The black cloud was Helen.
I didn’t sleep the rest of that night.
I slept fitfully the next night.
In the mornings I got up and walked in my rain boots with red roses.
And walked.
I tried to chase the nightmares down.
I kept clucking. I wrote checks for my medical debt. It was going down. In my chicken suit one night I thought of the chickens on our farm in Ashville. I could not go back there.
Could I?
Could I do it?
Why would I do it?
Did I want to do it?
I called Aunt Janet to see how she was doing with her classes.
“I love them! But I love the people more. Everyone’s so different, not the old fuddy-duddies Herbert and I hung around. One of my and Virginia’s best friends is a woman from Iran. She wears a burka. We have another friend from Mexico, and two gentlemen are from Somalia. They’re teaching me how to think and how to have an opinion and how to understand debates. I didn’t get that before, dear.”
“That’s because Herbert squashed that in you.”
“Too true, sweetie.” There was a silence and I waited. “But I let him. I let him squash me. I’m having a hard time forgiving Herbert for being such a mean, selfish person, but I know I’m going to have a harder time forgiving myself for being so weak.”
“I know how you feel. I have the forgiving-of-self problem, too.” I changed the subject. “How’s everything else going? How do you feel about the anniversary party?”
“The anniversary party? I feel sick about it, sweetie. Sick. It makes me feel like vomiting.”
On Tuesday night, Jake and I went to watch Zena at another roller derby competition.
She’d only needed to borrow a scarf from me that morning when she’d hissed at me from behind the pillars in front of our building. You see, she is so slender, she was able to wind the scarf around and about her black T-shirt with a giant lipsticked mouth on it so it didn’t show. She’d flipped her black skirt inside out so the skulls were hidden.
“Nice, Tinkerbell,” I’d told her.
She’d kissed my cheek. “You have to go clubbing with me one of these days, Stevie. You can dance until your brains fall out.”
“Thank you, but I need my brains in my head.”
“Overrated,” she’d said, popping in breath mints and swiping on lipstick.
The roller derby women were, again, dressed in fishnets, short black skirts, and red satin shirts. Some of the women wore striped socks. A couple were in black tutus. Tonight, they were out for blood. They screeched around the track, tackled, flew, crashed, hit, got penalized for intentional tripping and intentional falling, and swore at each other.
“Go, Zena!” I hollered, then corrected myself. “Go Badass Z Woman!” Jake cheered for the team, too. Badass Z Woman was penalized twice and then expelled for “unnecessary roughness.” There was only a minute to go, and when her team won, Zena skated to the middle of the track where the women had actually made a pyramid pile, their joy at winning overflowing.
I wish I had the courage to do what Zena did, I wish I did.
I wrapped my arms around myself. I was breathless. That bout had been breathtaking. One of the stay-at-home moms had broken her arm, and she was pissed. “How the hell am I going to change diapers now? Shit!”
Afterward, Jake drove me to a hill above Portland.
“Let’s dance,” he said, holding his hand out for mine.
“Here? Outside?”
“Here and outside.” He pulled me in close, one arm behind my back, our hands clasped.
And there we danced, under the stars, under a white moon, lights twinkling in the distance. I thought of how often my grandparents danced together on our deck at the Schoolhouse House, toe to toe in their cowboy boots. They knew how to love each other, they did.
Jake’s kiss met mine, and I closed my eyes so I could feel every delicious curve, his heat, his taste, his passion.
Man, that man could kiss.
And, okay, his hands wandered well, too.
I wanted to use the sparkly, glow-in-the-dark condoms, but I couldn’t.
Something held me back. I can only compare it to being corralled by invisible reins and yanked on. My body wanted to fling myself onto Jake, but my mind was scared to death, almost hyperventilating at the thought of getting that serious with anyone, with opening myself up physically and mentally to so much…unknown, to possible hurt and emotional destruction. Being with Jake meant that eventually I would have to tell him all about myself. All the secrets, my past, my weight issues, my shame, my guilt, the babies, everything.
It was too much. I hoped I would be ready for the sparkly condoms later.
I did notice something, though. My hands weren’t shaking as much anymore.
I thought of Jake’s smile.
The next time Crystal met with the Atherton family, I told her I wanted to be there because I was learning so much from her about how to nail a case.
“Winning, that’s the only thing you need to do as an attorney, Steve. That’s it. Win. Crush the opposition. Mangle them up and spit them out. Doesn’t matter who they are.” She put her high heels up on her desk. I was sitting in front of her desk so I was staring at the bottoms of them, Mt. Hood in the distance. “You can come, but I’ll need you to stay late to get your other work done.”
I agreed. I could barely contain myself, I wanted to go to that next meeting so bad.
“I heard about Polly. I didn’t know she was your cousin. Didn’t put it together until yesterday. Also didn’t know that you’re Lance Barrett’s cousin, either. I had no idea you were from such a prominent, wealthy, old Portland family.” She narrowed her eyes at me, as if I’d deliberately hidden something from her. “Isn’t Lance a multimillionaire because of his companies? Didn’t he play pro football?” She tapped her toes together and said, “Is he single?”
