The chair seemed too uncomfortable. Anita crossed and then
uncrossed her ankles, then her knees. She rested her arms on the raised sides
of Avalon Hospitals waiting room chairs. Black padding covered the seat and
back. A thin strip of padding ran down the joint arm of her seat and its
neighbor. Embroidered on the back of the seat in shiny silver thread. Nothing
fancy about the embroidering. It simply displayed 'Avalon' in swooping elegant cursive swirls. More and more the facade of elegance became apparent to
Anita: the padding didn't mask the support bar that dug into her thighs, two
points just below her shoulder blades were speared with some unforgiving thing
buried shallow in the padding.
In the crowded room Anita sat between a man and a woman. She
didn't say hello, neither did they. They both wore black shoes, scuffed and
worn. She noticed a knot tied in the man's shoelace. She kept her eyes down
and, after she sat, she kept her arms down as well. From her periphery she saw
elbows planted firmly to each side of her.
The skin looked sick and pale. Ceiling fluorescents didn't offer
flattery; they didn't offer lies either. A large black mole covered the woman's
wrist like a bracelet three inches wide. Thik shiny hair grew from random
places. Anita held her breath when the woman brought her other hand down to
scratch at the mole. The rough surface came apart in a flaky shower dusting the
floor between the woman's and Anita's shoes. She swallowed the terrible feeling
in her throat back down to the pit of her stomach. The woman's fingernails were
ringed in blood, the nails there moved on the spongy bed of liquid red beneath
them. The dusting of snow lay stippled with tiny roses.
The first time Anita looked up a nurse walked by. Anita
heard the foot falls a few paces away. Discomfort comprised the soundtrack of
ambient noise in the waiting room. The nurse's blue slippers approached. Anita
hoped she'd slow and stop and tell her she could leave, that Uncle Henry was
okay. But the nurse didn't slow or even look at Anita. She whisked by in her
blue slippers and her white uniform hemmed in the same blue as the nurse's
slippers. Her blond ponytail swaying with her walk.
She held someone approaching from behind her. She turned her
head, hoping to catch the eye of another passing nurse. The nurse walked toward
Anita, her back straight, head high, blue eyes pointed straight ahead. Her
ponytail swayed from beneath her traditional hat. She passed Anita without
acknowledgment. As she walked towards a door marked 'employees only' Anita saw the same slippers and blue hem on the
nurse's white uniform.
The black + stood out against the
white door and soft blue accents in stark contrast. Anita wanted to say
something like, Don't go in there, or,
Hey! Stop! She did nothing. As the
blonde nurse disappeared behind that awful black cross, Anita sat back down.
She glanced at the man sitting next her. Normal plaid button up shirt tucked
into faded denim. His shoes were dirty. She saw his shoes before, before the
woman scratched her terrible liver spot. When she saw his face she stopped.
Nothing could ever prepare her - or anyone - for the face above the working
class collared shirt: the rim of each nostril was coated with bright fresh
blood, the whites of his eyes an infected blood and puss color. He hitched in a
breath and something in his throat ground and screeched like an old rusted gate
hinge. With the breath held and his chest expanded he smiled at Anita. The
sound that had been preparing itself in Anita's throat found just the right
moment just then. Her mouth opened and something not quite like a rusty hinge
and leagues beyond a scream made it just past her soft palate.
Someone - or something
- touched her shoulder. Anita spun on her heel and that terrible sound made it
closer to her open mouth. Perhaps, covering her mouth with her hand had helped.
She stared straight into pretty nurses face. The face with those striking blue
eyes. The nurse wearing the traditional hat and soft blue slippers. Thank God! Anita thought. Her brain
reeled in terror but she held onto those two words - Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!
The nurse opened her mouth at the same time Anita saw the
nurses cross on her old fashion hat. Startled, Anita looked down and saw the
same horrid mouth the man had. Several black, some swollen others shriveled ,
empty sockets where teeth once docked. The teeth that were there were all
broken and jagged. Her tongue though, her tongue was the worst part of all this
decay and ugliness. Dark black and laying in the bed of her lower jaw, the
texture seemed to match the flaky spot on the woman's wrist.
Anita didn't let loose the animal sound in her mouth.
Instead, fog began clouding her vision the moment she set her eyes on that
black cross. She barely registered the last thing she saw before the fog's intensity
became overwhelming. The nurses eyes weren't the same as the man's, Anita
couldn't quite tell why or process what she was seeing very well at all. But
she was sure the nurse's eyes were different somehow. The last thought Anita
had, Does even.. have.. eyes?...
