Page 8 of Dusty

“They said that you’ve been fired so that the Ericksons don’t take back their funding. What does that mean?” He told her that he honestly didn’t know that the Ericksons had any money. Then he told her what his brother would say to him. “So they have enough to have something to do with the new wing it said. The only new part of that hospital had been from Martha…what was her last name? Grable, that’s it. And since it was in her name, then that means that they had nothing to do with it but to spend that old woman’s money when her son was left out in the cold. Did you know that? She didn’t leave her son a single dime. That’s not right. Even gave her house to that nurse, Derick or something. The one that you’re forever telling me about.”

He’d heard that story, too. That the six men had pulled up in a van, and when it broke down, they went into the house and started making it their own. Not the real story, but that was the one he liked better than them helping out old Lady Grable so much that the house became a showcase and was featured in all kinds of magazines. And that Locke—another stupid name for a person— had gone to nursing school to become a good nurse to take care of the old broad in her later years. Christ, it sickened him when he thought of what a waste of time it had been to keep that woman hanging around longer than her time. He wished someone would take out his momma at times. She could be as mean as a rattler when she wanted to.

“You’ve lost your job. Now you need to get married to that girl. Fast too. I’m not going to keep you with my social security, either. That’s barely enough for me to get my medications and my hair done once a week. You tell her that I said to get her bottom in gear and say yes. Then, if that don’t work, you tell her that I’m coming for her if she don’t. I’m finished with that girl putting you off all the time.” He told her that he’d have to get out of jail first. “I’m making arrangements for that to happen too. I can’t believe that they’re making me, of all people, have to bail you out. What do they think that I’m made of? Money? Certainly not.”

There was quite a kerfuffle when his momma had asked for a senior discount on his bail. He didn’t know what that would have entailed with her, but he was sure that she should have been given it. She was almost sixty-five, so that should count for something, he thought. But then he realized that he’d not have given her a discount either if she’d been in his hospital.

When he got out, he made his way to the hospital. He had something to do there, and most importantly, he was going to make them give him his job back. There was no reason whatsoever thathe should be out of work because of the Erickson people. What had they ever done for the hospital, he wondered.

The security team was called as soon as he came in the front entrance. The lady at the reception desk told him that he wasn’t to be there. Like anything would get done if he wasn’t. Leaving her there to go and deal with his office, he made his way to the elevators to go up to his floor.

His badge wouldn’t work in getting him into his office. The dammed people took forever to get him his overtime pay when he had it, but they were Johnny on the spot to turn off his badge when they supposedly fired him. It wasn’t until security chased him all over the hospital before finding him that he could get one of them to open his door. And even then, they told him that he didn’t work here and they’d not do it.

After explaining to them how Derrick was to blame for the misunderstanding, he told them that he had to get out his book if nothing else. It was what he wrote about in it that kept him informed. Like which two people were having an affair. Which nurses had the best ass. The one that had the biggest breasts, too. There were notes on everyone, and he’d use it against them all if they didn’t let him do his flipping job.

“You’re not going in there or anywhere else in the hospital, Mr. Landry. You’re to leave now. Before we call the police and have you taken back to jail.” He said that he’d only just been free of there. “Be that as it may. If you don’t leave now, we’re going to make sure that you stay put this time. I’m not kidding you when I tell you that the police won’t be as nice to you as we’ve been.”

“You haven’t been nice to me at all. You’re trying to kick me off the premises like I have no right to be here. I’m in charge of the nursing department.” He said that he wasn’t, actually. “As I have said to you twice now, there was a simple misunderstanding that I’m going to clear up soon. I just have to get intomyoffice and getmybook.”

The police were called and he still hadn’t gotten into his office. He couldn’t even get the daily schedule that he had himself on. It was to make sure that he hit one part of the hospital daily. These people were not cooperating with him, and now he was headed back to the flipping jail.

This time, there was no bail that could be paid. When his momma couldn’t pay it, he’d already tapped her out she’d told him he tried calling Candy. Surely, she’d come to help him. He’d have to threaten her, too, if she didn’t. There wasn’t any way that she was going to leave the love of her life in jail to rot.

“I need to call Candy.” None of the officers knew who he was speaking about. “Candy Shipley. Of course, you know who she is. We’re getting married soon.”

