Rannigan's Redemption: Complete Collection

by Pandora Spocks

  Bobby came to think of the women as ‘Michael’s girls’, and the fact that there were glaring similarities hadn’t escaped his notice. All of Michael’s girls were beautiful and most of them were blonde and appeared to be surgically enhanced. Bobby couldn’t imagine that the huge breasts paired with tiny waists occurred naturally. They emitted a high maintenance vibe as well. Deanna had been quite the princess, eager to have all that his money could provide.

  No, thanks, he thought to himself. I want no part of that mess.

  Instead, he busied himself with perfecting his contribution to baseball broadcasting. He faithfully DVRd his shows and meticulously went over his performance, noting what worked and what didn’t. The feedback from the network was positive; his numbers were growing and female viewership was up. Bobby remembered what the stylist had said and rolled his eyes. At least they’re happy with me, he thought. Aside from being so far from everyone I love, this is a pretty sweet gig.

  In late February and early March, Bobby spent about ten days in Florida checking out spring training, commenting live from places like Tampa and Jupiter. In New York, on his days off he sometimes hopped into the Range Rover and headed out of the city, anxious to find someplace with grass and trees. He discovered a few very pleasant little towns that were only a short drive from Manhattan and he imagined what Savannah would think of them. She had yet to come and visit but he had plans for his folks to bring her up around Easter.

  As he settled into his routine, began to feel a bit restless. It wouldn’t be bad to have a little female companionship, he thought. He briefly considered Michael’s offer to introduce him to some women but discarded the notion. Michael’s girls were not what he was looking for, not even for a date or two.

  He went out once with a barrista from the coffee shop on the corner. She was cute and she had flirted with him when he picked up his regular double espresso. They’d gone to dinner but he’d been uncomfortable the entire time. She was young, for one thing, only twenty, and they really had nothing in common. After the date, he’d switched to a different coffee shop and hadn’t called her again.

  * * *

  Michael had enjoyed chatting with Beau. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. He had thought it a shame that Beau wasn’t interested in meeting one of his lady friends. It might have been fun to go out on the town together.

  It seemed that Beau often worked the primetime shift at the network, finishing late at night. Michael ran into him a few times as they both returned home around midnight, Michael usually with a girl or two in tow. He’d been surprised when he found himself feeling slightly embarrassed in front of Beau that time in the elevator when Shannon and Michelle were going at it. Somehow Michael suddenly felt like an errant teenager but he knew it was in his own head, in his own conscience. Beau had certainly not seemed judgmental.

  Throughout February and into March, Michael continued to travel quite a bit. There was a trial in Oklahoma City for a couple of weeks, then he spent another week doing speaking engagements that Alexis had booked for him. In mid-March he was happy to have a couple of days at home and he took advantage of the time by popping in to Dr. Ghosh’s office for his flu shot. It was something he did regularly ever since that time years ago when he’d gotten so sick.

  In the examination room, Michael removed his dress shirt and draped it over the back of a chair. When the nurse came in he joked and flirted with her as she rolled up the sleeve of his undershirt and prepped his shoulder for the injection.

  “Yeah, I know I should have come in earlier,” Michael chuckled, “but I’ve been away so much. I guess it’s lucky I haven’t gotten the flu already.”

  The young nurse didn’t reply, instead wrinkling her forehead as she brushed the alcohol wipe across his skin a few times. She looked up at him. “Will you excuse me for just a moment?” she asked.

  “Uh, sure,” Michael replied. He frowned as she left the room. I just need my shot and I’ll be on my way. It really shouldn’t be complicated. He had plans later on with Cheri and he wanted to pick up some of her favorite merlot to have on hand.

  When the door opened again, it was Dr. Ghosh. “Hello, Michael, how are you today?” he asked.

  “Great, Doc, just here for my flu shot,” Michael said.

  “Let me just take a look...” Dr. Ghosh said as he rolled up the undershirt sleeve and peered closely at Michael’s shoulder. “How long have you had this spot?”

