by Dan Lawton
Below, on the sidewalk outside, an argument ensued. A woman was in tears and inconsolable, while a man berated her with a verbal rampage. Benji figured it was the downstairs neighbors, who often screamed at one another until early in the morning, only to reconcile shortly after with a loud, usually brief sexual encounter—made clear by the street-facing bedroom window that remained open. The pattern repeated itself regularly, so much so where nobody in the building called the police anymore. The old bag down the hall did once, but after the police came and went without an arrest, all it did was cause tensions to rise in the building. Her cat went missing the next day and never returned, and no one had bothered the downstairs neighbors since, as far as Benji knew. Some things in life were better left unsaid, or ignored—it was often an easier existence that way.
Next to him, his phone sat idly, awkwardly close to the damp ring on the cushion. He picked it up and tapped the screen and waited for the new message alert to pop up.
But it never came. Shay did not respond. And Benji was now officially worried.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day, the morning news led with the explosion at the supermarket—there was no threat to the public, the anchor said, nothing to worry about. An isolated incident. Otherwise, there were few details made public. It was an ongoing investigation.
Randolph called around. There were multiple hospitals in Cedar Rapids. The receptionists he spoke to at each failed to offer insight to specific patient names, and without Sheila’s last name anyhow, Randolph could do nothing to convince them otherwise. What he did find out, though, was where she was: Mercy Medical Center. All the victims were brought there yesterday. So that was where he would go.
He was without a firm plan, though he had some ideas about how to approach it. He could call the supermarket and ask for her by name, see if he could find out information that way. But they would be closed because of yesterday’s events, so it was not an option. He could go to the hospital and impersonate a news reporter, though without media credentials, he would not get far. He could profess to be a concerned long-lost relative or friend who heard about what happened on the news, but without Sheila’s last name, how close to her could he really be? No one would buy it. He had a better, more practical idea.
He went outside. The chill in the air licked his skin and soothed his worry, and he felt confident. The sun was bright with clouds nowhere in sight. The trees squawked above him. It was a glorious day for a fresh start.
Patricia’s car was gone from the driveway, as it had been all night—a common occurrence these days; she slept elsewhere a few nights each week, sometimes more. While Randolph enjoyed the space and time to himself, and the quiet, her behavior still irked him. He struggled to understand who she had become and why, and where things went wrong between them. All that remained were memories of what used to be a happy life.
The truck came to life in an instant when he cranked the ignition. Its engine roared through his wrists and into his fingertips and up to his chest. There was nothing quite like the power behind a Hemi V8 that made Randolph feel alive. It dominated the road, demanded respect, hemorrhaged masculinity. While Patricia routinely poked holes in his virility through the years, she could not compete with a man and his truck. For Randolph, it was less about the truck and more about what was under the hood. Which made sense when he considered his life’s work. It was what could not be seen that oftentimes did the heavy lifting, that kept everything in check, that was depended on—that was the mindset that drove him through a sometimes stagnant and repetitive line of work. Or at least it used to.
That was before.
Now was after.
Before he went to Mercy Medical Center, he had two stops to make. First, he stood in line at the florist longer than he typically would, paid with a fifty-dollar bill, and left with an assortment of mismatched flowers—all different colors to give him as many chances of success as possible. After, a bakery was next door. Onions hit his nose and played tricks on his mind when he walked in. A familiar taste lingered on his tongue and drove an intense craving—one that reminded him of a better time when he and Patricia enjoyed French onion soup on the coast of Lake Winnipeg. They were young and carefree and crazy about one another then—before raising Bruce and the daily challenges that came with it, before they entered the twilight of their relationship and whatever treachery followed.
That was before
Now was after.
Those were just memories. Now he wanted the soup—and it was just soup, regardless of who he shared it with. But that would have to wait. Despite his original intentions, he left with a brown paper bag with two onion bagels and house-made cream cheese inside. The aromatic onions tormented him on the drive to the hospital, moistened his palate. The soup remained sharply on his mind.
With his hands full, Randolph walked into the lobby of the hospital and took in his surroundings. Colorful flowerpots and cushioned armchairs and wooden side tables with stacks of magazines on top lined the walls, while moderately sized televisions hung mounted near the ceiling so the programming was viewable from nearly every angle. A massive sign with a giant arrow pointed him in the direction of the reception area, which he approached. Glass separated him from the three women on the other side, who all wore purple nursing scrubs. The woman closest to him smiled.
“May I help you?” she said.
“I hope so.”
His plan?
Honesty.
“Here’s the thing,” Randolph said, getting to it, “for the first time in a long time, I’m supposed to have a date today. I met a woman in the supermarket, got her number, and left. And then, well, it’s going to sound ridiculous—”
“The explosion,” the woman said.
A weight fell from Randolph’s chest. He had been more anxious about this than he realized. “Right.”
