City Girl

by Patricia Scanlan

  It was Maggie, too, who had stayed with Jean, another classmate, when she was suicidally depressed, having had an abortion. Her boyfriend had told her he would leave her if she didn’t have the abortion so she went ahead and had it. He left her anyway, unable to cope with her feelings of remorse. Maggie had listened to her outpourings, made her go for counselling and privately wondered how two intelligent girls like Sandra and Jean had made such a mess of their lives. Life wasn’t all roses in the Big Apple, she mused. As she headed downtown towards the hospital, tiny beads of moisture ran down her back so that her light cotton teeshirt clung damply to her body.

  It was mid-August and the temperatures had soared into the nineties, the muggy heat making people short-tempered and aggressive.

  ‘Make up your mind, lady!’ an aggressive street vendor growled at her as she tried to decide whether to buy Cosmo or the National Enquirer.

  ‘Ah, blow it out your proverbial,’ she snapped back, deciding to take her custom elsewhere. She grinned to herself – she’d been dying to use that colloquialism since she’d heard one of the nurses say it at the hospital. And it had certainly taken the wind out of Grumpy’s sails. He looked positively insulted. Sticking her purse back in her bag, Maggie decided it was too hot to walk, or even wait for a bus. She dived into a subway entrance and clattered briskly down the steps. She had just reached the bottom when a skinny wild-eyed coloured youth stood in front of her and produced a vicious-looking flick knife. She didn’t know that Jose Guerreo had been watching her from the moment she had stopped by the kiosk to buy her magazine and that he had noted with satisfaction the nice thick bulge in her wallet. Blithely unaware that Jose Guerreo was mainlining heroin and needed to score fast to feed his addiction, Maggie came to a breathless halt at the base of the subway steps. The youth almost smirked as he instructed her to hand over her money.

  Maggie stood, open-mouthed.

  ‘Come on lady, what’s keepin ya, d’ya wanna feel my knife in ya ribs?’ he snarled as Maggie stood stock still in shock. My God! She was actually getting robbed in broad daylight and people were just stepping around them, eyes averted. She had heard of people getting mugged so often, had taken care of victims in hospital and now it was happening to her. She couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Gimme the money NOW!’ The youth made a threatening gesture with the flick knife.

  Anger boiled up in her. He couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen, the little scut! Grimly she rummaged in her bag and found what she was looking for. In a voice that shook with temper and disgust Maggie brandished a scalpel in her attacker’s surprised face.

  ‘Listen! You little hoor’s ghost. In case you don’t know what this is, let me enlighten you. This,’ she waved the instrument at him furiously, ‘is a scalpel . . . a very sharp scalpel . . . that’s used for cutting off the balls of little pricks like you. So unless you want to become a eunuch I’d advise you to fuck off right NOW!’

  She thrust the scalpel in the direction of his most treasured possessions and he gave a yelp of horror. Christo! The dame was a nutcase; maybe she was wired too! Hastily Jose Guerreo rethought his strategy. There were plenty of other dames to be ripped off, he decided, as he sheathed his knife and melted into the crowds, leaving Maggie glaring after him.

  It really didn’t hit her until she sat in the swaying tube as it trundled its way through the city subway. She started to shake. God Almighty! Was she mad? She had seen people die of stab wounds from being mugged on the street by drug addicts who were so high they didn’t know what they were doing. He could have been on crack!

  ‘Christ, what a city!’ she muttered aloud, her limbs trembling with reaction. A middle-aged black woman eyed her warily and moved a little away from her. Maggie felt like laughing hysterically. Life wasn’t all fun and excitement in the Big Apple.

  Twelve

  Maggie shivered in the scorching heat of Saudi as she remembered the occasion. Even the memory brought a hard knot in her stomach and she remembered the fear that she had continued to experience months after the incident. At least Saudi was relatively crime-free, she thought, as she shifted her weight on the bed and continued flicking through photos, feeling as though the events of the past were somehow unreal. A small coloured snapshot slipped onto the coverlet and she smiled with pleasure as she held it up and stared at the picture of a pleasant handsome man. She had really cared for Leonard. They’d had such good times together despite their inauspicious first meeting. Maggie smiled broadly at the memory.

