~ T h e C u r e ~
The view from the 10th floor seemed to make me dizzy, or was it the stifling heat? Whatever the reason, I pulled open my purse and dug out some gum. Perhaps I was just nervous and needed something to chew.
“Sure you don’t want any coffee?” Giselle called out. She was off in another room, slamming cupboards.
I should have broken the news the minute she opened the door, but her reaction to seeing me was unexpected. She gave me a hug.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Okey-dokey,” she said. “Be there in a sec.”
“Take your time,”I said trying to sound blasé as if it were a casual visit, a simple stop-by, howya-doin’. But certainly she had to be curious. We hadn’t had any contact in years. Granted, time accelerated with age, but she’d acted as if we had just spoken.
I stepped away from the window and looked around the living room. Nothing was familiar. Not surprising. The last time I’d seen Giselle was in her other home, the one she and her husband had lived in for most of their married life. Still, I was curious if there’d be something recognizable, some token of our shared past, a photograph perhaps, or some memento forgotten. I walked to the china cabinet. Stemware gleamed behind the glass.
I first met Giselle at Oliver’s, an upscale restaurant with intimate tables tucked in dark alcoves. She had very red lips that left clear marks on the rim of the champagne glass. Her signature scent, I found out later, was White Linen, a crisp, clean smell with a hint of complication. Her fingernails were lacquered, red with half moons showing. And of course she was wearing The Ring, an emerald-cut two carat diamond that my father’d given her. A ring that now sat in a tufted row in my jewelry box. A ring I would never wear.
“Sure I can’t get you a cup of coffee? How about some tea or a glass of juice?” “No thanks.”
For the last twenty-four hours I had debated about making contact. I could have told my father that I couldn’t reach her and left it at that. But given the circumstances, I just couldn’t lie.
Her disembodied voice continued to ramble. “It’s so nice to see you. I love surprises.”
Yes, Giselle was never one to plan. A characteristic my father had loved, then paid the price for. “Nice place,”I said to the air around me.
A small curio cabinet, filled with knock-off Faberge eggs, hung on the wall. Intricately adorned in rich enamel colors, they were ridiculously gaudy and purposeless.
“So you’ve found my weakness.”
I turned. She was carrying a silver tray of cookies. “Most of them are from trips. In fact, your father and I picked up the green one when we were in Austria.”She placed the tray down and got a faraway look. “Now what year was that?”
I nodded politely. Trip to Vienna. I couldn’t remember the year, but my parents were still married at the time. As was she.
She walked over. “85 maybe. I don’t travel much now. The world comes to me. I shop online. Ebay.”
Standing beside me, I was struck how small she was, shorter, thinner in every way, even the strands of her blond hair were sparse and brittle looking. Her boney hand reached out for mine. “Come sit down.”
The couch cushion gave away easily. I sank low. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.” She reached for the cookies. “It’s so nice to have company. Please have one.” “No thanks.” Was she listening? “It’s about my father.”
“Your father?”
“He asked me to speak with you. I tried calling, but your number’s unlisted.”
“Unlisted? Yes, I had to stop all those salesmen. Imagine trying to sell me a timeshare or a mortgage . . . And how is Joe?”
“Not good I’m afraid. He’s in the hospital.”
She reared back and put her hand to her mouth. “No. Not Joe. Oh, Mindy, I’m so sorry. Here I’m going on. What’s wrong?”
“He had heart surgery last week. A triple bypass. But there’s a problem, an infection of some kind. He’s not responding to the antibiotics. He wants to see you.”
“Me? He wants to see me?”
“Giselle, I totally understand if you don’t want – ”
“But of course I’ll visit. What hospital is he in?”
“The General. I could take you.”
“Would you? When were you thinking?”
“Tomorrow evening. After I get off of work. Say six-thirty.” She looked off for a moment. “Yes. That sounds fine.”
Suddenly, I’m relieved. Since my mother only visited during the day, the logistics of keeping the two women apart wouldn’t be a problem. Not that it ultimately mattered. The parties involved – my father, mother and Giselle – were all free agents, divorced and footloose for over a decade.
I reached for a cookie, then took a bite. The gum I’d been chewing disintegrated instantly. I swallowed hard, and half-listened as Giselle rambled on about her two sons and several grandchildren. Remarkably, for the next ten minutes the nightmare of my father’s surgery receded. I had another cookie.
At work the next day, my cell rang. It was my mother. “Mindy, I went to see your father today. Guess who showed up?”
