Insanity (17 page)

He was putting all of the cards on the table for her. But Queen continued to procrastinate instead of deal in a timely manner with her below standard assignments. Dr. Blake wanted her to redo several papers he felt she had rushed. It was the only way to maintain a solid B in the course, but the young woman kept coming up with different excuses. Now she was running out of time.

“Ummm . . .
damn
,” she complained. “This is just . . .”

Dr. Blake cut her off. “You seem to be really distracted these last couple of months. Is something going on that you need to share? I mean, I’m understandable.”

Queen continued to deliberate on her time. It was approaching quarter to noon, and it would take her at least twenty-five minutes to get where she needed to go.

Nevertheless, she exhaled and prepared herself to tell a long, sad story.

“My mom has been going through chemotherapy for cancer, so lately, I’ve been running around doing a lot of extra things for
her
. And I just can’t . . .” she stopped and looked frustrated. “. . .
concentrate
on a lot of things right now. And I
know
I want to do well. I mean, I
deserve
it
, but . . .”

Dr. Blake had heard enough. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he told her. He stopped to consider her final grades. It wasn’t as if he was giving her an A, and a B grade was doable with a deal.

“You know, give me a call tonight and I’ll see what I can do. But you
need
to call me,” he pressed her.

“Thank you,” she told him, slipping quickly into her car and tossing her bag of books into the passenger seat.

She had lost another five minutes in their conversation.

“Shit. Now I’m running late.”

She peeled out of the school entrance in her Nissan and headed for Interstate 695, burning rubber. As soon as she got on the highway good, doing eighty, a Maryland state trooper flashed his lights and blared his siren behind her.

WWHHRRRPPP! WWHHRRRPPP!

Queen looked into her rearview mirror and snapped again.

“
Shit
! This is just not my damn
day
.”

After pulling her car over to the side of the road, she began to gather her license and registration before the trooper even climbed out of his car. She already knew the drill. Always in a rush to get somewhere, she had been pulled over for speeding plenty of times.

When the towering black officer reached her driver-side window in his beige uniform, brown trooper jacket, and a long brim hat, Queen was finishing a fake phone call to establish another long story.

“Okay, Mom, I’m on my way.”

The officer overheard it and looked into her frantic face as she began to explain her driving.

“Oh my
God
, my little sister just collapsed in school today from an overdose of sleeping pills, and my mom wanted me to meet her at the hospital. So, I just left my classes at Towson State to get down there, and I didn’t know how fast I was going.”

She handed the officer everything, included her college identification card.

She said, “I’m just
nervous
right now. This is the
second time
she’s done this.”

She had the overexcitement, the rapid speech, and the crazy body movements of deliria, as she sunk her hands into her face and pushed for tears.

The officer calmly thumbed through her information and didn’t budge.

“Where does your sister go to school?” he asked her.

“Baltimore Township.”

The officer nodded. “What hospital is she in?”

“Good Samaritan.”

He nodded again, moving as slowly as molasses. The man was not in a hurry. But he could clearly see that
she
was. Nevertheless, she didn’t appear to be a suspect that he needed to concern himself about. Otherwise, he would have run her information.

He said, “I’m gonna let you go with a warning this time, but driving recklessly is
not
gonna get you to that hospital any faster. In fact, your speeding may cause your mother
another
reason to be at the hospital.”

Queen cut him off and said, “I understand. Thank you.”

The officer looked into her car and spotted her bag of books in the passenger seat.

“What are you studying at Towson?”

“I’m attending grad school for social work. I graduated with a degree in sociology there two years ago.”

The officer nodded and was satisfied with his decision to let her go.

He handed back her information. “Sixty-five is the
legal
speed limit, and you’ll get there
safely
with plenty of time. Okay?”

“Yes sir,” she told him. “Thank you.”

As soon as the officer walked away to return to his car, Queen looked at her clock on the dashboard and shrugged. 

“Fuck it. I’ll get there when I get there now.”

It was two minutes to twelve and pointless to rush. She would be good and late for her appointment.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

“So, how late are you talking about?” Bryant asked her over his cell phone. He was already there at the doctor’s office waiting out in the lobby with health, childcare, fitness and family magazines spread out around the room. The reception area, a thick wooden door, and a wall separated the lobby from the patient rooms in the back.

“Another good twenty minutes, I guess,” Queen told him.

Bryant shook his head and looked down at his watch. It was already a quarter after noon. He planned to be out of there and back on his way to school before one. But if she didn’t arrive until twelve thirty, he doubted it.

“All right, I’ll just see you when you get here then.”

He sat back and picked up a copy of
Ebony
magazine, one of the few black magazines in the room. Denzel Washington was on the cover with an article discussing the importance of family.

Bryant flipped it open and began to read it.

“Are you expecting?” the receptionist asked him with a smile. She was a young white woman with dark hair, olive skin and model features in a white lab coat. She looked in his age range and was attractive enough to date.

Bryant had dated a few white girls before, starting back in his high school days. But he had a steady woman now; a
black
woman, who she was possibly pregnant. So he hesitated before he answered, feeling subconscious about everything. The pretty white receptionist made it worse for him. There he was, another unmarried black man awaiting the results of a possibly pregnant black woman. So he felt guilty about it. How was an uncertain man supposed to act at a doctor’s office anyway?

 “Aaahh . . . I guess we’ll find out,” he stammered. He wished she had never asked him.

The receptionist smiled and held back a chuckle.

“How about you?” he asked her back. “Are you expecting any time soon?” If she could put him on the spot, then he wanted to return the favor.

“Oh no, not me. I’m still in med school.”

“Well, how do you stop it from happening? No man?”

