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Message-ID: <50182asstr$1105521006@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Gina Marie Wylie" <gmwylie98260@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Laura Alban Hunt Ch 29 {Gina Marie Wylie} (Ff, cons)
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Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 04:10:06 -0500
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<1st attachment, "Laura Ch 29.doc" begin>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	The following is fiction of an adult nature.  If I believed in
setting age limits for things, you'd have to be eighteen to read
this and I'd never have bothered to write it.  IMHO, if you can
read and enjoy, then you're old enough to read and enjoy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	All persons here depicted are figments of my imagination and any
resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly a blunder on my
part.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	Official stuff:  Story codes: Ff, FF, Cons.

	If stories like this offend you, you will offend ME if you read
further and complain. Copyright 2004, by Gina Marie Wylie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	I can be reached at gmwylie98260@hothothotmail.com, at least if
you remove some of the hots.  All comments and reasoned
discussion welcome.

Below is my site on ASSTR:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Gina_Marie_Wylie/www/

My stories are also posted on StoriesOnline:
http://Storiesonline.net/

And on Electronic Wilderness Publishing:
http://www.ewpub.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Laura Alban Hunt

Chapter 29 -- Signs of the Times

I opened the door and ushered the odd trio into the living room.
For a moment, no one spoke.  I studied the young woman and in
return, she was intently studying me.  It seemed to me that we
were locked in battle, all of us, not wanting to be the first to
speak.  I turned to Sanchez.

"You can let her go," I said, keeping my voice deliberately mild.
 Sanchez dropped her hand away, but the policewoman didn't.

"Please," I said, staying mild.

The policewoman shrugged.  "She can be wild."

I laughed.

I couldn't make out anything about what the girl was thinking;
her expression was sullen.  She was wearing a short sleeve plain
white t-shirt and old jeans, replete with holes.

"Ms. Sanchez, there are two reasons why the young woman needs to
be restrained.  She's a danger to someone, either me or herself,
or she's a flight risk.  I'm not a jailer, and I'm not going to
be watching her twenty-four/seven.  And if she's dangerous, why
you can keep that good grip on her as the three of you turn
around and march out the door."

The policewomen visibly hesitated and I smiled.  "You are here to
release her, right?  I've got room for one more if you're going
to be a permanent guest."

The hand came away and the girl continued to stare at me, a
sullen and angry expression her face.

"You have some papers for me to sign?" I asked and Sanchez
nodded.

"I'm going to need some more of those applications.  They are for
the permanent staff at the new house."

"Staff?" Sanchez asked.

"Housekeeper, groundskeeper, handyman," I told her.

Sure enough, Sanchez walked into the trap.  "Servants," she said,
both dismissive and condescending at the same time.

"Staff," I corrected her.  "Employees.  There of their own free
will."

"I'll get them to you later this afternoon.  I'll need to know
the address of your new domicile."

The girl had, in the meantime, walked over to the sliding glass
doors and looked out at the pool.  She didn't say anything, but
stood silently, her back to the room.

I gave Sanchez the old phone number, but told her that after
today it wouldn't work.  One of the many things I had to do,
utilities-wise today.

I signed the papers Sanchez had for me, and then pointedly showed
them the door.  When they were gone, I turned and walked up and
stood next to the girl.  "My name is Laura Alban Hunt," I spoke
to the glass, not the girl.

"Rachael Avilla," she said, also talking to the glass.

"This is my old house," I said, and then laughed.  "Not that old,
but I bought a new one.  It's larger and nicer.  A bigger pool. 
We're going over there in a few minutes."

"I'm not supposed to get my leg wet for a couple of days."

"I've got some plastic wrap you can use when you take a shower."

She looked at me directly, her voice raised.  "You saying I
stink?"

"No, but go a few days without a shower and you will."

She waved at the front door.  "You stood up to them."

"They weren't being very smart.  That and I don't like them very
much."

I saw an expression cross her face just then; I wasn't sure what
it was.  It didn't take long to find out, though.  "You got a
bathroom?"

"Sure," I pointed it out to her and she all but ran for it.  A
few seconds later, I could hear someone being sick.   I didn't
know if I was going to be needed or not, so I just stood where I
was, waiting.

