“You left me,” I complained, realizing that it sounded like an accusation, I wanted the ground to open up beneath my bed and swallow me. Why can’t I be like the sophisticated girls he knows? I’ll bet they take situations like this in stride. They must be experts on how to hold a man’s attention. Today, any girl can do that because there are no limitations.
The truth is that this was the first time I was interested in such things—dating a boy, flirting...blah, blah, blah! I had never had a fulminating attraction for someone. Apprehensive about the possible—and probable—rejection by him, I waited for his reaction.
Suddenly, Adrian gave me a broad smile and his eyes lit up behind the shaded lenses. For the first time since he’d approached my bed, he seemed genuinely relaxed, as if he found my idiotic statement delightful. Of course, I could not have been more obvious about my interest in him. Male egos...men are all alike.
“Yes, I was out. I’m a busy resident, Melissa Baker. I’m sure you know that medicine is not easy,” he answered casually.
I noticed that the other doctors had moved away and were intently inspecting some documents. Thank God!
“That’s really not fair,” I said, looking at him askance. Wow! I’d never behaved like this before. Was it the after effects of medication? I really was flirting with him, wasn’t I?
There it is again...that arrogant smile. Male egos. Humpf!
I had the impression that Adrian’s eyes had narrowed slightly while he scrutinized me, probably like he does the cadavers in his anatomy classes. I felt exactly like those dead people feel in front of all of the academics—naked!
“What exactly do you mean?” he asked me.
“Melissa Baker,” I said, trying to imitate how he usually said my name. Despite my poor imitation, he understood and laughed heartily.
The others looked at us as if they’d never heard him laugh before. They were visibly surprised.
“Adrian Cahill,” he introduced himself. His lips curved in a half smile. He tried not make fun of me when he pointed to his identification tag.
Ah...the name tag. How stupid I am! I could not look at something else when his gorgeous face was in front of me. Liar! You always look at his wonderful body too! I was uncomfortable with the direction my thoughts were taking.
“Of course, that is it, your name tag. Wow! Sure...I guess I’ve been preoccupied lately,” I said aloud, justifying my omission to myself more than to him.
He turned serious again. My comment should have made him remember why they sedated me. “Did the malaise begin when you found your suitcase?”
I sighed before answering. I’d been doing that a lot lately. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll ask to Bernice take it away immediately.”
“No, please!” I grabbed his hand.
An electrical surge made my fingertips tingle. I could have sworn that his hand trembled too. My eyes focused on the point where our hands touched and then moved up to meet his eyes. His had followed the same trajectory. We could not have synchronized our movements any better if we’d been following a script. The director can yell “Cut!” any time.
I was the first to break eye contact. I looked around, trying to remember what we’d been talking about. What was it? Ah, yes...my suitcase. “Where is it?”
Adrian pointed with his chin. “Inside the closet.”
“Leave it. I want to see what’s inside. I heard Dr. Barringer say that I must face my fears. If it can help me remember, I’m willing to try.”
“But not now!” Adrian objected, his voice rising a decibel. It surprised me because he’d never displayed any temper before—at least not that I’d witnessed.
“Obviously, you will not do so alone.” His tone of voice told me that no further discussion would be allowed. Hmm... Adrian Cahill was proving to be very bossy for a mere resident physician. Imagine what he’ll be like when he becomes the chief physician or surgeon...he’ll be a tyrant!
I looked to the psychiatrist for his reaction. He understood and nodded. Adrian followed our exchange of glances with obvious annoyance. His face became expressionless—a mask carved in marble. Whatever he was thinking, it was impossible to discern.
It was with regret that I observed our spontaneity disappear. Adrian moved away a little, but continued staring me with inscrutable eyes. Intuition told me, “Be prudent.” After all, I was dealing with a considerate, handsome, sophisticated, and very proud man.
“Dr. Cahill is absolutely right,” Dr. Barringer said, his glance at Adrian a mixture of irony and warning. “Maybe later, with a nurse present, you can open your suitcase, but only after you have recovered, okay?”
