The Art of Sin (21 page)

     “What happened?” she gently pressed, coming up to him.

     Grady lowered his tired body into a chair. His head ached, his eyes felt like sandpaper, and he desperately needed a cup of coffee. He wiped his hand over his face and when he gazed up at Al, he suddenly felt as if the world had just stopped spinning.

     “After our fight, I went to see Doug at Pat O’Brien’s to get drunk,” he mumbled. “We were walking back to the house and this kid—a real young kid—came out of the shadows and pointed a gun at us. Before I knew what was going on, Doug was on the ground wrestling with him, the gun went off, and there was blood everywhere.” He tugged at his blood-soaked T-shirt.

     “We need to get you home.” She gestured to his T-shirt. “Get you out of those clothes, and let you get some sleep.”

     “Sleep?” Grady snorted. “I’ll never be able to sleep again. I keep seeing him lying on that sidewalk, the blood just gushing from his body. The whole time I kept thinking, ‘What do I do? If only Allison was here, she would know what to do.’”

     She stepped beside his chair. “Grady, there was nothing more you could have done for him. You stayed with him and that is all that matters. He is getting the best care possible.” Her hand caressed his cheek. “When the police called me and told me about the hold up, I thought initially it was you in the emergency room. Then, when they told me it was Doug, I was … relieved you were okay. But Doug ….” She paused and shook her head. “He never deserved this. He’s a great guy who wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

     Grady took her hand and held it tight. “I’m so sorry about last night. I should never have gone off on you like that. You were right; we need some time to get to know each other. If I would have listened to you and stayed, then perhaps Doug would not be where he is right now.”

     “Grady, don’t you blame yourself for this. It was a stupid accident. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I drove you away last night because I was afraid. I’ve never been anything more than a diversion to Geoff. Until I met you, I thought that was all I was good for.”

     He stood from the chair and cupped his hands about her lovely face. “You are a woman with so much to offer any man. I’m the one who isn’t good enough for you.”

     She softly laughed, and the sound lifted Grady’s debilitated spirit. “Listen to us. We’re two people so chewed up by life that when someone wonderful comes along, we only wonder what we did wrong, instead of being happy that we finally did something right.”

     The door to the conference room swung open and a lanky man dressed in green scrubs, black clogs, and a long white coat walked in. He had dark, curly hair, soft brown eyes, and looked like he had not slept in a week.

     “Are you two here for Mr. Larson?”

     Grady took Al’s hand and led her from the table. “Yes, I’m Grady Paulson and this is his landlord, Allison Wagner.”

     “I’m Dr. Phil Rotolo, senior general surgery resident here at University Hospital. I just finished operating on your friend.” He closed the door behind him and came into the room.

     “How is he?” Grady quickly inquired.

     Dr. Rotolo kept his brown eyes on Grady, looking very worried. “The bullet lacerated his liver and nicked his abdominal aorta. He lost a lot of blood. Because of that, we have to wait and see if his organs were damaged by being without perfusion for so long.”

     Grady turned to Al. “What does that mean?”

     “Sometimes if vital organs do not get enough blood flow, they shut down. It starts with the kidneys and liver, and can eventually progress to all the organs.”

     “Obviously you’re not just a landlord,” Dr. Rotolo surmised.

     “I’m a nurse anesthetist with the Jackson Group.”

     Dr. Rotolo sighed. “Then you know what we’re up against.”

     She nodded.

     Grady looked from Dr. Rotolo to Al while a sinking feeling took over his insides. “What are we up against?”    

     Al’s sigh confirmed Grady’s worst fear. “We may not know for another twenty-four hours or so, if he will pull through this, Grady.”

     “He could still die?” Grady all but shouted.

     “If his organs did not get enough blood, then they’re already dying,” Dr. Rotolo explained. “His body will begin shutting down. If that happens, there is nothing else we can do.”

     “Goddamn it,” Grady roared, and turned away.

     “He’s in ICU, sedated, and on a lot of pain medication,” Dr. Rotolo spoke up behind him. “Even if you two did visit him, he wouldn’t know you were there. The best thing to do is to go home and wait. By tomorrow morning, we’ll have a better idea of where we stand.”

