by Lou Cadle
QUAKE
Lou Cadle
Copyright © 2014 by Cadle-Sparks Books
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.
Table of contents
Chapter 1: Bash
Chapter 3. Bash
Chapter 4: Gale
Chapter 5: Bash
Chapter 6: Gale
Chapter 7: Bash
Chapter 8: Gale
Chapter 9: Bash
Chapter 10: Gale
Chapter 11: Bash and Gale
Chapter 12: Gale
Chapter 13: Bash
Chapter 14: Gale
Chapter 15: Bash
Chapter 16: Gale
Chapter 17: Gale and Bash
Chapter 18: Gale
Chapter 19: Gale
Epilogue
Chapter 1: Bash
Bash clamped a dishtowel over the top of the blender and gave it a pulse. The pale yellow banana half and bright green kiwi disappeared into the orange juice and fat-free yogurt. Several more pulses and the smoothie was done, the color turning out a pastel he might call toasty salmon or shrimp mousse.
That made him long for a plate of fresh seafood. But the nearest ocean was a thousand miles away now. He could add oceans to the things he missed about California, a list already long enough to stretch the whole distance from here to there.
Gale came into the kitchen in his kimono, scrubbing at his face with his hand, one of the big, muscular hands that Bash had fallen in love with twelve years ago. He tried to love them again, right now, to stir up that old warm feeling, but years and overfamiliarity and the last few months of unhappiness made it impossible.
Bash made an effort. “Smoothie?”
“I’ll make myself eggs.”
“Do we have any?”
“Dunno.” Gale opened the fridge and peered in, came out with a carton of eggs. “Plenty,” he said. He set the carton on the counter and stuck his head back into the fridge. By the time Bash sat down with his liquid breakfast, Gale had piled up a hill of food — eggs, butter, green peppers, mushrooms, salsa, and two kind of cheese. He shut the fridge door with his hip.
“I’m jealous.”
“You can have some.”
“No, I promised myself I’d get rid of this gut. I’m getting middle aged and fat.”
“You’re fine,” said Gale, sounding weary more than sincere.
Bash, wounded, ran through several responses in his head. I am not. I used to be better than fine. If I’m fine, why do you not seem to love me like you did a year ago? All whiny answers, which Gale would hate. And who could blame him? Bash hated the needy words that came out of his mouth these days, too. He swallowed down those words with a swig of smoothie. “What’s up with work today?”
“Meetings, meetings, and more meetings.” Gale pulled down the French omelet pan and set it on the burner.
The smell of butter melting in the pan made Bash’s stomach growl. He drank more smoothie while he imagined a greasy-spoon breakfast of bacon and hash browns and buttery toast. No, not until his little poochy gut had gone away. He would not turn into his father whose gut had grown more than a little poochy. “Just wait until you turn forty,” he said.
“It can’t be that different from thirty-eight.”
“Just wait,” Bash said. He watched as Gale chopped his vegetables and grated his cheese. “You making any headway on your building code thing?”
Gale turned his head and met Bash’s eyes. In fact, the question had been innocent. As Gale continued to stare, Bash’s forehead muscles began to ache with the effort of holding his innocent expression. “Don’t burn your omelet,” he said.
Gale returned his attention to the stove. “It’ll happen when it happens.” He banged the spatula on the edge of the pan. “I’m working as hard as I know how to.”
“I know.” Bash felt guilty for turning them back into the same old argument, was worried about their relationship, was lonely, and was desperate to leave this little Midwestern town as soon as possible. But before they could leave, Gale had a list of accomplishments he felt he had to achieve.
Gale was already launching into his end of the argument. “And I have to stay two full years, even if I get everything done I want. And it might not happen in two years anyway. We’ve been over this.”
Bash nodded miserably, though Gale, stabbing at his omelet with a spatula, couldn’t see him.
“Look, another ten or fifteen months and then I can start sending out resumes.”
Bash tried to sound grateful. “I’m counting the days, dear.”
Gale’s shoulders rose and fell with a quiet sigh. “Maybe you should quit counting.”
The words burst out of him. “But I hate this place.”
“Bash.” Gale’s voice was weary.
It was almost as if someone else were in control of his tongue. “I want to go back to California. Or on to New York or Chicago or somewhere cosmopolitan. I want my friends, and parties, and a community again. I want — “
“Then go.”
That was new. It stopped his outburst cold.
They were both silent while Gale finished making his omelet. He slid it onto a plate and put the plate on the table. He turned back to the counter and got out the French press, went through the ritual of making himself a cup of coffee. Bash sat watching his husband’s eloquently angry back and blinked back tears. You stupid old queen, don’t cry. Sometimes, he hated himself as much as he hated this town. When had he become such a nag?
Gale sat down with his coffee and took a deep breath. When he opened his mouth to speak, Bash, afraid of what he might say next, interrupted.
“I love you.”
“Then support me.”
“I do.”
Gale’s eyebrows shot up.
“In my heart, I do.”
“How about your heart and your mouth have a little chat, then.”
