by Diana Palmer
“Yes, don’t we?” she replied with a pointed look at Noreen. “I should have asked Larry,” she added.
Ramon’s eyes had flashed furiously. Isadora darted under his arm and back to her guests, leaving Ramon with only Noreen to take his burst of temper out on.
And he had.
“The charlady, in person,” he’d commented coldly, glaring at her eternal jeans and sweatshirt. “You couldn’t wear a dress for the occasion?”
“I didn’t want to come,” she replied furiously. “You made me!”
“God knows why,” he returned with another cold survey of her person.
She couldn’t think of anything to say to him. She felt and looked out of place.
He’d moved closer and she’d backed away. The expression on his face had been priceless. Sadly, her instinctive action had led to something even worse.
“Do I repulse you?” he’d murmured, coming closer until she was backed to the sink. “Amazing, that such a shadow of a woman would refuse any semblance of ardent notice on the part of a man, even a repulsive man.”
She’d shivered at his tone and crossed her arms across her sweatshirt defensively. “A married man.” She’d hurled the words at him.
His hands had clenched by his side, although the words had the desired effect. He made no more movements toward her. His eyes had searched hers, demanding answers she couldn’t give.
“Maid of all work,” he’d taunted, “cook and housekeeper and doer of small tasks. Don’t you ever get tired of sainthood?”
She’d swallowed. “I’d like to go now, please.”
His chest had risen sharply. “Where would you like to go? Away from me?”
“You’re married to my cousin,” she’d said through her teeth, fighting down an attraction that made her sick all over.
“Of course I am, house sparrow,” he’d replied. “That beautiful, charming woman with the saintly face and body is all mine. Other men are sick with jealousy of what I have. Isadora, bright and beautiful, with my ring on her finger.”
“Yes, she is…lovely.” She’d choked.
His fury had been a little intimidating. Those black eyes were like swords, cutting at her. He hated her, and she knew it. Only she didn’t know why. She’d never hurt him.
He’d moved aside then, with that innate courtesy and formality that was part of him.
“I grew up in a barrio in Havana,” he murmured quietly. “My parents struggled to get through college, to educate themselves enough to get out of the poverty. When we came to the States, we rose in position and wealth, but I haven’t forgotten my beginnings. Part of me has nothing but contempt for those people in there—” he jerked his head toward the living room “—content in their pure country-club environment, ignorant of the ways poverty can twist a soul.”
“Why are you talking to me like this?” she’d asked.
His face had softened, just a little. “Because you’ve known poverty,” he replied, surprising her. She hadn’t realized he knew anything about her. “Your parents were farmers, weren’t they?”
She nodded. “They didn’t get along very well with Aunt Mary and Uncle Hal,” she confided. “Except for public opinion, I’d have gone to an orphanage when they were killed.”
He knew what she meant. “And would an orphanage have been so much worse?”
The question had taunted her, then and now. It was as if he knew what her life had been like with the Kensingtons, her father’s brother and sister-in-law, and beautiful Isadora. Ridiculous, of course, to think that he understood.
On the other hand, she wondered if Isadora had ever understood him, or how his childhood had shaped him into the adult he was now. He never refused an indigent patient, or turned his back on anyone who needed help. He was the most generous man she’d ever know.
Isadora hated that facet of his personality.
“He gives money away to people on the street, can you believe it?” Isadora had asked at Christmas the second year of her marriage. “We had an unholy row about it. They’re the flotsam of the earth. You don’t give money to people like that!”
Noreen didn’t say a word. She frequently contributed what little she could spare to a food fund for the homeless, even volunteering during holidays to help serve it.
One day during the holidays, to her amazement, she’d found Ramon putting on an apron over his suit to join her at the serving line.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he’d said at her expression. “Half the staff sneaks down here at one time or another to do what they can.”
She’d ladled soup at his side for an hour in the crowded confines, sick with gratitude for her own meager income and a roof over her head as the hopeless poor of the city crowded into the warmth of the hall for a hot meal. Tears had stung her eyes as a woman with two small children had smiled and thanked them for their one meal of the day.
Ramon’s hand had come up into hers with a handkerchief. “No ¡hagas!” he’d whispered in Spanish. Don’t do that.
“I don’t imagine you ever shed tears,” she’d muttered as she wiped her eyes unobtrusively with the spotless white handkerchief that smelled of exotic spices.
He’d laughed softly. “No?”
She glanced at him curiously.
“I care about my patients,” he told her quietly. “I’m not made of stone, when I lose one.”
She averted her eyes to the soup and concentrated on putting it into the bowls. “Latins are passionate about everything, they say,” she’d murmured without thinking.
“About everything,” he’d replied in a tone that made her shiver inexplicably.
She’d tried to give him back the handkerchief, but he’d refused it at first.
His eyes had been cruel as they met hers over it. “Put it under your pillow,” he’d chided. “Perhaps the dreams it inspires will make up for the emptiness in your life.”
Her gasp of shock had seemed to bring him to his senses.
“I beg your pardon,” he’d replied stiffly. And, taking the handkerchief back, he’d shoved it into his slacks pocket as if the sight of it angered him.
