Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1) (11 page)

Being plowed over by a taxi was made worse only by the fact that I’d been hit then pinned against a dumpster in a sandwich fashion, my Ducati was totaled and the pain medication that they prescribed were too scary to take.

I wanted to take them. The pain in my leg was pretty intense, but the idea of allowing myself to feel any kind of high or buzz felt too much like falling off the wagon. Though alcohol was my addiction of choice, prescription drugs didn’t seem too far a stretch for someone like me.

Martin had come by the hospital the moment he found out, and I loved the old goat for his commitment to me. He’s not truly that old but he’s got twenty-three years on my thirty-one years. I’d asked him once why he was so invested in me. His response was simple and resonated through me.

“Well, bud, you and I are one in the same. Seeing you succeed is like investing in my own success. You keep me sober. As long as we have each other, I believe we just might be all right, our pasts notwithstanding.”

He’d offered to stay with me at my place for a while, but I knew his wife wouldn’t appreciate that and I hadn’t mentioned the fact that the only place I wanted to be was at Tommy’s apartment. The only remaining secret between Martin and I. I declined his offer to stay with me and promised to update him daily on my recovery.

Halley hadn’t left me in peace for long. She came barreling into my hospital room, theatrics in full swing and began barking orders at everyone, me included. I hadn’t been out of orthopedic surgery for more than two hours and she was already trying her best to make me swear to leave motorcycles behind, and in truth, my interest in riding on things with two wheels waned dramatically when something with four wheels nearly killed me.

Instead of telling her that, I let her stew in her own indignation. I informed her that I’d already had Conrad, my assistant, order a replacement bike, which was a blatant lie but who was I to pass up a good jab at my little sister’s expense? Being stuck in a bed had seriously hindered my entertainment.

Poor Conrad sat on the couch on the far wall in my room and gaped at me with wide eyes when I had thrown him under the bus. Halley glared at him before turning her fury back to me. She’d collected my things from the nurse and ordered poor Conrad (who was underpaid, I decided) to buy a new cell phone for me because mine had been crushed in the accident.

All humor had left me when I realized that I couldn’t call or text Flor until I got a replacement phone and worse, I’d have to have Conrad dig through phone records in an effort to find her number. He definitely deserved a raise.

I kicked myself and wished that I took notes and paid closer attention when Conrad had explained how to back up my cell. Halley stormed around as though she were a general in Hitler’s Third Reich. Conrad kept his head down and worked to keep up. I laid in bed feeling helpless.

My mom was another story. She cried and cried some more and pleaded with me to stay away from anything dangerous. I knew well that she didn’t only mean motorcycles. It killed me to see her so upset. I’d absently wondered how many times she had cried because of me. She had suffered enough because of her three children, and I hated the sick feeling that knowledge had spawned in me. Since my father passed away, I’d kept a close eye on her. She had her own money and plenty of it. My father had made sure of that. She would go on living the lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to, but it seemed to be of no consequence when she worried so much about her adult children.

The large external fixator on my leg made me look like a pin cushion with several steel rods imbedded into my flesh and down into my fragmented bones. They had said that they could remove it and fit me with a hard cast as soon as four weeks, but that depended on how quickly I healed. The doctor had made it clear that I could be stuck with the fixator for up to six months and to me, that sounded like just this side of hell. What in the fuck was I going to do with myself if I had to keep this thing on for longer than just a few weeks?

Still, I was fortunate. There was no doubt about that. I always wore a helmet and it saved my life. I was bumped and bruised and I had a deep laceration at my hair line where the handle bar of my bike rammed upward into the mask of my helmet, successfully splitting my scalp. A few sutures later and my head was as good as new without so much as a concussion to show for it. I didn’t deserve the good luck, but good luck is what I had been given.

My right leg was another story. Bones are meant to be inside your body, not out. The orthopedic surgeon fixed me up, though. I hated that I had to wear this cumbersome and heavy fixator for a while, but I had no right to complain, all things considered. Road rash here and there, a deep cut to my scalp and a busted up right leg didn’t seem so bad if I considered what could have happened.

There was talk about having a nurse come to visit me daily to monitor my vitals and care for my wounds, but I couldn’t see why that was necessary. I couldn’t get around well, but I got around. I could clean my own wounds. How hard could it be? I watched the nurses do it multiple times at the hospital. Unwrap, clean, rewrap with fresh bandages. Done.

In truth, my reasoning for refusing the extra help was simple. I wasn’t going to be home. I’d planned on being at my brother’s place and there would be no dissuading me from it. I was most comfortable and confident there. Being in his four walls made me feel strong. Stronger than my alcoholism, and stronger than a busted up leg.

Halley flipped her shit when I told her I’d be at Tommy’s apartment. She had stomped out of the hospital, to go get reinforcements no doubt, but I’d signed myself out before she could return.

I was going to be discharged the next day anyway. What did it matter?

Imagine my shock when the very same day that I was discharged, the neighbor came by with an offering of cookies and said neighbor just so happened to be Florence Randall.

Florence Randall. My Florence Randall.

The nurse that Halley had dispatched to Tommy’s apartment was easy enough to chase off. I yelled and glared and off she went. If Halley and her husband were going to be out of money over it, then so be it. She should have consulted with me first before hiring and paying a home healthcare nurse. I didn’t need anyone there hovering over me. I had control over the situation. How hard could it be to wheel myself to the kitchen for food, wheel myself to the bathroom and transfer myself from Tommy’s recliner to my wheelchair a few times a day? No big deal.