She reappeared after several minutes.  "This new house of yours,
you got an empty bedroom?"

I took that to mean unoccupied, so I said, "Yes, of course.  My
partner and I will be in one, you can pretty much have your pick
of the others."

She shook her head, "No, I meant no furniture."

"No, all the rooms are furnished, why?"

"Because right now, I got a handle on puking.  By noon..."  She
shook her head.  "Well, I'll be climbing the walls and throwing
up anytime I eat or drink something.  Probably shit myself,
too."

I remembered Sanchez mentioning the girl was a heroin addict.  I
also recalled vague stories of how hard a habit it was to break
and that going "cold turkey" was unpleasant.

She looked at me.  "What kind of bull-shit did they tell you
about me?"

"Not much.  They said that you have a couple of kinds of VD, drug
and attitude problems.  That you were stabbed."

"Shanked.  The fucking bitch wanted my jeans."  She shook her
head, smiling for the first time.  "She might have shanked me,
but I cold-cocked her good, right after that.  I busted her
teeth."

I nodded, not really understanding.  Oh, the words made sense. 
But she'd been in a fight because someone else wanted her jeans?
That didn't make any sense.

"Look, let me tell you something," the girl went on.  "I'm not
high, and I don't ever want to get high again.  Like I said, I
don't know what they told you.

"Last week, I woke up on the street.  I'd been fucked in every
hole in my body.  I was bleeding in half a dozen places.

"I sat there for a long time, thinking about it.  I got pretty
fucking scared.  So, just like that," she snapped her fingers, "I
decided to give it up.  The streets.  Then my fucking asshole
pimp started on my case about getting back to work.  I took the
fucker's baseball bat and beat him fucking silly with it.  That's
when the fucking cops came.

"Lady, I don't ever want to go back out there.  Ever.  I don't
care what you want me to do, so long as it doesn't mean going
back out there, I'll do it.  But for the next couple of days...
it's not going to be fucking pretty."

"There are times," I told her, "when I hear a young woman in
there, hiding in the corners of your mind.  Then I hear the
street girl."

"Yeah, well, we need to get going.  They gave me some stuff last
night, but it's just about worn off.  You have to put me in a
room without furniture.  You know why they call it 'kicking the
habit?'"

I shook my head.  "Because you go a little crazy.  You get an
overwhelming urge to kick things.  Better if there's nothing to
kick, you understand?"

"If you throw up every time you eat or drink..."

She laughed.  "That lasts two, three days.  This is like the
third time I've gone cold turkey.  I couldn't do it on the
streets.  No fucking way.  Those people," she waved at the door
Sanchez had left through, "are almost as bad.  I told them to
stop giving me the shit and they'd just hold me down and shoot me
up.  I was less of a problem, you see.

"I figure they want to make an example of you," she told me.

"Do you have any things?  Clothes, toiletries?"  I asked.

She shook her head.  "The clothes on my back.  They gave me this
raggedy-ass pair of jeans yesterday when they cut my other pair
off.  Fucking bastards.  It was a new pair, the fucking pimp
stole them from a Target a couple days before."

Besides the holes, I was pretty sure the jeans she was wearing
were boy's jeans.  The t-shirt, too.

"Doesn't fucking matter," Rachael went on.  "Like I said, in a
few hours, I'm going to be a mess."

I sighed.  She was roughly the same height as Susan, but if
anything, ten or twenty pounds lighter.  The thought of letting
her go two or three days without something to eat or drink
worried me.

Rachael had a knack for reading people.  She spoke seriously. 
"It's going to look bad, I'm not shitting you.  But you don't
die; you just wish you could.  Please, tell me you won't take me
to a doctor."

"I can't promise that," I told her.  "You have medical problems
that need to be treated."

A flash of anger passed over her face.  "They won't get the AIDs
test back for a another day.  I swear to God," she crossed
herself, "that I ain't going to sleep with anyone for a couple of
days.

"You call a doctor and about the only thing he can do is give me
more stuff.  They like to do that.  They think it's better to
ease you off.  Full of shit is what they are.  Please, I don't
want any more.  Not ever.  You make an excuse; you tell yourself
just one more time...  And the next time, and the next time and
the next time...

