Sweet Violet and a Time for Love (3 page)

“Step one, step two, step three and four. Shake it fast, baby, and hit the floor. Ooooh, yeah! Dum dum dum boo dum dum boo dum.”

Worn blue slippers, a blue floral housecoat, a silver mass of hair, and a whole lot of shimmying, clapping, and dancing around. I tried to make sense of the scene in front of me but did not know where to begin.

A woman who looked as old as Ava Diggs twirled and spun around the room. Brown as hot cocoa and covered with a smattering of dark freckles and visible dirt, she looked like she'd just stepped out of her bedroom; that is, if her bedroom was a gutter. Her bra-less, large bosom hung limply under her frayed housecoat and her ankles and knobby legs were ashy above her slippers. Her silver hair was thick and matted on the sides and she snapped her fingers with chipped and dirty fingernails. She seemed unaware of her audience, KeeKee and me, as her frail hips bounced and shook under the fluorescent lights.

“Shake it now! We goin' down. Wooo!” Though probably twice my age, the woman's moves were as sharp and skilled as if she were in a
Soul Train
line. The only thing missing was the music, but she bopped her head up and down as if a song played in her head.

“Uh, KeeKee?” I raised an eyebrow and looked over at the charge nurse.

“She was bought in by ambo from the Harbor,” KeeKee finally explained. “A group of tourists found her dancing just like this, housecoat and all, in Rash Field and made the call. We put her in one of the psych rooms but some idiot let her off the gurney and she danced her way down to this room. Nobody had the heart to restrain her or pump her with lorazepam to get her quiet and still. Besides, she wasn't hurting anything but them moves, so I made the call to just let her stay here as long as she doesn't get too disruptive. And now you're here to fix it.” KeeKee let out a rare chuckle.

“What's her name?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. She came in with what you see: that robe and those slippers. No ID. No purse. Nothing. Um, I should let you know that it appears she also does not have anything on under that robe. Once you do what you do to stabilize her, I'll send Dr. Levi in to check her out and make sure there's nothing medically wrong with her.”

“Once I do what I do? You're expecting a psych eval? We don't even know who she is. Did you call the police?”

KeeKee shrugged. “They said there are no active Silver Alerts, no elderly people reported missing anywhere in the area, and they won't even come look at her unless there are signs of foul play.” She turned to leave but then looked back. “They said to call adult protective services, but that's your domain. That's why I paged you. You know what to do with this one, Ms. Social Worker, so I'm leaving her in your hands. I have a gunshot coming in and I'm going to need this room soon since it looks like we're filling up tonight. Thanks for handling this.”

Without another word, she broke into a jog and headed back to the action by the main desk. I watched her disappear and then turned my attention back to the dancing woman. Her steps and swirls had eased somewhat and her mouth moved in silence as her head rocked back and forth.

“Ma'am?” I called out gently. She smiled and curtsied but shut her eyes. She opened them and turned to face a corner of the room and began whispering to the wall. I tried to make out her words, but they were indistinguishable. I inhaled, trying to see if I picked up any smell of alcohol or marijuana. Nothing.

“Ma'am?” I called out again. “You must be worn out from all that dancing. You can have a seat if you like, and I can get you some water or some ginger ale. Ma'am?” I took a step toward her. Her whispering seemed to lower in response to my movement.

Leon should be home by now.
I imagined him stepping out of the shower, pulling one of his white T-shirts over his head, smelling like Dove soap. He'd probably be wearing his green pajama bottoms. In our bed. Waiting for me to join him. Another rumble of nausea rolled through my stomach.
Oh, God.
I swallowed hard and willed my intestines to cooperate.
I cannot be pregnant.

“Ma'am?” Even I heard the sharp irritation in my tone. I softened my voice before I continued. “Ma'am, would you like to take a seat and I can bring you something to drink?”