“But I’m dying to see what’s inside of it,” I argued, looking at the clothes that Bernice had acquired for me—a loan from the hospital’s donations staff who would be taking them to a shelter in Saint Paul, a nearby town in Celtic County, much like Hadrian’s Wall. Bernice had done me a big favor because she knew I didn’t want to be seen walking through the wards wearing one of the hospital’s gray, standard issue gowns. If I could have my own clothes, I’d no longer have to wear borrowed things.
The donated clothes had been folded and placed on the chair next to where Adrian was standing. When I drew his attention to them, he quickly turned to look at me. I could tell that he was upset. I think it was the first time he’d really paid attention to me, which was good...and bad! Bad because at that moment I was wearing the goddamn hospital gown, which meant that before our conversation, it had made no difference to him what I was wearing; but, now that we had talked, it was good because...well...there was nothing good about it—unless Adrian was the type who really didn’t notice what people were wearing. Given the look on his face, I figured that to him I looked like a sack of potatoes in a burlap bag. Suddenly, I was angry. The borrowed clothes were not so bad that he should seem shocked and contrary.
“You should be feeling uncomfortable because you have been wearing clothes inappropriate for your size,” he said. His pained, concerned voice disarmed me.
“I’m not. It’s alright. I just like to wear different things from time to time, maybe wash them once in awhile,” I joked. “Nurse Bernice has been very kind to me.”
“She really deserves our thanks,” he agreed, sounding a little distracted, as if he’d missed something important he should not have missed.
I yawned involuntarily. Adrian smiled and stroked my hair. “Nap time.”
My face fell. “Are you leaving me again?”
“I’ll be back,” he said, giving me a small smile. He was in good humor again. That’s good.
Adrian walked towards the door; however, to say “walked” was a poor definition to describe the way he moved. I heaved another sigh. To me he was the living embodiment of an Apollo statue...No, no, no! He looked more like the version of the bronze statue of the god Helios. I’d seen a computer-generated animation on a history program that I’d watched on television. That statue had come to life before my eyes.
It was inevitable that I would compare the “three lab coats.” Adrian is the tallest, although the other two could not even remotely be classified as short. Adrian is highlighted by his magnetic aura. I’m not sure how to define him, but there’s something about him that makes it impossible to ignore his presence wherever he goes. He is one of those rare personalities who changes the environment wherever they happen to be.
Dr. Talbot and Dr. Barringer turned and followed Adrian out the door. Wait a minute! Something’s wrong with this picture. Think, Melissa. The physicians are walking behind the resident physician. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
I needed to revise my impressions about the weird things that I had seen so far—or thought I’d seen in the Caledonia General Hospital. Maybe all were the product of my over-active imagination. At any moment, I could wake up and realize that I still was lying in my old bed inside the orphanage in Dailey’s Crossing.
Adrian Cahill doesn’t exist. No, really...
*
* *
When I opened my eyes again, the afternoon was almost over. I looked at the clock and realized that I had “blacked out” for about five hours. I got up slowly and walked to the huge window. The curtains were partially drawn, so I opened them, bathing the room in the warm, gold and orange light of the setting sun.
The sun was like a fireball, resting on the horizon of Bluewater Lake, whose gentle waves glowed brightly as the sun’s last rays passed over them before disappearing. From my window I could see part of the park and the harbor surrounding a magnificent building. It was very similar to the picture of a Spanish monastery that I saw in a magazine a long time ago. Bernice told me that it was The Bluewater Club—a social club attended by the local elite.
I heard a knock at the door before a girl entered, loaded down with bags. She blew through the door like a typhoon.
“Whew! What a hassle!” she said, unceremoniously dumping her bags on the bed, then turned to me, out of breath.
For a moment I was stunned. I looked at the bags and then at her, trying to understand what it all meant. I had only enough time to realize that the beautiful, very blonde, very made up young woman seemed a little nervous.
“You must be Melissa,” she said, extending her hand to me, but then she withdrew it before I could greet her. She wore a lot of bracelets that jingled with her incessant gesticulations. “I’m Charity Cahill. Someone told me that there was a girl in trouble here, so Voila! Here I am, your savior!
