“Man, he’s a fast worker. When did they even meet? He just started at Ridgewood today.” Harry sat down at the table and watched her dish pasta from a colander onto their plates. He ladled out a rich garlicky sauce, spreading it generously over their spaghetti. “That smells wonderful. Man, when it comes to Italian, no one beats you.”
“There’re definite advantages to being born into my tribe,” she said, laughing. “Making good pasta sauce is sort of embedded in our DNA. It also doesn’t hurt to spend a lot of time in the da kitchen witha your mamma.”
He reached for a chunk of parmesan. “So how did Vinnie meet Helen?”
“Before work, in the cafeteria. I introduced them. I don’t know what it is about that place. It’s like a love boat. It can’t be the food, so it must be the air. Everyone hooks up there. The two of them had sparks flying within a blink of my introductions. They must have gotten together after work.”
“Helen’s a good broad.”
“Harry Lucke, one of these days I’m going to bite off your nose. It’s such an old, disgusting term. I’m not a broad.”
“You aren’t, but Helen is.”
Gina wadded up a napkin and threw it at him.
Harry caught it, laughed, and set it on the table. “Payback for that tickling session you laid on me.”
Gina scooted into a chair, placed a basket of garlic bread next to Harry, while he grated parmesan on top of the sauce. She fork-twirled spaghetti onto a spoon and looked seriously at him. “Do you think we eat too much pasta?”
“Is there such a thing?” Harry shoved a huge forkful into his mouth. With bunched up cheeks, he said, “I know this has been a hard day for both of us, hopefully not typical of your coming days working in the new department, but what do you think of Woman’s Health?”
“It was a rough start. Carrie dying of sepsis. Darn, it doesn’t seem fair … she … was only twenty-five.”
“You’d be surprised how many people die from septicemia.”
Gina looked at him. “How often have you had to deal with it?”
“Plenty of times. Those sickies tend to end up in the ICU … it’s a nasty business trying to save their lives. Most of them end up hooked onto ventilators with all their organs shutting down. It’s really ugly.”
“I guess I’ve been lucky,” Gina said. “I haven’t seen a lot of it where I’ve worked … certainly not with medical abortions. Everything is sterile … or at least scrupulously clean.”
“Yeah, but it can begin anywhere, even something as simple as a scraped knee can do it … anyplace bacteria can find its way into the body.”
“As you said, nasty business.”
“You must have been short-handed with Carrie gone.”
“Gone!” Gina said. “God. Harry, that sounds awful … so final.”
“Yeah, I know.”
They hadn’t finished, but she started to gather up the plates. “Taneka was great. Reserved, but very friendly … a helluva good nurse. We got Carrie into the ER and she rattled off her history like she’d known her for a thousand years. Carrie got all she needed right away… lab work, IV, meds. ER – all were great.”
“And the other personnel in your unit?”
“Well, there’re only three now, two RNs and three medical assistants.”
Harry said. “What about them?”
“One of the assistants was out ill, but there was Marcia and Thelma. Marcia was really efficient, friendly.”
“And Thelma.”
“The jury’s still out on her. She’s a strange one, Harry. There’s something … something screwed up about her.”
“Screwed up?”
“I know you’ll think I’m nuts,” she said, “but it’s the way she moves.”
Harry’s eyebrow inched upward. “The way she moves? That’s a first, my little pumpkin.”
Gina didn’t want to get into anything right now. This had been one of her worst days. Not that she was a stranger to death, in fact there’d been too many people dying around her lately.
Why can’t life be more … manageable?
“Come here, Ms. Mazzio,” he said. She set the plates down, looked at Harry. He had that sweet, warm look that made her want to curl up inside his chest. She moved to his side and he pulled her down into his arms. “What is it, doll?”
She was silent, her head on his shoulder, trying hard to swallow her sadness. “Oh, Harry, it’s not just one thing. It’s everything.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ve been so worried about my brother … so afraid he was going to kill himself.”
Harry ran a finger across her chin. “Maybe with a love interest, he’ll have something to live for.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Hey, doll, Vinnie’s going to be all right. And if he’s with Helen, she’ll watch over him. You know that.”
“She will, I know she will.”
“Come on, babe. Tell me, what’s the rest of it?”
She was silent.
“Please tell me.”
“It’s my ex.”
“Dominick? Gina, that guy might be out of the slammer, but he’s on parole for three more years. He can’t leave New York … and even if he could, he probably couldn’t put together enough money to get out here.”
“But you don’t understand. He hates me.”
“I guess I‘ve never understood that. Why? What could you have possibly done to make him hate you? How many times have I asked you that and never got a real answer? Tell me why.”
Gina walked to the window, watched some teenagers skateboard down the sidewalk before she turned back to Harry.
“Dominick was a really great ball player … almost made the Yankees. It was something to watch him play … and he worked hard at it for a long time.”
“You’ve never told me that. Why didn’t he make it? What kept him out?”
