“You’re free. These come off. Doctor’s orders.” The sexy nurse pulls back the blanket I’d arranged on my legs and reached over to rip open the Velcro strips that held the inflating mechanism on one of my calves. She slid it off and grabbed for the straps on the other. “You don’t need these anymore, Mr. Viglietti. You’re doing so well. We’re going to have you walk—assisted—in the halls and we’ll think about discharging you pretty soon. How does that sound?”
“I wish you wouldn’t take them off. I find them highly stimulating,” I say.
“Oh?” The nurse drapes the rubber mechanisms over the bottom rail of my hospital bed. “Most people hate them.”
“I’m not most people. I like them. They might be doing something for me. If you know what I mean.”
“Everybody hates them. You into leg massages?”
“I’m into lots of things.” I give her a soulful look, but my heart isn’t in it. When I only think of Marsha now, how can I manage this, even a little innocent flirtation?
“And they kept me awake so I could think about you,” I add.
“This is the first time I’ve come in here, Mr. Viglietti.”
“Well, I was imagining you beforehand. I have a talent for foresight, you see. I sometimes lie awake knowing some beautiful someone is about to show up in my life.”
“Uh huh. I see all right.” The nurse chuckles and adjusts the tray beside my bed. She glances at the IVs and writes something in my chart.
I smile. Probably wanly and turn my head to look out the window beside my bed at a section of the eastern wall of the old hospital. The smooth side of the huge building is broken by a repetitive relief that seems to be stylized leaves or paramecium; it’s hard to tell. The sun is baking onto the building and sharpening the points of the leaves until I almost fear them. I prefer the hospital interior; a sure sign I’m going nuts. Maybe being unconscious in the sun had affected my eyes.
“Uncle Viggy!” shouts a kid. Bailey leans in, peeking around the hospital doorway as the nurse leaves, “You’re awake!”
“Sure I am,” I say, pulling myself up in bed. “Come in. Come on in. Don’t hang around at the doorway. What you doing here? Where’s your mother?”
“She’s coming.” Bailey gives me a significant eye roll as she trots to my bedside obediently. “With Mr. Yucky. And I don’t know why.”
“Who? Who’s this?” I ask, mystified. I feel my heart beating quickly.
“Mr. Yucky,” says Bailey. “That’s who.”
“And who is Mr. Yucky?”
Before Bailey can answer Marsha walks in with Rodney. She has a faint smile on her face, and I know it means something.
I look at them blankly for a minute. What in the fuck are they doing in here together? And were they holding hands in the hall? I’m not sure what I’ve seen. What does she mean by bringing Rodney? But I know with a sinking feeling she is beyond trying to make me jealous for the affect. The truth is she isn’t that into me anymore. That’s evident. And when someone has lost it for you, it’s gone forever and you’ll never get it back.
The two of them are a fucking pair. Sure, while I’ve been almost dying to get back the money for Marsha, she’s been Taking Care of Business with the disgusting Rodney. If she only knew what an asshole that jerk is. He treats women better than I do initially but in a few years he would treat Marsha worse. And Bailey. God, that got to me with something big and terrible and depressing that sat on my heart like a ton of bricks. Maybe my heart isn’t even beating anymore. No matter what, I know I will have been better for the kid. Marsha might not see it now, but she will in a few years. She’ll think back and regret this. But what good is winning the regrets war? No good now. No good for Bailey or for me.
“Vig, my old son of a bitch, you’re looking chipper,” says Marsha. It wasn’t the same Marsha, though. Detached, that was the word for the feeling in her voice. Fucking detached and disinterested. Not amused. Not the way she used to sound with me. There’s a clean break in her voice. I hate the sound of that break. I can’t go on living with the sound of that break.
My tongue can barely move in my mouth and I fumble for the aqua ice water pitcher to fill a Styrofoam cup. It gives me something to look at besides Marsha who isn’t coming that near my bed, either.
“Sure,” I reply, “I am chipper.” I sort it all out in my head as fast as my broken head will work. That fucking jerk has moved in on Marsha and Bailey (though Bailey has called Rod Mr. Yucky, hadn’t she?) but there is no way for him to get back in Marsha’s good favors. I lost them forever. I’ll be an outsider from now on. Timing, I’ve never had it. You need that in life and I’ve never had it. Took me too long to recognize a good thing when it came along.
“We didn’t know what happened,” says Bailey, flopping on the edge of my bed and entwining her arms on the bars of my hospital bed.
“Oh, I went on a little jaunt, kid. Didn’t turn out too well. That’s all.”
“What were you doing? Hiking? We think you were hiking, probably.”
“Um, yeah. I was with this old guy I met at work. That’s all. We went hiking and we both fell. He hit some rocks and was killed.”
“Yeah. It was in the papers. Mom read it.”
“Oh.”
“What does this button thingy do?”
“That calls the nurse. Don’t play with it,” warns Marsha.
“Oh wow!”
“Did you hear what your mother said?” adds Rodney with a slight edge of irritation to his voice.