"Now, we need to go.  I can hold it in for about another ten,
twenty minutes."

I led her out to the car and she promptly tipped the seat back
and closed her eyes.  I drove to the house.

When I stopped and turned off the engine, she sat up and looked
at the house.  "You're shitting me!"

"No."

I led her inside.  I'd made a quick judgment on the way over, and
led her to one of the main house bedrooms that had its own
bathroom.  As soon as Rachael saw the bathroom, she ran for it,
closing the door behind her.

I figured she'd be a minute or two, so I went out.  Calvin was in
the living room.  "Can you and Tom empty out the bedroom I was
just in?  Everything?  Put the stuff in storage or something. 
Then I need some tarps or plastic sheeting to go over the floor,
then some old bed sheets to go over the plastic.  A couple of old
pillows and old blankets.  Something no one is going to miss.

"No mattress?" Calvin asked.

"No, unless you have one that can be tossed afterwards.  She's
going to be messy."

"I think Tom has some of the plastic ground cover sheets.  Heavy
plastic.  We don't really have any old sheets, pillows or
blankets.  Mrs. Baxter was a source of a lot of charity
donations."

"Well, if we don't have any, would you run out to a thrift store
and buy some?  Give me the receipts and I'll pay you back."

He nodded.  "Mr. Baxter gave me a credit card for household
expenses."

"I'll set that up," I told him. "Could you also see to getting
the old utilities turned off and the new ones put in my name?"

"I'll try.  Sometimes, they get petty when it's not you
personally doing it."

He went to get Tom and I went into the room knocked on the
bathroom door.  "I've got some men coming to move the furniture,
Rachael.  Don't be startled, okay?"

"Yeah!"

Then I heard the sound of retching, coming from the other side of
the door.

I had Maria run off to the store to get some 7-Up, ginger ale and
root beer, my own favorite upset stomach remedies.  I didn't know
what Rachael liked, but I was going to be ready.

I was standing in the middle of the now empty room when Rachael
called from inside the bathroom.  "Those fuckers gone?"

"Yes," I told her.

She came out and I pointed to the door.  "Those fuckers are my
employees.  A married couple with grown children, and a widower
with a grown daughter.  They aren't fuckers.  I've already told
them they don't have to put up with anything from you.  You will
be polite to them, do you understand?"

"And you?"

"You and I will work it out between us."

She looked around at the thick clear plastic on the floor. 
"Lot's of plastic for my leg!"

"They're getting some sheets and pillows," I told her.  "It will
be a few minutes.  You sure you don't want a mattress?"

"I would just mess it up, too."

I contemplated the old bed we'd left behind when we moved from
Long Island.  The bed itself was one that we'd bought right after
Roger and I had been married.  We had skimped on it, and it was
just a metal frame, a set of box springs and a double bed-sized
mattress.  The problem about moving twice in six months was a lot
of excess baggage had been shed for the first move.

"I don't think you can do much harm to an old mattress.  It will
be more comfortable than the floor."

"For the next couple of days..." she paused, turned, and rushed
for the bathroom.

A minute later she was back.  "Too bad my stomach doesn't know
there's nothing left to puke."

"Yeah, I've had the flu a few times," I told her.  "I know what
you mean."

"That's what a doctor told me the first time I tried this.  It's
like the worst case of flu, ever.  Could I get some more toilet
paper?"

I found Tom who knew where it was kept; I got an armload of
rolls.  Oh yes, I've had the flu a few times!

When I got back to the bedroom, Rachael was sitting on the floor,
her back against the wall, her head pillowed on her knees.  I
laughed to myself.  Either she was an incredible actress or she
was going to have a terrible time later on in life when she
wanted to sleep with someone -- she snored loudly.

I put the toilet paper in the bathroom, in one of the cabinets,
leaving a couple of rolls on the back of the toilet.  It took a
second, but I realized that there was no mess.  When I was sick,
I made a mess, splattering everything around.  Either Rachael was
more dainty than I was, or she'd cleaned up after herself.  What
did that say about her?  I'd said it before, aloud, now I
repeated it to myself.  She was two people -- one the
foul-mouthed, tough street kid and the other was a normal young
woman, probably on the tidy side.  Susan was like that, whereas
Jamie's room, I'd been told, required wading to cross.

