Authors: Richard Parry
She snorted.
“Hell no.”
She patted her pocket with her phone in it.
“He owes me a text though.
Valentine.”
John’s face fell.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“After we saw you at the bar — well, Val and I.”
His voice cracked.
“I haven’t heard from him.
That’s where I got all this.”
He gestured at the bed.
“I got… I was knocked out.
I think.
The police couldn’t tell me what had happened to him.”
“Wait.
You haven’t seen him since you saw me at the bar?”
“Yeah.”
“I had a, uh, a date with him this evening.”
Danny hugged the blanket closer to her shoulders.
“He looked fine to me.
Well.”
“What?”
“Well.”
Danny shuffled her feet a little, then sat on the edge of John’s bed.
“You don’t mind?”
“Help yourself.”
“I was knocked out too.”
“By Val?”
“Valentine?”
Danny smiled to herself.
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“You’ve only known him a couple days.”
John smiled again, relaxing back into the bed.
“But you’re right.
Val couldn’t hurt a fly.
I’ve known him since school.
Thank God he’s ok.”
“He’s more than ok.”
She smiled again.
“The doctors wouldn’t tell me much, but I know he’s not injured or he’d be here.
With me.
Us.”
A janitor walked into the ward, a large man with a stained set of overalls, his hair falling in a greasy cascade to his shoulders.
The name
Jimmy
was embroidered on to the overalls.
He looked up at them, and then in heavily accented English said, “Sorry.
I clean floor.
Momute
.
A moment.”
They sat in silence watching as he set up a floor polisher, and began to move the machine back and forth on the ground.
The hum of it was soothing, and left them to their thoughts for a while.
The janitor finished with the polisher after a few minutes, and — giving them both a smile of perfect, white teeth — shuffled back out of the ward.
A few moments later, the hum on the floor polisher picked up again in the corridor outside.
They sat in silence for a bit.
John broke it first.
“I’ve known him for years, you know.”
“The janitor?”
John snorted.
“No.
Val.”
“Why do you call him that?”
“Val?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’ve known him for years.”
“So?”
“He hates his name.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s kind of a funny story.
Like I said, we’ve known each other for years, right?
Well — since school, actually.
I don’t know, we were young.
I was maybe ten.
Val’s always been smart.
Not just a little smart, but a lot.
He’d been bumped up a couple years at school, so there’s this shrimp of a kid, he would have been eight or so.”
John scratched the side of his head.
“Right.”
Danny smiled.
“So he was picked on.”
“Sure.
But imagine.
You’re the smaller kid in the class.
You’re the smarter kid in the class.
And your name?
It’s
Valentine
.”
John looked down at his hands.
“It’s just not very manly, you know?”
“He doesn’t mind me calling him Valentine.”
John gave a crooked smile, looking at her for a few seconds, then said, “He must really like you.”
It was Danny's turn to look down at her hands.
She tugged the blanket close again.
“So — how’d you get to know him?”
“I hate bullies.”
John looked towards the window.
“From day one, he was picked on.
Maybe one kid here, another kid there.
You know what school’s like,
Lord of the Flies
shit.
He stood up for himself at first, but he’s just this little kid, right?”
Danny nodded.
“Anyway, morning recess is on, and I come around this corner.
There’s one kid holding Val’s bag, pulling stuff out of it.
Books, his lunch, whatever’s in there.
There’s this other kid holding Val down, just sitting on him.
Poor guy couldn’t do anything.
Smart or not, sometimes there’s just a bigger kid.”
John paused for a moment, then grabbed a glass of water resting on the table beside him.
He took a couple of sips.
“So anyway, I was a bigger kid too.
And I saw this, and I just lost it.
I waded in there before I knew what I was doing, decked the kid holding his bag.”
“Very brave of you.
Beating up a kid.”
“Hey.
I was a kid too.
But it wasn’t like that.
It was just
wrong
.
Two on one?
That’s just not fair.”
“I get it now.”
“What?”
“It’s this.
This is the pickup line, isn’t it?”
John smiled at her.
“I haven’t got to the best bit of the story yet.
So Val tells me his name — again, like I didn’t know it already — and I tell him mine.
And we part ways, he goes off somewhere.
Probably to try and sort out his bag or something.
But he sees me in class after recess.
The teacher is telling us that we’re going to have a quiz.
A pop quiz.
I’m freaking out, because I hate tests.
But I really hate tests I haven’t studied for.
We get the tests, and — thank God — it’s multiple choice.
But I’m looking down the page, and it’s hieroglyphs.”
“You studied ancient Egyptian at school?”
“It could well have been for all I understood it.
Val keeps looking over at me, I dunno, I’m just staring at my test paper.