“It wasn’t me. It was his drinking and gambling. He just lost his way and with it went his stamina and reflexes.”
Gina walked to the sofa and collapsed onto it.
“Every time I tried to get him to stop drinking, get him back on track … well, we’d get into a terrible fight. That’s when I turned into his personal punching bag.” Before she could stop herself, she was crying ... couldn’t stop.
Harry sat down next to her, pulled her close, and whispered, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay… you don’t have to talk about it—”
“—he blamed me for being kicked off the team … said he couldn’t concentrate with all our fighting.” She swiped at the tears, smearing them across her cheeks. “But it was his drinking that brought him down. Not me.”
“How did you ever hook up with this guy in the first place?”
“Mostly family pressure … both families. It was like a dream come true for our parents when we started dating. At the time he was sort of a star on a Triple A team. And there was that golden aura around him. He was so different from most of the men I’d met; after all, he was going to be a Yankee. If you’d seen him then, you would understand. We’d go out and people would ask for his autograph. Everyone fell all over the guy. I guess I was taken in, too.” Gina smiled at him. “Besides, all my friends were getting married.” She shrugged. “I know it’s stupid. But let’s face it; it wasn’t my best decision.”
Harry was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was harsh. “They should have kept the bum in prison three more years.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Let’s just forget about it for now, we’re letting a good meal go to waste.” She gave him a big smile. “You’re the best, Harry.” She kissed his head, his checks, his chin, and finally his lips. “Do you want some desert?”
“Don’t light a fire you can’t put out, Ms. Mazzio. Right now, feeling you in my arms, holding you close, I have more than food in mind.”
Gina looked into his eyes. “Me, too.”
Chapter 13
Jody Simms stood under the shower in the gym locker
room after cheerleader practice and let the cool water run down her back. She was bone tired and it was getting harder to do all the routines. That worried her.
She was three months late for her period and she still didn’t know what to do or who to go to. She thought about going to Planned Parenthood. They were supposed to be really good, but she’d seen the news stories of the one nearest to her home, the ones with very nasty people surrounding the place. In the TV news clips, she saw them yelling at all the women going into the building. The thought of it made her shiver.
The water ran through her hair and she thought about how summer had been so much fun. She and the other girls would meet and laugh at everything, at being silly, playing in the pool, talking about clothes, boys.
Her best friend, Sally, interrupted her thoughts by tossing a washrag at her; it landed on her shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”
How could it have all gone so wrong?
“Hey, Jody!”
“Yeah! Hi, Sally. I was just thinking about the movie I saw Friday night.”
Sally started giggling. “You’re a nut, Jody. Whatever happened to boys? When did they fall to the bottom of the list?”
Jody shrugged.
“I noticed you were a few seconds off in practice tonight.”
“I haven’t learned all the routines.” Jody could feel her face turning red. “I’ll get better.”
“Come to the house … we’ll work on them together.”
Jody forced herself to give her friend a wide smile. “Too much homework today. Maybe tomorrow.”
“You know, you’re packing in too much ice cream, babe.” Sally had a disappointed frown on her face. “You need to lose a few. That could be slowing you down.”
“You don’t think I’m getting fat, do you?”
“Maybe a little.” Sally reached out and squeezed her arm. “Are you all right, girl?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
Sally suddenly turned away. “See you later, she said over her shoulder on the way to her locker.
There was something off about Sally, she wasn’t herself. She was acting weird. But by the time Jody shut off the water, she was back to her own problem.
She’d heard about private doctors doing abortions, but she didn’t have any extra cash. He college fund was in her parents’ name and so was her health insurance. If they found out she was pregnant … well, she just couldn’t tell either of them, ever.
The very thought of telling her mother made Jody want to die. All Mom ever talked about was how great it was going to be when Jody followed in her footsteps to Stanford.
They used to be such good friends. Well, maybe not friends, but Jody was able to tell her Mom pretty much everything, and she used to love to hear stories about her school experiences – anything and everything. That all changed when she entered high school. After that, all they talked about were her grades and what she needed to do to get into Stanford.
Jody got it. Becoming a grandmother and grandfather definitely wouldn’t fit into her parents’ plans right now.
Mom had had to study hard to become a lawyer, then even harder to pass the bar. But instead of working in her father's law office liked she'd planned, she'd married and immediately became a wife, mother, and a hostess for her father’s parties. And there was a lot of entertaining at the Simms home,
Jody was never going to be just a housewife.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do after high school, but she loved biology and science. One thing she knew − she was going to do something important with her life. Lately, she’d been thinking about becoming a doctor and really helping people.
She should have gotten birth control pills when she had the chance. When Sally went to Planned Parenthood, she’d wanted Jody to go along. But Jody said no, she wanted to stay a virgin and not have to worry about things like getting pregnant.
Yeah, sure!
It seemed like only yesterday when she was looking forward to her junior year in high school. Now everything had changed and she didn’t know what to do. One thing was sure – she didn’t have to be an A student to know it narrowed down to two choices: get rid of it, or keep it.