Confusion jumbled my brain when I heard Flor’s voice right outside the front door to Tommy’s place. The moment she opened her mouth I recognized her voice and my heart seized in my chest.

I wanted to rush to the door and hide at the same time. If she knew I split my time between Tommy’s place and my place she’d want to know why, and that was a question that I didn’t really want to have to answer.

It didn’t require too much thinking to come up with the fact that a successful businessman such as myself wouldn’t be likely to have a middle-of-the-road apartment here in Manhattan as their primary residence.

I had deepened my voice an octave and held a blanket up to my mouth as I barked at the front door. It had worked. I scared her off. I was rude and I felt awful, but this development needed careful consideration before I just let the cat out of the bag. I had a lot to explain and not the faintest idea of how I was going to do it.

I stayed at Tommy’s place only because it was Tommy’s place. Being within his space made me feel close to him. It reminded me why I had chosen sobriety over booze and being amongst his things, his vinyl album collection, his tennis gear, his DVDs, his furniture, his bed… Seeing all of it on a regular basis was punishment and my atonement. Not so much for what I’d done as what I
didn’t
do. I’d never not come here.

Knowing Flor was my part time neighbor was exhilarating and terrifying. She had been so close for who knew how long and yet she’d been a total stranger to me. She was no longer a stranger but she may as well have been. After Halley had run her off at Four-19 she’d chosen to ignore my text, and then I had been in an accident that landed me in an operating room.

She’s just next door. She sleeps there. She eats there. She showers there. She undresses there.

It occurred to me that I had a choice. I could either have my assistant come over and help me get transported to my place, away from Flor, or I could stay put, risk running into her and try explaining once she saw me. Or I could wheel over there right now, spill my guts, and hope like hell she wouldn’t slam the door in my face.

I barely knew this woman, so there was no telling how she would receive the information that I was a recovering alcoholic who hung out in the shrine that was my dead brother’s apartment because I couldn’t bring myself to let it go, and that my ice-queen sister was a bitch for behaving the way she did at Four-19 the last time she’d been there with me.

I had a lot to explain.

I pulled out my new cell phone and silently thanked Conrad for replacing it quickly and digging through my phone records for the number that had to be hers. I’d given him the general time that I’d last sent her a text and he plucked the digits from the sea of phone numbers like some fairy god mother with a goatee. I scrolled to her name in my contacts.

What to say, what to say?

I stared at my phone for a long moment, unsure of what my next move would be or how I’d explain things to Flor. I found myself dialing Martin instead. He was great at giving advice, and though he didn’t condone how I coped with Tommy’s death, he understood and did his best to make sure that I didn’t feel as though he judged me for it. He knew I kept Tommy’s place. He didn’t know that I frequently spent time there. I’d tell him one day. I didn’t like keeping it from him.

The phone rang and eventually went to voicemail. I left a quick message telling him everything was fine, but that I needed some advice and asked that he return my call when he had a minute to spare. Until then, I would sit tight, bide my time until I figured out exactly how best to proceed. I didn’t want to give Flor any reason to dislike me any more than she likely already did.

I’d sort it out, though. I had to because my desire for her hadn’t gone anywhere and it hadn’t grown weaker. If anything, I craved her like never before. Her close proximity was likely to blame for that. I also felt something warm and tingly deep in my gut as I thought back to how timid and sweet she had sounded at my door, offering cookies and her acquaintance. I was a world-class asshole.

Maybe it was to right a wrong, but my physical attraction to her was only part of my motivation to see her again. The look in her eyes just before she bolted into the elevator at Four-19 had speared me.

I didn’t like the idea of her being disappointed in me, let down or hurt because of me and it wasn’t only because I had a strong desire to take her to my bed. There was something…
more,
and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but knowing that she was hurt bothered me. It bothered me enough to risk baring my demons to her knowing that there was a great chance that she’d tell me to get lost. I’d have to do it anyway, no matter her response.

Flor

A Fresh Broken Heart

A
s I walked into the lobby of the new restaurant, a hoity-toity French cuisine establishment called Chez Thibodeaux, I could feel tension growing, tightening the muscles in my neck and shoulders. I told him that I’d meet him there, and true to my word, there I stood. I noted that it was right up his alley. White linen, candlelit tables, servers in black ties. It was plainly expensive, hard to get reservations, and full of his type.

I’ll give him credit; he worked hard for the fortune he’d amassed, at least, that’s what I’d been told. I wasn’t around him much during those years. He’d said that he needed to work on himself, that he needed to get his life together following the tragedy and ensuing divorce that had rocked our home.

How were any of us to know it would take the majority of my childhood and into my teenage years before he “got his life together?” I tried living with him and Liza the summer of my junior year in high school. It had ended badly, Matt being the only positive thing I had to show for that very turbulent time in my life. I’d returned to Hershey to finish high school and didn’t see my father again until I graduated from NYU. By that time, I’d already ditched his last name and legally took my mother’s maiden name as my own. Sometimes I think my rebellion against him is what spurred him to pop back into my life. I didn’t think he took too kindly to my insult of dropping his last name, but it had been cathartic to do it. I still didn’t regret doing it, years later and marginally wiser.

All I knew was I craved my father’s presence in my life. Even after everything, I needed him around, but he hadn’t shown up.

Memories of ugly comments from high school broke free from the murky bottom of my heart. The heavy silt that had settled there over the years held those memories in place but they escaped their bonds and floated to the top, making me feel dirty and in need of a shower—and a magic pill that would erase all bad memories.