  Michael lifted his elbow in an attempt to see his own shoulder. “I don’t know. What spot?” he asked.

  The doctor frowned. “I don’t like the look of this. I’m going to send you upstairs. Dr. Alexander is a great dermatologist. I’d like this biopsied straight away.”

  Michael blinked. “Right now?”

  “Oh, yes. Most definitely,” Dr. Ghosh said. “We can’t be too careful about these things.”

  Chapter 16

  Michael never did have his flu shot. Following Dr. Ghosh’s decision to refer him upstairs, there were phone calls and a flurry of paperwork as Michael was sent two floors up to the dermatology group of which Dr. Theos Alexander was a member. He sat in the waiting room feeling slightly rattled. Jesus H, I just wanted a fucking flu shot.

  A nurse called his name and Michael followed her back to an examination room. “I’m Shelley,” she said. She checked his paperwork. “And you were sent up here by Dr. Ghosh?”

  Michael nodded. “I was in for my flu shot and I guess they saw something they didn’t like.”

  She smiled kindly. “Dr. Alexander will be with you shortly.”

  He sat on the end of a standard examination table, the green vinyl cushion covered by a strip of white paper that rattled as he shifted. The door opened and a short older gentleman with shaggy white hair and black-framed glasses entered.

  “You are Michael?” he asked. Michael nodded. “I am Dr. Alexander. Dr. Ghosh says that there’s a spot on your left shoulder that makes him nervous. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

  Michael removed his shirt and rolled up the undershirt sleeve again. The doctor held Michael’s arm at the elbow and looked closely. “Hmmm, yes, I see what he means.”

  He released Michael’s arm and sat on a stool, putting notes into a laptop. “We’ll remove that now and send it out for biopsy.” Dr. Alexander didn’t bother to look at Michael as he typed. “I hope you don’t have plans for the rest of the day. Of course, we’ll use local anesthetic but you’ll probably be a little sore after it wears off.”

  Michael swallowed hard. “Right now?”

  The doctor nodded as Shelley returned pushing a tray covered with a green cloth. She handed Michael a hospital gown. “You should put this on so we don’t ruin your clothes.”

  Wordlessly, Michael took the gown from her and when he returned from behind the screen in the corner of the room, he was dressed in the gown and his socks. The tray had been uncovered and Michael saw an array of nasty looking surgical steel implements. The nurse noticed his ashen expression.

  “It’s okay,” she smiled reassuringly. “It’s not nearly as scary as it looks.”

  Michael tried to swallow but found that his mouth was dry.

  “Alright Michael, lean back and relax your arm on this armrest,” the doctor told him. “I just want to outline the incision area.” He prodded around on Michael’s shoulder for a bit then using a black marker, he drew a pointed oval shaped like an eye around the spot. “Now this is where we’re going to make the incision.”

  Michael looked up at him in alarm. “Holy shit! I just thought you were going to scrape the skin a little.”

  The older man shook his head. “If this is a melanoma, which I’m almost certain that it is, we want to be sure to get all of it.”

  Melanoma? Holy fuck! Michael felt panic rising in his belly. This is not happening.

  Shelley prepped the area with several applications of betadine solution and gave him four injections around the figure the doctor had drawn. “Alright, Michael, just lean back and try
to relax. We’ll be finished with this as soon as possible.”

  When the doctor reached for the tray of instruments, Michael shifted his gaze to the ceiling, counting the holes in the white tiles and willing himself to be somewhere else, anywhere else. His arm was sufficiently numb but he felt tugs and pulls and feverishly tried to ignore them.

  An hour later, Shelley was finishing up bandaging his shoulder. It had taken twenty-seven stitches to close up the wound left by removing the spot.

  “Sorry, Michael, we had to go deeper than we figured,” Dr. Alexander apologized. Michael nodded numbly.

  Shelley gave him a stack of literature and directions regarding the care of his stitches but Michael had trouble focusing. She watched as he tried to put on his shirt. “Is there someone we can call?” she asked kindly.

