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The Schuyler Fortune-Sweet Pea 4
Donna Stafford's next visit to New York coincided to a visit with her older brother at his home in Brooklyn. She mentioned that his daughter Selene had met a boy in London she really liked but wasn't sure if he was into her or not.
Her brother bristled for a moment, grinned and sat back.
"You might as well tell me about him or I'll be the last to find out. Selene won't tell me unless I drag it out of her."
"He's rich."
"I don't want to hear it."
"His aunt is Barbara Darnell and she lives in the White House."
"I didn't vote for her."
"He's going to be in charge of "The Blossom Jones fund for Africa" some day after his dad dies or retires."
"Blossom who?"
"His family has two Gulfstreams and is worth many billions of dollars. He was adopted into the family. He's a twin." She pressed on, trying to impress her brother with something to help Selene's cause.
"He wants the fund to build a children's hospital in Bulawayo and a high-speed rail line from Harare to Bulawayo so the sick kids with HIV can get to the hospital easier."
A glimmer of approval shone out from her brother's eyes. "Noble enough."
"He really thinks Selene is cool and I think he will ask you one of these days if you would mind him courting her with an eye to marriage."
Her brother's eyes began to mist over, and then he broke down in front of her for the first time since their mom died. "I wish mom could have met him."
When Donna walked into the Schuyler Museum the next day in Manhattan, she thought about that first day she had visited, the surprising aftermath, and the love distributed to people they would never meet in person.
She then thought about disinterested love in general, a principle which involved all the interest in the world, just not the interest that will get the donor thanked in this world necessarily, but in the next where a Saviour will indeed say, `I told you to give water to those who were thirsty; you did, and in doing so, you gave it to Me'.
This did not prepare her for the meeting upstairs where Michael and Carol and Blossom and Marcus told her of the upcoming projects in Zimbabwe, the need uttered innocently by her niece and in love carried to the family by their son Loren.
She had a slight problem with composure for a few seconds, was told that the donor letter of intent would reach her in three days, and was thanked for her service on behalf of women and their families in Africa.
The requisite three days went by; the mail staff waited. Nothing. The next day was Saturday and they were closed.
On Monday morning a large manila envelope fell out of a mailbag, the envelope again inscribed `personal to the Director' and it was hand carried to her very quickly.
She opened it in private in her office. She had thought herself beyond surprise.
She read a detailed document including diplomatic traffic to and from India and Zimbabwe, plans for a huge children's hospital in Bulawayo, plans and financing for a TGV between the capital city of Harare and Bulawayo, and an offer to donate another billion dollars to "The Blossom Jones fund for Africa".
There was more, a promise of outright, direct funding for the railway and the beginnings of generic HIV medications to be supplied free of charge in Zimbabwe beginning in one week from existing world generic stocks.
Within six weeks, generic medications for HIV from Ross Pharmaceuticals in Pennsylvania would be available.
Then she had a good cry. For the children who had lost their parents with no promise of return, for the parents who died wondering if their children would survive, for the chance to help, for good people still generous, for her brother, a widower resisting being alone, for her niece trying to be in love and trying just as hard not to be, for wonders, for surprises, for disinterested love, for charity, for first and second chances, for twins, for mothers and fathers who loved their children and other's children, she cried, cried out, then prayed for all of those things and thanked her God and was finally at peace.
Darren was getting used to the dry heat of Tucson. His parents lived in a dementia center in Phoenix but still seemed on occasion to know him. As their guardian, he had found the constant travel between New York and Phoenix wearying and had told Marcus and Michael that a change in their relationship was forthcoming for his sanity. His departure for Tucson on Rainier was just plain bittersweet for them. His duties as administrator of the museum had been performed well. He told them he was going to get his teaching credentials in his field and that he would miss them...a lot.
In London, Selene had spent the day following David around, half-interested, half bored with international finance, but alert enough to ask intelligent questions. During her lunch hour she ate alone and wondered about Loren and what he might be doing, shook her head and told her self to think about other things. She had just taken a bite of tomato and cucumber when a shadow fell over her at the table and someone stood there with a tray. She looked up, saw Loren standing there with a tender look, eyebrows raised a little and a little smile curving the edges of his mouth which, oddly enough, she hadn't really looked at before. It was a nice mouth and...
