Playing the Player

by Lea Santos

  Grace shook her head, baffled by Lola’s cheeriness. And cluelessness. “The best what? The best way to kill me? The best revenge for every evil thing I’ve ever done to you? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Laughing, Lola stood and retrieved the coffee carafe, topping their mugs. She moved about casually, as though they were merely sipping morning java while sharing the Dear Abby column. Situation normal—not!

  “Oh, come on. You said yourself you were dreading the media follow-up for the anniversary of the crash. I just gave them something a little more uplifting to focus on. Would you rather they dwell on all the pain and loss, or on this?”

  “I would rather not be involved at all. And this is called a lie.” Grace shoved the paper aside and lurched to her feet. Holy Hell. She’d have to flee the state. So much for her goal of restarting her teaching career with an impeccable reputation. A new identity might be in order. Was there a witness protection–type program for people who’d experienced public humiliation at the hands of their well-meaning but riotously deluded siblings? Surely Grace would qualify.

  Hell, she could be the poster girl.

  She jammed spread fingers into her hair and paced the length of the kitchen, her focus, for once, off her pronounced limp. Every time she passed the newsprint-covered table, she glanced down on the article, feeling sicker with each glimpse.

  One year ago today, her life had been ripped apart by an out-of-control semi. Today, her nearly repieced life had been shredded again by an out-of-control, matchmaking sister. She didn’t know which was worse.

  “Whatever possessed you to do such an idiotic thing? I mean, do we even dangle toes in the same gene pool?” Grace understood that her twenty-four-year-old sister saw everything through a romantic filter, but still. Lola was allegedly a grown-up, half owner of a thriving salon and day spa. She couldn’t possibly have believed Grace would be happy about this.

  In direct opposition to Grace’s inner turmoil, Lola looked positively thrilled. Her sappy smile never faded. Clearly, selling this fabricated tale of unrequited love to the newshounds had seemed like a good thing in the rose-colored world of Lola. And as if the “seeking soul mate” rubbish wasn’t horrid enough, Lo had shared tales of Grace’s bartending past and fed the reporter some copy-worthy shit about how Grace had paid her way through college hoping to escape “the racy night life.”

  It made her sound like a reformed hooker, for God’s sake.

  She was no angel, but—

  “I was doing you a favor. This is for you.”

  Grace spun, a murderous gaze trained on her sister.

  Lola’s smile dimmed from 200 to 75 watts. She flicked a glance at the door, as though weighing her odds of escape should flight become necessary. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “I honestly think I’m going to have to kill you,” Grace said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m racking my brain for alternatives, but none are coming to mind.”

  “Cut it out.” Lola rolled her eyes. “It’s not the end of the world. Besides, this is a good thing.”

  Grace barked a short, humorless laugh. “In what possible way is this good?”

  “You’ve been moping around like a lovesick puppy since the accident,” Lola said, as if it cleared up everything. “I thought you’d be thrilled to reunite with this woman.”

  Was Lola high? Delusional? Psychotic? “I haven’t been moping or lovesick, dumbass. I’ve been recuperating.” Grace gestured toward her scarred leg. She’d been damn lucky to escape the twenty-seven-vehicle accident with nothing more than a totaled car, a comminuted fracture of her right femur, a crushed patella, and a disrupted life. Five people had actually died on the highway that evening, including a seventeen-year-old girl also named Grace, a coincidence that never failed to shake her. She’d been mending, not moping. Sheesh! “But that’s not even the point. What does my emotional state have to do with you selling my ass out to the media? And why now?”

  Lola began to tick off reasons on her fingers. “Well, physically, you’ve gotten so much better, but you still seem depressed—that’s one. Right now is perfect timing, with the anniversary coming up—number two.”

  “I just started back at school!”

  “I know. But I think you need closure on this, Grace. We’ll call that reason number three.”

  “Thank you Dr. F-ing Laura,” Grace snapped.

  “Look, you tried to find out who the woman was earlier in the year. What’s the difference this time?”

