Chapter 42: Naked

In the morning an familiar ringing wakes me up. I reach for the snooze button but that doesn't make the noise stop. And it’s coming from the wrong direction. The cell phone on the nightstand - on Shane's side of the bed. Next to her wallet and keys. She’s not in the bed.

“Shane! You’re ringing.”

Shane peeks into the room. I glimpse the white of her naked skin, the toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She keeps a toothbrush here, never bothered to take it when she moved back home. “Can you answer it for me?” She says, best as she can through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Um... sure.” She darts back into the bathroom, and I unfold her phone. The number is unfamiliar. “Hello?” I sit up and hold the cool plastic to my ear.

“Baby Shane. It’s Jimmy.”

“Oh hey, Jimmy. This is Darah, let me get her for you.”

Shane comes back into the room, wiping her mouth.

“It’s Jimmy.” I hand the phone over limply, mesmerized by the sway of her slim thighs as she crawls into bed.

“Hey Jimmy. Good.” Her hand settles on my middle, other one on the phone. Her fingertips feel cold and I squirm deeper into the covers. “No way. Really? Okay. Um, I guess. Sure. Okay. How about Mondays? Sundays? Yeah, that’ll work. Cool. Okay. See ya then. Bye.”

I hear her press END and she rolls over, molding her body around mine. “Morning.”

“Morning, love,” I say sleepily.

“Jimmy wants me to come back and do more haircuts.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be really cool. Apparently word traveled and someone donated an old barber’s chair. He wants me to come in every week.”

“Is that gonna be too much for you? With your arm and all?”

“No,” she says, kissing my earlobe. I can feel the cool mint of her breath. I shudder, though I’m no longer cold. “I’ll limit myself to a certain number. As long as it doesn’t rain it should be fine.”

“That’s good, but I’m worried about you getting scabies or something.”

“What?” Her nose wrinkles cutely. “Is that like rabies?”

“No. This is little bugs that burrow under the skin.”

“Eew!”

“Yup. It’s rampant among homeless people.”

“Well, maybe you can come and be my shampoo girl and make sure nobody gives me cooties.”

I giggle. “Cooties? What are you, two?”

“Yup,” she sighs, cuddling into me.

“Actually... that would be a good idea. I can do that, if you want. And who knows, word will get out and it’ll be good for your business, you know, good for publicity.”

“I don’t need any more publicity.”

“True.”

“Yeah,” she sighs, looking at me, softness in her eyes.

“You’re such a fucking role model for those kids.”

She’s quiet, watching me with her indecipherable look. I’m not sure if that idea is foreign to her or not, and she doesn’t elaborate. We drift like that for a minute or two or three, half-asleep in the sunlit morning.

Luckily I don’t have to be at work until three. I relax against her warm body, run my fingertips over the fine tiny hairs on her arm. Work makes me think of Jeanette. Will I ever be able to think of my job without thinking of how I got it? Will anyone be able to think of me as their boss without envisioning Jeanette, murdered?

“D? What are you thinking about?”

“Jeanette.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She was stabbed thirty times, Shane. I can’t figure out why anyone would do that to her. She was just this suburban soccer mom.”

“That’s so fucked up.” She curls a leg around one of mine, pulling me closer.

“The worst part of it is that I keep seeing her kids, these little girls, so cute. And now they have no mom.” Jeanette’s youngest must be around the age Shane was when her dad died. But if Shane gets the connection, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she rubs my stomach soothingly.

“It just makes me so fucking sad.” I swallow down sudden tears.

“Have they caught the guy?”

“From what Darrell tells me the police don’t have the first clue. They’re totally baffled. And that kills me, to think that odds are they’ll never find him.”

“You were close to her?”

“No, not really. Not at all. I mean, she was really cool to me. Like when you were in the hospital, she rearranged everyone’s schedules to give me four days off, and she didn’t have to do that. We had a good working relationship. But - I just... keep seeing those kids.”

She’s quiet, and I fear that I’ve overstepped my bounds. Maybe it isn’t even her, because of her, that this gets to me so much. I try to imagine my mom gone, and can’t. Maybe it’s just the residual sadness of learning about Shane and Chloe, these last few days are all tied together in a knot of melancholy.

“You planning on having kids some day?” She is laying there calm, eyes on me.

What? Strange question.

“Um, yeah, I think I’d like to. I used to never want to, but the older I get... now I think I’d like that.”

“You’ll be a good mom.”

“Thanks.” This conversation is freaking me out. Any kind of a permanence is a thought I never thought she’d want to touch with a ten foot pole. The mere mention of it, even in the most theoretical terms, is enough to make me squirm. “Hey, speaking of moms, Mom and Navi want you to come to New York with me for Christmas.”