Maria was back with the groceries a little later.  She showed me
where the pantry was, if you want to call a walk-in closet bigger
than any bedroom closet I'd ever had a pantry.  We kept back a
six-pack of each and put them in a large refrigerator to chill. 
She smiled at me when I offered to help with carrying things. 
"That's my job," she told me.

"I've been here less than an hour and I find that it's really
nice to have someone to fetch and carry things for me.  It would
be very easy, I think, to start taking it for granted."

She smiled at me.  "I was thinking you had adapted very well."

I laughed.  "Necessity is like that.  But I will do some of the
work, because, like I said, I don't ever want to take you or
anyone else for granted."

"Mr. B. used to say that the ideal situation was that the work
got done and he didn't notice it."

"It was something my husband taught me," I told her.  "You thank
people for their help, even if it's just a quick thanks.  So
thank you."

She shook her head and left grinning.

I went and asked Rachael what her drink preferences were and she
shook her head.  "Water, water, water!  Even that I'm gonna barf.
 What the fuck is ginger ale?"  She was sitting on the floor, as
she'd been earlier.

"A sweet drink that tastes of ginger.  I could tell you how I
like it best, but you'd probably barf again."

"Why are you doing this?"

"It's a long story.  I wanted to help someone in particular;
she's special to me.  The foster parents she is with aren't
accredited for adoption, nor for 'long term care.'  They were
going to take her away from them at the end of school.  Her
foster mother isn't going to live that long; it would just cause
the girl ten thousand times more pain than anyone has any right
to ask someone to endure.  So, I applied, thinking I'd ask for
her, then let her visit a lot."

"You got a husband?"

"No, he's dead.  He was killed on 9/11."

"I never knew my mother-fucking asshole father.  My mother ripped
off some fucking drug dealer; they shot her in front of me.  I
was nine fucking years old."

I smiled at her.  "I realize it's early yet, but someday I'm
hoping you will forget that word."

"Fucking never going to happen," she said emphatically.

"It's nothing more than a four letter exclamation mark," I told
her.  "You don't need it."

She looked at me.  "That's not the usual reason people get on my
case for my language.  Those that give a shit."

"Well, you'll find that I'm not the usual sort of person you've
met."

"You're not married, but you got an old man, anyway?"
I shook my head.  "I'm gay.  She's about midway between how old
you are and how old I am."

Rachael looked at me, intently.  "That age thing bothers you,
does it?"

I stopped and thought for a second.  Why had I said that about
how old Elena was?  Because I was bothered by our age difference?
 Or, maybe, because I wasn't bothered by our age difference?

"Good question.  I like her a lot, but we haven't known each
other very long.  I'm not sure exactly what I think about age
differences.  I don't think I care.  I'm pretty sure I don't
care."

___________________

I decided to draw a line instead of talk about the next three
days.  Rachael survived; I survived.  I spent a lot of time
sitting and talking to her, more time watching her tear herself
apart or at least something was tearing her apart.  She wept, she
cursed, she was sick a lot.  Twice she had to stand in the shower
to wash the accumulated filth off.  Once I had to hold her up,
because she was trembling too hard to do it herself.

I was kicked twice, but not hard.  Each time it happened, she'd
go into a mixture of anguish and rage.  Never directed at me,
though.

I talked to Susan; I talked to Elena.  Neither for very long. 
Once Vivian appeared, curious about the house, more curious about
Rachael.  I didn't think it was proper for spectators, so even
though there was a good chance Vivian might have been able to
help, I didn't let her in to talk to Rachael.  There would be
time later, I told Vivian.

It was late Thursday afternoon; the night before had been a very
long one; I'd hardly slept at all.  When I crawled back to
consciousness, I was worried at first; I couldn't hear Rachael
snoring.  A couple of times I'd tried to get her to eat or drink
something; she'd been right about what a disaster that was.

I looked at her, concerned, but instead she was looking at me. 
The fever and pain that had been there for the last few days was
gone.  "Why?" she asked simply.  "Why did you stay with me?"

