He stacked the food containers in piles and shoved them in the fridge, pulled out a beer, flipped off its cap and trudged to the sofa before taking a long draw from the bottle. The flicker of a familiar emotion showed its spark – an emotion he knew how to handle, an emotion he would welcome. He allowed the embers of anger to kindle into a bonfire and reveled in its soothing warmth.
Chapter 14
The best fare the hospital cafeteria had to offer was the fried chicken prepared Southern Style, which simply meant it was crisped to greasy perfection in some form of animal-derived saturated fat which was kept secret more to protect the diner from the burden of its knowledge than to guard against the misappropriation of the recipe. The only reason the entrée hadn’t been scrapped from the menu years ago when the Cafeteria underwent the obligatory Healthy Choices reform was that the item was undeniably delicious. It was rumored that Dr. Harlan Fisk himself (the maverick Chief of Surgery) petitioned to save the bird, which, if true, would have been the only purely altruistic act which could be directly attributed to him since his transfer from Texas.
Lloyd ordered a plate of the Southern Style with all the fixings, which included a side of soggy collard greens and fresh-out-of-the-can corn. At twelve-thirty, the cafeteria bustled with its peak crowd and Lloyd found himself ambling around the dining area, tray in hand, unable to find a vacant table. Sharing a table with a relative stranger presented a high likelihood of having to engage in a dull, inane and all-around annoying conversation where he would be expected to be polite.
Half-way down the dining hall he spied Erin, her side to him, sitting across from Nick De Luca, who was all smiles. He pretended not to notice them and kept walking towards the back of the room when De Luca started waving at him, first with one hand, then with both arms over his head. Lloyd ignored him until De Luca rose to his feet and called out, “Dr. Copeland! Right here!”
Lloyd turned to face him and tried to act surprised. He shuffled to the table where De Luca had pulled out a chair and was wiping crumbs off it with a paper napkin.
“Well hello, Doctor,” De Luca said. “I saw you standing in the cash register line and I thought, ‘now surely he’ll see us’. I mean, we were straight in your line of sight. But I guess you were thinking those big thoughts of yours.”
“How’s that?”
“You know. Your big thoughts. Dr. Kennedy tells me you’re doing some pretty high brow research.” De Luca waited for Lloyd to sit before taking his own seat.
“Hi, Lloyd,” Erin said.
“Hey,” Lloyd said, keeping his eyes on his plate. He could feel her gaze probing him but forced himself not to look at her.
“Well, won’t you look at the time?” De Luca said pulling up the sleeve of his jacket to expose his wrist watch. “I better get going.” He stood, pushed in his chair and lifted his tray with a half-eaten sandwich still on the plate. “Doctors, it’s been a real pleasure.”
“Good-bye, Nick,” Erin said.
Lloyd glanced up at him and nodded. He quickly returned his attention to his food and sliced into the chicken breast with knife and fork. He took a large bite as De Luca left the table and kept his eyes on his plate as he chewed. He cut off another piece and put it in his mouth.
“Is something the matter, Lloyd?”
Lloyd continued chewing. After swallowing the mouthful he looked up and said, “Goodbye Nick? I didn’t realize the two of you were so close.”
Erin pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you serious?”
“I’m just saying. You guys sure looked like you were having a good time.”
“Lloyd Copeland, are you jealous?”
“Jealous? Of what?” Lloyd said with a forced chuckle.
“Precisely,” Erin said. “Besides, he’s married.”
“How did that subject come up? Did you ask him?”
“That was one of the first things he told me the first time I met him. He couldn’t wait to show me pictures of his wife and kids,” she said in an exasperated voice.
“It doesn’t really matter to me. You don’t have to explain anything,” Lloyd said.
“I know I don’t. It’s just that you… you’re simply unbelievable. You’re just a petulant little boy.” She laughed.
“I’m not that boy on North Mason anymore. Don’t you get it?”
“Why do you –”
“Cause if you’re trying to track him down, if you’re trying to find him inside me, you won’t. He’s gone.” Lloyd scooped a forkful of collard greens in his mouth.
“Does this have anything to do with last night?” she asked. She wrapped her fingers around a polystyrene cup of soda.
Lloyd cut off another strip of chicken and stuffed it in his mouth.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Erin said. “You’re upset I stood you up.”
“Now you’re going to quote your psychology professor boyfriend again.”
Erin smiled. “Boy, you really are jealous. I’m kind of flattered.”
A medical student with a boy-band haircut, looking awkward in his short lab coat, approached the table, lunch tray in hand. Lloyd saw how he was ogling Erin, pretending to look around the dining room for an empty seat. Perhaps emboldened by the fact that Lloyd and Erin were sitting diagonally from each other, he gathered the nerve to stop at their table.
“Is this seat taken?” he asked Erin.
Erin, who was sipping from a straw, looked up and shook her head.
The medical student smiled, placed his tray on the table and started pulling the chair out when Lloyd kicked it back in.
“It’s taken,” Lloyd said.
“But she said –”
“It’s taken”
The student nodded at the other empty seat and asked, “How about that one?”
Lloyd looked up at the student. “What’s your name, buddy?”