     Grady faced the doctor. “Thank you.”

     Dr. Rotolo flashed a weak smile. “I wish I could give you better news about your friend, but it is just too early to tell, one way or the other.” He turned around and headed to the conference room door.

     Al put her arm around Grady’s waist. “Let’s go home, Grady. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

     Grady let Al usher him from the conference room and out into the ER waiting area. As they crossed the waiting room and headed toward the entrance, Grady became mesmerized by the play of light through the thick glass doors. Stepping through the ER entrance, the sunlight enveloped Grady’s body. In that instant, he realized how fragile life was. In a flash, all a person’s dreams and hopes could be snuffed out by a single stupid mistake, leaving one to debate if there was any meaning to this existence. Perhaps life was nothing more than a vain attempt to steal a few desired moments of happiness from the unkind clutches of a cold and heartless universe.  

Chapter 18

     When they returned to the house on Esplanade, Al took a stunned and silent Grady to his apartment and removed his bloody clothing. After tossing his jeans, briefs, and T-shirt in the trash, she led him into the bathroom.

     She turned on the hot water in the shower. “This will help you to relax.”

     “I can’t relax,” he confided. “How can I relax after everything that has happened?”

     She guided him to the shower. When Grady stepped beneath the rush of hot water, he closed his eyes and thought of Doug. He did not want to enjoy the cascade of massaging water on his face, and felt guilty for being able to stand in his shower and do something as mundane as bathe, while Doug was lying in an ICU bed, fighting for his life.

     A pair of hands began kneading the muscles in his back and neck. “You can’t blame yourself,” Al whispered in his ear.

     Grady whirled around and saw her naked body squeezed next to him in the tiny shower stall. He slid his arms around her and put his forehead against hers.

     “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

     “Because a good man would feel guilty about what happened, and not relieved that it didn’t happen to him.”
     “Am I a good man? I don’t know anymore.”

     “You’re a good man, Grady Paulson. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that.”

     She kissed his lips and instantly Grady was consumed by his desire for her. He wanted to forget about Doug, and to stop the endless slideshow of blood, pain, and fear in his head. Needing a moment of peace with her, he opened his mouth, wanting more of her. He pushed her back against the tiled-wall of the shower stall. Giving in to the madness surging in his veins, his hands roamed the curves of her body. He lifted her right leg and wrapped it around his waist. Driving his fingers deep into her warm folds, she shivered.

     “I need you, right now,” he murmured against her cheek.

     Al held on to his shoulders as his fingers became more insistent, delving deeper inside of her.

     “Then take me, Grady.”

     He lifted her other leg and hooked it around his hip, eager to enter her, but the cramped shower stall made it hard for him to maneuver their bodies around. Frustrated, he held her to him and shoved the glass shower door open. Dripping wet, he carried her to the vanity and lowered her on to the counter. Glancing down at her nimble body dripping with water made him grow hard. Driven by his desire, he pushed her back on the vanity, pulled her bottom to the edge, and lifted her legs. Unable to wait, he entered her with one forceful thrust. When Al uttered a brief whimper, he froze.

     “Shit, I hurt you. You weren’t ready for me. I shouldn’t have done—”

     She placed her finger against his lips. “You didn’t hurt me.” Al’s legs went around his waist and she encouraged him to go deeper. “You can never hurt me, Grady.”

     He gently kissed her lips and began moving inside of her. He wanted to go slow, to bring her to orgasm again and again, but he was unable to control his passion. Instead, he pushed into her as fast and as deep as he could go. He wanted to be selfish and satisfy his own lust, to help quell his fury. Within seconds, the burning in his stomach was replaced by the demand of his cock. He grunted as he moved feverishly in and out of her. With one last urgent thrust, he came inside of her, groaning against the intensity of his orgasm.

     Catching his breath, he heard the running water of the shower behind them.

     “I—I’m sorry,” he whispered.

     “Shhh, don’t apologize. I understand.”

