Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (22 page)

Amanda looked up. “Oh, grizzled gonads!” She put her head back on the desk.

Louis just sat there. Unlike nearly 90 per cent of his other drop-ins, this visit by her boss actually had a point. “You’re still going to the teleconference tomorrow, aren’t you?”

She looked up, suddenly quite sober again. “Actually, I was figuring to pass. They’re going to have a handout package anyway and I’m really swamped. So I was hoping you could go without me.”

“I’m not going.” Louis acted like everybody already knew this. “You’re the only one we’re sending.”

“I thought we’re both supposed to be there.”

“Well, I’ve got this other thing…”

“Couldn’t you send someone to take notes? June? Gayle?” Amanda was practically begging.

“No, we need someone there who’s actually working with the grants.”

“And you can’t make it?”

When Louis shook his head briskly, his chin flesh waggled and the awful toupee shifted almost imperceptibly.

Amanda sighed heavily enough to rustle some papers on her desktop. She took a deep breath and counted to a zillion, very slowly. “Where is this dang conference, anyway?”

Two hours passed. Though Amanda had tried to refocus on her work, she suddenly realized she’d already read the budget section of the grant application in her hand. Maybe several times.
Not able to concentrate.

Now that the identities of
Marty
and
Missy
had been discovered — somehow — and leaked out through several of the shadow blogs, Amanda figured it was time to pull the plug on the project. What was the point of going on? The entire scheme was more taxing on her than it had apparently been on Jason, and he showed no signs of leaving (even under all the duress).

Now that Amanda realized some of the blog readers knew her identity, she began to suspect most of the people she encountered also knew the truth. Wonderful to comprehend her co-workers had likely discovered she was the frantic, desperate woman with the pseudonym Missy.

But which co-workers? Gayle? Joan? King Louie? Others? It seemed as though all of them looked at her
funny
today. Was that because they knew? Or because she was acting paranoid? Or both?

The boss gave her the funniest looks.

That figured.
Louis Erie
is probably Simon Sezz.

* * * *

Kevin Haywood, Jason’s buddy at GCEC, stopped in at one of the upscale hotels along Nashville’s Fourth Avenue. The Nashvillage had the best lounge, with evening happy hour at 6:30 when a convention was using the facility. The hotel provided free drinks for its customers, and Kevin pretended to be staying there. It wasn’t really all that artful, however, since the evening manager didn’t care who drank up that huge facility’s sizeable booze budget.

Bill, an also-divorced acquaintance, saw Kevin and they struck up a conversation while Bill waited for a female business traveler to return from the powder room. “You ever read blogs?” Bill kept his eye on the restroom door.

“Not much, unless somebody e-mails me a link to something particular. Why?”

“The other day at work, a buddy was talking about some guy somewhere who’s really sick with something. So he goes to his girlfriend’s apartment to recover. But instead of taking care of him, the girlfriend — and her best friend — conspire to make that guy’s life a living hell. You wouldn’t believe all the stuff they do to him.”

“What stuff?” Kevin didn’t really care. At work, he’d heard a snippet about a similar blog.

“Well, I don’t remember everything, but they’re starving him, for one. And they keep sending over cleaners and other kinds of technicians to interrupt his recovery. Plus, get this — they turn off the A/C during the day!”

“And the stupid schmuck puts up with all that? He deserves whatever they dish out.” Kevin was distracted as another attractive female entered the drinking space. Happy hour during conventions was absolutely the best time to cruise.

“I don’t know.” Nearly a head taller than most of the men present, Bill scanned the room to see if anyone looked better than the woman still in the restroom. “At first I thought the same thing. But the more I read on that blog, the more I felt sorry for him, kinda. I mean, he’s as stupid as a headless hen, but give the guy a break — he’s sick.”

“What’s he got?”

“Well, it sounds like a regular ordinary flu. But the blog keeps calling it a man-cold… whatever that is. You ever hear of a man-cold?”

