ten: alejandra
It was a quiet Tuesday night, fairly cool for July, and Justin had just finished up a dinner in Brooklyn with some associates. The food was great, but the company was average, at best, so Justin wondered what Nadia was up to, being in her neck of the woods and all. He quickly resolved to stop by her place.
Darkness hadn’t quite fallen over the city when he arrived, but he was glad to see that lights were on throughout her apartment. Without a second thought, he rang the doorbell labeled ‘Maraj’ and anticipated seeing Nadia’s faultless face.
After what felt like ages, a pair of eyes peeked from behind the curtains adorning the door and then it swung open. He was hoping to see Nadia, but instead, he was met with a very different, but equally as pretty young woman. She was shorter than Nadia, and most likely Hispanic or Italian, with a creamy vanilla complexion and short jet black hair. Justin was pleasantly surprised by what he saw.
“Can I help you?” she asked the stranger in front of her.
“Umm. Hi,” he returned, trying not to stare. “I’m Justin.”
“Hello.”
“Is umm… this is Nadia’s apartment, right?”
“She lives here, yes.”
“Okay.” He was taken aback by her curtness. “Is she home?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
“She probably has her phone with her if you wanna… call.”
He chuckled, because he thought that stopping by without calling was the cooler thing to do. It took more effort. “Yeah, I’ll give that a try.”
“All right then.”
She began to close the door on him, but he stopped her before she could. “Alex?”
She pulled the door back, looking at him as if he’d just called her a bitch. “Excuse me?”
“Are you Alex?”
“Alejandra,” she confirmed with a frown. “Have we met before?”
“No, no, umm Nadia mentioned you before. I was just wondering if you were her.”
“Well I am.” She seemed completely unimpressed and unaffected by the fact that Justin Timberlake was standing in her doorway. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get ready for work.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course.” He was dumfounded by exactly how to react to her nonchalance. He wasn’t used to this. “Could you, whenever you see Nadia, could you just let her know that I stopped by?”
“I will make sure to do that,” she assured him before closing the door in his face.
He wasn’t sure what he’d done to piss her off so much. Maybe Nadia had told her some of the asshole-ish things he’d done in their short history, but he pushed it away and headed back to his car. As he was leaving, he could see Alejandra in one of the higher windows of the building, glaring down at him. She must have been very protective of her friends, he thought.
Back inside the apartment, Nadia sleepily came moseying out of her bedroom after hearing the doorbell ring. Finding Alex in the living room pulling her iPod from its charger, she looked around and asked, “Who was at the door?”
“One of the neighbors, I think she said her name was Valerie,” she lied without missing a beat. “She wanted us to bring our garbage cans in.”
“Oh,” Nadia was frowning, never having had a problem with Val or her husband before. In fact, they often brought her cans in for her, and vice versa, when they lingered too long. “Did you do it?”
“I told her I would do it on my way out.”
“Weird.”
“People are weird,” Alex shrugged. “You doing anything tonight?”
“I get up at four in the morning. You know I’m not going anywhere.”
“Of course.” Using the mirror attached to the mail table, she ran some black eyeliner under her gorgeous gray eyes and then turned to Nadia. “Well my shift is until ten tomorrow morning, so maybe I’ll catch you on the train ride home.”
“I have post-show meetings ‘til noon, so probably not. But… I’ll see you around, obviously.”
“All right then.” Alex grabbed her bag and keys and headed for the door. “Have a good night, babe.”
“Don’t kill anybody,” Nadia called back, discreetly rolled her eyes at the pet name. She turned back for her bedroom, and sighed in relief when she heard the front door slam close. Alone, at last. It felt like it had been years since she’d had some time to herself. And in some ways, it had been.
November 2005…
It had been an especially long night for Nadia, even for the ER “ a patient had come in with a headache and ended up flatlining right before her eyes “ so she was inexplicably ready to get home. She was too tired to even take the subway, so she stood outside of the Lenox Hill, huddled in her peacoat, waiting for a cab.
“Hell of a night, huh,” a voice disrupted her thoughts.
Nadia turned to find an attractive young woman standing next to her, smiling through a gapped set of teeth. She was confused as to why this person was talking to her. “Do we know each other?”
“Oh. I… no, not really. I was just making conversation.”
She took note of her hot pink scrubs underneath her bubble coat and asked, “You work here, I take it.”
“Today’s my second day,” she nodded. “I work in the ER with you.”
As one of the head nurses, Nadia would have known that. “Who are you?” she questioned as if she was lying.
“Alejandra Arias,” she held out her hand to shake Nadia’s. “I’m so excited.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know,” she was beaming. “Just… getting to talk to you. Getting to work with you, of course. You’re a legend.”
“Okay, knock it off,” Nadia frowned. “You’re freaking me out.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this, I’m just so excited that I get to talk to you.”
“You said this was your second day?”
