Karma's a Bitch (14 page)

“Can I help you miss?” the receptionist asked as Quanisha approached her desk.

“Ummm, yea. I’m supposed to be meeting with Dr. Stephens at 10:30. I’m a little early.”

“And what is your name?” the receptionist said, eyeing Quanisha as if she were there to blow up the building or something.

“It’s Quanisha,” she replied with a slight attitude with an accent on the ‘ish’ part of her name. She was tired of people judging her as some type of hoodrat whenever she walked into a professional atmosphere. She was working a steady job just like this receptionist.

“Dr. Stephens to the front waiting area. Dr. Stephens, please come to the front waiting area.”

Quanisha sat down without another word to the receptionist. About five minutes later, a good looking older black gentleman with salt and pepper hair stepped up to the front desk and said something to the receptionist. She pointed over to Quanisha and he looked over at her with a smile. Quanisha stood up as the doctor approached and saw the warmest look in his eyes.

“Mrs. Jackson?”

“Uh, yea. That’s me,” Quanisha said. She had lied to the hospital about being Tony’s wife, which is why this doctor was referring to her by his last name.

“Come this way.”

The doctor led Quanisha down the hall to a row of small offices, until he reached the one with his name on the door. She felt like she was going to the principal’s office.

“So Mrs. Jackson, sit down.” He didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “I’ve been told that you were involved with an incident with one of my nurses—”

“It wasn’t no incident! Your nurse attacked me with a phone! When I came in there she was kissing Tony and I told her to get out. Then she came from behind me and bashed me in the head with a phone! I’m still getting’ headaches from it. I should sue this hospital!” Quanisha lost control over herself and became agitated.

“Okay, slow down Mrs. Jackson. So you say she hit you with a phone?” Dr. Stephens asked. This was new information for him. The security guard had only told him that Quanisha had Jenny pinned on the wall.

“Yes! Listen, doctor, I don’t got no reason to be coming in your hospital and fighting folks. I do what I’m supposed to do. I work hard at my job and I take care of my business. Now, I come in here to see my man, I get attacked by Nurse Ratchet in there, and
I’m
getting punished? I can’t see my man now? I’m just now hearing about why he’s here in the first place! And he’s the only family I got!”

Suddenly Quanisha put her head down in her hand and broke down in tears. She looked as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

“Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson, it’s gonna be alright.” The doctor looked at Quanisha with compassion. Then he finally got up; he couldn’t stand to see a young sister in distress.

“Come here,” the doctor commanded as he walked over to her and opened his arms to give her a hug. Quanisha hesitated for a minute, but then found herself melting in this stranger’s arms. He reached over to grab a tissue off of his desk and gave it to Quanisha.

“Thank you,” she said as she finally let go of the doctor to blow her nose. She didn’t want to leave the doctor’s embrace. His presence was so warm and loving. She could feel the positivity, compassion and genuineness oozing from him. He had an almost fatherly presence. A father figure was something that Quanisha had never had in her life.

“Now look, I’m going to talk to Nurse Storms and sort all of this drama out. I know that there are always two sides of a story, and I’ll get to the bottom of this Mrs. Jackson. I promise you that. But as far as the visitation situation, you can feel free to visit your husband now. Just try not to get into any other confrontations like before. If you are having any type of problem with a nurse, or any other personnel, just come right here to my office and talk to me directly. Matter of fact, let me give you my pager number,” the doctor said as he grabbed a card from the small holder on his desk. He handed the card to Quanisha and smiled.

“Thank you Dr. Stephens, Imma definitely call you if that happens, cuz I’m telling you the truth. That nurse is crazy, and somebody needs to put her in her place,” Quanisha said.

Something about what Quanisha had just said made Dr. Stephens think back to a bit of office gossip he heard while eating lunch in the cafeteria about a year before. Someone had told him that Nurse Storms was off from work that day because she was going to court to fight a restraining order that someone had put against her. He thought nothing of it at the time, but now he was analyzing that information with the story that Quanisha had just told him.

“I will look into it Mrs. Jackson. Would you like to go in to see Tony now? I’ll take you in,” he offered.

“Yes, I would, but only for a little while. I gotta be at work by noon. My boss be trippin’. Just so you know if you need any new employees in here, I’m available!”

The doctor chuckled as he opened the door. “I’ll keep that in mind. Alright, come on then Mrs. Jackson.”

Quanisha stood up slowly and turned to the doctor. “Wait. I gotta tell you something.”

“Huh? What’s that?” the doctor asked as he shut the door back, thinking that it was something personal.

“I gotta tell you… My last name isn’t Jackson, it’s Williams. I ain’t married to Tony, I just said that to get to see him. They wouldn’t have let me up to see him in intensive care if they knew I was just his girlfriend,” Quanisha admitted and looked down at the floor.

The doctor folded his arms and looked at her sternly. One would think by the expression on his face that he was upset, but really he was impressed with Quanisha. Here she was, this passionate hard working young lady, admitting a lie to a complete stranger. She didn’t have to tell him the truth about not being married to the patient, and he would have never known either way.

“Young lady, don’t worry. We’ll keep that between you and me okay? Let’s just go in to see Mr. Jackson,” the doctor reassured as he opened the door again and led her out of his office.

Chapter 10

The real Mrs. Jackson, Tony’s grandmother, was being released that day. To her surprise, instead of her son coming to pick her up, the thin light skinned nurse who claimed to be Tony’s new girlfriend was taking her home. Jenny had only told her that Tony was unavailable, and that he had asked her to take care of things for him.