Kevin shook his head. “I’ve heard that mumps is different for grown men. But I thought viruses were pretty much gender neutral… you know, men and women get the same basic germs. Maybe this is new, like that weird version of swine flu or something.”

“Not sure. Whatever it is, the girl — and her devious friend — are running this sap through the grinder. They might actually be trying to kill him.”

“So where is this? Out in California somewhere?”

“Blog doesn’t say.” Bill rose up on his toes to look over the milling crowd toward the restroom. That made him temporarily about seven feet tall. “What the heck is keeping her?” He focused again on Kevin’s question. “Could be anywhere. Could be right here in middle Tennessee for all I know. I guess this new man-cold virus could hit just about any ole guy.”

“They give any names on this blog?”

“The guy’s named Marty and his girlfriend is Missy.”

Kevin smiled slightly. “Sounds like a real sweet honeymoon.”

“Yeah, but when I saw it this afternoon, there’s a link to a different site. On that other blog, somebody claims they figured out who Missy and Marty really are.”

“So what I.D. did those other bloggers come up with?”

Bill briefly closed his eyes to think. “Uh, the girlfriend is Aretha, Amelia… no, uh, Amanda. And the poor stupid schmuck they’re terrorizing is named, uh, Jared, Jacob… no, uh, Jason. I think. Yeah. Amanda and Jason.”

“Well, good luck to both of them. They probably deserve each other.”

The taller man’s attractive female acquaintance finally approached from the restroom and Bill bade a hasty farewell to Kevin.

Kevin sipped his drink and spoke to himself. “Stupid slug. Imagine letting a girlfriend keep you holed up in her apartment with no food and no A/C. That Jason guy is an idiot. Pure-D idiot.” Kevin absent-mindedly scanned the lounge area again. “Jason!” He pulled out his phone and listened to voicemails, including Jason’s from that morning. His eyes growing larger, Kevin grabbed a new drink and hustled down the hall, past the exercise area, to the wireless Internet room. Two work stations and only one was occupied.

He did a hurried blog search with keywords
Marty
,
Missy
, and
man-cold
. There were nine hits. One was about cartoon characters.

Kevin remembered enough of what Jason had previously explained that he fairly quickly put it all together — the Missy and Marty of recent blog fame really
were
Amanda and Jason!

Now that he was finally aware of what was happening to Jason, Kevin was in a quandary. Should he sit back, scan the blog, and just briefly enjoy monitoring his buddy’s misery? Or should he jump into action to help his beleaguered friend? He debated silently.
If I was being terrorized by fanatics and lampooned on the Internet, I’d want my buddy to come rescue me
. Kevin decided to rescue…

But the woman at the next computer looked up and smiled. Kevin smiled back.
What the heck
…
Jason can
wait ’til morning.
Pretty nice looking and her drink was in the same kind of plastic cup he had from the happy hour lounge.

“How you doin’? Welcome to Nashville! Can I get you a refill for that?”

She smiled again and nodded.

Kevin forgot he even had a friend named Jason. He hustled to the lobby, got two more drinks, and briskly returned to the hotel’s computer room. He handed her one of the cups. “I’m Kevin.” He put his free hand in his pocket for the 2x3 schoolchild photo. Then he assumed his well-rehearsed sad expression.

“Sandy.” She sipped the remainder of her first drink and picked up the new one. She looked into Kevin’s face. “Something wrong?” Sandy nodded toward the computer he’d recently logged off.

“Oh, no. Well, it’s just I really miss my son.” He pulled out the photo with a practiced movement. “He’s with my ex in Memphis. If it wasn’t for e-mail and Facebook, I’m afraid we’d lose contact completely. His mother doesn’t want me in his life at all.”

“Aw, that’s not right. A boy needs his daddy. Let me see.” Sandy reached for the photo.

That nearly always hooked them. Once they touched the picture, they
belonged
to Kevin. He didn’t respond verbally; the sad face always worked best.