  It was a Monday morning, her day off. Maggie, feeling a sunbeam tickling her cheek, opened her eyes, stretched luxuriously and jumped out of bed. It was great to have the whole day all to herself. She had long been promising herself a trip to the Guggenheim Museum, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building which housed a treasure trove of exhibitions, and today she was going to immerse herself in culture. She’d had breakfast, made her bed and showered. Humming gaily to herself she dashed off a letter to home, she’d post it en route to the museum. She decided to give the studio a quick dust before she went out, she’d vacuumed yesterday, and that would be her housework done and she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not doing any. Industriously she sprayed her polish around and shone with a vengeance. The studio was a joy to live in, it was really easy to keep clean. The biggest item of furniture was the old piano in the corner by the window. Maggie flexed her long tanned fingers and grinned to herself. It had been years since she played a piano. Energetically she began.

  ‘Doh, a deer, a female deer,’ she sang lustily as her fingers inexpertly tickled the ivories. Twenty minutes later she had played her entire childhood repertoire and was about to finish with a crescendo when a figure appeared through her doorway causing her to hit several wrong notes. The apparition winced as though in pain and a deep and very irritated voice rasped, ‘Would you for heaven’s sake cut out that infernal racket. I’m trying to sleep!’

  Maggie’s temper began to ignite as she stared at the intruder, who now stood, legs planted as though they had taken root in her studio, his arms folded across his chest which was barely covered by the bathrobe he wore. His thick black hair was ruffled as though he had just got up, but it was his eyes that caught her attention.

  Blue ice cold prisms stared out of a tanned rugged face, his firmly carved mouth drawn in a tight line of barely suppressed anger.

  ‘How dare you barge in here! How did you get through the door? I have a Chubb lock on it! The nerve of you! Get out right this minute,’ Maggie ordered. Her tone was pure frost and many a drunk in Casualty had quailed when he met the scorn that now flamed in her expressive eyes. Inwardly, she was cursing herself. She must have left her door unlocked. How could she be so careless.

  ‘I dare,’ he retorted coldly ‘because I am very tired and you are disturbing the peace of this building with your caterwauling. So kindly desist.’

  ‘Look here, Mister . . . ?’

  ‘Craigie,’ he scowled.

  ‘I can’t help it if you’ve been out carousing all night so kindly exit this apartment rapidly or I’ll call the police!’

  ‘Will you indeed?’ he drawled, giving a huge yawn. ‘Who the hell are you anyway? Frances never told me she was subletting.’

  ‘Does Frances need your permission to let her own apartment?’ Maggie snapped indignantly, outraged at his arrogance. Just who did he think he was talking to? Some little schoolgirl?

  ‘We had an agreement. I have a key to her apartment, she has a key to mine and we look after each other’s when we’re away,’ the tall man informed her.

  ‘Is that so? Well, Frances left quicker than she had planned, and I don’t think you were around so that’s just tough!’ Maggie said crisply and pointed to the door. ‘Leave . . . ’

  Angry blue eyes ringed by long black lashes met equally angry green ones. ‘It will be a pleasure,’ he fumed, ‘but if I hear any more of that rumpus I will personally dismantle that piano.’

  ‘If I want to practise, neither
you nor anyone else will stop me!’ she replied, seething.

  ‘Just try me!’ he challenged.

  ‘Do you realize that I’m attending classes and I was doing some extremely difficult finger exercises,’ Maggie lied through her teeth, determined not to back down in face of the sheer effrontery of his behaviour. ‘I suggest you insert some earplugs if you can’t sleep,’ she advised him coolly. ‘I mean it’s ten on a Monday morning. It’s not as if it were the middle of the night!’ What an autocrat! Well, he just wasn’t getting away with it.

  ‘Did you say classes?’

  ‘Correct,’ she answered primly.

  His jaw sagged. ‘Oh God! I’m having a nightmare,’ he muttered.

  They stared at each other and Maggie became aware, as heavy-lidded blue eyes slid over her negligée-covered figure, that she was not dressed. Pink coloured her cheeks as she also became aware of the way she was staring at the dark tangle of hair on his chest revealed by his partly open bathrobe and on a level with her eyes. Memories of Joe flooded back. It had been a long time . . .

