Wisteria Island

by Rachel Hanna

  Chapter 9

  Danielle stared at the computer screen. Her eyes were tired, and her hand was cramping. She’d never spent so much time researching medication interactions as she was right now.

  Gladys was on several meds, and she’d been so sure that one or more of them was causing the delusional behavior, but so far nothing was showing up. She sighed and slammed her laptop shut. Maybe this was all for nothing. Maybe Gladys just had a neurological issue and Danielle was looking for something that wasn’t there.

  There had been a time she’d been so sure of her medical skills and intuition. She’d used her gut feelings just as much as her medical knowledge when she’d worked in the ICU. Maybe she’d lost that ability. Maybe she was going soft.

  It suddenly dawned on her that she had one trick in her back pocket that might help Gladys. The unfortunate part of that was it was her mother.

  Danielle’s mother was a world renowned researcher, so she had contacts in every part of the research community. Maybe one of them could help her figure out if the medications were causing Gladys to hallucinate.

  She slowly picked up her phone and dialed her mother’s number. Steeling herself, she waited for an answer.

  “Danielle?”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “You never call me. I thought something was wrong.”

  “Nothing is wrong. Can’t I just call my mom and say hello?”

  Her mother laughed. “That has never been my experience. Are you calling to tell me you’re going back to your job?”

  “No. I have a job.”

  She sighed. “How’s it going?”

  Danielle smiled. “Actually, not bad. I’m getting in the groove of things, and I think the residents are accepting me. Well, most of them. Okay, some of them.”

  “Why wouldn’t they accept you? You’re a world-class nurse!”

  “Said my completely impartial mother,” Danielle muttered.

  “I can’t help that I’m proud of you, Danielle. You should be proud too.”

  “I don’t have much time to talk, but I was hoping you could help me with something since you have a lot of research contacts.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “If I text you a few medication names, can you see if any studies have been done on interactions or weird side effects?”

  “Like what kind of side effects?”

  “Hallucinations or delusions.”

  “Why do you need that information?”

  “Well, I have a resident who is seeing strange things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Aliens.”

  “Wow.”

  “But I think it could be her meds.”

  “You might be grasping at straws here, dear.”

  “Maybe so, but I need to know I tried.”

  “All right. I’ll check with some colleagues. I have a friend in Chicago who might know something. Just text the names to me.”

  “I will as soon as we hang up. Thanks.”

  “Danielle?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hope you know I am proud of you. I just don’t want to see you waste your talents or your life. It all passes so quickly. I don’t want you to have regrets.”

  “I know, Mom. I know.”

  She said goodbye and quickly texted the medication names. It might’ve been a long shot, but she hoped that her mother would come through and help give Gladys her life back.

  Danielle stood at the front of the meeting room. It wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but there were only about eighteen residents there, anyway.

  “Okay, if everyone could listen up, that’d be great!” she said in her loudest voice. Being so short also meant her voice didn’t carry as much as she would like. “Hey!” Her yell finally caught everyone’s attention. They looked at the front of the room and stared at her. “Thank you to all of you who came this afternoon to learn more about healthy living. We’re going to have a great time!”

  “I doubt that!” one woman shouted from the back. Danielle didn’t know her name, but she was going to give her special attention.

  “Look, I know talking about improving your health sounds really boring, but we’re going to be doing some interesting stuff today.”

  “Darlin’, we’re all as old as Methuselah! We don’t have much time left to improve our health!” Morty said, laughing as he slapped his knee. Today, he was all dolled up in a pink golf shirt, white shorts and a pair of boat shoes that could only be described as neon green. Where he got them, she had no idea.

  Most of the crowd consisted of people who didn’t have family members visiting. Thankfully, all the visitors would leave tomorrow. There was only one more big event before then - the beach party.

  Danielle had been dreading it since they arrived. Bennett had described it as a cross between spring break and one of those crazy TV talk shows where people threw chairs and yelled obscenities.

  He said it started out as fun and games with music and talking, but it often descended into arguments. Yeah, she was really looking forward to that.

  “Methuselah?” Danielle said, knowing full well she should’ve left it alone.

  “Good Lord, sweetie, haven’t you heard of Methuselah? He lived to be nine-hundred and sixty-nine years old!”

  She thought for a moment. “I bet he did it with juicing,” she said, smiling. Morty rolled his eyes. “And coincidentally, we’re going to talk about juicing and smoothies first!”

  As the class moved on, Danielle showed them how to juice vegetables and fruit, explained what they did in the body and then let them try samples. Then she moved into smoothies, and the residents seemed to like those most of all. They also talked about supplements, the importance of exercise, meditation and drinking plenty of water.

  Of course, most of that she’d learned online and by taking extra classes. Nursing school had provided little in the way of nutrition or longevity training.

  When class was over, Morty approached her. “Miss Danielle?”

  “Yes?”