She smiled and laughed at it. But then she answered his question seriously and bit sarcastic. “Ahhh
protection
, birth control, abstinence . . .”

That didn’t make Bryant feel any better. She was basically calling him an irresponsible man. So he asked her, “Which one do you use?” The question just jumped out of his mouth.

Shit, if she wants to judge me, then I can judge her right back,
he thought.

All of a sudden, the receptionist wasn’t as talkative or curious. She was embarrassed with nothing left to say to him. And she was overjoyed when the phone rang to interrupt them.

“The doctor’s office,” she answered.

Bryant chuckled to himself.
White women,
he thought.
They’re always playing coy.

When Queen finally arrived, Bryant had read the whole Denzel family article and had a newfound respect for the man. Denzel wasn’t perfect, but he surely understood what was important in life, and it wasn’t chasing after every young starlet who played in a movie with him, while forsaking his kids and family. So he remained married despite the rumors.

Yeah, that was a good article,
Bryant told himself.

“I’m sorry for the wait, baby,” Queen addressed him, taking off her coat as she entered the room. She snapped him right out of his thoughts, looking and smelling good.

He stood up with her and dropped the magazine into the chair.

“Yeah, well let’s do it.”

He had no time to spare. It was twelve thirty-five already. His next class was at 1:10.

Queen stepped to the receptionist booth.

“I’m late for my noon appointment with Dr. Sinclair.”

The receptionist checked the schedules on a computer screen. “Well, you’re in
luck
, her next appointment’s not until one. I’ll call her.”

“Thank you.”

 “Hey Cara, Queen Tillis is here . . . Okay, I’ll send her back.”

Bryant followed Queen through the hallway and into an open room to the left.

“Close the door,” she told him.

For a second, he felt like a little boy in a grown-up world of doctors and pregnancies. He closed the door behind him and asked, “So, you actually want me in the
room
with you?” He began to look around, feeling queasy about it. It was too close for comfort. He figured he would be asked to wait out in the lobby with the receptionist.

Queen grinned at him. “No, silly, I’m gonna go into another room. This is just a consultation area.” She sat down on the small medical bed inside the room and began to undo her clothes.

“Well, what are you doing now then?” Bryant asked her nervously. He had never been in a doctor’s room with a woman outside of his mother. And that had been
years
ago in middle school.

“I leave my clothes in here first,” Queen explained. It was no big deal to her and a normal appointment procedure.

Bryant said, “And you walk through the hallway with no clothes on?”

Queen stopped and stared at him. He was beginning to sound ridiculous.

“No, I wear that gown behind you.”

Bryant looked behind him at a light blue medical gown on a hanger rack in the corner.

“Oh.”

Men,
she thought,
have no idea.

Dr. Cara Sinclair walked into the room, a slim, trim black woman in her late forties. She had a silver mane of hair and flawless brown skin in her white lab coat and dark blue heels.

“So, Queenie, you’re here to find out if this is the big one.” She looked at Bryant and asked, “Is this the guy?”

She was all lighthearted and jovial about it.

“Yeah, he’s the one,” Queen confirmed as she slipped into the patient gown.

“Is he ready to be a father?”

“We’ll soon find out.”

Bryant felt like a tranquilized lab rat as they talked around him.

“By the way, I have a name,” he announced.

“Oh, you do? Well, what is your name?”

“Bryant Thompson.”

The doctor stuck out her hand to officially greet him. “Well, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Thompson. Are you anxious?”

She was so breezy and alert that he searched for words to match her wit.

“I’m
curious
is more like it.”

“You
are
? Curious for a
boy
or a
girl
?”

“Curious for
anything
? We just want to make
sure
first.”

She nodded. “I see. Well, Queenie, how long ago was your last period?”

“October.”

She winced. “The
end
of October?”

Queen shook her head. “The
beginning
of October. So I took a home pregnancy test last night, and it came out positive.”

The doctor nodded. “Well, let’s take a look see. We’ll be right back in a minute, Mr. Thompson.”

In a flash, they left him there alone in the room as he sat and thought about the possibilities and consequences of fatherhood.

Garrett and Gwen get married in February, and if Queen is already pregnant, we might want to do it in April before she starts showing too much,
he figured.
But what would my parents say about that? Do they like her that much?

“Damn,” he grumbled.
We would beat Garrett and Gwen to a first child.

The problem was, Garrett had known Gwendolyn for
years
. They had gone to college at Maryland University together. Bryant had known Queen for
less
than a year, but there they were at the doctor’s office discussing a boy or a girl.

Bryant shrugged. “Well . . . that’s the way the ball bounces sometimes.”

He wasn’t particularly upset about it anymore. He had gotten over that the night before. Now it was time to make mature preparations.

I’m finish grad school after next semester, and she has two more semesters. That means we can both pull in good money soon. But would she be able to work with a brand new baby or go on materiality leave?

“Shit, I need to step up with my investment game,” he realized.

Maybe this could be a good thing. It gives me new motivation.

By the time Queen reentered the room with the doctor, which seemed like forever, Bryant was ready for any and everything. He had it all mapped out in his head.

“Well, Mr. Thompson, are you ready for the news?” the doctor asked him.

“Bring it on.”

Queen smiled, reading his enthusiasm with intrigue.

“Well, it looks like you could be a father by mid to late July. So let’s just say . . . July the twenty-first. And we won’t know if it’s a boy or a girl for a couple of weeks yet. Sometimes it takes longer than that if you even want to know.”

Bryant could even think about the gender at the moment. He was more concerned about the
date
. An actual delivery date solidified everything for him. It felt like the beginning of a new life, and it
was
.