“Oh, I'll take a whiskey sour with extra ice, hold the cherry.” She turned to face me. “Whatchu havin', sugar? Let me guess: a Long Island Iced Tea?” Her eyes were as bright and clear as the starlit night, and just as endless in their depth. “No, a martini,” she announced after studying me for a moment. “You look like you like them high-siddity drinks.
Bonjour. Au revoir. Comment allez
-
vous.
” She giggled and curtsied again.

“Actually, I'm not a drinker, but have a seat. Let's talk.” I slid a plastic chair over to her and then sat in one myself. I kept the curtain open and nodded at a security guard who watched us from a distance. The woman eyed me with a half smile and then sat down in the seat I offered.

“We've met before, haven't we?” A distant memory nudged my consciousness as I stared at the blue housecoat, the worn, dirty slippers. “My wedding day. You knocked on the window of the bakery where I had my reception.”

The woman smiled at me, but then looked away. “Step one, step two, step three, step four,” she whispered and bobbed her head and patted her feet to a beat only she heard.

“You are quite a dancer. I don't think I could keep up with you.” I smiled back as I thought through every word I said. There were many ways to handle this situation, and many ways it could go off course. I could feel the narrow open window I had at the moment and I could not afford to let it slam shut. “How old are you?” I asked.

“Shhhhh.” The woman put a finger to her lips and hushed me.

“How old are you?” I tried again, this time in a whisper.

The woman's eyes narrowed as she scowled. “Didn't your momma teach you not to ask a lady that question?”

I held my breath as she glared at me, but then her eyes relaxed. “You got a cigarette, sugar? It appears that I left my purse at home.” She began digging into the pockets of her housecoat then stuck her hand between her breasts, fishing.

“Where's home?” I pushed my chair back a little. No telling what that woman could have hidden in her bosom. I looked over at the security guard. He took the hint and began inching toward us. Dr. Levi, a newer member of the ED team, joined alongside him.

He would be expecting some answers, some info when he got to the room, I knew.

“Ma'am, where do you live?” I tried again.

She folded her hands in her lap and stared at the floor. A look of sorrow flashed through her face. “I ain't got no home to go to no more. What's your name again, sugar?”

“I'm Sienna. What's your name?” I held my breath, waiting, but her eyes narrowed again. Hardened.

“Oh, you ain't from around here none, are you?” Her voice filled with venom. “Everybody here knows who I am. I'll forgive you this one time for asking me my name, but no more, sugar. Don't expect no more favors out of me, young thang.”

“Is your name Sugar?” I gave her a broad smile, trying to ease the sudden dark change in her mood. She laughed a deep, full belly laugh that echoed through the room and quickened the security guard's pace toward us. Dr. Levi slowed down.

“You know full well my name ain't no Sugar, sugar.” Her voice seemed to lower with each approaching step of the guard. She looked me straight in the eyes just before he came in the room. “My name is Sweet Violet,” she whispered, “and I suggest you go on about your way before I put the ‘n' in Violet and acquaint you with my bitter side.”

“Okay, uh, Miss . . . Violet.” I stood and put my chair between the two of us, but my protective actions appeared to be unnecessary as the guard stepped into the room. She seemed giddy again.

“You got my drink, sweetheart? It's about time. Service here is terrible.” She smiled up at him, the animosity of the previous moments dissipated. She stood and began dancing again, ignoring even the guard she'd just questioned. I stepped out of the room and yanked the curtain closed behind me.

“Her drink?” Dr. Levi had caught up and he stood with me outside the room. “What does she need, detox?” he inquired.

“Definitely order a tox screen and check her blood alcohol level. With all the dirt on her clothes and in her hair, I'll call around to some of the homeless shelters and see if any of them know who she is.” I put a hand to my forehead and thought better of it. “Actually, I'll leave a note for the Sunday on-call social worker to follow up in the morning. I know KeeKee wants this bed available, but this honestly could have waited until the morning.”