Anita went black and then blinked her eyes. Her head was
bent uncomfortably. The quick deep in rush of air sent a stabbing pain up her
neck and into her brain. She let out a small squeak and looked directly into a
pair of male green eyes - handsome eyes at that. Anita relaxed into the seat.
"Don't be alarmed, please," he spoke in hushed
tones even though the waiting room seemed empty compared to that terrible
dream. "I'm Denis Tolly. I'm Uncle Henry's nurse." Anita was
instantly warm and comforted.
"How is he? And... do have the time?" Anita smiled
slightly.
"Uncle Henry's going to be fine. He's resting now but
he should be awake in an hour or so. And it's 4:15 in the afternoon." He
straightened. "We'll come and get you when he's feeling better." He smiled
a sweet smile at Anita and she liked that. It was warm, almost like that other
color, the blue of the nurse with the old fashion hat, blue like her slippers.
Anita got up to look for a vending machine. She wasn't sure
what was happening. One minute everything is fine (except for the empty bottle
of face wash, of course). Then, the last... how long had it been? Everything
was hazy, everything was at the side of her vision. There was a girl in a white
dress with a blue ribbon. Eve. That was important, Eve was important. Was that
the little girl's name?
Denis Tolly, with the warm sweet smile stood leaning against
the door frame at far side of the room. Anita's heart flittered slightly when
he waved. She looked around and saw no one. She wrapped her arms around her
chest and walked over to them.
"Looks like Henry's coming along better than
most," Denis said. "You can go on back and see him if you'd
like."
"That'd, uh, that'd be great," Anita's cheeks
simmered. She'd burst into flame any moment.
"Down the hall, to the left, third door on the
right." Anita hoped he'd ask what she was doing tonight but he was gone.
Maybe she'd run into him on the way back out. She wound her way through the
hallways: the one on the left, then the third door on the right. He's probably
married, she thought as she walked through the door of Henry's room. Uncle
Henry was gone.
Anita's phone rang in her small purse. She dug it out and
looked at the screen. It was Ben. The impact of the empty room fell to the very
edge of her periphery. White light, without heat yet, white hot crept in on her
ears as the fog in the ghost house waiting room had crept over her eyes.
Eve was important. Anita was terrified and somehow that was
made worse by the fact that she didn't know what she was afraid of. And the
ringing phone wasn't soothing.
----
Ben sat in his limousine with his phone pressed to his ear.
He was sweating through his fine suit. His feet drumming a rapid tattoo on the
floor. The phone rang in his ear. Once, twice, three times. Ben looked out the
driver side then the passenger side windows in the back of the car. He looked
like a caged animal. He cursed the intervals of silence between rings. The
sound of a million thumb tacks in a blender - sometimes a piece of thick
porcelain would fall in the blender and the blades would chip away at it
erratically - pressed against the insides of his skull, threatening to burst
through the plates of bone under his well manicured hair.
The phone clicked and Jack - Jacky you son of a bitch - answered in his arrogant glory.
"This is Jack. Go ahead." It sounded like he was
washing dishes. Or perhaps they were throwing dinner wear in the blender more
often.
"Jack. Listen, I'm in a big hurry here," he swallowed,
making a clicking sound in his throat. He winced. "I'm coming down there
and sealing this deal in the next few hours. I can't afford to wait any
longer."
"It's your dime. Call me when you're here. We'll meet
at the bar."
The phone clicked - clicking,clinking,clicking - in Ben's
ear. His hand shook as he brought the phone down. He had one more call to make.
As his contacts list scrolled on his
phone the back seat of the limo didn't seem so loud. ANITA came to view and he
tapped it. He took a deep breath and held it. He wasn't sure how long it took
her to pick up. When she said, "Hello?" Ben's mind felt like clear,
everything became sharp linear paths.
"Anita, beautiful. How's Henry, babe?" Ben's face,
previously stretched tight with pain, wore a comfortable smile.
"Hello? Sweetie, you there?"
"Yes, I am. Umm, Henry's... gone?" That was definitely
a question. It was so hard to think. "B-Ben, Henry's not here." That
was a little better.
"Okay, listen, we'll figure that out later. Right now I
need you to go back to your apartment and pack a suitcase. Our flight leaves
soon. A car will be there to get you."
Anita was stunned. Ben was talking so fast and her thoughts
so sluggish. Now, thoughts had stopped and the tweety little girls - Eve, it's
important, remember - circled and circled. She was so paralyzed she fell back
on familiarity, "Yes, Mr. Strass."
"Ben, please. Just Ben."
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