“Sir, I—”
“I’m going to be straightforward with you. I don’t know her last name. First dates, you know? But her first name is Sheila. It’s my understanding all the victims from the explosion were brought here.”
“Sir, I really can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything that will get you in trouble.”
The woman leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, studied him. She squinted and pressed her lips together, though did not speak. Randolph sensed the wheels turning in her mind and knew he had a chance, though he had to tread lightly so to not be overeager and overstep.
“What I’m asking is that you call her room. Tell her I’m here. My name is Randolph. If she wants to see me, great. If she doesn’t, I’ll leave.”
The woman craned her neck and nodded in the direction of the bouquet Randolph held. “Those for her?”
Randolph held up the bag from the bakery. “This too. Chivalry isn’t dead, am I right?” He smirked, forced out a laugh.
The woman did not reciprocate. “If she says no, you’ll leave?”
“I’ll leave, no questions asked.”
She unfolded her arms and leaned forward and rested her elbows on the desk in front of her. She flicked her eyebrows toward the waiting area. “Wait there. I’ll call her.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Very much.”
Randolph went and waited. He sat in the middle of the row and balanced the bouquet on his knee, unsure where to look or what to do. Desperate for a distraction, he clutched onto the paper bag as if it were the final meal he would ever eat. An older woman sat in the waiting area too, and she looked at him. Her eyes switched between the bouquet and Randolph’s face, and by the third time through, she smiled. Randolph smiled back but looked away to avoid a conversation. The onions made his stomach growl.
Minutes passed.
Before long, the woman behind the glass dropped the phone on the receiver and spun in her chair to chat with the other ladies in her cube. One of them laughed. Randolph felt their eyes on him, felt them size him up. He felt judged. It was then he realized he still wore his wedding band, and he felt immediately uncomfortable. Embarrassed. Worse than that, he was humiliated to where he considered leaving the hospital, getting in his truck, and driving home and never thinking about Sheila again. Maybe he was out of his league. Maybe he did not belong here. He spun the ring, wiggled it around his knuckle, and yanked it off, then slid it into his pocket.
Just then, the same woman called out his name from behind the glass. He stood too fast. The bouquet slipped from his lap and landed hard on the tile, but the plastic that surrounded the flowers took all the impact. Randolph leaned forward and grabbed the bouquet, refused to make eye contact with the older woman who now stared, and made his way toward the reception desk. He almost did not look up but had no choice not to.
The woman behind the glass smiled at him. All three of them did. One of them had the tip of her thumb in her mouth and groaned as she looked on.
“Room B6,” the woman said. “Second floor.”
. . . . .
He took the stairs, in part to walk out the nerves. He felt like a boy full of jitters and was unsure what he would say when he saw her.
Sheila.
To feel an intense emotional longing for a woman he hardly knew—if he was honest with himself, he would acknowledge it was even less than that; he did not know her at all—was something out of character for him. Admittedly, he had been predictable throughout his adult life, and while some may have viewed it as a flaw in his personality—Patricia, for one—he rather enjoyed that about himself. It meant stability and longevity and consistency. Contrary, he had begun to enjoy the new feelings too—the spontaneity and impulsiveness and excitement—and he wondered if Patricia had been onto something. Perhaps if he had done something differently...
Nonsense.
B6 was halfway down the corridor which was empty. Ghostly. The door to B6 was closed. Randolph stood outside and listened, pressed his ear against the door. His pulse drummed in his temples and his breathing sped up. Nervous was an understatement. With a knuckle, he tapped twice on the door, softly and cautiously so not to spook anyone—himself included. The plastic sleeve around the bouquet shook as he trembled.
Nothing.
He tried again, harder this time. Then two more knocks. By the third set without response, he lost hope and began to question if it was inappropriate for him to be there. He thought it was—or it teetered on the line at the very least—but he reminded himself he had been given permission.
He reached for the handle and twisted.
“Hello?” he said, quietly but not too quietly. “Sheila?”
A toilet flushed.
Randolph froze.
On the opposite wall, a door creaked. The light disappeared as soon as Randolph saw it, and when Sheila appeared and looked up, she did not seem startled. Her hands—fronts and backs—slid back and forth on the front of her red and white checkered gown. She looked at him as if they were old friends.
“Hi,” she said.
He was unsure what to say or what not to. He awkwardly pointed behind his back, toward the door. “Sorry, I don’t mean to intrude. There was no answer. The woman at the desk, she said she called.”
“She did.”
Again, he was at a loss. “Oh, great. I, uh—”
“What are you doing here?”
He felt out of place, an outcast. Unwelcomed.
“You smell that?” Sheila said. She wriggled her nose and flared her nostrils. “What is that? Is that onion?”
Randolph did not smell anything. He was numb. But then he remembered and held up the paper bag. “Bagels.”
Sheila held strong, said nothing.
