Man Enough For Me (20 page)

“I’m gonna go prepare our press statement while you prep him,” Jules said.

Penny nodded and covered the mouthpiece briefly. “Meet me down at the east entrance in twenty minutes. We’ll do everything there.”

Jules nodded and headed back down the corridors toward the elevator. In that brief moment alone, the thoughts she had tried to ignore came flooding back to her.

Was the man lying in a hospital bed downstairs someone who was strung out on the drugs Germaine had brought in? How many more people were out there like that?

She sighed as she pressed the button for the elevator.

Two weeks was looking like a long time.

W
ith the way her week had been going, Jules should have known that Sunday would be a disaster. Despite the long talk they’d had the night of the launch, Maxine and Tanya still were giving her the cold shoulder. The nurses at work were threatening to go on strike, and she had spent all week fielding reporters’ inquiries and running the office while Penny was locked away in labor relations meetings. Plus the whole Germaine thing was sitting on her mind like a ton of bricks, making it hard to concentrate on anything.

If that wasn’t enough, on Friday she’d lost the keys to her apartment and had had to have all the locks changed. It seemed that even her car was mad at her because she kept hearing a funny sound every time she made a right turn. She should have known that Sunday dinner at her mother’s was going to be no better.

But she never anticipated that it would be this bad.

It started with a simple question, just as all arguments with her mother did.

“Where’s that handsome man of yours? I thought you were bringing him with you today.”

Jules sighed. She had known that she would have to give an
answer to that question sooner or later. Better it came now before dinner was served so they could handle the issue and move on to pretending they enjoyed each other’s company.

“We broke up, Mom,” Jules said firmly, not pausing while she laid out silverware on the table. She wished to God that Davis was there. But he was back at school in the States.

Lucky bastard.

“What you mean you broke up?” Momma Jackson asked, more than a little upset. She had stopped in the middle of the dining room and was glaring at her daughter as if Jules were twelve again and had brought home a bad report card.

“We were together; now we’re not,” Jules said dryly, still not facing her mother.

“Little girl, don’t you play smart with me,” Momma Jackson said sharply.

Jules cringed. She hated when her mother called her “little girl.” It was just another reminder that Momma Jackson didn’t respect the fact that she was a grown woman.

“I know what it means to be broken up,” Momma Jackson continued tightly. “What I want to know is what did you do to make that boy break up with you? It was your working, wasn’t it? You couldn’t find any time for him, just like you never find any time for me.”

Jules couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.

“First of all, Momma, I am not a little girl; I am a grown woman. I make my own decisions,” Jules said sharply, glaring at her mother from across the room. “Secondly, why are you so sure he was the one who broke up with me?”

“Because I know you ain’t dumb enough to let go of a good Christian man who has something going on, and who’s interested in you,” Momma Jackson said matter-of-factly.

“Well, guess what, Momma, I am the one who broke up with him. And it had nothing to do with my work. Why does everything I do wrong have to be about that?”

“Because it usually is,” Momma Jackson said. “You worship that job, like it’s the only thing you got going on in your life.”

“Maybe because everything else drives me half-crazy,” Jules said, tossing down the rest of the silverware on the table and heading back into the kitchen, away from her mother.

Why oh why was Aunt Sharon not back from visiting her friend yet?

“Jules, you drive your own self crazy,” Momma Jackson said, following her daughter into the kitchen. “You put that hospital before everything else in your life, and then you blame me ‘cause I’m the only one who tells you the truth about it. I ain’t gonna pet and pamper you like your daddy did, or like them friends of yours. You need to get your act right and stop alienating everyone in your life before you end up alone. The first time in your life I seen you get serious about someone, and then you run him off, for some silly reason I’m sure.”

Jules turned on the faucet in the kitchen sink to rinse the dishes. She was so mad she barely noticed the hot water burning her hands. She felt like screaming. She had expected Truuth and Maxine and everyone at Triad to take Germaine’s side. But now her mother too?

