It was the longest day of Kim's life. She had never felt so tired before as she drove home, fighting against the fatigue. She'd spent more time on her hands and knees today than she had during her entire career in the porn industry.
The incident that had sent the ambulances running first thing in the morning involved a motorcycle accident. A twenty-three-year-old male and his girl collided into a guardrail, neither of them were wearing a helmet. It was a bloody mess. Kim mopped up everything off the floor in their room—blood, tissue, cartilage, gravel, even a few teeth. Miller, one of the maintenance crew, pocketed a tooth, to Kim's disgust.
Around noon, a patient came in with severe abdominal bleeding from a knife wound, it had made a large pool of blood in the middle of the waiting room, where he collapsed before he could utter a single word. Thankfully, Dr. Peter Kosi, who had been in the waiting room discussing operating room procedures with the newest and youngest nurse Breeze Newman ("though I think he was trying to get with me," as Breeze said later), immediately sprung into action, leaving the blood to Kim and Sophie.
When the pool was cleaned, it took them an extra hour to remove the stain as best the could, using everything they could think of. By the time they had done all they could do, the stain remained like a large blotchy mole on the floor. It leered back at Sophie and Kim, daring them to take one more try.
"I give up," Sophie said, picking at her cuticles. "How about you?"
"I'm out of ideas," Kim agreed. "I throw in the towel."
Just as Kim was about to move on to her next shit job, a pale young woman, wearing nothing but a long blue nightgown streaked with blood in wild, ragged designs down to the hem, staggered into the hospital. The blood was also on her hands and feet and she was leaving not only a collection of bloody footprints but large splotches of blood in an awkward trail. Walker, who had been just passing through the waiting room on his way to make his rounds, recognized the woman, who was extremely pretty—raven-haired and large brown eyes.
"Erica," he said. "What happened?"
"I…I tried and I c-couldn't…" the girl said weakly. She looked down at her bloodied hands with a pained expression.
"Georgia," Walker called to the head nurse. "Page Dr. Caruthers and tell her to meet me in room 763, P.D.Q."
"Yes, Doctor Jackson."
When Walker whisked the young girl away, Dr. Ireland Caruthers hot on their heels, Sophie sagged her shoulders and gave Kim a pained expression.
"Bloody footprints," Kim said with a weak smile. "This is one I haven't seen."
Miller Anderson and Tucker Johansen, the other two on the janitorial staff, wandered over.
"What just happened?" Tucker asked. He was not much older than Kim or Sophie, looked young enough to still be in high school. Clean-shaven with dirty-blond hair and blue eyes, Tucker could be easily described as baby-faced, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He always liked to be informed about what was going on. Miller, however, was an older resident, maybe late fifties, Kim wasn't sure. He was a kindly black man with whitening hair and callused hands. He'd been working at Harbor Lights for a long time, even before the Pulse.
"No clue," Sophie said. "Some girl came in bleeding and was taken away. Happenin' Jackson looked horrified, called Dr. Caruthers and went in after her."
"Some gal?" Miller asked. "Happenin' Jackson? Did the gal have black hair and sort of a pale face? Big brown eyes?"
"Yeah," Kim said, getting back on her hands and knees to start scrubbing the footprints. "Doc called her Erica."
"I know her," he replied. "That's Doctor J's seventeen-year-old sister."
Sophie's eyes went wide. "What?"
"Erica comes in here all the time. She's a reckless child. Always coming in with cuts, bruises from fights. Broken bones from stupid stunts she tries. Twice to get her stomach pumped—one for OD'ing on sleeping pills, one for too much alcohol."
"Shame," Kim said lackadaisically, having heard all too many stories almost exactly like this. "Sophie, hand me that bleach solution. Oh, and we're going to need to tell Colleen we're running out of shit to keep this dump shinin' like the top of the Chrysler Building."
"Here," Sophie tossed the almost-empty bottle to Kim and turned to Miller. "Erica comes here a lot? How come I've never seen her?"
"She usually comes in very late at night—two, three A.M. Usually wasted."
Sophie sighed and shook her head, "Such a pretty girl. Why would anyone want to ruin their life like that?"
Logan sighed and poured himself another shot of vodka. It had been a long time since he'd had drank anything harder than beer or wine.
He'd played the fateful night over and over again in his mind, trying to find a loophole. Was it possible Max had survived?
No, she died in your arms.
Feeling the pain rising in his chest again, he quenched it with a quick swallow of vodka. He stared at the empty glass and shrugged, pouring himself another.
At least I'm not seeing double yet.
The day Max died was the most painful of his life, even more than when his mother Caroline died, succumbing to cancer. Even more than when his father Julian was killed in a car accident.
He felt a numbness that he couldn't shake. His useless legs hung limply, dangling like tanned streamers off the couch. He couldn't get up. He didn't want to get up. Not ever. Not ever again.
