She buried her head in the pillow. With her neck fully exposed, he ran his tongue up the ivory surface. She wriggled under his control. Aiden kissed the skin behind her ear while his fingers found their way under her shirt. The supple flesh of her abdomen heaved at his touch.
He removed her blouse, not allowing her to help. He guided her onto her stomach where he massaged her tense muscles. The kneading released her thoughts and he rubbed away her nightmares.
She melted into a puddle of drool, tranquil and sedated. Two weeks away from him, two weeks had dragged and crawled, leaving her strangled with loneliness and guilt. In a mere instant, he wrapped and protected her from her unease.
The sun ignited the room with a warm glow. The welcoming rays, like the start of a new day, gave her hope. Her future lay before her, filled with optimism and courage. Aiden and her friends would see her through. She tried not to think of Ed now.
Aiden eased her over and then up, grabbed hold of her face. “I love you Vicki. From that first day you climbed up those stairs to my heart.”
Chapter 52
Heather
Heather needed a break. The stress Lance put on her in the evenings gnawed at her strength. Patients asking to see a dietitian because they wanted a cheeseburger when she had malnourished patients with multiple pressure ulcers chewed on her patience. Jean hollering at them in their Monday meeting because cantaloupes didn’t come in for her catering event, devoured the remainder of her self-control.
She fled to the employee lounge in the basement with her
Clean Eating Magazine
. She charged in and found Tyrell in the corner with his hand over his eyes.
She flicked her finger at his skull. He jumped and lurched out of his chair. “Oh, it’s only you,” he laughed.
“Only? Gee, a couple of weeks ago I was more than just an only you.” She plunked herself down in the chair beside him and rested her chin on her palm.
“Sorry.” He knocked her elbow off the back of the chair and she fell to her side.
Heather caught herself before her hand hit the ground and then vaulted. “You think you’re funny huh?” She said putting her fists up. “Wanna fight, do ya? Come on, let’s see what you got.”
Tyrell chuckled. “Nah, been fighting with Jean all morning. Don’t need more of that shit. Plus, remember, I’m a lover not a fighter.” He winked.
“I remember quite well.” She smirked. “What did Jean do to you today?”
“The same thing she does every day, yell at me in front of everyone, embarrass me, insult me. It’s okay.”
“We’ve spoken about this before, you have to go to human resources.”
“Yeah, me against the world.”
“I’m sure there are so many others that would back you, especially if she does it in front of witnesses.”
“Witnesses? Those punks wouldn’t help me, all in it for themselves. Why would they believe a bunch of kitchen workers anyway?”
Tyrell and Heather spent the next fifteen minutes teasing and mocking each other. Their moods lifted enough to forget Jean for the time being.
“I had fun that night, you know,” Heather said.
“Me too. Break-up sex is some of the best sex. Women all riled up, pissed off, releasing all that tension and anger.”
“Oh, so you’re a professional at this then I guess?”
“Women just know I have a kind heart and listen well.”
“That you do. I must have chewed your ear off that night.” She coughed a few times, then winked.
“The talking was kinda nice too.” He fidgeted in his chair.
Heather tapped the tip of his nose and smirked. “Thank you,” she said. “You saved me that night.”
“Just trying to be a good friend. The benefits part was a bonus.”
“For me and for you. I really just needed someone to talk to, I’m sorry I attacked you.”
“Sorry, why?”
“I felt bad afterward,” she said.
“Are you serious? I felt bad for allowing it to happen in the condition you were in. I should have stopped it I suppose.”
“Well I’m glad you didn’t. Hope you don’t think I’m a slut.”
“You? Are you kidding? You’re far from that from what you told me.”
“So, you’re not mad?”
“Heather, we’re friends. You’ve helped me out so many times, I’m just glad I was there for you for a change.”
“Friends?” she said, holding out her hand.
“Friends.” He held out his hand, gave hers a nice squeeze, and then tossed her a wink.
Chapter 53
Catherine
Catherine tried to hide her revengeful intentions under a guise of collaboration. Jean thundered on, her lack of deodorant today and her pungent aroma in the cramped area of the kitchen where they stood, burned Catherine’s nose.