"Can I join you for lunch?" he asked softly. "It's a long commute to London and I'm still hungry for, to..."
"You're still hungry," she replied, taking a huge chance for her, "to see me." She colored, and he turned red.
"Famished." He reached a beautiful hand across the table and she took it with both of hers. It was a warm hand. She had a sudden picture of a little child in his arms, a child who adored its daddy, entering the warm kitchen in time for supper, the smells of warm fresh bread...
"Got any plans for the evening, Selene?" Loren seemed anxious to nail this down first. "I have good news for the orphans, the potential orphans in Zimbabwe."
"I know, aunt Donna called last night."
"Rats, I wanted to tell you," replied Loren.
"What did you want to say?" The conversational stakes seemed a hundred times higher all of a sudden.
"That I missed you while I was gone and...," Loren colored up.
"What?" said Selene.
"I don't want to leave you again. Ever again. I love you and I want to marry you and have babies and do finance together and to explore your brilliant mind and your beautiful body."
"Was there a question in there somewhere?"
"Will you marry me, Selene?"
"What did my dad say?"
"Go for it."
"I don't care what he said. I'm going to say `yes' anyway. You are the guy I want, the guy I love, the guy I want to have a family with starting two seconds after we get married, I'm warning you and I don't do practice sessions. And if you are as hot as you look, I'm going to wear you out."
Loren's eyes narrowed calculatingly. It was a contest of some sort? Wouldn't that make the whole thing more fun!
"Well, don't expect too much, I'm a virgin."
He thought that lowering expectations might be a good way to a win.
"I expect the stars and the moon, sunshine."
"I expect to let you have it, Selene."
"Ooooh...
I expect you'll be satisfied."
Where had that come from? He'd never talked to a girl like that in his life. This was worth the trip over and then some. Then some... then some...the words echoed in his head as he pitched to the floor in blackness.
Loren awoke in a large private hospital room somewhere in London where the nurse was called a sister. He was alone in the room at the moment and looked around. There was a cross on the wall, otherwise no TV, no pictures, no bars on the window or door, thank goodness.
He could hear traffic in the hall, steps clacking up and down, a muffled air conditioner whining away. He was a little cold under a sheet and a thin blanket; oh, and here was a cotton thing over his feet.
If it was for warmth it was flunking some kind of test.
An IV poked out of his left arm near the antecubital fossa and as he looked up at the IV chamber he noted a steady slow drip of a clear liquid through the chamber.
"Drips for a drip," he decided, a little giddy.
He saw, rather than felt, a couple of spots on his arms where an IV had been attempted or blood drawn or both. He tried to remember why he was here and could not. He remembered getting on a plane near New York but nothing afterward.
By the sound of the accents in the hall, this had to be Great Britain. He didn't remember why he would fly there however. He tried to remember anything about himself. He could not.
A tall girl with long brown hair came into the room with a doctor. She didn't look familiar. The doctor's face was kind, but the kind of face that was preparing for a speech.
"Hello," he said, "I am Dr. McWherter and your family asked my clinic if I would stop by," he said in a thick Welsh brogue, "and examine you, to consult."
"I have done so earlier while you were sleeping."
"The short summary to a long story is that you had a syncopal episode at a financial institution in the City and an ambulance brought you to our clinic."
Loren thought the brogue was like music, up and down, exaggerating the nouns, careening into them with emphasis and a slightly up beat to some words.
Then he realized he should be listening to this, but the girl was cute too.
"It is my understanding from your twin and other family sources that you are healthy in general, have just finished college and were visiting this young lady at the time of the attack."
I wondered just what visiting entailed.
"You do not have a history of seizure disorder and did not convulse at the time of the attack.
You do have what we call localizing neurologic signs that are indications there may be a problem inside of your head that needs further study before a diagnosis can be determined and a treatment plan can be recommended."
"It is my understanding that your fathers are flying over to be with you as we speak, and they should arrive in about three hours. We have had a call from King William expressing his condolences and that of the duchess of Cambridge as well and asking us to keep them apprised of anything they might do to be of assistance.
They are friends of your grandmother and value her very highly. We rarely get calls from the Palace and are happy to care for you on behalf of yourself and our nation."