“Yeah?”

“I have to work on Christmas, so I was hoping I’d spend a few days there, leave on the twenty-sixth, come back some time before New Year’s. Anyway, I’d love it if you came with.”

She is really quiet. Something is off. And when she speaks, her voice is strange. “You’re the boss now. Why d’you have to work Christmas?”

“I was lowest in seniority at the time the schedule was made. I promised. So that way I could get New Year’s off, so we could go to the Planet for Kit’s New Year’s thing.”

“Christmas really isn’t my thing.”

Oh shit.

“Okay.” I don’t know why I turn away to hide my disappointment. She knows me better than that. “If you change your mind tell me soon, so I can book my ticket.”

I realize that she’s stopped breathing. I turn around. Her eyes have that complex upset look they get.

Rage fills me and I try to breathe it back. Fuck, I never know where the boundaries are with her. I’m so sick of treading so fucking gently.

“What! What’s wrong now?” I snap, harsher than I meant.

Her eyes widen. Yeah, she’s surprised that I’m pissed. “What do you mean by that?” Now she’s on the defensive, and for some reason that pisses me off even more.

“I mean that I’m sick of walking on fucking eggshells, never knowing if something I innocently do or say is gonna set off one of your many land mines and make you get all weird with that stupid fucking deer in the headlights look!”

“I didn’t say anything!” Now she’s having the gall to look bewildered. Looks so damn beautiful with her big eyes all drawn together in confusion and her lush lips parted, about to speak. And that fucking pisses me off even more.

“You didn’t need to. I can see that look in your eyes coming, a mile away.”

I turn around to look at her, and get the impression she is expecting me to say something. “What?” I ask. Then, suddenly, my anger pops like a balloon, and I feel my shoulders and arms go limp.

“You don’t really want me to come, do you?”

“I totally do. I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.”

“I thought Navi and your mom asked me.”

“They did, and I relayed the message.” She looks down at the pillow. Her cheeks are flaming. “What do you want from me, Shane?” I see the answer there. Confusion. She doesn’t know.

“If you want me to beg you to come to New York, I’m not going to do it. I try to give you the space you need because I know how you are. You are a very hard person to care about. I would love for you to come with me. I’d absolutely love it, okay? I’m really disappointed that you don’t want to come. But I’m not going to play some mind game with you. The choice is yours.”

I push the covers back, sit up, and rub my eyes. I grab my robe and slide into it, in a hurry to not be naked. I stumble out of bed, then stand there wavering for a minute.

I turn around and look at her. She’s sitting up, holding her knees to her chest, sleep-tousled and curly at the ends. She just sits there, eyes cast down. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

I touch her warm cheek, then press a gentle kiss there. Then I walk away.

“D. Come back to bed,” she says, before I’m even halfway to the bedroom door.

I turn around, see her looking up at me with big serious eyes. “Please,” she says.

I stand there, feeling the cool silk of my robe warm to my skin.

“Your puppy dog eyes make me want to puke,” I say, trying very hard to keep my mouth from curling into a smile.

“I’m sorry. Please, Darah.” Yeah, she’s got that sweetly earnest puppy shit full-on now, irresistible with her big green eyes and milky skin and pillowy lips. She’s not even aware, I realize, that she’s doing it. She might have used this look, worked it, but she’s without any guile now.

And it’s not that cute pathos that makes me hesitate. It’s something resolved and hard in those eyes, something determined. It’s the way her hand lifts the covers to beckon me underneath no doubt letting the cool air chill her skin.

“Please.”

It’s her sweetness that makes me relent and slip out of my robe, and back into bed. I relax again into her.

“I’m sorry” she murmurs. “I wasn’t trying to be weird. I’m trying really hard not to.”

I could get lost in her eyes. I stare at her, fighting against her beauty, searching for authenticity, and I find only truth.

“You are?”

“I am. Holidays were always really hard for me.” She sighs, and I sense that instead of shutting down, she’s searching for a place to begin explaining this.

I look at her, try to convey compassion and patience. I find that my anger is gone, and it isn’t hard. “I don’t wanna make things harder.”

“I know. And I’m trying to change, trying to remind myself that.”

And that’s all I’ve ever wanted from her. I don’t say it though, because she’s obviously putting words together in her mind, and I don’t want to distract her.

“My dad died like two months after my fourth birthday.”

“Jesus, Shane.”

