Fall--
RISING FROM THE FALL
By DixieHellcat
After seeing my last patient of the day, I dragged myself back toward my tiny excuse for an office. I was exhausted. I had spent the day running from one end of Sacred Heart Hospital to the other, and all I wanted was to detach my brain from my job for a while.
My route took me past the cafeteria, dark now in late afternoon as they set up to serve supper; so I didn’t expect a door to fly open just as I reached it. I screeched to a halt to keep from a face bash that would have made John Ritter smile down from heaven. I opened my mouth to yell—an inconsiderate lout was just what I needed to unleash a little of my frustration on—but then I recognized the tall lanky figure storming down the hallway. “Kenny!” I called after his retreating back. “Hey, Kenny, what’s up?”
The cafeteria worker spun on his heel. His fair freckled face, normally wreathed in a cheerful smile, was shockingly dark, and his eyes glared with anger. “I’m up,” he snapped, his Southern accent thicker than ever. “I just got fired.”
“What?” I hurried to him. “How? Why? You’re one of the hardest working people in that dump!”
“I’ve also got the least seniority, an’ they had to cut the budget, or so they said.” He ran his hands through his red hair, making the short strands stick up on top and out all over. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I saved as much as I could on my crappy salary, and my rent’s paid up a month in advance, but after that I’m a pig in a hole.”
I was flabbergasted, and heartbroken. People chuckled about what a dork Kenny was, but his presence had quickly become such a bright spot in my stressed overworked day that even after only a few months, I couldn’t imagine being without him. “Oh, Kenny, I’m so sorry. Listen, I’m clocking out in like twenty minutes, you wanna go get something to eat?”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. They were gorgeous eyes, actually, liquid green, and I wondered how I’d failed to notice them. “I may sound like I just fell off a turnip truck, but I’m not stupid. I know how women work. Takin’ advantage of a fella when he’s down. Next thing you know—“
“Oh, do NOT go there with me!” I yelped. “There are plenty of women who play word games. I’m not one. If I wanted to go back to your place and have hot monkey sex, I’d say ‘let’s go back to your place and have hot monkey sex’. I said ‘let’s go get something to eat’, which translates as ‘I want to go get some food and chat’. With you. But if that’s your attitude, fine. Up yours, too.” So now it was my turn to stomp off down the hall, tired and disgusted.
I didn’t get far, though, before I heard him yell, “Bel? Bel!”
When I stopped it sounded like a herd of ducks were running behind me. “I didn’t know you even knew my name,” I said when he caught up with me.
“I read your name tag,” he panted. “Every day.” I looked down. There was my name tag, firmly clipped to the lapel of my lab coat…hanging proudly right about bust level. So he was looking at my boobs every day? Instead of being disgusted, now I was a little amused. “I heard your friends call you Bel, but I saw your name. It’s Maribel. That’s the prettiest name I ever heard.”
When I looked up at him he stared down as though he had suddenly found something of extreme interest on the floor. I looked down too, and did find something quite interesting, besides the cracked tile—a couple of very big feet. No wonder he made such a racket running. Maybe hot monkey sex wasn’t such a bad idea after all. “Wow. Those are some big feet you got there. Ever play basketball?”
He snorted. “Naw. Too clumsy.”
We both looked up at almost the same time. “I’m sorry I yelled,” I said. “I haven’t had a great day either. How about if we start this portion of the conversation over again?” I let out a long string of squeaky gobbldygook that made his eyebrows shoot straight up to his hairline. “That was me rewinding,” I explained. “Okay. Here we go. Click. Listen, I’m clocking out in like ten minutes. Do you wanna go get something to eat?” He hesitated. “I’m really going to miss you, Kenny!” I burst out. “You’re so sweet, and kind, and you treat everybody the same, whether it’s the chief of staff or a janitor. Seeing you always cheers me up, no matter how my day has sucked.” Now his look of uncertainty changed to one of surprise. “I’m really gonna miss you,” I repeated more softly. “I just wanted to hang with you a while, if you want to.”
“Really?” He still looked amazed.
“Really. If you want to.”
