Don't Close Your Eyes (4 page)

“This is for you, and I know it's a little late for coffee, but I figured who couldn't use an extra pick me up, eh?” I smiled at her, and she sighed happily.  Genuine gratitude washed over her once very pretty features.  She was still a very pretty woman, but no matter how many times I’d offered, she never allowed herself a luxury beyond running a brush through her too long blonde hair.  She, like most mums, put herself last in all things, and this illness was all-consuming.  She said if Belles didn’t have the luxury of having hair any longer, she damn sure wasn’t going to be rubbing it in by getting hers done or even cut.  So she grew it out for her daughter who couldn’t.  It was both sweet and sad.

She took her coffee from me with an assurance that she was very happy to have it, that she'd missed it today in all the sadness.  "Speaking of needing cheering up, these are for you, my dear," I told Anabelle as I walked over to where she sat in a chair beside the window, gazing outside in the longing of a caged bird.  I kissed her forehead and handed her the bag of donut holes, thankful they were still warm by some miracle.  I opened it up for her and made it easy for her to dip her hand inside.  "No treatment today, right?  If so I can go put these in the fridge the way I'd done for a couple of the others," I offered, not wanting to make her throw up if she was going to be battling the intense nausea that came with her treatments.

"No treatment, Klive," she smiled through her pain and weakness.  I moved to sit on the couch beside her while Adeline worked quickly to move the sheets and blankets away, folding them to clear away her makeshift bed.

"Adeline, don't worry about it, dear.  Who are you cleaning up for?  I am in
your
environment, remember?  Relax," I told her.  When she didn't listen I got up to help her fold everything and place it all in the linen closet that was courtesy in the room.  When I sat back down, Anabelle leaned toward me, as she did often, inhaling my scent deeply.  No cologne on Sundays since you never knew what things were going to cause one of these poor babies to lose their lunches.  Bodywash and the combination of cedarwood and vanilla that my home smells like.  It reminds me of my home back in London.  Of my own mum.

"I love when you visit because my whole room smells like you even after you leave," Anabelle told me sweetly.  Her mother and I chuckled.

"Well, Love, if I was able to bottle it, I'd make a spray for you to think of me always," I teased.  I smiled at Anabelle as I pulled the little box from my pocket after making small talk for a bit. 

"Oh, Mr. King, what the hell have you gone and spoiled my baby with this time?" Adeline asked with a gracious smile.  She loved that I lifted her baby up.  What mother wouldn't?

"I had this made for you, Anabelle.  It is to constantly remind you that just because there may be things that people think are impossible, doesn't mean that you can't accomplish them anyway," I told her as she opened the ring box and gasped happily at the little white gold band with a simple white gold bee perched decoratively on top.  I pulled it out and ran it onto her little middle finger since it was the thickest other than her thumb.  "You can do anything you decide to do, you understand me?  Anytime you become discouraged, feel like you can't continue, let it be a reminder.  Did you know that science even says that because of the dynamic of a bee's body, it shouldn't be able to fly?" I asked her. 

"Is that really true, Klive?" she asked in a bit of wonder as she studied it on her finger, happy tears glistening in her eyes.  She was lit up like it was Christmas, which had been fantastic to experience with her.  She was so grateful for the smallest things, and it was such a joy to shop for her and her mother, not to mention the others in this wing of the hospital.  I'd been a part of delivering toys to all the kids, not only the cancer patients, this year.  Talk about rewarding.  It was this feeling that had me ready to have my bloody life back so that I might be able to be this person entirely.  One could dream...

"It's true, Anabelle," I told her with an encouraging smile.  "Do you know what the secret is?" I asked inquisitively, she looked up at me in the same manner.  "No one told the bee it couldn't fly, so it does it anyway," I beamed.  She gasped happily and leaned forward to kiss my cheek with a strength that was most likely daunting, but it lifted my spirits where she was concerned considerably.  I pulled another copy of the paper out of the plastic bag I'd carried with me.  "You see this young woman, Anabelle?" I asked her as I put the paper in her lap and pointed to her medals in the picture.  Her face lit curiously, her eyes hopeful, large, too big now for her too tiny face, no longer framed by eyelashes or brows.  Nor was her pretty brown hair atop her head.  Her eyes were still the prettiest brown with amber light in the iris. 

