by Ruby Cruz
She pushed me away with a sound of disgust. “Ugh, maybe I do need to meet a new guy if you’re throwing Star Wars references at me. You’re such a nerd!”
“That’s Will’s influence. He couldn’t believe I hadn’t watched Star Wars before and made me binge watch all six movies over the summer. Sometimes when I hear the monitors at work now, I think it’s R2 or C3-PO.”
“Ha! I’ll bet one of his sex fantasies is to see you in the slave bikini.”
I blushed even further. “On that note, it’s time for me to go back to bed. And no, I do not own a slave bikini.”
“Now I know what to get you for your bachelorette if he ever decides to pop the question.”
“I’m leaving now,” I called out, Lydia’s laughter following me as I retreated up the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Not a Girl Scout
I awoke to the alarm chime on Darcy’s phone. He groaned and slung an arm over me as he turned it off. “How can it be morning already?” he murmured into the pillow before turning his head to face me. “Good morning,” he greeted with a sigh before kissing me tenderly. “I’ve missed this.”
“Me too. But you should get up if you’re going to make it into the city on time. And I need to be at work by seven.”
“The car service is supposed to pick me up in forty-five minutes.”
“That’s cutting things a bit close.”
“I wanted to spend as much time with you as possible before I left.” He kissed me again. “I’ll have the car service pick you up at eight this evening. You should be in the city before ten.”
“Traffic is going to be horrendous. There’s no way I’ll make it into Manhattan by ten.”
“Who says you’ll be taking roads?” He smiled cheekily at me.
I nudged him in the belly. “Don’t you start quoting Back to the Future to me. You and your eighties sci-fi movies.”
“It’s a classic,” he protested.
“That movie is older than I am.”
“Still a classic.”
“Anyway, so the car is taking me to the airport?”
“I should’ve ordered a DeLorean.”
“Stop it!” I nudged him again with a giggle.
“Yes. You’ll be there in less time than it takes to drive home from work.”
I thought that a bit of an exaggeration but couldn’t argue it was the quicker route. “I’ll make sure to fast before then,” I commented.
“Oh, before I forget.” He climbed out of bed and to his overnight bag. He extracted a small paper pharmacy bag and handed it to me. “Scopolamine patch and Dramamine. You’ll be sleepy, but you shouldn’t get sick.”
“Thank you.” I leaned to kiss him, love filling my heart. “I can’t wait to have the whole weekend with you. I am glad you decided to stop here last night.”
“Me too. Which brings me to the second item I brought with me.” He retrieved something else from his overnight bag, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw the velvet covered box. Was that…?
He opened the box, and a pair of diamond earrings glinted at me. “These were my mother’s, but I think she would be happy if you wore them tomorrow night for dinner.”
“Of course. They’re beautiful.” The simple diamond studs were probably worth more than anything else I owned combined. “But what about Ana?”
He shook his head. “She said she didn’t want them, the memories were too painful, but she was happy to let you wear them.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about wearing a dead woman’s earrings, but the thought seemed to make Darcy happy, so I didn’t protest. “I don’t think I’ve ever worn anything so fancy.”
“I should’ve given them to you a long time ago. I don’t know what I was waiting for.”
“You don’t need to give me anything, you know that.”
“Still, they’ll look better on you than sitting in the family vault in the city.”
As formally as he could act, it was easy to forget how differently he and Ana were used to living. He’d given up much of his life of privilege to be a doctor and help heal people, and now that he was no longer treating patients, he seemed to have recovered back much of that life. To think he had a vault in the city, access to a private jet or whatever aircraft was flying me in, diamond earrings that were probably worth more than half my annual salary…this was all so foreign to me, the amount of wealth at his fingertips.
I’d been impressed with the upper middle class lifestyle he’d adopted, but he’d lived rather modestly in comparison to how he actually could live. I couldn’t even comprehend having this new life with him. I’d always dreamt of a marriage together being somewhat of an extension of our life in New Jersey with the house and Mrs. Pratchett and our jobs at the hospital.
But this…literally jetsetting into the city, his corporate job and travel, that house in the Hamptons. This life was so far removed from anything I’d ever known.
And it terrified me.
“Lizzy?” Darcy’s expression was concerned, as if I’d just announced I was quitting my job and moving to New Mexico so I could investigate allegations of alien life forms living in Roswell.
“Sorry. They’re beautiful,” I reiterated. “I’ll definitely wear them tomorrow.” A part of me wondered how Darcy’s aunt would feel about me wearing her sister’s earrings, but I refrained from posing the question. Whose earrings I was wearing would probably be the last thing on her mind once Darcy and I told her we were engaged.
~
I barely showed up on time to work, not that I was complaining much since Darcy had been the source of my near tardiness. I clocked in just before seven and was relieved when I saw Dolores walking in just two minutes after I’d arrived. No point in providing her with even more fuel to fire me.
