"No it isn't. I feel very strongly about you."
Maggie scrunched her shoulders, stepping back. "To be honest, I just don't feel comfortable accepting this kind of intimate gift from you. We're friends, but–"
Wade spread my hands apart. "I'm a romantic! If I really like someone–"
"Yeah, but." She looked up into his eyes, embarrassed.
The doorbell rang.
She perked up. "That must be Josh!"
Wade stepped back, lowering his head.
She ran to her front door, opened it.
Josh spread his arms, curly brown hair, Maggie walking into his hug.
After they kissed, Josh looked over the top of Maggie's head. "Hey, Wade. Glad you could make it!"
Wade made a face. "We thought you weren't going to come. We were supposed to meet at six."
Josh took off his jacket, tossed it casually on the sofa. "Sorry about that." He turned towards Maggie. Sighed. "I had to save someone choking on food."
Wade looked pissed.
Maggie brought her small right hand to her lips. "Oh my God!"
"Yeah. I was at a coffee shop, going over the galleys for my next volume of poems, when this guy at the table next to me jerked his chair back, started coughing, fell on the floor. I got behind him, gave him the Heimlich until a peach pit popped out of his mouth."
"Oh my God. You saved his life!"
Josh humbly bobbed his head. "All in a day's work."
She grabbed onto him, side of her face against his chest. "You're a hero! Again."
He affectionately rubbed the top of her head. "So what did you do today?"
Her brown eyes went inwards. "Well, nothing like you. I guess the most important thing I did was get up early this morning, then before work go over to the O'Hearns, this elderly couple I met through the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program, and cook three nights worth of dinners for them." With a self-conscious look, to include him, she turned towards Wade. "How about you?"
Wade stretched himself to his full height. "I fired someone today."
"What?"
He nodded, tall forehead, prominent teeth. "Yeah, I have a lot of power at my job. I took her out to breakfast, it's best to do something like that in a public place, then once she finished eating, I told her she was fired." He grinned. "She never saw it coming."
Maggie raised her wine glass at the dinner table. "To Josh, for all the good work he's done!"
Josh modestly bowed his head.
Wade raised his wine glass. "And to all three of us!"
The Shrimp Creole was delicious. Some heat, to clear the palate after each forkful, but not so much heat they had to fan their mouths.
For dessert, Maggie served watermelon slices.
Josh lowered his lips over the pink juice on his white plate, spat out some more big, black seeds. "This is really refreshing after the Creole. I'm gonna have to write a poem about it."
Maggie twisted the tines of her fork in her thick slice, carving out another cold, wet chunk, looking at Josh flirtatiously. "Really? I've never had a poem written about me. Did you know watermelon has more lycopene than tomatoes?"
Wade thought, There's got to be a joke in there somewhere. Let's see. Tomatoes are red. Watermelon is red…
Josh wiped his chin. "Guess that means next time I'm in a sandwich shop, I'll order a BLW."
Maggie dipped her face forward, shooting Josh a helpless look, slapping his muscular forearm. "No fair! I'm eating!"
While Maggie and Josh were laughing, leaning their smiles towards each other, Wade quietly arranged the black seeds discarded from the eaten portion of his watermelon crescent, feeling sad, feeling alone, the worse type of loneliness, when there are other people within reach. Two eyes, nose, happy smile. This is Josh. He stabbed his fork down into the center, black seed of the nose lifting.
Josh winked at Maggie. "I had a dream about you last night."
Wade poured Maggie more wine, jealous she was sitting closer to Josh than she was to him. "I don't like to dream. Dreams are like insects. You can't control them. How's your mother?"
She lifted her right hand to signal Wade had poured in enough. "I'm taking her to a support group this Thursday. Mostly lifestyle issues." She took a sip. "How's your Dad?"
"He died."
She looked stricken, brown eyes widening. "Really?"
"Yeah." Wade realized he was about to start crying, watermelon in front of him. He tensed his cheekbones, which usually worked. Felt the pressure at the center of his forehead. "He had had so many operations. And he was bleeding internally, they never found the source of his bleeding. Every morning when he woke up, there was blood in his pajamas. He finally just gave up."