I haven’t even written my name on the top of it.
After about ten minutes have passed, Val just stands up, holding his nose, his head back.
He’s like, ‘Excuse me miss!
I have a bleeding nose!’
Big panic, and Val pushes past my desk to go outside.”
“What did the teacher do?”
“Hell if I can remember.
But after he’s left the room, I look down at my desk.
There’s his test paper there.”
“His test paper?”
“Right.
Except he’d written something at the top.”
“What?”
“Where it said, ‘Name.’
He’d written John Miles.
My name.
And he’d filled out the whole sheet.
Every answer.
In just ten minutes.”
John sat in silence for a moment.
“That was the first A+ I ever got.
It wasn’t real, of course.
I hadn’t worked for it.
And Val?
He got an F.
For not finishing.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true!”
“No, I believe the story.
I don’t believe that you hadn’t worked for it.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Think of it from Valentine’s perspective.
You’d worked really, really hard for that.”
“Sure, I guess.
Whatever.
It doesn’t matter.
But ever since then?
We’ve been best friends.
And no,”
John held up a hand, “I didn’t get him to do my homework for me.
It’s just — we looked out for each other.
I couldn’t be there for every fight, and he couldn’t be there for every test.
But we’ve got each other’s backs.”
Danny swung her feet from the edge of the bed.
“I never would have… Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For the story.
Now I can see why Valentine likes you too.”
“I could have made the whole thing up.”
“You just said you didn’t!”
“You don’t know that.
Say.
Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
Danny tossed her hair back, stretching, then tugged the blanket close again.
“Val really went on a date with you?”
Danny looked back at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He gestured with an arm at her.
“Seriously.
Look at you.
And look at Val.”
She gave him a flat stare.
“It’s not going to work.”
“What?”
“I don’t even want to know the pickup line you’re trying.
Probably, ‘be unique and different, say yes.’”
John laughed.
“I’ve already told you.
It’s not like that.”
“So now I’m not good enough for you?”
The smile didn’t leave John’s face.
“Damn girl.
Val’s got his work cut out for him.
No, I mean, you’re — well.
You’re you.
And Val.
He’s.”
John cleared his throat.
“He’s heavy.”
“He didn’t look so heavy.”
“It’s ok!
I probably shouldn’t have said anything.
It’s just —”
“What?”
John sighed, the smile falling away.
“I wish I knew where he was.
He keeps popping to mind, like a song you hear on the radio and can’t get out of your head.”
Danny nodded.
“Me too, John.
Me too.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“Let me text him again.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Christ, Carlisle.
Stay with me.”
The big van roared down the street.
“Carlisle.
Melissa!”
Val risked another look over to the passenger seat.
Blood soaked through Carlisle’s jacket.
Her hands had fallen away from the gunshot wound.
“Carlisle.”
She opened her eyes then.
Her voice was faint, hard to hear over the engine.
“I’m still here, Everard.
You got to promise me something.”
Val gripped the wheel harder.
“Sure.
What?”
“Try not to kill us on the way to the hospital.
I,”
and she coughed, “Don’t need that on my tomb stone.”
They approached the entrance to the hospital.
Val stamped down on the brakes, the van squealing sharp and clear.
He sawed at the wheel, swinging the vehicle around in an arc, tyre smoke blowing black around them.
He nailed the gas again, horns blaring around him as he cut through traffic into the entrance to the hospital.
He scanned ahead, spotted the big sign touting
Emergency Room
.
He lined the van up, keeping the accelerator pressed to the floor, his knuckles white against the wheel.
Alarmed pedestrians turned to stare as the van roared towards the hospital entrance.
He slammed on the brakes again — spongy with heat, the tyres chattering against the asphalt as the van slewed to a halt.
Tyre and brake smoke drifted out from under the van.
Val killed the engine.
“C’mon.”
He unbuckled Carlisle’s belt.
“I’ll get you out.”
He jumped out, ducking around the front of the van to Carlise’s side.
He yanked the door open, catching her as she rolled from the seat.
“Hey!”
He looked around for some help, and spied an orderly pushing a man in a wheelchair.
“You!
I need some help here!”
The orderly took in the blood staining Carlisle’s jacket and ran to them.
“Put her down.”
Val eyed the man.
“Now’s not the time.
We need to get her inside.”
The orderly held his hands out.
“Sir.
If the bullet’s still in here, moving her’s going to —”
Val shouldered past the orderly and into the entrance to the hospital.
The entryway had tired furniture around the walls, filled with the tired faces of the desperate, waiting for the bad news that would set them free.
He saw a reception desk, walked up to it carrying Carlisle.
She’d passed out, her head hanging loosely back against his arm.
“I need a doctor.”