“Piazza. Steve Piazza,” the student said.
“Are you a medical student, Steve Piazza?”
“Yeah.”
“Well this table is reserved for attendings,” Lloyd said. The student stood there impishly. “So get lost.” Steve Piazza blushed and walked away.
“Now was that really necessary?” Erin said. “I mean, the poor guy.”
“Poor guy! He was checking you out from across the dining hall.”
“I thought you weren’t jealous.” Lloyd shoveled a forkful of collard greens in his mouth. Erin twirled the straw between her fingers and said, “He was kind of cute. Steve Piazza. I wonder if he’s going to be in one of the seminars I’m teaching.”
Lloyd set his fork down, took a pen from the breast pocket of his white coat and began writing on a napkin with flowing calligraphy. “Steeeve Piaaazzaa.” He dotted the “i” and underlined the name twice.
“What are you doing?”
“I have a feeling Mr. Piazza is going to fail Neurology.” By now Lloyd could no longer suppress a smile.
“You’re so terrible!” Erin reached across the table and gave Lloyd a gentle smack on the hand. “So you admit you’re jealous.”
“Mmm.” Why was it that every time he tried to create some distance between them she managed to disarm him and make him want her even more? This was not good. Not good at all. He took another big bite of chicken, skin and all.
“You know what that stuff does to your coronaries?” Erin asked.
“Yeah. I’m a doctor, remember?”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
Lloyd shrugged. “I’ll probably bash my brains in riding my bike before I have my first M.I.”
“Great answer. Very mature. You’re doing everything you can to die young. Another rebel without a brain.”
Lloyd wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and looked at Erin. “Let me say this just once. Maybe… I don’t want to grow old. Maybe I have my reasons for living my life the way I do. So don’t take it personally if…”
“If what?”
“Never mind.” Lloyd crumpled his napkin and tossed it
on his plate.
“If what?”
If I hurt you. If I punish you just to keep you away, he thought. “I have to get back to my office and try to salvage what’s left of my research.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “The drama!” She laughed but stopped when she saw Lloyd’s stern expression.
“This research isn’t just my livelihood. It’s my life. It matters much more to me than the state of my coronaries or whether I wear a helmet when I ride my bike,” Lloyd said. “But I don’t expect you to understand that.”
“Look, I’m sorry about last night. I really am, and I want to make it up to you. What if I swing by your house this evening for dinner?”
“You don’t have to feel like you owe me anything, okay?”
“Do I have to pepper spray you again just to have dinner with you?”
“Look, I’m sort of busy tonight. I gotta go.”
Lloyd got to his feet and reached for his tray when Erin clasped his wrist. “The reason I was talking to Nick De Luca is that they caught the guy,” she said
“What guy?”
“The purse-snatcher. Okay? They arrested him last night.”
“Good. Now I won’t have to save you anymore.”
“No, Lloyd. You don’t have to save me.”
Lloyd felt a tightening in his chest and his legs suddenly felt heavy. But he needed to leave, before she could see him blushing.
“G’bye, Erin.”
“See you later, Lloyd.”
He plodded towards the closest exit feeling oddly self-conscious, as if he were walking to stand in a corner for misbehaving in class. He could taste that familiar sour savor of regret. But what choice did he have?
Chapter 15
That evening, lost in thought, Lloyd had forgotten about dinner and had managed to ignore the first quivering twinges of hunger, but when the doorbell rang unexpectedly his first reaction was relief that his take-out order had arrived. Except he hadn’t ordered any food. And as this realization sank in he was left with a sense of puzzlement.
He glanced at his wrist-watch as if it might hold a clue to the mystery of the door chime before rising to his feet and making his way down the stairs. He unlatched the dead bolt and pulled the front door open. There on the sidewalk stood Erin, a white paper sack dangling from her hand.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Lloyd echoed.
He could feel a wave of warmth spreading from his chest upwards to his face. He exhaled slowly, stepped into the doorway and stood with his feet apart, his arms crossed.
Erin’s smile became strained. “I felt so bad about standing you up last night that I thought I’d make it up to you.” She lifted the paper sack and gave it a shake. “Got us some crab-cake Po’boys.”
Lloyd said nothing.
Erin took a step towards him and said, “I hope you haven’t had dinner yet.”
“You can’t just show up here like this,” Lloyd said.
Erin froze. Her eyelids fluttered.
Lloyd allowed himself a sliver of smile. He had managed to stab her with a tiny dagger. Now he would twist it inside her. He turned his head to mimic a furtive glance inside the apartment, stepped onto the curb and shut the door behind him.
“Oh…” She looked at the closed door, her mouth open. “Oh,” she said again and took a half-step back. “Gosh, I’m so stupid,” she said.
Lloyd widened his stance and folded his arms again, his jaw muscles tightening.
She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. “How could I be so stupid?
Lloyd’s lips twitched with a smirk. He needed to push her away. That was how he always dealt with this type of situation. But whereas in the past this step had always been taken with an icy detachment, this time it was smoldering with feeling. He couldn’t deny a surreptitious pleasure in hurting her, the way she had hurt him.
