What Eyes Can't See, page 21
Glenora stared into space, clutching his phone so hard I thought she’d crack the screen worse than it already was. Sebastian was her everything. They’d been alone forever, and a part of me felt like an intrusion into their special relationship.
How different his upbringing was from my own.
Poverty and hunger made farming a necessity for his family, versus the hobby gardening he did now. What a luxury choice was. The simple act of being able to afford produce for the fridge’s vegetable drawer must have seemed an impossibility at points in their lives. While on the island, Sebastian savored fruit in a way I’d never seen anyone do. Pineapple. Papaya. Mangos. He’d talk about them like they were magic, likely because he ate them so rarely growing up. Manhattan wasn’t exactly a tropical climate.
Simple pleasures.
In contrast, I had unlimited pleasures, none of them cheap or adequately appreciated. Conspicuous consumption was my family’s motto, fueled by our desire to fit in as a Black family in elite white spaces. The member-only clubs Dad frequented. Expensive vacations. Private schools. Legal retreats. “Look the part,” Dad always said. Act like you belong. Living as I had these last weeks made my old self hard to recognize. She’d become a frivolous stranger I’d left behind.
Yet, one thing stuck in my mind since Nikki mentioned it.
“I have a question.”
Glenora’s watery eyes met mine.
“Someone needs to pay for what they did to him. Without the police…? I don’t know what I’ll do if…” Tears choked my throat before I could finish.
She pulled me in tight for a hug, stroking my head. “He’s gaga for you, too. Haven’t seen him this distracted since he had a crush on Melissa McKenzie in third grade. And she was nowhere as beautiful as you.”
A laugh escaped as I separated to wipe my eyes. “That obvious?”
“To me at least.”
“We kinda have ourselves a pickle, he and I. I probably shouldn’t mention, but I’m suing the company. We’ll be on opposite sides, and that gets ethically sticky.”
“Something tells me you’ll figure it out.” Glenora patted my hands, then kept hers there. And I let her. I hadn’t been this vulnerable with anyone since my mom died. Not my dad. Not my aunt or brother. There was a “right” way to behave in our family, and ugly crying wasn’t in the manual. I’d missed it, though. It was the same unadulterated acceptance I got with Sebastian on the island. A measure of hope returned. I prayed his surgeon shared our optimism.
Chapter 33
Sebastian
I felt like hell. Groggy with a pounding head, like waking on the wrong side of a weekend bender. I risked a swallow, but my tongue wouldn’t comply. Useless, it lay in my mouth waiting for someone to splash off the sticky paste coating it like gummy flour. I wiggled my jaw and jolts of pain shot up my neck, around my head and down my spine. Then the sounds registered. Electronic beeps. And an intercom paging Dr. Somebody to some place.
I was in a hospital.
Opening my lids would confirm whatever alternate reality I’d sunk into. But they were ridiculously heavy.
How did I get to a hospital aching like I’d been worked over by…
Mo.
His boys mauled me within an inch of my life.
Who got me here?
“I can tell you’re awake,” Mom said.
I creaked my eyes open, but the room remained a dark blur. I blinked but couldn’t focus. The bed next to me was empty, visible because the bathroom’s bright light sliced the darkness through an open crack. My head weighed a million pounds, but I managed to roll it toward Mom’s voice. She stood over me, her weathered hands gripping the handrail so hard her knuckles bulged.
She was scared but didn’t want me to know. My stupidity, once again, forced her to be the strong one. I’d screw up, and Mom would swoop in to save me. This time, from certain death. Had to be, or she’d already be ripping me a new one.
“Can you move toward the end of the bed?” I croaked, my throat scratchy and raw. “My neck hurts too much to look up.”
“You can thank your buddy Mo for that. You nearly died,” Mom choked back a sob and turned away. “You had internal bleeding. It would’ve killed you if not for the surgery. Thank God Barbara acted quickly and called the ambulance. I couldn’t stop crying long enough to do anything. She’s been here with me. What an angel.”
