a slight grimace. She tried and failed to be discreet as she pushed the dispense button on her PICC line.
“Did they up your dosage?”
“They say it will kill me. What I wouldn’t give for that. You should see about taking me home, Nikki. Maybe we can find a down on her luck home health aide, who will put me out of my misery.”
I switched off the television, knowing that she held off on her meds to see me, and would soon be asleep for the remainder of the day.
The reason her texts were so persistent rang clear; she couldn’t endure the brunt of the pain much longer. The thought made it difficult to keep my emotion down.
I didn’t want to leave. I had nothing else to do with my day other than tweak a website for a candle company that was done a week before the given delivery date. I put my earbuds in and set my digital radio to melancholy.
As I looked out the window, The Smiths popped up on my playlist. I glanced at my mother, watching her fight to stay awake. Eventually, she succumbed to sleep.
Janet, her day nurse, came in. I didn’t mind her too much, because she never woke my mother when she took her vitals, like the others insisted on doing. The others either spoke too loud, or handled her too roughly. Janet’s desire to befriend me was her only downfall.
“How’s her pain scale today, Nikki?” Janet asked with a grim smile.
I couldn’t hear her, but could read her lips. I took my earbuds out and shook my head at her. “Why can’t she up her meds?”
“I’ll ask Dr. Grant, but she’s already at 440 milligrams.”
“Will he change the dosage?”
“I don’t know.” She suddenly upped her mood, giving me a smile and a wink. “I know someone. He’s new around here. He’s really cute and doesn’t wear a wedding ring. He’s a doctor—”
I put my earbuds back in.
She marched over and removed an earbud from my ear. “Nikki, you’re young—too young to waste away like this.”
“I’m not wasting away, because I’m single.”
“Your mother talks to me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course she does. I’m sure she told you that I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, too.”
“She’s just worried no one will be around to look after you when she’s gone. With your conditions,” she pointedly eyed the thick leather cuffs that I wore religiously around my wrists, “you need someone in your life to take care of you.”
Suddenly, I didn’t care what was waiting for me at home. I didn’t wait for the doctor. I left before I got a chance to meet with him.
Incessant barking and the sound of a loud party at my new neighbors’ house disrupted the viewing of, Shark Tank, my mother’s favorite television show. I continuously turned up the volume, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the loud party.
I screamed, unable to take the noise outside, and moved to the deck.
The moon danced on the murky water, the stars were hard to see due to the neighbors having every light inside and outside their house on. I stood on the end of the deck to investigate. The house was full of guests, who were spilling out into the backyard while obnoxiously shouting and dancing around. A few took a dive in the bay—some weren’t clothed.
I heard the click of a shutter and saw a light flash at me. Concentrating on the sound, I directed my eye to a man not too far from the deck. He was teetering on my mother’s property line while surrounded by a bunch of giggly females. My glare didn’t stop him from taking pictures of me.
I immediately marched over, having not a care that I was wearing clothes that were only suitable for bed; a tight black mid-drift T-shirt and cutoff jogging pants.
He lowered the antique-looking camera away from his face, revealing the same guy I ran into at the park earlier in the day. My steps slowed until a mere few feet stood between us. His friends called to him. He was so still in the moment, I don’t think he heard them. After a time, I didn’t hear them either.
His steely gaze froze at my breasts, reminding me that I wasn’t wearing a bra. His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth for moment before he lazily lifted his eyes to my face. Feeling self-conscious, I folded my arms across my taut nipples.
One of his friends whistled at me and drew a sharp, pointed glance from my new neighbor. With a frown, the catcalling friend threw up his hands and shook his head, relenting under my neighbor’s ire.
He contemplated me again as I began to shiver in slight embarrassment. Removing his striped cardigan sweater, he draped it over my shoulders. I observed his strong and sturdy hands as they fixed the sweater about my shoulders. He smelled like citrus spice—remnants of which had settled on the sweater he placed on my shoulders. The scent recalled a memory. A memory of the only decent guy I’d ever met. He helped me when I was having a hard time, and I never knew his name, nor saw his face. My sense memory kicked in and slightly subdued my anger.
In stillness, we continued to stare at each other. His smile endured despite my frown. I couldn’t deny it. Out his sweats and into a body-hugging button down and slim-fit slacks, with his raven hair styled in a neat, medium taper; he was a very attractive man.
