When Myra texted me a picture of herself, topless in the bathroom mirror, I glanced at it for a fraction of a second and then blocked her. Nothing lasts forever. I’d thought that Myra and me would be the exception to that rule and I’d been sorely mistaken. I wouldn’t make the same error again.
Now when I was interested in a woman, I put my intentions not to marry and reproduce front and center. It hadn’t exactly done wonders for my romantic prospects, and tonight Faith had worn the same frown every date I’d told had, but at least I was honest. I wanted a relationship, but not the lifelong commitment, and no kids. There were too many ways for that all to go wrong.
My grandmother’s ring was still in my pocket from earlier. I pulled it out and stared at it. How the hell did I end up married? This was so not the plan.
And yet, if I had to pick someone to wake up married to, it would be Faith. She was everything I wanted in woman. She was smart, kind, beautiful, hard-working, gentle, compassionate, funny… I was nuts for her. I’d been nuts for her since the moment I met her a year ago.
To say that I was confused was an understatement. But the texts from Myra had done one thing and I was pretty sure it was the opposite of what Myra wanted. I’d just decided that I was going to figure this out with Faith. Not the marriage, obviously, that had to go as soon as possible, but the relationship part. I believed you could have the good without the bad.
I had to figure out how to win Faith. I wasn’t some weirdo that wanted to be alone for the rest of his life. I wanted the warmth and familiarity of a relationship. I wanted the company and companionship of a woman in my life. And I wanted that with Faith, specifically.
I lay on my back in my bed plotting the seduction of my wife into the hours of the early morning.
11
Faith
“Yes, Eric is very nice,” I told my mom for about the tenth time. She seemed intent on getting me to admit that I liked Eric. He wasn’t exactly difficult to like, so I wasn’t sure I really understood the point of her exercise. “I like him quite a bit.”
“How much do you like him?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her, but only barely. I affixed my face in a neutral configuration and kept my tone even and conversational, even though I wished that this conversation had been over half an hour ago. “What like on a scale from one to ten? I don’t know mom. Quite a bit would be, I guess, an eight point five.”
“Hmm… That seems a bit low. I really think he should get a higher rating.” She was taking this all terribly seriously. It made me worried.
“Ok. What do you think he should get?”
She thought about it for a moment. “I’d say at least a nine.”
“Alright. Then I like him at least a nine.” The secret truth was more like an eleven, but whatever.
Somehow, even though I was saying what she wanted to hear, it didn’t seem to satisfy her. Her frown deepened.
“So, do you think you’ll see him again?” she questioned. She was playing with the ends of her long braid like we were two teenagers at a sleep over. Much to my chagrin, we were sitting in the living room at midnight having this discussion. I had a shift starting in seven hours—a double shift.
My mom had even adjusted her normal routine to grill me. Typically, she lived her life on a fairly rigid, if eccentric, schedule that was organized around her devout faith. On days that didn’t involve going to Church or on feast days (which required their own prayers), her normal routine started as soon as she got up. She started her day with a morning prayer at seven a.m., and then she said grace before breakfast at around eight a.m. She said a beginning work prayer at about nine a.m. when she would begin crocheting (she continuously crocheted blankets that she sent to troops overseas in care packages). At noon she would say the Angelus. By evening, she was ready to say a couple of Our Fathers or a Hail Mary, followed by an Act of Contrition. Only then would she end her day, usually about ten. You could set your watch by when my mom was saying her prayers. Except for tonight.
I shrugged at her, desperate to get away from this awkward interaction. “I’m sure we’ll see each other tomorrow at work. If not tomorrow, then soon. We see each other frequently. The hospital isn’t that big.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She sighed dramatically and set down her crochet needles. That was how I knew it was serious. My mom didn’t put down the crochet needles for just anything. “You know that’s not what I mean. Do you think you two will go out again?”
“I don’t know.” In truth, I wasn’t sure if Eric would want to go out with me again after the way I’d run away. That had been really mature of me. Kiss a guy and then run off like an idiot? What was I, twelve? The man didn’t have cooties. I could have said good night. I should have said good night.
“I think you should go out with him again. Eric seems much nicer than the usual guys you date.”
Right, like I date a lot or something.
“Yes, he’s very nice.”
“I like him much more than that last guy you went out with,” my mom continued, “what was his name?”
I cringed. “Are you talking about Dennis?”
She nodded. “Oh, that’s right. Dennis. I didn’t like him much.” She frowned. “He was too old for you.”
I made an exasperated little noise. “You set me up with Dennis!”
Dennis Jennings was my mother’s dentist and he was too old for me. Dennis was forty-two, balding, and a good thirty pounds overweight. How I managed to get set up on a date with him despite my repeated protestations that I didn’t need another blind date was a true testament to my mom’s persistence and ability to compel me to action. She’d worn me down over a period of months, bit by bit.
Eventually, Dennis and I went out on exactly one date. It was horrible. He’d taken me to a foreign language movie that involved a lot more eroticism than I was comfortable watching with a stranger, and then spent the rest of the date apologizing for it while simultaneously suggesting that we should perhaps imitate it. It had been unsalvageable and beyond awkward.
