The Doctor's Tale (6 page)

“Well, sure. It was Howard J’s. You know there’s rooms around back. There were the last time I looked, anyways. Which, of course, was on All You Can Eat Fried Okra Night.”

“Well then, did they get a room?”

“I didn’t exactly follow them, Baby Girl.”

“They did, didn’t they?

“I truly don’t know.” Dottie hesitated. “What I do know is, when the check came, Eddie told the waitress to put it on his room. But, wait now, sweetie. That doesn’t mean that Starr was in his room, too. Does it?”

“Well, no. It doesn’t.”

“Anyway, I still think you need to get out of here. It doesn’t look good for Eddie to eat okra with Starr. Or, anything deep-fried, in my opinion. It just doesn’t look, well, good.”

“So that was all she told you?” I said. The damage inflicted by this gossip, regardless of its veracity, needed to be minimized. In divulging every cruel detail, I supposed Mrs. Pennybaker believed she was being a good friend, but I wished with all my heart that she could have chosen a different day for her revelation.

Mrs. Raines’ ragged nails combed the tangles in her stringy hair.

“Look at me, Doctor,” she said, “I’m a mess. You don’t know me, or how I usually look. I’ve got to get out of this hospital bed and into a chair over at the beauty shop. You know—fix myself up. A wash and set, over at the Band Box Shop, and I’ll be my old self again.”

“Mrs. Raines,” I said, “why don’t you…” The curtain swished behind me, and the pungent scent of cinnamon and cigarette smoke filled the room. Starr strolled into the room in her tight white pants. A bright shade of blue eye shadow coated her eyelids. Sooty black mascara clumped her eyelashes; when they fluttered, they reminded me of two tarantulas. A thick layer of frosted white gloss coated her lips.

“Mornin, y’all.” She stared at me and chewed on a wad of pink gum. “I been waiting for somebody to notice me out there in the hall, but it looks to me like a lady could die in this place and no one would
care. So, I guess I’ll just have to invite myself if I want some company. Besides, it’s Bucks for Blondes Day over at the Band Box, and I’m on a very tight schedule. I got an appointment for a touch up, and Lord knows I can’t do without that.”

“Miss Hixson,” I said, “is Mr. Raines with you this morning?”

“You mean Eddie?

“I mean Mr. Raines, Lori’s husband.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. One end of her mouth turned up in amusement. “Yeah, I guess he is that, ain’t he, Dr. Pizza?”

“Is Eddie coming to pick me up?” Mrs. Raines said.

“Who knows?” The pink gum swelled into a bubble, and Starr popped it with her tongue. “I guess he will.” She laughed and continued to chew the gooey wad. “Why are ya’ll asking me anything? I just came to see Lori, out of the goodness of my ‘lil heart. Does Eddie know she’s talking about coming home today? Because, you know, I didn’t know nothing ‘bout that.”

“I called him last night to tell him,” Mrs. Raines said, “but he never picked up.”

“Huh,” Starr said. “’Magine that.”

“Well, when he gets here today, I am going home.”

“Fine with me, sugar. Just fine.” Starr rummaged in her purse, and her bony hand emerged with an amber bottle of Busch beer. “You know what your problem is? You never did drink enough. Take one for the road, Lori. Starr knows what she’s talking ‘bout now.”

“Miss Hixson,” I said, “Mrs. Raines is not allowed alcohol, especially in the hospital. It is not compatible with her medications. I’ll be happy to dispose of that beer bottle for you, Mrs. Raines.”

“Fine, then. Just fine,” Starr said. She snatched the bottle from Mrs. Raines’ hand, and patted her oversized purse. “I’ll just put it right back in here where it belongs. “You know Dr. Pizza, Busch is damn good beer. If you ask me, you could use about a half dozen. Well, lookee who’s here.”

Eddie Raines slouched in the doorway. Tousled and unshaven, he
brightened at the sight of the amber bottle in Starr’s hand. “Looks like I’m missing the party!” he said. He barely glanced at his wife. “Sorry I’m late, Princess.”

“I’m coming home today!” Mrs. Raines said. “Can you believe it, Eddie? Isn’t that great?”

Eddie glanced at Starr in a way that I wished I didn’t understand. Then, he turned and confronted me. “Is that true? Is Lori really coming on home today?”

“Your wife feels that she can get along at home, Mr. Raines—with your assistance, of course. How do you feel about that?”