"I will be asking your friend here to limit her visit to a few moments because the orderly and nurse are waiting outside to take you to our MRI scanner for further testing. Can you remember my name?"
"Dr. Roberts?"
"Hm."
"Can you remember your name?"
"No, I don't know that. Oh, God."
The lady took my hand then and it seemed for a moment that I had seen the hand, but I couldn't place it in any framework. The doctor said that I had `dads' coming to see me. That sounded strange to me. Plural? As in two dads? That sounded odd.
The lady spoke and said that her name was Selene and I had given her a real surprise back at the financial institution where we were having lunch, and did I remember that at all.
"No, I'm so sorry, I don't."
Her face turned a little, away, then turned back and with a cheerful look said that she had best be getting on, but that the hospital knew my name, so I would not be left alone, and she would be back to check on me that evening.
"Please remember that I will be back."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn't cry. She seemed like a real nice person.
Then I slept. Right through the MRI too, apparently, because I didn't remember that when two men came into the room and rushed over to my bed. One was black, the other white, neither looked familiar, both introduced themselves to me as my dad and were glad to see me and asked what happened and I couldn't tell them.
The doctor came into the room and they all talked in low tones, then a sister walked into the room with a report, the doctor read it quietly, thought a moment, then he told my dads that the test had made a diagnosis, that the situation was emergent and immediate surgery was indicated.
Another doctor arrived in an hour and said he was the King's own personal physician. He had been asked by the Palace to consult. His goal was to assist in choosing the absolute right neurosurgeon that might take on the task of my immediate surgery to relieve pressure, whatever that meant.
He was kind and told me that I had suffered a complication from a large brain tumor that likely was benign, probably a meningioma. The final pathology report might take as long as three days to tell the whole story. He said it was uncommon at my age. He also told me that it could take many hours to remove, but most of the time it could be removed entirely with few or no residual effects other than the doctor bill.
I started to worry about that out loud, I guess, but he quickly told me that the cost had been taken care of already, so I was in the great position of just relaxing as much as I could under the circumstances and getting well.
The two men who called themselves my dads came in, got the same lecture, except he told them who the best neurosurgeons in London were and where they operated, and they told him they would appreciate anything he might do to facilitate treatment.
He said he would get to it, looked at me, shook his head and told me I must not do anything in half measure to which the two men laughed for some reason and said that since age five or so, that had been my modus operandi. That was too complicated for me and I slept.
I awoke in another room being given a haircut on one side of my head, actually more of my head than that. Bald, I thought, oh great. I might have been in another hospital then because the windows were not shaped the same and the view out the window was quite different. This place was a little more modern, or perhaps just newer.
A doctor came in, identified himself as a neurosurgeon and explained that he was going to take me to surgery, cut down through my skull and find the tumor and take it out. Snicker-snack.
He made it sound easy. It might have been easy for him since he was trained for that, but I worried about brain cell damage without saying anything about it and afterwards was glad, because the tumor was already causing havoc in there and it was better out than in.
He talked about possible complications and what might happen if he didn't do the surgery. I just wanted it out and understood what he said at the time, signed a consent paper, but was pretty sure I couldn't have passed a test on the contents afterward.
I saw a nurse put something into my IV and slept then.
I don't know how long I was under and when I awoke, I didn't hurt exactly but parts of me were stiff and sore, like when one lies in one position for a long period of time and one feels an ache which goes away with moving around. Except here no one was allowing me to get up. I was in an intensive care unit, a noisy and very busy place.
I had a clear tube running up my penis for urine drainage, several IV lines dripping, a super IV of some kind in the upper part of my chest near my clavicle on the right side which was sore, cardiac leads on my chest, leads attached to my head, and when I reached cautiously up to my head, an enormous dressing sat firmly on my head attached with strong tape.
I wasn't hungry, felt tired, and slept.
I woke in the night to find a different nurse in the room. Every few hours, I could not tell you how many, there was a change and a new nurse came in. I slept.
Early the next morning a whole troop of doctors came in the door, the neurosurgeon, and perhaps some students or maybe interns or something. The doctor discussed the procedure and announced that the entire tumor had been removed after nine hours of careful work. The guy didn't miss an opportunity to pat himself on the back. I didn't care as long as he was good.
