SELF-MEDICATING
A Nurse Jackie fan fiction
By Cappuccino Girl
Disclaimer: The series Nurse Jackie and its characters are not my own. I'm just taking them for a little ride in my spare time.
Notes: Takes place sometime between the end of season one and the beginning of season two. For C, N, and Z - three ladies whom I am honoured to call my friends.
IT'S SIX PM ON A THURSDAY and O'Hara is dancing the fine line between tipsy and shit-faced while wearing $300 shoes. The drink is gin & tonic; the shoes are new.
Neither the shoes nor the bottle of gin she's rapidly draining are able to disguise the fact that she's sitting alone in her identikit hotel-apartment. She hates this place and has lived here entirely too long; two years too long, to be exact. Her last break-up was messy and it seemed easier to just move out as quickly as possible instead of going through the awkward we're-not-together-anymore-but-I-need-to-sleep-in-your-spare-room process, but lately this apartment has been getting on her nerves. It's not so much the location (which is fabulous, by the way), or her neighbours, although that hoard of teens that keep having house parties when she's on early shifts are starting to hack her off just a little. What's really irritating her is the magnolia colour of the walls. They serve as a constant and hideous reminder that this place is, yet again, anything but her own and after all these years she has, quite frankly, had enough. There were six years in various boarding house rooms at Cheltenham Ladies College, a further eight in shitty university accommodation, and then that dreadful place in Cambridge where the washing machine would spring a leak every other week. What was the name of the street? Something Edith's Way… She must have spent at least half her time there mopping up the soggy kitchen lino and the other half ringing the landlord or plumber. Oh! And that frightful old bat across the street who used to peer out of the upstairs window whenever she was snogging someone on the front steps in the early hours of the morning…Her life in England seems nothing more than a foggy memory these days. Five years in Manhattan will do that to a person, she presumes.
The phone rings from under a stack of Vogue and hand-me-down Sunday Times supplements, waking her from her booze-induced trip down memory lane. It glows 'international', which she hates. Why can't telephone companies wake up to the fact that screening overseas calls is not a luxury but rather a necessity for someone such as herself? 'International' does not necessarily mean welcome, thank you very much. She doesn't chance it and throws it on to the armchair, leaving it to go to voicemail.
So, yes. She'd rather like to move, but it all seems like too much hassle. Perhaps she could hire someone to look for her… Her glass is empty again. Time for a re-fill; a little less gin, a little more tonic this time.
There are things she should have done this afternoon, such as paid her cable bill, posted that letter to her aunt, written half-a-dozen e-mails, and picked up some suits from the dry-cleaners. Instead, she had her hair coloured and spent $300 at Barneys. Quite clearly, her mother must have done something wrong, she muses. The moment she's thought it, a brief and unwelcome emotion hits her, something vaguely resembling loss. Which means she can't have drunk quite enough yet, so she takes a large swig of her drink (not enough gin in there, come to think of it), clears her throat, and proceeds to assemble her hair into an artfully messy bun which she secures with a bright yellow pencil.
The doorbell rings, and she buzzes it up without thinking. There's only one person who visits at this hour on a weekday. It's only… twenty-past six, after all. She leaves the front door open and checks her lipstick in the hallway mirror.
"Hello?"
"Jacks!" O'Hara kisses her cheek and playfully pushes her in the direction of the living room-come-kitchen.
Jackie runs her fingers through her hair, shedding her scarf and coat on the back of the couch. "Your elevator's broken. Six flights of stairs. Six!"
"Yeah. Sorry 'bout that. Should probably have warned you before you dragged yourself all the way over here from your delightful boudoir in Queens."
Jackie lifts the brown paper bag she's carrying. "I brought Indian."
"Fantastic!"
"You want some now… or…?"
"Oh we'll nuke that later. Just plonk it on the table. For now, I need my gossip fix," O'Hara says with a bright-eyed and somewhat inebriated grin.
Before Jackie has even had a chance to turn around, O'Hara has arranged herself across the length of the sofa, ankles crossed and dangling off the end. She reaches over to the empty armchair, patting it for Jackie to sit down. The gesture would be patronising coming from anyone but O'Hara. "Well, don't leave me hanging!"
"I told Kevin I was working late."
"This sounds rather suspicious, even for you. You're not having an affair with me now, are you?"
Jackie shakes her head and points at the nearly empty cigarette packet on the coffee table. "May I?"
"I am a bad influence," O'Hara says with a self-satisfied grin. "Is that the last one?"
'Um… no, three left. Do you have a-?"
A cigarette and lighter are exchanged. Jackie lets out a long sigh, exhaling smoke at the ceiling. O'Hara just watches, nursing her drink between her well-manicured hands.