Jean led her to the salad room and lifted up four commercial size bags of purple grapes. “I need every grape removed from its stem, washed and then put into these bowls.” Jean plopped the bags on the counter and lifted a bowl close to Catherine’s face as if she was a nursery school teacher during show and tell.
“I have a patient I need to counsel. He has new onset diabetes and it takes a considerable amount of time.”
Jean slammed the stainless steel bowl down and rammed her palms onto hips that begged for release under her unyielding green smock. “I sent Louise home. I don’t need pathetic workers sniffling over raw salad items.”
“I told him I would do it before lunch.”
“I don’t care. Do it after lunch,” Jean scoffed.
Catherine gritted her teeth. “Patients come first, without patients we wouldn’t have a hospital to work in.”
Jean poked her finger into Catherine’s chest. “Without administration, we wouldn’t have anyone to run this hospital, they come first. Always. Now get to work, we’re already behind.”
She was clueless, so illogical that it defied explanation.
Jean waddled into the adjacent cook’s area and her wrath continued. “Why aren’t you using the fuckin’ number-six scoop? Are you that inept?”
Catherine cut open the first bag of grapes and popped one in her mouth. It crunched and squirted its sweet liquid. She stretched a pair of gloves over each hand and then reached for the bowl.
The absence of any noise next door made her pause. Had Jean walked away? But the eerie silence continued. The normal banter from the cooks, nonexistent.
She propped the bag of grapes against the others and crept toward the wall that separated the rooms. Less than a foot away, she edged close to the wall.
“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Putting this away in the fridge,” Tyrell whispered.
“Collard greens?” Jean cackled and snorted. “Sure you’re not stealing them for yourself? I know how much your kind likes collard greens. Too bad we don’t have fried chicken on the menu or you’d be stealing that too, right?”
“Stealing?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, I know you must have a half-dozen illegitimate rugrats running around town that you have to feed. Not sure how you’re doing it on this salary but it’s evident you’re not college material.”
Catherine peered around the bend. Jean parked herself in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by three other cowering chefs. They chopped and stirred, pretending not to hear the slander. Tyrell held a silver container covered with saran wrap in his hands. His head bowed.
“Well don’t just stand there, I don’t need my slave standing around. Work for your money.”
Catherine whisked back behind the wall and covered her mouth. Her chest heaved, her face pale, her brain unable to muster a word. Heather spoke of Jean’s abuse toward Tyrell, but she thought she exaggerated.
Catherine glided back to her grapes and plopped one into the bowl. It pinged and sat still. The tiny sphere stood alone in the massive basin.
Then they multiplied.
She tugged on the grapes and plunked them into the bowl with a hurried toss. The globes bounced and careened over the sides. She chucked them in, two at a time, then seized a huge clump and threw them in too, harder and faster.
The counter and floor, covered with grapes. Grapes making a stand, taking a position, coming together. A determined effort.
Chapter 54
Victoria
Victoria lied awake all night. Her four hours of sleep would have to do. 6:30 flashed on her digital clock and Ed rose to start his coffee. The conversation that played in her mind all week needed to occur before he left for work. Another week passed without the discussion. Fear seized her, but love nudged her forward.
She searched for Ed, found him in the backyard smoking a cigarette and waited for him to return.
Ed entered the living room, saw Victoria waiting for him and his head flew back. The first light of day streamed above the trees tops. She said nothing at first, horrified. The word divorce too unpleasant to cross her lips.
“What is it? I gotta jump in the shower.”
Every bone locked. She looked at the blue socks on her feet unable to face him. Annoyed, he strutted past her. “I think…I think we…” Victoria developed a thickness in the back of her throat. A repugnant taste built until queasiness threatened to overtake her. “I want a…separation,” she mumbled.
He paused by the coffee pot and gawked at her. “Preparation? For what, another damn lecture?”
“I said,” she straightened, “I want a separation. I can’t do this anymore, I’ll move out after Sara and Andrew’s Christmas break. I need time to think, to be alone.” For the first time, the word alone didn’t seem so scary.
