“Stop
fussin’ over me. I’m not a baby.”
“Well,
you sure look like one,” Hutch told him, paper napkin primly poised to strike
again.
Glaring,
Starsky wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Happy now, mother?”
“For
Chrissakes, Starsky. It’s still
there. If you’d just stop squirming for
two seconds and let me--”
The
door to the private room burst open, catching the two men practically arm
wrestling over an errant blob of ketchup.
But the smiling intruder approached with all the timidity of Darth
Vader. Well, a five-foot-tall Darth
Vader in pale pink and white cotton.
“Hi!”
she chirped, peering over a stack of magazines. Then the silver-frosted lips formed a perfect little circle. “Oh, shit!
I mean, shoot! I should’ve
knocked! They told me to knock. Sorry.
I’ll remember next time.
Really. Sorry. Anyway, hi!
Did I already say that? Doesn’t
matter. I’m Cherry. Cherry Aimes. I’m a candy striper. I
moved here from Santa Barbara a little while ago. I was a candy striper there too.”
God. She could talk even faster than Starsky’s
Aunt Rose. He pushed Hutch’s paw away
from his face and wiggled his fingers at her. “Hi, I’m--”
“I know,” said the teenager, depositing her armload at the foot of the bed so she could wave back. “You’re Detective Starsky.” She looked up and levelled her big green gaze at the tall blond. “And you’re his partner. Detective Hutchinson, right?”
“Uh,
that’s right.” He reached out to shake
Cherry’s hand, oblivious to the fact that he was still holding the napkin. She wasn’t, though. Oblivious, that is. To Hutch’s evident surprise, she plucked it
from him, zoomed in on his stunned partner, and--voila!--no more ketchup smear.
“I know
all about you guys,” she continued, ignoring their fish-faced stares. “The nurses talk about you all the
time. They usually whisper whenever I’m
around, but I can hear like a... What
animal has great hearing? An
elephant? A bat? Yeah, that’s it. A bat. Anyway, I wish
they wouldn’t do that. I’m not some
naive kid, you know. What was my
point? Oh, right. They’re really going to miss you when you’re
gone. Now don’t get me wrong. They’re glad you’re going to be okay, Detective
Starsky. But, from what I’ve heard,
you’re the most interesting patient they’ve had on this floor in a long
time. I also heard you get pretty
lonely and bored when Detective Hutchinson’s not around, so I brought you some
stuff to read.”
“Uh, thanks. But what did you mean by--?”
“You
don’t have to worry about me,” she said as she tucked a loose strand of light
brown hair under her starched cap. “I
may be kind of young--I turned 17 on Tuesday, although I’m not going to
celebrate until the weekend because between school and working here there’s
just no time--but I’m cool. At first I
wasn’t too crazy about that sort of thing, you know? I mean, when my mom told me that she was leaving my dad, well, I
totally freaked. You can dig that,
right?”
The two
men nodded slowly, although Starsky was damned if he knew why, and figured
Hutch was in the same boat.
“There
was no way I was going to live with her and Judith. No way. I mean, gross,
right? So I stayed with my dad. I thought, well, at least he’s normal. Yeah, right. Maybe he wasn’t shacking up with his best friend the way she was,
but he sure wasn’t normal. It didn’t take
me very long to see why my mom left him.
‘Cherry, get me something to eat.’
‘Cherry, why don’t I have any clean socks?’ ‘Cherry, could you iron my shirt?’ What a jerk! No wonder my
mom’s into the whole lesbian thing, you know?”
Hutch
sank down onto the bed. Starsky
couldn’t blame him. His own legs felt
funny, and he was already sitting.
“So now
I live with them,” Cherry carried on.
“And they’re okay. I like
Judith. She’s not as strict as my mom,
she’s a really good cook, and she doesn’t have any kids of her own, so my
little sister and I get lots of attention.”
What
the hell had those nurses been telling her?
“Uh, Cherry--”
“I
guess you guys don’t have any kids, unless you were like my mom, and it took
you a while to figure things out. If
that can happen to women, it can happen to men too, right? My dad sure can’t understand it, but he’s
never liked anyone who’s different from him, you know? But I’m not like that. I guess I’m more like my mom, although I’m
way into boys, and always will be. Oh,
yeah. I think Mark Hamill is such a babe.
Out of this world, you know?”
“Cherry.”