“Yes, well, it clearly wasn’t meant to be with old Dennis,” she replied. “Eric is much more promising. Is he Catholic?”
I frowned. “Mom, does it matter?”
She frowned right back. “Of course it matters.”
Although the routine itself was familiar, this post-date inquisition was nothing like the others I’d endured over the years. Usually my mother spent them convincing me why I should never speak to my dates again. She had an uncanny ability to pick up on any indecision on my part and chip away at it until I turned on my dates, deciding that she was right, and I shouldn’t waste my time. This time, she seemed like she wanted to get started planning the wedding as soon as possible. Eric had done the impossible.
I’m only twenty-four years old. I’m not exactly an old maid yet. You don’t need to marry me off to the first doctor that knocks on the door.
It was easy to be flip in my own mind, but my mom wasn’t crazy. Eric was unequivocally the sort of man that I liked on the surface of things. He was attractive, fit, educated, successful… and unattainable. Despite what he said, and what I wanted to believe, I thought the chances of us making it work were slim. And even if we somehow were able to surmount the issues facing us until Easter, a fact of which my mom was still blissfully unaware, there was the huge issue of him disliking marriage and children. I had no idea what that was about, and of course it was none of my business, but I couldn’t conceive of a future that didn’t involve both of those things.
I just wish he didn’t make me feel weak in the knees and breathless all the time. I wished he wasn’t always so kind to me. I wished he wouldn’t wear that hopeful look on his face. It would make it so much easier…
Once I finally weaseled out of the inquisition and made it back to my room, it was Eric’s dislike of family life that first kept me from falling asleep. He’d said he had his reasons, and I believed him, but they must be fairly traumatic to
make him reject something as wholesome and normal as marriage.
I knew that women who started relationships with men on the premise that they could change them were doomed to disappointment. People could change, of course, but they had to want to change. Pretending that I was alright with Eric’s rejection of the values I held while secretly trying to bring him around to seeing things my way was only going to leave us both frustrated.
Ultimately, it didn’t much matter. Eric and I weren’t dating. We were married, at least ostensibly, for the next three and half months. The goal needed to be surviving that ordeal until Koels retired and Ford took over and we could tell the truth again.
But if that was the goal, then why was I laying awake fifteen minutes later and thinking about last night? Why was I still awake an hour later and fantasizing about Eric pinning me up against a wall again, stealing my breath and claiming every inch of my skin with his clever fingers? Why was it hours past my bedtime and I was still fixated on the feeling of his weight atop mine in bed? I flopped over on my stomach and clenched my eyes shut.
Sleep. Go to sleep.
Ordering myself around didn’t help. All I could think about was coming within centimeters of losing my virginity the night before and wishing that I’d kept my mouth shut because he was right about to… well, it was too late now. I’d blown it (and I hadn’t even gotten a chance to blow him).
After running off tonight, I probably put the nail in that coffin. Eric would surely think I was simply too immature to be messing around with. He was older than me. I wasn’t exactly sure how old, but as a resident, he’d need to be at least twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. That was old enough to want a mature woman, not a little girl who didn’t know what she was doing.
And that was pretty much exactly what I was. I’d done the Catholic ‘everything but sex’ thing throughout my high school and college years, but since graduating I seemed to be stuck in that loop. I hadn’t found anyone I liked enough to go further (there had been more than one Dennis), and now that I had, I was terrified, but not for any of the reasons I’d thought I might be.
This wasn’t at all how I expected today to turn out. I’d woken up confused, naked, and next to the guy I had been crushing on for a year, only to find out that I was married to him. Then I find out I’m three months away from my dream job if I can just keep my shit together. Overnight my life had become a high stakes game of charades, and I was just bumbling my way through it. One way or another, I was pretty sure I’d end up with a broken heart by Easter.
At least, I told myself as I was drifting off, it couldn’t get any more complicated.
12
Faith
“Alicia, did you see whether or not Dr. Ortega checked in on Mrs. Schaffer’s morphine drip?” I asked for the second time. Alicia Gifford, one of the other RN’s on duty with me today, was ignoring me. “Alicia?”
She turned to stare at me. No, she wasn’t even staring at me. She was staring through me. She yawned loudly.
“Did Dr. Ortega check in on Mrs. Schaffer’s IV?” I asked again.
“Did you hear something?” Alicia asked Miranda, the other staff nurse. Her voice was dripping with unconcealed disdain. “I thought for a second that I heard something, but I must have imagined it.”
“Was it annoying?” Miranda asked.
“Soooo annoying,” Alicia said.
“And obnoxious?”
“Incredibly obnoxious.”
“How strange,” Miranda replied, not bothering to look up from her crossword puzzle. “I didn’t hear anything.” She went back to her puzzle without deigning to look at me or even acknowledge my existence.
I ground my teeth in frustration. Apparently, I was going to have to walk down the hall to check for myself, even though Alicia had literally just been in there twenty seconds ago. As if my feet weren’t already tired enough. I’m sure they thought I deserved to suffer the extra effort. Alicia and Miranda were not happy that I’d been promoted above them. In fact, none of the other nurses were happy about it.