Cahill? She did not even remotely resemble Adrian. If he was the kind of serious, intense male, then this girl was a ditsy porcelain doll with a delicate, romantic face. He was modern, discreet, and unpretentious, while she was quite the opposite with her retro style, characterized by ruffles, bows, and glitter. If he was controlled and restrained, she was impulsive and bumbling—water versus wine...night versus day. Aerodynamics versus Baroque. Eagle versus peacock. Congratulations, girl! This time, you have excelled in metaphors.
The only thing Adrian and Charity had in common was their skin, which was the color of ivory, but that wasn’t enough to establish any kinship. Dr. Talbott and Dr. Barringer were pale, but of course, there were other visible differences: Adrian’s hair was black with bluish reflections when the light shone on him. Charity’s hair was platinum blonde—cut in a Veronica Lake style. Well, that didn’t mean anything. One of them, maybe both of them dyed their hair, but Adrian didn’t strike me as the metro-sexual type—the kind of guy who’s concerned with aesthetics and everything else. I don’t think he dyed his hair. I don’t think doctors have much spare time for such things. Moreover, nobody could be as naturally blonde as Charity. Considering all that—and that everything seemed to be making my head swim, I doubted that they were related.
But if she wasn’t Adrian’s sister, she could only be...his wife! My heart missed a beat and then accelerated. Had I missed something? How could I have failed to notice a wedding ring? I should have paid more attention! Charity was probably here to let me know that my inappropriate flirtation with her husband had not gone unnoticed. My God!
“My friends and my cousin Adrian call me ‘CC.’”
Cousin. That word had never seemed so...fascinating. Cousin. So he wasn’t married—or was he? To have a cousin doesn’t mean there is no Mrs. Cahill, nor does it prevent the existence of girlfriends.
“You can call me ‘CC’ too, if you like,” she said, nonchalantly opening the bags. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll become good friends.”
I took a half second to process what she’d said.
“I don’t know if I’ll be here long enough to make friends,” I replied in the same irreverent way.
The way she was talking about “being friends” seemed frivolous to me. Even if it was normal and everyone acted this way, the fact is that I always doubted the emotional ties between people—friends, husbands and wives, lovers, children and parents, colleagues...whatever it was. I believed in genuine and disinterested feelings from people as much as I believed in Santa Claus and I despised the inconsequential way that most people dealt with this subject—swearing eternal loyalty one time, but turning away at the slightest sign of trouble. Besides, her manner did not convince me, nor was it was obvious to me that Charity was here out of obligation.
She dramatically tilted her head to the side while she reflected on my answer.
“Where do you intend to go?” she asked in a jocular manner. “Hadrian’s Wall may be a small town, but it’s a nice place to live. Appearances can be deceiving, though, so you’ll just have to decide for yourself.”
I tried to say, or rather, Charity says that the town is a nice place to live, but she specifies the strengths of the town in an ironic way. Because she thinks that people from out of town will appreciate these things. Of course, she turns these aspects into trivial things, knowing that Melissa will take a tremendous shock when she see how majestic the town is. These reasons make her leave things between the lines. She paused for effect, while sitting on the edge of my bed. “People care about each other here.”
I suddenly had some idea how wrong I was about Adrian Cahill. Not only was he well situated with regard to his life’s work, he was absurdly rich!
* * *
There I was, sitting in the dark, musing on the curious “late afternoon” I’d spent in company of Charity Cahill, a weird, but fascinating girl. She seemed fragile, glamorous, but at the same time...something I cannot explain—she was decidedly casual and spontaneous—a walking contradiction. In Hadrian’s Wall, nothing and no one was at it seemed.
I looked at the piles of clothes she’d brought me, some carefully folded in piles on the coffee table, while other items were already stored in the closet, to be tried on the next day. Never had I seen so many designer clothes at once. They fit me perfectly, as if she had taken my measurements before choosing them.
