Kiss the Girl (7 page)

“
I
was tired
,” she said, and her eyes were a clear, mossy green.  “
I wanted to come home
.”

Erik understood the impulse better than he wanted to admit. 
“And home is DC?”

“It’s wherever I want.” 
She didn’t look away from the window.
 

“
Just that easy, huh?
”

“It’s never easy.  But it can be done.  I’m good at building things.  Why not home?”

“Because it’s more complicated than building an orphanage.”

“Have you ever built one?”

“What, an orphanage?  Or a home?”

“Are they that different?”

“Yeah.”  Erik shook his head.  “And if I have to explain why, you wouldn’t understand.”

“If you say so.”

And with that, t
hey hurtled across the bridge and into a whole new world.

Nixie sat in the waiting room while Erik swiped his ID badge through the reader and let himself into the receptionist’s pen.  There was an enormous woman working the front desk, and even through three inches of bullet-proof glass, Nixie could see her giving him crap.  She smiled.  Dr. Erik probably didn’t get enough crap.

She settled into her molded plastic chair.  It was profoundly ugly, the exact color of puke.  Nixie looked up when a man at the end of the row started heaving with exhausted resignation into a pink plastic bucket.  That, Nixie thought, explains the vomit-colored décor. 
A
stack of paper cups
sat
next to the rust-streaked sink in the bathroom so she filled one with water and delivered it to the
puker
. 

“Ah, fuck,” he mumbled.  Nixie took it as thanks.  She patted his shoulder and returned to her seat.   

She sat down again and turned her attention to the drama unfolding in the receptionist’s pen.  The woman was a full foot shorter than Erik, but she looked mean, and meanness counted more than anything in a fight.  A Colombian farmer had explained this to her years ago and the ensuing cockfight had proven it.  Nixie
hoped she wasn’t about to see the principle
in action again.
 
Maybe he was pushy and
opinionated
, but Erik seemed like a decent enough human being.  It would be a shame if the receptionist killed him.
 

But Erik had raised his palms in a gesture of surrender and
backed
away slowly.  He said something that seemed to mollify the woman, accompanied it with a winning smile.  Then he pointed toward Nixie.  The woman swiveled to stare at Nixie.  Nixie gave her a little finger wave.  The woman’s eyes narrowed, her mouth bunched to the side with suspicion.  She turned back to Dr. Erik and served up another helping of crap with renewed vigor.  Nixie grinned.

She ducked her head so Erik wouldn’t see her laughing at him and caught the eye of the toddler at her feet.  The kid was maybe two and a half feet tall, of indeterminate gender, with an intricate spiral of tight braids snaking over its shiny brown scalp.  It was one of perhaps five kids of varying sizes and
colors
orbiting a thin woman in the puke-colored chair opposite her own.  Nixie had seen enough really sick kids to know that this one wasn’t at death’s door, so she leaned forward, elbows on knees and smiled into the kid’s giant brown eyes. 

“What are you in for?” she asked.

“Breathing machine.”

“Seriously?”  Nixie lifted a skeptical brow.  “A machine that breathes for you?”

The child giggled.  “No, I
gots
to breathe into it.”

“Huh.  Why?”

“Asthma.  We all
gots
it.”

Nixie looked at the brood of children sprawled across the chairs.  “All of you?”

“Yeah. 
Mama
Mel say it the cockroach shit.”

Nixie blinked.  “Really?”

“Yeah, that and the cheap-ass carpet the super put in.”

“La
Toya
Kennedy?”  The receptionist called through a small grouping of holes drilled through the glass at mouth level. 

The woman across from Nixie didn’t open her eyes, but prodded the kid with a
slippered
foot.  “That you, child.  Go on, now.  We don’t
gots
all day.” 

“Okay,
Mama
Mel.”  La
Toya
bounded to her feet and barreled toward the door the receptionist was holding open. 

Mama
Mel cracked open one eye.  “Don’t run, neither.  You want to give yourself the asthma before you even gets your turn on the machine?”  She settled her bony frame back into the chair, muttering, “I
ain’t
talking just to hear myself talk, neither.
  Dang.
”

“All these kids yours?” Nixie asked.

“Lord, I collects them,” the woman sighed.  “I don’t stand for nobody raising their hand to no child.”

“Your landlord’s okay with all the kids?”

“He
gots
to be, don’t he?  Government gave ‘
em
all to me right and proper.  I
gots
the court papers to prove it, and the social worker coming by every month to make sure
they’s
all taken care of.”

“How’d they all get asthma?”