The darkness seemed to lift from him a bit, but he still looked unsure. “Well, uh, yeah, I’d like to, but like I said I’m not real blessed with money.”
“Please! I wasn’t inviting myself out on you. My treat.”
“Oh no!” he cried, positively appalled. “I couldn’t possibly let a lady buy. I was raised better’n that…more or less.”
Whatever that meant, I let it slide. “C’mon, Kenny. I just got my tax refund. Let me spend some of it on something more fun than bills.”
He wavered a moment longer, shifting from foot to foot and tugging at his shirt. I guess it was that awful smock he had to wear on the job, but somehow, in addition to missing those marvelous eyes, I had managed to totally overlook how nice his body was. His shoulders were broad, his arms long and sinewy, and those jeans hugged his thighs so well! Just when I thought I might have to resort to whining, or even begging, his face lit up with that sunshiny smile. “Okay,” he said, “but I’m—“ As quickly as it had appeared, the smile vanished. “Aww…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I was gonna say I’m drivin’, but my car’s in awful bad shape. I’d be ashamed for you to get in it.”
He hung his head, and I grabbed his hand in mine. “Mine’s nothing to shout about either. I’d be happy to ride with you.”
You would’ve thought he’d won the lottery. He beamed all the way to my cramped cubicle, and only let go of my hand long enough for me to chuck my lab coat and get my purse. I hoped I hadn’t let sympathy get me into some rattletrap of a pickup truck or the like, but actually Kenny drove a 99 Honda which, while it was indeed not pretty, ran fairly well. “So what’s your mouth in the mood for?” I asked as we pulled out of the parking lot.
“Nothin’ too weird. I’m not used to exotic food. Actually, I eat…ate a lot in the cafeteria, ‘cause it’s cheap.”
“In that case, not only are you not used to exotic food, you’re not used to actual food!” I thought for a minute. “There’s a really good Italian buffet nearby. Pizza, pasta, salad, dessert. And it’s not too expensive!” I added before he could protest. “How’s that sound?”
“That sounds wonderful,” he said fervently. I suspected his food intake had been more based on his wallet than on his hunger or the food pyramid, and got some confirmation of that when we got to the restaurant. Kenny ate like both those long legs of his were hollow. He plowed through everything—well, except the Hawaiian pizza. I could almost see his skinny frame filling out. It was pleasing to watch.
I did my best to talk about anything other than the job he had just lost, but over the cherry dessert pizza his words turned to the future. “I better get on home an’ get some sleep. I’ll have to get up early an’ start lookin’ for someplace to work.”
“Don’t you have any family you could fall back on for a little while?” I asked.
His mouth twitched in a small laugh that wasn’t very amused. “Not that I’d want to. I left to get away from…that. I don’t want to go back a failure. I don’t want to hear ‘em say how they told me so, or how they knew I wouldn’t ever amount to anything.”
He looked away at nothing in particular. I reached across the table for his hand again, realizing for the first time the sadness behind his cheery mask, and wondering if he treated others so kindly because he had been treated unkindly. “That is so full of shit,” I said flatly. “You are a wonderful person, Kenny. There’s a place for you somewhere. What other skills do you have?”
“Not much that’s, what would you say, marketable. I’m real good at hog callin’, and pickin’ greens, but nothin’ else.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “It’ll work out. I’ll help you, and I have friends I can recruit. We’ll find something.”
We drove back to the hospital to find my balky old car refused to start. I didn’t have jumper cables, and Kenny confessed he didn’t know how to use them anyhow. “Probably start an explosion and burn the hospital down,” he admitted. “Although there are a few parts I wouldn’t mind burnin’ down. I know it’s bad of me to think it, but it’s true.”
“It’s not ‘bad of you’ to be angry! It’s normal, especially when you don’t feel like you’ve been treated fairly.”
His green eyes flashed again. “Right now I’m so mad I could chew an iron bar an’ spit BBs.”
What an image. I giggled, and then yawned. “I’d call AAA, but I’m too darn tired. I’ll take the bus home and call ‘em in the morning.”
