Рита Браун: Hiss Of Death

“People have been shot for calling someone that in Virginia. That’s what the natives tell me.”

“Well, I’m a native, and I’m telling you you’re a liar and a slut.”

“If it isn’t too much of an effort, upon what do you base your erroneous conclusion?”

“He always, always asks for you when he operates. Toni Enright is just as good an operating nurse as you are. This way the two of you can pretend to go over stuff after the operation and before the operation. I’m not fooled. Like I said, he could use Toni Enright at least some of the time.”

“Look. You’re not a doctor, and you’re not a nurse. You’re a drug rehab counselor. You don’t know as much as you think you know about procedure and protocol. A family practitioner sees or feels a lump. An X ray, mammogram, or MRI is administered. The patient does, in fact, have cancer. The family practitioner sends that person to Cory or another surgeon who might order a second set of diagnostics. Cory’s very good at pinpointing anything murky in the first set or looking for more in the tests he’s ordered. He sees things others don’t. If he operates, I go over those tests with him before the operation. I don’t always see what he sees. He doesn’t have to do that. He feels we’ll be a better team if I have seen the test results.”

“Bullshit.”

Paula threw up her hands. “Why am I wasting my time talking to a crazy woman? I’m going inside, and you can go back down the driveway.”

As Paula turned around, Thadia reached for her shoulder and clamped her bare hand on it. She spun Paula around. Paula threw up her arm, expecting a blow. Thadia reached up to pull her arm down. She hadn’t intended to hit Paula, but her scarab bracelet snagged Paula’s old coat and a stone flew out. Thadia, enraged, didn’t notice. Neither did Paula.

“Don’t you turn your back on me.”

Paula, one hand in her coat, felt for her cellphone. If she had to, she’d call the sheriff’s department—whatever it took to get away from this nutcase.

“Thadia, if you do not take your hand off me, if you do not get in that sorry old heap of yours and haul ass down my driveway, I am calling the sheriff.”

As furious as Thadia was, she immediately dropped her hand, pulling herself together. She’d been in prison. She’d endured three years of parole. She now had a good job working with people who had been what she once was. She understood her clients. Most drug counselors who were not former addicts did not. No matter how shaky she felt at this moment, she had enough self-possession to know that if the sheriff’s department came and wrote a complaint or, worse, took her away, she’d lose her job. It would be a long, long time before she’d find another. Her family had already disowned her. Rich though they were, she’d never inherit a penny. Her old friends had no time for her anymore, either.

“I’m sorry.” Tears came.

“You should be. You’re in love with someone who will never love you back.”

“Why?”

“Because he loves himself too much.”

“I thought you liked him. I thought you loved him.” Thadia blinked, confused.

“I wouldn’t love Cory Schaeffer if he was the last man on earth, but I’ll work with him until one of us dies.”

Thadia was more upset than ever, but no longer angry at Paula, she walked toward her car. “He’s a brilliant man. He’s a good man. He’s not afraid to try new methods.”

“No, he’s not. I wish he’d be a little less experimental, but that’s me. He has a wife and three children. Thadia, he cheats on his wife a lot. Forget him.”

“I can’t.”

“In fact, forget any man who works in the hospital but most especially a doctor. Hospitals are like petri dishes: Infidelity flourishes.” With that, Paula strolled back into her modest but attractive farmhouse.

Thadia got in her car and left. She worried that she was probably a nicer person when she was on drugs. She’d been happier inside until she had reached the point where she couldn’t afford her habit. She also knew that if you become addicted, you stop maturing when you start drinking or drugging. Emotionally, she was about twenty-five. Intellectually, she knew that, but that didn’t mean she could control her emotions in a mature manner. The irresponsibility that attends immaturity and all addictions was so much easier than growing up. However, it was hell on everyone else.

Most of all, Thadia felt wretched because she was in love with Cory Schaeffer. She wanted the attention and respect he gave Paula.

Thadia wanted a lot of things that she would probably never get.

• • •

Taking off her coat in the front hall, Paula wanted a glass of wine. Already fatigued, and now more tired out from Thadia’s outburst, she wanted only to relax. Tomorrow she wasn’t working, and she’d happily spend the day fooling around in her potting shed—an area she’d fixed up in the old barn. That gave her something to look forward to.

She smiled at last, grateful she wasn’t Thadia Martin.

S till tight, colored deep magenta, the redbuds bent slightly westward as a stiff breeze charged down the eastern face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Wild white dogwoods threatened to open, and the forsythias—already huge splashes of yellow—were peaking.

The old 1978 Ford F-150 truck, big engine growling, carried Harry, and her two cats and dog, just west of the nondescript Virginia town of Crozet. Born there, suffering no inclination to live anywhere else, she smiled at the riches of early spring. Any winter was worth enduring for the luxury, the new life, that inevitably followed.

She recited a line from Shelley, hoping she got it right: “Blow, blow thou winter winds, can spring be far behind.”

“What’s she babbling about?” wondered Pewter, the often-peevish gray cat.

The sleek tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy, paws on the dash, hind feet on the bench seat, replied, “She’s quoting poetry.”

“Bother,” the gray cat grumbled as she joined Mrs. Murphy to gaze through the brand-new windshield.

So many windshields in this part of the world cracked, although they didn’t shatter. Even though the local gravel trucks now covered their loads with heavy canvas, motorists hereabouts were forced to acknowledge that sooner or later a stone would fly off, or a preceding vehicle would kick up stones from one of the many dirt roads.

Harry would rather buy a new windshield than see the tertiary roads paved. Paved roads meant development. Development cannibalized farmland. It also meant an influx of “comeheres”—as locals dubbed new residents.

Suspicious but always friendly, Harry belonged to every preservation and environmental group she could find. Her husband proved less xenophobic. Much as Harry wanted to be open, deep down she hotly resented what she considered the flaunted superiority of the new people. The fact that they all had a lot of money fanned the flames.

At this moment she was driving to the home of a comehere. A flash of guilt filled her, because Paula Benton, an operating-room nurse, was one of the most helpful, lovely people she’d ever met.

Then she told herself, Paula was the exception that proved the rule. Harry had learned just how organized Paula was by working with her on the 5K. Like all of us, Paula had her quirks. Although a very competent nurse, one of her peculiarities was that she couldn’t give herself a shot. Once a week, Annalise Veronese gave Paula her B 12shot.

How the group teased Paula, who took it all with good humor. She also feared spiders, as do many people. The girls gave her a big fuzzy stuffed toy spider to overcome her phobia. It didn’t work, but she kept the toy anyway.