  “The difference is, I merely wanted to thank her for what she did that night. For her kindness. You’ve turned it into some kind of dating game. And, incidentally, if I’ve been down—which I still deny—it is because my life has been on hold for a year,” Grace interjected, her tone grudging. She hated being forced into the position of defending her hermit lifestyle of late. “I suppose you think I should be gleeful about that?”

  “Well, no—”

  “My so-called mopey attitude has nothing to do with some woman.” Grace’s mind began to catalog all the hurdles she needed to jump now that she’d ticked “walking” off her To-Be-Relearned list. “I’m worried about my career. I have a lot to prove to the school now that I’ve got my job back. I’d like to be tenured some day, and—”

  “Yadda yadda. You are the one who gave me the impression you were into this Samaritan woman.” Lola twirled her gold pinky ring, the tiny scissors and blow dryer charms that dangled from it tinkling.

  “When?” Grace demanded. She didn’t recall giving any such impression.

  “That first night in the hospital, the night of the accident.”

  Grace barely remembered that night. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Why would I be kidding? You gushed about her. Ask DoDo if you don’t believe me. You said her voice sounded like whiskey, and that one look at her made a woman fantasize about hot, urgent hands and red satin sheets.”

  The sexy image washed over Grace like a tidal wave of wet pheromones, but she shoved it away. “Dude! I was whacked on morphine! Besides—”

  “So you don’t want to find her? You no longer want to thank her for helping you? The statute of limitations on gratitude has expired?” Lola asked, leveling Grace with a stare.

  Grace sputtered, feeling flustered and trapped. “No! I mean, sure, I’d like to thank her, b-but that’s not what you set up with your stupid little newspaper ploy. Wanting to thank her has nothing whatsoever to do with her being my”—Grace leaned over the paper and read—“‘Samaritan Soul Mate,’ God for-fucking-bid. That very phrase makes me barf in my mouth. Or because of some drug-induced comments about hot, urgent hands and red—” Grace’s tummy tightened. She flailed an arm at Lola and strode toward the cupboard for a water glass. Her parched throat shook with panic. She jammed the glass beneath the faucet. “For God’s sake, I barely remember what the woman looks like.”

  A skeptical sort of silence yawned in the room.

  “Reeeally?” Lola drawled.

  Okay, so not reeeeally. Scarcely a day had gone by when Grace hadn’t flashed on an image of the unbelievably gorgeous woman who’d helped her that night.

  But big deal.

  The stranger had comforted her during a traumatic crisis. That didn’t mean Grace wanted to spend the rest of her life with the chick. Why couldn’t Lola grasp that?

  Grace guzzled her water, then set the glass on the counter with a clunk and nailed her sister with a glare. “Here is the bottom line. I don’t know her. I don’t even know her name. Thanks to what you’ve cooked up, I don’t want to know her. I will show my gratitude by praying for her health and happiness every night for the rest of my natural born life, okay? You can deal with the newspaper fiasco. Tell them you made a mistake and I’m not interested.”

  “That might be a little hard.” Lola blurted a nervous heh-heh-heh chuckle.

  “Why?”

  “Because I sort of…pretended to be you when I gave them the story.” She bit her lip and cr
inkled her nose.

  Grace sank into a chair and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw stars. The whole thing was a nightmare, but try as she might, she couldn’t wake herself up. “I can’t believe you’ve ruined my life like this.”

  “It’s not as bad as you think. Look at it as an opportunity to put the past behind you.”

  Without lifting her face, Grace mumbled, “Yeah, with a woman you just convinced that I’m a woman hunter.”

  “Don’t be so…annoyingly youish.” Lola tapped out a slow, smug rhythm on the table top with her nails. “Aren’t you even curious?”

  Okay.

  Fine.

  She was curious.

  She didn’t dare admit that to her meddling sister, who’d take it completely out of context and start planning the goddamn commitment ceremony in Ptown. Besides, the point was moot. Grace could never face her mysterious savior now, not after that contemptible article made her look like a woman-crazy, daytime-talk-show-guest-wannabe. Hell, Grace had read the articles. Whoever the woman was, she’d think Grace was in some sort of misguided love with her.

