Crush (15 page)

And he’s not there.
I refuse to answer the front door to people wanting to lend their comfort and support. They leave food and flowers on the stoop.
Pete Bloom, who is pushing seventy, his sandy blonde hair replaced bysilver gray, asks me if I’d like to move in with him, the wife, and their two young grandchildren, whose parents are deadbeat dopers in San Diego. “Of course, you’d have to give your kitties away,” Pete says. “Maggie’s allergic.”
I appreciate him, and I tell him how sweet his offer is, and that I’m okay. I promise to let him know if I need anything. I’m far too used to Lloyd’s enduring quiet to deal with the noise and vigor of small children, and I’m not about to give up our kids. I meet with Lloyd’s probate attorney and learn that the house is now in my name. I begin planning extra work shifts so I can make the annual propertytaxand insurance payments.
I have to do something, so I get online and begin building a website in memory of Lloyd. I write about his life, how he saved mine, how he loved cats and cared for them, and I provide links to the Humane Societyand the A.S.P.C.Awebsites.
Eventually, I let Stacyin, and I face her with red-rimmed eyes, telling her that I’m going to save money, sell the house, and move to Fort Bragg. “Forever,” I ramble, manic because I haven’t slept. “This valley’s too hot…there’s too much pain in this house…too much pain in this town…want to start fresh somewhere else…it’s not the same without him…I love the ocean…I’ve always wanted to live there…”
Stacy’s stunned, but she’s not judgmental. She could say, “His ashes won’t care whether you’re there or not,” but she doesn’t.
I want Lloyd back. I want him walking around dumping food into the cats’ dishes. I want him fiddling with old VCR movies. I want him hugging me so hard I can’t breathe. I want him telling me the police beat before anyone else reads it in the paper. I want to hear him laughing at myfunnywork stories.
And I can’t have what I want.
I can never have what I want.

My fragile mental state worsens in the weeks and months following Lloyd’s death. I feel unsafe in this house, always imagining someone breaking in and attacking me. I can’t sleep. I don’t want to sleep. I start taking more double shifts, and after we clock out, I stay out all night at The End, with Stacy and whatever boyfriend she’s with, filling my empty stomach, lungs and spirit with vodka, tobacco smoke, and spirited music. At first, Stacy’s thrilled. She always likes it when I’m with her on “dates” regardless of what the guy thinks. Jamie’s going to be fine, she thinks. Grabbing life bythe tail and holding on.

As she observes my mourning more closely though, she begins to see…and worry. I can’t eat. I don’t want to eat. My refrigerator is empty except for sodas, bottles of water, a few old eggs, leftover canned cat food, and a jar of dill pickles. I don’t know how it works. It just does. I’m tired of crying every time I realize Lloyd is gone, forever. Staying emptysoothes me somehow. I’m in control. It’s taken a while to become accustomed to chronic hunger, to become able to discount the ongoing, persistent quiet shrieks issuing from my stomach. I smoke more now than I ever did, painfullyaware that Lloyd is no longer telling me that I’m going to croak from cancer or emphysema.

As my body melts, Misty’s kittens grow old enough for new homes. I give two awayand keep two, an orange tabbystripe boyI name “Tigger,” and the sweetest, most beautiful orange and white kitty who ever lived. His face is mostly white, like the little monkey in
Outbreak
, and he has dark, sad little button eyes. I name him, “Ginger.”

The days begin to shorten and the air begins to cool, and the increase in humidity makes my right arm ache. In early-mid December, on an overcast evening about eight months after Lloyd’s passing, I spot Tammy Mattheis in one of the aisles at Safeway. I’m terrified and filled with ardor all over again. That long dormant desire flares back to life as I huddle against a cereal displayand watch him in the checkout line.

The song “Déjà Vu” by Dionne Warwick plays on the speakers up above.
I suddenlyget a cloying whiff of red licorice…
Dressed in a nondescript solid dark green pullover shirt and dark jeans, he’s divinity personified. To say the years have been good to him is absurd. The passage of time has made him rougher-looking, a little worn, and therefore a trillion times sexier and more magnetic than he was in high school…his neatly cropped dark hair, straight, strong nose, obscenely full lips, deep, dark green eyes…I didn’t think perfection could be perfected, and I feed feverishlyfrom myhiding place as he takes his grocerybags and exits.
I feel him seizing mylife again…
I’ve just gotten used to Lloyd being dead. I’ve just become complacent in mysolitary, ordered existence. I’ve just come to the decision that I don’t
need
love. I’ve been without it all these years, and I’ve survived.
And now he’s back. Should I cry…or cry?