  Yawning once more the man turned on his heel and strode towards the door. ‘I suggest if you are going to “practise”,’ the tone was heavily sarcastic, ‘that you at least close the windows and have some consideration for the rest of your neighbours. And lady . . . ’ he glared at her, ‘I don’t carouse.’

  Sizzling with temper Maggie watched him march across the hall to his own apartment, then, slamming her apartment door, she Chubb-locked it and returned to the piano. Her fingers hovered over the piano keys. No bossy New Yorker was going to tell her what she could and could not do in her own apartment. Defiantly she played ‘The Last Rose of Summer,’ the only song she could remember properly, before lowering the lid over the keyboard.

  ‘That might teach him,’ she muttered as she dressed to go culture-seeking.

  She didn’t see him again. She toyed with the idea of asking him for his key. But obviously Frances trusted him implicitly and so she didn’t bother. She continued out of stubbornness to play inexpertly on the piano when the mood took her but she prudently kept the windows shut and didn’t play quite so loudly. If he hadn’t been so rude she would have ceased her musical experimentation, but Maggie just could not back down in the face of his impudence.

  As they chatted during tea break at work one morning, Sally, one of her colleagues grinned. ‘I see “Luscious Leonard” is operating this morning. Just wait until you see him, Maggie. He’s divine! Paradise on legs! And he’s divorced . . . da . . . da . . .’

  Maggie laughed. Sally tended to exaggerate about men. Maggie was doing a three-month stint in theatre nursing so she would see the paragon Sally was referring to. The morning was busy. They had a full list but everything ran smoothly. Maggie had a niggling pain in her right side which she tried to ignore. It had become increasingly troublesome over the previous few days and she thought ruefully that she had better get it seen to.

  ‘Luscious Leonard’ was delayed by an emergency in another theatre and so when he did arrive, scrubbed and gowned, Maggie could only see a pair of piercing blue eyes over his mask, and a rather large physique. Her own eyes, all that could be seen of her face behind her mask, studied him as he operated calmly, his fingers sure and deft. Professionally, she anticipated every move of the routine operation and handed him each surgical instrument before he had to ask.

  ‘Excellent work. Thank you,’ he complimented her when it was over. And Maggie smiled behind her mask. The surgeons in New York always thanked the nurses for their input. At home some of them treated nurses as though they were second class citizens!

  The surgeon’s blue eyes were staring down at hers, faintly perplexed. There was something vaguely familiar about the deep voice beneath the mask and Maggie almost gasped in horror as he untied it and she saw her ‘carousing’ neighbour full face. No wonder he had been mad. He had probably been up all night at an emergency. Before she could say anything an excruciating pain caused her to crumple up at his feet. Perplexity was replaced by concern in his blue eyes as he leaned over her and removed her mask, assisted by a horrified Sally.

  ‘Good Lord!’ she heard him say softly as gentle fingers pressed on her abdomen. White-faced, Maggie gasped as pain hit her again and then she passed out.

  A pair of twinkling blue eyes were the first things she focused on when she came to, feeling as though she had been run over by a truck.

  ‘The nurse will give you an injection for the pain,’ ‘Luscious Leonard’ informed her smilingly. ‘I’ve removed your appendix, which ruptured in theatre. But . . . ’ his eyes crinkled disarmingly as he leaned nearer and murmured, ‘You’ll be glad to know that I’ve left all your fingers intact. It won’t be long until you are playing the piano again.’

  In spite of herself, and her discomfort, Maggie grinned. At least he had a sense of humour, she thought, as she drifted back to sleep. He arrived on his rounds the following morning and she found herself rather mortified. After all he had been poking around her insides, he’d seen everything. Sensing her embarrassment he said easily, ‘So, Sister MacNamara, did you sleep well? I’m finding it rather difficult to sleep myself. You see I have this neighbour who used to lull me to sleep with her piano playing . . . ’

  Their eyes met and they both burst out laughing, to the surprise of Sally, who had popped in to see how Maggie was.

  ‘Get well soon,’ he said and she watched him go, smiling.