"I'm so sorry!"
Josh raised his wineglass. "Death be not proud."
"I wish he could have met you before he died."
She looked at Wade with those big brown eyes, sighed through her nose. Put her hand on top of his. He could feel the warmth of her palm on the backs of his knuckles.
Josh finished his wine, put his glass back down amid the dirty plates. "Mag and I were talking about your Dad at the party, hoping he'd be okay."
"The party?" Wade looked at Maggie.
She withdrew her hand.
Josh nodded, looking at Wade. "Yeah, this office party thing Mag invited me to, while you were in with your Dad."
Maggie's cheeks got some color. "It was a party my company was throwing. They're a publicly-traded Internet company. Last year, for the first time ever, their quarterly losses dipped below one million dollars."
Josh lifted his upper lip, angling his thumb in, nail scraping out, from between his front incisors, a green fleck that had no business being there. "After the party Mag and I came back here."
Maggie lowered her face. "Josh…"
"The next morning, she made me this incredible, what's it called?"
"Frittata."
"It was fucking incredible."
Wade felt betrayed, like an unanswered phone ringing in a bedroom. He pushed his chair back. "Maybe I should just go."
Maggie looked at him, upset. "I'm sorry, Wade. I…" She couldn't think of what to say.
He stood up. "I have to drive by the funeral home anyway, to decide what suit he should be buried in."
The three of them walked back into the kitchen, as quietly as if they were carrying a coffin. Maggie touched Wade's shoulder. "I wish I had met your Dad. He must have been a wonderful person."
Josh dipped his head. "Weird!"
Maggie looked annoyed. "What?"
"Look at that tomato!"
Her brown eyes followed where he was pointing, to her big porcelain bowl with a cat's face design inside, the bowl itself filled with garlic bulbs, avocadoes, tomatoes.
One of the tomatoes had dark black points poking up all around the curvature of its red skin, in a spiked effect.
"What…?" She reached out, curious, picked up the tomato.
Josh made a face. "Don't touch it."
She rubbed the underside of her thumb over one of the short spikes. "It must be some kind of parasitic infection."
Wade bent forward. "We could cut it open, to see what got inside."
Josh stayed behind their backs. "Just throw it away!"
Wade twisted around. "Is the big hero afraid of a little bitty tomato?"
"Excuse me?"
Maggie touched Wade's forearm. "Come on, Wade."
"Such a big hero, saving people's lives every day, which I doubt, but you're afraid of this harmless little tomato?"
"Wade, come on."
"I'm not afraid of anything."
"So take a bite from this tomato."
Josh backed up, tussled hair on his forehead, eyes confused. "Bullshit."
Wade held it up to Josh's lips, feeling the prickliness against his fingers. "Come on, hero. You're this big, macho stud, fucking innocent people up the ass. And this little tomato has you ready to shit in your panties?"
Josh backed off
. "Hey…"
While Josh's mouth was open, Wade shoved a fat curve of the spiky tomato between his teeth.
Josh bit down, instinctively.
Immediately lowered his head, spitting out, but you can never spit it all out.
"Wade!"
"I'm sorry! But I'm in love with you, I want a normal life, with a woman, and if you're going to go with him instead of me, I at least want you to know he isn't a hero. He doesn't protect people."
Maggie raised her elbows, eyes blinking. "You shouldn't have done that, Wade!"
Josh bucked forward, coughing, pink bubbles around his lips.
Maggie shrank to the far edge of her kitchen counter.
Wade stepped away from Josh's long, pink drool. "Is this an act?"
Josh's body bucked again. He leaned all the way over, hands on his knees, vomiting pinks and greens onto Maggie's kitchen floor, lots of big white bubbles floating across the vinyl.
Maggie called 911.
Maggie and Wade rode in the back of the ambulance to the hospital, Maggie sitting next to the gurney, holding Josh's hand, big, hard-plastic oxygen mask strapped around his neck, over the lower half of his face, accordioned tube on top, long as a proboscis, leading to an oxygen canister.