She fanned a thin hand in front of her face, like the question was a pesky fly.  “All the kids in our building
gots
it.  We supposed to be in the good project, the
new
project.  Tell you something, that place
ain’t
nothing but a rat trap.  The paint stink, the carpet stink, the rats eat all the insulation out and fill up the walls with shit, then the cockroaches come and eat that.
It
ain’t
no wonder
my babies don’t breathe right.” 

She closed her eyes again and dropped her head back against the seat.  “But it worse outside.  Between the shooting and the mugging and the drugs and lord knows what all, I don’t dare let
them
out of the apartment.  They come straight home from school and stay where I can keep my eye on them.  My kids is going to graduate if it’s the last thing I do.
”  She blew out a weary breath.  “S
ome days I think it might be.”

The receptionist leaned toward the glass and called, “Nixie Leighton-Brace?  Girl, if your famous self is gracing our building, please step forward.”

Nixie smiled at
Mama
Mel.  “That’s my cue.  Nice talking to you.”

Mama
Mel finally opened both eyes and gave her a thorough once over.  “You
ain’t
Nixie Leighton-Brace,” she finally said.  “You too skinny.”

Nixie laughed.  “Camera adds ten pounds, even in Somalia.  Think about that.”  She headed toward the startled receptionist, who bounded from her swivel chair in a blur of skin-tight white polyester.  She buzzed open the door and Nixie sailed through it like she was walking the red carpet.  She knew how to be
Nixie Leighton-Brace
when it suited her.

She had to give the woman credit
--
she pulled it together quickly.  She drew back her chin and eyed Nixie from head to toe.  “Are you really Nixie Leighton-Brace?” she asked.

Nixie relaxed the take-my-picture pose and smiled at her.  “That’s what it says on my passport.”

“Girl, what are you doing here?”  The woman’s wattle jiggled in reproof.  “Shouldn’t you be in Darfur or something?”

Nixie gave her an apologetic shrug.  “Probably.”  She checked the ID badge proffered up by the woman’s impressive bosom.  “Wanda?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

Nixie grinned. The woman was about five feet tall and nearly as wide, with hair an improbable shade of check-me-out red and a mouth painted to match.  “You look like a Wanda.  Do people tell you that all the time?”

The mouth that had been nearly hidden between fleshy cheeks widened now into a smile that changed her face like the sunrise changed the sky.  “Time or two.”

“So Dr. Erik
tells me times are tough here at the clinic.  What’s
the situation
?
”

Wanda’s smile
died and she wagged her head
. 
“
Dr. Erik and Dr. Mary Jane, they’re doing their best, but don’t nobody care about us folks down here
.
  Up there on the Hill, they like to pretend we don’t exist so they can pat each other on the back and take each other out to lunch.  Pretend they’re all
good
and
noble
.
”
  Her mouth
twisted
into a flaming
curve
of derision.  “
Dr. Erik gives ‘
em
new hearts, but he can’t put no love in ‘
em
.”

“He’s a surgeon?” Nixie
asked. 

“At George Washington University Hospital,” Wanda said.  She nudged Nixie with an elbow.  “They don’t just give them jobs away, neither.  Our boy’s mad skilled.”

Nixie
pictured Erik’s hands in her mind
--
large, square, strong.  She’d imagined him as an ER doc, or maybe an orthopedic man.  Something that required his farm-hand build and
Viking
attitude.  But apparently, he was fully capable of delicacy and grace.  No, not just capable.  He must be incredibly skilled.  Called. 
Gifted
. 

She asked,
“What’s he doing here if he works up at GW?”

Wanda rolled her eyes, and it made her look like nothing so much as a startled pony.  “He’s saving the world, honey.  One poor black kid at a time.  Sound familiar?”

“It used to.”  Nixie tried a smile.

“His mama makes laws, and Dr. Erik catches the kids who fall through the cracks.  But don’t tell him I said so.  He’s dead-set on not growing up to be his mama.”

Nixie lifted her brows.  “
Why’s that?  I’d be pretty damn happy if I grew
up to be the Senator.”

“With your mama, no wonder.”

“
Ouch
.”

“
Oh, honey.  I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that
.
”

Nixie forced a reassuring smile.  “Don’t worry about it.  The truth hurts sometimes.  But what does Erik have against
politics
?”
 
She thought about those
summer sky eyes and the fast, flashing smile that struck like l
ight
ning.  Then she thought about the way he moved, in a straight line and utterly without hesitation. 
Not fast, necessarily, but inexorable.  Like a steam roller. 
“Seems to me like politics would be a nice fit with his personality.”