Time Off for Good Behavior Read online

  There was a frustrated huff, something that sounded like bitch, and then the line went dead. He wont come, I told myself. The last thing George wanted was another run-in with the Tennessee cops, who didn’t have much patience for outsiders with attitude problems. He was still wanted on a DUI and an unregistered-weapons charge; the restraining order merely sealed the deal that would keep him out of the state. I put the phone down and pressed my fingertips against my temples.

  “Maybe I should come back later,” the guy said.

  I waved my hand dismissively. “If you’re gonna come back, you might as well stay.”

  He nodded and stepped toward me, a crooked smile snaking up one side of his face as he held out his hand. “Hi, Wanda. My name is Walter Briggs.”

  I smiled back as I took his hand. He had brown hair and wire-frame glasses, and his handshake was firm, but not like he was trying to prove anything. He was that Jimmy Stewart kind of handsome, the kind you didn’t notice much until he unleashed that crooked smile on you and then hoo-wah.

  “I’m a lawyer,” he said.

  Hoo-whatever. I withdrew my hand and crossed my arms, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “I knew it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Bible college, my ass,” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  I crossed my arms and went on attack. “Couldn’t even wait until the painkillers wore off, could you?”

  His eyebrows knit slightly, and his head tilted a bit. Nice whack at innocence, but I wasn’t buying it. He looked at me in silence, and I widened my eyes, speaking slowly so he’d understand.

  “I’m not signing anything.”

  “Okaaaaaay,” he said.

  “So you can just run along back to Pencil Face and tell him I’m not falling for that trick.”

  The crooked smile snaked up a notch in a manner that was not at all attractive. Not one bit.

  “Pencil Face?”

  “Your boss, the defense lawyer for those HG&E guys.”

  His eyebrows raised in understanding. “Oh. You mean John Douglass.”

  I rolled my eyes and flicked my hand at him. “Run along. I’m not signing anything. You’re wasting your time.”

  He gave a low chuckle that was also not at all appealing. “Why don’t you let me worry about my time?”

  “I was trying to be polite,” I said through clenched teeth. “I care about my time.”

  He nodded, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a business card. “Then I won’t take up much more of it. Like I said, my name is Walter Briggs. Although I am familiar with John Douglass—sorry, Pencil Face—I’m not associated with him.”

  I looked down at the card. It was plain with black type: “Walter Briggs, Attorney-at-Law.” I looked back up at Walter, who was smiling down at me.

  Okay. Maybe the smile was a little attractive.

  “So if you’re not associated with Pencil Face, what are you doing here?”

  His eyes tightened a bit, but his mouth didn’t skip a beat. “I heard about what happened at the courthouse. Based on my research, you have a decent case against the city. I thought I’d come by and offer to help you, if you decide to pursue legal action.”

  I ran my eyes over the card again and then up to his face. “You don’t look like an ambulance chaser.”

  His amused expression waned a bit. “I’m not.”

  “Then why are you here soliciting for business?”

  “Are you this hard on everyone you meet?”

  “Not everyone,” I said, feeling a smile play on my lips despite my better judgment. You’d have to be blind and deaf to not smile at Jimmy Stewart. “Just the lawyers.”

  Vera entered, carrying my dinner tray. Judging by the smell, I’d finally made it to the A-list of hospital inmates allowed to eat something other than Jell-O and beef bouillon. Walter stepped back to give her room.

  “I’ll let you enjoy your dinner,” he said, his hand reaching for the door. He started to go, then turned his head and shot another grin at me. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Wanda.” He looked over at Vera and flashed her a bigger grin. I was not at all jealous. “Have a nice day.”

  And then he was gone.

  Vera raised her eyebrows at me. “Cute.”

  “I guess,” I said. “So, I’m getting real food now?”

  “You guess?” she said. “Honey, you gotta appreciate a boyfriend looks like that. I wouldn’t kick him outta my bed for eating crackers, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “Boyfriend?” I said. “I just met him.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “But he was here every day when you were in the coma. I was wondering where he went. . “Here where? In the hospital?”

