Violet’s Bucket List

by Embers, Tuesday

  I started with the basic physical evaluation, asking him to lift and bend until I was satisfied I knew what most of the problems were in his bones. When we moved to the obstacle course the other PTs and I had set up in the gym to check harder-to-detect mobility issues, John put his foot down. “I’m not crawling around on the floor like a dog.” His voice echoed off the long walls of the gym, making our conversation public to the others, who were working at the other end.

  “No one thinks you’re a dog. It’s part of the obstacle course. That bit tells me if your shoulders, knees and spine have enough stamina and range of motion to be useful.”

  “You do it first. I’m not going to be laughed at for that.”

  I looked around at the one other PT who was working in the far corner of the gym with her patient. “No one’s around to laugh at you.”

  John flinched. “They are.” He pointed to someone behind me.

  I turned around, even though I knew no one was there. Sure enough, John was seeing people who weren’t there to laugh at him, but he heard the jeering all the same. I kept my voice even, compassion washing through me when I caught a fuller glimpse at how difficult this man’s life must be. “We don’t need to worry about that right now. Here, I’ll show you how this part of the course works. That way, if anyone laughs, it’ll be at me, alright?” I hopped over the car tire we had laid out, and then I laid flat on my stomach to army crawl under a web of ropes.

  “That’s one juicy fine ass you’re wiggling at me, Miss Violet. Love them J-Lo cheeks.”

  I nearly jerked up into the web of ropes to glare at him, but that would’ve gotten me tangled up. Not my first rodeo. “Enough, Mr. Freedmeyer. I’m not here for that. You’re here to work at getting better, so focus on your recovery.” I pulled myself up, and moved around to where he stood. “Your turn, soldier.”

  John hopped over the tire, and then dropped down to crawl under the ropes. His left scapula didn’t have the strength to hold his body static through the sliding he tried to do along the floor, so he compensated with his right side.

  “How’d you injure your shoulder, Mr. Freedmeyer?”

  He grunted as he pulled himself along under the ropes. “Why? You want to nurse me back to health? Make me crawl around on the floor like a dog first, then tell me all the ways I can pay through the nose to get well from some imagined injury?”

  I buttoned my lips shut through a sigh I wanted to let loose. Antagonistic people were the worst. “I’m here to help you, Mr. Freedmeyer.”

  “You want to help me? Stop by my place after work, so I can spank your tight ass. That’s the kind of service I’d happily pay my healthcare professional for.”

  While he wasn’t the first patient to give my skin the creeps, I knew I didn’t have to put up with crap like this. If he couldn’t be cool through an evaluation, then I didn’t have to be a doormat. “Alright, Mr. Freedmeyer. Your evaluation’s over. Thank you for stopping by. No follow-up appointments will be scheduled.”

  John extracted himself from the course and beamed at me, as if he’d just won the lottery. “See? I told you nothing was wrong with me. But I bet you’re still going to charge me through the roof for this appointment, in which you found out nothing was wrong.”

  “Oh, there’s plenty wrong, but we won’t be treating you at this facility. I don’t take on patients who talk about hitting me.” I checked off the appropriate boxes on his form, and then waved at Lance. He came in with his follow-up PT to strengthen his leg using light weights before taking his turn in the hot tub. His expression was hard, having heard the worst of the exchange.

  John leaned in, speaking with a low threat that made my spine tingle. “You are such a tease. You know what I do to teases?”

  “I’ll show you the way out.” I spun around, but yelped when he grabbed a fistful of my hair. My training kicked in, and before I knew it, my foot was stomping down hard on his instep. “Help!” I called to the other PTs, who were running over to extract me from Mr. Freedmeyer. Lance ran with them, which he was able to do because we’d worked so hard to get his busted knee back on track. Beneath my fear was a glimmer of pride that our facility gave the hometown hero the ability to defend the people of his country on his own turf.

  The shock of my defense made John loosen his grip on me, but no sooner had I turned around and popped him in the chest did his fist come flying at my face. I dodged the first punch, and deflected the second with an outward sweeping motion. It was the third one I wasn’t quick enough for, and cried out when his chapped knuckles cracked across my cheekbone. I dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes as my coworkers and Lance worked to restrain the man who was still grunting, trying to get at me to punish me for all the things that had gone wrong in his hard life.