Over the years there had been other incidents. Once she’d been summoned by Isadora to drive her downtown when Ramon had refused to let her use the Jaguar.
She’d barely been admitted by the flustered maid when she heard the furious voices coming from the living room.
“I’ll spend what I like!” Isadora was yelling at her husband. “God knows, I deserve a few luxuries, since I don’t have a husband! You spend every waking hour at the office or in the hospital! We never have meals together! We don’t even sleep together…!”
“Isadora!” Noreen had called, to alert her cousin to her appearance before the argument got any hotter.
“What’s she doing here?” Noreen heard Ramon ask furiously as she walked toward the living room, hesitating for a second at the open door.
“She’s driving me to the mall,” Isadora had told him hatefully, “since you won’t!” She glanced toward Noreen. “Well, come in, come in,” she called angrily. “Don’t stand out there like a shadow!”
Ramon’s hot glance told her what he thought of her and her usual, off-duty attire. She was the soul of neatness on the job, in her ward, but she still dressed like a farm girl when she was off duty.
“Honestly, Norie, haven’t you got any other clothes?” Isadora asked angrily.
“I don’t need any others,” she replied, refusing to supply her relative with the information that her salary barely covered her apartment rent and gas for the car, much less fancy clothes.
“How economical you are,” Ramon purred.
Isadora had glared at him, jerking up her purse and cashmere sweater. “You should have married her!” She threw the words at him. “She can cook and clean and she dresses like a street person! She probably even likes children!”
Noreen had colored, remembering being with Ramon in the soup kitchen downtown at Christmas.
“How wo
uld you know how street people dress?” Ramon asked his wife coolly. “You won’t even look at them.”
“God forbid,” she shuddered. “They should round them all up and put them in jail!”
Noreen, remembering the woman and two little children who’d accepted their meal with such gratitude, felt sick to her stomach and turned away, biting her tongue to keep it silent.
“Spend what the hell you like,” Ramon told his wife.
Isadora’s eyebrows had risen an inch. “Such language!” she’d chided. “You never used to curse at all.”
“I never used to have reason to.”
Isadora made a sound in her throat and stalked out, motioning curtly to Noreen to follow her.
Just a week before Isadora died, she was taken with a mild bronchitis. Ramon had promised to accompany a fellow surgeon to Paris for an important international conference on new techniques in open-heart surgery. Isadora had pleaded to go, and Ramon had refused, reminding her that flying in a pressurized cabin on an airplane could be very dangerous for someone with even a mild lung infection.
Typically Isadora had pouted and fumed, but Ramon hadn’t listened. He’d stopped by Noreen’s station in the cardiac unit at O’Keefe’s and asked her to stay with Isadora in their apartment and take care of her in his absence.
“She’ll find a way to get even, if she can,” he’d said, curiously grim. “Watch her like a hawk. Promise me you won’t leave her if she takes a turn for the worse.”
“I promise,” she’d said.
“And get her to a hospital if there’s any deterioration at all. She has damaged lungs from all that smoking she used to do, and she’s very nearly asthmatic,” he’d added. “Pneumonia could be fatal.”
“I’ll look after her,” she’d said again.
His dark eyes had searched hers relentlessly. “You’re nothing like her,” he’d said quietly.
Her face had gone taut. “Thanks for reminding me. Are there any other insults you’d like to add, before you go?”
He’d looked shocked. “It wasn’t meant as a insult.”
“Of course not,” she’d replied dryly. She’d turned back to her work. “I know you can’t stand the sight of me, Ramon, but I do care about my cousin, whether you believe it or not. I’ll take good care of her.”
“You’re an excellent nurse.”
“No need to butter me up,” she said wearily, having grown used to the technique over the years. “I’ve already said I’ll stay with her.”
His hand, surprisingly, had caught her arm and jerked her around. His eyes were blazing.
“I don’t use flattery to get what I want,” he said curtly. “Least of all with you.”
“All right,” she’d agreed, trying to loosen his painful grip.
He seemed not to realize how tight he was holding her arm. He even shook it, having totally lost his self-control for the first time in recent memory. “Make her understand why she can’t go on the plane. She won’t listen to me.”
“I will. But you should be pleased that she wants your company so much.”
His grip tightened. “One of the men who will be at the conference is her lover,” he said with a short laugh. “That’s why she’s so eager to go.”
Noreen’s face was a study in shock.
“You didn’t know?” he asked very softly. “I can’t satisfy her,” he added bluntly. “No matter how long I take, whatever I do. She needs more than one man a night, and I’m worn to the bone when I get home from the hospital.”
“Please,” she’d whispered, embarrassed, “you shouldn’t be telling me this…!”
“Why not?” he’d asked irritably. “Who else can I tell? I have no close friends, my parents are dead, I have no siblings. There isn’t a human being on earth who’s ever managed to get close to me, until now.” He searched her face with eyes that hated it. “Damn you, Noreen,” he whispered fervently. “Damn you!”
