Authors: Susan Sey
“Nixie?”
She shifted her eyes to Erik, found him looking at her with something new in his face. “We need to do CPR now.”
Nixie nodded. The shriek of a distant siren finally sounded as Nixie pulled
Jass
away from
DeShawn
. His hand fell to the frozen sidewalk and laid there, as if already dead.
Jass
stumbled at the sight of it, a moan of terrified anguish escaping her. Nixie opened her arms.
Jass
went into them and crumpled. Mary Jane and Erik worked together with wordless efficiency, breathing for
DeShawn
until the ambulance arrived.
After
DeShawn
had been loaded,
Jass
followed his gurney into the rear doors of the ambulance. She was silent, her eyes wide and blank. Nixie, Erik and Mary Jane all stayed on the sidewalk until it was out of sight. Nixie looked down. There was blood on her jeans, on her shirt. Erik and Mary Jane had it on their hands, on their knees, on their white coats.
Nobody said anything. Mary Jane finally turned and walked back inside the building. Nixie shoved her hands into her pockets.
“I’m sorry,” Erik said.
“For what?” Nixie didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry this happened.” He went to push his hands through his hair, but even when he snapped off his gloves, his hands were still bloody. He shook his head and slipped them into the pockets of his ruined coat instead. “I wanted you to get a good taste of
what we do here
, but I didn’t mean this.”
Nixie smiled, though she still didn’t look at him. “You think that was my first
gun shot
wound? You think that’s the first time I’ve walked a woman through saying goodbye to the father of her babies?”
“No,” he said. “No, I guess not.”
She blew out a breath and
it hung like
smoke in the cold air. “At least nobody took pictures,” she said. “That’s a step in the right direction.”
“You did good work tonight, Nixie.”
She finally looked at him. He was staring down into the street,
snow flakes
on his hair and shoulders. “And that was a big surprise to you.” She waited for a response but none came. “I’m
not quitting, Erik
.”
He glanced at her, his eyes very blue and searching in the glare of the street light. “
Why not
?”
“I find mopping unexpectedly fulfilling.”
“Come on, Nixie.”
I like surprising you
. Nixie didn’t know how much of it was him and how much was fin
ally impressing somebody after years of having her work taken
as the least she could do
. But she’d earned his respect tonight and she had a feeling it wasn’t an easy thing to do.
“It fits
. This place and what I know how to do. They go unexpectedly well together
.” She lifted one hand, let it drop. She knew she wasn’t explaining very well but she didn’t entirely understand it herself. “Plus, I
do
like the mopping. See you inside.”
CHAPTER
SIX
It was too quiet, and Nixie didn’t like it. She’d perched on the edge of the Wanda divot most of the next afternoon and
aside from a few reporters who’d disappeared after Nixie gave them a couple snaps, she’d seen a
whopping total of three people
come through the doors
. Something wasn’t right. It felt unnaturally hushed, like when a predator’s shadow falls over a field and all the small, furry things go silent.
Nixie wasn’t the only one feeling that way, either. Not from what she could gather. Mary Jane walked through the deserted waiting room for the hundredth time and peered out into the street. Nixie got to her feet and went to stand behind her shoulder. She looked where the doctor looked, se
eing over the woman easily. Maybe Mary Jane had been short and round in high school, but now she was just curvy and petite
.
With perfectly behaved
blonde
hair and everything.
She was the
ideal
complement to Erik’s large Nordic
Vikingness
.
Throw in a common cause and the
easy affection Nixie saw in every exchange between them and Nixie couldn’t help a twinge of curiosity.
Exactly how close were Mary Jane and Erik?
None of my business
, Nixie reminded herself. And not what she’d come over to ask about.
“What’s going on tonight?” she asked. Mary Jane didn’t turn away from the falling night. “I have snacks, hand sanitizer and an extra change of clothes right down to the underwear in my back pack. I’m wearing shoes I can hose down.”
She stuck out a foot. Her clogs were, indeed, made out of recycled tires and looked like it. Not flattering, but waterproof, as advertised. And eco friendly. “I’m totally prepared for mayhem, but it’s all
High Noon
out there.”
“
High Noon
?”
Nixie shrugged. “I think so. I’ve never seen the movie myself, but I have this impression of silent streets and tumble weeds and the locals hiding out under their kitchen tables while waiting for the gunslingers to open fire.”
Mary Jane stared at her. “You got this from having
not
seen a movie?”