  Michael shook his head. “No, there’s nobody,” he muttered. On his way out, the receptionist told him they’d call with the results as soon as possible and made an appointment for him to return for the removal of the stitches.

  Out on the sidewalk he hailed a cab and gave the driver his address. Stuck in the afternoon traffic, his shoulder started to throb as the anesthesia began to wear off and he decided to call Cheri to cancel their date.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said from the back of the cab, willing himself to sound more chipper than he felt. “Listen, I’m not feeling well. I’m going to have to cancel tonight.”

  “What do you mean cancel? You cancelled on me last time,” she protested.

  Michael knew it was true. The last time he’d had plans with Cheri, Alexis had unexpectedly landed in New York and he’d made excuses so he could go out with her instead. “I know, gorgeous,” he aimed for charming, “but I’m getting sick or something. I just can’t see you tonight.”

  “I bought a new dress for this party. I heard that some movie stars are going to be there,” Cheri said, her voice growing angrier with each word. “You just better pull yourself together.”

  “Babe, seriously,” Michael said, fighting back a wave of nausea, “I can’t make it. I’m sorry, we’ll do something another...”

  “You cancelled on me. You didn’t call me for months. Then you call last minute, say you’re taking me to some black tie thing, and then you have the nerve to cancel?” Cheri shrieked. “What, did something better come along? Fuck you, Michael!” she yelled before angrily hanging up on him.

  He considered calling her back but realized that he couldn’t care less. Shakily, he made it up to his apartment and sank onto the couch, instinctively flipping on the television. He sat and tried to watch the sports news, looking for Beau just to see a friendly face. But it was early, several hours before Beau’s time slot.

  Michael couldn’t focus on the television either. That word kept swirling through his mind. Melanoma. Holy shit. That’s... He couldn’t bring himself to think the ‘c-word.’ How in the hell did this happen? As soon as that thought crossed his mind, pictures of long holidays spent on tropical beaches filled his thoughts.

  I was stupid, that’s how this happened.

  He jumped up from the couch, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, and grabbed the laptop from his brief case. He fired it up and did a search for melanoma. As Michael scrolled through the avalanche of information his eyes grew wider. He clicked on ‘Images’ and almost instantly regretted it. While some of the pictures looked similar to the procedure he’d had that day, many others were graphically worse. He slammed the device shut and shoved it away from him.

  As Michael thought back to the sensations he’d experienced in the dermatologist’s office and the jagged line of blue stitches on his shoulder, he felt tiny beads of sweat form on his upper lip. I’m going to be sick, he belatedly realized, and he made it to the bathroom just in time.

  Holy fucking shit, he thought as he rinsed out his mouth in the bathroom sink. Glancing at his reflection in the mirror he saw that he was pale, the dark circles under his eyes giving his face a ghostly appearance. I need a drink.

  Michael made his way out to the bar in the living room and poured himself a glass of the first thing his hand landed on, which happened to be a bottle of Jack Daniels. By the time Bobby came on the air, Michael was passed out on the couch.

  He woke up feeling groggy and disoriented, his right cheek stuck to the leather of the couch. The clock on the wall read 2:37am. He pushed himself up and was rewarded by an excruciating stab of pain in his left shoulder.

  Shit, I forgot. He stumbled to the bedroom, carefully removed his clothes, and slid into bed.

  When Michael woke up again grey light filtered into the bedroom through sheer drapes. He hadn’t bothered to draw the heavier curtains. He was acutely aware of the pain in his shoulder topped off by a hangover headache. Figuring ibuprofen would work for both, he pounded three tablets and washed them down with water from the bathroom sink.

  I’m supposed to fly to Seattle today, he realized. No way am I up for that. I’d better call Alexis.

  Chapter 17

  Why is it hospitals all paint their walls green? Must be a tranquil color, he mused. Maybe it keeps the patients from rioting.