“That’s why you’re twenty-six and alone,” Momma Jackson continued. “When I was your age, I was already married.”

“Yeah, and look how well that turned out for you.”

The words flew out of Jules’s mouth before she even had a chance to think about them. She saw the shock on her mother’s face, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was tired of people blaming her; tired of everyone making her feel like the wrong one for ditching a guy who was no good. She was tired of her mother using every situation in her life as an opportunity to beat her down. But most of all she was tired of trying to be the dignified one in this mess when all she wanted to do was wallow.

“You know, Momma, maybe that’s the curse of Jackson family women. None of us can’t ever keep a man. Not you, not Aunty Sharon, not me,” Jules shot.

She didn’t mean any of it. But she could see it hurting her mother, and she figured that, maybe for once, her mother would know how Jules had felt those many times before.

“Maybe that’s our fate in life, to be old, dried up, bitter, and alone. Maybe that’s how we’re all destined to be.”

Out of nowhere, Jules felt Momma Jackson’s palm connect sharply with her cheek. The shock of the slap left her speechless.

“I don’t care how grown you think you are, Jules Elizabeth Jackson; I am still your mother, and you do not speak to me like that,” Momma Jackson said in a low, deadly voice. “Ain’t no child gonna come up under my roof and disrespect me like I’m her plaything. Now you take your things, and you leave this house. And you don’t come back until you know how to act like somebody grew you right.”

Jules had never seen her mother so angry or hurt before. But she was too angry and hurt herself to care. Taking up her purse, she walked down the hallway and through the front door.

It was a good thing they hadn’t gotten to the dinner part. She had completely lost her appetite.

O
n Monday morning Jules woke up to a headache so bad, she could barely see straight. It took all that she had to get dressed and stumble into work. When she did, she immediately wished that she had stayed home.

“Jules, where have you been!” Michelle exclaimed, pulling Jules into her office and closing the door behind them. Their open-concept office meant that private conversations held in the main area were not really private, and from the way Michelle’s eyes were darting furiously around, it was clear that she did not want to be heard.

Jules sank gingerly into her chair and winced as the shrillness in Michelle’s voice caused her head to pound even harder.

“Didn’t you see the paper this morning?” Michelle asked in a shrieky, high-pitched voice that made Jules cringe.

“Michelle, with the headache I have, I barely saw the road on my way in,” Jules answered, closing her eyes beneath her oversized sunglasses and rubbing her temples gently. She definitely should have stayed home.

She was so groggy that she didn’t notice Michelle had left the room until the skinny woman returned and plopped a copy of the
Toronto Star
on Jules’s desk. Jules’s eyes opened wide, and she snatched off her shades to make sure she was seeing right.

“TCHN paralyzed as nurses walk off the job?” Jules murmured in disbelief as she read the headline. “When did this happen?”

“About 3 a.m. this morning when the morning nurses were due to start their first shift,” Michelle said. Suddenly Jules realized why the floor had seemed so empty on her way up. No doubt there were media lurking around the front entrance, but since Jules had driven through the underground parking lot and come up the back, she had not seen them.

“Oh, Lord,” Jules whispered, now fully alert. “Has Penny seen this?”

“Girl, where have you been?” Michelle exclaimed. “Penny’s fired.”

Jules’s heart began to hammer in her chest, and she could feel the blood rushing through her veins.

“They fired her this morning before she even got in. Had security come in and clean out her office and everything. I tried to get her on her BlackBerry, but it was disconnected. Her company e-mail is shut off, and she’s not even answering her house phone.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Jules murmured, leaning her elbows against her desk and dropping her face into her hands. She wasn’t using the Lord’s name in vain. She really did need him. She could barely breathe.

“Jules, what are we going to do about this?” Michelle asked, pointing to the newspaper in panic. “It’s all over the news on the radio and television. The phone has been ringing all morning, and all I could do is forward the calls to you. You know I don’t know how to talk to the media.”

