Nappily Married

by Trisha R. Thomas

  “Great.”

  Outside, Beverly didn’t have to move too quickly to catch up with Jake. He still hadn’t decided which direction to head, so he stood off-kilter in the middle of the downtown crowd that moved fast and steady around him.

  “You going back to the studio?” Beverly asked, putting her hands around his eyes from behind.

  He peeled them off and turned around. “Nah, I’m tired. I’m going home.”

  “You want to talk about it?” She laid a hand on his shoulder, and then touched his cheek. “I don’t think it’s a good idea if you drive.”

  “Shaun, you’re in no better shape than me.” He leaned in too close to her face. She reached out and pulled him into her grasp. Jake had gotten too close to the lioness cage. Their mouths locked hungrily around each other. He squeezed her as tight as he could, letting his hand fall to the full roundness of her bottom and lifting her slightly to her toes. He felt the grip of desire taking hold. Her lips were soft, her tongue sweet, the warm scent of alcohol adding to his already thick buzz. He felt his body giving way while his head continued to spin. He heard a bus pull up and felt the warm exhaust from its engine.

  The doors opened. The driver called out. “You two waiting for the bus, or what?”

  Jake spun Beverly slightly so his back was completely to the driver. He continued to taste her tongue, reaching deeper, looking for something he’d lost.

  Beverly broke away for a moment. “We better move. Legend’s going to be out any minute.” She took his hand, pulling gently. They got only as far as where the brick building ended before they scooted themselves into the small alleyway. He lifted Beverly with surprising ease and pushed her back against the hard edge of the wall.

  His breath was heavy, his heart beating steadily quicker with each taste of her tongue. He shoved her low-cut top out of the way while he reached past her bra, pushing her full golden breast to meet his lips.

  “Wait, Jake. Let’s go somewhere.”

  “Right here, right here,” he whispered between licks and sucks of her nipples.

  She closed her eyes and gave it a shot, but the hard scratching bricks against her back were trampling the magic. She wiggled her breast free of his mouth, slipping it back in its cup. She lifted Jake’s face to hers. “Not here.” She kissed him to pad his disappointment. “The W is right across the street,” she tilted his head. “Right there.” She kissed him again, longer and stronger to seal the deal.

  She took his hand and led him to the corner, where they waited for the light to change. He stood behind her, his breath in her ear. She reached up from behind and stroked his head and neck as they lingered. “What’s gotten into you, boy?”

  The light changed, and the little green man appeared as well as the beep-beep signal for the blind. In this case it was appropriate. Jake had become stupefied, deaf and dumb, all at the same time. He reached up and grabbed Beverly’s breasts from behind. She knocked his hands away. “Patience.”

  They made it across the street and through the brass-framed turnstile. The lobby was brimming with guests. The sophisticated gentlemen at the front desk gave them a welcoming smile.

  “Checking in today, sir?”

  “We’d like a room, one night,” Jake said, playing in Beverly’s hair.

  “Yes, sir, your reservation?”

  “We don’t have a reservation. Just need a room,” Jake said, refusing to take his eyes off Beverly.

  “Sir, we have a full house. We’re overbooked as it is. We’re hosting a large conference for the weekend.”

  Beverly chimed in, “Please, please check again. We were staying over at the Sheraton, horrible.” She grimaced. “We thought we’d switch over here to a nicer place. Do you have anything, just for tonight? I’d so appreciate a good night’s sleep.” Beverly knew a good ego stroke was always necessary. No one was capable of simply doing a good job out of duty.

  “I’m sorry, we have nothing.”

  Beverly took a hold of Jake’s hand. “We can go to my place.” She pressed herself against him but felt him pulling away. She reached out and grabbed him by his shirt before he fell backward. “Whoa, you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He started toward the exit.

  “Wait a minute, Jay? What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, Shaun. I can’t do this.”

  She touched his face. “I know you’re hurting. I just want to be there for you, like I always have. We’ll just go somewhere and talk.”