Word had quickly spread through the hospital that Dr. Koels was weirdly charmed by Eric and my impulsive New Year’s nuptials, and that we had both been promoted as a result. Everyone knew Koels was sort of a weird duck, but this was weird even for him. People naturally thought there must be more to it. Although there were a few people that congratulated me on the marriage and ensuing promotion, the nursing staff overall was resentful. They attributed Eric’s promotion to his skill, knowledge, and ability, and my promotion to Eric.
Apparently, it didn’t matter that I had flawless reviews from my patients and colleagues up to that point. Clearly, it didn’t matter that I consistently outperformed the rest of the nursing staff, including most of the managers. Obviously, it didn’t even matter that I’d always had productive, friendly, cordial relationships with the other nurses. The moment I got promoted, everything had changed.
“I have to say, I never thought it would be a girl like Faith that would fuck her way to the top,” I overheard one of the nurses saying in the locker rooms that morning.
“I’m not surprised,” her companion had answered resentfully. “It’s always the sweet, wholesome looking ones you have to look out for.”
“I guess you’re right.”
All my coworkers apparently thought I was whore who used her position as a resident’s new wife to grab herself a promotion. That wasn’t the greatest feeling.
Objectively, I knew it was the general culture of backbiting and pettiness that management allowed to fester within the ranks of the nursing staff that led them to act the way they did. Our nursing staff had always been full of delicate egos and inflated expectations. I just never thought it would manifest itself against me. I wondered if Dr. Koels knew, or cared, how toxic the nursing staff could be to one another.
I stared between Alicia and Miranda, wondering if it was worth it to push the issue. I knew from my own difficult childhood bullies that reporting them to anyone would only embolden them. Or worse, it might make them take their resentment inward, only to manifest in even more insidious, damaging ways.
It was better to stay silent. With as much dignity as I could muster, I turned and walked down the hall to Mrs. Schaffer’s room. Despite the fact that I was frustrated with Alicia, I wouldn’t let poor Mrs. Schaffer not have enough morphine in her drip just because my feelings were hurt. Her collar bone was broken. That was a lot more painful than my bruised feelings.
Rationally, I knew that the resentment that the other nurses were taking out on me wasn’t really about me. It was more about the way the hospital was run. In a few short weeks, they would move on. Bullies always needed a new target, especially if their chosen victim chose not to take their bait. I resolved just not to take the bait.
“Faith, is everything ok?” Dr. Ford asked me when she saw me that day at lunch. I was sitting alone in the cafeteria because Caroline wasn’t scheduled today and practically everybody else now hated me.
“Of course,” I told her, lying through my teeth.
“Why are you sitting all alone?” She asked. She was already finished with her food, I noticed, although she lingered next to an empty chair like she was debating joining me. An expression passed over her pretty features that told me she knew exactly why I was sitting alone.
“I was just reading on my phone,” I answered, “and I’m just about to get back to work.” I didn’t want her to feel obligated to socialize with me out of pity. She nodded and departed with a strange, frustrated look on her face. As much as I liked Dr. Ford, and we got along really well, we couldn’t really be friends because she was so many levels above me in the hierarchy. The worst thing I could do was complain about the other nurses to Dr. Ford. She might be able to fix things for me short-term, but long-term it would be a disaster. She probably knew it, too.
It was tempting though. Even though I was generally a pretty placid, even-tempered person, the idea that my colleagues thought I’d gotten my p
romotion on my back bothered me. I was freakin’ virgin! I had no game. I couldn’t fuck my way to the top if I tried. I didn’t know how to use my feminine wiles to further my professional career.
Although I was starting to wonder how long that would stay true. Every time I passed Eric in the hallway, my heart did a little flip-flop. He presented a whole different type of temptation.
Our kiss in his car had stayed with me. I’d never kissed anybody like that before. Passion wasn’t a thing I was well acquainted with, and then all of a sudden, I’d had way more of it than I knew what to do with. It frightened me as much as it tempted me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d kissed guys before. But it never felt like much to me. When Eric touched me, it was a completely different experience. It was like electricity instantly replaced the blood in my veins and lit me up from the inside. Every time he even looked at me, I felt a little ping of that electric force. Just a taste. Just enough to make me want more. For the first time, he made me feel like I could be the sort of woman who might know what to do with that need.
Then there was the fact that most of my memory about our missing night had returned. I now remembered being carried over the threshold to his apartment, and having my clothing peeled off me, layer by layer. I remembered touching him with just as much enthusiasm and passion that he was touching me.
Unfortunately, I also remembered the crushing disappointment that had accompanied his ultimate rejection of me on the basis of my virginity. I still wished I had just said nothing. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. I could just be, well, normal.
Meanwhile, my mom was constantly pestering me to see Eric again. She had somehow convinced herself that I was going to marry him one day. It was eerie, actually. She’d never been that into any man I’d ever showed interest in before. My mom was extremely eccentric, but no one could ever accuse her of being a bad judge of character. All that prayer and reflection she did must make her more perceptive. Or maybe she was just my mom and on some level she could tell how much I wanted him, despite the way I tried to downplay it. On second thought, that was probably it.
A Bad Case of You Page 7