Lily's Temptation Vol. 1

by Michaels, C. C.

  She leans in and takes my hands in hers; the light throws shadow over her nose and eyes. I choke down a hiccup and feel beads of sweat form on my forehead.

  “Come on, Lily, spill it. What’s on your mind?”

  I feel the side-effects of the poorly-made cocktail. My stomach swirls and soon the room shifts and pitches forward.

  The truth fills my guts and wells up inside me. It burns like a torrential gyrating fire, whirling in spires of heat. I can no longer force it down. I loose my words like a mudslide, letting them wash against Jasmine and build up under themselves. Then they all come gushing out.

  “I always did the right thing, right? I always listened to Mom when she told me what to do. I went to school just like she wanted. I focused on my grades and got into the right college. Everything went according to plan. And then I became a doctor.” I pause as I laugh. The audacity of my words reverberate off of Jasmine’s sympathetic face and bores a hole in my rant. I pull myself together and straighten to sober myself. Suddenly, it’s urgently important for me to get these words out, to say what I have to say. I struggle through the alcohol haze to focus but as I continue speaking, I feel the rhythm of my speech fall into place.

  “I just feel like it should be better.”

  “What should be better?” Jasmine asks, trying to gain a hold on my loosely-packed statement.

  “My life. It’s all gone to hell.”

  “Lily, what are you talking about? It’s not. You have a great life. You’re going to medical school, just like you wanted.”

  “Shit, Jasmine, I went through everything with the hopes that by the end of all the work, there would be a sense of accomplishment. Instead, I’m left with student debt and a dickhead of a boss who undermines me.”

  “Lily, that’s just the way life is. Everyone feels that way sometimes. But you are helping those patients, you are doing a good thing. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Jasmine reassures me in a big sister way that these are universal problems.

  “Then how do I justify any of it? I spend my whole life with my damn head down, and for what? So Mom can brag to her friends how her daughter is becoming a doctor?”

  Jasmine pulls her lower lip into her mouth, pinning it with her teeth, shifting her eyes to the right and leans back a bit.

  “I walk up and down those halls every day, waiting for the moment to hit me when I feel the satisfaction of my efforts. I am not asking to have a statue erected in my honor, just a little inkling of a reward.”

  Jasmine tells me I am being selfish; that this is a phase and that I am searching for someone else’s affirmation.

  I smash my palm into my chest saying, “You don’t understand. I want that affirmation, damn it. I want it from myself. I want to look in the mirror and feel the pride this job, this life, these years of being right had promised. I want to stop feeling like I am just towing the line. I want to feel the satisfaction of being happy with myself.”

  Jasmine leans in, speaking in clichés. She uses the one about how it all gets better if you let it and how you make your own happiness. It is all about as useful as an umbrella in a monsoon.

  Then she shifts her tone to a more derisive mode. She reminds me how lucky I am to be a doctor, how I will have money and respect. She reminds me of Mom’s sacrifices but she keeps adding money into her reasoning and the whole argument becomes a sad bolstering of a mother who sees her daughter as a paycheck. And once again, I have confirmation of my doubts about why I’m killing myself every day in that hospital. It’s not for me. It’s for everyone else in my life.

  We leave the booth with five dollars on the wet napkin the waitress gave as a coaster. Jasmine flips her hair and slings her purse over her shoulder. “And Lily, just remember, flirting with that patient you told me about, Matt, or what was his name?”

  “Maddox.”

  “Whatever. Don’t go jeopardizing your residency and your reputation as a doctor over some good-looking guy. His type are a dime a dozen. Keep your nose to the grindstone and everything will work out.”

  As we step outside, there is still traffic on the streets and my eyes latch onto each passing car and pull me off my balance. Jasmine talks nonstop about my life getting better, how I will be making money soon and Mom is proud. I feel like I just spilled my guts but she didn’t hear a word I said. We hug and she smiles her fake smile, gets in a cab and leaves. By now, the alcohol is settling nicely. I’m somewhere between tipsy and drunk, that lovely warm feeling that pulses through the body like a second heartbeat.

  The wind picks up in focused gusts and then settles. I decide to walk back to my apartment with the wind whipping around me like dancers moving across a great stage. Lights from office windows and apartments glow from the street level to the sky. The streets are bathed in the orange hue of lamp lights. In the alleys, open doors with mesh screens let out bright light, but not enough to illuminate the deep darkness of the narrow spaces between the buildings.

  The whiskey sloshes in my stomach as I stumble down the street. I stop at the corner to get my bearings. The street name is familiar, but I can’t recognize any familiar landmarks. The stores are all wrong. The trees are wrong. Above me, I hear a child yell, “I’m four, I’m four.” He repeats this statement again and again, the rhythm becomes trapped in my head and I can no longer focus on the streets.