"Once, when I was little, I found a baby bird that had fallen out
of its nest.  I was eight, I think.  About that old.  My mom told
me I should just let it die, that was nature's way, she told me.
I made a fuss, and she called a vet and got instructions for
taking care of it.  The vet told my mother that there was
virtually no way the bird would survive, that it had to be kept
warm and fed, the feeding was hourly, all day long.  And all
night long.

"For three days, that's what I did.  I fed the bird.  It was a
robin fledgling.  I would pet it on the head, just stroke the
feathers there, then I would feed it a beef broth mixed with
milk, mildly warmed.  Every hour, on the hour.  I used an
eyedropper."

I sighed and Rachael nodded.  "It died," she said, thinking she
understood.

"No, it lived.  It was older, almost ready to fly.  Three days
was all it needed.  Funny about that; three days was all you
needed, too."

"I could eat an entire Happy Meal!" Rachael said with feeling.

"No, I think something a little lighter, first.  If you feel like
you're up to it."

"I feel lots of things, hungry and thirsty are at the top of the
list."

So I brought her a ginger ale and she slowly sipped it.  We
talked about music.  It was weird beyond words.  Not a single
singer or musician she mentioned I'd ever heard of.  The ones I
talked about, she pretty much had never heard of, and the few
that she had heard about, she'd never listened to anything by
them.

After the ginger ale, she sat down to a bowl of beef noodle soup.
 She got about halfway through it, pushed it to one side and put
her head down on the table and, a second later, was snoring
again.

Maria laughed when she saw it.  "I shouldn't, I suppose."

"No," I told her.  "Let's give her a few minutes, and if she
hasn't been sick, I'll clean up the bedroom."

She was scandalized.  "You cleaned up enough, the last few days!
I know, I watched some!"

In fact, in spite of the fact I'd slept about three hours, I felt
I could have slept for another twelve.  I pried myself out of the
chair, and as I did, I remembered that there were a lot of things
I should do, things Maria couldn't.  "Go ahead," I said,
resigned.

She headed for the bedroom and I headed for the phone.  The first
person I called was Marybeth.

"I need a doctor," I told her.  "One that, for the right amount
of money, would make a house call, at least this once.  A woman
doctor, preferably."

I got a number and dialed it; I was told that the doctor was with
a patient, my call would be returned.  I got the distinct
impression that if I hadn't invoked Marybeth, I might not have
gotten the callback.  Once again, on my mental list of things to
do, I put "network locally!"

The phone finally did ring and I talked to Dr. Kate O'Brien.  She
actually laughed at the notion of a house call.  "Just bring the
patient in, I'll see her."

"There are issues.  She's spent the last three days going cold
turkey from heroin.  She is exhausted and weak; not to mention
the State of Arizona saw fit to leave her with nothing but the
clothes she was wearing.  They are in serious need of going out
with the trash."

"You don't have enough money to get me there today," Doctor
O'Brien told me.  "However, as a friend of Marybeth, I can send
one of my associates.  He's the junior doc right now.  He does
whatever I tell him."

"This girl has been sexually abused.  She has a couple of STDs,
the social worker told me Monday that the AIDs test results were
negative.  I'd really rather she saw a woman doctor."

"Well, good luck finding one," she said.

I realized she was about to hang up.  "I don't suppose you could
refer me to someone?  Cost isn't an object."

"Mrs. Hunt," she started to say.

"Laura," I interrupted her.

"Laura, then.  At five this morning I was performing minor
surgery.  Then hospital rounds at two different hospitals.  Then
at nine this morning I was here in the office.  My last scheduled
appointment is 4:30.  I'm already running twenty minutes late. 
I'll probably get out of here around six.  Then I need to zip
home, pick up my son and take him to an orchestra rehearsal.

"If you want my advice, Laura, either bring her in or let Dr.
Donovan look at her.  Put her in a robe, wrap her in a sheet, we
won't care.  If she's truly sick, it won't matter."

