Lawyers

While Lilly's at church on Wednesdays, Jay and I go out and drink.
Just kidding. We go up the street a block and get a glass of wine at The Bank, which is really a bar. I used to go to mass on Wednesdays before I met Jay, but now I go to the Bank. I have to say, dating a Muslim was healthier physically than dating a Catholic--no drinking, lots of veggies, and almost no nitrites--from bacon, etc. I drink probably three times as much as I did two years ago--which still isn't a lot, but I can see why Jay has a little trouble with the tummy. The Bank s on the corner, and everyone goes there to see who's with who and who's out walking around. It's owned by a friend of mine, Lisa, from junior high. I still can't get over the fact sometimes that we all grew up and ended up doing grownup things in our town--it seems like we're playacting. "Can you believe we're this old?" Lisa asked me once. "Speak for yourself." I told her.
Jay's sitting at the corner of the bar with his best friend, Hunter. Hunter is our local pit bull of a lawyer, who plays on a bigger stage, I guess. He owns a casino in Monte Carlo, of all places. He's hideous--like a James Bond villain--looks like a reptile--bald and oily and fat, but he's weirdly charming and mesmerizing--'like a snake who's about to eat you' is how Jay puts it. Our kids go to school together. I'm glad they are friends, because when Jay and I run out of conversation, Hunter and I can talk--about fiction mostly--Hunter's a big reader. But tonight, Hunter has another agenda:
"I'm deposing you soon," he says, smiling nastily.
"Oh, shit, you took the case?"
About a year ago, a Russian prostitute was admitted to the unit with mysterious sores, presumably burns, that had become infected. She had been hidden, and had become septic. She died, after one of the most disturbing codes I'd ever been through--I had to climb on the bed in order to give chest compressions, my hands had slid over the burns, which was gross--but the worst part was that right before she coded, she looked at me,--she'd been unconscious for days--and she tried to say something to me, and I couldn't understand her, She kept trying, but I just couldn't read her lips, I could almost hear her in my mind--but not quite, and sometimes I still see her face, trying to tell me whatever she was trying to tell me before she died. There were some very strange things about the case--before she died she had also started bleeding from her eyes.
Soupy had done the autopsy and he'd ruled septic shock as the cause of death, but for me, there were still unanswered questions. I was working the night shift when it all hit the fan. I went to the diner that morning and told Soupy all about it--but he couldn't find any hard evidence of hemorraghic fever--but her death was so strange. I think it stays with me still because she was so young, and I felt her life was just lost--there just aren't supposed to be people like this in Little Dixie--you know? I felt she was the tip of the iceberg and that more should have been done to find out who she was and why she ended up dying this way...there was a 'fiance' who was so clearly a pimp...I don't know. She was this person who never got to be a person at all, always living this shadow life
So, here's Hunter, ruining my time wih Jay
"Don't do this to me."
"You had her more than anyone else. You were there when she died." I hadn't told him that, so that means he's subpoenaed records.
"If anything happens to my nursing license as a result of this, Hunter, I and my children are moving in with you, do you understand? We will show up at your door with our 4 dogs, two cats and video games."
"Will you leave Jay and ride around on the back of my motorcycle?"
"Donor cycle."
"agh, nursing's ruined you. You used to be fun."
"I'm moving in with you, too" Jay pipes up.
"You can't ride on the back of my motorcycle."
He leaves. "I'll be in contact."
Jay and I nurse our drinks, after he leaves. I'm drinking Bailey's, he's having the usual vinegary pino grigio.
"We need different friends," I say at last.
Jay nods.

that's my 1/2 hour