“Yes, he is single.”
She stared up at the ceiling, and I could hear her brain grinding away. A Rich. Single. Man. And she’d been treating his cousin pretty darn bad. “Well, you and I get along well, don’t we, Steve? Why don’t you set me up with Lance some night?” She smiled thinly.
“No.” The word dropped out of my mouth as if it had been sitting on my tongue.
“What?” She removed the bottoms of her shoes from my vision and leaned forward, like a viper ready to puncture flesh. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t think you’d be good for Lance. I love him, I know him, and you and he would not be good together.”
“We would be fabulous together. Two driven people—both highly successful, well-respected, intelligent people who are connected socially and politically. We both play the game, and we play it well. Together we’d be on top of this city, probably this state. We get money. We get business. We get it.”
“That, Crystal, right there, is why Lance would not want to go out with you. You’re not what Lance needs.”
“And what does Lance need, Steve?” she snapped.
“He needs someone who is caring and kind and funny and understanding. He needs someone who’s tough, but compassionate and interesting and engaged with living, not making money. He needs someone who loves him for all he is, and all he isn’t, and who will love him no matter if he lost everything tomorrow or decided he wanted to go and live in a tiny town in eastern Oregon with cattle circling his home.”
“Well! That’s a nice vision, Steve, but I don’t think that’s what he needs.”
“How would you know? You don’t even know him. All you know is that he’s a millionaire businessman and you love the sound of that.”
She sputtered, she huffed, she puffed, and I walked out.
Darn but I hoped she wouldn’t exclude me from the Atherton meeting.
Zena and I had lunch at Pioneer Courthouse Square three days later.
“Why would a woman get a Brazilian wax?” Zena handed me a handful of blueberries.
“What’s that?” I bit into my tuna sandwich.
“It’s when a woman goes to a waxer lady and they take off all her hair around her privates, except they might leave a little strip of hair.”
I stopped chewing. “How do they do that?”
“They put hot wax on your privates and—”
“They put hot wax on your privates?” As my grandma would say, “Good Lord.” I handed her a tangerine.
“Yep.”
“You mean like melted candle wax?”
“Think so, Stevie.”
“And then what do they do?”
“They pat it with a cloth, then strip the cloth up, and all your hair comes out.”
I dropped my tuna sandwich back in my bag. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Nope. Heard about it the other night. One of my roller derby friends does it. It’s the stay-at-home mother. She says she dyes the remaining strip of hair pink.”
My mouth dropped. I hardly knew what to say.
“She does it because then she can remind herself, every time she’s sitting on the toilet, that she’s still a wild gal, still young and hot and sexy.”
“Does it work?”
“Probably not. She’s got four kids and she runs the Parent–Teacher Association at school. She says a lot of the women there are sharks. One of the women actually threw an entire PTA notebook at someone else because that woman didn’t vote to sell wrapping paper for the school fund-raiser.”
“Aren’t there other ways to feel young and hot and sexy that don’t involve hot wax on your vagina?”
Zena took a sip of her strawberry banana fruit drink. “Not for her, sugar. Not for her.”
We pondered that.
With visions of a pink private dancing through my head, I hurried back to the office for the Atherton meeting.
It started out much as before. Mr. and Mrs. Atherton appeared as exhausted as ever. They were both a palish-gray color, the lines etched even deeper into their faces. I again thought of their son, in their green and yellow dining room, hooked up to all those machines. There cannot be anything more wrenching on this planet than watching your child in that state. Nothing.
And yet.
In their eyes was a light, a light of…could I say, victory? Of hope? Of enjoyment? I clicked my heels together under the table. Why, by golly, they had gotten the Dornshire letter. I’ll bet they loved it. I’ll bet they treasured it. Was it framed yet? I bent my head to hide my smile.
This was gonna be fun.
The negotiations started again.
“The Athertons, on our recommendation,” Sonja said, her head held high, the circles under her eyes not so bluish, “have decided that we will not mediate this case any further. Our initial demand of ten million still stands. It is a reasonable request due to the severe and expensive nature of Danny’s medical problems caused by the hospital.”
Ha! I’ll bet Sonja danced a jig when she got the Dornshire letter.
Crystal laughed. Then she made this sighing sound that said, loud and clear, “Stupid people. You’re so stupid, it’s laughable.” She laughed again. “We’re going to trial then.” She flicked her black hair back. “There is no way in hell we’re going to pay you that much. None. Nada. Forget it. There are reasonable people in this city who will sit on the jury and they’ll see through this for the shakedown that it is.”
I heard Mr. Atherton grumble. His wife put a restraining hand on his arm.
Dirk, their other attorney, who did not appear so grossly exhausted anymore, said, “Do not use the word shakedown, Crystal. That’s not necessary and it’s inflammatory.”
She rolled her eyes, straightened the perfect lapel on her ultraspendy suit. “The hospital is well known and well respected, and this is a shakedown. A con job. A frivolous lawsuit filed in the hopes of hitting the lottery. We’ll see you in court.”
Crystal stood up and started gathering her folders and papers.