“But I
don’t care who a person sleeps with, as long as they’re a nice person. And Nurse Hogan said you two are really
nice. She said you act just like an old
married couple, and the way you look at each other sometimes makes her wanna
cry.”
Why was
Hutch just sitting there, staring, not saying anything?
“So you
don’t have to go and act all macho and weird and straight when I’m around. If you want to hold hands or hug or
whatever, I can handle it.”
“Cherry!”
“Just
don’t make out in front of me, okay?”
She grimaced. “No offence, but I
can’t even stand watching a guy and girl grope each other, and when my mom and
Judith start getting all lovey dovey--”
“CHERRY!”
Starsky
had to give her credit; she didn’t even flinch. “Yes, Detective Starsky?”
For the
first time since their visitor had arrived, he was aware of how close he and
Hutch were sitting. Hutch rarely sat in
one the room’s two chairs anymore, but was it really that unusual for guys with
their history to share space on a bed?
“Cherry,”
Starsky repeated several decibels lower. “I think you’ve--misinterpreted--what
the nurses told you.”
“Yeah,”
Hutch added weakly.
“Misinterpreted.” The fair,
wispy hair made his skin appear pinker than it actually was. Made him look sorta cute, really. Younger, too, now that he was clean shaven
again, and had finally gotten a decent haircut.
The
candy striper frowned, clearly puzzled about something. “I don’t see how,” she told them. “As far as I know, you’re the only gay cops
on this floor.”
Oh,
shit. Hutch jumped to his feet, stepped
away from Starsky’s side, and collided with the nearest chair in the
process. Starsky shot out a hand and
caught Hutch by the wrist, saving him from performing an impromptu tumbling
routine.
“Like I
said before,” Cherry said, smoothing her skirt, “you don’t have to worry about
me. Just be yourselves--the way you are
with everyone else around here.”
“But
we--”
Cherry
glanced at her watch, then grabbed up the remains of Starsky’s dinner from his
tray table. “Oh, jeez. I promised Mrs. Futterman I’d bring her some
more orange juice. Her room’s just down
the hall. Do you know her? She had hip surgery, and she can’t wait to
go home. All of her kids live out of
state, and her husband hardly ever comes to see her.” She focused on Hutch.
“She’d be a lot happier if he visited her as much as you visit Detective
Starsky.” Then, to Starsky, “You’re
really lucky, you know. Well, enjoy the
reading material. I’ll bring some more
tomorrow if you need it. It was nice
meeting you both. ’Bye!”
The
first to find his voice, Hutch freed himself from Starsky’s grip, his actions
gentler than his tone. “What the hell
did you go and do that for?”
“Huh?”
Starsky was still gazing vacantly at the door.
“You
could’ve fallen out of bed or pulled something, stretching like that. Of all the stupid, no-brain--”
“Hutch,”
he said, “the nurses... They think we’re a--that we’re--”
Hutch
sat down heavily in the chair he’d tangled with, wincing at its unfamiliar
hardness. “Yeah. I know. Maybe I shouldn’t spend so much time here.”
Starsky’s
dinner turned to concrete in his stomach.
“Is that what you want?” He
crossed his arms over his chest and went back to contemplating the door. “Fine.
Go ahead. You can leave any
time.”
Hutch
leaned forward and thumped the mattress with his knuckles. “Hey.
Hey! I didn’t say I *wanted* to
spend less time with you. I said maybe I *should*.” He started to rise. “But
if you want me to go--”
“Did I
say I wanted you to go?”
“Do you
want me to?”
“No!” Starsky lowered his face into his
hands. “If you stopped coming around,
they’d probably think we broke up and try to get me a date with a nice Jewish
doctor or somethin’.” He looked up,
wearing an incomprehensible expression.
“‘An old married couple.’ Aren’t
most partnerships like a marriage, Hutch?
So why would they think we’re, uh, you know?”
“When
was the last time a woman--besides Edith Dobey, I mean--came to see you? Huh?
And who gave you sponge baths and helped you with bed pans and slept in
your room almost every night for the first month you were here?” Hutch shifted his eyes to the floor. “Who’s the one who’s taking classes to
become your principal caregiver--your *live-in* caregiver--when you go
home? I don’t think they’ve seen partners
like us before, Starsk, so they’ve made assumptions. I could go talk to them, but I don’t think they’d believe me.”
“Probably
not. Probably break their hearts.”
Hutch
snickered. “Yeah.”