“I... got placed with this family in my hometown, the Hendrikssens.” I see her swallow. Her voice has a different, thick quality to it. “The kids in preschool said that if you asked Santa Claus what you wanted for Christmas, he’d bring what you wanted. So I wanted my dad back.”

Jesus Christ. Magical thinking. It hurts me to the quick. I suck my lower lip into my mouth, bite it hard.

“Dumb ass me, you know.”

It’s not dumb. “That’s how kids think. You were just a baby, practically.”

“Yeah. Well, dumb ass me, I was up all tight tossing and turning and waiting... fuck, I really believed it. I really thought my dad was coming back to life, you know. And Mrs. Hendrikssen comes in, demanding to know why I couldn’t sleep. I knew how she was. I knew I shouldn’t have told her.” She sniffles, but there are no tears in her eyes. I imagine that she’s cried them all.

“So then she told me that I need to grow up and face the fact that my father was dead, and she stormed out.”

“Oh honey. What a complete cunt.” I pull her closer, wishing she had a four year old self I could hug.

“You know, she really was,” she says.

“I’d give anything for you not to have lost him.” It's true. Right now, I think I would give my entire life.

She turns and gives me a weird look, a complicated look that ends in a fragile half-smile.

“So, since then, you’ve never had a good Christmas? I mean, not ever?”

“I had one great Christmas. And that... kinda fucked me up even more.”

“How’s that?”

She looks at me for a long time. She sniffles and turns to look up at the ceiling.

“When I was twelve I got sent to this foster home in Whittier. It was the best place I’d ever been. I was really close to my foster sister. They were gonna adopt me. I was there for almost a year. But then they found out I was gay, and kicked me out.”

“Oh, honey...”

Suddenly her jaw tenses with anger. “Don’t pity me! All right?”

“I don’t pity you.”

“Yes you do.”

“No, I don’t!” I say forcefully. She turns to look at me. “I don’t pity you. I could only pity you if you were pathetic, and you’re amazing.”

She keeps staring at me with those wide open eyes.

“My heart aches for you. There’s a difference.”

She looks away, acknowledging that, but quiet. I roll over and skim my fingers over her arm expecting nothing, just touching.

She takes a deep deep breath,then lets it out.

“D?”

“Hmm?”

“When I get like this my mind starts racing and I get really emotional and I... can’t think straight.”

“Yeah?” I whisper, loathe to say anything that will stop her, but I feel I should acknowledge the heavy shit she’s laying out for me.

“Yeah. It’s like time slows down inside my head and I’m trying to say something, quick, before the other person thinks I’m a total retard or ignoring them, and it’s hard, ‘cause I wanna say the right thing, but I can’t just think of it, because I have all this shit from the past in my head.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, in general.” I turn to look at her, and it warms me to see hope in those eyes. “Yeah, well, I mean I knew it’s hard for you, but I’m glad you explained it to me the way you did.” I gently stroke the strong line of her jaw, pull her forehead to mine, nuzzle there. She kisses my cheek.

“Okay. How ‘bout this?” I propose.

“How 'bout what?” I have her. She's turning to look at me.

“Today’s Friday. I’d like to order my tickets by Wednesday. How about we not discuss this at all right now, and you can give me an answer on Tuesday.”

“Really?”

“Really. Let’s take it off the table.”

“For real?” she grins.

“For real what?” I grin back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Okay," she smiles, big big smile.

"I think right now our agenda should involve not moving from this bed until it’s absolutely necessary. Can I say one thing though?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t need to say anything back.”

“Okay.” Her lips flicker into a smile and back, lightning quick.

“The main reason I want you to come isn’t because of me. It isn’t because I’ll be hurt if you say no, or because my pride will be injured or any shit like that. It’s just that I hate to think of you spending the holiday alone, when it would make me so happy to have you with me, and I think it would make you happy too.”

She just nods, warmth battling pain in her eyes.

I grin back. “Okay. Enough about this.”

“Yeah.”

I smile. She threads her arms around me, pulls so that I’m laying on her chest. I sigh to hear the beat of her heart, settle in comfortably.

“You know what?”

“Hmm?”

“Shane, I know it’s really hard for you to tell me the stuff going on in your head, but every time you do, I understand you better.” I move my hand down the length of her arm, all the way to her pale fingers, which I tangle in mine. She squeezes back lightly. “And I love you more.”

“Me too,” she says. And we lie like that, breathing.

Later, Shane has left for work, and I’m making coffee. I dial my mom’s number and Navi answers on the third ring.

“Hi Navi.”

“Hello, Didi. How are you?”

“I’m good. What’s up?”

“Not much. Just making breakfast for your mother.”

“What a sweet guy.”