Nixi
e smiled. “I’m imaginative. I
didn’t have a TV growing up. So, really, what’s the deal? Did the flu cure itself since yesterday? Was there a toxic spill last night? Was there a comet? Is everybody a zombie?”
“I would never have guessed you didn’t have TV.”
Nixie leaned around her to peer into the empty street. “What are you looking for out there?”
“You know that boy who died last night?”
“
DeShawn
?”
“Yeah. He was a well-placed member of the Yard crew.”
Nixie frowned. “He was a lawn mower?”
“No.” Mary Jane rubbed her forehead and laughed. “No, the Yard is a gang. They call them crews here, and they’re very neighborhood specific. The Yard is from up on the River, near the Naval Ship Yard.
DeShawn
was a pretty influential member. His girlfriend was from down here. And by down here, I mean all of a mile and a half south.”
Nixie nodded. “Oh. A Montague-Capulet thing.”
“Right. Star crossed lovers. Anyway, word on the street is that the Dog Crew--that would be our local crew--took exception to
DeShawn
poaching their women.”
“So they shot him,” Nixie finished for her. “And now all the
Capulets
are hot to kill the
Montagues
and cover themselves with bloody glory?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Mary Jane turned back to the rapidly darkening street. “You’ll probably be glad for those shoes later. I keep telling him we’re not an ER, but the kids
come anyway
.”
Nixie frowned. “Him?”
“What?”
“You said you keep telling
him
. Who’s him?”
“Oh.” She fluttered a hand then stuck it in the pocket of her white coat. “Sorry. I meant them. I keep telling
them
, all the kids who roll their buddies out of the cars on the sidewalk for us to patch up. We’re not an ER and bringing them to us when they need one is the next thing to letting them bleed out in the back seat. Every time we treat one of them without reporting it we’re putting our funding
, meager though it is,
on the line. It’s like they don’t hear me. They just keep coming.”
“Why don’t you report it?”
“Sometimes I do. Whenever I have to call an ambulance or the morgue. But I’d rather lose the clinic than let a kid die because his buddies are worried about the consequences of dropping him off here.”
Nixie nodded. “I can understand that.” She looked at the skinny tree lying on the sidewalk, all that was left of last night’s violence. She didn’t like seeing it there. It reminded her how indelible chance was. Sometimes things happened and there was no fixing them. You could only go forward.
Mary Jane seemed to read her thoughts. “I liked that tree. I planted it myself.”
“I’m sorry,” Nixie said, touching the woman’s shoulder. Mary Jane shrugged, whether to brush off the sympathy or Nixie’s hand she didn’t know. Nixie let her hand fall away. Mary Jane turned and walked back to the treatment rooms. Nixie stood a few minutes more, while the sky deepened from periwinkle to slate. Nobody was coming. The street was empty. Nixie made a decision.
Within ten minutes, she was outside under the yellow glow of the street light with a shovel she’d found in the mop closet. She attacked the dingy patch of dirt where the tree had been trying to grow, but it was frozen solid. This was a job for a jack hammer. Possibly dynamite.
“Now I’ve seen everything.”
Nixie turned and found Erik strolling up the sidewalk toward the clinic, hands in pockets, his jacket open to the snapping wind. He looked large and completely at home in the cold that had Nixie’s eyes watering and her hands close to frozen. He was smiling at her. No, laughing. His blue eyes were alight with merriment and he made a show of looking over both shoulders.
“No press in sight, but the princess is digging a hole. What’s this all about? A new neighborhood well?”
He
smiled at her and Nixie felt it all the way to the tips of her frozen fingers.
Oh no, she told herself. She was
not
developing a crush on her potential best friend’s potential boyfriend.
She jabbed her shovel at the dirt again. It bounced off.
“I’m trying to get this tree out of here.” She put all her weight on the handle of the shovel and tried to force it into the ground. She didn’t make a dent.
“Why?”
Nixie stuck her hands into her armpits and looked at him. “You’re huge,” she said. “You try.”
Erik took the shovel. “I ask again. Why?”
She watched with a glimmer of resentment as he sank the shovel into the impenetrable earth, wiggled the handle and freed up a pitiful root ball without so much as a grunt of effort.
“Why are you huge? Damned if I know. Your mom’s tiny.”
Erik handed back the shovel. “Most people think I look like my dad.”
“Most people don’t look very closely.”
Erik sighed. “Can we please not talk about my
mother
?”
“
Why
?
I like your mom. Don’t you?
”
“
It’s complicated
. Just please tell me why we’re out here holding a memorial service for dead tree.”