“If I could beg for one more minute of your time,” Dirk said, leaning back in his chair. He smiled. He was confident. He had adored the Dornshire letter!
“No. I am done with giving you my time,” Crystal said.
“All right, but I thought you might want to review one last document.”
“Unnecessary.”
“I think it’s necessary,” Sonja said, as she tried to rein in her smile. It was difficult. She held out a sheet of paper. I was familiar with that sheet of paper, and it was delightful to gaze upon it once again.
Crystal scoffed. She held out her manicured hand. It was clear that she wanted Sonja to bring her the paper. Sonja refused to do so. She gave it a little push across the table.
For a second Crystal paused, her face twisting into a disgusted mask. She couldn’t bear the thought of this ridiculous meeting with these ridiculous people going on for one more ridiculous second. She stared straight up at the ceiling, so put out, then deigned to walk two steps and grab the document.
And that’s where everything got funny.
Funny in a horrible, tragic way, because this was a horrible, tragic situation.
But still. Ha! Ha ha!
Crystal eyed the paper.
We all heard her intake of breath.
She muttered, “Shit!”
Her hand shook. She went pale, about as pale as Mr. and Mrs. Atherton.
Her body trembled.
She swallowed and coughed, swallowed and coughed again, as if something was stuck in her throat. Perhaps it was a rifle or a fence post.
She tried to sit in a chair, missed, and fell to the floor.
She scrambled back up, quick as she could.
“Shit!” she yelled. “Shit!”
Ha! What a lovely day.
Two weeks later, Crystal was forced to settle the case the Atherton family had brought against Harborshore Hospital for ten million dollars. Crystal tried to get a gag order, but it was denied.
The evidence was overwhelming. The hospital had screwed up. Tragically, irrevocably, horribly screwed up, as detailed in the Dornshire letter. Dr. Dornshire had come in at the end of the operation to oversee how two of his medical residents were doing. It was he who had discovered poor Danny disintegrating, medically speaking, on the table because the breathing tube had been poorly placed. It was he who had saved Danny’s life. It was he who knew of the anesthesiologist’s drug problem and had reported it to the hospital the previous month. He was shocked to find the man still there.
Dr. Dornshire detailed, in blunt, harsh language, what happened in that hospital room to the president of the hospital and had sent copies to five other doctors/administrators.
His wording? “Inexcusable neglect…The impact on this child’s life was not only tragic but preventable…. Basic safety steps were not followed…. Procedures were ignored…. Anesthesiologist is an addict…. Reading a motor cross magazine…No one paying attention to the patient…Liability is enormous…. Pay up to avoid a costly, public PR nightmare.”
Within two weeks he left town for Africa to help open up a clinic for suffering/starving children and had assumed that the matter was taken care of.
The case, with all the gory, depressing, captivating details, hit the newspaper. There was a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Atherton and Danny, before and after his heart operation. There was the Dornshire letter, printed out, probably courtesy of Sonja. There was a photo of the anesthesiologist, who had been caught stealing some ultrapowerful drug from the hospital, and five of the doctors/administrators who had officially received the Dornshire letter but then smothered it.
Many people at the hospital lost their jobs. Poor them.
As for the Athertons, they got their money. Sonja and Dirk’s attorney fees were paid by the hospital, and I heard they immediately paid off their homes and rented office space complete with a table that didn’t wobble and chairs that swiveled.
How did the Dornshire letter get in the files in our office in the first place without first being destroyed by Crysta
l?
I have no idea.
Praise the Lord, Grandma would have said. He knows how to step in when the devil has stepped out and he can perform miracles any day of the month.
It appeared that the Athertons had had their day.
After all that hardship, however, the Athertons’ grief was not over.
Danny Atherton, baseball player, fisherman, Frisbee thrower, lover of dragon books and music, outstanding big brother, and loving son, passed away a week after the papers were signed.
I was so upset I had to leave work.
I worked in my garden, cried, and held the shovel with shaking hands.
A bowl full of my own beans, peas, tomatoes, squash, and lettuce did nothing to lift my mood.
When I came back to work Cherie asked me about the case.
Crystal was fired.
“Damn, but I love to smear the competition into the ground until they’re eating dirt, but we as a firm will do this with class and dignity, and we sure as hell are not ever going to let anyone attempt to annihilate, through deception and lies and unethical work, an innocent family.” Cherie shook her head. “Crystal’ll be disbarred, and we’ll be sued by the Athertons for malpractice, rightfully so, because it’s clear Crystal knew about the Dornshire letter but did not disclose it. Oh, well. Our insurance will cover it, and I will tell them to pay up without delay.”
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure.”
“Why did you hire Crystal? She’s not our usual attorney here.”
Cherie nodded. “I made a mistake. Her parents run the Chinese food kiosk in Pioneer Square. I’ve known the whole family for years. I told Crystal when she was a young girl that if she did well in school, and went to law school, that I would hire her. I wanted her to see outside of her own life. I kept my promise. I regret that I made it.”
“Ah, I see.” That explained Crystal hugging the owners of the kiosk.