Eddie scratched his head. “I…well… to tell you the God’s truth, I just found out about it, you know? I got to admit, it’s a bit of a shock.” He shrugged and gazed into the hall. “Kind of like this whole cancer thing in general, if you ask me. But if Lori thinks she can come home, and Doc here thinks it would be all right, then sure, let’s load up the car. Starr can help me, can’t you, baby?”

Though she struggled to hide her feelings, I could tell that Eddie’s unexpected use of an endearment jolted Mrs. Raines, I knew she didn’t want to do anything to thwart her homecoming. She continued to gather her few possessions with her jaw clenched in a fierce determination.

“Tell you what, Eddie,” Starr said, “I’ll drive my own self back. There’s somebody I want to catch up with on the way out. Bet you know who I’m talking about—you know, that doctor that’s been botherin’ me all the damn time. What’s his name? Freeburg?”

“No baby, that ain’t right. It’s Freeman, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Where’s he at, Dr. Pizza?”

“Just take the elevator to the basement, “ I said. “Chances are very good you’ll hear him before you see him.”

“Right,” Starr said. She turned to Eddie and winked. “See you at home, honey.”

Honey, huh?
I scribbled prescription after prescription. If Mrs. Raines wanted to go home, I decided I would not stand in her way.
Besides that, it was almost noon. If I didn’t appear at the nurses’ station very soon, Mary Potts would come looking for me. I was on my way.

Eddie steered the white Pontiac to the hospital entrance. He didn’t want to bring Lori home. He knew he should feel happy. Why did he feel so despondent? The sounds of chirping birds, the giggles of young girls, and the clanging bell of an ice cream truck punctuated the carefree rhythm of the gentle breeze. He tapped his foot to the beat of a pop tune, while he waited in the warm summer sun. It was time for him to face the truth.

What a night last night had been! Eddie never knew fun could feel that good. Still tingling from his rendezvous with Starr, he needed to load Lori’s limp body into the car. Should he tell Lori about Starr? Of course not! Behind the glass doors, his wife waited in a battered wooden wheelchair. Eddie braced himself to be her husband.

What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, he reasoned—and right now, the things Lori didn’t know were the very things that got him through the rough spots. He didn’t want to think about all of this too hard, either. In Eddie’s view, thinking too hard about the whole situation only made the answers seem complicated. And, at the end of his day, they just weren’t. Nope. They just weren’t. Not as long as he was in the driver’s seat.

From the start, he and Starr agreed that a fling was all it would ever be between the two of them. Thank God, Starr was a reasonable woman! Starr knew that Lori would never understand a night like they shared last night, not in a million years. Hell, even now, he wasn’t sure he understood it.

Eddie glimpsed Lori’s reflection in the glass doors—her sallow face framed by matted, greasy hair—and he wondered. How did he and Lori end up like this? Lori used to be so beautiful. No matter where he took her, Lori was always the best looking woman in the room. And now, well—just look at her. Dang, he shouldn’t be thinking of Starr, not at a time like this. And, he surely was. He was especially thinking of last night…

“Sir!” Nurse Potts glared at him. “Open the door! What’s wrong with you?” She knew. They all knew about Starr, he felt certain. Did Lori know?

Eddie opened his door and approached the passenger side of the car. Dang, the sun shined so bright. His feet felt like concrete blocks. He stared at the monstrous hospital that seemed to rise from the rubble that surrounded it. Starr was still in there somewhere, chatting it up with Dr. Freeman, while he…

Lori’s wasted body slumped against the cane back of the wheelchair. “Eddie! I need Eddie!” She moaned and cried out. “He’s the only one that can get me into the car, and not make me hurt so bad.”

“C’mon here, baby, let me get you into the front seat,” Eddie said. His rough hands gripped her frail arms, wasted from disease and inactivity. The dense pollen caused her to sneeze and gasp between moans. Her eyes rolled back in her head, like they always did when the pain got too bad.

“Help me, Eddie! Help me!” It seemed to be all she could manage to say, over and over again.

With the little hope that remained in his battered heart, Eddie wished he could help her. But this cancer, it was bigger and badder than both of them put together. He knew one thing. The Lori he knew and loved—well, folks—she was gone. He didn’t know where she went, and he was pretty darn sure he never would.

“You gone be able to handle this, Mr. Eddie?” Nurse Potts’s gaze riveted on Eddie’s weary face, lined with worry. “You know, you could act a little more cheerful ‘bout all a this, hear? Your wife needs a smile from you. You think you can find one for her?”

Eddie struggled to smile. “Sure I can.”