“I don’t think you have the right of that, Mr. Landry. She’s set to marry Dusty.” He asked who that was. “You call him Derrick all the time. In fact it’s been brought to my attention that you call everyone that you don’t know Derrick. Even the women. That’s very sloppy work on you if you really do that.”

“I don’t have time to learn people’s names. I have enough going on with my momma and that errant soon-to-be wife of mine.” He was told that Shipley—who he had to have explained to him who she was—wanted nothing to do with him. “Well, that’s just too bad on her part. I want you to call her up right now and tell her that I’m demanding her to get her bottom here and bail me out so that we can talk wedding plans.”

While he was being escorted out of the hospital, all he could think about was why he was so obsessed with marrying a woman that he didn’t particularly like all that much. She’d never been nice to him. Not even when they were in school together. She was forever treating him like he was a pest, like a fly buzzing around her head and nothing more. So why did he want her? He asked himself again and again. What the hell was wrong with him? That was something else that he asked himself times a day and still had no answer.

Chapter 4

Going back to work today, Shipley wasn’t thrilled. First, because she was on desk duty, something that she hated more than anything, and secondly, she was having to fill out reports for the reason for her having to be on sick leave. However, she was very proud of the things that she’d gotten done for her sister and her new home that she would share with Dusty.

“There’s a call for you on line two.” Picking up the phone, she was still reading the report’s information when she said hello. When no one spoke, she said her name and rank and asked who was there. She knew immediately it was Scott when he asked her where she was.

“I’m working. What are you doing?” He asked her why she was working. “Because I have a job. Why are you asking me questions that are none of your business? I have shit to do, and you’re not helping me get shit done.”

“I want to talk to you.” She told him to talk. “Can I come to you? I don’t want my momma to hear me. She’s got herself spies everywhere, and I don’t want her to be pissed off at me while I’m speaking to you.”

“I’m in DC. Are you even close to me?” He asked her again what she was doing working. “We are not going over this again. Tell me what you want to say then get off the phone. I have two stacks of paperwork here that I have to get finished up before I can get my ass home.”

“Do you have…never mind. You won’t tell me. I don’t want to be married to you.” She started to be flippant with him, telling him that she didn’t want to be married to him either when he spoke again. “Momma wants it on account of you being strong and a doctor. I don’t want to be married to anyone that is stronger than me. She’s making me do all kinds of things that she thinks will make us have to get married. Also, I don’t think that she gets around like some people. She thinks, first of all, that I can simply knock you around. You’d kill me, I believe, if I tried that.” Shipley told him that he was correct on that. “I thought so. And secondly, you’d also kill my momma if she were to call you spoiled if I was able to sleep with you. You’d probably kill me for that, too. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. I don’t like you, Scott. I have never liked you.” He told her that he knew that, too. “Then why aren’t you telling your mother that? You’re a fucking grown man and should have stood up to her a long time ago.”

“I don’t know what to do about her.” She asked him what he wanted to do. “Leave town. Just up and leave town and never look back. She’s not nice to me at all. And when she is, I keep looking for the knife that she’s going to be stabbing me with when I didn’t do something that she thinks that I should have.”

“Your life is your own. If I were you, I’d collect my shit and get out of there. I’m betting that you still live at home, don’t you?” She started taping on the keys of her computer, looking for places that he could hide at should he leave his mother. “Do you have any money?”

He said that he didn’t because his momma made him pay back what she had to pay for him to get out of jail the first time. Scott told her how he had community service that he had to do in order to have gotten out of jail. She could easily take care of that for him. As she was doing her search, she sort of half listened to Scott and his woes about his momma.

“You do know that you’re a grown assed man, don’t you? Stop calling her momma. Call her mother or mom, but stop…you’re older than I am, Scott. Grow a set of balls and call her mom. Christ, she must have been so proud of the way she raised you.” He cried. Just like a kid, he started crying about how she was being mean to him. “I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t straighten up. What is the matter with you? Stop whining and listen to me.”

She told him of the house that she had not too far from where her sister lived. Shipley thoughtabout sending him to her sister’s home, but Mandy would tear his ass apart if he started on that momma shit again. Not to mention crying like he was five instead of what his age really was.

“I want you to pack you some clothing. Not a lot. Only enough that you can carry in a duffle. Do you have one of those? Like from high school?” Scott told her that he had two of them. “You don’t need two. Just the one. Pack it full of your clothing and shit that you’re going to need for the next week. Any money that you can lay your hands on, too.”

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