I’ll never keep it. I’d rather be dead.
* * *
Jody was the last one out of the gym. When she walked to her bike, it was already dark and she knew she was already late for dinner. There were no other bikes left in the rack.
She undid the lock and chain and noticed a folded note taped around the handle bars. She looked around, but there was hardly anyone on the campus. She carefully opened the paper. Even in the poor street light she could make out the large, bold letters:
TRAMP.
She felt sick. This morning standing in front of the mirror, she’d seen a definite baby bump beginning to show in her belly – not only that, her breasts were always swollen and sore. After what Sally had said, Jody was starting to feel like fingers were squeezing her throat. She broke out in a cold sweat and flashed back to her sixteenth birthday last week.
Her mother, father, and bratty brother had sat around the table laughing and joking when she didn’t blow out all the candles on her cake with one breath. They all said she wouldn’t get her wish. She already knew that. She’d wished the alien thing growing inside of her was only a bad dream and would disappear.
But it was still there. Feeding off her body, growing so it could ruin her life.
* * *
So stupid!
It had all seemed so sexy and grown up at the time. Summer vacation had started out so great – all those boys around the pool, looking at her, wanting to do it with her. She could see it in their eyes. And the truth? She wanted to do it too. All her friends had had sex. They said it was terrific.
On the Fourth of July, she’d sneaked out to a party and got drunk and had sex for the first time − not only with Richie, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, but also with his best friend, Bobby.
The girls had lied. It hadn’t been all that great. It had hurt and it made her feel down about herself. Even though she was drunk, she’d felt more like a piece of meat being tossed back and forth. After the party she refused to do it again, no matter how much they pushed at her.
And then she missed her period. Two periods. When she missed the third, she finally forced herself to take a pregnancy test.
Positive!
When she told Richie she was pregnant, he’d gotten really mad at her. Swore he and Bobby would plaster pictures all over the internet of her messing with both of them.
Pictures? They took pictures?
“You got me drunk.”
“But I didn’t force you to do it … and neither did Bobby. You wanted it.”
Then he’d shoved her, and she’d shoved back even harder. He’d stood there glaring at her.
“What do you want me to do? Marry you?”
She was bursting with anger, but desperately holding back the tears, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of watching her cry.
The bastard. He just used me. And I let him.
She’d never been so humiliated. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she had thought about getting married, even though she knew how immature that was. She was way too young to get married. Or have a baby.
“No,” she’d told him. “I don’t want to marry you, but I need help. What am I supposed to do?”
“It’s your problem, girl, not mine. You don’t even know who the father is.” Then he’d smiled at her. No, he didn’t smile, he smirked. “You should have stayed a virgin, bitch, not messed with seniors … ‘cause I’m off to college. I’m not getting stuck with you.”
“But, Richie, I need help—”
“—and if you tell anyone about Bobby and me, we’ll make sure the whole school knows what a little tramp you are.”
That seemed like a long time ago. He must have told not only his friends, but her friends, too. Maybe they’d even seen the pictures. Everyone knew about it and they were staying
away from her, like she was contagious or something. Maybe that’s why Sally said what she said about her getting fat.
Sally knew.
Everyone knew.
Chapter 14
Amory Mason sat at a desk in his basement, buffing his nails on his shirt. He knew it was unnecessary since he’d had them manicured that morning, but he liked to look at them anyway.
Clean, neat, shiny.
He was ready and early, as usual, for the monthly Holy Eye meeting. Thinking of that always brought a chuckle. Hard to be late since they always met at his house.
That’s the way Amory liked things – easy, predictable, controllable.
Clean, neat, shiny.
Founder of the Holy Eye organization, a name he gave to attract religious zealots, he described it as a community help group. But his main goal was to stop abortions.
From the start, he could tell that the people he attracted to the cause were rowdy by nature. But like him, they wanted to stop the murder of the unborn.
While he’d always made a big show of camaraderie with his colleagues at the investment firm where he’d once worked, there’d actually never been any one of them that he’d wanted as a personal friend, nor had he kept in touch with any of them since his retirement five years ago at the age of fifty-four.
The investment house had done well by him, yes, but he’d made a clean break. He didn’t even have any of their stock in his nicely diversified portfolio.
He’d been fortunate to have the vision and common sense to spot financial opportunities and jump on them no matter how or when they presented themselves. He’d made a lot of money in the stock market and now he was able to do only those things he wanted to do.
What he’d wanted to do most was to put an absolute end to abortion.
The major problem in this endeavor, and it was a constant, was that all of his followers thought they were born leaders and should be in charge. He held onto his status by being the first person everyone saw, whether it was at a protest gathering on the streets in front of a clinic, or at the monthly get-together at his house. A few had tried to unseat him, but they were neither smart enough, nor wealthy enough, to out-maneuver Amory Mason.
Bone of Contention: A Medical Thriller With Heart (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 4) Page 5