Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (38 page)

THIRTY-TWO

After dinner, Jules and Simone stopped by Shay’s apartment so that Jules could make sure that Shay remembered to keep her appointment for the deposition tomorrow, a deposition that, if it went well, would ensure Shay’s continued freedom.  Simone, however, wasn’t interested.  She didn’t think she could deal with Shay right about now.  But Jules couldn’t reach her on her cell phone, and she had to make sure that she remembered.

       Simone stayed in Jules’ car.  Her relationship with Shay was about the most toxic

relationship in her life, she was beginning to believe, and she wanted to have as little contact

with her as possible.  Not that she didn’t love Shay anymore.  Simone probably loved her kid

sister more than anyone ever would.  But she just couldn’t bear the blame another second.  She

left Shay, yes, she did make the decision to leave Shay behind all those years ago.  But what

Simone now realized, although she knew it all along, was that she was only fourteen.  How could

Shay continue to blame her for something she did when she was only fourteen?                                 

       “Sure you don’t want to come in?” Jules asked as she opened her car door.

       “Positive,” Simone replied.

       “Okay.  Whatever.  I won’t be a minute.”

       Simone watched as her oldest sister walked across the parking lot into Shay’s apartment building.  Anybody looking at Jules would think that she was one tough lady, somebody who didn’t take any guff from anybody.  But the truth was like a tall tale.  Because for all of Jules tough exterior.  For all of Jules go-getter, well-put-together persona: she was nothing but a Rivers.  And the Rivers daughters were about as well put together as a scarecrow.

By the time Nick and Ethan arrived at the hospital, Bellamy was already there.  He stood from his chair in the waiting room and moved toward Nick.

       “I’m so sorry that this had to happen, Mr. Perry,” a very distraught-looking Bellamy said as Nick approached.

       “Where is she?” Nick asked.  “Has she arrived?”

       “Yes, sir.  She’s here.  I’m afraid she’s in surgery, sir.  They had to take her in for emergency surgery.  There was a blockage.  A clot in her lungs.”

       “Good Lord,” Nick said.  “Is Adam here?”

       “Dr. Phelps is here, yes, sir.”

       “Did he say if she was going to be all right?” Ethan asked Bellamy, who seemed surprised that Ethan would ask such a question.

       “I’m sure he doesn’t know that yet, sir.”

       Nick ran his hand through his hair and began to walk around the empty waiting room.  Delia had not been well for years, with various ailments almost monthly, but for some reason this visit to the hospital was unnerving him.  It felt different from all those other times.  This morning before he left for work she had a hacking cough.  He spoke with Dr. Phelps, who stated that he would come by and look at her, but later in the morning he received word that she was better.  Now this.  Nick kept pacing.   He couldn’t seem to calm himself down.

       “I’m sure she’ll be okay, boss,” Ethan said, unsure why Nick was acting so put-upon.  Just before that phone call he was about to admit that he was still in love with Simone Rivers, yet he was acting now as if his wife was somehow the love of his life.   Please.  Ethan didn’t know Nick’s game, but he was going to find a way to exploit it anyway.  “I’m sure she’s just having another one of her spells.”

       “Yeah,” Nick said, standing at the window in the room and looking out.  “Maybe so.”

       But when Dr. Adam Phelps walked into that waiting room, and everybody including Nick turned his way, even Ethan could tell that something was horribly wrong. 

       Nick hurried to the doctor.  “How is she, Adam?” he asked.

       Dr. Phelps, in scrubs, removed the surgical cap that was on his head.  He shook his head.  “I am so sorry, Nick,” he said.

       “Oh, my Lord,” Bellamy said, distressed.

       “Sorry?”  Nick asked, refusing to believe the obvious.  “Sorry about what?”

       “Delia,” Dr. Phelps said.  “She’s gone, Nick.  We did all we could, but she’s . . .gone.”

       Gone, Nick thought.  Gone where?  What in the world was he talking about?  Delia gone?  Forever?  Nick would never see her pretty face again?  Was this doctor on dope?  Was this doctor playing some kind of practical joke on him?

       Of course he wasn’t, and Nick knew it.  But that didn’t stop the news from staggering him.  Ethan had to grab him by the arm before he fell down. 

       “I’m okay,” Nick said. 

       “Sit down, Nick,” Dr. Phelps insisted, also helping him to a chair.  “You’ve had a shock.”

       A shock?  Was that what it was?  Nick certainly couldn’t say.  It didn’t feel like a shock.  Because as he was led to a chair on Dr. Phelps insistence, and he blindly sat down, Nick Perry felt as if everything inside of him had just been ripped out.  And all he could think to do was not to be shocked by Delia’s passing; nor to be amazed that she was gone forever.  All he could do was grieve.  Grieve for Delia.  Grieve for his wife.

Inside Shay’s apartment building, Simone caught the elevator to the sixth floor.  She was tired, but she wanted to talk to Shay, to make sure she was all right, to make sure that she was going to do what she was supposed to do at her deposition tomorrow.  And, besides, and this was a big besides, Jules wasn’t quite ready to go home. Jeremy was home, waiting for her no doubt.  Ready to accuse her of some new made-up indiscretion that would give him yet another excuse to abuse her.  And that was what it was, she finally admitted to herself.  Abuse.  Pure and simple.  Old-fashioned abuse.