Pain…pain was all he felt.
Kim got home just before midnight, changed out of her scrubs and collapsed into bed wearing nothing but her bra and panties. She didn't even bother to turn on her Nirvana CD or pick up The Kurt Cobain Journals, working her way through it slowly but surely. She just wanted to sleep and never wake up. Not ever again.
She'd been in bed for ten minutes, eyes closed, head swimming with thoughts, still smelling bleach on her peeling hands and wrapped in three blankets when a loud knocking came at her door.
"Not happening," she groaned, grabbing her pink terrycloth robe on her way out. She padded to the door, her bare feet slapping against the wood floor. She was sure she looked like a worn-out hooker in the garments she donned at this point and hoped whoever was behind the door didn't take offense.
When she opened the door she got a big shock.
"Logan?" she closed her robe over her purple lace bra and her "Thursday" thong panties with dancing monkeys on them.
"Oh, you're busy," Logan said, slightly slurred. "Sorry."
"No, I just got home," Kim said. "You look awful."
Logan chuckled, "Thanks."
"You wanna come in?"
"Oh…sure, I guess."
He followed Kim to the kitchen and sat down at the table, head in hands, trying not to stare at Kim's perky breasts in those undergarments. Her hair was mussed around her face but still, her beauty shined through.
"Want anything to drink? I have Bloody Mary mix somewhere here…"
"Sounds great."
Kim, not unskilled with handling liquor, whipped up the Bloody Marys, carefully pouring just the right amount of alcohol and a dash of Tabasco, adding a half of a celery stalk.
"I only have one left," she said in apology about the stalk.
"S'okay," Logan said, gulping down the Bloody Mary. "Pretty good," he said between sips.
"Eh, I used to work in a bar. You know, between making the movies."
"Ah," Logan said, feeling the heat rise from his neck, surely turning his face the same color as the Bloody Mary. "Yeah. So, you just got home?" he quickly changed the subject. "From what? A party or something?"
Kim winced, "Egad, no. I work at Harbor Lights Hospital. Maintenance and sanitation staffer." She pointed to her ID tag that she had flung on the kitchen table, gone unnoticed till now.
"How glamorous," Logan added sarcastically with a light laugh.
"Tell me about it. I spend the majority of my day cleaning up after other people…blood, guts, vomit…not really a dream job but it pays rent."
Logan felt his stomach churn. He swallowed hard.
"We had this one girl come in today, she was wearing like a nightgown or something…blood streaming down her legs, all over her hands. She even left bloody foot prints. God knows what the hell she'd been doing."
He swallowed hard and nodded.
"Another guy came in with a knife's slice right through his belly. Everything was just pouring out. There was blood everywhere, even like, spewing from his mouth—"
"What's your bathroom?" Logan asked quickly, unable to stand it.
"Down the hall to the right," Kim directed, pointing. She didn't even realize why he'd ask until he leapt out of his chair and hurried towards there. She heard a door open, slam close and the sound of retching.
Tying the sash of her robe, Kim made her way towards the bathroom. She knocked on the door, "Logan? Are you okay?" When he didn't answer, she knocked again. "Can I come in? Logan?"
At the sound of a flushing toilet and then running water, Kim opened the door—it was her bathroom, anyway. Logan was sitting on the floor awkwardly, his legs straight out and stiff. His face was in his hands, his elbows rested on his knees.
"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I had a little too much to drink."
"If you get this sick after one Bloody Mary, I should say so!"
"No, it wasn't just the Bloody Mary…I've kind of been downing all day. The hard stuff. Vodka, whisky, gin, bourbon."
"I see." Kim took a washcloth out of a basket she kept next to the sink, drenched it with cold water from the tap, and plopped it on Logan's head.
He gave a light chuckle and pressed it against his face. "Feels good."
"Logan," she knelt down next to him and put her face next to his, like she was talking to a child. "Do you have a problem?"
"Hm?" he asked, muffled underneath the damp cloth.
"Do you usually drink like this?"
"Uh-uh…I actually haven't in a while. I've been sober for almost six years."
"So you did have a problem?" Kim asked, concern wrinkling her brow.
Logan lowered the washcloth until only his icy blue eyes were revealed. "I did," he stressed.
Kim sighed sympathetically and put a sensitive arm around Logan's shoulders. "Logan, Logan, Logan. I've watched so many people I love destroy their lives with alcohol…"
"I don't need to hear it," Logan snapped, shrugging Kim off. "I had a drinking problem, I'm all right now."
"If you're all right, why are you drinking?"
"It's none of your damn business."
