After we’d cleaned up, dispatch gave us a transfer: an old woman being discharged from the Saint Francis ER, going out to Alexandria Manor in Bloomfield after having her clogged G-tube repaired. It was a strictly basic transfer, but since we needed to go back and resupply some items after the shooting—it was all right. There was little chance of having to use the needed gear on a transfer. Dispatch said if we did the transfer, then we could grab some dinner, come in and resupply. By then, some more evening cars would be on and there would be little chance of getting whacked with another call.
As we were exiting, I saw they were selling roses for three dollars each in the nursing home, with the money benefiting the residents’ arts and crafts fund. I guess I was in a good mood imaging the love Carrie was going to shower down on me. I saw us going back to Boston. We’d have a nice lobster dinner at Legal Sea Food, go to the Comedy Club at Faneuil Hall and then come back to our suite at the Ritz-Carlton and rock the joint. It would be great! And the truth was if she pressed me for us to be exclusive again, as she had been hinting at lately, I might just say okay. It would spare me from having to be constantly dropping hints that I was playing the field, just to get her to not take me for granted. Things were going so well, I thought that message had already made its point.
I bought her a rose. “On our way back,” I said to Tom, “I want to stop by her place, and pop in and leave her the rose. She goes nuts for romantic stuff like that. I figured since we were in the area.”
“You sure you don’t want to call her first, give a little heads-up?”
“No, she’s just right around the corner. I want to be spontaneous.”
“Spontaneous is great, but you should call.” He nodded to the payphone by the door.
“I don’t have a quarter,” I said.
I was smelling the rose, smelling good times, thinking of nothing but the brownie points I was going to be making.
I directed Tom to her apartment complex. I could see the light was on in her apartment.
“Here, take the radio,” Tom said. “Just don’t be too long, and don’t let her wrap her legs around your head so tight you can’t hear dispatch calling.”
“If I don’t come out when they call, hit the air horn.”
“You dog.”
“It’s not like I haven’t had to park outside certain apartment complexes in half the towns we cover while you’ve run in and had extended lunches.”
“You got me on that. I still think you should call first, give her a few minutes to freshen up.”
I figured the first thing she did when she came home was shower, so she probably was good to go. With my luck—and I was feeling lucky—she’d answer the door in her bathrobe, with her hair up in a towel, smelling of herbal shampoo. We’d have a nice long sensuous kiss, then I’d tell her I’d be back so we could resume once my shift was over.
***
I was pale, lifeless when I walked back to the ambulance. “Dude, I’m sorry,” Tom said. “But I told you, you should have called first. Always call. Particularly her.”
I looked at him then, eyeing him in a new way.
“Don’t go there,” he said.
I just shook my head. What a fool I was. I didn’t know whether to be angry at her or myself. It hurt. My delusions of her wanting only me. My delusions of being superman. Of simply being special.
I let the rose drop out the window.