  He smiled. “Thanks for this class. No one ever told me those things. For the first time, I think I can actually get a little healthier, even at my age.”

  “You absolutely can!”

  “Do you think I can reduce my blood pressure without the pills?”

  “I think it’s definitely possible. Why don’t we make an agreement?”

  “What kind of agreement?” he asked.

  "How about we give you a couple of weeks to implement these changes, including a plant-based diet, and then we reassess to see how your blood pressure is doing? If it has gone down by at least a few points, we’ll keep those things in place and monitor it a couple of weeks later."

  "And if it doesn't come down?"

  “Then you agree to try a low-dose of beta blocker and see how you do."

  He squinted his eyes and thought for a moment, rubbing his freshly shaven chin. “Okay. I can agree to that." Morty held out his small hand and shook hers.

  "Good. I guess you’d better get over to the grocery store and stock up on some healthy fruits and vegetables."

  He smiled. "Do I get at least one more plate of fried chicken over at the diner?"

  She crossed her arms and wagged one of her fingers at him. "Morty…"

  He waved her off. “I was just kidding!"

  As she watched him leave, she felt good about what she’d done that day. In fact, it made her feel a lot better to teach people about healthy habits than it did to just keep them alive in a hospital setting. There was very little she could do at the hospital, aside from giving more medication. If she could help these people prevent the major causes of death, she was making a difference.

  She gathered up her things and started walking toward the door, but she caught sight of herself in the mirror on the wall. She had really let herself go since arriving on Wisteria island. Maybe it was becaus
e she didn't have to go into a hospital every day or impress anyone in particular. Her hair needed a cut and color, and now was a great time to try out the beauty salon on the island.

  "All right, honey, what are you looking to get done?"

  Her stylist, Betty Sue, was a tiny little thing with a big bouffant hairdo that was slightly tinted blue. She was dressed like a bit of an artistic hippie, with her baggy tie-dye pants, gray V-neck T-shirt and more jewelry than Danielle had ever seen on one person. Lots of crystals and beads and brightly colored dangly things were all over her wrists and neck. Betty Sue was something else, that much was for sure.

  "Well, my hair is getting a little long so I would like a trim and some color too.”

  Danielle was feeling a little uncomfortable. This place was very much like an old-time beauty shop, unlike the modern salons she was used to back home. There were no big pictures of models on the walls with perfect haircuts and striking make-up. There were just a few chrome salon chairs, mirrors on the wall, and lots of fake greenery everywhere.

  "Do you want to cover up these grays?" Betty Sue asked, poking around in her hair like one gorilla would do to another.

  Danielle's eyes widened. "I have gray hairs?"

  Betty Sue looked at her in the mirror. "Quite a few, darling. You know, women of a certain age…”

  Danielle stopped her. “Just go with whatever color you think would look the best on me. This is as close to my natural color as I've been in a while," Danielle said, tugging at the parts of her roots that apparently hadn’t already turned gray.

  “Okay. Let me go look at what I've got in the back," she said, walking away.

  Danielle turned her chair and looked out the window at everybody walking up and down the street. It was a busy day on Wisteria Island as people were getting ready to say goodbye to their loved ones at the beach party. A part of her was looking forward to it, just out of morbid curiosity. She had been to many wild parties in her life, but she was having a hard time envisioning a Wisteria Island beach party being too wild.

  Betty Sue made her way back to the chair with a box and started preparing what she needed to color Danielle's hair. Over the next couple of hours, Danielle just let her do her thing, not looking in the mirror very often but staring at her phone most of the time. She rarely had time to peruse social media.

  She had gotten a text from Carla that said her job had been filled. Even though she hadn't planned on going back to that job, there was a part of her that had felt comforted by the fact that she could probably get it back at any time. Nobody had her level of skill and experience, but now that opportunity was gone.

  She could get a job at pretty much any hospital in the country, most likely, but that place had been home for a very long time. Knowing that someone else had finally filled her shoes made her feel a little bit lost, a little bit adrift.

  She was getting more comfortable on Wisteria Island, but a part of her had always had one foot in and one foot out.

  After checking all of her social media, her email, and texting with a couple of friends, she finally put her phone back in her pocket and looked up just as Betty Sue was taking her hair out of the towel. Danielle's eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

  "What on earth?" she said, reaching up and touching her hair.

  "Doesn't it look beautiful?" Betty Sue stood back and looked at her handiwork with pride.

  "It's red."

  "I know. You told me to put what I thought would look good. Red is a beautiful color!"

  "Yes, on a sports car, but not on top of my head! I didn't even have any hints of red in my hair!” Never in her wildest - and scariest - dreams had she considered Betty Sue would make her hair red.

  “Sweetie, are you upset? Because your voice is getting awfully loud."

  She turned and looked at Betty Sue. "Yes, I'm very upset. I didn't want red hair!"

  "Well, you didn't say that. You asked me to pick a color using my expertise, and I thought red was great. You look like a totally different person!"