"Who is she, Klive?" Adeline leaned over me to look in Anabelle's lap.  She peered up at me with hope in her own expression for me.  I breathed a sigh of inner peace as she was perfectly genuine.  I never wanted to lead anyone on or give the impression that my relationship to them meant more than it did.  Adeline was a friend I valued, and I was her friend in turn.  Nothing more, nothing less.

"This is the elevator girl, my princess in the fairytale, ladies," I beamed triumphantly.

"You
found
her!" they both gushed excitedly for me.  I nodded in happiness I couldn’t conceal.  Anabelle had enjoyed the story so much the first time I'd told her, that often times she asked me to tell her how I had been so stricken many times over.  The edited for children version, that is.  She claimed it was like watching
Sleeping Beauty
when the prince stumbles upon the singing woman in the woods and is completely taken by her.  The fact that she was his princess without knowing was the cherry on top, as she put it.  They were meant to be.  That's what her point always was, and she loved a romantically ironic story.  She may be about to be ten years old, but she was very much into love stories with a maturity beyond her own age.  I think she feared it would be her only taste of falling in love, that she felt her life wouldn't last long enough to allow her the experience that she desperately wanted, along with being able to grow up at all.  My own brother had allowed death to enter his mind many times, all his hopes and dreams for a life like my father had with our mother, like we had with him.  August wanted nothing more than to fall in love and have a ton of kids when he grew up, insisting that it was the only thing that mattered in life.  He'd taken a long time to find that woman, but he had a year and half ago, married her a mere two months later, only to get her pregnant on their honeymoon to start that family as soon as he could.  They now had a sweet newborn baby Maribell, a name they'd gotten from my own talking up little Anabelle. 

"I did.  This morning when I was reading my paper," I told them with a big smile that was uncontainable, wanting to feed that hope in Belles.  She will fall in love one day with a man who sweeps her off her feet in the best of ways.  Ways I was mindful of because of her.  I wanted to sweep Kinsley off of her feet in the ways Ana would deserve when she was older.

"Are you going to introduce yourself to her?" Adeline asked as though she were daring me to be man enough to have the balls to do so.  As though I wore my fear of doing just that on my bleeding sleeve!  I laughed heartily, then gave a shrug.  Yep, I got the response I'd gone for.  Adeline got onto me with an order to be a man the way that I'd been for her daughter all this time.

"Klive, if you don't marry your princess, you will ruin the real life fairytale!" Anabelle whined playfully.  I tossed my head back on a laugh. 

"Oh, what to do with you hopelessly romantic females..." I sighed as they both smiled at me.  "She probably never even thought of me once after that day, so it's not as though I could just walk up to her..." I trailed in a bit of wistful thought.

"Sure it is."  Adeline wasn't going to give an inch.  "Klive, are you going to let my daughter down like that?  Just look at that face!" she teased as Ana gave the sweetest pout, then we both laughed.  "All I'm saying is that you think it has to be hard, but it can be that easy.  Even the most beautiful girls can respect a man who just has the gumption to go back to the basics of simply introducing himself politely, which we know you have perfect manners, so you've got it in the bag, mister.  If she shoots you down, we will take you in as an unlovable stray, but if she's your match, how can she possibly not give you a shot?  It's fate, right, Belles?"

"Yes!" Anabelle sighed happily with a dreamy look on her face before I began to read to them both about this insanely fast woman who was impossibly petite to seem to be physically able to pull off such a feat.  "So, even though she
shouldn't
be able to do that, she does anyway..." Anabelle trailed thoughtfully with a nod of understanding.  It was a relation to the bee I hadn’t applied to Kinsley James before that moment.  She was absolutely right.  "Thank you, Klive.  All of this makes me so happy.  Perhaps this transplant will have been successful, and the only strength I will need to pull from this ring and the story will be to make it to the news of remission," she smiled brightly.

I left the hospital feeling a bit lighter, lifted, the way I always felt whenever I did so.  I wasn't violent, wasn't angry, wasn't worried, frustrated, managing majorly huge illegal operations, wasn't worried about pulling any hits since I never did on Sundays.  I went home to check my email since I prefer a computer screen to the phone for things like this, and I was thrilled to see the one promised from Chris in my inbox.  Chris had been doing my background checks for a long time, so he knew exactly which shit I wanted and which was junk I didn't want to waste my time with.  If I wanted a standard document with facts, I could have looked that up myself.  Chris weeded the stuff that wasn't important, gave me what was. 