“Yep. You weren’t here last night, so I’m really glad you came in today.”
“Listen, you’re not gonna last a week if you don’t calm the fuck down,” Nadia supplied brusquely. “By the way, it’s pretty classless of you to be this peppy after a woman just died in our care.”
“I’m sorry,” she quickly deflated. “Penelope just told me to keep my spirits high, no matter what.”
Penelope was the other head nurse, and Nadia hated her guts. “Penelope is a fucking idiot. Don’t ever listen to her, okay?”
Alejandra nodded submissively. “Any other advice?”
“Mrs. Gualtieri acts like a hard ass, but really, if you stand your ground, she’ll crumble into pieces.”
“Really?”
“She’s the hospital administrator, it’s her job to be an annoying bitch. But her bark is much worse than her bite.”
“That’s a relief, because… well, she scares me.”
“Yeah, she used to scare me too, but I’ve peeped her game,” Nadia was chuckling, allowing Alejandra to admire her smile.
“What about Halima? Does she… I mean… she doesn’t seem to like anybody.”
“Halima is a slut. All she does is chase after doctors, thinking it’s a way out of here. Word to the wise, it’s not.”
“Oh wow, I thought she was just mean. I didn’t know she was a whore.”
“She’s a shameless whore,” Nadia confirmed. “But speaking of doctors, you should definitely befriend one if you can. A doctor to have your back is invaluable.”
“I was talking to Dr. Zandstra, she seems really--.”
“Not Dr. Zandstra. She’s mine.”
“Oh…”
“Also, if a doctor tells you to do something you know you expressly cannot do, then don’t do it. They can break rules; we can’t, or we get fired.”
“O-okay.” Alex felt like she needed a note pad to write down all of this sage advice.
Nadia noted a throng of cabs coming towards them and moved toward the street. “Where do you live? Brooklyn?”
She shook her head, “Bronx. Off of Underhill Ave.”
“Well fuck, I’m not going that far uptown.” She stopped her attempt at hailing taxis and took a step back. “You wanna go get a drink?”
She checked her watch as if she really had to factor the time into her decision.
“Trust me, if a coworker offers to buy you a drink after a shitty day, you take it.” She grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward a bar often frequented by the hospital staff. “It makes getting to sleep a lot easier.”
“It’s just that I don’t really drink.”
Nadia stopped in her tracks to stare at the girl in front of her. “What do you mean you don’t drink? You in AA?”
“No, no. I’m only twenty.”
“Okay,” she gave her that, “but it’s New York. Drinking age doesn’t apply to us.”
The two of them continued down the block and around the corner to a bar called Luke’s. For many years, it had become a second home to Nadia “ the first being the hospital, of course. She hated that she had to drink in order to get to sleep sometimes, but she appreciated that she at least had somewhere to go.
“Hey papi,” she greeted the late night bartender, Michael, as she took a seat in front of him. “Lemme get a big ass glass of Pinot, and she’ll have a Riesling.”
Alejandra followed suit, taking off her jacket and her messenger bag, draping them over the back of her chair, and looking on nervously. “What is Riesling?” she wondered.
“You’ll like it, it’s sweet.”
She just nodded in response. “You come here often?”
“I try not to, but I always seem to end up here when we lose a patient,” she admitted somberly. “Not all patients, but the ones that should’ve made it. It’s hard to go home to an empty apartment and just those thoughts running rampant.”
“I see.”
“Penelope walks around with an idiotic smile on her face because she used to work in peeds, and that’s what they do up there. In trauma, we don’t paint happy faces on disaster. We move quickly, we’re helpful and personable, always compassionate, but we see some fucked up shit, and it’s not in anyone’s best interests to act like we don’t.”
Alex was nodding like a nervous poodle, inwardly wondering if she had what it took to do this job. By default, she was just a smiley, peppy person, and she thought becoming a nurse would enable her to share that with others. Now, she was being told to do the opposite. “How long have you been doing this?” she softly asked Nadia.
“It feels like too long,” she half-chuckled. “But almost five years.”
“And it doesn’t get any easier, huh?”
Nadia watched their drinks being served and took a long sip from her glass before answering. “If it ever gets easy to watch someone die, if you ever get used to it… it’s time to move on.”
“I see,” she sighed.
“Drink your wine,” Nadia instructed, watching as she took a small sip at first, paused, and then gulped what was left in her glass. “I guess you needed that more than you thought…”
“That was good,” she grinned.
Nadia was amused by her vim and vigor. It had been a while since she’d met someone that wasn’t jaded in some way or another. “Mike, get her another one,” she directed to the bartender, and then turned back to her new coworker. “I hope I haven’t scared the shit out of you.”
“No, no, no, not at all. I feel so much more prepared now.”
“Nothing can truly prepare you for some of the shit you’ll see, but I can help you try and deal with it once you do.”
“Do you work tomorrow night?”