After a brief chat with Lydia, who teased me about Darcy’s surprise visit, I brought my cadre of medications out of the med room and into the room of Alma Cordoba. She was an elderly patient with a laundry list of maladies, including diabetes and heart failure, for which she was currently being treated. In addition, she had a raging case of MRSA cellulitis in both of her lower legs that required aggressive treatment with antibiotics.
I put on the isolation gown and gloves, then began the painstaking procedure of administering each pill to her one by one, as she had some swallowing issues. Nearly twenty minutes later, all the meds had been given either intravenously or by mouth, and I could finally begin unwrapping her legs and redressing them as prescribed by the wound care nurse. They looked better than I’d seen earlier in the week, with less foul drainage, and the redness seemed to be going down. She also had slightly less pain, which was good as she’d requested many doses of pain medication previously.
As I worked, she chatted amiably about her seven grandchildren, the eldest of which she was currently living with. “My great-grandchildren, Tommy and Jonny, they sent in these pictures.” She gestured to the wall where construction paper drawings were taped up. “They drew a picture of the hospital and the ambulance. And Tommy asked me questions about the doctors and nurses taking care of me, so if you look closely at the one on the left, there’s a picture of you and Dr. Santiago.”
I paused to stand up and examine the picture. My portrait consisted of a stick figure girl with crayon red hair that was slightly longer than the one on the left, the figure I presumed to be Dr. Santiago. “It’s a wonderful depiction of me. I think he did a fine job of capturing my good side.”
“When I talked to Tommy on the phone, he was so interested in everything that was going on. He asked so many questions. I think he has a real interest in a career in medicine.”
“It’s not an easy profession, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, no, I would never presume that. You girls work so hard taking care of old biddies like me.”
“You’re not an old biddy, and from what I can see, you’re young at heart.”
“Ah, if only m
y body aged the same as my mind. Growing old sucks, dear, if I may say.”
“I guess that’s why we have to live each day fully and not waste time.”
“That’s true, dear. Completely true.”
~
The rest of my shift, my mind kept replaying my conversation with Mrs. Cordoba. I’d told her that we should live each day fully and not waste time, and I’d meant what I said, but was that what I was truly doing with my life? With all the time I spent with school and at work and feeling each moment was just a moment away from Darcy, and away from my friends and family, how much was I really living? A part of me felt as if I was just wishing my life away, waiting for the next moment, for a better moment to be happening.
I didn’t want to feel like that, like I was just waiting for my life to occur. That’s why I’d decided to go back to school, to have a goal, to accomplish something all my own and use my skills to help other people. But lately, as much as I enjoyed school, more and more I just wanted to be spending time with the people I loved, especially Darcy.
I thought of how much our lives had changed in just six weeks. I knew things would get better once I was done with school and we were married and living together again, but that was more than a year away. Did I really want to be stuck in a holding pattern for eighteen months until my life could really begin?
I loved Darcy. It was probably one of the only things in my life I was completely sure of. Why shouldn’t I want to be with him all the time? Why couldn’t I be with him?
I realized, sitting at the nurses station while Dolores watched us all with beady eyes, that the only thing holding me back from the next stage was me. And at that moment, something within me shifted and I found a new perspective on my life.
At that moment, I knew exactly what I had to do.
~
Once my shift finished, I rushed home so I could shower and change quickly before my trip into the city. My mind raced with what I wanted to tell Darcy. I didn’t want to wait until my program was finished to be with him. If he decided he was staying in California to help manage the San Francisco office, there was no reason for me to stay in New Jersey. I could transfer my credits and find a job as a nurse anywhere. Sure, I would miss Jane and the rest of my family, but they had their own lives. It was time I lived mine.
I had just turned off the water to the shower when I heard a knock on the bedroom door. “Miss Lizzy? Um, you have a visitor.”
By her tone, I could tell this wasn’t some random Jehovah’s Witness or someone selling Girl Scout cookies. I dried off quickly and dressed in my usual jeans and T-shirt, then padded barefoot downstairs as I ran a brush through my wet hair. I stopped short at the bottom of the stairs when I saw Darcy’s aunt standing in the foyer.
“Dr. DeBourgh. This is a surprise.” My heart raced as I considered her reasons for coming, and none of them were good. I moved a wet tendril of hair away from my face. The way her blue eyes zeroed in on the gesture, I felt immensely self-conscious of my appearance.
“Nurse Bennett, may I have a word?”
“Yes, of course. We could have a seat in the sitting room.” I stepped into a little used room to the side of the foyer.
“I’ll prepare some tea,” Mrs. Pratchett offered, but Dr. DeBourgh waved her off.
“Don’t bother. I would prefer we not waste breath on pleasantries.”
Mrs. Pratchett’s eyes widened and she excused herself from the room.
Once we were alone, Dr. DeBourgh turned to me. “You are probably wondering why I have come to see you given my nephew is still in the city.”
“I am curious, especially since I thought we’re supposed to have dinner together tomorrow night. What did you want to discuss that’s so urgent it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?"
"My nephew, of course. He's made quite plain to me his intentions to marry you."
“What do you mean?” Did Darcy really tell her already? He’d wanted us to wait for so long and he’d already told her? This didn’t make any sense.