  ‘What was all that about?’ her friend demanded. ‘I’ve never seen anything so blatant, Maggie MacNamara. Falling at that hunk’s feet with appendicitis. I’ve been trying to get him to notice me for the past six months. Why didn’t I pull a stunt like that?’

  Maggie laughed and grimaced. ‘Ouch that hurt! Oh Sally, it’s embarrassing . . . him of all people.’ She proceeded to tell her friend about her previous encounter with the surgeon.

  ‘You mean he lives across the hall from you!! Trust you to have the luck. Of course Murray Hill is crawling with people from City General. I’ll have to move over from The Village.’ Sally shared a mews in Greenwich Village with four other nurses. ‘I don’t know if he’s dating anyone, I’m sure he is. He got divorced last year, according to the grapevine, but he keeps a low profile.’

  Maggie yawned and snuggled down into her pillows. ‘Go back to work, you idle gossip, and let me go asleep. I’m recuperating from surgery, I’ll have you know!’ Laughing, Sally left her to snooze.

  Two days later, he came to visit again.

  ‘Hello, Sister MacNamara,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘Hello, Doctor Craigie,’ Maggie responded a little warily. Watching him as he read her chart she reflected that he really was a good-looking man. She grinned as she remembered Sally’s description of him, ‘paradise on legs.’

  ‘You seem to be coming along fine,’ he remarked and his face creased into a smile as he added disarmingly, ‘Of course, you were lucky that you just happened to have been operated on by the finest surgeon in New York City.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘Modest as well, I see.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so. It’s one of my most noticeable attributes,’ he grinned wickedly, ‘that and my ear for music!’

  ‘I never imagined I lived next door to such a paragon,’ Maggie grinned back. She was beginning to like him more and more.

  ‘I bet you didn’t and aren’t you lucky it’s such a small world,’ Leonard said, taking two letters out of his suit pocket and handing them to her.

  ‘I checked your mail box. If you like I’ll check the apartment, I used to do it for Frances when she was away, but I’d prefer to ask you first, I wouldn’t wish to invade your privacy.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I must apologize for bursting in the other day. I did ring the bell but you couldn’t hear. I didn’t know Frances was gone. I was in Washington for a while and I didn’t realize she had left. I got a letter from her yesterday telling me all about her new job and about subletting to you. I must confess, a quick temper is also one of my
attributes – as you discovered!’ He held out his hand. ‘Am I forgiven?’

  Maggie took his outstretched hand and gave him a firm handshake. ‘Of course you are. I shouldn’t have inflicted my . . . er . . . amateurish attempts at piano-playing on you. And I’m sorry you didn’t know Frances had sublet to me, but she did have to go in rather a rush. And I’d be delighted if you would check up on the apartment for me,’ she paused, ‘oh and, by the way, the name is Maggie.’

  ‘How do you do, Maggie?’ he said, still holding her hand. ‘I’m Leonard and I’m very glad to know you.’ He smiled and continued teasingly, ‘You had the most charming appendix I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘It was one of my most attractive attributes,’ she teased back.

  They smiled at each other. And Maggie wondered why any woman would divorce someone who seemed as nice as him. Maybe he was a street angel and a house devil.

  ‘See you at the end of the week,’ he said as Sally arrived for a quick visit.

  ‘OK, bye,’ Maggie answered, wishing that Sally had delayed her entrance by a few minutes.

  ‘What a dish!’ Sally drooled.

  ‘Hmm,’ murmured Maggie, non-committally. But she was looking forward to his next visit.

  On her last day in the hospital he arrived as promised. ‘My bill,’ he said suavely, handing her an envelope.

  ‘Oh yes, of course!’ Maggie was a bit taken aback. He wasn’t wasting much time about getting his money.

  ‘Well, open it and see if it’s too much,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ she murmured.

  ‘Just to please me,’ he urged, his eyes twinkling.

  She opened the envelope and two tickets fell into her lap.

  ‘As you are a pianist yourself, I thought you might enjoy going to a Richard Clayderman concert and of course as your attending physician I shall have to accompany you in case it becomes necessary for me to save your life again,’ he informed her gravely. ‘And then, after dinner for two I expect you’ll want to do some of your finger exercises.’ He grinned broadly. ‘I’m sure I’ll enjoy listening to them now that I know what they are. They do have their own rare charm.’