“Are you gonna be okay?” asks Bailey, stroking my arm.
I can barely stand to feel her touch now. “Oh sure. No broken bones. A cut here on my thigh. And a scorpion stung me on my hand.” I hold up my hand and show the bandage.
“Wow! That’s exciting.”
“Since when have you liked to hike?” says Rodney, assuming the role of the Grand Fucking Inquisitor at the foot of the hospital bed.
“Um, it was a whim. With the old guy. Like I said.”
“We didn’t even know you were missing,” says Marsha. “Rodney told me yesterday you were in the hospital or I wouldn’t have known. It’s been a bad year for you and hospitals.”
“Um, yeah,” I say, flinching to remember my lies about having pneumonia.
“Pneumonia, right?” asks Rodney.
“Oh, only double pneumonia. Twice,” I say with a dismissive, martyred glance at the ceiling.
“Well, you’re looking good now,” says Marsha.
“Yes, better than we were told.” Rodney’s voice has that cold edge that clearly says he knows I have done something stupid to get injured.
“I stopped by and got your mail,” Marsha begins, handing an envelope to Bailey, “most of it was dumb stuff, but there was this. Is it what I think it is?”
“What? Is it what?” I say, taking the big manila envelope from Bailey.
“An acceptance. Of your writing. At least I think that’s what it is.”
“Oh, wow.” I tear open the envelope. “I thought it would be email. Maybe they already sent that. I haven’t been able to check my phone yet. No reception in hospitals.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Wow. It was the stagecoach story with the vampire, Bailey. The one you told me where the narrator is the vampire!”
“Wow! You got it published!”
“Yep. I guess I did. Now I have to blow my tin horn.” I look sadly in Marsha’s direction. She is studying me. Maybe happily?
Marsha turns as the sexy nurse comes in the door. The nurse putters around the far side of the room with a chart. “Does the nurse want to do something?”
“We need to change his dressings in a minute,” she replies without turning around, “but there’s no hurry. He’s going to walk in the halls, too.”
“Oh, we’ll go. That’s important,” says Rod.
“No, no,” I cry, looking at Marsha.
“This was going to be a quick pop in and out. We don’t want to make you worse.”
/> “You aren’t!” I say, too urgently. “I’m fine!” I yelp.
“Text me when your discharged. Rodney says he’ll give you a ride home, but I want to stop by and check on you.”
“We’ll both stop by,” adds Rodney.
Rodney waves and begins leaving with Bailey before I can think how to respond. How can I stop Marsha from going with them? I promised myself I’d tell Marsha I love her, and this is the first time I can do it, but I’m blowing it. But do I even want to now? Every moment is so painful I don’t think I can take more. “Come on Bailey,” Rodney says. “You’re looking fantastic, Vig. So glad you pulled through.” Bailey slumps out the door with Rodney.
Marsha stays and gives me the old thumbs up sign.
God, how depressing it is for me to see Marsha trying to cheer me up with little upbeat gestures. I want the old sarcastic, caustic Marsha back. Rodney has destroyed that perfectly fantastic female character, goddamn him.
“So I see you and Rodney have hit it off,” I growl.
“Don’t start,” Marsha replies. “Just don’t start.”
“I can’t begin to tell you how lucky he is.”
“What’s that mean?”
The nurse steps out.
“What it sounds like. Marsha, my only chance at happiness was with you and your kid, and now I realize it. Out in the mountains I realized that. But I blew it for us. You mean everything to me, and I blew it.”
Marsha says nothing but studies me.
“Hey, what are you guys yakking about?” asks Bailey, coming back in.
“Bailey!” calls Rodney from the hall.
“Vig, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Marsha says. “You’re an old friend of mine and you’re feeling sentimental because you’ve been through a trauma. When you’re better you won’t feel the same way.”
“I do know what I’m saying. I’m not going to change. Are you going to let me be more to you than Uncle Viggy to Bailey?”
I discover I am gripping Marsha’s hand. How had she gotten close again?
“I hate to tell you this, but you’re ruining your chances with the sexy nurse,” Marsha whispers.
“So be it,” I say, “So fucking be it. It doesn’t bother me. Believe me, there is nothing between me and any sexy nurses anymore.”
“So this is it? Us together?”
“This is it.” I pull Marsha toward me with my good arm and plant a kiss on her lips. Strangely, I realize I’ve always wanted to. Always, always wanted to.
“I think this may be it,” says Marsha when our lips part. “By the way, Rodney and I have only one thing in common. Our mutual friendship with you. I regret to say I have fallen for a hack writer of vampire stories.”
“Shit, shit,” I’m saying this over and over. “Mostly unpublished,” I add.
For a little while I’m stroking her hair and looking into her baby blue eyes.
When she leaves, I notice I’m tearing up. Rhinitis, no doubt.
THE END
MEET THE AUTHOR
Lorraine Ray is an avid reader and writer. She lives in an adobe home in the center of Tucson, Arizona with her husband and daughter.
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