  Michael stared blankly at the wall of the waiting room; it was painted a light not-quite-seafoam and accented with darker not-quite-forest. Sea or wilderness? It was as though they had mixed their inspirations. He’d have preferred blue.

  They’d probably just fuck that up, too. He shook his head in disgust

  His appointment for a PET scan had been scheduled for an hour earlier, yet still he sat, waiting to be called. Uncharacteristically, he found that he didn’t mind waiting. He was in no hurry to hear more bad news. Maybe it would be good news. He was afraid to expect anything.

  He’d called Alexis the morning after he’d had the melanoma removed from his shoulder, telling her that he wouldn’t be able to make Seattle, telling her he’d come down with a sudden case of the flu.

  “You need to get your flu shot every year, Michael,” she’d admonished.

  “Yeah, why didn’t I think of that?”

  Dr. Alexander called two days later with the results of the biopsy. The anomaly had, as he’d believed, been melanoma. The next step would be to perform a scan to check for metastases. He had his nurse call back within minutes to schedule the test.

  Alexis had been much less supportive when he’d called to say that he’d be out of commission for at least a week. “I need someone on that trial in Seattle. Let me point out the obvious, Michael. When you don’t get paid, I don’t get paid. I’m sending someone else. Call me when you have yourself together.”

  He’d hung up feeling annoyed. He considered calling her back, telling her the truth, maybe garnering a little sympathy, but immediately abandoned the idea. Fuck it, I’ll take care of this and be ready for the next assignment.

  Finally he heard his name called and he followed a nurse down a short hallway. “You’ll need to change into a gown,” she told him, handing him a white hospital gown dotted in a green print. Green again. “You can put your clothes in this plastic bag.”

  Michael left the bathroom dressed in the gown, his own things in the plastic bag. The nurse led him to a bed, one of many in a large pre/post procedure room. “Someone will be by in a few minutes to give you two injections. One will help you relax, the other is the radioactive tracers we’ll need for the scan.”

  “Great! I always wanted to glow,” he quipped.

  She gave him a pained look. “Alright, Mr. Rannigan. Someone will be here shortly.” She pulled a curtain around his bed and left him alone. It was a few minutes later when a different nurse pulled back the curtain and came to the side of the bed. Checking his wristband against the name on her clipboard she nodded, satisfied.

  “Okay, Michael, I have a couple of sticks for you.” She swiped at his arm with an alcohol wipe and jabbed him first with one hypodermic then the second one. Afterward, she pulled up the rails on the bed. “You’ll start to feel nice and relaxed. The radioactive tracer takes about forty-fi
ve minutes to circulate. Feel free to take a nap. We’ll take you for the scan in about an hour.”

  Feeling annoyed, Michael determined that he would not, in fact, nap. That’s ridiculous. How do they expect people to just hang around here waiting for them to get their act together? I don’t have all day.

  He did, though, have all day. That was beside the point. He huffed and lay back against the pillow. The next thing he knew he was being awakened and asked to help scoot himself off of the bed and onto a gurney. What the hell?

  Michael was wheeled down a long hallway to a room where the large machine was housed. There was a glass window along one wall from which the operator of the machine could look on as the patient was scanned. Groggily he helped scoot himself from the gurney to the bed of the scanner. His head was cradled in a way to keep it still. A wide strap was fastened around his waist and a wedge was placed under his knees while his ankles were also strapped to the table. He was left alone in the room.

  “Okay, Michael, we just need you to stay nice and still. This will probably take about an hour,” said a disembodied voice from the booth. “There’s a panic button if you need to stop for any reason. We’ll put on a little music for you.”

  Instantly, Michael heard muzak Green Day. What a fucking abomination. At least the music helped minimize the hum of the scanner. He considered the radiation that was hitting his body. Exactly why I’m alone in this room. Hell, if I didn’t have cancer before...

  He stopped, realizing that it was the first time he’d ever consciously thought the word. Oddly, it didn’t feel as menacing as he’d thought it would.

  An hour later he was wheeled back to the room where he’d started and he dressed and returned to the receptionist’s window.