He also included a personal note that had me raising my eyebrows. 

Boss, since this woman is a love interest, I've done you the favor of only including things you may need to know, but not everything.  In order to respect the process, you will find that knowing everything can get you nowhere in the worst ways when it comes to women.  Trust me.  Because I know you are probably pissed at me for it, I contacted the paper and had them send their color photos of her over the last ten years that they have in their archives.  Hope you like them!  Enjoy.

Really, Chris?  Nice.

CHAPTER 2

“Budlight, coming up.  Draft or bottle?” I smiled sweetly at the regular sitting at the bar across from me. 

“Bottle, thank you, Kins,” he smiled kindly back at me, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners.  “Some fresh nuts would be great, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.  I don’t blame you for not wanting to snack from a public dish,” I winked and looked around conspiratorially as I held a finger up to him.  He smiled gratefully. Satisfied no one was around that would mind, I pushed my copper hair back as I bent to grab more nuts and a bowl especially for him.  I quickly got them out to him and slid his bottle across after removing the top, tucking my key back into my lap apron.  “Thank you, sir!” I beamed brightly and pocketed the nice tip he slid to me as a reward for my being ‘so very helpful and compliant as always.’  He also remarked that he was surprised to see me here so early today. 

“Don’t get me wrong, surprised, but happy.  You know you’re my favorite,” he grinned flirtatiously.  I gave him a wry grin with a small tsk, but thanked him before making more rounds.  That one asked me out on a regular basis, and turning men down was not my favorite.

I was actually filling in for Tiffany, one of the afternoon servers who had to pick her sick son up early from school.  Poor guy.   The mid-afternoon crowd on an off-season Thursday is not exactly a crowd, per se.  For now, there were a few regulars at a table in the corner and a couple of loners scattered about playing with their phones.  The juke box was lit, playing a blues track, but in the evenings we mostly had live music, which I preferred.  I
love
music, and live music, well, enough said.  This bar has a different theme every day of the week, so we are sure to appeal to most everyone's taste at some point, and if we don’t appeal, Tuesday’s painful open mic night can be whatever you like it to be if you are brave enough to take a shot.  I do my best not to work on Tuesday for that very reason.  However, Thursday is Blues night, and I love me some blues... or watching them...  We have DJ’s when we don’t have bands, and tonight my favorite lead would be onstage singing his oh so fine heart out as though he had anything to be sad about.  Anyone who looked that good should know it was a contradiction to be complaining in the prettiest rasp on that stage every Thursday night.  I smiled to myself as I ran a warm rag over the slick wood of a recently vacated table.  I am fairly good at my job, and to be honest I enjoy it far more than someone on scholarship at a major university months shy of earning a masters degree probably should.  Or a good Christian girl.  Or a sweet daddy’s girl.  The list goes on.  The fact remains, other than the occasional drunken brawl, it's a fun place to be, and when I leave to grow up, it’s gonna be a sad day.  For the moment at hand, it’s mostly dull, but I didn't mind.  It gave me time to think, which I enjoy, so long as I can keep from analyzing my own head.  I am a people watcher by nature, so this job keeps me busy.  Call it my sociology project for my minor in sociology itself.  Definitely informative on human behavior, add in the alcohol, and you’ve got one great learning environment without the walls people build around themselves to keep the truth hidden.  Sometimes, those truths are better left behind cinder blocked walls one hundred feet tall, though. 

I admit, as a psychology major, I prefer to play with other people’s heads instead of living in my own because it can be a tortured place for no good reason other than the fact that I admit I am an emotional woman deep down.  I, too, like to pick apart every little piece of anything that goes wrong until it no longer looks anything like the shape it started in.  Don’t let the tomboy exterior and rumors at school fool you.  I’m not a colossal bitch, yes I curse, forgive me Father for I have sinned.  I am a sinner.  I am a wreck, so I keep life simple to avoid carnage and try to hold my spirit intact at all times based on personal experience and knowledge of how poorly I handle life’s most basic situations.  Enough analysis for the time being.  See?  I’m doing that shit now.