     He embraced her wet body, and then he felt the chill in the bathroom. Pulling away from her, he turned off the shower and reached for a towel on the rack by the shower door. Coming back to her, he covered her with the towel and began rubbing it against her skin. Grady kept his eyes from her face, ashamed of how he had just acted.

     Lifting her from the vanity counter, he carried her to the bedroom and pulled back the blue comforter on his sleigh bed. He deposited her beneath the sheets and then climbed in next to her. After pulling the covers around them, he wrestled the towel from her body and dropped it to the floor.

     “Next time it will be better, I promise,” he vowed, spooning behind her.

     “I know, Grady. You just needed to forget.”

     “You’re too good for me.”

     Al traced her fingers up and down his arm draped over her chest. “I could say the same thing about you.” She wiggled around to face him. “Try to get some sleep.”

     “I’m not going to be able to sleep.”

     “Please try. You will be able to deal with everything a little better, if you get some rest.”

     Grady let out a long breath. “What are his chances?”

     “Depends on a lot of things.”

     “Tell me the bottom line, Allison.”

     “The bottom line?” Al sat up next to him. “Not good. If he does recover, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll have some kind of permanent damage or disability.”

     “Disability?”

     “Brain damage. The brain is an organ just like the heart or liver. If it goes without blood for too long, it dies, or pieces of it die. They won’t know what, or if, there is any damage until they see if he comes around.” 

     Grady ran his hands over his face. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

     Al gently stroked his hair. “Get some rest, Grady.”

     “Just stay with me for a little while. That’s all I need.”

     Her hand continued to move rhythmically back and forth through his hair. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

     “Stay forever, then.”

     He waited, his heart pounding, for her response. 

     “Shh. Sleep, Grady.”

     Letting it go, he lost himself in the motion of her hand. Suddenly, Grady felt exhausted. All the worry, fear, guilt, and regret stilled within him. All he could feel was Al’s gentle caress. His breathing slowed and his eyes closed, and within seconds blackness overcame his thoughts, allowing him to drift away.

*     *     *

     When Grady’s eye’s opened, the late afternoon sun was beaming in through his bedroom window. He reached beside him and discovered a mound of twisted covers, but no Al. When he stood from the bed, his muscles ached and his head was foggy. Events of the previous night quickly came back to him, turning his stomach into a complex nest of knots.

     He glanced about the bedroom and remembered Al rubbing his head as he drifted off to sleep. Reaching for a clean pair of jeans hanging in his closet, he went to his bathroom, eager to get upstairs to her and see if there was any news on Doug.

     Standing before her apartment entrance, he gently knocked on the tall door and waited. When Al opened the door, she was dressed in a pair of fitted gray warm up pants and a pink tank top. In her hand was a tall glass, filled to the rim with orange juice.

     He pointed to her glass. “Breakfast?”

     “Actually, it’s orange juice and vodka. Want one?”

     “Yeah, that sounds really good.”

     Grady shut her door and followed her through the living room to the kitchen.

     “Have you heard any word on Doug?”

     “Not yet,” she responded. “But it’s too early to know anything. We probably won’t hear of any change until late tonight or tomorrow.”

     After they made their way through the arched entrance to the bright kitchen, Al went to the built-in refrigerator.

     “Did you get any sleep?” she asked, pulling a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator.

     “Some. I didn’t even hear you leave.”

     She went to one of the window cabinets by the sink and retrieved a tall glass. “I waited until you fell asleep and then snuck out.”

     “Why did you leave? Did I snore?”

     “No.” She poured the juice into the glass. “I had to make arrangements for someone to cover my cases for the next few days.”

     “What did Geoff say about that?”

     She returned the orange juice to the top shelf of the refrigerator and opened a cabinet door below the sink. “I haven’t told him yet. I spoke with the medical director of the group I work for and said I needed to take a few days off.” She reached inside the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka.

     Al came up to Grady and handed him the glass of orange juice.

     “Can you afford to do that?” he inquired, taking the glass.

     She unscrewed the cap on the bottle of vodka. “I’m allowed time off, and if Geoff has a problem with that, he won’t say anything to my boss. He doesn’t want them to know about us.” She began adding the vodka to his glass of orange juice. “Say when.”

