by Nan Higgins
The pair walked toward the door. Quentin looked over his shoulder and waved. London waved back and sat on the bench until they stepped inside, the door closing behind them.
* * *
“Did someone need some coffee?” Grant entered Hell in a Handbasket with a drink carrier filled with steaming cups.
“Bless you!” Jasmine rushed to him and kissed him on the cheek, taking the carrier. “Maybe this will convince the boss lady to finally take a break. Nothing else has worked; she’s been at it all day.”
London laughed. “I’m right here. Can I be included in this conversation?”
“Sure you can, princess,” Grant said. “Drink your dark chocolate latte first, though.”
London scowled but took the cup from him. “We’d be scrappin’ if I didn’t need this so badly.” She inhaled the rich smell and took a sip. “Yum.”
“See?” Grant said. “Isn’t being a lady with coffee better than being a lady without coffee? Besides, you’ve been all work and no play for days.”
“I have to send my spring design concepts to people who distribute pieces for me by the end of the month,” London said. “Normally, I’d already have them done, but…”
“But your mother died,” said Grant.
“And she always used to be so impeccable with her timing.” London pretended not to see the look of concern between Jasmine and Grant. “Anyway, if you’ve come to take me to lunch, I don’t have time, so you may as well go back to work.”
“Lunch? Sweetie, it’s seven o’clock. Do you mean to tell me it’s dinnertime, and you haven’t eaten lunch?”
“I tried to tell her,” said Jasmine. “Every time I interrupt her, she says she’ll take a break in a minute. Now, a thousand minutes later, still no break.”
London looked over and saw Jasmine had already put the closed sign on the door. “Okay, okay, you two. I’ll shut down for the night. Do you guys wanna have dinner? I’m supposed to meet Tate at Tip Top at seven thirty; I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we made it a foursome.”
“You sure?” Jasmine asked.
“Of course, he’d love it.”
“So would I,” said Jasmine.
“Me too,” Grant said. “And I’m starving.”
The dinner rush at Tip Top was just ending, with several tables clearing out when the three of them arrived.
“Let’s ask for a table in the back,” said London. “It gets drafty in the front when it’s cold outside. I’ll text Tate and let him know we’re back here.”
One of the servers led them past the bar to the back of the restaurant. Exposed brick walls gave it a cavernous feel the deeper one went into the place. The tall, bearded server took their drink orders as they sat at the high table with barstools.
“We’re expecting one more,” said Jasmine.
“He’ll just want water.” London pulled out her phone. She sent Tate a text: Hey, punk, we’re at a table in the back. Jas and Grant are with me.
“So, aside from feeling rushed, how are the spring lines going?” Grant asked.
“Pretty well. I’m happy with what I’ve done so far. This will probably be the last year I’ll be waiting until fall to finish the spring line.”
“Really?” Jasmine asked. “But that’s always been our time line.”
“I know, but with the notoriety we’ve been getting, a lot of my pieces are going to be carried in some more shops in New York City and Los Angeles.” It was great to have something to feel so excited about, especially with all the drama she’d had lately. There had been many moments in the last few weeks when she needed a distraction from her feelings, and her busy work schedule had been the perfect solution. She’d worked so hard in her career, building her brand up from nothing, and could now enjoy the payoff. “It’s amazing, you know; this is what I’ve been working toward. What we’ve been working toward.” She squeezed Jasmine’s hand. “We did all this work to get Hell to be a bigger name, and now that it is, we’re working with people who want to get their hands on designs a year in advance.”
“A year?” Jasmine screeched. “That’s insane!”
London shrugged. “It’s business. And getting the designs done early will help us too, with us having to make and distribute more products.”
“Products?” Grant was staring at her with sharp interest. “I’ve never heard you talk about your work using that word.”
“I create art, yes, but in the end, the pieces I sell are products. There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is.”
“I didn’t say there was,” Grant said. “Just pointing out that it’s new for you.”
The server arrived with their drinks. “Did you guys want to wait until your friend gets here to order?”
“Yes, please,” said Grant. “I’m sorry; he should be here any minute.”
“No problem,” said the server. “Just grab me if you need anything before he arrives.”
“Thanks.” Jasmine looked at her watch. “He’s not usually late.”
London checked her phone. Almost seven forty-five and no text from Tate. She texted again: Hey jerk, where are you? I hope you’re not stuck looking for parking. Trying to find a spot on Gay Street at this hour could be tricky. Grant had offered to drive them over, and they had lucked into a spot right out front.
“So,” Jasmine said, “are you still trying to cross things off your bucket list?”
“Sort of. I started working my way up toward a marketing job. Kinda.”
“Ugh,” Grant said. “Did she ever. I only wish she’d had the decency to do it by herself.”
“You loved it. You’ll be telling that story for years.”
“Oh, tell me the story,” said Jasmine.
Grant regaled Jasmine with the whole scene: being dragged to this strange place, the comedic stylings of Doris and Michael, London’s burning of the corn, poor little Quentin running away, and the eccentric woman that was Joan Robinson.
London laughed. “And at the end of it all, Grant said he wanted to go back, so it must not have been that terrible.”