“It’s not too early for lunch, is it?”
. . . . .
It was not. They ate. The cream cheese was seeded and had a tangerine aftertaste that lingered like bitters. Spread on the onion bagel, the arrangement gave him all the right feels, and pushed the memory of the French onion soup to the side for now. The bagels were gone quickly. Devoured. Silence overpowered the room.
“What’s up with the flowers?” Sheila said.
“They’re for you.”
“I know, but why?”
“We had a date, right?”
She looked away, fingered the crumbs her bagel left behind.
“Is everything all right?” he said.
“Thank you. I don’t understand it, but thank you.”
“What, you’re not used to nice guys?”
She looked at him and smiled. She blinked quickly, repeatedly, as if to keep the tears at bay.
Silence returned. Despite the quiet, the moment felt critical, as if it were a make it or break it moment in time. One wrong move would ruin whatever it was they had, and one right one would change everything. Randolph went with his gut, which screamed at him to say what was on his mind.
“We should go somewhere, you and me,” he said.
“Like where?”
“Away from here. Out of town. Just go.”
Sheila stared at him hard. He gave it back, flashed her a smile. He swore he saw a twinkle appear in her irises, which were as green as emeralds.
“We hardly know each other,” she said. “How do I know you’re not a serial killer?”
“I’m not.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
“Are you?”
No answer, only a slight crank of the neck and a smirk.
“I’ll take my chances.”
She got up from the end of the bed and left her crumpled bagel wrapper where it was. She moved toward the window and appeared to look out. She kept silent.
Randolph sensed it was another crucial moment. Should he press her further and risk pushing her away? Or not, but what if he was too casual and she thought his intentions were duplicitous? He had forgotten how the game was supposed to be played.
Do nothing, he decided. Let her make the next move.
Eventually, Sheila backed away from the window, returned to the bed, and sat. There was not a manufactured scent that hit his nose, but rather something natural; something precious and beautiful. Sheila gave off a callused, hardened energy, which was unlike how Randolph had ever seen her. He was curious as to the reason behind it, but he did not know her well enough to call her on it. Instead, he concentrated to keep his expression neutral—calm, cool, in control—though he was anything but.
“Randolph, you’re a wonderful man, a true gentleman. I can tell.”
But?
“But I don’t think we should do this. You’re too kind, really. I think it’s better if we pretend like we never met.”
Randolph deflated.
Sheila dropped her hand on his and kept it there. Her skin was like velvet, so smooth, not at all clammy like the day before. A shiver ran through his spine and forced his eyes shut.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Randolph held his position for a second longer and took in what would be the last time he would ever see Sheila—those emerald eyes, the laugh he longed to hear more of, the smile that created indents in her cheeks. Maybe his instincts were off and he misread the situation, or maybe he should have come on stronger. It had been so long since he had been in the game, he was resigned to the idea he just did not have it anymore like he used to. Maybe it was better this way.
“Okay,” he said. Then he pulled his
hand away and stood up. “If that’s what you want.”
On the counter by the sink on the other side of the room, a nurse’s notepad sat. Randolph walked toward it and scooped it up, as did he the pen he found in one of the drawers underneath it.
“While I respect your decision,” he said while he walked back toward the bed, his face buried in the notepad, “I’d like you to know that I hope you change your mind. So this is what I’m going to do.”—he jotted his phone number on the notepad, tore off the top sheet, and handed it to Sheila, who took it—”I’m going to leave my number in case you do. Change your mind, that is. If you decide to give me a call, great. If not, that’s fine too.” He met her eyes and smiled at her, but it felt disingenuous. He hoped she could not tell.
Sheila looked down at the sheet in her hand and stared at it, though said nothing. She neither looked back up nor said anything, so Randolph left.
He closed the door behind him and pressed his back against the bricks. Deep, lonely breaths. He felt sad, though not devastated. Disappointed was most accurate. It was difficult to pinpoint where the emotion stemmed from. What about what just happened made him feel that way? He would not dwell on it, not here. It was not the first time a woman rejected him.
He waited outside the door for a minute. He half-wondered if Sheila would change her mind and run after him, though the detachment that blanketed her face before told him that was unrealistic. She was not interested, for whatever reason. Defeated, it seemed. So he would move on like he always did. He would continue to find his own happiness as he had trained himself to do having been married to Patricia.
When he made it back to the reception area, the old woman from before was gone, though a handful of others occupied the waiting room chairs. He wondered what the old woman was there for, who she was there to see. An ailing husband or a recovering child? Or was she the patient with an invisible sickness there for her biweekly examination? Would she recover? Now, where the old woman once was, an exhausted mother tended to her visibly unwell child. She stroked his hair in a way only a mother could, and the boy leaned into her clavicle while tears streamed down his swollen cheeks. The boy would be all right—they always were in Randolph’s experience—and the bond between child and parent would grow stronger.