       She knocked on Shay’s apartment door but received no answer.  She then tried the knob.  Shay was an interesting person.  She knew how bad Miami could be, yet she almost always kept her door unlocked as if it wasn’t true.  Simone had gotten on her about it, and Jules too, but she never changed.  It was as if Shay made it her business to tempt fate.  Which, Jules also knew, was crazy given their family history.

       Jules stepped into Shay’s small apartment and was about to call out her name, but she heard weird noises.  So weird that she quietly followed them across the livingroom, down the hall, and into the bedroom where they were coming from.  The door was wide open and the noises weren’t as weird as they had seemed in the foyer.  The noises now were all too common.  But the scene, that of Jeremy on top of Shay, was the most uncommon thing Jules had ever seen.  In fact, it was so uncommon that it stopped Jules cold.  She couldn’t move another inch.  There it was: a naked Shay, yelling and screaming, while a naked Jeremy pounced and pounced, and all Jules could do was stare in disbelief. 

       In fact, it wasn’t until Shay, opening her eyes and looking over Jeremy’s shoulder, did Jules realize what she was seeing.  Because Shay didn’t seem surprised, or even embarrassed.  Shay, to Jules shock, seemed triumphant.  So triumphant that Shay not only stared at Jules, but smiled at her.  And that smile, that sad, twisted, reptilian smile, sprung Jules into action.  It was the last straw.  It was the absolute last time she would ever be humiliated again.

       She hurried to Shay’s bathroom.  Shay had told her, months ago, where she kept it.  Jules remembered thinking how Shay had to be the craziest person in the world to keep something like that in her bathroom, but there it was.  In Shay’s bathroom.  In the back side of the vanity, just as Shay had said.  A gun.  A .22 caliber handgun.  And Jules grabbed it.

***

Simone leaned back in Jules car and looked out across the parking lot as an old souped-up Chevy pulled in with loud salsa music blaring.  She looked at the young Latinos as they jumped out of the car and walked across the parking lot, their baggy pants and do-rags making them look like straight-up gangsters.  Or just silly young men.  Whatever, Simone thought, as she moved her attention from those young men and to a certain car that caught her attention.  It was a Saab, which wasn’t news, but it had that same odd golden ash color of Jeremy’s Saab.  But it wasn’t until Simone saw the front vanity plate, and saw DRUCE, MD printed on it just like Jeremy’s car, did her mind begin to focus.  That was indeed Jeremy’s car, she realized.  Then she wondered why in the world would Jeremy Druce be anywhere near Shay’s apartment?  He hated Shay almost as much as he hated Simone. 

       Or did he? 

       Simone remembered the fact that Shay had not shown up for their dinner date.  She remembered the fact that Shay was not responding to her cell phone.  She remembered the fact that Jules, at that very moment, was probably walking into Shay’s apartment and seeing what?  Jeremy?  Shay?  Jeremy
and
Shay? 

       Simone jumped out of Jules car and began running.  She ran inside the apartment building and so fast up to the elevator, that she overshot it.  She pressed the buttons frantically, but when she saw no immediate action, she headed for the stairs.  And she ran up the stairs with an urgency that scared her.  Please God, she prayed, don’t let Jules do anything stupid.  Please God, she prayed and she prayed as she ran up stairs, two at a time, and made it to the fourth floor, to Shay’s floor.  Then she ran up to and inside of Shay’s apartment.

       But Jules was already in the bedroom.  Jeremy was still pumping away on Shay and Shay was still doing her obviously exaggerated screaming.  But when Shay looked over and saw Jules again, this time with a gun in her hands, and that gun was pointed at her and Jeremy, Shay let out a different kind of scream.  A blood curling scream. 

       Jeremy tried to get off of Shay to see what was happening, but Shay kept grabbing him to keep his big body shielding her.  Simone ran down the hall and into the bedroom just as Jules lifted the gun and was just about to fire.

       “Jules, no!” Simone yelled so violently that Jules nearly fired before she was ready.  “Don’t do it, Jules,” Simone begged.  “We’ve got to stop letting these men destroy our lives.”

       By now Jeremy had snatched away from Shay and had fallen off of the bed and onto the floor, his naked body attempting to crawl underneath the bed.  Tears were streaming down Jules face.  She was so tired of being used.  So tired of being heartbroken.  But when Simone removed the gun from her grasp, she allowed it.  And her body nearly slumped over.

       “Are you out of your mind?” Shay hollered when she realized the danger had passed, but neither Jules nor Simone were thinking about Shay.

       Jeremy grabbed his pants and stood up, ready to knock the nonsense out of Jules, but when he saw that it was Simone who now had the gun, and when Simone angrily pointed that gun at him, he ducked down and fell to the floor.  Then he began crawling frantically toward the bedroom’s exit.  When Simone saw him she reached out her shoe and gave him a swift kick in the rump.  Jeremy screamed in pain, but that did not stop his pink behind from crawling as fast as he could away from there.  When he got out into the hall, he stood up and ran, slipping into his pants as he went.

       Simone grabbed Jules.  “Come on, J,” he said to her.  “It’s time we get out of here.”

       “Yeah, y’all better leave,” Shay said, feeling emboldened now.  “Before I call the police on y’all sorry asses!”

       Simone looked at Shay.  And she saw her, truly, for the first time.  For there was not an ounce of guilt, not an ounce of compassion, not an ounce of anything resembling humanity anywhere within Shay.  Simone could see it clearly now.  Something had happened to Shay during those years in foster care, something that seemed almost irreversible.  Not because she couldn’t change, but because she didn’t want to change.  And there was nothing that could be done about that.