They both sit there in silence for a while, smoking and drinking, Jackie from the bottled water she had left over in her bag.
"Do you like my shoes?" O'Hara asks, once the silence has lasted a little too long for her taste.
Jackie's brow furrows, confused as ever by the random shit that passes for important points of conversation. "I guess so?"
Show-and-tell over, O'Hara expertly flicks them off with her big toes, sending them to the parquet floor with a clatter.
"Kevin didn't wonder why you were working a late shift on Thursday?"
Jackie just shrugs.
"Lucky you!"
There is a part of O'Hara that has a distinct admiration for Jackie's little games of infidelity. It's not something she'd indulge in herself, but she admires the ability to juggle multiple personal lives. Sometimes when she's playing agony aunt for Pippa over in Paris, her sister sniffling down the phone-line as she recounts the latest in her string of husband-dodging tactics, she wonders when her own life became such a stereotypical bore. Her sister's off shagging the builder she hired to refurbish their kitchen, her best friend's sleeping with a now-former colleague and she is… getting drunk. On a Thursday night, no less. How very British of her.
"I'm starting to think Eddie might be a bit of a prick," Jackie states in her characteristic matter-of-fact way.
"Any reason in particular?"
She shakes her head. "Just a hunch."
"You still not answering his calls?"
"No. And he keeps sending me text messages. I mean, look at this." Jackie fishes around in her bag for her phone and passes it to O'Hara.
"Me so horny?"
Jackie rolls her eyes. "Scroll up."
"Hmmm…. That is rather unfortunate."
"The one about the-?"
"Yeah. Also the 'Got tested. Guess you've only been fucking two of us'."
Both women share a lengthy sigh.
"Are you going to stop seeing him?" O'Hara enquires. "Or is that redundant?"
"There is no 'stopping'," Jackie says, emphatically waving her arms up and down. "I have stopped, period."
"Exclamation mark!"
"Oh just listen to me. I'm freaking out over how many times the pharmacist I was fucking keeps calling me, and what I'll do if he finally quits." Jackie fidgets, shoving her index finger and thumb into the seized-up muscles in her lower back.
"You'll be stuck with a spare rubbish phone for a start."
"There is that."
"And Doctor Cooper…"
"Ick! You know he keeps sneaking up on me and giving me gum?"
"Spearmint?"
Jackie nods, rolls her eyes and stubs out her cigarette with far too much vigour, sending glowing sparks onto the glass table. "Who likes gum that tastes of toothpaste?"
"Has he grabbed your tits lately?"
"Thankfully no, but he did get kind of, you know," Jackie does her best impression of a pervy boob-grab, "when I passed on hockey tickets."
"You hate watching sports."
"I do… I also hate being given tickets that have subtext. I just…. I mean…Fuck." Jackie squeezes her forehead in sheer despair. How she let it get this far is anyone's guess. Her back and head throb relentlessly.
"I'm sure there was a similar plotline on Casualty once," O'Hara says, letting a snort of laughter escape her.
"Huh?"
"Rubbish British soap. Doesn't matter…"
Jackie shoots her 'that look', the don't-even-go-there one.
"I'll be good, I promise." O'Hara squeezes Jackie's knee. "Shall I text Coop for you?"
"No. No!" Jackie exclaims in genuine horror. At this point in O'Hara's drinking game, there's no telling what she might actually have the nerve to do.
It's too late. O'Hara is already busy typing away. "Let's see… Dear Coop. Missing you and your gooey little doctor eyes. Love Jax with three Xs at the end of your name…. Or maybe XOXO? Or is that too High School Musical?"
"Words have been invented to describe people like you, none of them positive."
O'Hara demonstratively clicks the phone shut and places it on the sofa beside her. She would love to send Coop a stupid text, but she'd rather it were her own message telling him what a fool he is. There's more than enough chaos in Jackie's life without adding to her mess.
"My greatest moral conundrum at present," O'Hara offers "is whether it would be rude to send my proxy vote authorisation to my aunt in the same envelope as a 'with deepest sympathies' card."
"Oh to lead your life!"
"And have my taste in clothes…" O'Hara toasts herself with her now empty glass. "I'm sure you'll find just as much pleasure in my own romantic endeavours one day."
"I might… When you finally get back on that dating horse."
"No need to rub it in."
"Two years."
"You're keeping count?"
"Always."
"Cow," O'Hara blurts, before lighting another cigarette.