My mother’s social life had suddenly blossomed now that Dad was hospitalized. The news was out and old friends had been setting up tag team vigils. “Who?”
“That woman.”
My breath caught. Giselle? But that wasn’t possible. I kept calm. “Mother, what woman?” “Giselle! Giselle!”
“Oh.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“Well – ”
“She’s very skinny and much older than I pictured. Who knew? My God, I could blow the woman over.”
“Did she say what she was doing there?”
“Your father said he wanted to see her. Do you believe it?” “How is Dad?”
“I’m afraid not good, sweetie. The whole time we were there, all kinds of things were going off. I guess his blood pressure spiked.”
“My God.”
“Now Mindy don’t get upset. They calmed him down. Anyway, Giselle and I went to lunch at the hospital cafeteria.”
I collapsed into the chair. “You went to lunch together?”
“Yes. You know the hospital has really good food and very reasonable. I had the gumbo. It was delicious. Anyway, Giselle and I decided we needed to be practical. So we talked about the expenses, you know, for the funeral.”
“Mother!”
“Mindy, please. Let me finish. I don’t think your father has life insurance. Burials run around six thousand dollars. We were thinking about that engagement ring. Maybe it could be used as a down payment. I mean you’re never going to wear it. Giselle thought – ”
I’d just entered la-la land. “Mother,”I interrupted, “I gotta go to the hospital.” “But you’re at work.”
“You’re scaring me. I’m worried about Dad.”
“Now, Mindy, calm down. He’s in God’s hands.”
By the time I reached the hospital, I was sweating profusely. When I got off the elevator, the ward nurse said, “So you’ve heard.”
Heard? I hadn’t heard anything and didn’t want to hear anything. I barreled past her. The door to his room was closed. I figured the worse – they must be scrubbing the place down. I tore in.
“Hi, honey,” my father said. He was sitting up.
“Dad?”
“Come on in. Want this Jell-O?”
The room. Something was missing – the IV pole.
“You’re eating?”
“Starved.”
“So, the antibiotics kicked in.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
I couldn’t believe the change. His color was back, his voice was strong. “That’s great, Dad.” He nodded, then slurped some soup.
“Mom called me. Told me Giselle was here. I was supposed to bring her after I got out of work.”
“Mmm.”
“Did she say anything?”
He wiped his lips. “Who?”
“Giselle.”
“Yeah, she said something about wanting to see me as soon as she found out. I think she thought I was gonna croak.”
“I guess I won’t have to bring her later.”
“Don’t think so.”
I sat in the only chair. “How strange having them both here.”
“You can say that again.”
I recalled what my mother’d said about his blood pressure. “Must have been upsetting.”
My father leaned back against the pillow and sucked his teeth. “Here I was flat on my back, feeling like crap. The minute Giselle peeked into the room, I thought fur was gonna fly. That’s when everything started going off, and I coded.”
“WHAT?”
“Mindy, calm down. I’m all right.”
“You coded in front of them? Mom didn’t say anything about that.”
“This place was like Grand Central. They stripped me down and shot me up with something. Then they used one of those heart starters.”
“Dad, how awful.”
“At some point I must have passed out because I was lying on my back looking up at the sky. Buzzards were circling. That’s when I heard them talking about the weather, the temperature, how sunny it was.”
“Who was talking?”
“Your mother and Giselle.”
“So they were in your dream?”
“Dream? Hell, no. In the middle of everything, I opened my eyes. They were standing right over there.”He pointed to spot by the wall. “They were talking about the weather, about having lunch. That’s when I had a moment of clarity . . . ”He dug into a mound of mashed potatoes. “Mindy, both those women put me through the wringer, and now that I was about to check out, they were going to be one big happy family.”
It was a curious take on my father’s affair and all that followed. He filled his mouth and mumbled. “Over my dead body. You know?”
For the first time in weeks, I felt lighter. Then something truly remarkable happened. I floated over to my father’s side. “Yeah, Dad, screw them.”
Author’s Note:
The hospital scene of a dying man and two women had been bouncing around in my head for years. A lifetime of stories could be told from this set-up, endlessly unique and intriguing. I am of the opinion that no two stories are alike, despite theme, despite archetypes. In the “Cure” I took an inspirational turn and chose the POV of yet a third person. Still, I have not abandoned the idea of telling a multiple POV story from one scene, one setting. In fact, I already have the title, “Florence and Normandy.”
Thirst: A Collection of Short Fiction Page 12