Only one of Mrs. Jackson’s so called friends had come to see her the whole time she had been in the hospital, even though they had made an announcement about it in church. She was really feeling some kind of way about that. They were always the first to call when they needed something from Mrs. Jackson or wanted to gossip, but didn’t even care to visit her when she was laid up.

Now, Mrs. Jackson couldn’t believe that her own grandson wouldn’t make the time to come pick her up from the hospital himself. And even worse, he hadn’t come to see her in over a week. Even worse than
that
, he had sent this annoying girl Jenny to handle her. Jenny had been coming in there to see her almost every day since she was admitted, and she wasn’t even her assigned nurse. She wanted to tell her to leave her alone so many times, but the God in her just wouldn’t let her hurt the girl’s feelings. Still, there was something about Jenny that just didn’t sit well with Mrs. Jackson.

“Are you doing okay Mrs. Jackson?” Jenny asked for the sixth time as she wheeled Tony’s grandmother down the hospital hallway. Tony’s grandmother only nodded as she leaned her elbow on the arm of the wheelchair and put her head in her hand.

On the ride home, Jenny had to ask Mrs. Jackson for directions to her house.

“Tony didn’t tell you where to drop me off child?” she asked curiously.

“No, he was in such a rush that he didn’t have a chance to write down the directions for me,” Jenny explained quickly.

“Oh, well. I guess. The directions are so easy though. Why couldn’t he come pick me up from the hospital again?”

“Um, I think he said he had to go see a friend of his about some business. Maybe he is going to get a job?” Jenny mused.

“Hmmph. Maybe,” Mrs. Jackson said skeptically. The last time Tony had a job was when he was 21, helping with newspaper sales on the street. That job had only lasted for three days, because Tony started complaining that his feet were hurting him from standing up for so long. Her grandson would much rather lay down on someone’s couch and live for free.

“Tony and I are really getting along well. He is such a loving man. I see great things for his future,” Jenny gushed.

Tony’s grandmother looked over at Jenny for a long while. She examined this young woman closely, and wondered if they were talking about the same Tony. She loved her grandson to death, but had never thought of him as a ‘loving’ man, especially not to a female who he had just met.
What could Tony possibly see in this girl
, she thought. Jenny was… indescribable. She just wasn’t Tony’s type. She was meek and average looking. Her eyes were dark and untrustworthy. She didn’t have any fire in her belly. She was just… there. Yes, Jenny and Tony had come into her room to visit on several occasions, but it never came off to her the way that Jenny was describing. Most of the time Tony seemed very unconcerned about Jenny’s presence; it was almost as if Jenny wasn’t even in the room. Mrs. Jackson wondered if anything Jenny was telling her about their relationship was the truth.

When they finally pulled up in front of Mrs. Jackson’s rowhome, Jenny helped Mrs. Jackson up the stairs and into the door. As soon as Tony’s grandmother stepped foot in the door she was waving Jenny off.

“Go ahead chile, don’t let me hold you up,” she told Jenny as she turned around to get ready to close the door shut in her face.

“Are you sure Mrs. Jackson? I can go get you some new food, and cook you a nice lunch?”

“No don’t worry about that, I can go shopping for myself a little later. All I want to do now is just rest,” Mrs. Jackson reassured.

“Oh. Okay, well you have my phone number now, so feel free to give me a call if you need anything,” Jenny replied as she backed up a few steps.

“I surely will, you take care of yourself,” Mrs. Jackson said as she shut the door promptly.

“That girl is a pain in the ass,” she mumbled to herself as she shuffled her way over to the kitchen so that she could set her bag down and call Tony. She looked up at the ceiling. “Forgive me Lord.”

The phone just kept ringing and ringing as Mrs. Jackson sat at her kitchen table and attempted to call Tony. She tried again and got the same result.

“What in the world is going on with that boy,” she said to herself. She rubbed her forehead in distress. She tried to remember Quanisha’s phone number off the top of her head, but her memory was suffering after the blow to her head that caused her to be in the hospital for all that time. At least Quanisha would be able to tell her more of what was really going on. She was going to get to the bottom of what was really up with Jenny and this whole Tony situation, one way or another.

* * *

Quanisha sat in Tony’s hospital room reading the latest issue of her favorite gossip magazine, which she had picked up from the gift shop. She loved reading about all of the celebrity news, real or fake. Tony was finally wide awake. He was staring up at the ceiling in deep thought and memory. It was obvious that he had a lot on his mind, in particular his near fatal encounter with Trek’s boot. He and Quanisha had been fighting non stop ever since Tony became conscious and started speaking to folks again, which was only two days before. This was a rare moment when neither of them were speaking. Quanisha just sat by with him for support before she had to go to work at noon.

“Where’s this doctor at?” Tony asked as he turned his neck to Quanisha. He was still in a lot of pain.

“I don’t know, he busy. He got shit to do,” Quanisha answered without ever looking up at Tony. She was still highly pissed and confused about the whole Nurse Storms confrontation. She still wanted answers from Tony about why that nurse thought she was his woman. Tony was pretending as if he didn’t know what she was talking about, and Jenny hadn’t shown up again at a time when Quanisha was visiting. Lucky for Jenny, because regardless of what the doctor had said, Quanisha probably would have descended upon her on sight. After years of being with Tony, Quanisha knew he wasn’t telling her the whole truth about this nurse girl.