“C’mon, don’t you miss L.A.?”
“Damn it, Bash.” He slapped his coffee cup down. “Of course I do. I don’t love living in the Bible Belt any more than you do. I have a higher hill to climb at work here, and I struggle with making connections because of the antediluvian attitudes here.”
“The city manager knew you were gay when she hired you.”
“And she’s been great. But I have to deal with the Council and developers and architects and homeowners and the community at large, far more than you do.”
“I do too. I work with the public.”
“Not like I do. Your patients need you. Nobody needs me — I need them. My job is all politics. It’s all about schmooze. And it’s a hard job, and you only make it harder by pushing me. I need a goddamned break here.”
Bash stood up and grabbed his smoothie. He went to the sink and poured the rest down the drain. He couldn’t swallow food when he was fighting Gale. He turned on the faucet.
“Leave it. I’ll do the dishes. Just go to work.”
Bash turned off the tap and slumped out of the kitchen. Damn this place. He and Gale had never fought like this before. He was being a bitch, and he knew it, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He ached for the old world like a shy little kid dumped at summer camp ached to go home. Again his eyes stung.
Don’t cry. Do something. Something good. Something useful. Something to make things better. Do something for Gale, or do something for yourself. Quit c
omplaining and do something.
Problem was, he had no idea what that should be.
Bash sat at a stoplight, tapping his fingers to the jazz ballad playing off his flash drive, James Williams on piano. He tried to let the music float away the residue of fear and anger the morning’s fight had left, but not even music was helping. His emotions felt like a poison, souring his stomach and mouth, leaving a vinegar taste.
The front wall of the cancer center came into view, a shiny round curve of glass, a pretty building, one that Gale had complained about almost every time he saw it. “All that glass in tornado and earthquake country,” he would say, shaking his head. He was probably right — he knew his job — but Bash liked the building. It was a stylish splash in a boring city.
He punched his code into the employee door, and it snicked open for him. A dim utilitarian hallway led into the locker room. He shrugged off his jacket, took out his blue uniform tunic and slipped it over his t-shirt. A stethoscope went around his neck.
He was pushing the morning’s fight over breakfast to the back of his mind, but his mood hadn’t yet caught up to work, which was seldom cheerful either, though it was sometimes rewarding. Since he couldn’t quite force a pleasant expression just yet, he grabbed an old issue of the pediatric oncology nursing journal out of the top of his locker for camouflage. Locker door shut, dial spun, and he was ready for the day, Bash walked to his shift pretending to read the magazine. As he entered the public spaces, the morning light streamed through all the windows. He made it to the elevator, backed in, and sighed with relief that he was alone.
Too soon. A hand stopped the closing doors and in walked Suze, of all people, winding her dishwater blonde hair into a bun and stabbing it through with plastic chopsticks.
“That’s an old issue of JOPON,” she said. “I read it ages ago. There’s a good article on sibling grief you should read.”
Did I ask? This is what he disliked about Suze — indeed, two of the things he disliked about her, in addition to the Ozark accent. First, no hi, how ya doin’, pretty morning, isn’t it? No attempt to establish a give and take of normal human conversation. Second, always the “shoulds.” Adults, in Bash’s opinion, did not give other adults unsolicited advice. If I want to know which articles to read — and he had read this issue months ago — I’ll ask.
She simpered at him and stepped off the elevator onto the second floor, patting her pale hair.
Even California blond seemed different than Missouri blond, he thought, as the elevator opened again on the third floor. He turned left.
The staff supervisor, Meggy, was coming down the hall toward him, cradling a tablet computer. “Sebastian, may I have a word?”
“Of course.”
She motioned him into an open doorway. “Alene’s sick again.”
“Is she okay?”
Meggy gave the tiniest of shrugs. Everything about her was tiny — she was four feet ten, probably a size 2, had small hands, the tiniest gold studs in her ears he had ever seen, and standing next to her made Bash feel like a bouncer in comparison. “She won’t be in today. I’m shifting staffing. Can you stand two shifts in chemo?”
“Once in awhile, sure.” He had been drawn to the job not only for its day-only work, but also for its philosophy of rotating the staff at midday to avoid burnout, but he could do this. He was a reasonable and flexible person. No matter what Gale would say about that.
“Something wrong? Just say no if you have a problem with it.”
She was a hawk with reading expressions. “No, no. I’m fine with it.” Bash thought himself fairly sensitive to others’ moods, but Meggy was almost mystical in her abilities to read her staff.
She peered more closely at him for a moment, seemed to be satisfied that whatever was wrong wasn’t her concern, and gave a sharp nod. She walked away, tapping at her tablet.
He passed the waiting area and smiled at Trevor, one of his youngest patients, sitting at his mother’s feet. Mom, a chunky woman in canvas shoes and sweat pants, was on one of those dollar-store cell phones, a sweating Big Gulp beside her on the table. Trevor was on the floor with a primary-colored wooden train, but he caught sight of Bash and waved and smiled at him. What a cute kid. His bad mood evaporated with the boy’s smile.
