Hector didn’t respond. He stared at me and I stared at him.
Again, I waited for him to back down, to look away.
He didn’t.
So for the first time since I could remember, I did.
My eyes slid to the side and then something even weirder happened. While I was looking away, he leaned in deeper, I felt his hand cup the back of my head, he lifted it gently and he kissed the top of my head.
I froze.
No one but no one but no one had touched me like that. No one, not since my Mom left. No one.
Did I say no one?
He left his hand there with his lips pressed against my head not for a second but for a long time.
It felt like eternity. It felt like a sweet, wonderful, lovely eternity.
Now, seriously, no kidding, how bizarre was that?
Before I could get myself together and jerk my head away, the door opened and I heard said in a country twang, “Oh, damn! Sorry.”
It was then I jerked my head away, got up on my elbows, looked across the room and saw Daisy and Marcus Sloan standing inside the door.
* * * * *
“Ralphie, it’s me, Sadie,” I said into the phone.
“Sadie? Where are you?” Ralphie asked, sounding concerned as he would do. I was never late for work, much less a no show.
I sat in the bed with the phone to my ear, my eyes on the door and I didn’t know what to say.
* * * * *
I’d had a small stroke of luck.
The minute Marcus and Daisy appeared was only a moment before the doctor appeared. For privacy, Marcus and Daisy quietly left but weirdly, Hector did not.
Hector grabbed the control thingamabob on the side of my bed and did the whole lifting the back of the hospital bed thing for me. I sat up and as Hector stood beside my bed (for all the world like he was my loving boyfriend or something), the doctor told me (or, more accurately, us, acting for all the world like Hector was my loving boyfriend or something) what was wrong with me (like I didn’t know) and said I would be released that afternoon but, even so, someone needed to be around to keep an eye on me.
Then he turned to Hector and asked for, “A word?”
Hector nodded to the doctor then (no kidding), leaned down and kissed the top of my head (again!) and they both walked out.
I stared at the door, trying to figure out what was going on.
Then I realized I might only have moments so I twisted, grabbed the phone and put it on the bed.
Then I dialed Ralphie.
* * * * *
Ralphie was the closest thing I had to a friend.
He probably wouldn’t describe me as a friend, more an employer which was what I was.
Three years ago, I opened an art gallery. The Feds didn’t get that either as I’d opened it with my trust fund and my father didn’t launder money through it though they looked and looked to find some nefarious purpose for my gallery so they could seize it, like they did everything else, but they didn’t find anything because there was nothing to find, I made certain sure of that.
I opened it because I needed more to do with my time than just be Daddy’s Little Princess which was getting old and I had an art degree from Denver University so why not?
It turned out, I was good at it. I had an eye for art and I could put on a really good opening. I’d had years of practice at being a good hostess always standing next to my father’s side so you could imagine how pleased it made me that something he taught me eventually came in handy.
I hired Ralphie and in my gallery, which I named “Art” because I really don’t have much of an imagination and it kind of said it all, Ralphie and I had fun. He knew he was my employee and everything but he was good to be around, he was a bit crazy in a nice way and we’d have a laugh.
Ralphie was a tall, slim, blond-haired, blue-eyed, ultra-elegant, unbelievably beautiful g*y man. Swear to God, he could be a male model. Not kidding.
We didn’t socialize outside of work.
Of course, every year, I did take him and his partner, Buddy, out for a fancy dinner at Christmas during which I gave Ralphie his Christmas bonus. I also took him and Buddy out for a fancy dinner for Ralphie’s birthday during which I gave him his birthday present, a beautiful, pink Armani dress shirt with matching pink and maroon tie (year one), a Royal Doulton figurine (year two) and the glass paperweight he had his eye on for ages at Art but couldn’t afford (year three). I also took them both out for drinks to celebrate after we made that sale of the beautiful, bronze sculpture of the female torso. We’d had that sculpture for months, it cost a fortune and it was our biggest sale ever.
Oh, and Ralphie and I would always do his performance evaluations over French martinis at the Oxford Hotel Cruise Room. The evaluations lasted ten minutes so Buddy always joined us because, well, why not?
Buddy was yin to Ralphie’s yang.
Buddy was black, bald (shaved), had a thick goatee and a well-maintained, very muscular body. He was Butch with a capital “B” and he dressed like Freddie Mercury (white wife beater tank top, super-tight jeans, black motorcycle boots and studded black belts) when he wasn’t dressed in scrubs (he was a nurse on the Neurosciences Ward at Swedish Medical Center) or dressed to go out with us to fancy dinners and the Cruise Room (Buddy looked good in his Queen Front Man getup but you didn’t wear a wife beater to the Cruise Room, no way).
Buddy was funny too and really sweet. Kind of a gentle, butch, Freddie Mercury on steroids look-alike except black and, well… bald.
Although Ralphie wasn’t my friend, technically, nor Buddy, for that matter, he was all I had.
And I needed someone.
* * * * *
“I’m at Denver Health,” I answered Ralphie.
“What?” Ralphie screeched and in my mind I could see his blond eyebrows hitting his hairline.
“It’s okay. I just had a little accident,” I lied.
“An accident that puts you in the hospital? Oh my God.”
“It’s nothing,” I assured him. “Just observation. They’re letting me go today.”
Ralphie instantly responded, “I’ll be right over.”
“No!” My voice was sharp and my eyes were glued to the door. Hector or Daisy and Marcus could walk back in at any moment.
I had enough to deal with I didn’t need Ralphie showing up. Ralphie could be a bit… dramatic.
“What do you mean, no?” Ralphie asked.
“I mean, actually, I’m calling because I need you to do me a favor. I’m sorry to ask but –”
Ralphie interrupted by saying, “Anything.”
I blinked in my tense surveillance of the door at Ralphie’s quick offer of assistance. What could I say? I hadn’t had a load of times in my life where anyone offered me assistance. Heck, I hadn’t had a load of times in my life where anyone offered me anything.