I blinked out of our common daze and roughly grabbed the camera from his hands. Stepping to the edge of the property, towards the bay, I tosse
d it in the water.
With the exception of one gasping woman in particular, the crowd with him began to laugh. The woman, who seemed most bothered by the action, was beautiful to say the least. Her coconut shell complexion was smooth and lightly made up. Her jet hair was gathered in a neat topknot. She had an effortless beauty and an athletic physique.
The man before me furrowed his brow with a frown. “I gave you my sweater…” He turned stiffly to the bay with a look of befuddlement. “…saved your phone from the shatter screen of death, and offered to buy you a coffee, even though you were a severe bitch to me. In return, you destroy a really fucking expensive camera? Seems like a fucked up trade off.”
“You shouldn’t take pictures of people without prior permission,” I retorted.
“I get that…now. Apologize for that, even though it seems pointless now. Don’t you think your reaction was a little severe?”
“Now that you understand what you did was wrong, I don’t think it was that severe.”
He rolled his eyes to the sky, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his denim jeans with his thumbs out. “Destroying a priceless camera to prove a point…” He held me in his gaze with a frigid front. “…isn’t severe to you?”
“I told you, Eric,” said the beautiful woman as she stepped forward, “this chick looks like she has a little too much crazy to her. She just proved it. It was my camera, by the way, gifted to me by Eric. It was his deceased uncle’s. You should feel like utter shit for what you just did.”
“Estelle.” Eric held out his hand to stop her from her warpath. “Go back inside,” he told her without directly regarding her.
She dropped her eyes to the ground and followed his command.
I folded my arms and arched a brow at Eric. “I thought it was expensive, not priceless. It couldn’t be priceless. Nothing tangible is priceless.”
He narrowed his eyes at me through a scowl. “I know you said something about not being human—hell, you look like a cute human girl to me. You may not act like one—you have no idea what I went through to get that camera.”
“So it wasn’t that it was priceless or expensive, it had sentimental value? You shouldn’t place your emotions into tangible things that can be broken.”
“I don’t know whether to take you over my knee, or walk away before I say something that’s going to show you how pissed off I am. I think I’ll do the second. Seeing as though we’re direct neighbors, I’ll be sure to avoid you in the future. Fuck me over once. Fine. Fuck me over twice, and I’ll be damned if you get a third chance.” He plodded away.
That was odd. I wouldn’t have counted our brief interaction in the park as a time in which I ‘fucked’ him over. “Wait!” I called after him as I tugged on the hem of the sweater. “Your sweater.” It was too late. He was gone.
As the crowd continued to leer and snicker at me, I turned to the bay, contemplating if what I did was really so wrong.
Before diving in the water to retrieve the camera, I tossed off Eric’s sweater and kicked off my shoes. I searched the murky bottom floor for where the camera dropped.
I found it…just barely.
I took the camera home with me and set it on the dining room table.
While shivering and dripping wet, I sat in the leather wingback chair as I examined what I ruined.
After I found the make and model name: Leica M9, I retrieved my tablet to search for a similar camera. My timer went off, reminding me that it was time to take my nightly dose of medication. I decided against skipping it and moved to my bathroom upstairs.
I stretched my legs as I stood on the sidewalk in front of my mother’s house. The fog floated thickly as dawn began to break. I popped in my earbuds, ready to walk to the park that no one else in the neighborhood cared to frequent.
My stride was immediately broken by a full-grown Rottweiler, who stood in my way. Her tail remained still as the hair on the back of her neck bristled. A black collar full of pink crystals adorned her neck. Unafraid, I stepped forward as she began to growl.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Hobbins scolded me from her mailbox post with a bat in hand. She was hard to miss in her head-to-toe bright pink jogging suit with a matching sweatband. “That mongrel has already mauled one dog in the neighborhood. Mangy thing needs to be shot. They never lock ‘em up. They just let ‘em run around.”
Ignoring her advice, I stepped forward with my shoulders strong. I wasn’t going to submit to her. It was clear someone needed to alpha her.
She made a move like she was going to lunge, so I stood stronger. “Don’t you dare.” I pointed to her. “Sit.”