I sighed.  It was pretty clear that I wasn't going to get what I
wanted.  Maybe that wasn't a bad thing.  And if Rachael said she
didn't want a male doctor?  She wasn't going to die between now
and tomorrow.  Tomorrow she'd have clothes, be a little stronger.
 "Okay, send your doctor," I told her.

She actually laughed.  "I'm glad you said that, because I was
beginning to think you are an idiot feminist.  Mike Donovan is a
very good young doctor, and it doesn't sound like you need a
superstar doctor.  Very good will be good enough."

I gave her the address, and she told me that he'd arrive within
two hours.  That was, I supposed, pretty good.  When you thought
about it, house calls meant the doctor spent a lot of time
driving instead of treating a patient.  Not exactly the best use
of the doctor's time.

Elena got home from work and we hugged for a few minutes. 
Finally she pushed away.  "You look like shit, Laura!  You need
to get some sleep!"

"Later," I told her.  "There are a few more things to do.  Can
you go shopping, and get some jeans and things for Rachael?"

Elena nodded, and she left while I went and took a shower.

When I got out I went and shook Rachael awake.

She looked at me, and shook her head.  "Let me sleep."

"I found a doctor who makes house calls.  The bad news is that
it's a male doctor."

She gave me a quizzical look.

"What?" I asked.

"Like I've ever had a choice?"

"Well, this time you do.  If you don't want to see him, you don't
have to.  In a bit we'll have some clothes for you.  We can go to
the office tomorrow for a regular appointment with a woman
doctor."

"And if I don't like her?" Rachael asked.

"We'll find one that you do like," I told her confidently.  There
were a lot of doctors out there after all.

Rachael just laughed.  "I've never had a doctor I liked.  The
fuckers just poke and prod.  It's like cops.  Most of them don't
give a fuck.  You get out of line; they slug you.  It's part of
the job; they don't give it a second thought."

I thought about that.  All my life I'd gone to doctors.  Some had
been pleasant; most had been brusque.  That's what it was, I
thought.  It was a job.  They did it; they didn't want to invest
anything more into a patient than I wanted to invest in a sink of
dirty dishes.

"Well, it'll be your choice," I told her.  "If he's ugly and has
warts, you can tell him to take a hike."

Rachael didn't say anything, but it was clear she thought I was
nuts.  Tell me, Laura Alban Hunt, just what do those dishes think
of you?  Get me clean, get me dry, get me back on the shelf or in
the drawer.  The thought of a tea glass flipping me a bird nearly
made me laugh.

"You're strange," Rachael said.

Right then the doctor arrived.  He was a personable man, although
he was closer to thirty which was my personal line where you
stopped being young and started being "mature."

He had light brown hair with reddish highlights, a small cleft in
his chin and a soft voice.  He was a little pudgy, which was
nearly covered up by the loose-fitting green smock he wore.

I introduced him to Rachael and then handed him her medical
records that Sanchez had brought over Monday afternoon with the
AIDs test.  Dr. Donovan smiled at me, smiled at Rachael, and then
sat down on the bed next to Rachael and started reading.

When he finished reading, he started asking questions, with a
pencil in hand to take notes on what looked like a blank medical
chart.  Questions, questions, questions.  A million of them.

Finally he started to examine her.  He took her wrist and held it
for a few seconds.  "Yep, a pulse!  Looking good so far!" he
exclaimed.  Then he put a stethoscope around his neck and
listened to her heart for a second.  "Yep, a heart-beat!"  A
second later he was listening to her lungs, commenting that she
was breathing.

He looked into her eyes, ears, nose and throat -- all of that
stuff.  Then it got personal, the vaginal and rectal exams.  He
was quick, and mercifully, his banter vanished for the duration.
Then he took a look at the dressing on her leg.

For the first time, he was serious when he asked Rachael, "Who
did the sutures?"

"Stitches?" Rachael asked and he nodded.  "There's this girl in
the clinic, she wants to be a nurse.  They let her sew them."

"We'll hope she gets better with practice," Dr. Donovan said
dryly.  "There's nothing I can do now.  It's going to be one very
odd-looking scar."  He lightly pressed his thumb near the bluish
circle on her leg, with crazy quilt stitches across it.  "And
this doesn't hurt?"

"Just a little.  Mostly, it itches."