An hour later a black lady came in who looked vaguely familiar to me and I knew I knew her but didn't know from where and she hugged me and said she was a nurse and had taken care of patients like me and they were a pain in the neck. That made me smile.
I asked her name and she leaned down with her fresh breath and said, "Honey, I'm your grandma Blossom Jones all the way from New York City to see you. Don't you worry about anything. I'm here now and you are going to get well and be fine. I don't let my patients stay sick. I can't practice nursing in Great Britain, but I can keep an eagle eye out for you and make sure the nurses here do their best work.
I somehow felt she certainly could and would. She then did something I thought interesting. She took my hand and told me she was going to pray with me.
I didn't remember what that was. With her eyes shut, she reminded someone named Jesus that He had said that He loved us with an everlasting love and that she was holding Him to His promise. I said that sounded nice except I didn't know that man and wasn't gay that I knew about.
Blossom just looked at me, frowned for a second, then started laughing so long, so hard, so loud... that I thought she stop breathing. A nurse came running in the door to see if we were all ok.
We were.
The lady with the long brown hair came in that night and had some things in a brown paper bag, a tomato and a cucumber and she sat in front of me eating it. She would look up once in a while and hold up the tomato. After the fourteenth time of doing that, I said that I was hungry. My brain or my thoughts jumped and my eyes must have twitched or blinked or something. At least my thoughts did. Her face softened some and almost began to smile.
Something about seeing that really set off bells in my head but I couldn't figure it out. She asked me what I was hungry for and that same jump in my thoughts happened. I was tired. I think I went to sleep right in front of her.
The next day the doctors made their rounds again. The incision was proudly displayed and fawned over. That's when I found out that a resident had done the incision part of the surgery. My vital signs were good, and no amnesia progress was reported. I could have told them that.
It was three days later that a man who looked like me and talked like me walked in. I recognized my little brother, though now grownup for some reason. I asked him if he was Eric and if he liked peppermint ice cream. He looked back, smiled, started to cry and gave me the brother sign which I returned and we hugged. He started to talk about what happened, which I didn't remember and the girl, who I didn't really know other than her visiting in the hospital for a couple days, then he cautiously went out on a limb to see if it was strong enough to bear a weight.
"Did you really ask her to marry you?"
The limb broke. I stared at my little brother now grown up inexplicably and told him he had rocks in his head. He solemnly pinky sweared that he had heard things and I told him he was full of poop.
He was serious and said the rumor was that the brown-haired girl liked me a lot anyway.
"Could a fooled me real easy."
He started to talk about a girl named Lena that he had asked to marry him in Heidelberg and she said yes.
He was kind of pleased about it and said that grandma Carol had given him the China sapphires for an engagement present for her.
I congratulated him, thinking that even a doofus would never be so stupid as to get himself in a position like that.
"Did you say, `grandma Carol'," I answered him, my stomach now cramping really badly and my head aching a lot, "have I seen her recently?"
"Nah, she's in Oregon with the roses waiting for Sweet Pea to pick her up to fly here." From that day forward, little bits began to return to me. Oddly, the more I knew, the less happy I became. The combination of pain and not remembering everything and feeling like a patient got to me a little.
Grandma Carol walked in the door crying two days later and I knew her, didn't remember all about her, but I recognized her, and she knew it.
The nurse who said she was my grandma too walked in the door a little later with peppermint ice cream and the three of us had a party to beat all parties.
The girl in the long brown hair dropped by during the party and introduced herself to the grandma crowd. They were pleased to meet her.
I was more curious to see her again and must have kept staring at her and trying to shake my head to clear it. Grandma Blossom told me to stop shaking my head. "You just had surgery in there."
The pretty girl sidled over to the bed and took my bowl of ice cream, took the spoon and started to spoon bites into my mouth all the while looking into my eyes.
Grandma Blossom choked into her own bowl. I heard it. Grandma Carol turned around and found something on the wall that interested her. Grandma Carol's shoulders began to shake. I asked the girl, Selene, for a pillow and I put it on my groin to camouflage a bump she had been glancing at. It was an awkward moment made more so by the fact that I had just remembered her name, having heard it a few moments ago with no reaction.
"Were we ever, like an item or anything?"