“I do. I typically work Sunday through Thursday unless I’m filling in for someone.”
“So you get two nights off in a row? That’s so cool!”
Nadia chuckled. “It’s not that hard if you work the night shift. You just started, so you’re not going to get a weekend, but you could get a Monday and Tuesday off, easy.”
“I told Mrs. Gualtieri I’d rather have a Friday off than two consecutives.”
“Oh. Really?”
“I’d never see my friends, otherwise,” she shrugged, taking a sip from the new drink she had been served. “And now I can see you four days a week instead of three.”
Nadia looked down, somewhat touched by the fact that that was something she looked forward to. She was a hard-ass, and everyone knew it, so she was certain that the other nurses were relieved when she wasn’t on the schedule. “You won’t feel that way for long,” she promised Alex.
She vehemently shook her head. “I want to learn everything you know. From how you insert an IV to how you discharge a patient. How do you talk to a family that’s likely losing their mind with worry? Like, I didn’t receive enough training on how to do that, and I saw you today. I saw you sit there in the waiting room, you were sitting crosslegged in a chair next to the boyfriend, and her parents were there, and you were smiling and they were laughing. While their daughter was on a surgeon’s table, you had them so intrigued that it looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. I need to know how to do that.”
Nadia rested her hand over Alex’s trembling one, just as she would for a patient, and she deliberately looked her in the eye. “It’s not an acting lesson,” she softly explained. “It’s sincerity, and you’re not gonna learn it by emulating what I do. It comes with time.”
Alex felt a surge in her body when Nadia touched her “ a rush of blood to the head, an elevation in her heart rate. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, possibly because she’d just chugged two glasses of wine after never drinking a day in her life, but she couldn’t stop herself. She let her free hand grab Nadia’s arm, and she moved in for a kiss. Her lips had touched Nadia’s for all of one second before Nadia broke free from her clutches.
“Whoa, what the fuck!” she shouted, causing the few patrons in the bar to turn towards them.
“I-I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what that was.”
“Oh my god.” She was wiping any remnants of Alejandra’s lips from her own. “Are you insane?”
“I’m sorry!” was all she could get out. “You’re just so beautiful and I was feeling bold, I guess, and I wasn’t thinking at all. I’m sorry.”
Nadia was frowning like her life depended on it. “I’m not a fucking dyke,” she spat at her coldly, beginning to get up from her seat.
“Please don’t go,” Alex begged. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m uncomfortable now.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. My mind is so foggy,” she placed her hand over her forehead, trying to figure out how her thoughts brought her to such an odd place. “Please, don’t leave me.”
“That’s not cool,” Nadia was still frowning, but sat back down. “You can’t do that.”
“I know.” Alex nervously nodded, beginning to tear up at the fact that she had fucked up so badly and it was only her second day. “Am I gonna be fired?” she meekly asked.
“Of course not,” Nadia scoffed. She then sighed when she noticed that the girl was tearing up, and knew she had to soften up a bit. “Listen… what was your name again?”
“Alejandra.”
“Alex,” she shortened it for her. “I overreacted a bit. It’s not a big deal.”
“I’m really sorry.”
Nadia nodded. “I know.”
“You’re very pretty.”
She shook her head for the poor girl and finished what was left in her own glass. “Just so you know, flattery won’t get you anywhere with me,” she smirked.
The tears suddenly stopped filling Alex’s enchanting gray eyes, and she smiled, thinking that maybe Nadia was flirting back a little. “What will?”
“Whoever that was that just kissed me, you should bring her back.”
“But…” Alejandra was confused. “I thought you didn’t”“
“Confidence,” she cut her off to explain simply. “If you’re assertive enough, I just might buy anything you sell.”
“You’re fucking with me…”
Nadia shrugged innocently. True enough, she had never been with a woman, or ever even seriously considered the prospect, but under the right circumstance, she was willing to try just about anything once. This sounded like the perfect thing to take her mind off of the patient they’d left on the table a few hours prior. “Take advantage of that buzz, mama. Especially since you’ll probably pay for it in the morning.”
Alex’s eyes darted around the room, trying to make sense of the events that were transpiring. She understood the words that Nadia was saying, and was even willing to accept the repercussions of whatever followed, but it wouldn’t be until much later that she truly grasped the gravity of what she was getting herself into. “Well in that case… you wanna get outta here?”
Nadia bit her bottom lip, briefly weighing the options in her own mind. The girl seemed harmless enough. Attractive, for sure. If nothing else, she could say she tried something new, and if it got too awkward, she could just have her transferred to another floor. It was almost a no-brainer. “Sure.”
And with that, the two women disappeared into the night, neither one of them aware that they would pay for this way past the following morning.
Author's Chapter Notes:
So this one is mostly flashback, so I super apologize if you're not digging those, but I think it's a very necessary one lol. We're starting to get into a little bit more drama for your mama, so to speak. I am excite!
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