“I’m not a fool. Ever since he began his…association with you, I’ve been monitoring the activity of our vault. The one in which we keep the family heirlooms.”
“What does that have to do anything?”
“My nephew took something from that vault three days ago, and suddenly he shows up to this house last night even though he was to be in the city today. The bank has stated an engagement ring and a pair of earrings, both belonging to my sister, were removed. I demand to know what he brought here.”
“What makes you think I know?”
“Do you think me an idiot? I want to know if he has given my sister’s engagement ring to you.” She glanced down at my hands and smiled triumphantly when she saw there was no ring there.
“And what if we were engaged?” I demanded. My face burned with anger and humiliation. "What exactly about our engagement would you object to? The fact that I'm not distantly related to the Kennedys? That I'm a nurse? That I don't have money?"
"I have a laundry list of your inferiorities, if you must know, not the least of which being your impertinence. Never in all my life have I been spoken to as you have. You are rude, ill-mannered, and socially inept. You don't possess a single hair on your head that isn't saturated with disdain for me and my professional interests. Now, I don't know what you have done to my nephew to have ensnared him so, though I suspect your...sexual prowess more than makes up for what you lack in physical attributes. In any case, I cannot abide by your involvement with my nephew any longer. He is better than you and deserves more than a calculating little minx as yourself."
I blinked several times as her words began to take meaning in my mind, and I struggled to hold back the embarrassment and fury that consumed me. When I finally spoke, my fingers were clenched together so tightly I feared they would wither off from lack of circulation.
"Dr. DeBourgh, you're totally correct in that I'm rude and I speak my mind way too often to be socially acceptable, and I'm not rich or have a prestigious job. Despite what you think of me, however, I do love your nephew with all my being and, for reasons that I still don't fully understand myself, he loves me back. I'm not going to be bullied into ending things with him just because you deem me unworthy. The only way this relationship is going to end is if he decides he no longer wants me. It'll be his decision, not yours."
"Insolent girl. You tell me how you lured my nephew into an improper relationship with yourself, how you’ve insinuated yourself into his life, even garnering free services from him for your sickly aunt. Tell me, what type of service did you provide in exchange for his? I’m a woman of the world, and I’m quite aware of the…attractions a girl such as yourself may present to a man like my nephew.”
I blinked, my mind so enraged that angry tears were actually beginning to form in my eyes. My hands shook, and I willed myself not to wrap them around her skinny little neck. “If I have done as you said, do you actually expect me to confess it to you?”
“I am the only family of consequence he has left. I have a right to ensure his well-being.”
“Absolutely, but you have no right to my private concerns, whatever or whoever may be involved.”
“Your relationship with my nephew, whatever that may be, is short-lived as we are in the process of merging our company with Bingley Pharmaceuticals. Bingley has generously offered to fund our latest research efforts if we agree to test their newest medical devices in stroke treatment, and my nephew will oversee the development of that research division. In fact, William has been working very closely with Caroline Bingley, who is to be the new vice president of sales and marketing of our combined companies. What do you say to that?”
So that’s what all the dealings have been about, all those important meetings on the West Coast. My mind raced with the news that Darcy had been dealing so intimately with Bingley Pharmaceuticals and with Caroline, the barracuda.
Is that why he hadn’t given me any hi
nts as to what he’d been working on? Did he not tell me about his dealings with Caroline because he hadn’t had any, or because he knew I’d be upset if I’d been aware of any interactions between them? Though my heart clenched at the thoughts, I forced my expression to remain neutral. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten to me.
“I see I’ve gotten your attention. So, Miss Bennett, unless you are willing to traipse across the country to follow William to California, I fear your involvement in his life will soon be at an end.”
“Dr. DeBourgh, Will is a grown man and is in charge of his own life and career. If he has made the decision to move of his own free will, then who am I to prevent him from going?” I fought the tears forming in my eyes. To move with him to San Francisco was one thing, but to be involved so closely and Bingley Pharmaceuticals and Caroline Bingley, the one person I absolutely loathed…I couldn’t think of it. I could even somewhat forgive Dr. DeBourgh for her interferences and insults, but thinking of Caroline Bingley working with Will made my skin crawl.
My placid response seemed to incense her. “Don’t be coy with me. I know my nephew has intentions of making his relationship with you permanent. But if you think for one second that he would compromise his reputation and his career by remaining in your podunk county as a country bumpkin doctor just so he could be assured of his close proximity with a worthless chit of a nurse, you are mistaken.”
“So, what exactly do you want me to do?”
“I want you to tell me if my nephew has proposed marriage to you.”
“You just told me he’s considering a permanent position in San Francisco and I obviously have no knowledge of it. What do you think?”
“So he has not proposed to you?”
I considered telling her the whole truth, that he and I had a verbal agreement, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I sighed. “No, he has not.”
“Then you will agree to stop your association with him?”
I laughed mirthlessly at her request. “Whether your nephew wants to continue seeing me is his choice. I’m not going to stop seeing him just because you told me so.”