“Well Corky, I’ll just have to take your word for that. ‘Cause you ain’t made me smile yet.” The nurse’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “And you ain’t fooling me neither.” She hugged Lori and shut the door. “Ya’ll take it slow now, hear?”

“I will,” Lori said. “Thanks for making me better.”

She began to fidget in the passenger seat. “Eddie I need to get home. Rest in my own bed. I’m just so tired.” She glanced at the backseat, almost as if she expected to find Starr there, chewing bubble gum and filing her nails. “I feel so wasted. You know what I’m talkin’ about, honey?”

Eddie gunned the engine. The Pontiac jolted into the narrow, pitted street, and Lori moaned in agony. “Sorry about that baby,” he said. “Keep your eyes on the road, just like I’m doing.”

“Eddie?” Lori said. She stared straight ahead at the narrow city street, lined with rows of parked cars on both sides.

“Yeah? You need something, baby doll?”

Her voice faded to a whisper. “I need to ask you something.”

“So? Ask away. But, you’re gonna have to speak up, Princess. I can barely hear you, the way you’re mumbling.”

The stoplight turned from yellow to red. The Pontiac stopped. The engine idled. The couple waited in silence. Vehicles surrounded them on all sides—some with toddlers in car seats, others with repairmen in trucks, and still others with teenagers in souped-up fixer-uppers. Busy people running their busy lives.

“So, come on, Lori,” Eddie said. “What is it?”

Lori struggled to take a deep breath. “You know, Eddie… It’s just that… well, I’ve been wondering about something. It’s bothering me.”

“So, what is it?” Beads of sweat glistened on Eddie’s face.

Again, Lori inhaled and stifled a cough. “This morning, I thought I heard Starr call you
Honey.
I’m pretty sure I did, anyway.”

From the pit of his belly to the tips of his ears, Eddie’s body tingled at the thought of Starr. “Lori, what are you talking about? You know how Starr is. Starr calls everybody
Honey.
It’s
Honey
this, and
Honey
that. She probably calls that Spezia guy
Honey.
Hell, I’ll bet money I don’t even have, that she’s back in that hospital right now, charming the life out of another doctor. If it’s a man in pants, Starr calls him
Honey.
So, whatever you heard, it might not sound right—but, that don’t mean it’s wrong.”

The stoplight turned green. Eddie felt confident again. He shifted
gears, and the Pontiac lurched into a stream of traffic. Handled that question pretty good, he thought.

Lori gazed out the window, like she had every day for the past week. Funny, wasn’t it, the things a woman saw when she looked out a window? You know, if she looked real hard. Women noticed things—like the things Lori noticed the other night while Nurse Potts arranged her dinner tray.

At first, Lori didn’t believe what she saw, because those people sure looked to her like Eddie and Starr. The longer Lori stared at the couple with their arms wrapped around each other, laughing and giggling like two teenagers, she decided, it was Eddie and Starr. Sure was. Eddie looked like he did when Lori first met him. He was twenty-three, so good looking he was back then. The other night, when he was with Starr, she saw that same Eddie again, young and happy and well…yes, he was very happy. Now, that image weighed on her mind like a pile of wet bricks. There was something else too, something worse. Lori wasn’t exactly sure, but that same night, when the Pontiac cruised out of the gravel parking lot, she thought she saw Starr in the front seat, nice and close to Eddie.

She had to stop thinking about all of this for a while. Her body ached. Every time she inhaled even the tiniest breath, throaty coughs rattled her chest. Like Nurse Potts told her when she helped her pack to go home: no bad thoughts allowed. She shouldn’t think negative thoughts. Lori whisked the tears from her cheek and stared straight ahead at the road. That’s what Eddie always did, just like he did right now.

She decided she would do the same.

Starr lingered in the basement of City Hospital, in the long hall outside the Clinic. She thought she might have a friendly chat with Dr. Freeman. After all, he wasn’t bad looking. He talked a lot, but she talked more. Besides that, she didn’t have to listen if she didn’t like what he
said. It was just like when Eddie talked. She never listened to a word that fool said, especially when he got to yammering on about his wife. Most of the time, though, she thought Eddie could be a whole lot of fun.

She already missed her Eddie Bear. They sure had a great time last night. She’d never forget their rendezvous at the Howard J’s, the one on the way to the shopping center. As far as she was concerned, the good ones were all taken…yeah, why was that? Like this Freeman guy—was he married? Yeah, probably—but, he sure acted like he could use some company.
Wait a minute.
She heard him before she saw him, rounding up some surly patients in the long hall.