Erin squeezed her lips together. A solitary tear trickled down her cheek and now Lloyd knew why he ached to lash out at her, why he had been feeling this inexplicable torment. How did you ever think you could avoid falling in love?
He unclasped his arms. He wanted to reach out and take back the words, to tell her how sorry he was, to embrace her, to shield her in his arms.
“Erin…”
“Shut up Lloyd.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Just shut up.” Now she was the one who widened her stance and tightened her jaw. Her lips stretched in an acerbic grin. She lifted up the paper sack and said, “Here Lloyd, enjoy your crab cakes.” She swung her arm around and caught Lloyd square in the temple with the sack which tore, spilling its contents on the sidewalk. “And I hope your skank gives you crabs too!”
She turned and paced towards her car.
Lloyd rubbed the side of his head, looked at his hand as if expecting blood, then sprinted after her.
“Erin, I’m sorry.”
“Leave me alone.”
He rounded the front of the car and pushed on the driver’s door as she grasped the handle.
“There’s no one inside the apartment.”
“I want to go home.”
“Come inside. You’ll see. There’s no one there.”
“I don’t care!” She turned her head side to side evading Lloyd’s attempts to make eye contact.
“I have no one, Erin. Do you hear me? I have no one.”
“Well, what a surprise!” She tried prying open the car door but Lloyd pushed it shut. “I want to go home, Lloyd.”
Lloyd kept his hand firmly planted on the car door. Erin released her grip on the handle and trotted onto the sidewalk before settling into a steady march. Lloyd caught up to her and fell in unison with her stride.
“What’re you doing?” he asked.
“I’m walking home,” she said, her eyes fixed straight ahead.
“Please don’t.”
“Watch me.”
“I said I was sorry.”
She said nothing as she kept her pace, and Lloyd could think of no words to get through to her. From the time he had silently pledged to end the Copeland family curse, to have it interred with him upon his death so that it could no longer destroy lives, he had no need for words to assuage the ire of spurned lovers. Letting them walk away was an act of kindness that would spare them the unspeakable pain suffered by generations of Copeland wives. How could anyone accuse him of taking advantage of women to satisfy his sexual cravings when in truth he was sparing them from a harrowing end?
But Erin was different. She made him feel a sensation that was not raw lust. A feeling that was exhilarating and piercingly painful on the same stroke.
They crossed a narrow side street and walked down a block of cookie-cutter townhomes. It started to sprinkle. The baritone of a thunder clap reverberated off in the distance.
“It’s starting to rain,” Lloyd said. “You’ll get all wet.”
“I don’t care.”
“Let’s go back to my place. There’s no one there.”
“I said I don’t care.”
The rain drops grew heavier lifting dust off the black-top as they pounded the ground, filling the air with a sour staleness – the acrid smell of unwashed children. When they reached Harlem Avenue they were met by a gust of wind and the sky overhead turned the color of lead. The even patter of drops hitting the pavement turned into a downpour.
The headlights of the cars in the still-heavy traffic beamed to life with menacing urgency as Lloyd and Erin stood near the curb waiting for the crossing signal to turn green. Erin closed her eyes and lifted her forehead to the sky, the rain mixing with her tears and washing away the rivulets of mascara that had painted her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell with deep cleansing breaths.
“I’m so sorry,” Lloyd said.
She looked down and punched the metal button on the light pole repeatedly.
“Erin, I like you.”
She stopped pressing the button and turned to face him.
“I really like you,” he said.
The cars crawled to a stop as the traffic light changed.
“Oh, fuck off Lloyd!” She stepped off the curb as Lloyd stood there mouth agape. Erin reached the center divider, stopped, turned on her heels and paced back towards Lloyd in long strides. Her lips were pinched, her eyes narrowed. She grabbed Lloyd by the collar of his shirt and pulled him across the sidewalk under the awning of a discount shoe store.
She let go of the collar and stared into his eyes, grabbed his jaw to straighten his face when his eyes tried to drift away.
“Why, Lloyd?” she asked.
He shrugged. She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head.
“Why, what?” he asked.
She grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him towards her then shoved him back.
“Do I have to spell it out for you, you dimwit?”
Lloyd exhaled slowly. “I… I’m just scared.”
“Bullshit answer.”
“No, it’s true.”
Erin put a hand on her hip and nodded. She bit her lip. “Scared of what?”
“Scared I’m going to hurt you.”
Erin snorted. “And what the hell do you call this?” She grabbed his face with both hands. “Bullshit, Lloyd. What is it with you?” Her voice had lost some of its edge.
He put his hands on hers, gently peeled them off his face and brought them together between them.
“I’m scared I’ll let myself fall in love with you.” He paused and gazed deep in her eyes. “And ruin your life.” He squeezed her hands before letting them go and tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“That’s some psycho-babble crap you’re trying to sell me.”
“There are things you don’t know about me.” He shook his head. “You don’t have a clue who I am.”
“What are you, some kind of axe-murderer?”
Lloyd looked over her shoulder and gazed at the sparks bouncing off the undercarriage of an El train slowing into the Harlem Avenue station.
The Art of Forgetting Page 13