Meanwhile, Jackie picks at her cuticles. She's missing out on an evening with her girls for this. At the same time, she's owes O'Hara one, or ten, for leaving her alone with her mother. It's the only time she's ever known her friend to actually ask for emotional support with anything. The least Jackie can do is spend a few hours here atoning for her sins. The thought of spending the evening with Kevin at the bar made her skin crawl, anyway. Every time she sets foot in the place, all she can picture is Eddie strung out and mooning over the photo of her that lives behind the bar. O'Hara's call this afternoon suggesting they meet for dinner was a blessing in disguise. Why she lied to Kevin, however, is anyone's guess, including her own.
"Ooh! Ooh!" O'Hara jumps up on the sofa and crosses her legs in front of her, suddenly ecstatic. Or maybe it's just the drink. "What if I tell Coop that I'm having a relationship with you? That's certain to get him off your back."
Jackie stares at her friend in disbelief. She must be really trashed. "Excuse me?"
"What if I just randomly slip it into the conversation one day? You know, 'I scheduled the CT consult for Mrs. Lipmann… by the way, I'm having an affair with Jackie.'"
"Oh Jesus!"
"I always thought we'd make an excellent couple."
"I can see that."
O'Hara begins to pour herself another drink.
"Don't you think you should, maybe, dial it down a little?" Jackie says, twirling a finger in the direction of the bottle of Bombay Sapphire on the table.
"Oh I'm just getting started, my dear."
Cashmere throw pulled up over her knees, and drink number who-cares in hand, O'Hara elaborates further. "So, this is the way I see it, in all my wisdom and foresight… I tell Coop we're having a little thing, and then Coop realises that, actually, he's had more than enough of lesbians in his life, and he'll go scuttling back to whatever model or actress type he usually gets involved with, and you'll have your peace and quiet again."
"You've really thought this through," Jackie says in mock amazement.
"Oh come on. You're not actually surprised are you?" O'Hara says with a sly grin. "It was such a let-down when you told me that you'd not even dabbled in the fairer sex at university!"
"The fairer sex? Are you for real?"
O'Hara doubles over in fits of giggles. Jackie merely looks on, not amused.
"Your sobriety," O'Hara notes with a slight wave of a finger, "is clearly going to be the downfall of my little plan."
Jackie raises her eyebrows in a parental fashion.
"Oh dear. I've put my foot in it again, haven't I?" O'Hara slurs. She slaps herself on the wrist, sparing Jackie the effort.
Jackie smiles. "It would be pretty funny though, wouldn't it? If Coop walked in on you and me…"
"He'd probably post photos of it on his Facebook page."
"And call his parents the next night: 'Mommies, you should totally meet my colleagues!'"
O'Hara throws her head back, swallowing her laughter before saying,"You know he must have been a firm favourite in his frat house when word got out that the two MILFs who came to visit him were having it off on a regular basis."
Both women burst out laughing, O'Hara clumsily spilling some of her drink on her trousers.
"Dear Coop…" she says with a sigh. "Such an easy target..."
"The man grabs strangers' breasts!" Jackie exclaims, smacking her forehead for emphasis.
"And the way he struts about as if he's God's gift?!"
"And you don't," Jackie remarks.
"Well, yes, sort of, but only because I have great legs."
There really is nothing Jackie could say without further fuelling O'Hara's drunken ego.
"I came here for food," she says suddenly changing the subject, as if it had just hit her that there was another reason for being here other than bitching about Coop.
"You did, and you brought food as well, which clearly makes you the superior friend.
"It does."
"Shall we?" O'Hara offers with an over-zealous wave in the direction of the dining table.
Both women stretch, Jackie to ease her aching back just a little, O'Hara purely because she can. Plus she can't quite remember whether she's still wearing shoes or not.
Eventually, they make it over to the kitchen. Without pausing to get plates or cutlery out first, O'Hara begins pulling take-away cartons out of the bag and deciphering what's written on the lids.
"Kehrala chicken. My favourite!" she exclaims, trying her best not to spill sauce everywhere and failing miserably. "And you brought naan bread too, goody!"
"I aim to please."
The tiny apartment fills with the noise of clattering plates, and the hum of the microwave. Jackie fills two glasses of water from the faucet and hands one to O'Hara.
As they both settle down to eat, O'Hara looks out of the huge window, taking in the city. The view really is breathtaking. It's impossible for her not to sit at the table and be a little in awe of it all, although she'd never say it out loud because it would be far too uncool. Yet here she is: 38, a doctor, living in Manhattan, sharing Indian food with the closest friend she's had since she and Chloe shared a room in St. Hilda's in the sixth form. Not too bad for a gangly girl from Tunbridge Wells now, is it?
Yes. She'll drink to that.
Cheers.
~* fin.