As the ambulance sped through the streets, swaying under its siren, the two EMT technicians took turns pulling his mask up away from his face, straps stretching like turkish taffy, poking a latex-gloved finger past his teeth, making sure no vomit had collected in his mouth.
Wade tried to think of something to say. From where he sat, on top of the case for a heart defibrillator, he leaned forward towards Maggie's ear, to be heard over the siren. "I read somewhere that in mainland China, people use latex gloves when they eat pizza."
She either didn't hear him, or chose not to respond.
The tall, black triage nurse at the emergency room hurried over as Josh was wheeled in, stopping at the front of the gurney, looking down at his head as it thrashed side to side.
"Talk to me."
One of the EMTs from the ambulance handed her a clipboard. "Respiratory arrest."
"You have it under control?"
"We think. He ate a toxic fruit."
"What fruit? Hang in there, baby. We got you in the hospital. You're going to be okay."
For the fourth time, Maggie held up the plastic storage bag in which she had placed the bitten-into tomato. "He took a bite of this."
"Is that a tomato? Was it attached to a vine? Did he eat any of the vine?"
Maggie shook her head, rattled. "No, but look at the tomato. See all these dark spikes sticking out of it? Maybe there's a parasite inside?"
The triage nurse squinted her eyes, looking at the storage bag. "Let's get him through to ICU."
Maggie and Wade followed behind, but as the orderlies wheeled the gurney through a buzzing door, the triage nurse stepped in front of the two of them. "You family?"
Wade felt the need to say something, to help. "No. He's a friend."
"You need to wait over there. Someone will come out later on, to let you know how he's doing, and maybe you can see him then."
They sat side by side, all alone in an infinite row of orange plastic chairs set against a white wall.
Wade cleared his throat. "At least we got him–"
Maggie raised her teary face, furious. Glared at him. "How could you?"
"I'm sorry! I was jealous, he was throwing it in my face he slept with you–"
"It's none of your fucking business!"
He shrank.
"Wade…" She caught herself, stopped. Muttered to herself, rolling her eyes incredulously. "I barely know you! What gives you the right to be that aggressive towards anyone? Let alone Josh?"
"I was jealous! I just lost my Dad. I'm twenty-eight years old."
A tall male in blue cotton clothes walked over.
They both looked up from their orange plastic chairs, trying, like all seated people waiting in a hospital, to tell by the male's face, his gait, what message he had for them, good news or bad news.
"You can see your friend now."
The male led them across the linoleum floor of the waiting room, through the buzzing door, down a blank corridor, around a bend, where there were alcoves with ceiling to floor drapes on big rings drawn all the way open, or partially open, or all the way closed, around another bend, doors displaying the international pictorial symbols for male and female bathrooms, and a door with a sign below its square glass inset stating Employees Only, around another bend, where an alcove had its tall drapes pulled all the way open, Josh in the high white bed, no oxygen mask, a nurse in green cotton off to one side of the alcove, by a set of drawers, trying to fit the end of one clear plastic tube into the end of another clear plastic tube. Doctors and nurses passing by in the hallway, just another normal night to them, not the frightening night it was to the patients and visitors in the alcoves.
The male gestured at the bed. "The doctor will be here soon."
Maggie rushed over to the left side rail of the bed, leaning over the rail, right palm lowering to Josh's cheek. "Are you okay?"
He stared up at the low ceiling, eyes glassy, curly brown hair framing his face.
"Josh?"
The nurse in green cotton looked up from her clear plastic tube ends that were supposed to slide easily together. "He probably can't hear you. But don't say anything negative, just in case. He's in a transitional coma."
"What does that mean?"
"The doctor's looking at the MRI and some x-rays. He should be here soon." She went back to trying to fit together the two tube openings. Eventually, she gave up and left.
Just when it seemed like they had been forgotten, an older man in a blue shirt showed up, big face, holding a clipboard.
"Is this the tomato poisoning victim? Are you family?"
Wade gestured at Maggie, himself. "We're friends."
"I'm Dr. Turin." He leaned over Josh's face, interested, looking down at Josh's empty stare. "He's in what we refer to as a transitional coma."
"Does 'transitional' mean he's going to recover?"
"Hard to say."