  Ugh! She slumped lower, until the back of her chair supported the bottom of her skull. It was all too tiring. “Lo, you are a whore. And if I had the energy, I’d definitely kill you. You get a reprieve because I’m just too damn exhausted by it all.”

  Lola’s voice took on a breathy quality. She tossed her perfectly coiffed hair like an Aveda model, then reached across the table and covered Grace’s hand with her own. “Don’t be mad.” Exasperation wrinkled her brow. “You crossed paths with that hot woman for a reason. Don’t you want to find out why?”

  “I can tell you why.” Grace snapped her fingers in Lola’s face twice. “And pay attention, because I’m not going to repeat it. I crashed my damn car, in epic form, and she stopped to help. Period. Simple freaking concept!”

  “Don’t be so pragmatic.”

  “Don’t be so unrealistic!” Grace released a long groan of disgust. “You should lay off the telenovelas for a while, sis. They’re poisoning your brain.”

  “So you say.”

  Grace stood up and leaned across the table until her face was level with Lola’s, then gripped her sister’s chin. “Read my lips. The last thing I want or need in my life right now is a woman. Especially that woman.”

  The phone rang. Grace indulged in one final tweak of her little sister’s annoyingly perfect chin before crossing to the counter and snapping the receiver up off the charger. “Hello?”

  “Grace Obregon?” the scratchy, older male voice inquired. His words sounded as if they’d been spoken as an afterthought, around a cigarette clamped between his molars.

  Grace tucked the phone between ear and shoulder and crossed her arms, feeling surly. “Who’s asking?”

  A pause. “It’s Harold LePoulet with the Denver Post. We, uh, have a little problem with your search for this Samaritan Soul Mate woman, doll.”

  Doll. Grace bit back a giant fuck off. The last thing she needed this morning was some sexist wordmonger plying her with kissy-kiss names. “A little problem, eh? So take a number and get in line, sweet cheeks. I have a ‘little problem’ with it myself.”

  For another shock-riddled moment, he didn’t speak. When he did, his clipped, clear tone told Grace he’d plucked the omnipresent cigarette from his mouth and leaned toward the telephone for emphasis. “Well, your little problem just morphed into a big one, muffin, which is why I’m taking the time out of my busy day to call you. You wanna not bite my head off for doin’ you a favor?”

  “A favor?” Grace scoffed.

  “You’re the one who dumped this fluff story in my lap, if you’ll recall,” he said, his tone incredulous. “And you were a lot more enthusiastic during that phone call, if I can just point that out.”

  “But I—” Grace bit her lip, wanting to deny it, but not relishing the thought of explaining Lola’s rash impersonation. Wasn’t it against the law to lie to the newspaper or something? She listened to the clacking of this Harold’s computer keys and ringing phones in the background and started to feel guilty for taking her hostilities out on the man. He was just doing his contemptible job, after all. This fiasco was Lola’s fault, not his.

  “Sorry,” she offered grudgingly. “I’m having a bad day.”

  “Which brings us back to the matter at hand.”

  Grace gulped, and a sense of foreboding washed over her skin in the form of some pretty radical goose bumps. Had her life been an actual horror flick, instead of merely horrific, right now would be the perfect time for the scary music to commence. She hugged her free arm around her middle and took a slow, deep breath. “The matter at hand, meaning what?”

  “Meaning it’s only ten a.m., and we’ve already had a hundred and forty-three alleged Samaritans call up claiming to be your girl, honeybunch. You’re gonna have to provide me with some kind of clue to narrow it down.”

  *

  “Hey, Ms. Pac-Man,” came the voice of Madeira’s new partner, paramedic Simon Fletcher, from behind the newspaper. Simon had kicked back to read while Madeira scrubbed out their ambulance—a rookie’s lot—after a shooting pick-up they’d handled earlier in the shift. Madeira didn’t mind doing the grunt work. She wanted to earn her way in this career field.

  “Yeah?” Madeira called back, without getting out of the rig. She’d barely finished her last EMT clinical last week, and every run felt brand new. She didn’t want to be out of service any longer than necessary or they’d risk missing a good trauma. The more exposure Madeira had, the sooner she could apply for P-school—paramedic training—her ultimate goal. Paramedicine wasn’t a lucrative profession by any means, but at least it helped her feel like she was making a difference.