  I didn’t begrudge him his anger, but as I held my throbbing cheekbone, I vowed his issues wouldn’t become mine.

  4

  Raw Steak and Ginger Ice Cream

  I avoided home like the plague, especially after I looked in the mirror at work and saw that my eye was swelling up nice and good. Instead of going back to the apartment, I went to Caty’s new residence for some much-needed girl time as soon as her workday ended at the elementary school. To her credit, she barely teased me at all for the stupid things I’d done and said in front of Eli. She didn’t lecture me about my hours, or the growing dangers my boss didn’t seem to see when he assigned me patients we all knew were mentally troubled. Instead, she made us strawberry smoothies, and then took me to ten different stores (or a hundred. Or three. I lost count after hour number two). We spent our time together checking off the to-do list her mother-in-law had given her for the wedding.

  The great dress debate had been settled, thank the good Lord, but the veil proved to be equally important to Dennis’ grandmother. By the time Caty found a veil she deemed “definitely the least annoying one,” it was evening, and I guessed late enough for me to go home and avoid seeing Eli. If I played my cards right, I might even be able to slip into my room with a wave over my shoulder and an “I’m so tired” excuse to Brady. My brilliant plan was to hole up in my room like the Apartment Troll.

  Worse than filling out all the forms whenever there was an incident at work, and worse than shopping for a million hours for a veil my BFF didn’t even want, was facing Mr. Li.

  “You should quit that job and work for me. No one hits my employees.”

  I sighed, waving at Chen, who gave me a “best of luck, girl” kind of look. The other employees made themselves scarce, tidying up the dining area to escape Mr. Li’s swinging cleaver. “I don’t usually get hit. It was a new patient, is all.”

  Mr. Li threw his cleaver down, as only a man who used one every day of his life could without accidentally amputating a finger. “I knew you would do this, so I marked it on the calendar. May fifth.” He thumbed through the grease-spattered calendar and tugged up the pages to reveal a giant red “V” on the corresponding date. “That was the day you came home with a limp because one of your patients kicked your ankle out, and you fell. A limp!”

  I blew a loud raspberry and waved off his concern. “I didn’t even take a sick day for that. It was good as new by morning.”

  “Oh, I know you didn’t take time off. Your boss said you were fine, so nothing got written down. Now you come home to me with a black eye? What next?”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the paternal affection I would never admit to needing. “Thanks for worrying about me.”

  “I’ve got a steak in the fridge that you can put on your eye. Take it upstairs with your dinner, and go lay down.”

  “I got the rest of the week off. Work policy.” I didn’t mention the time off came with a hefty assignment from Keith. Even though policy stated that work injuries got you paid time off, he wanted me to use that time to start cracking away at those grants.

  “Yes, I know that if he can see the injury, you get paid, but if you can go to work without looking like someone beat you up, then you get
nothing.” Mr. Li picked up his cleaver and pointed the edge at me. “You matter.” His eyes narrowed when his words ricocheted off me like ping-pong balls. “Say it, young lady.”

  I stopped and inhaled, taking in his edict so his words could fill me with a promise of something better. “I matter.” On the exhale, I felt a few degrees lighter. “Thank you. You’re a good dad.”

  “I know.”

  Mr. Li sent me upstairs with too many green tea cookies to go with my dinner, and a carton of ginger ice cream he saved for the days I came home injured. When I got upstairs, I went straight for the ice cream, stashing my salad in the fridge when I saw the coast was clear. I knew it was too much to hope I could open the squeaky silverware drawer without drawing attention to myself. Brady’s bedroom door opened, and he strolled out buttoning up a nice, blue dress shirt and wearing his good jeans. “Hey, Vi. You’re…” He gasped when he saw my eye before I could turn around and hide it from him completely. “What happened to you?” He cleared the distance between us, hissing when he saw the monstrosity up close. “Oh, man. It’s really popping out. Let me get some ice.”