“Separation? What the hell you talking about?” He leaned into the counter and rubbed his bald head.
“We’ve grown apart Ed. Far apart. I’ve tried, God knows I have, but with Sara and Andrew both out of the house now, I…”
“You’re saying you want a divorce?”
The word was out. Glad she didn’t say it, but it was still painful. The ultimate failure. “I’m not your mother Ed, I feel I’ve been your mother from day one. Protecting you, helping you, paying the bills when you don’t work, cleaning, cooking, even buying your underwear and socks.”
“And I’ve done nothing for you? What about the house?”
“You’ve done a wonderful job on the house but I’m talking about me. You only watch TV and drink beer. We don’t communicate, I try to talk to you and everything goes over your head.”
“I’m sorry I’m not as intelligent as you.”
“I’m not asking you to be, but you could listen, look me in the eye when I speak, ask questions and try to remember the things I talk to you about.”
“I’m not going to sit here and defend myself.”
Victoria’s perplexed look was all she could rally. “Thirty years and that’s your answer? You’re not going to fight for me?”
“I have to fight for you? No, you obviously made your decision already.” Ed trekked out of the kitchen, avoided her like a child dodging their mother when being punished. The spray of the shower resonated.
Chapter 55
Heather
Heather rubbed her temples repeatedly, hoping if she did it hard enough her skull would crack open for her to remove the part of the brain responsible for thoughts, emotions, and anything that had to do with reasoning.
Jean’s meeting would not begin for another half hour, but she sat in the conference room alone in the dark, trying to clear her head. The past weekend with Lance proved to be the most challenging. As expected, he called his mother to rescue him and the woman spent her Saturday spewing rude remarks and sarcastic comments. The immaturity of both of them generated concern in the girls. Heather took them to her mother’s Sunday and sat Laurel and Gia in her old bedroom to tell them the news.
Although not shocked, it still sparked an intense crying jag from the both of them. Laurel surprisingly asked if it had anything to do with that photograph she found of Silvatri and her. Gia only worried if she would have to change schools. Heather made them promise not to tell Rori. She would wait until right before it all went down.
Heather folded her arms on the conference room table, leaned forward and laid her head on them. Her red shirtsleeve soon darkened to maroon.
A nurse on her floor told her this morning that the pain and destruction her husband caused throughout their divorce did so much damage to her self-esteem that she elected to stay with him rather than continue with what would surely be perpetual torment. That was a solution?
How long would the divorce proceedings last? How long would she have to pass Lance in the hallway, listen to his agonizing retorts, the childish whining? Oddly, she pictured Silvatri’s wife picking up and leaving. She understood now. When you want away from someone so bad, nothing else matters.
The dark room and its stillness lulled her mentally exhausted body to sleep.
The door crashed open, the sound like an explosion. Heather sprang up and fluorescent lights burned her bloodshot eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jean slammed the door behind her.
Disoriented, Heather searched the clock. Ten minutes until their meeting. Early, but why? She wiped her eyes and sat back. “I was waiting for you.”
“The meeting is not for another ten minutes and you’re in here sleeping? I’m docking fifteen minutes from your pay.”
“I’m salaried.”
Jean scowled. “I’ve had just about enough of your insolence, Mrs. Milanesi. I’m in charge and I will not tolerate your insubordination.” She banged her papers on the table, raised them and then continued to slam them four, five, six times. With each smack, Heather flinched.
“Obviously you don’t have enough work to do. My staff in the kitchen is overworked while you take a fuckin’ siesta. If you have no work to do first thing on a Monday morning after being off all weekend, then your job description will change.” Spit sprayed across the table and the sunlight illuminated it like boils on skin.
“Starting tomorrow, you’ll report to me first thing in the morning, before you see your precious patients. You will redo the patient menus, create new food items and calculate their nutritional value. You can help Cliff purchase and order the food as well. You can also go to that annoying Infection Control meeting I attend monthly. I hate that meeting.” She rubbed her fingers over her hairy chin.