"Well, they did something right, it's not infected."

He looked at me and I got the distinct impression we were
supposed to get up and go in another room to talk about Rachael.
"Here's fine," I replied to the unspoken request.

"Well, the last thing I will do before I leave will be to take
some blood for our tests.  Monday you will be well enough to come
into the office, yes?"

Rachael shrugged.  "I haven't barfed for almost a day.  Yeah."

"I will give you a prescription for some additional antibiotics
to get a start on knocking down the STDs.  We'll start a course
of injections on Monday."

He looked at me.  "The young woman is mildly dehydrated, probably
her electrolytes are messed up as well.  Bananas and broccoli --
or Gatorade.  Things high in potassium and iron.  Another meal,
later today with a salty beef broth.  Don't eat much at a time,
you can space it out over an hour or two; that would be best.  A
boiled or scrambled egg first thing in the morning.  Some
pancakes and a lot of syrup!  A lot!  Go a little light on the
butter or margarine, at least at first."

He stopped and I waited for him to go on.  He didn't; instead he
got up and fetched a syringe and needle from his bag, and came
and sat back down next to Rachael.

"I was told you weren't going to like having a man examine you,"
he said evenly.

Rachael shrugged again.  "You're a doctor, right?  That's what
doctors do."  She held up her arms, her wrists up.  I'd seen the
rash earlier; I'd been mildly surprised when Dr. Donovan hadn't
said anything about it.

"You didn't say anything about this.  Not a word."

"You wanted to quit enough to go cold turkey.  You'll either
succeed or fail," his voice was rough, for the first time.  "You
get points for wanting to get off the wagon -- and a lot more if
you stay there."

I spoke up.  "What are you talking about?"

"Needle marks, chicken tracks," Rachael said.

I looked again at her arms and I wanted to die, simply die.  Each
of the hundreds of those little red dots was a needle mark?  I
seriously doubted if I could give anyone a shot, much less
myself.  How many times had she used a needle?  It had to have
been hundreds of times.

"Odds are, there will be permanent scars," Dr. Donovan said,
talking to me, not Rachael.  "The ones you can see and the ones
you can't.  The signs of the times."

How many more girls were there, like Rachael, out on the streets?
 I've never been more ashamed of myself than I was at that
moment.  Who was I?  What was I doing?  I wanted to help girls be
cheerleaders, girls who were marginal in ability.  So that
someone like myself wouldn't slip through the cracks!

What was that, compared to this?  I'd failed in my desire to be a
cheerleader, but had succeeded at just about everything else in
my life.  I'd failed to get in a very small crack -- so what? 
Rachael had nearly fallen into an abyss that made the one I'd
been worried about not so long ago, look like cat scratch.

I agreed to be in the office on Monday at ten in the morning; I
agreed to everything else.  I took the prescriptions he gave me.
I looked at them, and then at him.  "They're for me."

He laughed.  "Trust me, if I made them out for Rachael, you'd
never be able to get them filled, without mountains of paper. 
These are general antibiotics, like we'd give for mild pneumonia
or a minor infection.  You'll want to go to a local pharmacy and
get things set up in case of emergencies."

I nodded, numb still.

I showed him to the door and he simply told me he'd see us
Monday.  I nodded and closed the door.  For a moment I leaned
against it, exhausted.

It was funny.  I'd been there to help Rachael for the last three
days.  I'd been tired, but I'd felt good about it.  And she
hadn't minded the company, I was sure of that.  And yet, for all
of that, I had no idea of what her life had been like.  I had no
idea if I even wanted to know what it had been like.

I went back to find Rachael had pulled a sheet up over her head,
and was snoring again.  I walked over and reached down and
lightly touched her shoulder, buried beneath the sheet.  "Sleep
tight, Rachael."

I walked back out, found some ice tea that was maybe two days
old, poured a glass and went outside to the pool.

That was a problem, I realized.  In the past, it was just a few
feet away from the water.  Now it was twenty or thirty yards.  I
laughed at myself, because June was going to have a lot further
to come.  I put my feet up on one of the other chairs, took a sip
of tea and looked out over the water.  Thinking.

<1st attachment end>


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