"Do you remember anything about lunch, hotshot?"
"Not a thing."
"The long commute?"
"Doesn't ring any bells." The uncomfortable fact was that bells were ringing, all right, most of them below my belt and above my knees.
"Well, let's try `I'll let you have it' or perhaps "I expect you'll be satisfied'.
That was all it took. Memory returned full force, full weight. My cock got real big and hard and almost hurt.
"It's starting to come back. I'm remembering something about ten seconds after we get married' and no practice sessions'."
"Oooooh. You do remember."
Choked laughter in the room from two delighted grandmothers didn't bother me. I noticed, of course, but it didn't bother me or the problem I had or the girl, Selene, or interfere with the very long kiss, or the passionate embrace, or my hands in places they had never been... by which time the two grandmothers had left the room to knit or something.
The next day Carol came into the room with a package. She told me that she had given Eric the China sapphire set for his intended. She thought my affianced would like this, if I would be so kind as to accept them. I carefully opened the package, opened a jewel case and pulled out a magnificent set of emeralds, huge really. She explained that the trust had acquired these at Sotheby's Auction House decades ago. Their provenance included ownership by Queen Isabella of Spain. There was an overwhelming necklace with a matching ring.
In another bag, she pulled out a large ruby, which I recognized from my senior year in high school. I had held that rock and I had nearly dropped it on the floor. It was now encased in a gold setting with a gold-plated titanium chain in a necklace long enough so that when worn, the ruby would hide down in the cleft of the rocks, so to speak.
Or below perhaps.
"Which do you think she would like the best?"
I didn't know but knew in a flash which one would do me the most good and pointed to the ruby.
"I like that one. Thank you, grandma."
She laughed and said she thought I might. She told the emeralds to go back to their own bag and she shoved the bag into her purse. I worried about that for a minute then decided the emeralds would be safe with Carol.
They had made it this far.
When I formally presented the ruby to Selene a month later, most of my hair had grown back some, I had a little tan back after a few days in the sun and we were recuperating together in Zimbabwe up in a treehouse hotel in front of some elephants and lions down below at a watering hole.
For the animals.
"What's this, lover boy?"
"It's a three hundred-million-dollar ruby that a Maharajah wore once a long time ago in his turban. It's from Sri Lanka." Her hand started to tremble so naturally I had to take her hand before she dropped the thing. I knew she was susceptible to romance of some kind anyway.
"OK, big guy, I'll give you a preview. After we're married, that first night, I'm going to shove this rock into your underpants and start playing with it. I might put it in my mouth and suck on it. I might just put the hard-old rock in a soft place to keep it safe." I groaned.
This was how adult people talked in private?
"Lucky rock. It might have spent its last days in a bag in a building in New York with thousands of others like it," I said.
We began to laugh until the hyenas, envious and teachable, looked up and joined in.
Marcus received the first wire for five hundred million dollars from the trust three weeks later. The next check for the same amount was due in five weeks.
The same Chase bank account executive was notified of the large wire transfer, he was sent a copy of it, and he called the same controller at the Fund who displayed the enthusiasm of an over-ripe banana and acknowledged back.
The controller sent a note to Marcus, marked priority, and Marcus was ready. He had been ready for two weeks.
Again, the Dell had been tasked to ready a list of equities and bonds to buy, the market makers buys stabilized the market that day and Marcus went home to his husband to listen to music with headphones, another day's work under his belt. Peace settled over him like a soft blanket and he fell asleep in a comfortable sitting room. The overstuffed leather rocker held with his feet up and his eyelids relaxed, his fine facial features on view.
Michael came in the door at five p.m. on the dot, grinned at the sleeper, went to him and sat down on the floor beside the chair and watched Marcus breathe. This man was his husband, his lover, he most important friend he had, the guy who still had his back, a man filled with good and steadiness, honest, as true to the truth as a compass needle to the North Pole.
He shook his lover gently. "Marcus," he called softly, "wake up. It's kind of our anniversary."
"We have reservations at Gunter Seeger NY tonight."
Although they were late arriving at Gunter Seeger NY that evening, the maitre d'hotel held their table upon receipt of a short cell call from Michael. Yes, it screwed with the flow a little that night and sure he knew they would tip well; truth be known... he was fond of them.