Trevor had ALL — a common form of leukemia in children. And there were drug shortages on the preferred drug for chemotherapy, had been for months. Chemo was worse on kids, as the drugs target not cancer cells but all rapidly dividing cells, which is why there are side effects. Kids had more rapidly dividing cells than grownups — their bodies are trying to grow up, poor babes. Trevor, being on Medicaid, got a cheaper drug, an older drug with even more side effects.
On the other side of the waiting room was an African-American couple he didn’t know, the woman hugely pregnant and glowing with health, the man thin and tired looking. For an instant he had the wild notion that she had stolen her man’s health, but that was silly. The man was sick with cancer, or with its treatment, and the disease was his succubus, not his pregnant partner.
He sat down beside the receptionist, Jo, and said to her, “Great hair style today.”
She beamed. “You like it?”
“Very much.” More than the actual style, he liked that she experimented with it. There were so many staid and boring and stuck-in-their-rut types around here, a little thing like changing hair every week was a radical and brave statement in southeast Missouri. “Who’s up first?”
“Trevor. Then Mr. Witherspoon.” She pushed him a note with the new patient’s DOB and file number.
“Thanks.” He went back to the treatment rooms to make sure everything was in place — some of his coworkers left the rooms in less than perfect order, and Bash was a stickler for detail. And a stickler for cleanliness and professionalism and order and — well, he was anal about his work, he admitted that. Only a few bits of tidying this morning were needed, and he was ready to go. He sat at a computer terminal and called up the new patient’s info, made sure there wasn’t anything special that would require a special room or schedule — but no, pretty standard protocol, stage II gastric, antiemetic and two meds.
He called up Trevor’s chart, though he had the older parts memorized. Treatment protocol was same as the last five times. No new hospitalizations, so good. His own notes, including the ongoing problem with hydrating the little guy. He made sure all the meds were lined up and went to get the boy. This time, Trevor did not look up, though Bash knew he saw him. Bash didn’t blame him. If only we could all ignore what we didn’t like in life and focus intently on the toy train until the bad thing went away. Right there with you, kid.
Trevor’s mom saw him and clicked off her cell, then gathered her things and spoke quietly to Trevor. The boy’s head hanging, he got up and trudged over to Bash.
Bash squatted down and said, “Hey buddy, what’s it going to be today? TV or a game or…?”
“The hospital has PlayStations.”
Bash smiled. “I know. I’m sorry we don’t have them here.”
“My mom brought a book. It has dinosaurs. It’s really good.”
“She’s a wonderful mom.”
Trevor nodded.
Bash stood and walked back toward the treatment room. With a sigh, Trevor followed him. What a little man he was. Bash remembered his own morning meltdown and felt ashamed of himself, an adult with tiny problems compared to this brave little kid with real problems.
He got Trevor settled into a recliner, his mom got him to sip from the Big Gulp — good going, Mom — and started the antiemetic IV. And so another work day began.
By ten, he had five infusion rooms filled and two more patients in the waiting room. The new man, Mr. Witherspoon, had slowed him down a little, as Bash refused to leave him alone for long. Until he felt certain that he wasn’t going to react to any of the meds, he checked him compulsively. And then there was the pregnant wife, who had been a problem since she stood up to go in to treatment with her husband.<
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“You can’t go into the infusion room,” Bash said. “You’re pregnant.”
“I could at the last clinic.”
“They were wrong,” Bash had said, wondering how much more rural and backwards such a place had been than this. Ye gods, he had thought it was bad here — he couldn’t count the number of times he had seen medical staff cross a sterile field, for instance. But to allow a pregnant woman into a chemo room? Ack! Might as well be working in some third-world country. “You have to think of the baby,” he said.
“The baby is fine. She’s kicking right now.”
Bash would believe that she was fine when he saw her born alive, without defects. “Let’s keep it that way. No chemo for babies.”
The woman looked mutinous, but the patient stepped in. “If it’s about the baby, hon, maybe you should wait outside. Go shopping.”
“For what, more tents?” She plucked at her maternity dress.
“Baby clothes.”
“We have plenty to start.”
“Go for a walk then, or window shop.”
“I want to be with you. And if not with you, then here, in this building at the very least. What if you need me?”
The cancer patient grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. “Do what the doc says.”
Bash didn’t correct him about not being a doctor, and the woman finally rolled her eyes and said, “Fine.” She stuck a finger in Bash’s face. “But you take good care of him.”
“The best,” Bash promised. And he had kept the promise after he had guided the woman to the central waiting area. Running out to her every twenty minutes for updates had slowed him further. Didn’t they own cell phones? They could talk to each other the whole time if they did, but apparently not.
In Infusion Room 1, Trevor grew more restless and bored, and he balked over drinking enough. Bash hated to hurt him more, but he started an IV line for fluids in the free arm. This limited the kid’s movement further, which made him more bored and fidgety and mad. Bash liked to see his anger — much healthier than acquiescing to everything in a stupor. When his mother tried to admonish him, Bash motioned her out into the hall. “The anger is a good sign.”