“I
always thought--I thought straight people hated gay guys, but they don’t seem
to mind around here. Not even little
Cherry.”
“That’s
just the women,” Hutch reminded him. “I
don’t think that the male doctors and orderlies would be so tolerant.”
Starsky
gingerly swung his legs over the side of the bed until they were almost knee to
knee. “But they *have*
been. No one’s given us a hard time.”
“That’s
because we’re not gay, dummy.” The
corners of his mouth had turned up, but his eyes weren’t smiling. Not at all.
“But
they *think* we are. And it doesn’t
matter to them.” He played with the top
sheet. “Hutch? When’s the last time you had a date?”
Again
with the blushing. “I don’t know.”
“C’mon. When?”
No answer. “It’s been a while,
hasn’t it? And you know why? Because you’re either here or at work or
taking those physical therapy classes.
You have no life, Hutch. It
ain’t right. You should--”
Hutch
held up the stop sign he called his right hand. “I’m fine. My life is
fine the way it is.”
“But
Hutch!”
“Have
you heard me complaining? No. So just drop it, okay?” He wrapped his long fingers around Starsky’s
ankles. “You need to use the john? Otherwise, you should get back under the
covers. Your feet are cold.”
“You
know,” Starsky said, complying, “there’ve been rumours about us at work. For years.”
“Yeah,
I know.”
“But we
never had a problem with anybody. Not
once. Not even IA.”
Hutch
sighed noisily as he vacated the chair, sat on the edge of the bed, and
squeezed Starsky’s shoulder fondly.
“That’s because they were only rumours, Starsk.”
“They
really bother you, don’t they?” Starsky
hesitated fractionally, then covered the hand on his shoulder with his own.
“What? The rumours?” He looked Starsky square in the eye. “Never bothered me. Why
should they bother me? What about
you? Do they bother you?”
Starsky’s
free hand reached out and cupped Hutch’s cheek. The skin there was so smooth and soft and warm. “Do you really not mind spending so much
time here? With me?”
“Of course not, dummy.” But the words were laced with great affection, and Hutch turned his head from side to side, slowly, stroking Starsky’s palm with his face. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. No one else I’d rather be with. You *must* know that by now.”
Starsky’s
hand slid down to Hutch’s jaw and tugged a little, which earned him his
partner’s full attention. “Hutch. Babe.
You an’ me--we gotta talk.”
* * *
She had
just two more stops to make before her shift ended. And she had to hustle because Judith was picking her up, and she
didn’t want to keep her waiting.
Again. Thank God Judith was the
patient type. Not like her mother.
But
Cherry had to go back to Detective Starsky’s room first. It was the only place Mrs. Washington’s copy
of Family Circle could possibly
be. The only place left to look. Must’ve lumped it in with all the other
magazines she’d dropped off for Detective Starsky. For some reason, Mrs. Washington just had to have her dumb old
magazine now. Tonight. Five minutes ago, in fact.
Cherry
approached the private room at full speed, arm outstretched, hand ready to grab
the door handle and--
Ooops!
She
applied the brakes, rubber-soled shoes squeaking in protest, as it hit her: she
was supposed to knock first. Talk about
a close call!
But no
sounds were coming from inside. She
pressed her ear against the door.
Nope. Still nothing. What if Detective Hutchinson had gone home,
and his partner was asleep already? She
didn’t want to wake the poor guy. She
also didn’t want to leave tonight without giving Mrs. Washington her Family Circle. Tomorrow there would be hell to pay.
Her
mind made up, she held her breath and pushed the heavy door open a crack--just
enough to see if Detective Starsky was sleeping.
But he
wasn’t.
No, he
was very much awake.
And
kissing Detective Hutchinson.
Well,
they were kissing each other, if you wanted to get technical about it. Detective Hutchinson was holding Detective
Starsky’s face between his hands, and Detective Starsky had his fingers buried
in Detective Hutchinson’s hair. At
least they weren’t going at it like a couple of animals, all tongue and flying
spit and moaning. That would’ve been
disgusting.
But
this wasn’t so bad. Kinda sweet,
really, although she didn’t think a couple of big, tough cops would want to be
described that way.
Cherry
closed the door as quietly as she’d opened it.
She would give them a few more seconds, then knock for all she was worth
and retrieve Mrs. Washington’s magazine.
After
all, it wasn’t like these guys had never necked before, was it?