  Danielle felt like she was going to throw up. She looked like she should try out for the lead role as a clown at the circus.

  Betty Sue went back to work, blow drying her hair and using a curling iron to style it. When she was done, Danielle wanted to crawl home and hide under her bed. How in the world was she going to go to the beach party looking like this?

  Not wanting to cause a big scene, and knowing nothing could be done to fix the problem, she left the salon, went to a local gift shop, bought a huge sun hat, and quickly made her way back to the cottage. She was never leaving home again.

  Bennett didn't know why he felt so nervous. In fact, he felt a lot like he did back in high school when he was driving to pick up his first date.

  He remembered the moment like it was yesterday. Tiffany Cameron had finally agreed to go out with him after dating her way through the entire football team. Her father, a deputy sheriff, had run every single one of the boys off.

  Bennett, who never shied away from a challenge, was determined to impress him. He wasn't so worried about Tiffany. No, he wanted to impress Tiffany's father.

  Sure enough, when she came to the door her father was standing behind her, his work gun still holstered on his side even though he was wearing a golf shirt and a pair of jeans. He had his arms crossed, his bulging biceps on full display, complete with the Marine Corps tattoo on his left arm.

  Bennett had stuck his chest out like the cocky teenager that he was and strode straight up to her father, his hand out. Tiffany's dad shook his hand and almost broke every bone in it, and Bennett knew he was up against a fierce competitor.

  Only two weeks later, he and Tiffany were already over, and she’d moved on to the baseball team. He still felt the same kind of nervousness walking up to Danielle's door that he did with Tiffany. The only difference was there wouldn't be a deputy sheriff standing behind Danielle.

  Of course, she was a little unnerving all on her own. He wasn't one who got nervous easily, but something about her always put him on edge. Either he was having butterflies in his stomach or a terrible case of stage fright as he stood before the door of the cottage. Not wanting to lose his nerve, he quickly knocked.

  It wasn't like they were going on a date. He had just agreed to bring the golf cart over and pick her up for the beach party. Even though he found her very attractive, he was trying his best to maintain a work relationship.

  He knocked again. A couple of minutes passed. He knocked again. Now he was getting a little worried. Danielle was always punctual, so he couldn't figure out why she wasn't answering.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent her a text. Still nothing. Then he called her, but it went straight to voicemail. He was actually getting concerned now. He peered through the side window next to the front door and then walked a few feet and looked through the window leading into the living room. The blinds were drawn closed, and he couldn't see any light inside.

  Unsure of what to do, he walked around to the back to see if maybe he could look into the kitchen window. As he came around the corner, he saw Danielle sitting on the back deck, a large sun hat on her head, and a blanket wrapped around her. He saw a glass of wine with the bottle next to it sitting on the table beside her.

  "Danielle?" he said as he slowly approached her.

  She didn't turn her head, but instead kept staring straight out at the ocean. "Go away, Bennett!"

  He toyed with the idea of walking back to the golf cart, but he just couldn't bring himself to do that when he knew something was obviously wrong with her.

  "I thought we were going to the beach party?"

  "I'm not going. Go without me."

  "Danielle…"

  "I said go without me!"

  He continued walking slowly toward her, unsure if she was going to spin around and shoot him with a dart gun or something.

  "As your boss, I'm letting you know that going to the beach party is part of your job description."


  She growled under her breath. "Then fire me because I am most assuredly not going." She said the words slowly, like he was someone who needed extra help to understand the English language.

  He finally made it to the edge of the deck and walked up the three steps, standing at the top. He felt like if he got any closer, she might actually scratch his eyes out.

  "What's wrong? And why are you wearing a hat and a blanket when it's so hot outside?"

  "Because I got tired of catching glimpses of myself in the mirror."

  "I don't understand."

  "Please, just go."

  This time, he got a hint of something in her voice. A trembling. The sound of someone who was about to cry. Danielle had certainly not proven herself to be overly emotional in a way that would make her cry.

  "Did something happen? Is it your mother?"

  "No. This isn’t about my mother."

  "I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong."

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. Then I guess you’ll just be standing there at the edge of the deck all night because I'm not saying anything else."

  Against his better judgment, he slowly sat down on the top step, turning sideways so he could still see her. "Great. I like the ocean." He turned his head back toward the water and closed his eyes, taking in the sea breeze and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore.

  They sat like that for a good ten minutes before he was about to completely dehydrate and sweat out of his clothing. He needed a bottle of water and the ability to get more air than he was currently getting sitting down on the deck stairs.

  "Do you mind if I go inside and get some water?"

  "I don't care."

  She truly sounded like she didn't care, her voice monotone.

  Bennett walked into the house, shutting the glass door behind him. He walked into the kitchen and retrieved two bottles of water out of the refrigerator. He couldn't help but notice a receipt laying on her counter, so being the curious type, he looked. It was from the hair salon, and it appeared she had left there just an hour before.