I turned to leave as a fresh wave of nausea threatened and heightened my irritation that I'd been called out of my home to deal with this. Even if I called shelters and APS, nobody would do anything until daylight tomorrow. Adult protective services probably would just tell the ED to keep her until they were available to visit with her on Monday morning. I knew how these things worked.

“Uh . . .” Dr. Levi looked uncertain, but he could tell by the look on my face that I had already given my “prescription” for the patient, bless her dancing heart. I hurried away from them and was considering using a computer in an alcove near me to type a note and send a message to KeeKee when I heard the curtain of bed twenty-nine open up with a loud screech.

“Now what did y'all do with my clothes?” the woman who called herself Sweet Violet hissed. She stood there with her housecoat unzipped and falling off of her thin shoulders. Way too much of her personal business showed and I wanted to go wash out my eyes with some hand sanitizer, bleach, something.

“Step one, step two, step three and four. Shake it fast, baby, and hit the floor. Ooooh, yeah!” She began her spinning and shaking again.

The doctor and the guard gasped and I groaned. There was no way KeeKee would let me leave a half-naked elderly Jane Doe dancing around the ED. This would not be waiting until the morning, I conceded. I took a step back toward room twenty-nine, but then bolted for a nearby staff restroom. I could no longer hold back the nausea. I ran faster as I lost control of my gag reflexes. The taste of bile filled my throat.

“That's right, young thang, run!” The woman's loud voice screeched and cackled and echoed through the corridor behind me. “Run, run, run before they get you too! Step one, step two, step three and four. Shake it fast, baby, and hit the floor. Ooooh, yeah!”

“You know I don't like these late nights, Sienna. I looked forward all day to coming home to you.”

His voice was calm, deep, clear, and beckoning. I closed my eyes listening to the melody that was my husband's voice, mad that I had to hear it through a telephone and not directly in my ear.

“I promise that I will be home as soon as I can. And I also promise that this is the last time I'm carrying this pager. I don't mind helping, but Ms. Mabel is going to have find someone else to volunteer their time, or stop being cheap and get a temp agency involved.” I exhaled.

“Yes, I agree.” He sighed. “Please come home as soon as you can.”

“You know I will.” I blew a kiss to him over the phone before hanging it up and dialing another phone number. I'd called three shelters already and left three identical messages on their voice mail systems. Did anyone know a Sweet Violet? I looked again through the stack of papers and brochures stored in the social work office's resource cabinet to see what other shelters were nearby.

“Oh, yeah, A New Beginning House.” I picked up a pamphlet that detailed a rescue mission for women. It was about ten or fifteen blocks away from the Harbor. I dialed the number, hoping, praying, that this would not be another dead end.

“Anything yet?” KeeKee popped her head in the doorway. I shook my head and shooed her away as someone picked up on the other line.

“Bless the Lord. You've reached A New Beginning House. Let today be your turning point. This is Sister Marta. How can I serve you on this early Sunday morning?”

I glanced at the clock. Two-seventeen a.m. Yup, it was early morning and I had not yet been to bed for the night.

“Oh, hello, Sister Marta. I'm a social worker calling from Metro Community Hospital and we have a patient in the ED who we are trying to identify. She calls herself Sweet Violet and she is wearing a blue housecoat and blue slippers. She appears to love dancing because that's all she's been doing. She's an elderly African American woman with bright silver hair and dark freckles all over her face and arms. Does this description sound like anyone who may have crossed the path of your shelter?”

“Oh, bless God. We found her!” The woman, Sister Marta, shouted out to someone on her end before getting back on the line with me. “I don't know about her name being Sweet Violet, but your description sounds just like one of our ladies, Ms. Frankie Jean. She was number seven for the shower line after dinner, but nobody saw her after she grabbed her shower bucket.”

“Did you call the police to make a missing persons report?”

“Oh, honey, this is a shelter. Women come and go from here all the time, even in the middle of the night. The ladies can leave anytime they want, though they know that means they are forfeiting their bed when they do.”

“So you don't try to find them, even if they are . . . older and frail?”