  A discerning look fell on his face, as if to wonder how he got there in the first place. “I’ll see you later.” He walked off feeling he had no particular place to go. Home was the last place he wanted to be. The JP Wear studio maybe. Neither felt right. The misplacement of something gnawed at him. Something he’d lost but couldn’t put a finger on where he’d left it. He stopped at the corner to let the city bus hang a right. The huge advertisement turned the corner with it, JACKSON MEMORIAL, REAL CARE FOR REAL PEOPLE.

  What he’d lost wasn’t all that far away. All he had to do was figure out how to get it back.

  Fire Starter

  The phone woke me up in the middle of the night. Morgan Taylor’s frantic voice piped in full speed. “There’s an emergency, Venus. You need to get down here. There’s been an accident at the hospital. We’ve got to put together a statement—it’s just awful. You’ve got to get here,” she cried out.

  “But…” I had been in a fitful sleep. I questioned whether the phone call was part of a continuous bad dream.

  “The police are here. The news coverage is going to be brutal—we’ve got to act quickly.”

  “I don’t understand.…”

  “Get here ASAP, Venus. Please hurry.”

  I hung up and looked over to the empty side of the bed where Jake still had not come home. The last twenty-four hours hadn’t been a dream. Jake was somewhere out there still hating me while I was home alone, doing an even better job of hating myself.

  I arrived at the hospital to see the police car lights swirling in unison. Fire trucks were parked on the grass blocking the entrance. I moved swiftly through the crowd and saw the fire in its final stages being put out. Black smoke billowed from a broken window. Water sprayed up in the air and landed on the fourth floor. I pushed past the crowd to the inside of the hospital. People ran around scared and frantic.

  I touched one of the nurses by her shoulder. “Did anybody get hurt?”

  She looked dazed and opened her mouth, but nothing came, as if the tragedy were unspeakable.

  I took a deep breath and tried to stop fear from overtaking me. “Please, tell me, what happened?”

  “There was an explosion.” The nurse broke out in a sob.

  I tried to move to the next person but found myself being carried the opposite direction by the crowd.

  “Everybody, please keep moving.” The firefighter used the megaphone: “We need to keep this space clear for the injured.”

  Injured.

  “Venus … over here.” Morgan Taylor was waving from a short distance, her head popping up and down over the crowd. I made my way to her. Her eyes were smudged with black mascara. She swiped at her eyes, coughing. “There was an explosion, Venus, a fire on the fifth floor.” She broke down into the tissue she was carrying to protect her nose from smoke.

  “The infants, the children, who was injured?” A wave of fear engulfed me. I knew Clint was back from the hearing in D.C. and would’ve beelined straight to the neonatal ward on the fifth floor. I couldn’t wait for her answer. I spun around and moved to the area the officer was trying to clear. I could hear Morgan calling my name, but it sounded distant, as though miles of distance lay between us. I pushed through the herd of staff, nurses, and patients with IV bags still attached.

  I heard the distinct sound of a camera clicking as I was turning around, the flash went off in my eyes. There on a gurney was a body partially covered with a sheet. The photographer was taking pictures.

  “No! Out of here.”
I started swinging with all my might, pushing and shoving the photographer who’d made it inside. “Keep them out of here!” I screamed. A few of the male staff took immediate action blocking the doorway and making sure people could get out but not in.

  I moved slowly, afraid to see who was underneath the sheet. It was Dr. Langley, one of the pediatricians. I cupped a hand over my mouth. The fifth floor. The smell of smoke bit into my throat and eyes. I braced myself and gathered the strength once again. I reached out for the wall to keep from sliding to the ground. I gathered a second wind and squeezed past the firefighter manning the elevators.

  “Hey! Wait a minute, you can’t go up there.” The large man put his body in front of me.

  “I have to. I have to see what’s going on.”

  “Ma’am, we’re keeping the elevators clear.” He put up his hands to indicate I wasn’t getting past him.

  I turned my eye to the stairwell then made a mad dash.