It’s been raining a lot this month. At a church fellowship in West Sac, Mom has slipped on the wet sidewalk in front of the church and landed hard and painful on her rear. They call the ambulance and bythe time I’m in town, she’s been at Saint Paul’s Hospital, flat on her back in a skinnycot, for two days.

She’s off to a bad start there. Her orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Mumy, thinks at first that her hip is broken. So she gets x-rays and theycome back saying her hips are fine. So theyyank her up out of bed and make her walk down the hallways, several times a day. All this time, she’s crying, in excruciating pain,
begging
them to let her lay back down. She insists she can’t even get up to the toilet, that she’d rather have to layon a cold silver bedpan. I hear one of the nurses call her “lazy” and I’m readyto bring the house down on all of them.

Mom says, “No, they’re not all jerks. There’s one nurse here that I love. He’s so sweet.”
“Sweet doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing,” I grumble.
“No, he’s wonderful. He’s very careful, and he knows what he’s doing. When he gets here I want you to meet him. He’s the only one who seems to know anything. They don’t listen to him of course. I hate it when he’s not here.”
Afew minutes later, she points outside her door. “He’s here! Thank God!”
I can’t look or get up. I’m frozen when I hear a disturbingly familiar voice saying, “Well, I’ve tried to tell Dr. Mumy that it’s probablyher pelvis, but they’ve been harping on and on about her hip and ‘We can’t find anything wrong with her hip!’ She’s in so much pain, and you guys are still making her get up and walk, and nobody’s really
checked
to see if she has a fractured pelvis!”
I hear the female nurse who called Mom “lazy” say, “Well, that’s up to the
doctor
. I’m onlyfollowing orders!”
I stand up and peer out the door to the nurses’ station, feeling an unmistakable current rippling through me as I inspect the shock of wavy, golden hair above the dark blue scrub shirt and the small, slender physique wearing it.
I can’t believe it.
I’ve got to get out of here. Now. My hands shake and sweat as I stammer, “I’ve gotta go, Mom. See you tomorrow.”
“Honey, wait! I want you to meet mynurse!”
“Tomorrow!” I bluster as I dash out of the room. Out of the corner of myeye I see him, facing awayfrom me, getting his report from the nurse who’s going off duty. I all but trip over my own feet in myeffort to flee.
As I sit in the dark of Mom’s living room, I wonder whyI can’t face him.
WhyI ran just now.
The same reason I ran before.
My feelings for Jamie are as perplexing and intense as they were the last time I saw him. I didn’t even see his face tonight. I didn’t have to.
It’s as if no years have passed at all.
I still love him.
And I still don’t know how to handle it.

I don’t sleep worth a shit, and I return the next morning at around five, thinking I can avoid him, but there he is. He’s pulling a double shift. Oh myGod…

Mom gives me the latest news. During the past evening, Jamie’s managed to persuade Dr. Mumyto order another round of pelvic x-rays and Jamie’s been right all along. There are two large cracks in the pelvis and her tailbone is broken. She’s on strict bed rest, like she should have been in the first place. She’ll be in the hospital for at least another couple weeks, and she’ll be unable to leave her bed for anything. She’s mad as hell. “Those old biddies!” she gripes. “Too busy looking down their noses at me to listen to a thing I have to say! Jamie’s the only one who pays any attention to what’s going on with me!”

I’m sitting across the room in a beige vinyl chair, nodding, onlyhalf listening, feeling him coming toward Mom’s room, willing him not to.

But he disobeys me. When our eyes meet, I’m the first to look away. I’m engulfed in fire. Perspiration streams down my back. A fine tremor shakes mybody. I prayhe’s too busyto notice.