“Please, child. Ms. Frankie Jean is anything but old and frail. You've seen her dancing, right?” The woman on the other end chuckled.

“I've seen a little more than I wanted to. Is her bed still available?”

“Yeah, I can take Ms. Frankie Jean back but you gonna have to get her here before seven. That's when the big boss comes and if Ms. Frankie Jean ain't sittin' in our Sunday chapel service, dressed and fed, that will be a worse crime than her leaving in the middle of the night, as far as the management is concerned. We are a ministry, a mission. Our residents are required to attend all services. We help them with food, shelter, and clothes, but they got to do their chores and come to church.”

“Where is Ms. Frankie Jean from? Does she have any family?”

There was a pause before her answer. “Oh, child, we don't know hardly any of these women's stories, and to be honest with you, Ms. Frankie is pretty new to our residence so we know even less about her. She showed up last week at our front door asking for a bottle of Kahlua and a pack of Virginia Slims. Ain't had much to say since then. All she does is dance and ask for liquor, but she's sweet and harmless. Nobody bothers her and she don't bother nobody.”

“You said sweet. You sure she doesn't go by the name Sweet Violet?”

“Naw, honey.” Another pause. “She told us clear as day that her name is Frankie Jean. Ain't never heard of no name of Sweet Violet.”

“I suggest you go on about your way before I put the ‘n' in Violet and acquaint you with my bitter side.”
I shook my head at the memory of the woman's earlier, confusing words. She needed a full workup, mental, physical, and psychological evals to get her past and secure her future, but the need for a comprehensive exam was not a reason to keep her in the ED tonight. I could get a cab voucher and send her back to the shelter so she wouldn't lose her bed. I'd put in my note that someone could follow up with her later to ensure she was connected to appropriate services.

“All right, Sister Marta,” I spoke into the phone, “I'm going to get Ms. Frankie Jean into a cab and send her your way. You'll probably hear from somebody on Monday just to make sure that she gets hooked up to some services.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. God bless you. What's your name again?”

“Oh, I never said. My name is Sienna.”

“Thanks, Sienna. God bless you.”

 

 

“Sorry, I can't take her.” The cabbie chomped on a piece of gum and stared the two of us up and down.

“But you must,” I pleaded again. It was now nearing three-thirty a.m. My eyes burned from exhaustion, my stomach burned from an unknown ailment, which could not possibly be pregnancy, and my nerves burned in sheer agitation, and for two good reasons. The cab had taken over half an hour to come and now that it was here, the driver was refusing to cooperate.

“Miss, I'm sorry, but that woman cannot get into my cab.” The gum rolled around on his tongue and I resisted the urge to smack it flat out of his mouth. Instead, I followed his eyes to the woman who had resumed dancing beside me. Whereas before her movements had rhythm, a fast tempo, and soul, now she swung her arms through the air with grace and poise, spinning around on her toes as if she were a ballerina. Her eyes were closed and she hummed a mournful melody.

“It's a safety issue, a risk. I will not be liable. I cannot take her. Absolutely not.” He revved up his engine, shifted his gear out of park.

“She just needs to get to a place about ten minutes away from here. They're already expecting her.”

“Not my problem, miss.”

“The hospital is paying for this service.”

“And I will explain to my boss that there was a question of safety and liability.”

“She's harmless.” I did my best to remain sounding civil, and believable, as the woman now began swinging and spinning in more exaggerated motions. Dressed in a hot pink sweat suit and black tennis shoes I'd managed to find in a storage closet, she suddenly changed her dance routine from ballet to funky chicken and then she sobered and marched to the window beside me.

“Excuse me, kind sir,” she whispered down at the driver, “but are you passing by a liquor store?”

Her tox screen had been negative. Somehow, no trace of alcohol was in her system. She had not consented to any type of physical exam; basic tests showed no brain injury, and she'd given no indication of being suicidal or homicidal. Her actions and behaviors, though bizarre, were not enough to keep her in the ED. Follow-up linkages were necessary, but KeeKee was not having the woman stay another minute, especially since a warm bed was being held for her just blocks away.