  I swing my head and the whole world shifts with me as I look up to see where this kid is. But I see nothing. Just the same lights that lend themselves to the nameless buildings and faceless apartments. I walk down the unknown street, trying to kick up memories. My pulse quickens and a four-letter word rushes to my mind. But I tell myself I’m just a little out of it at the moment and stumble back the way I came when I hear the kid again.

  Soon another voice rises on the night air. It sounds like a child’s voice and it seems to be shouting back at the original kid.

  “I’m four, I’m four.” Silence. “I’m three.” Immediately afterwards, “I’m four it’s your birthday.” Their disembodied voices scratch my ears and now that their little squeaky voices have developed a narrative my brain follows their attempted conversation. Their voices are like battering rams against my concentration. I’m looking at a store being closed, the steel curtain is being pulled down as the children scream, “I’m four,” and, “I’m three.

  Finally, the barrage of cannon fire from the kids ends as one shouts out, “Diarrhea,” into the cool night air. The other kid reciprocates by screaming it back, and soon there is silence. I must have waited for another word to follow for ten minutes. I look up to the sky in anticipation of a rebuttal but it seems the discussion had lost its steam.

  I reach in my jeans to take out my phone to check the time but find only empty space in my pockets. I feverishly grope for the phone and dig to the bottom of my purse, then stand straight as a bolt, flexing every muscle in my body.

  I must have left it back at the bar. I drudge back toward the bar, my legs beginning to swell with exhaustion brought on by the whiskey. The stores are all closed by the time I reach the bar.

  “Last call,” shouts the barback. No one seems to stir. A slow song, drenched in moody rhythm and delivery, pours like honey onto the patrons. I ask the bartender if he has seen my phone. He walks over to the bar back who is stacking glasses under the bar. The bar back walks away.

  “He’s going to the office.” The song dips into a long solo.

  “Thank you.”

  He nods and wipes down the bar. The agonizing song ends and the bar back returns with my phone. I thank both of them, walk outside to call a cab and wait in front of the bar. When it arrives, I throw myself inside and sink into the seat. All the buildings pass so fast I can hardly make out the names. The cab driver asks how my night went. I slur my words, saying, “It was good. I mean, it win well, I spoze.”

  He says something about how drunk I am. I laugh. Then he says, “What were you drinking?”

  “Upper Manhattan and it was just terrible.”


  He laughs, looking into the rearview mirror at me, saying, “I know it. It’s hard to find people who know what they’re doing.”

  “Right. Why the hell is it so difficult to mix a damn drink?” He laughs, then I jokingly ask, “What about you? Have you done any drinking tonight?”

  He says, “No,” and makes a joke about how his wife would kill him or something like that. He begins speaking with his face forward, like he is talking to the windshield,

  “No, I don’t like to drink. It does bad stuff to your head.”

  “So true.” I rub the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, saying, “Alcohol compromises the cerebral cortex’s ability to rationalize. It blocks behavioral inhibitory centers, slowing the procession of information. This accounts for time lapses. It also plays havoc on the cerebellum, causing one to lose balance.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yes, sir. And did you know sexual ability is inversely tied to sexual arousal. Chances are the hornier and drunker you are, the less likely you will perform well in bed because your hypothalamus and pituitary are being depressed by the booze.”

  The driver snorts a laugh and says, “You sure know a lot of big words about simple stuff.”

  “Well, I’ve been studying the human body, I suppose you could say.” And there was one human body I would have really liked to study at this moment: Maddox’s.

  The really scary question is, why am I so attracted to Maddox. I feel like a damn teenager around him. I make excuses to see him, I stand up for him, and why?

  I don’t know why I am thinking this right now. It makes no sense. It’s just neurotransmitters being rerouted is all; just my thoughts walking up on the wrong corner again. I thought about telling the driver to keep going. To get me out of the city as far as my money would take me, to a place where I could gather my loneliness like spare change and pay for the silence.

  But I know these are the whiskey’s whispers and not my own inclinations. The driver drops me off and I go up to my apartment and take a warm shower.

  Chapter 9

  After my shower I decide to take in the night from my balcony. There is an apartment across the narrow street from me and on a balcony like mine, there is a woman smoking a cigarette. I can feel her wet eyes trace over me as she takes another drag from her cigarette. The rain fell light last night and covered the city. She has waited all day to catch a glimpse of me. I step out at exactly the right time for her to see me now. I want to call out to her to make her hear me. I want to call to her for no other reason than to feel the satisfaction of being noticed. I want to feel someone pay attention to me. My sister was no help. I can’t rely on the nurses or Mandel. I just want someone to see me.

  Not even the traffic is kicking up enough sound to drown me out. It seems like some part of her must be waiting for me. You can’t live in a city this big and not see someone every second. It just isn’t mathematically possible. All these people have to have something in common and why is it so weird that across from me now on a balcony like mine there is a woman who is basically me? She could be looking at someone just above me. Some other person. And she is thinking about that person like maybe they are so different from her and how she is lost in a sea of people that look like her, walk, talk and act like her but they can’t be her. And that draws her moist gaze down to the next balcony. And she sees me—in an instant, her life becomes too easy to sum up, her future too pleasant to bear and now she drops her cigarette. It is thrashed by the wind, spirals down like a felled bird until it hits a pocket of tranquil air and sinks like a branch laden with dead, wet leaves. I want to appease; her I want to show her life gets better but I grasp at air in my mind and watch that cigarette fall out of vision.