“True. I actually do feel like volunteering there can really make a difference.”
“This isn’t what you had in mind with your business suits and office work and big corner office, though, is it?” Jasmine asked.
“It’s not, but I think it could be a step toward that. I feel like I’m building to something anyway. And besides, once this was put in my path, I felt like I needed to see it through.”
“It definitely sounds like you two are doing some good work there,” Jasmine said. “Are you going to have to tell this story again when Tate gets here? Maybe we should’ve waited.”
“Where the hell is he, anyway?” Grant asked. “This isn’t like him. It’s almost eight o’clock.”
“I hope he didn’t blow us off for some hottie,” London said.
“What hottie?” Grant demanded. “Tate has a hottie?”
“He had a first date with this girl from Tinder today. He went hiking with her and a few of her friends, and tonight we get the dirty details.”
Jasmine smirked. “You think they ran into some bumpy terrain?”
“If they did, I wouldn’t blame him for blowing us off,” Grant said. “How long has it been since that poor guy got laid?”
“Since before he transitioned.” London didn’t feel bad telling them this bit of information. If Tate had been there, he would’ve told them himself. “I doubt they’re bumping and grinding yet; he seems to want to take things slow right now while he’s still getting used to the dating scene as a trans man.”
At that moment, London’s phone began to ring, and Tate’s face filled the screen. “There he is.” She hit the accept call button. “Hey, where are you?”
“Hello?” said an unfamiliar voice. “London Craft?”
She pulled the phone away from her ear and confirmed that it was Tate’s number. “Yes?”
“This is Patricia Fielding, and I’m a nurse at Saint Ann’s Hosp
ital. I’m calling from Tate Morgan’s phone. You should come to the hospital right away.”
Chapter Eight
The mixture of disinfectant and sickness permeating London’s nostrils always made her feel on the verge of throwing up, and this night was no different, although nervousness and sheer terror probably contributed to her upset stomach too.
She rushed to the ICU wing with Grant and Jasmine right behind her. After an eternity on the elevator and a chaotic maze of hallways, they finally arrived at the nurse’s station. A nurse was hanging up the phone, and when London approached, words began tumbling out.
“Hi, I’m London, I got a call from Patricia Fielding from Tate Morgan’s phone telling me to come right away.”
“Yes, I’m Patricia.” She turned to another nurse. “Bill, I’m going to be talking to these folks; can you cover the desk?”
She stepped out from behind the station, a small, grandmotherly-looking woman with short gray hair, plump cheeks, and bifocals. She took the glasses off as she got closer and tucked them into her breast pocket. “Step over here with me. There’s an empty room where we can speak privately.”
Panic swept through London as she followed. First, Patricia wouldn’t give her details over the phone, now they had to go to a private room to speak.
Once inside the room, Patricia offered them some chairs, but London shook her head. “Please, just tell me what’s happening.”
“You were listed as Mr. Morgan’s next of kin, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Last year, when Tate had his top surgery to remove his breasts and then a hysterectomy, she’d been with him and was on all his paperwork as his emergency contact. Panic gave way to desperation. She needed to know what was happening. Where was Tate? What had happened to him?
Patricia was consulting a chart. “What’s your relationship to him?”
“He’s my brother,” London said. “Now, will you tell me what’s going on with Tate?” Grant squeezed her shoulders, and Jasmine took her hand.
Patricia looked up. “I’m afraid your brother has sustained some very serious injuries as a result of an assault.”
London took in a sharp breath. “An assault?”
“He was brought to us in critical condition after some hikers discovered him on the side of a trail. He’d been badly beaten, and they called an ambulance. He was rushed into surgery to repair a collapsed lung and several rib fractures.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Jasmine said.
“He’s out of surgery now,” Patricia said. “He isn’t awake yet. Unfortunately, he also sustained trauma to his head and isn’t currently able to breathe on his own. He’s in a coma, Ms. Craft.”
London realized she’d been breathing shallowly. Her lungs pushed air out without her permission, as if the weight of this news forced it out and was crushing her. She felt flattened, one dimensional, as if she could neither breathe nor think nor feel because she had lost her depth.
“Who did this?” Grant asked. “Do you know anything?”
“We don’t. One of the hikers rode back in the ambulance, and police interviewed her, but she found him after the fact and wasn’t a witness to the crime itself. And Mr. Morgan is unable to speak on his own behalf, so…” Patricia trailed off.
London’s head felt heavy, and her vision blurred as she tried to process all of this. Her knees began to buckle, and Grant grabbed her waist. Jasmine grabbed one of the chairs and put it behind her. She sat and put her head in her hands. The room spun as if she rode a terrible merry-go-round, and she had to grip both sides of the chair in order to be able to look at Patricia. “But he’s going to be okay, right? He’s in a coma, but he’ll heal and wake up.”
Patricia’s mouth thinned. “The next several days will be critical, and we’re doing everything we can. We will know more in the coming forty-eight hours as we monitor his brain activity.”