  “Is Eli here?” I asked, my shoulders tight.

  “Nah. You know he works nights.”

  My whole body released the ball of tension I’d been carrying around since I trudged up the steps. “Good. He makes me nervous, and I don’t think my luck could stand another slip-on-a-banana-peel moment at this point.”

  I let Brady lead me to the couch, as if he thought I was blind, and needed the assistance. He grabbed the raw steak Mr. Li had wrapped in butcher paper and rested it on my swollen cheekbone. He tilted my head gently to lean on the back of the beige sectional. “Talk,” he demanded, his jaw tight.

  I poked at his chin with a small smile. “Aw, you’re doing your territorial thing. You’re adorable when you treat me like I’m your favorite chew toy.”

  “Not the best time for your lame jokes. Who hit you, and what’s your idiot boss doing about it?”

  “A new patient, who we won’t be treating. Did you know that I have a juicy butt? I didn’t, until Left Hook Joe told me. He’s super. The fact that I’m a ‘lazy wetback’ didn’t deter him from telling me what a tease I am.”

  Too many responses flickered across Brady’s features as his barely controlled rage played out on his stormy eyes – eyes that were put to much better use smiling. “Violent and racist. Awesome. He’s not coming back to the facility?”

  “Nope. Plus, I landed myself two whole days of TV and ice cream. Not a bad deal for me. Had I only known it was this easy to get paid time off.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t put a joke on it and pass it off. I know you’re freaking out inside.” He slid his wrist behind me and shifted on the couch until I was in his arms, safe and secure in the love Brady never ran short on. “I’ll talk to your boss. You shouldn’t be treating mentally unstable men.”

  I exhaled, leaning into the comfort I was too prideful to ask for. When stuff like this happened while he was on the road, I longed for the simple hug that made things twenty percent more bearable. I drew in an unsteady breath, willing myself not to break down and blubber to my bestie. I didn’t want him to know what a wuss I truly was on the inside. The hug lasted three seconds, and though the scared girl I tried to silence inside of me wanted to hold on longer, the woman with a degree and a life plan pulled away to put a respectable two inches between us. When I collected myself enough to speak, I whispered, “I feel stupid more than anything. I defended myself well enough when he threw the first two punches, but the third one got me. I wasn’t expecting it to devolve as quickly as it did. It’s more embarrassing than painful.”

  He braced me with one arm, and held the steak to my face with his free hand. He kissed my forehead, making me feel like the sister I was to him. When he pulled back to study my face, he winced at the sight of my blackened eye, which was no doubt at the height of sexiness. “I worry about you. I worry that you don’t worry enough. You’ll treat the wrong person, and I’ll never see you again. When you play this kind of thing off like it’s no big deal, all I can picture is your body in the gutter somewhere, and the authorities calling me to ID it. I’m still your in-case-of-emergency contact, right?”

  “Of course. Who else would it be?”

  “Caty, for one. Or Mr. Li. You’re sure you updated your information after your mom died?”

  I inhaled, wishing people would never ever talk to me about the thing that wasn’t supposed to happen to her. It had been just shy of a year since her death, but it still felt like she might pop by my place with some new goofy adventure at any moment. She’d taken Brady, Caty and me to Dollywood two years ago on a whim. Why? Um, because there’s never a good reason to go to Dollywood, which is what makes it the perfect place to go. All four of us happened upon a hole in our schedules that needed to be filled with… Dolly Parton, apparently. Why not? My mother always said that in response to a new challenge, and I loved her for it.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat that always came when I missed my mom. Now there really wasn’t a good reason to go to Dollywood, since she wasn’t around to force us into the impromptu trip.

  I leaned my head on Brady’s outstretched arm behind me. “Caty falls apart if she breaks a nail. I highly doubt she’d be a solid person to call if there was an actual emergency. Though, she handled this pretty well after I laid down the law that there would be no freaking out.”

  “How’d you pull that one off?”

  “I took her shopping for her veil. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  Brady groaned. “I don’t know when you two got it in your heads that I’m your girlfriend. Just because I agreed to be her bridesmaid doesn’t mean that I’m packing ovaries. I don’t get off on tulle and corsets like Dennis’ family does.”