“I can't do it.” He shook his head at me and pushed another stick of gum in his mouth. “Sorry, but you're going to have to back up from my car. I'm leaving.”

And he did. Within seconds, I was standing alone with the woman—who was back to the funky chicken—in the roundabout in front of the emergency department.

“What am I going to do with you?” I shook my head as the woman stopped dancing. She stared up at the starlit sky and smiled in silence. I looked back through the ED's main door. She'd already been discharged and I knew KeeKee well enough to know that there would be no further interest from the hospital to figure out what to do. This was my matter to handle.

“All right, I'm going to drop you off at the shelter. My car. Let's go.” I turned toward the employee parking garage, grateful that I'd been given a guest permit that allowed me access to spaces on the first level. “Are you coming, Sweet Violet?” I smiled at her.

“Sweet Violet?” The woman froze and frowned at me. “Who said you could call me that? My name is Frankie Jean and don't you forget it. Do you have my bag?”

My only desire was to get this woman to the shelter so I could get home to my husband. No more questions, no more comments. No more agitating mood swings or confusion. I needed to get this woman to the shelter and someone else in the world of human services could pick up her case and concerns on Monday.

“I have your bag right here, Ms. Frankie Jean.” I held up the clear plastic bag that contained her housecoat and slippers as we got into my car, and then I tossed it into the back seat.

“Thank you, sugar.” She sighed, smiled, and sat back in the passenger seat. We both stayed silent as I turned down the narrow streets that led to the shelter. With no traffic, we got there in seven minutes. A lamppost on the corner cast a dark shadow on the metal bars that locked over the entrance, but a dim light flickered from deep inside.

“We're here, Ms. Frankie Jean.”

“Mmm hmm.” She stared straight ahead.

Are you going to get out of my car?
In my exhaustion, it took all I had not to blurt that question out loud as several seconds passed and she hadn't made any attempt to unbuckle her belt or reach for the door handle.

“Red velvet cupcakes. Mmmm.”

“Excuse me?”

“You had on a plain white dress and you were eating red velvet cupcakes. Mmmm.”

My wedding day. The reception at Leon's bakery. Her tapping on the glass. She did remember.

“That's right.” She nodded as if reading my thoughts. “I never forget.” Her eyes were as clear as the nighttime sky. I sat speechless, startled. A little unnerved. She turned to get out.

“It's a shame, you know, sugar?” she asked as her door swung open.

I didn't want to ask, but I had to. “What's that?”

“Death. Someone always has to die. Okay, sugar. Thank you. Good night.” She got out of the car and was inside the shelter before I could make sense of what had just happened.

Huh? Did that woman just issue a threat or simply offer a fact of life?
And the queasiness I suddenly felt, was it because of my . . . non-pregnancy issue, or had the woman just given me a bad case of the heebie-jeebies?

I put my car in drive and pushed my foot on the accelerator. Too tired to attempt to understand my night and too sick to care, I almost missed the dark sedan parked several yards past the lamppost.

But I didn't miss the man inside.

Black puffy jacket, black hat pushed down low over his eyes. I thought about the man who I'd seen at the ED, hiding behind the front door plant; the man who'd disappeared before I could ask a question about him or point him out to the triage nurse or front desk security guard.

I hadn't seen the man's face clearly, but I was certain that the driver of that parked car was one and the same.

I kept my head straight, feeling, sensing that I wasn't supposed to see him. And for some inexplicable reason, I prayed that he hadn't seen me.

As I drove through the quiet, narrow city streets back to my condo in Canton, exhausted beyond measure and sick to the pit of my stomach, I could not shake the nagging feeling that this was not my last dealings with Sweet Violet, Ms. Frankie Jean, or whoever she was.

Little did I realize my life would be turned upside down because of her in just a few hours.