Jules could hear the urgency in Michelle’s voice and already knew what she was thinking. If they didn’t do something, this was likely to escalate into a region-wide issue with Toronto Grace Hospital at the center. The bad press would ruin the community’s perception of the hospital, cut the flow of donations to the hospital’s foundation, and taint the name of the Toronto Central Hospital Network for a long time. And chances were,
both she and Michelle would end up the same way Penny had—unemployed.

Jules closed her eyes.

Lord, if there was ever a time I needed You, it’s now.

Taking a deep breath she looked up at Michelle.

“It’s okay, Michelle. It will be all right,” she said with more confidence than she felt. Michelle looked at her as if she was crazy, but Jules stood her ground.

“We’ll get through this, but we have to work together and stay calm, okay?”

Michelle still looked on the verge of hysteria, but she nodded.

“Okay, now, there’s a Crises Plan binder in the cabinet. Can you get it for me? I’m gonna call Kerry White and see if she can tell me what exactly is going on with the nurses.”

As Michelle disappeared to find the binder, a million questions floated through Jules’s mind.

Why hadn’t Penny called her as soon as she knew that something had happened? She had been in meetings with the nurses’ union all week. How could she not have known that they were about to go on strike? And if she did know, how could she not have said anything to the rest of them?

Jules tried calling Kerry on every number she had for her, but was unable to reach the chief nursing executive. Every call she made went to voice mail. She wasn’t surprised. The head of the union had probably told Kerry not to talk to anyone from the TCHN executive team.

Jules tapped her pen against the desk in thought for a moment before picking up the phone again and dialing a familiar number. The phone rang twice before someone answered.

“Maxine? It’s me, Jules.”

“Geez, Jules, you know I ain’t even supposed to be talking to you,” Maxine hissed in a stage whisper. “If any of the other nurses catches me, I won’t hear the end of it.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’re the only person I could call. I can’t get through to anyone else. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean what’s going on? The nurses are on strike. We’re tired of being disrespected and forced to work in unsafe conditions,” Maxine said.

Jules snorted. “Is that what’s on the script they gave you to read?”

“Jules, I am this close to hanging up the phone.”

“No, no wait,” Jules said quickly. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m a bit stressed here. I didn’t find out about all this until this morning.”

“How’s that? That boss of yours was at all the meetings last week.”

“Yeah, well, she got canned, so it’s just me and Michelle.”

“They fired her? Ho-lee,” Maxine murmured in surprise. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna try to fix this, which is why I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s bad, Jules. After that stabbing a couple weeks ago, ya’ll were supposed to meet with the nurses and come up with a plan, but the meeting never happened. It wasn’t until the union leader started talking strike that everyone was ready to talk to us.”

“What’s the real problem, Max?”

“We don’t feel safe, Jules. We have to deal with all types of people, and there’s not enough security in the hospital, especially in the ER. Do you know how many patients I get who have weapons on them when they come in? They’re not supposed to get past security with all of that stuff, but it’s happening all the time. Something’s gotta change before anybody goes back to work.”

Jules sighed. She knew Maxine was right. In the past couple of months the number of guards on the hospital campus had dropped almost by half. What’s more, guards were working longer shifts, meaning they were less efficient in their duties.

Just last week she had caught Charlie, the security guard at the east entrance, dozing off at his post. Jules had been annoyed
at first. But he soon told her that he was coming off two back-to-back eight-hour shifts. Furthermore, the guard who was to relieve him hadn’t shown up, so he had to stay until the security company could send out a replacement. If that kind of thing was a regular occurrence, Jules could understand why so many things were getting past security.

“I know it’s bad, Maxine, but have you guys thought about the patients? Who’s going to take care of them? Especially the ones in ICU? You know there’s no way the doctors can handle that alone.”

Jules waited for Maxine to respond, but got nothing but silence on the other end. She narrowed her eyes. There was something Maxine wasn’t telling her.

“Max,” Jules said suspiciously, “what are you not telling me?”