I had so many questions, but my mouth wasn’t working right. “Water…”
“I’ll get it.” Mom reached for a cup and bent the straw to slip between my cracked lips.
Tepid water slipped down my throat. I sloshed it around using as few muscles as possible. The slightest movement pierced me with daggers of pain. I blinked it away to focus. How had Barbara gotten roped into my mess?
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“No. We’re all fine. But it was terrifying. We saw the whole thing through the salon window. There was so much blood… Barbara was hysterical, trying to get to you, to stop…” her voice caught in her throat.
I reached for her hand, which she took and squeezed.
“It’s okay. What hospital are we at?”
“Lennox Hill. Barbara convinced the ambulance drivers to take you here. Thought you might get faster treatment. Smart cookie, that one.”
“Yeah?” My spirit lightened. At least the part that wasn’t screaming in pain.
“Barbara cares for you, despite trying not to. Got that in common. The two of you are so stubborn.”
I tried to pulse an eyebrow in amusement, but even that took effort.
“You didn’t tell me she comes from money. It drips off her, the way she demanded answers after surgery, had your room changed when they put you in one with a guy blaring the TV. She even talked to the insurance company about the coverage. She’s a keeper.”
“Don’t remind me.” I braced my arms to sit up, but … agony… everywhere at once. “Fuck! Fuck that kills!”
“Watch your mouth. And quit moving.”
“I need pain meds.”
“I kept it low given your… problem.”
“I never had a problem. That was Mo.”
“Hard to tell whose demons were whose. Which ghosts are the past, and which remain.” Mom shot me a glance to melt lead.
Fuck. She knows something’s up.
“You’ve been best friends since you both were teens. Why would Mo come after you? Tell me—and don’t lie.”
My thoughts were way too scrambled to attempt lying. But I had no intention of telling her the truth.
“Do we have to do this now?”
“Who’s to say they’re done? Maybe we need protection from your protection. Unless…”
Damn her instincts. “Mom. I can’t. I’m all banged up…”
“Dante warned us. Why? He works for Mo.”
“He feels guilty.”
“For what?”
Why the fuck was she badgering me?
Because she knows you’re a lying shit.
“I don’t know.” Pain throbbed to every nerve ending in my body. “Get me those pills. I’m not a fucking addict.”
“You need to answer a few questions first.”
Was someone paying her to torture me? It’d been ages since we fought, but I wasn’t taking her shit. Not today. Not after Mo ground me to a pulp and left me for dead. I took one for the team, but that was too damn real. Like Mo wanted me gone, permanently.
It made no sense.
We’ve been square, he and I, each going our separate gangland ways. He kept my name out of the neighborhood feuds and earned my continued silence. Just as I earned his.
No good would come from digging it all up.
The money was gone…
Unless it wasn’t.
Unless Dante wasn’t the only one being cheated.
“I know that look,” Mom said. I had completely forgotten she was there, and that we were in the middle of an argument.
“I need to piece a few things together. I honestly don’t get why Mo did this. I mouthed off a little at the courts, but this is next-level damage.”
Satisfied, she let it go. No one wanted to figure out what happened more than I did.
Mom slid a chair over and sat clasping her hands while I fought through a fog. Eyes closed, what little brain capacity I had shifted to Barbara. Everything I learned about her made her that much harder to resist. A lesser person would have dropped me off and scrammed. But she was special. Loyal, and I’d only known her a short while. How the hell could her ex have stepped out on someone that amazing?
Plus, she stayed with Mom. I owed her big time. I also owed Nikki for saving Barbara’s life. She’d only have gotten pummeled if she ran into the middle of that shit show.
“Where’s Barbara?” I asked.
“She went to get me a new sandwich.” Mom said.
“Something wrong with last one?”
“Sweetie, she brought me some stinky foo-foo sandwich with brie or goat cheese. I can’t eat that. Besides, she didn’t mind. She would have told me.”