  Madeira slopped hydrogen peroxide liberally onto the floor, wiping up the blood with disposable towels. Simon still hadn’t replied. Thinking he hadn’t heard her, Madeira raised her voice. “What do you need, Fletch?”

  “Didn’t you say you stopped to assist on that huge pile-up that happened a year ago on I-25?”

  Madeira’s motions stilled, and that familiar grip of sorrow seized her. She hadn’t expected that question. She fought to shake the lancing regret, as she’d done so many times over the past year, then took a seat on the side bench and peeled the rubber gloves from her hands slowly, one finger at a time. After discarding them and the soiled towels in a red plastic box marked “DANGER: BIOHAZARD,” she smoothed shaky fingers through her hair and concentrated on keeping cool.

  No sense worrying about a past she couldn’t change. Taking one deep breath, she moved to the back of the rig and glanced around the open door. All she could see of the lanky, redheaded man was the bottom of his size-thirteen Rocky boots, propped one atop the other on the table, and his fingertips curled around the edges of the open newspaper. “Yeah. Why?”

  “What happened with that?” Simon asked.

  “Happened? Nothing. What do you mean?” Madeira rolled her stiff shoulders. Their shooting victim had been a good 280 pounds. Add to that the weight of the stretcher, longboard, portable EKG, other equipment, and the fact that people always seemed to have medical emergencies on the top floors of buildings—Murphy’s Law—and it added up to one heck of a strength workout. She hadn’t noticed the muscle tension until now.

  “I mean you told me one of the reasons you decided to become a medic was because of some accident victim you helped. Was this the accident?” Simon flicked down one corner of the paper and pierced Madeira with his gaze, then snapped it open again, veiling his far too perceptive face.

  Helped? Not quite. Madeira wished she’d had the foresight to keep her mouth shut about her reasons for pursuing emergency medicine. No one knew all the reasons behind her career change decision, but back when she’d discussed it with Simon, it had been small talk—nothing more.

  These questions threw that conversation into a whole new light.

  Now Madeira had to work her way around a truth she didn
’t relish sharing.

  She cleared her throat. “Well…I failed to help her, if that’s what you mean. She ended up dying.”

  The paper flattened on Simon’s lap with a swift crumpling sound. His thin face slimmed even further as his jaw dropped. “She died? While you were there?”

  Madeira forced what she hoped was a mild it’s all good smile past her clenched jaw. The whole situation made her feel worthless and swamped with if onlys.

  “No,” she said, a bit hesitantly. “She…the woman…had asked me to look for…something that she’d lost when her vehicle rolled. But then she lost consciousness.” Madeira flicked her hand dismissively. “Look, I should really finish cleaning the rig. This is a long story.” A story that tore her up inside.

  “That can wait. I’m all ears,” Simon said.

  Reluctantly, Madeira quickly explained how she’d gone to return the item—which remained unnamed—but had been prevented from doing so because the firefighters were busy with extrication. “When I called the PD a few days later,” Madeira explained, “hoping to find her and return her…property, they told me she’d died en route to the hospital. End of story.” Madeira turned and took refuge inside the ambulance, knowing she couldn’t school the emotion off her face and not wanting Simon to catch it.

  Her stomach churned.

  Her hands shook.

  Ah, God, Gracie.

  Simon remained silent for a minute, and Madeira began replenishing the in-house bag with airway supplies and trauma dressings, hoping the man had exhausted his list of questions. Madeira had opened the drug box and checked its contents before Simon spoke again.

  “So you never got to return whatever it was she sent you looking for?”

  Salt in the wound. “Nope. Too late.”

  Too little, too late. She’d held on to that bedraggled teddy bear ever since, a poignant reminder. Every time she looked at the sad, homeless thing, it strengthened her resolve to become a paramedic, to give back to the world what she hadn’t been able to give to Gracie. If Madeira had known how to help that night, Gracie might have lived. Madeira would have been able to return the bear and go on with her life. Instead, that bear, and a woman Madeira had known for one blip of a moment, had changed…everything.