He dropped her arm and stalked off the ward, leaving her shaken and white with shock. He really hated her. That was when the mask had come down and she’d seen it in his eyes, in his face. She didn’t know why he hated her. Perhaps because Isadora had said something to him…
She’d gone to their apartment that night, confident that Ramon had already left, to find the maid hysterical and Isadora sitting out on the balcony in a filmy nightgown, in the icy cold February rain.
She’d been out there, the poor maid cried, ever since her husband had left the apartment. She didn’t know what had been said between them, but she’d heard the voices, loud and unsettling, in their bedroom. There had been a furious argument, and just after the doctor had gone, the madam had taken off her robe and gone to sit in the rain. Nothing would induce her to come inside. She was coughing furiously already and she had a high fever that she’d forbidden the maid to tell the doctor about.
Noreen had gone at once to the balcony and with the maid’s help, had dragged Isadora back inside.
They’d changed her clothing, but the effort had made Noreen’s heart, always frail, beat erratically.
While she was catching her breath, the maid announced that her husband had already phoned twice and was furious. She had to leave.
Noreen was reluctant to let her go, feeling sick already, but the poor girl was in tears. She gave permission for her to leave, and then went to listen to Isadora’s chest.
Her cousin was breathing strangely. She wasn’t conscious, and her fever was furiously high.
She had to get an ambulance, she decided, and went to phone for one. But when she lifted the receiver, there was a strange sound and no dial tone.
Furious, she started out into the hall to ask a neighbor to phone for her. Suddenly everything went pitch-black.
She was really frightened now, and her heart was acting crazily.
She moved down the hall, feeling for the elevators, but they weren’t working. There was the staircase. They were only four flights up. It wouldn’t be too far. She had a terrible feeling that Isadora’s lung had collapsed. She could die…
Making a terrific effort, she pushed into the stairwell and started down and down, holding on to the rail for support as her breathing began to change and her heartbeat hurt.
She never really remembered afterward what happened, except that she suddenly lost her footing, and consciousness, at the same time.
She came to in the hospital, trying to explain to a white-coated stranger that she must get back to her cousin. But the man only patted her arm and gave her an injection.
It was the next day before she was able to get out of the hospital and go back to Ramon’s apartment. But by that time, the maid had found Isadora dead, and worst of all, Ramon had come home before she was moved.
Noreen had arrived at the door just as the ambulance attendants came out with Isadora’s body.
Ramon had seen Noreen and lapsed into gutter Spanish that questioned everything from Noreen’s parentage to her immediate future, eloquently.
“Oh, please, let me explain!” she’d pleaded, in tears as she realized what must have happened to Isadora, poor Isadora, all alone and desperately ill. “Please, it wasn’t my fault! Let me tell you…!”
“Get out of my apartment!” Ramon had raged, in English now that he’d exhausted himself of insults. “I’ll hate you until I die for this, Noreen. I’ll never forgive you as long as I live! You let her die!”
She’d stood there, numb with shock and weakness, as he strode out behind the ambulance, his face white and drawn.
Later, at the funeral home, Noreen had tried to talk to her aunt and uncle, but her aunt had slapped her and her uncle had refused to even look at her. Ramon had demanded that she be removed from the premises and not allowed to return.
She hadn’t been allowed at the service, either. She was an outcast from that moment until just recently, when inexplicably, her aunt and uncle had invited her for coffee just before her uncle’s birthday. Ramon’s attitude had been one of unyielding hatred.
<
br /> Her feelings of guilt were only magnified by the attitude of Isadora’s husband and parents. Eventually she realized that nothing was going to excuse her part in what had happened, and she’d accepted her guilt as if she deserved it. Her work had become her life. She never asked for anything from her relatives again. Not even for forgiveness.
Chapter Three
It had been a long morning and Ramon was worn to the bone. He’d already done one meticulous bypass operation and a valve was scheduled first thing after lunch. It should have been his day off, but he was covering at O’Keefe for one of the other surgeons who was sick with a bad case of the flu.
He carried his tray into the cafeteria dining room and looked around the crowded area, hoping for an empty table, but there wasn’t one. The only empty spot he glimpsed was at a table occupied by Noreen. He glared at her over his salad plate and coffee.
Noreen dropped her eyes back to her plate, furious with herself for flushing when he looked at her. He’d take his salad out to the small canteen adjoining the cafeteria and sit on the floor before he’d join her, and she knew it. If only she could outrun her own hated feelings for the horrible man. If only it didn’t matter what he thought of her.
She almost dropped her fork when, without asking, he put his coffee and plate down on the table across from her, pulled out a chair and sat down.
He saw her surprise and was almost amused by it. He spread his napkin in his lap, took the plastic lid from his salad plate and picked up his own fork.
“Would sitting on the floor have been too obvious?” she asked in a faintly dry tone.
His dark gaze pinned hers for an instant before he bent his head toward a forkful of tuna salad.
“You do that so well,” she remarked.
“Do what?” he asked.
She finished a mouthful of fruit and sat back in her chair. “Snub me,” she said. “I suppose I irritated you from the day we met, just by being alive.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” he murmured deeply, and sipped his coffee. He glanced at the clock. “I thought you went to lunch at half-past noon.”