SOMETIMES, YOU LOSE SOME
by ardavenport
- - - Part 7
Looking down the hall, he recognized a dress. A couple mini-skirts, some styled hair. It looked like all the girls from Morrie's office were now in Rampart's waiting area, sitting and pacing. He wondered if his talent agency included models. Now that he could stop and really look, he could see that they were all really beautiful. All in their twenties, in make-up, but not too much. Long legs, slender waists and full figures otherwise. He sighed. They were all gorgeous. He could see himself sliding down into a chair between any two of them. Any one of them letting him put his arm around her would be fantastic, but he didn't dare try his chances there, at least not until they found out how Morrie was. And if their boss died . . . . asking any of them for a date would be just creepy.
One of them who was sitting at the end of a row of chairs in the middle, spotted him. The red-headed girl who had been on the phone when they came in craned her neck, trying to make eye contact around an orderly pushing a man down the hall in a wheelchair. Hastily, Johnny looked away, pretending to be interested in the folders on Dixie's desk. He didn't have any news for her and he had a bad feeling that it wouldn't be good. Dixie saw the girls in the waiting area, but she must have known that they were there for Morrie because she just gave him a smile and didn't say anything else. Frank and Clyde from Squad Forty-Five came out of Treatment Room Three and they chatted while the two other paramedics resupplied their drug box at the base station. But after they left, he was stuck waiting again. . . . .
. . . . not for long. A nurse and then an intern emerged from Treatment Room Four. Johnny already knew what had happened even before Brackett and then Roy came out. Morrie hadn't made it.
Sighing heavily, Roy put their equipment down at the base station. Dixie looked up at Brackett.
"Didn't make it, eh?"
Brackett shook his head. "No. Once he flat-lined, we never got him back." Then he noticed Roy looking down the hall and turned. Johnny nodded toward the waiting area.
'They're, uh, from your patient's office."
Roy nodded. "Yeah, they work for him."
"Oh." Brackett looked unhappy; he would have to tell them.
"This probably isn't a good time to tell you this, Kel, but Mrs. Rapnek is back."
Brackett grimaced. "You're kidding."
Dixie slowly shook her head. "Nope. And she won't see anyone but you. She's been waiting in One."
Brackett briefly glanced back over his shoulder toward the waiting area and then toward Treatment Room One, obviously weighing which option was worse. But Roy bailed him out.
"We'll tell them, Doc."
Brackett thanked them and left. Johnny didn't know who Mrs. Rapnek was, but from Brackett's expression, he wasn't sure if he would have preferred his other option. But he was the doctor, and he had to see the patient. And they could tell the girls about Morrie.
Halfway down the hall, the redhead made eye contact with Johnny. And he couldn't look away this time.
"Roy." Johnny touched his arm and they stopped. "Uh, I'll tell them."
"Are you sure?"
Roy was better at this kind of thing. Johnny knew that Roy was better at this kind of thing. Roy knew that Johnny knew that he was better at this kind of thing. But Johnny suddenly felt guilty about ducking away when she looked at him before. And Roy had been in there with Morrie while he had just been hanging around the hospital.
"Yeah, I'll do it."
The girl stood up from the chair as he approached. She wore a tight white turtleneck and blue slacks. Her red hair was shoulder length; she had green eyes and a pretty, pointed chin.
"I'm, uh, sorry, Ma'am. The doctor's did everything they could, but Morrie didn't make it."
Her mouth opened with a little involuntary gasp, her eyes widening. The others had gotten up as well and stood around them. Nora, in her green dress and horned-rim glasses, was on the waiting area's pay phone.
"You mean, he's dead?"
He nodded back to her. "Yes, Ma'am. I'm sorry."
She put her hand on her chest.
"AAAAAAAiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeee-eeeeeee!"
She lunged at him, grabbing him around the body and hugging him tightly. Arms up and close to his body defensively, he tried to back up, but suddenly they were all over him. All of them, hugging and grabbing.
"Muh, muh, muh, muh!"
The redhead planted rapid-fire kisses on his lips, his chin, his cheeks. And the others did it, too.
"Muh, muh, muh, muh, muh, muh, muh!"
Lips smacking his cheeks, neck, ears, they surrounded him with hair and perfume and lips. He could only turn around in place.
"Muh, muh, muh, muh!"
Their bodies pressing on him on all sides, they pulled his shirt out from his pants, touched his hair, grabbed him around the waist and buttocks. A hand went between his legs.
"Aaaaahhhh!"
"Muh, muh, muh, muh!"
Suddenly, one of them broke contact. Then they all did, like a flock of birds taking flight. Still spinning, he came to a stop, pointing toward the visitor's exit where they all, still shrieking and laughing, disappeared through a door. Gasping, he just stared after them.