  “Wait!” he yelled. I was already through the steel door. I took the stairs two at a time, covering my face with the collar of my jacket. The smoke was in thick pockets. I stopped every few steps, out of breath, and coughed so hard, a lung may have shaken loose.

  “Who’s down there?” The voice rang inside the stairwell. I looked up and down, not sure where it was coming from. They called out again, “Anybody down there?”

  I answered weakly, “Here. I’m here in the stairwell.”

  “What floor are you on?”

  “Third,” I said after checking the number on the exit door.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” My voice cracked.

  “Okay, you should be safe the rest of the way down.”

  “No … I was on my way up. I need to come up.”

  “Absolutely not possible,” the heavy voice boomed overhead as if the Ten Commandments would be quoted next. “We’re evacuating … wrong way,” he said.

  “I need to see the damage. The fifth floor is pediatrics. There are children and infants on that floor,” I tried to explain to the firefighter.

  “Not anymore. Everyone is headed in one direction, and that’s out of here, ma’am. You’re going to have to do the same,” the booming voice echoed before the door slammed shut.

  It wasn’t like me to give up so easily. My lungs made the decision for me. The higher in elevation, the thicker the smoke, the more difficult to breathe. I made my way back down, one dizzying step at a time. I nearly fell through the last door when I landed against the metal bar latch.

  The continued streak of panic and chaos I was expecting was nowhere to be seen. For a brief and scary moment I thought I’d been left abandoned while the fire department had cleared everyone else out. But relief followed. I’d simply traveled too far down, ending up on the basement floor. The air, though stale, allowed me to breathe without inhaling smoke. The quiet was unsettling. Knowing there was a catastrophe taking place right overhead, I felt a world away from the sorrow but still sadness crept inside me. The realization that I had control of nothing, absolutely nothing, was a hard pill to swallow.

  Standing there, I realized my life, the lives around me, were all a finger push away from being extinguished or changed forever, and none of it could be controlled by the decisions we so valiantly made every day. Career choice, friends, lovers, husbands, where to live, who to live with—I wanted to laugh, but only liquid pushed through my nostrils, tears rolled down my cheeks. It all boiled down to one second in time, when it could all end for no good reason. All I could think of were those babies, innocent and helpless on the fifth floor after they’d fought so hard to live.

  After a few more hiccupped cries that I knew no one could hear but me, a calm took over. As if an angel came down with fluttering wings to show me the way. I figured it all out. If I had no control, I should have no fear. No matter which path I’d chosen for myself, some puppet master was at work pulling the strings. Whether I thought I was safe or in peril, doing the right or wrong thing, the end was already decided, decisions made for me.

  But did it have to be now, I thought as the humming sound turned into a roar. The rumbling towered over me and through the walls. Another explosion? I scrunched into a corner, covering my head with my arms and expecting the walls to cave in as the thunderous sound got closer then stopped. It was only the elevator. The doors sprang open.

  I was prepared to plead my innocence to the firefighter. Instead it was Jasper. He quickly shoved a stick against the door panel to jam it.

  Realizing he wasn’t alone, he took a few quick steps toward me. “What’re you doing down here?” He extended a hand to help me up. I stood up on my own, ignoring his hand. “That’s some mess up there, huh?” he said nervously, looking around. The beating inside the parking garage had left him with a cut under his eye that healed badly, making him look like an ex-boxer.

  I pushed myself deeper into the corner.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” He headed directly into the room with the sign on the door, keep locked. Jasper moved frantically, knocking over boxes before hitting the light switch. He swept past me as quickly as he’d come carrying a stack of boxes almost taller than himself. The stickers on the side were marked through with a handwritten expired across the pharmaceutical label. On closer inspection I saw the name, pseudoephedrine, the everyday cold medicine used to make crystal meth.

  The huge supply of drugs had probably been stored down here one box at a time by Jasper himself. Jackson Memorial nurses had been accused of stealing and peddling the medicine and here it had been stored the whole time.

  He pushed the boxes onto the elevator and went back for more. He wiped his brow on his sleeve where he’d begun to sweat and ooze the smell I couldn’t identify until now. The smell of an addict.