Mom chirps, “Jamie, this is myson, Thames.”
I cringe at the sillyname she gave me. “Tam,” I correct her. “Hi,” he whispers in a tremulous voice. “I remember you.” I can’t look at him.
Oh, my God, you divine little thing, you…If

only you knewhowI’ve never forgotten
you…
“Hi,” I whimper, closing myeyes, burning alive.
My eyes are on the floor, but I swear I’m watching him as he

assesses Mom from head to toe. I can see him using his stethoscope to listen to her lungs and heart.
Mom asks, “Are you alright this morning, hon?”
He checks her pulse. “Sure,” he half-whispers. “Alittle tired, but I’ll be off in a while…Need something for pain?”
Myeyes lurch awayfrom mywillful grip to look up at him, and I feel mybreath catch. He’s still small and slim in build,
too
thin in fact, and it makes his eyes seem bigger and bluer. There’s a difference in his face, the tiniest tracing of crow’s feet around his eyes, but it’s of no consequence, not with a face like that. He’s a man now, and he’s beautiful, more beautiful than I remember, more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s nothing about him I don’t love. I even love the way he looks in his dark blue scrubs. (A nurse, I sigh…) For the first time ever, I’m seeing his hair in its natural color, like dark wheat. I love it. As he bends close to Mom, I see a few dark blonde little wisps of hair on his upper chest…
“No, honey, I’m fine.”
Beneath a day’s growth of beard, his skin is like porcelain. Maturity has filled out his jaw and chin, making his cheekbones appear even more exotic under the dark shadows of his long lashes. His pink lips turn down in a gentle, sensual pout as he moves quietly around Mom’s bed. The combination of male and female traits in his face is intoxicating. Even his
nose
is pretty. As he examines Mom’s feet, he smiles, “Good pedal pulses,” and I silently combust in my chair. I keep my eyes fixed on the gold linoleum squares under myfeet, and I hear him say, “Okay, you let me know.”
“Thank you, Sweetie. So glad you were on last night.” I feel him pause beside me.
I can’t look up. I
can’t
…
“You look like your Mom,” he says in the soft, breathless wayI remember.
The air around me begins to swelter. I try to smile, but it’s a grimace of pain. “Yeah,” I choke.
He leaves, creating a breeze that mercifullycools the back of myneck.
He spoke to me!
I must look a sight, because Mom asks, “Honey? Do you know him?”
I’m smothering. “Went to high school with him.”
“He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”
Every time I hear a footstep outside Mom’s room, I startle to full attention, my entire body rising off the chair. But Jamie does not come back.
I’m flustered. I’m tired. I need to go home, I need to wind down.
Mom interrupts mythoughts. “Tammy, can you tell Jamie I’m starting to have some pain now?”
It’s six-thirty. My feet feel like they weigh a ton as I make my way to the nurses’ desk. He sits in front of the open spot on the clear glass shield, writing in a big green chart. I clear mythroat. He looks up, and his weary eyes barely graze mine before they’re back on the papers before him. “Hi,” he stammers.
“I’m gonna go home for a while. My mom says she might need a pain pill now.”
His eyes flicker up at me. “Okay, I’ll make sure she gets one.”
“You’ve been working since last night, huh?”
He smiles, “Yeah…I’m sooo tired…”
“I can imagine…you don’t have to work again tonight, do

I exclaim, “I’ll bet you sleep like a log when you get home! Before your head hits the pillows!” I imagine him, dead exhausted, not even undressing, collapsing onto his bed in his sweaty uniform.

I can’t hold eye contact. I focus on a torn spot in the fabric binding the green chart he’s holding. “Well, get some rest…”
“Will do.”
“Okay…goodnight…I mean, goodbye…”
His voice is silken. “Bye, Tammy.”
I feel his eyes on me as I incinerate all the waydown the hall and into the elevator, and I finally, silentlyrespond to what myMom said about him.
Yeah, he’s wonderful, more than wonderful. And he’s still here. He’s here, and he’s all I’ve ever wanted.

It’s a typical Thursday night. I’ve just come off another monster double shift, day into swing, but instead of going home, I’m at The End. I’m already in Tipsyland and making a fast detour to Drunk Off MyAss. Guilt gentlyprods at me. I’ve been feeding the “kids” and making sure they have water and their litter pan is clean, but otherwise I’ve been neglecting them. I miss them, wish I was at home with them. I wish Lloyd was there so we could all get under that huge quilt and watch an old black and white CaryGrant movie.

As I puff on my cigarette, Stacy begins her usual chastisement. “Why don’t I order us some buffalo wings and ranch? You look like any minute you’re going to dry up and blow away.”

I roll my eyes irascibly and spew a thick cloud of smoke. “Told you, I’m not hungry.”
“You never eat!”
“Whyeat when I can drink? And smoke?”
Stacyfrowns at me like a worried mother. I had a mother who didn’t worry about me one bit. I don’t need Stacy to be my mother