“What are you two best friends now?”
“Yeah. I think so.” Mom’s voice was smiling.
I must have drifted off, because I awoke to whispers and rustling paper bags.
“Tuna, turkey, cheese, ham…nothing stinky. I got pickles, but they’re on the side. I also brought coleslaw, potato salad, and macaroni salad. We didn’t talk drinks, so I have water, juice, Coke, Diet Coke, ginger ale, and a Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry.” Barbara said.
“You are a kick! This is enough for a week!”
“Well, we may be here awhile.”
We. She said we. My heart thumped in my chest and didn’t ache at all.
“I call dibs on the black cherry,” I said. Barbara leapt up and was at my side in an instant.
“You’re awake!” Her relief was evident as she grabbed my hand and clutched it to her chest before dropping it like it burned. “Sorry, I’m… I didn’t mean to…”
“I think we’re past that, don’t you?” I cracked a smile, and she returned one.
Adjusted to the darkness, I saw her features: her nose, her lips and those eyes still glowing. But instead of glowing in island moonlight, they reflected the light of a hospital bathroom, standing over the bed of a battered man. But I’d never been luckier.
Barbara took my hand back and squeezed tight.
“Since I almost died and all, and have a new appreciation for life, this seems like a good time to ask you to dinner.”
Barbara swallowed a laugh. “You’re asking me out?”
“It’d be rude to refuse my invitation.”
“Would it? Okay, yes. Shall we go now? Or do you want to swing by home and change first?”
“I’ll decide when I can lift my head. My people will call your people.”
“You do that.” Barbara loosened her grip, but I tightened mine, yanking her close.
“Thank you. For trying to save me,” I said.
Her expression clouded, my walloping likely replaying in her mind. She’d not likely seen a real beat-down before, let alone of someone she cares for. I’d experienced enough to grasp how brutal they could be. Movie fights always left the faces remarkably untouched. But seeing someone’s face busted to smithereens, together with blood gushing from the nose and mouth, those images stuck.
“It was awful. I’ll never…” Her hand tightened as tears dammed along her lash line. I wanted to kiss them away. Kiss her pain away.
“Come here.” She leaned in to kiss my battered, cracked lips. Gentle, like a promise.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered.
“I’m stubborn that way.”
She searched my face. For what, I’m not sure. She looked like she was drinking me in. Was she surveying my bruised face or remembering it as it was before? I’d never know, but as long as she stayed by my side, I didn’t care.
“I’m going to eat your mom’s stinky sandwich. Best you kiss me now.”
I did. Then she took a seat next to what must have been my mom’s smirking self.
Barbara rustled her sandwich out of the white paper wrapper, raising her voice. “Mmmm. This is the best stinky cheese ever!”
“Blech. How can you eat that? It tastes like feet,” Mom said.
“It’s an acquired taste. We’ll do a cheese board sometime and I’ll get you eating all kinds of things you never thought you’d try.”
Mom chuckled. “You’re charming, but not THAT charming.”
That’s where Mom was wrong. Barbara was the most captivating woman I’d ever met.
Chapter 34
Sebastian
Sun streamed through my hospital room's windows, escaping around where the shades gapped. Outside, the world went about its day. Morning came, people shuffled to work. At some point, I’d rejoin them.
I drifted in and out of sleep all night. At least twice, I woke from violent dreams into the stranglehold of an automatic blood pressure cuff. My dreamworld merged with the details of the attack, leaving me unsettled about which was which. I’d ask Barbara when she returned later.
That she planned to return at all liquefied my insides. Logistics overwhelmed Mom. Having Barbara take charge was a godsend. They traded jabs about stinky cheese before murmuring together for hours. Mom only did that with my aunt, and not nearly often enough. She needed more close companions and so did I.