  “What happened, you started out selling it, then couldn’t resist testing the product yourself?” I said, angry beyond control.

  I stood trembling, not knowing what he was capable of, but too furious to keep my mouth shut. “That’s why the guy was trying to beat the crap out of you in the garage. He’s paying you to bring him supplies but then you had a better idea to go independent? You started the fire to distract everybody, just for these boxes?”

  “What!” he snapped. “I had nothing to do with this fire.” He sucked his teeth, dismissing me. “Typical.”

  I stayed calm, telling myself if I didn’t move, he wouldn’t attack.

  “I’m here to save the only thing worth saving before this hospital goes up in flames. You think I can live off the little pittance of money they pay me? I was a good doctor. This hospital, this spineless group fed me to the wolves, never once asked my side of the story. They simply made deals with the devils of this world. Forget about all my years of dedication. I did nothing to that boy. When I told him he and I would never have a relationship, he killed himself. But did anyone believe me? No,” he said too calmly. “My only joy will come when this place dies a slow death the same way I have.”

  He snatched the stick from between the elevator doors. “Coming?” he said with a knowing grin. “Suit yourself.” The doors closed and he’d made his escape.

  “All I can say right now is that the fire started on the pediatrics floor, most likely caused by an oxygen tank. I’ve given the hospital clearance to put the patients back in their rooms.” The questions were hurled all at once.

  He waved a hand. “I think I’ll pass the rest of your questions on to the director of the hospital.” He stepped away leaving all eyes on Morgan Taylor. If the disheveled look in her eyes was any indication of what was about to come out of her mouth, Jackson Memorial would never live down the night.

  I signaled to Morgan that I was coming to her rescue.

  “Please, I have to get through, please. Excuse me,” I pushed back and forth before finding an opening. I got to Morgan’s side before the first word was spoken. “The fire was an unfortunate accident,” I said quickly. “At this time we don’t have the exact information on how the fi
re started, but we will investigate fully. As for the patients, all are accounted for. A report will be filed and distributed for release tomorrow morning. One of our doctors was lost in this fire. We’re grieving his loss at this time and hope you can respect the fact that no information will be released until his family members are notified. Thank you.” I put an arm around Morgan and pushed her along. The night air held the stench of smoke and bewilderment. Her body tensed as we entered the hospital doors.

  “I can’t,” she said, “I can’t do this. Not now.” She backed away.

  “I’ll get someone to drive you home.” I left Morgan noticeably shaking in the lobby. When I came back, she was still standing in the same spot, in shock. “Morgan,” I gave her a gentle shake. “Morgan, Leslie’s going to drive you home, okay?”

  She nodded. The frailty of Morgan’s usual stern exterior was heartbreaking. At the moment, Jackson Memorial had no captain at the helm, no one in charge. Jasper Calloway was still running around free to cause more tragedy and chaos. Patients were sprawled about like there’d been a train wreck. The lobby resembled news footage during a war. People with oxygen tubes, saline bags attached to their bodies, and bandages wrapped around their head and chests lined the walls, waiting for someone to tell them what to do, where to go.

  The fire captain came in holding a clipboard. He had a Magnum, P.I. mustache almost wider than his face. I could tell he was looking for who was in charge. My first instinct was to go hide. He caught sight of me and headed in my direction. His hero uniform, heavy jacket, and firefighter helmet were all intact.

  “I’m giving the hospital clearance. But if I were you, I’d have every oxygen tank in this hospital professionally serviced. Those tanks are fueled by nitrogen. A lot of pressure. One tank in the wrong hands could blow up a full square block.”

  I signed the clipboard and handed it back. He tore off the top sheet, giving me a copy. “I know the kind of trouble the hospital is in. This isn’t the kind of night you need. Good luck.”

  When was the nightmare going to end? There were probably hundreds of tanks spread from floor to floor, each potentially tampered with. K-I-T, keep it together. Don’t panic. But breathe, yes, breathing is necessary.