“He’s going to be okay,” London said. “You don’t know Tate; he’s going to pull through this. There’s no one in the world stronger than him.” She didn’t even want to let the thought that he wasn’t going to be okay enter her mind. It seemed as if she could keep Tate safe and help him get better if she believed hard enough that he would overcome his injuries.
Patricia didn’t speak, and London hated the look of sympathy. It was the kind of look one gave a child who desperately clung to the last shred of belief in Santa Claus even when she had proof that the man was just a myth. She didn’t want Patricia’s forlorn expression to permeate the shell of positive thought she was creating. Tate was going to be okay. He had to be.
“Can we see him?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Patricia said. “Follow me.”
In the second from the last room on the right, they found him, although if London hadn’t been told it was him, she wouldn’t have recognized her best friend. Her illusions about getting him better by sheer force of will fell away. She paused in the doorway, not able to move closer to the broken person who was supposed to be Tate. Never had she been so at odds with herself. She wanted to rush to him and hold him as much as she wanted to run away. She took a few deep breaths and slowly walked to the bed.
The tissue around both his eyes was so swollen, he wouldn’t have been able to open them even if he’d been awake. His bottom lip had stitches holding it together, and his entire face was covered in blue and purple bruises. London gently picked up one of his hands and saw that the knuckles were raw and swollen too. He’d put up a fight. Of course he had.
“Tate,” London said, “I’m here. Grant and Jasmine are here too. We’re going to get you through this, do you hear me? I know you do. We’re going to get you through this. You’ll wake up and get better. You can come stay with me to recover. Grant’s already crashing at my place, and it’s going to be the best slumber party ever. It’ll be like old times when we were kids and never wanted to leave each other’s houses. Remember all the times I came over to play with you, and we were having so much fun that when my parents came to pick me up, we’d pretend to be asleep so I could spend the night? It’ll be just like that, except we can stay up all night if we want to, and instead of drinking chocolate milkshakes, we’ll drink beer. Well, we can do milkshakes too. We’ll do whatever you want, okay? Whatever helps you get well, that’s what we’ll do.”
She didn’t feel the tears streaming down her face until Jasmine, armed with a box of tissues, wiped them away. That act of kindness made her come completely undone, and she laid her head down on the bed beside Tate and sobbed in a way she hadn’t since she was a kid. Anguished wails escaped her mouth, and she felt as if her entire body was being twisted from the inside out from the force of the tears pushing their way to the surface. Jasmine rubbed her back and pulled her hair away from her face. Every minute or so, she blotted London’s cheeks with a clean tissue.
London began to get a grasp on her tears, but as they dried, her vision cleared, giving her a harsh view of Tate’s injuries again, and she quaked with fresh sobs. Her sweet Tate. What kind of monster could have done this? Who could have so beaten those eyes that were always filled with compassion and adventure? Who bruised the lips that could never stop themselves from singing in the car? She couldn’t understand what she was looking at. She couldn’t recognize this poor creature in front of her, who was both Tate and not Tate.
After repeating this process several times, her tears finally began to wind down. She looked around the room. “Where’s Grant?”
“He stepped out to make a few calls,” Jasmine said. “He got Tate’s phone from the nurse so he could notify people.”
“He’s not ready to deal with this yet.”
Jasmine smoothed London’s hair back and did another once-over with a tissue under her eyes. “No, he isn’t. He’s still here, sugar. He just needed to take a few minutes.”
“Yeah.” London, squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I get it.”
They sat in silence, one on either side of Tate so they could each hold one of his hands. Lo
ndon wanted to keep talking to him, but she was so tired. She stroked his hand and would occasionally say, “I’m here. I’m here.”
Patricia returned with an armful of blankets and pillows. “I brought you a few things.” She crossed to the far side of the room and pulled back a curtain that London hadn’t even noticed, revealing another bed. “Normally, we’d have you sleeping in the foldout couch,” she said, pointing to the plastic sofa in the corner. “But since we don’t have another patient in here, you can sleep in this bed.” She looked at Jasmine. “Will you be staying the night as well?”
Jasmine looked at London, who shook her head. “Go home and get some sleep, Jas. I’ll be fine here.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
Jasmine leaned in to give her a tight hug. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Tears began to surface again, but she squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed the thick sadness building up in her throat. She needed to keep it together if she was going to get through this night on her own with Tate.
The sound of someone clearing his throat separated them from their embrace. Grant stood in the doorway, his eyes red rimmed and his hair disheveled. He took a tentative step into the room, not able to tear his eyes away from Tate. His lower jaw trembled, and a few tears tumbled down his cheeks.
“London, can I talk to you out in the hallway?”
“Okay.” She leaned down, kissed Tate’s hand, said, “I’ll be right back,” and followed Grant out to the hall.
“I’ve been pacing out here trying to get the nerve to come in.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I want to. I know I need to, but, London…” His face crumpled, and he choked out a stifled sob.
London hugged him and stroked his hair. Caring for Grant, even for a moment, removed her from her own pain and worry. She could be strong for him, for Jasmine and Tate. She could think about their needs, their emotions, and their pain, and in doing so relieve the pressure of her own, if only momentarily. “Go home,” she said. “Get some sleep and come back tomorrow.”