  She shook her head. “Here here, in your room.”

  “Every day?” I said, trying to picture Jimmy Stewart as a psycho stalker. Couldn’t do it. “All day?”

  “No,” she said, “not all day, but he’s been coming by, stopping in your room, checking on you. Sometimes he’d sit for a spell. We all just assumed he was your boyfriend. I was surprised when you said not to call anyone for you; if that man was in my room every day, I’d have him on speed dial.”

  “Well, sorry to be the sugar in your gas tank, but...” I handed her his card. She read it, rolled her eyes, and handed it back.

  “Lawyers,” she said, shaking her head in severe disappointment.

  “Preaching to the choir, sister,” I said.

  She crossed her arms, stared for a moment at the doorway where he’d just been, and shrugged. “Still wouldn’t kick him out of bed.” She turned and gave me a bright smile. “Well, you eat your dinner, honey, and happy birthday!”

  I put my fork down. “Happy birthday?”

  She nodded and seemed at a loss for words for a moment. That impression was fleeting. “October twenty-sixth, right? According to your chart?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Crap. “I’m thirty-two today.”

  She smiled, about to say something chipper, then apparently thought better of it. “Honey, where’s your family?”

  I picked up my fork. “New York.”

  She paused a beat, wisely choosing not to pick at that thread. “Are you sure there’s no one we should call? I know you informed us not to contact your husband again—”

  “Ex-husband.” I poked at the chicken on my plate. It resisted. “This thing is dead, right?”

  “Wanda?”

  “Are these instant potatoes?” I let a clump fall from my fork with a dull splat. “Five thousand dollars a minute for a hospital bed, and you guys can’t afford real potatoes?”

  “I’m about to go on break,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d... maybe... would you mind if I ate with you?”

  “Don’t pity me, Vera,” I said, not looking at her. “I’m used to being alone. I like it that way.”

  She crossed her arms and jutted one hip out with attitude. “Well, I don’t like eating alone, and I thought that sitting in here with you might be nice, but you’re quickly changing my mind.”

  I smiled. Vera had teeth. Good for her. “Could you bring me some real potatoes?” I asked.

  She smiled and patted my knee. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  She squeaked on out. My birthday. Goddamn.

  I sighed and poked at my chicken, then stopped. The tune. That same damn tune. Again. I listened carefully. It was faint. Sort of classical. I could hear a piano approaching some sort of crescendo. I’d heard it before, I knew I had, but I just couldn’t place it...

  “Hope this potato is real enough for you,” Vera said as she squeaked back into the room. Damn nurse shoes.

  “Shhhh!” I said, holding up my hand. She froze. I lowered my hand. It was gone.

  She moved forward and placed the foil-covered potato on my tray. “You okay, Wanda?”

  “Yeah,” I said, watching her as she grabbed a tray from the empty bed on the other side of the room. “It’s just that song. It’s driving me crazy.�
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  She settled on the bed next to me and situated her food. “What song?”

  I raised my knife, motioning out the door. “I don’t know. Whatever music the nurses keep playing at the station.”

  Her eyebrows knit. “We’re not playing any music.”

  I took a bite from the dinner roll. I had to admit it wasn’t bad. My stomach clamored for the real food, growling for more. “Then whatever you’re piping through the PA system.”

  She shook her head and gave a gentle laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We don’t play music here. It’s impossible to find something everybody likes, and the way people complain...”

  “Well, there’s something,” I said. “I keep hearing it.”

  She sat back and stared at me for a moment. “Should I get the doctor?”

  I shook my head, about to speak, but then the music faded in again.

  “See?” I said, motioning vaguely into the air. “Ugh. It’s driving me nuts. I know I know that tune, but it keeps fading out right when I’m about to place it.”

  I trailed off as the crescendo approached. Vera watched me carefully. It faded away.

  “Dammit. Do you know what that song is?”