“That’s me.”

“What’d you do to piss her off?” I chuckle.

“Nothing, I am good, I swear.” I can hear the clank of a whisk against a steel bowl. He’s making omelettes, I bet.

“I’m kidding.”

“I know. We missed you on Thanksgiving.”

“I missed you too.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I peeled about two billion potatoes. And watched Shane cut like ten people’s hair.”

“You had dinner at Shane’s?”

“We spent the day at a homeless shelter, volunteering. It was pretty cool.”

“Wow. You’re quite the - uh, what do you call... philanthropist. You know in my country they don’t have homeless.”

“That goes with the fact that in your country they don’t have medical care,” I laugh. Navi knows I mean it lightly.

“Oh, they do, but not for everyone.”

“Exactly my point. So, I can’t wait to see you.”

“When you coming here?”

“Probably sometime Christmas day. I’m working graveyard on Christmas Eve.”

“Ick.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Right. Oh, here, your mom wants to talk to you. I’ll see you soon, Didi.”

“Ok. Love you.”

“You too.”

I smile and wait while I hear them talking, the phone being handed over.

“Hi Mommy.”

“Hello baby. How are you, darling?”

“I’m good.”

“Yeah? How’s the new job?”

“It’s good. But it’s hard, you know.”

“I know. You be careful out there.”

“I am.”

“Good.” We’re both thinking about what happened to Jeanette. A lot of my friends keep stuff like that from their mothers, but I somehow can’t.

“How’s your summer line coming?”

“Good. I’m doing a lot of neutrals.”

“Next time you visit, you should bring some, my friends will love them. And Alice is friends with Helena Peabody, and I personally think Helena will love your clothes, and it would be huge for your career because she’s very generous and always in the tabs and she’d definitely tell people your name.”

“Good to know. So how’s the little woman?”

I smile. “She’s fabulous. Though I’m not sure she’s so little.”

“We missed you on Thanksgiving.”

“I know, Nav and I were talking about that.”

“Did you get some turkey?” She asks, as if that is important.

“Yes,” I laugh. “We got turkey. I was telling Nav that I spent the day volunteering in a soup kitchen and I peeled like a bazillion potatoes.”

“Ha! You’ve gotta be kidding me. You know how hard it was when you were a little girl to get you to peel potatoes.”

“Nope. I was a perfect child.”

She snorts. I smile. I miss my mom. But she doesn’t beat around the bush. “So is she coming for Christmas?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Maybe she wants to spend it with her family.”

“She doesn’t have any family, Mommy.”

She makes that tsking noise in her throat. “She needs to come here and be fed.”

I laugh. “Geez mom, you’re starting to sound really Old Country there.” I secretly love that about my mother.

“Not,” she snorts, her accent harsh on the T sound. I love that about my mother even more.

“So seriously, if she doesn’t have family, what’s the problem? Seems like a sort of no-brainer to me, huh?”

“She’s got a lot of bad memories about her past.”

“About what? What happened to her?”

“She’s had a tough time. When I mentioned it to her it sort of threw her. We’re not discussing it until Tuesday, so I’ll tell you then.”

“You have a weird relationship.”

“You need to trust me, Mommy. I’m hopeful that she’ll come. You let me handle her, okay, I’m the expert at that.”

“Okay. So, how is Jeanette’s family doing?”

“Um, I dunno. I should give Doug a call but I just... I don’t know, I feel weird.”

“Because you got her job?”

“Partially. It’s mostly those kids. I don’t think I could deal with them.”

“They’re just kids, Darah. Maybe send the family a nice Christmas present.”

“Yeah, Maybe.”

That evening at work we’re slammed and I don’t get a chance to eat. I’m lucky to have snagged a single piece of pizza from the break room, and even that was left over from last shift. Now I’m starving and it’s hard to concentrate on the charting I need to do. I’m starting in on the sixth and final chart when I feel a presence in front of me.

“Hey baby." Sexy sexy deep voice makes my brain melt and my pen derail right off the page. "Come here often?”

I look up, see Shane smiling, with coffee and a paper bag in hand. She got her hair trimmed, faint reddish streaks. She looks different in a way that goes beyond that, though. Her eyes are clearer, somehow.

I stand up, grinning at her. “Hey honey. Holy shit, look at you, with the highlights.” I want to kiss her but now as the boss, I need to set an example.

“I brought you a brie and apple wrap from the Planet. And some coffee.”

Oh my god. I bite my lip, unable to speak. “I could marry you!” I blurt out.

“Whoo!” I hear clapping behind me and I see Danny Chavez, one of the residents, laughing. “Romantic,” he says. I feel myself warm and blush. Fuck, I didn’t just say that.