She licked her chops and stepped backwards. I bent down. Pacing myself, I grabbed her collar, and lightly placed my hand on her spine. She began to growl, resisting against my attempt to dominate her. “I’m not trying to hurt you, dog. I need to get you home, but I can’t do that unless you give in. If you work with me, there is a nice slab of raw meat in it for you. I know you’re a smart girl. You know I won’t hurt you. Now…sit.”
As she looked in my eyes, I stared back even stronger. She tossed her hips and eventually sat down, breaking my eye contact.
From across the street, Mrs. Hobbins gasped.
I took my new friend by the collar, walking her to the neighbors’ house. Since I’d never saw her in the neighborhood before, I figured she belonged to the new arrivals. She was without name tags to indicate whether or not I was wrong.
Already upset, because I wouldn’t have time to go to the park before I went to the hospital, I was in a less than stellar mood when I knocked on the door.
No one seemed to be home. The house was dark and there wasn’t a single car in the driveway. I waited on the steps until dawn broke and the dog began to impatiently whine.
“Come on, girl. Not safe out here. People are watching us, waiting to talk to us, and we don’t want that.” I guided her by the collar to follow me home. Halfway there, she began to follow me on her own.
I searched around my freezer and found a steak for the dog to eat. I defrosted it in the microwave for her. Serving her the steak raw, I added a few fresh blueberries and green beans to the mix. While I watched her eat, I contemplated what I was going to do with her when I left.
After following me around the house for a while, I let her out back to relieve herself in the yard that surrounded the boat deck. She sniffed around and did her business. At which point, she found a dirty tennis ball and dropped it on my foot.
An hour of play later, my medication alert went off. It was also far past time I started toward the hospital.
I went inside, ready to try and return the dog to my neighbors again, but she jumped on the couch, nested, and looked at me through drooping eyes.
With a small smile, I decided to let her stay.
My mother wasn’t awake when I got to the hospital, which was unusual for her. It meant that her pain was so severe, she couldn’t hold out and wait for my arrival. She also couldn’t hurry and access her makeup bag to hide the remnants that she wasn’t well, as she usually did.
I used to envy how beautiful my mother was. Beauty she claimed she gave to me, but I never saw it—especially not lately. When I still lived at home, I marveled every morning at how well dressed and made up my mother was before she went to work. She was and would always be the most beautiful woman I’d ever known.
I touched her forehead—it felt clammy. Her breathing was shallow, labored.
Janet came in with a white coat behind her. “Nikki? This is Dr. Brenton. The doctor I wanted you to meet.”
Realizing who the doctor she wanted me to meet was, I was a little stunned.
Eric’s lids slowly lifted as his light brown eyes peered at me from underneath his thick eyelashes. He fought back a creeping smile as he contemplated me.
I looked over his white coat, wondering why he didn’t have the hospital insignia embroidered on his jacket like all the other doctors. “Fitting.”
His face
dropped. “Excuse me?” he asked with total disregard to his normal niceties.
Unfazed, I eyed him from head to toe with a sour look on my face. “Your personality suits one of a doctor.”
Eric glanced at Janet, who gave him an uneasy shrug. He shot his gaze back at me.
“I don’t need you to speak to me. I get the same speech every few weeks. They lead in with the ‘we’re just trying to make her comfortable’ to guise the fact that she’s dying. She signed a DNR order. She knows what’s coming and so do I. Just do your job and give the orders to up her morphine, so she can really be comfortable.” I popped my earbuds back in my ears and turned around.
Five minutes later, Janet touched my shoulder. I turned to her with a glower. “What?”
She folded her arms as she fragilely shook her head. “You really dropped the ball on that one.”
“He has a girlfriend, and I don’t like him.”
“How can you not? He’s gorgeous and a doctor. And…he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
“He’s my neighbor, I would know.”
“You must be talking about his roommate.” She sighed. “Why do you do this, Nikki? You pulled this same stunt with the guy I introduced you to a few months back. Again, with the guy I tried to set you up with few weeks before that.” She glanced at my mother.
“If and when I want to start dating, I won’t need anyone to help me do it.” I stood back at my mother’s bedside. “What did he say…about her?”
“You already know. Isn’t that what you told him? So…do…you.” She looked at her tablet with a look of disappointment. “I have other patients to check on. I’ll see you later, Nikki.”
If the car door slamming next door hadn’t woken me up, the dog’s snoring would’ve. She lay on the floor beside my bed in a makeshift bed I made for her, using old blankets and pillows.
The Sordid Promise Page 2