What? Just? Happened?
Roy walked around to block his view of the door where they're gone. Dixie McCall joined him.
"Looks like they weren't all that unhappy that Morrie didn't make it."
Dixie folded her arms before her. "I guess not."
Johnny stepped to one side so he could see the door where they had gone. His brain caught up with what had happened. Six – six! – beautiful women had just thrown themselves at him. He put his hands on his chest. His badge and name tag and pen were still there, but he could also still feel where they had grabbed him.
Dixie glanced up at Roy. "You think we need to get the oxygen for him?"
"Maybe." His partner ginned and leaned toward him. "You okay?"
"Hunh?" Okay? Okay? What did he mean by okay? "Uh, . . . ." The people remaining in the waiting area stared at him. ". . . . yeah. I'm . . . . fine." He brushed at the perfume smell lingering on his shirt. They had smelled sssoooooo good. He couldn't remember what he was doing when they were hugging him.
"I just got off the phone with Morrie's wife." They all looked at Nora, who had hung up the pay phone and walked over to them. "She wants to know where she's supposed to pick up the body."
"Uh, she can ask at the admissions desk here and they'll tell her what she needs to do." Dixie pointed toward the desk at one end of the waiting area.
"Thanks." Nora turned to follow the girls out, but then stopped to face them again. "Morrie was a pig. He had that heart attack while he was chasing poor Ginger around the desk. Again. The agency's is going to be a lot nicer place without him. His wife is meeting us there. She's bringing the champagne." She swaggered off to the exit.
Johnny watched her go. Six beautiful girls, six of them! Ginger, the redhead, had pressed her whole body to him. And the others . . . . three of them had been blonds, the others brunettes; one of them had lighter brown hair than the other. . . . But the impression of where they had touched him was fading fast.
"Hey." Standing next to him, Roy laid a hand on his shoulder. "You ready to go back to work? Or do I need to get that oxygen?"
"Hunh?"
"I think he needs a little clean-up first." Dixie's smile broadened.
"Oh, I was hoping the guys back at the station could see it first."
"Hunh? What?" Baffled, he looked from him to her. Dixie tapped her cheek with a finger. Johnny touched his face. When he looked at his fingertips they were smudged red. Lipstick.
He started rubbing at it, but Roy pointed him toward the men's room. When they got there, Johnny leaned forward at the reflection in the mirror. Their lip impressions were all over his cheeks and chin and neck. Pink and red. He could not believe it.
Six beautiful women. Six gorgeous women.
Standing behind him, Roy poked at his neck. "They got you back here, too."
Johnny winced away, put the HT down on the shelf under the mirror and turned on the faucet. "Just get me some paper towels." He splashed water on his face, pressed on the soap dispenser and started scrubbing. He got the collar of his shirt wet, but he got all the lipstick off. At least he thought he did until Roy told him that he was a little red behind the ears. He scrubbed there with a paper towel.
Finally finishing, he turned around, leaned on the sink and threw the last wadded up paper towel in the trash. Roy patted him on the back.
"So, how's it feel to be mauled by beautiful girls?"
Johnny shook his head. "I don't believe it, Roy. I just don't believe it. It just . . . . happened so fast." He wanted to try it again. Be ready for them.
"Well, I guess if you went to Morrie's funeral you'd be the guest-of-honor at the party."
His mouth opened, but . . . . that just sounded creepy. He shook his head.
"Nooooo, I can't, Roy. It wouldn't be right." Six women throwing themselves at him at the funeral of a victim that they hadn't been able to save. He shook his head. "I just can't." He threw the last wad of paper towel into the trash.
"Well, I guess it would be kind of strange." Back to the mirror, Roy folded his arms and leaned on the sink, too.
"I mean, Roy, when we walk in the door, we don't know anything about the victim except that they need our help." He gestured with his hands, trying to gather his thoughts about something that he knew he was certain of, but just hadn't ever formed the words for. "And I don' wanna know anything, no matter how bad it is because . . . . that's just gonna get in the way. Just knowing any of that would be like, like . . . checking whether somebody was worth rescuing from a fire before pulling them out."
"Yeah," Roy nodded, "I know."
He did, too. Johnny was sure his partner understood; he didn't have to say anymore . . . . but . . . . six beautiful girls . . . . He sighed.
"I just can't go someplace where they're celebrating that we lost that guy. No mater how many beautiful girls are there."
"Yeah, sometimes we lose a few. That doesn't ever make me feel like celebrating." Roy patted him on the shoulder. Johnny just shook his head. Six beautiful girls. . . . . .
Sometimes you lose some.
END
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.