“Huh?” Kenny gaped. “You are not ridin’ any ol’ bus home! Come on.” I protested, but he would not be budged, so I got back in his car and directed him toward my duplex. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other playing radio station roulette. When the pop, country and gospel stations offered nothing of interest, he let me try. I tuned to the station where my friend April works, playing R&B from the 60s to the present, and scored a long set of Stevie Wonder tunes. I sat back and relaxed, and then got the shock of my life.
Kenny started to softly sing along. It was toward the end of ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’. He continued when the DJ, not April, mixed into ‘Isn’t She Lovely’. The set ended with a segue into some Luther Vandross, and Kenny kept singing. His face completely changed as he sang; the shyness and awkwardness disappeared, and a look of pure joy made him almost glow. I sat straight up with my mouth hanging open. I had never heard such a flawless clear voice in my life. “My god, Kenny,” I gasped. “You sound incredible! Why aren’t you singing professionally?”
He stopped, and looked honestly bewildered. “I sing okay, I guess, but—gosh, I never would imagine doin’ somethin’ like that!”
“Kenny, you don’t sing ‘okay’. You sing beautifully! You should at least try out for one of those reality shows or something.”
“Oh, yeah, right!” His laugh held a hint of bitterness. “Look at me, Bel. Who’d take me seriously? They might put me on just to make fun of me, but that’s all.” I tried to argue the point. “You know it’s true!”
Unfortunately, he was right, and I had a feeling he had been laughed at far too much in his life to deliberately put himself in that kind of spot. I wasn’t about to let this go, though. “Okay, well then how about something where people didn’t see you? I have a friend who works at this station.” I pointed to the radio. “Have you ever thought about singing on ads, jingles, maybe even singing backup on records?”
“You mean it?” He shook his head as though he could not believe what he was hearing.
“Yes, I mean it!” I guided him into my driveway. “April’s out of town visiting—“ I caught myself before I finished. It sounded as if Kenny’s relationship with his family was damn near nonexistent, and talking about my friend’s closeness to hers seemed unnecessarily hurtful. “But she’ll be back next week. I’ll call her and get something going. If you want me to.”
He bit his lip, clearly trying to make my words about him match what he thought of himself. “Okay,” he said finally. “Okay, I’ll try, if you really think I could.”
“Great!” I tore the carry out menu from the Italian place in half, wrote my phone number on half and gave it to him. On the other half I wrote his number and stuffed it in my purse. I hopped out of the car and was surprised when he did too. “I thought you weren’t going to let my feminine wiles entice you into something you’d regret,” I teased.
He turned beet red. “Gosh, Bel, I am so sorry I ever said somethin’ like that—“
“Oh, quit.” I hugged him.
“I just wanted to walk you to your door, though. I don’t, y’know, sleep around.”
“I don’t either,” I grinned. “Wow, a real gentleman. They don’t make many like you anymore.” With one big hand at the small of my back, he escorted me to the front door, which I was slightly embarrassed to note needed a major repainting job. “Just relax for a couple of days. Look at it as a little vacation. You’ve got one more paycheck coming, remember, since Sacred Heart pays two weeks behind. So kick back and do some fun things. I’ll talk to April on Monday and let you know what we can hook up.”
“I can call you before then, though, can’t I?” he blurted, and blushed again, but this time he didn’t look away.
“Absolutely,” I replied. I turned my face up to his. He lowered his mouth to mine. WHOA. Opie shouldn’t kiss that way. I had never been kissed that way before. I was engaged once to a guy who didn’t kiss me that way. Not hard, or mushy, or slobbery. Kenny’s kiss was as perfect as his voice. I was breathless when he finally let me go.
“Tell me somethin’,” he whispered in my ear. “Exactly what is hot monkey sex, anyhow?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I giggled. “I’ve certainly never had any…but we could find out together sometime, if you want to, maybe.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Maybe.” He kissed me again, quickly and lightly. “G’night, Maribel.” The way he said my name with his soft accent made my toes curl up inside my tennies. I watched from my door as he all but skipped to his car and raced away. I didn’t get out of bed that morning intending to lose my heart to a dork with the voice of an angel, but I had, and I could not have been happier about it.
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~ Posted 2.17.2005 ~
You may contact the author at theleewit@mindspring.com