  As if she sees my thoughts, she stares back with every muscle in her face telling me I failed. I want to just jump over this rail and sink into the pavement like that cigarette, to show her it won’t get better. I want to dispense with the positive platitudes and for once, be honest. I feel so much stress from life now. It’s all I can do to get lost in my own thoughts and find that they lead me always to Maddox.

  I put my hand on the cold rail and think of how easy it would be to pull my knees up to balance. Then wedging myself between the ceiling and the rail, raise my feet one at a time to stand up. I begin to push my weight up and raise my body so my hips are against the rail and even with my hands.

  Then I look up to the woman, hoping to see her dismay, to hear her cry out, “no” or make some racket, some protest. She just leans over her balcony rail and squints at me to make a clearer picture. I raise myself a little more this time, and the rail goes past my hips to my thigh.

  I want someone to jump out and tell me I am important and my life has meaning and the world just wouldn’t be the same without me. I want the slow, monotonous pattern of life to grind to a halt for me. I want to feel the things I read about in poetry and hear in music. I want this vacuous existence to spring forth with vigor. I want Maddox to burst through the door. I want to feel his hands caress my cheek. I want a partner. I want a friend to help me when I feel like giving up on myself. I feel like now, more than ever, I need someone who can blast away the slow, encroaching dust of life. I set myself back down and lean over the rail of my balcony and laugh. My long hair falls down around me. I look up again, but the woman is gone.

  I push my hair out of my face and run my finger through it, crossing my fingers at the back of my head. I can hear my sister’s voice saying, “Poor you,” in my head. It is true; I am living a good life. I have it all figured out, but some thread of consciences streams its way into the back roads of my mind, and hour after hour I am gently carried away on the flooding current.

  Through the trees and buildings and the junk yards, I am swept into the embrace of pessimism and it feels so warm, I think I might stay for a while. If only it were that simple. I have far too much work to do: too many patients to attend to, too many files that need my attention, and Maddox. I have to bring myself to bed with my head full of that man. I have to work, but for now I have to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning, I find myself even less alert and receptive than usual. Last night’s existential breakdown wasn’t nearly powerful enough to knock me off my game. Ill thoughts for a weary head, I guess. Ms. Margaret is wandering the halls again, peering into trashcans. As she strolls lazily down the hall, she stops at Mr. Demetri’s room. She leans forwards, looking into the room and smiles.

  I whisper to Isabel who is filing papers. “What’s she smiling at?” Isabel looks up at Ms. Margaret while stapling papers and shrugs her shoulders.

  Ms. Margaret opens the door and walks into Mr. Demetri’s room. That’s odd. I feel a twinge of panic in my gut and walk slowly around the side of the nurse’s station to get a better look. Passing by Mr.Demetri’s room, I can see he is raising something to his lips. Ms. Margaret moves into my view, blocking my sight of Mr. Demetri. I turn back to Isabel and ask her if this happens often. She shrugs again, not paying any attention. When I look back into the room I see a can in Mr. Demetri’s hand. He has it resting on his lap as he lays in bed.

  “Isabel, who is Demetri’s doctor?” I ask, while boring my eyes into the room. Isabel looks up from her work, saying something like she has too much work.

  “Seriously, who is his physician?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  ,“Because Mr. Demetri is drinking.”

  “So what? Good for him. I’m drinking, too.” Isabel raises a water bottle in her hand while shuffling papers with the other.

  I walk back to the nurse’s station desk putting both hands on the counter and saying in a stern but hushed voice, “No, Isabel, he’s drinking alcohol. Who is his physician?” Isabel’s head heaves up; she looks at me, then over at Mr. Demetri’s room, then at me again.

  “I’ll go get the doctor.” Isabel sighs as she picked herself up from the seat. I look back into the room; Mr. Demetri catches my stare and waves at me. I feel I ha
ve to either tell him to get rid of the beer or leave altogether. I open the door, whispering at Mr. Demetri in a way that garners a confused look from Ms. Margaret.

  “You have to get rid of that,” I say, pointing at the beer in his hand.

  “Why?” Ms. Margaret asks.

  Her smile shoots through me and I feel like she is just bored enough to argue for the sake of arguing. It doesn’t surprised me that Ms. Margaret would be the one who snuck in beer to the hospital.

  I remind the two of them, “Because this is a hospital.” I pull the curtain between the beds forward to try to create a shield so the beer can’t be seen from the hallway. “You can’t sneak beer into a hospital,” I plead. But I feel the tone is wrong, I have given the two of them a front to attack now. I fell into their trap before they even knew they had set one.