     But Grady never told her to stop. When the orange juice was nearing the rim of the glass, she pulled the vodka away and recapped it.

     “Do you plan on becoming an alcoholic?”

     “At times like these, I wish I could.”

     “Booze will only make you do stupid things you’ll just regret later on. You have to face what’s in front of you, no matter how much it hurts. If you don’t, you’ll just allow life to get the better of you and become as bitter as the booze you drink.”

     Grady watched her replace the vodka in the cabinet. “Who was the alcoholic in your life?”

     She turned back to him. “What do you mean?”

     He rolled the drink in his hands. “Only people who have lived with alcoholics would know that. Mine was my old man. Drank like a fish and was as bitter as hell about his life. Probably why he pushed my brother and me, so hard. Who pushed you?”

     Al collected her drink from the countertop by the refrigerator. “My sister, Cassie. She was always a party girl, but after our mother died, the drinking got a lot worse.”

     “Matt said she danced in one of his clubs. Is that when it began?”

     Al shook her head. “It was real bad by then. She used to get drunk to dance. Then she would drink to be able to flirt with the customers. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t stop it. She always said the booze helped her to dance better.”

     Grady peered into his drink. “My mother always tried to talk to my father about his drinking, but he would just shut her down with some comment about her being a nag or a pest. The night my parents died, they were coming back from a party. The police said quite a few people at the party tried to take my old man’s car keys away, but he insisted he could drive.” Grady took a long gulp from his drink. “Last night, I kept thinking of them, and how I felt when my brother told me about their deaths. It was like all those emotions came back after the shooting. I thought I had put it behind me.”

     “Grief has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. I know there are days when I can’t stop thinking about Cassie. The pain I felt when she died comes back as sharp as the day it happened.”

     “I guess time heals all wounds, but life keeps them from closing completely.”

     Al inspected the dark circles under his eyes and the deep lines across his pale brow. Taking his hand, she put her glass down on the beige granite countertop. “I want to show you something.”

     Grady put his glass down next to hers. “What?”

     “My cupola.”

     They made their way across a small connecting laundry room, with a few shelves and a stacked washer and dryer in a corner. Passing through another door, Grady noticed the smaller room contained a plain wooden desk with a laptop and printer on it. Next to the desk was a gray metal file cabinet, and there was a bulletin board—cluttered with business cards—on the white-painted wall next to the door.

     “My office,” she told him. “I handle all the rental business in here.” She motioned to a short wooden door, almost the size of an attic door, cut into the wall in the corner of the room. “That’s how you get to the cupola.” She went across the room and yanked on the old brass handle on the door.

     Moaning with resistance, the door slowly opened. Al stepped into the darkness on the other side and Grady followed her. On the opposite side of the door, a pair of very narrow winding steps led steeply upward. As he climbed the steps, Grady’s hand skimmed over the deep, red-bricked walls next to him. The air was damp and musty smelling. The small space made him feel claustrophobic, and he was just about to ask how much longer when sunlight could be seen from the top of the stairway. Reaching the last of the steps, his head emerged from a square hole in the floor of the cupola above.      

     He stood from the opening in the floor and took in the red-stained floors, conical ceiling lined with red-stained beadboard, and high white railing composed of thick latticework. When he spied the panoramic view of the French Quarter, his breath caught in his throat.

     “Wow, no wonder you never let anyone up here. What a great view.”

     In the distance, the tops of the assorted Creole townhouses and cottages seemed to stretch upward and touch the clear blue sky. He could see to the far reaches of Canal Street at the other end of the French Quarter. To his left, the top of a ship moving down the river could be detected over the rooftops. Even the tall oaks cluttering Esplanade Avenue could not reach as high as the cupola. The city seemed so vibrant and clean from up there. There was no hint of cracked sidewalks or filthy streets, and the only smell he could detect was the hint of sultry spring lingering in the air. Even the din of the Quarter was muffled, with only the occasional croon of a lonely brass horn or pounding drumbeat creeping upward from the clubs below. He marveled at the late afternoon sky and yearned to reach up and caress a passing puffy, white cloud.