"None of my damn business…Logan, I know we don't know each other, but I can't stand it when people ruin their lives like this…before my father began drinking, he was the most sun-shiniest person I knew. He would always call me his Baby Daffodil, which is what I called myself when I went into 'show-biz'. He would whistle all the time. He was the best whistler. But the Pulse…it sent him on a downward spiral. He just crashed and burned. His business declined. His stocks crashed. He just locked himself in his office and drank down his sorrows. No more whistling, no more Baby Daffodil…"
Kim sighed, remembering her father and how she'd found him dead in his office when she was fourteen—from alcohol poisoning—and how she'd screamed and screamed as her father's cold dead eyes stared at her. How Cal, then eighteen, had to restrain her and how she wouldn't stop screaming. Doctor Paxton had to be called. He pricked her arm as Cal held her down and then she passed out. Everything was fuzzy until the funeral three days later. Kim remembered sitting bleary-eyed in the church—it was then she decided to throw away religion. When mourners came to pay their respects, all she could do was stare at them like a dumb child. She could hear whispers…the gossip…
"Poor girl, she was the one who found the body…"
"I do hope Gracia is alright, having to deal with that hysteric child…"
"Did you hear about poor little Kimber-Leigh? She found Louis, you know, dead. I don't know who to have more sympathy for: Louis, thanks to the Pulse, Gracia having to deal with the children, or Kimber-Leigh…"
"Sweet child—they say she's gone into hysterics and had to tie her down…"
"…May never speak again. Mark Paxton says it's not unusual when a child experiences the death of a parent…"
The last thing Kim cared to remember was throwing a daffodil in the grave on his coffin, and then fainting beside it, just crumbling to the ground in a mass of the black velvet of her dress. She woke as Cal was carrying her to the limousine, tears running down her face, sobbing, "Daffodils…daffodils…daffodils…"
"It started with Bennett," Logan whispered, interrupting Kim's reverie.
"Who's Bennett?" Kim asked, shaking her head slightly to rid herself of the images of her father's body.
"My cousin. I was best man at his wedding last year," he replied warily. "I went to live with him and my aunt Margo and Uncle Jonah, when I was fourteen, after my father was killed."
"Oh." We both lost our fathers at fourteen, how odd.
"When we were fifteen, Bennett and his friend Carter broke into Jonah's bar while his parents were out. I went to see what they were doing, and Bennett dared me to drink a whole thing of vodka.
"'It has no taste,' he said. 'Try it, it'll just make you dizzy for a few minutes.'
"So, of course, I downed it. I wasn't gonna say no, let them think I was a pussy or anything."
"Peer pressure," Kim tsked.
"It wasn't so bad…till I got dizzy. But I wanted more. Pretty soon, the three of us were more wasted than frat boys. I ran outside and puked in Margo's rhododendron bushes and went back for more."
Kim had to wince.
"Well, ever since then, I'd sneak down into Jonah's liquor cabinet and drink myself sick. He never noticed and if he did, he never said anything. He was like that. I would steal liquor at their dumb parties, drinking from other people's glasses and then refilling them without them noticing. Wine, bourbon, scotch and soda, vodka tonic." He threw his hands up in the air. "Before I knew it I was a full-blown alcoholic."
"Is that why you always look like shit?"
"Huh?" Logan scratched his stubble. Then it hit him. "Oh…yeah…well, I don't get out much anymore."
Kim scoffed. "I get out too much."
"Whatever. I think it's the fact that—" Again, Logan cut himself short and scanned the room, searching for an exit.
"That what?" Kim cocked her head and bit her lip. Logan began to feel faint.
He sighed and decided to tell her, but the words didn't come easily. "My girlfriend…my heart, my love, Max. She…she died four months ago. And you look too, too much like her…it's sort of disturbing for me. I've been shutting myself up in my apartment, being persona non grata, pushing everyone away."
"How did she die?" asked Kim softly after a pause, her heart lurching.
Struggling with the terms, he managed to choke out, "Gunshot wound." That was all he wanted to say.
"Oh," Kim breathed, feeling overwhelmingly stupid. So that's why he had acted weird that one night. I remind him of his girlfriend. I look like her. And to think, she was really a blonde! How awful…I know what it's like to loose people you love, all too well. Everyone from my father to Gabrielle who deserted me in California…there must be something worth doing for Logan…as long as we're sharing…
Kim's eyes lowered, "Listen, I don't want to lose someone else to a stupid addiction. If you don't mind…I'd like us to be friends. And friends help each other out and I want to help you. In any way I can."
"You want to be my friend?" Logan asked suspiciously.
"Yeah. Is that so bad? Besides, I knew you would be a good friend as soon as you saw me in my underwear."
"Why?"
"Because you didn't laugh at them. They say 'Thursday'."
"And why would I laugh at that?"
Kim pointed to the Rolex on Logan's wrist, "Because it's been Friday for two hours."