  “No one gets off on wedding details like they do. You sat through wedding shoe shopping. I figured I could take one for the team.”

  Brady pulled his phone from his pocket and checked his texts. “Ah. I did miss a few from her. I assumed they were all wedding stuff. Yeah, here’s the one about your black eye. One, two, three… Wow, seven exclamation points. Code red, for sure.”

  “Can we not talk about it?”

  “For now, we can shelve it, sure.”

  My one-eyed gaze fell on a red cereal box that was propped up against my bedroom door with a green bow on the top. I pointed my finger at it, perplexed. “Did you leave me some cereal? You gift-wrapped a box of cereal? That’s so sweet!”

  Brady smiled, shaking his head. “It’s from Eli. A box of Lucky Charms. He said you liked them.”

  I groaned and slunk into the couch, as if the sunken beige cushions might swallow my shame. “Are you serious? He’s a nice guy. I would’ve run out of the apartment if someone had been as weird as I was. That’s… Eli bought me cereal.” I knew I could never eat a bite from that box. The hottest guy in the universe bought me a box of cereal. The thing should be framed.

  “You say that like he brought you a dozen roses.”

  “Who needs flowers when you’ve got Lucky Charms?”

  Brady sniggered. “You know, I love you a little bit more when you say stuff like that.”

  I sighed, knowing Eli was making a polite gesture to keep me from being a freak around him, and didn’t mean anything more by it. “I’ve got some work to do, so you go on out and have your evening. You just spent a week on the road. You deserve to be able to blow off some steam.”

  “I’m not going out.”

  I tugged on the top button of his dress shirt. “Yes, you are. You’re all gussied up.”

  “I’m not going unless you’re going. I’m not leaving you alone right after you got punched in the face. Punched in the face, Vi!”

  “Go,” I repeated. “It’s been awhile since you had a night out.”

  “Then you’re coming with me. Go get changed.”

  “Hello, I’m not going out looking like this. People will stare.”

 
“They always stare. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you have a juicy butt?” He grimaced at the gross come-on.

  “I think I heard that somewhere recently. Go on. I’m just going to sit around and be boring.”

  “Then I will, too.”

  I picked up his phone and started texting one of the names under his “Hook-ups” heading in his address file. He labeled them randomly “Hook-up from King’s Street Bar”, “Hook-up with black lipstick”, and so on. I chose “Hook-up with Spiky Heels She Kept On” because of his recent barrage of shoe shopping with Caty. I texted a quick, “You free to meet up for a drink tonight?” and sent it. “There, it’s done. You’re going out, and you’re going to have fun. You’re not going to sit around the apartment and eat ice cream with me. That’s just sad, Brady.”

  “It is sad. Come out with me.” He glanced at whom I’d sent the text to and gave an appraising nod. “She was a fun one.”

  “I remember from the Animal Planet sounds coming through the bedroom wall we share. Go. Enjoy yourself. I’m really fine here. There’s nothing I need, and my eye won’t heal any faster if you’re here, than if you’re on a date.”

  “Stop being good to me,” he lectured with a tug to my ponytail. “I wanted to be good to you tonight. I was going to volunteer to watch those medical surgeries with you to cheer you up.”

  I lit up as the suggestion dangled itself in front of me. “Oo, that does sound good. Go have your fun, and I’ll have mine.”

  “Oh, fine. But this black eye does not get you out of skydiving this weekend, young lady. You can’t avoid Eli forever. He thought you hated him until I explained it all to him.”

  The color drained from my face. “You explained my Hot Guy Blurts to Eli?”

  “Not in so many words, no. I told him that you were just shy and spastic around new people, and that you didn’t hate him.”

  “I don’t hate him!”

  Brady stood and stretched. “I know,” he said with a mischievous grin. “You want to jump his bones. I think he’d be okay with that. He’s a serious kind of fellow, though. Only time I’ve seen him smile was when you were stuck in the depths of your slapstick routine. He got you the cereal so you’d know he wasn’t scary. He was worried he frightened you.”