If my brush with death taught me anything, it’s that none of us know when our time is up. I’d been on autopilot for so long, I’d forgotten how to have fun. Not the reckless shit I did as a teen. Exciting adventures, like the ones I had with Barbara. Stepping outside my comfort zone to embrace new experiences. Stand for something and create change that mattered. The moment I returned to work, I’d talk to Barr. Maybe I could get him to understand why his patriarchal ways wouldn’t cut it. Play my cards right, and I might convince him the whole idea was his doing. Even let him take the credit…
On cue, my cranky boss called. I reflexively twitched to answer, which only sent stabbing pain to every extremity.
Fuck me. I need meds.
But I wasn’t fast enough, and my voicemail alert chirped. All that mattered right now was calling the nurse. I had a vague memory of a controller being positioned near my left hand, so I patted the pilled cotton blanket until a smooth rubber cord pinched between my fingers. I slid it until the cool, hard plastic of the signal button arrived. I pressed, then waited.
“Someone will be right in.” A staticky voice blasted from the speaker.
Moments later, a nurse walked in wearing purple scrubs covered in carrots. A smile creaked across my face. The white board on the wall over the foot of my bed had “Maybelle” written in green dry erase marker next to the RN on duty.
“Do you garden?” I asked.
“I did, love. At home. Not anymore.” Her voice had an island lilt like Jerome, my barber. Caribbean? Her long braids were gathered into a ponytail hanging down her back. While glad to see Maybelle, I longed for Barbara instead.
“Where’s home?” I asked.
“Aren’t we Mr. Chatty?” She wore an amused expression as she reached to turn off the call button. “Why don’t you tell me how you’re feeling?
“Everything hurts.”
“On a scale of one to ten—”
“37. I need medication. I know my mother made out like I’m a junkie, but smoking pot 20 years ago doesn’t really qualify.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well then, we’ll see what we can do. I’m sure the doctor left a standing order, should you ask.”
“Ask for what?” Barbara breezed in with an armful of flowers.
My face erupted in a smile, and it almost didn’t hurt. “I was negotiating for pain meds.”
“Don’t let me interrupt.” Barbara smiled and moved across the room to the window. God, she was beautiful. Her dark eyes shone bright, red gloss made her lips look infinitely kissable. She wore a light gray blazer, white blouse and black jeans that hugged her curves like they were made for her. Knowing her wealth, they likely had been.
I stared at Barbara so long I completely forgot Nurse Maybelle was waiting. When I turned back to her, she had a wide smirk on her face. She leaned in to whisper. “Lady friend?”
“Yeah. I think so.” I whispered.
“Well, get on that,” she replied, standing up and resuming her full volume. “I’ll see about those meds.”
Barbara looked up and smiled as the nurse exited. “How are we today? I thought about bringing you breakfast but wasn’t sure if you were on a restricted diet.”
“Can’t say. Still waiting for rounds.”
“Your color is returning. Way better than yesterday.”
“I’m sorry you had to watch what happened.”
“That makes two of us.” Barbara turned away to fuss with the flower arrangement.
Something was off about her today. She wouldn’t hold eye contact and refused to approach my bed. Was she still in shock? She was fine last night. Whatever it was left my senses tingling. Before I had time to think about it, my phone rang.
Barr again.
It might be awkward for Barbara if I talked about work in front of her, but I didn’t want her to go.
“I better get that,” I said, answering.
“Where the hell are you?” Barr yelled.
“I’m in the hospital. I was attacked last night and—”
“Forget that. We’ve got troubles.”
“I’m mangled in bed, with tubes everywhere. I doubt you’re worse than me.”
Barbara looked up, and I mouthed, “Barr.” She stiffened, then grabbed her handbag.
“I’ll check back later.”
“Hold on.” I covered the phone with my free hand. “Don’t go. This won’t take long.”
“Talk to him. Then let me know if you still feel the same way.” She nodded toward my cell and left before I could stop her.
“Kingsbury! This is serious!”
I stared at my open door, expecting her to return.
“We’ve been served,” Barr yelled. “A group of former employees are suing for wrongful dismissal and racial discrimination.”