  Vera stood up. “I’m going to go get the doctor.”

  “No. Why? Is it his music?”

  Vera inhaled. “There’s no music.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “What do you mean there’s no music? It was just right there, you heard it.”

  Vera shook her head. “There’s no music, Wanda.”

  I put my fork down. My stomach stopped growling. “Of course, there’s music.”

  She shook her head again and stood up. “I’m gonna go get Dr. Harland.”

  I waved my hand at her. “No. Don’t bother him at home.”

  “He’s on today, I’m pretty sure,” she said, heading toward the door. “I just saw him about an hour ago.”

  I swallowed. Nodded. Vera left. I looked out the window, the streetlights blurring as my eyes teared up. Alone on my birthday. And crazy to boot. I could hardly wait for thirty-three.

  ***

  I was released from the hospital a week later. The doctors were pleased as punch that I hadn’t suffered any major trauma, that I sailed right out of a light coma and into recovery. I still felt a little woozy when I got up fast, but they were sure that another two weeks of rest at home would be the best medicine.

  “And what about the music?” I asked Dr. Harland when he was regaling me with praise for my miraculous recovery. We were sitting on my hospital bed, waiting for the damn nurse to come with the damn wheelchair and wheel me out of the damn hospital despite the fact that I could walk out of it on my own.

  Damn rules.

  Dr. Harland smiled at me. He was a “Go get ’em, sport” kind of guy, and his perpetual cheerfulness—especially considering he was five foot one and should have been good and pissed off—was rather unsettling for me.

  “The music?”

  “Yes. The phantom music I keep hearing that no one else can hear. Remember?”

  “Well, now, Wanda, the thing is... we’ve tested you for tinnitus…”

  “It’s music, not ringing,” I said through clenched teeth. I’d been hearing about friggin’ tinnitus for the past week. I was sick to death of tinnitus. “I’m telling you, there’s music. I hear it. There must be a reason why.”

  He sighed, looking genuinely concerned. He was so earnest I wanted to smack him. “Wanda, we’ve checked your ears, and their physical condition is perfectly normal.”

  I could feel my nails digging into my palms as I clenched my fists. “Well, something’s going on. It’s not my imagination. I’m not dreaming it; I’m hearing it.”

  “Hmmm.” Dr. Harland pursed his lips. “Maybe we should get you an appointment with Dr. Angibous.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This sounded hopeful. “Dr. Angibous? Who’s Dr. Angibous? Some kind of ear specialist?”

  Dr. Harland gently shook his head. “He’s a psychiatrist.”

  “I’m not seeing a shrink,” I growled. “It’s not in my head. I’m not crazy.”

  “Of course not,” Dr. Harland said. “I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is, there is no physical reason for your condition.” He reached over and patted my hand. “You could pursue it with a neurologist, but since the symptoms are slight and don’t really affect your functionality, you might save yourself time and money and just get used to it. Eventually, it might just go away on its own.”

  “Go away on its own? Is that what they teach you in medical school? If you have no fucking idea what’s going on, just tell the patient it’ll go away on its own?”

  Dr. Harland shrugged and smiled at me like the most angelic little human being on the planet, and all I wanted to do was shake him and yell, “You’re short!” until he got angry and bitter like a normal person.

  But then the nurse arrived with my wheelchair, and I stepped in, complaining all the way to the hospital exit that I was perfectly capable of walking down the damn hallway by my damn self.

  Chapter Two

  My apartment was a small, one-bedroom number with an open area for kitchen, dining room, and living room and just enough windows to make the builders free from liability for the clinical depression that tended to overtake the tenants in my building. It was the place I’d escaped to when George and I split, and although I could probably afford a nicer place, I stayed. I’d become a staunch subscriber to the “rainy day” theory of life. I’d had enough rainy days to know that more were always coming.