She sees me blushing, and laughs. “When are you done?”

“Um, in like fifteen minutes.” I look down at my charts, getting redder by the second. “Oh my god, you read my mind. Seriously, you have no idea how hungry I am.”

“Good.”

“My god, I wish I could just kiss you,” I say, quietly enough so that Danny can’t hear. We look at each other.

“I wish you would,” she says, smiling. Naked desire in her voice. A ripple of warmth fades through me.

“I can’t. Not here.” I can’t stop smiling. “But soon. Seriously.”

She catches the harsh edge of intent in my voice, and I see her eyes flash with wanting. “Um, why don’t you go wait in my office? I’ll let you in.”

“Okay.”

I lead her to the back of the ER. “My” office is actually one I share with the day and night shift supervisors, and it can barely contain each of our desks.

Still though, my desk is mine, and from three thirty to eleven on weeknights, I rule this small space. It's a luxury I’ve never had in my whole nursing career, and I’ve taken full advantage of it.

I've framed a few photos, one of me and Shane and Alice in Baha, mom and Navi's wedding picture, a picture of the three of us. There's a postcard with my favorite Dali print on the bulletin board, under a clipping about Dana at Wimbledon and a picture of Shane ripped from L.A. Magazine. There’s a hot pink koosh ball and a Pride mug full of pens. I remember buying that mug in Houston, and almost smashing it in a fight with Leah. In the top drawer there’s a “work survival kit,” which is an old Whitman’s Sampler tin with tampax, Advil, a sewing kit, clear nail polish, a nail file, and half a Xanax. I've managed to be a nurse for ten years without ever using the Xanax. In the very corner of the desk is the crystal thing I won for being nurse of the year. I don’t like to look at it. I don’t like to remember that night. Shit girlfriend of the year, I was, shit friend, shit person.

Shane, however picks it up, blinks at how dusty it is. “I remember this.”

I feel my stomach plummet to the ground. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I was so proud of you. You should keep it up here.” She puts the chunk of crystal on the top shelf above the desk, between two potted plants.

I stare at her, understanding, suddenly, what it’s like to have thoughts racing through one’s mind, chased by feeling, too fast to express, while someone stares at you, clueless.

“What?" She has no idea why I'm staring at her, and suddenly,, with blinding clarity, I understand.

“Shut the door.”

She blinks, startled maybe by how serious I suddenly am. She obeys me though, and the heavy wooden door shuts quietly.

I pull her to me, kiss her hard. She feels tense at first, but immediately relaxes, moaning with pleased surprise into my mouth. I hold her to me, keep kissing, and in a breath she does the same, holding me close.

Then I just hold her, burrowed into the hollow of her neck.

“I love you so fucking much.”

“I-“ she starts, but I kiss her. Rude to interrupt, I know, but I can feel her smile as she kisses me back.

Finally, I pull away. I’m still on the clock. “I’m gonna go finish this stuff. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. If you wanna make any calls, go for it, just dial nine to get out.”

“Okay,” she blinks, somewhat dazed.

Fortified with coffee and protein, I finish my work back at the nurses’ station, all the while smiling at the thought of her, waiting in my office.

I finish up, give report to the graveyard shift nurse, and check with the attending doctor. “Go home,” he says.

“No argument here.”

I walk back to the office, feeling life come back into my body as the caffeine hits my system. Shane is sitting at my desk, reading Principles of Physiology. I touch her messy hair.

“I’m almost done, then we’ll get out of here.”

“Cool,” she says.

I reach over her to take a post-it from my desk, and a copy of the holiday schedule. One of my nurses wants a day off and she had to ask me belatedly. I flip through the schedule, rearranging people in my head so I can give her the day off. Luckily it isn’t a problem. I change the master schedule, make a copy, then post it in the nurses’ station, all the while pleasantly aware that Shane is waiting for me. I then leave the nurse a note telling her that she got her day off.

When I get back, Shane is holding one of my pictures. It’s the one of Navi, mom and I from sometime in the mid 90s.

“I just had to take care of some administrative crap. You ready to go?”

“Yeah.” She carefully sets the photo back down on my desk and stands up. We are suddenly standing very close.

She slips her jacket back on, and I take mine from the door and do the same.

I reach to open the door, but she puts her hand on the smooth wood. “Darah?”

“Yeah?” She’s standing so close, her eyes almost gray in this light.

“I’d like to come home with you. And spend Christmas with you guys.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m sorry.”

“Shhhh,” I say, then kiss her. I love her. God, I fucking love her.