I was not the type of person who could accept gifts like these. I wanted to work for my own clothes, the roof over my head, and the food on my table. I wasn’t an invalid or poor so that I would become the target of pity for the rich and beautiful people of the town. I already felt sufficiently constrained by the VIP treatment that I was receiving in the Caledonia Hospital. I often asked myself, ‘Why do they want to take care of me—a stranger who can’t pay for their services?’ Curiosity burned me like a hot iron. Despite my probing inquiries, both Bernice and Charity were unwilling to enlighten me as to the reasons.
When I told Adrian about the clothes that Bernice had given to me, I never imagined that he would send me a truckload of skirts, pants, shorts, blouses, shirts, dresses, shoes...and it was no use to try to reject them. Charity almost had a heart attack when I refused to accept them. She said that she’d be offended if I did, especially after she’d taken the initiative to get her name in the “little book of good deeds” is how she put it—as if the fact of distributing new clothes was a fun or commonplace thing.
In the end, Charity stated that I should take pity on her and accept everything without complaint, otherwise her cousin would be upset. What a drama queen! In the end, she finally got her way. Now, here I am, sitting on the bed that not long before had housed a jumble of colorful garments. Of course, I would use very few of them. Chic clothes, with brilliant, intricate details were simply not my style, so I separated the less tawdry items and kept the more demure—but the shoes were still a distinct issue.
I sighed, turning my head to look out the window. The full moon bathed my bedroom in silvery light, making it unnecessary to turn on the light. After a few minutes of distraction, I looked at the door of small closet where my old suitcase was kept. I decided that I could not wait to open it. I had to do it now and for some reason, I needed to do it alone, without the intrusion of witnesses.
Forgetting Charity and her troublesome shoes for the moment, I got out of bed and walked slowly to the closet. I leaned forward with caution because of the brace and started to pull the suitcase out. I still felt occasional twinges in my ribs, but the bandage
that pressed my chest was no longer bothering me as much. The case was very heavy. Wow! I carried this through two states?
I set it on the coffee table with a thud, knocking the clothes that Charity had given me onto the floor. I felt another twinge in my ribs, stronger this time. Adrian will kill me if something happens to my damaged ribs. Well, I can’t worry about that anymore...what’s done is done.
I turned on the lamp and took a deep breath. It’s here—the moment of truth! I wanted to prepare myself, but try as I might to concentrate on breathing slowly, my heart was racing. Well, I can’t wait indefinitely. On the other hand, I wasn’t feeling a crisis coming on, so perhaps it was better to end it for good.
It was better to end the suspense once and for all. I pulled the zipper. The opening gave way slowly. The plaid was so worn that it seemed more gray than blue. I folded the sides back as best I could, hoping to prevent the decals of my childhood from reactivating the symptoms that Dr. Talbot had classified as psychosomatic. Greek again. Amen!
Clothes and books were first things that I saw. They were carefully folded and stacked to make the most of space. The clothes were practical—a pair of jeans, frayed at the hem, tracksuit pants, three shirts in basic colors, a pair of black shoes with a hole in the right sole, two pairs of cotton panties, and a bra. Wow, I traveled with very little clothing. Where was my faded winter coat and my brown sweater? How would I endure the harsh winters of New England without them?
I was disappointed. I kept digging through my meager belongings, hoping to find something that let me fill the gap between New Hampshire and Maine. It seemed ironical to me that both states were neighbors, yet in my mind it seemed that the distance between them was the same as that between the United States and Africa.
As for my books, there were not many. Although used, they were in good condition. I’d brought some of my favorite novels and my drawing book. Had I left my other books at the orphanage?
Beside them, I found some small envelopes containing some memories—teen magazine clippings, postcards that I saved because of the landscape photos, and my dear keychain with little dolls that I loved! Miniatures. They were all there—the panda bear, a Chinese girl, the Maltese dog, the dancing pig, the three huskies on sled, the golden retriever wearing sunglasses, the puffy lion, the squinty-eyed rabbit, the miniature of the old barn from Dailey’s Crossing—a reminder of my “fortress of solitude.”
Hadrian's Wall Page 4