Maggie held up the bagged tomato. "This is what he ate just before he went into the coma. It hasn't been tested yet."
The doctor took the bag from Maggie, looked through the plastic at the tomato, squinted at the dark spikes. He started thinking to himself, but not sharing.
Maggie took a step forward. "Is it some kind of parasite, or…"
"We'll have to run some tests."
"I thought you had."
The doctor leaned over Josh's slack face. Pulled a pale white surgical glove over his right hand, fingers flexing upwards, filling the five thin rubber tubes. Reached his thumb down, curled up Josh's upper lip, like a snarl, to where the lip touched the nostriled bottom of Josh's nose, exposing the glossy pink underskin of the lip. "Glass."
A nurse handed him a circular magnifying glass.
He held the magnifying glass over Josh's peeled-back upper lip, drew it back, brought it closer, squinting his right eye.
"Do you see this?"
Maggie and Wade looked over his blue shoulders.
Within the visual distortion of the glossy pink magnification, tiny black dots.
"That suggests to me the start of an infection."
Dr. Turin lifted Josh's limp chin, undid the top buttons of his shirt.
Between Josh's nipples, larger black dots with wavy edges.
The doctor spoke out loud, because it was expected of him, but really, he was talking to himself. "Not a good sign."
He undid more buttons, all the way down to Josh's waistband.
Across Josh's abdomen, huge black and green splotches.
"This doesn't look good."
He pulled down the zipper on Josh's pants, slid his pants and underpants off his hips, exposing his limp cock.
Stepped back, waving his hand in front of his nose.
Josh's crotch, his upper legs, were com
pletely black, covered with doughnut-sized warts, dark green, oozing yellow pus.
"This is bad."
Josh was eventually transferred to a private room on the top floor of the hospital. By then, it was past midnight. The hallway outside the private room was deserted, lights turned low to conserve electricity.
Dr. Turin entered, in different clothes from before, holding a chart. "Are you the victim's family?"
Maggie shook her head. "We're friends. You met with us this morning. You said you needed more tests before you could tell us what's wrong with Josh."
The doctor nodded to himself, big face.
Maggie stood up on tiptoe, trying not to cry. "Is it a parasite?"
Dr. Turin slid the hole at the top of the chart onto a hook fixed to the foot of the bed. Blue eyes looking into Maggie's eyes, into Wade's. "Let's discuss some basics."
Maggie sniffled. In a weak voice she said, "Okay."
He shut the eyes in his tired face, trying to summon the best way to proceed. Opened them. "It's a ghost."
Maggie brought her small right hand up to her teeth, as if the doctor had said 'it's cancer', or 'it's AIDS'.
Wade spoke up. "How can you tell?"
"When a tomato has dark spikes sticking out of it, like yours did, it generally indicates possession by a ghost. The lab did a preliminary evaluation of the tomato, and its interior contains the same sticky webbings consistent with supernatural habitation. A lot of ghosts hide in tomatoes when they first leave this world."
A tear rolled down Maggie's cheek. "Why isn't this in the newspapers?"
"We're starting to get the word out. There was a conference at M.I.T. last year. Scientists from forty-two countries submitted papers. There's a lot we still don't know."
Wade looked at the doctor. "Is it always a tomato?"
"The energy doesn't choose any other vegetable. Or fruit. Whatever a tomato is."
"Actually, I believe it's a fruit. Not to challenge you, but just in the spirit of accuracy."
Maggie squeezed her eyes. Asked the same question doctors in hospitals have heard hundreds of times. "What are his chances?"
"There's going to be a metamorphosis. Very much like cancer. He'll slowly transform into a large bird, then into a giant caterpillar. We have to wrap him in bandages, before the metamorphosis starts." He brought them over to Josh's forearms, gestured. "You can see that the skin on the underside of his forearms is already beginning to form feathers, much like you'd find on a fledgling." Wade could see pale protrusions rising from Josh's skin, each with a central spine and slanted, feathery extensions on either side. "It's important to wrap him completely, so he can't fly away." He lifted Josh's left arm. "See that glossy nub in his armpit? That's the beginning of wing development. It's as sure a sign as metastasis into an organ."
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