  I spent most of my recovery period reading. I have this thing about books. I think I got it from my mom. She used to read about five a week. When I was young, when my father was just starting his work with his practice in Manhattan, we were dead broke. Dad worked a lot, and the commute into the city ate up a couple of hours each day, so mostly, it was just me and Mom entertaining ourselves. Every Wednesday we’d walk down to the library together and choose our books. She’d recommend her favorites to me, classics like Alice in Wonderland and Charlotte’s Web. I’d usually choose a Judy Blume book just to bug her. She hated that I’d waste my time reading about children whose parents cared so little about them that they’d name them Fudge.

  I remember sitting in the living room with her, just the two of us, reading in silence. We each had our own chair flanking the standing lamp in the corner. She would curl up with a cup of tea and read Anna Karenina, which she read every summer. She’d cry every time. To this day, I still haven’t read that book. I didn’t understand why people would want to read books that made them cry.

  I was supposed to be recovering at home for two weeks on Dr. Harland’s orders, but within five days of my release from the hospital, I was going bat-ass crazy in that apartment. I’d dusted the top of my refrigerator. I’d alphabetized my CD collection. I’d emptied out the bag of pill bottles and random et cetera I’d brought home with me from the hospital and lined them up in my medicine cabinet by size. I even stuck Walter Briggs’s business card in the corner of my bathroom mirror, contemplating taking him up on suing the city, partly so I could have someone to talk to and partly because I, like Vera, would probably not kick him out of my bed for eating crackers.

  That was the final straw.

  On Thursday morning, a good week before I was supposed to return to work, I got up, got dressed, and headed out to surprise my coworkers at Channel 8.

  ***

  Channel 8 staked out the northern half of a strip mall, while the southern half was occupied by a tanning salon and a florist, neither of which was advertising on our air. To me, that always summed up the character of the station: so pathetic that even our neighbors wouldn’t play with us.

  I pushed my way through the glass doors into the station. In its previous incarnation, it had been a furniture store, with white walls and gray carpeting that were intended to play bridesmaid to rolltop desks and oak dining sets. When Channel 8 moved in, they immediately put up g
ray cubicles in the open area to create a “team atmosphere.” The only atmosphere it created was that of a bunch of gophers living in a huge, dusty rice cake.

  Susie Huffman, possibly the least savvy salesperson on the planet, was sitting at my desk when I arrived, picking through my files with her long acrylic nails. Susie was twenty-two going on twelve. She actually believed potential clients when they promised to call her back once business slowed down. She cried an average of five to seven times a week, although on occasion it worked for her. Tom Shelty, the owner of Hobby Hound Dog, was so freaked out by her crying all over his classic model car display that he’d signed an annual right on the spot.

  Susie had been handling my clients for me, and I dreaded finding out how little of my paycheck I’d be seeing for the next month or so. Hell, with Susie handling things, I might even owe the station money.

  She looked up to see me and slammed the file drawer shut.

  “Wanda!” she said with false enthusiasm. She might have pulled it off if she could have hidden the tremor in her voice. “You’re back early!”

  I saw a few gopher heads pop up over the tops of the cubicles, the same way they always did when they sensed the ground was about to shake. I sidled past Susie and started rifling through the pile of mail and memos on my desk.

  “Yeah. I’m fine now. I’m back.” I sat on the edge of my desk and folded my arms. “All right, Susie. Out with it. How much of my business did you lose?”

  “Well,” she started, biting her lip, “Activity Center decided they didn’t want to go on air until school starts again in the fall. Feeney Contracting said they’d get back to me in first quarter. And Finnegan’s Chevrolet is on Trudy’s list now.”

  “What?” I grabbed the file from her. “Trudy’s list? What the hell is my biggest client doing on Trudy’s list?”

  Trudy Laverly was the devil in an inappropriate dress, the kind of person who lied to her clients to get them to sign a contract and then let the sales assistant take the heat when discrepancies were found. I glanced over at her cubicle, which was conveniently empty. No doubt she’d heard the distinctive roar of my crappy muffler and went to hide in the bathroom. Trudy may have been evil incarnate, but she wasn’t stupid.