“He’s so cute. How old?”

“Oh, he was about six when that was taken.” Kevin just picked a likely number. It wasn’t even his child, of course. He’d swiped the picture from Lost and Found at work last spring. Ever since, that little photo had become his ticket
home
at many hotel happy hours.

Chapter 16

August 19 (Wednesday)

Amanda watched as Jason stared at the morning’s food possibilities: flax, hemp, and hummus. Obviously averse to those selections, he might have to default to celery again (with a dab of toothpaste for flavor), but it had become limp and turned light brown. It would take some otherworldly additive to make that palatable.

In any case, the unwelcome patient would have to mope and moan about breakfast without Amanda’s company. Downtown’s parking would be intense as people jockeyed for court cases, meetings, and other city/county business. She was already behind schedule.

Amanda was about to leave when Jason resumed whining about his elbow. “Could you give me a hand with this Ace bandage? It’s too tight, but I still need some support.”

She dropped her purse and keys with extra obvious aggravation and approached the injured patient. “Only you could hurt your right shoulder
and
left elbow while recovering from a cold without even leaving my apartment.”

Standing very close, Jason shrugged.
Whew!
He needed another shower — badly. Many men seem proud of their generated smells, like dogs that roll in rank roadkill
.
However, Jason didn’t seem boastful — it was more like he was totally oblivious.

Amanda removed the wrap and took off his homemade bandanna sling. Then she re-rolled the bandage so it would be easier to dispense. “Now hold both arms where you want them to rest.” Nurse Patience.

He experimented with different positions. “Okay, like this.”

“You sure?” When he nodded, Amanda rigged a double sling, one loop slightly higher than the other. It was actually quite creative and reasonably effective in taking the pressure off both arms. However, it made him look a bit like an amateur double for a low-budget mummy film.

Jason headed toward the bathroom to look in the mirror. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder.

Amanda was too irritated to reply as she rushed toward the door.

“What’s the matter?” Jason stopped and peered around the bathroom door frame.

“Well, now, on top of everything else, I’m late for a mandatory seminar at the Greene County courthouse that I shouldn’t even have to go to if King Louie would get off his fat Yankee butt and do even a sliver of his own job!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”

She didn’t hear the rest of Jason’s apology. She trotted to her Jeep Wrangler, backed out of the space quickly, and sped toward the old state highway, which, at that part of town, had become merely a frontage road for I-40. The old highway also went through the center of Verdeville and right past the 1930s courthouse building.

It normally took around ten minutes to get to the courthouse from Amanda’s duplex apartment. But when she reached the edge of downtown, she was blocked by the longest freight train she’d ever seen. The trains across the border in Kentucky usually went whizzing by, but these in middle Tennessee seemed to be looking for a shady spot to pause for a picnic.

No cabooses any more, but the last freight car finally cleared the intersection. Long lines of vehicles from both sides began creeping across the double set of tracks.

After another mile, Amanda circled the courthouse looking for an empty spot on the street. Not surprisingly, nothing was available, so she headed for the newer lot on the south side of that large facility. Three or four slots were left, if she could reach one in time. She was already fifteen minutes late for the 8:30 meeting.

One other vehicle moved among the rows, probably looking for a spot, which meant Amanda had at least two chances to park in this lot. The small truck in front of her had just turned into the lot and seemed intent on the space straight ahead. For no apparent reason, unless he simply changed his mind, the pickup driver slammed on his brakes to move left instead of going straight.

But Amanda had already begun her turn off the main street when the truck started into the lot, so she was immediately behind him. She quickly stomped on her brakes also, but the tail of her car was still out in the old state highway.

Crash! Amanda’s small vehicle was thrown to the side like a discarded soup can. She felt sharp pain in her foot, her head smacked into something hard… and she blacked out.

* * * *

Kevin left the hotel at about 8:45 on the morning after he’d won the temporary heart of the empathetic bank examiner from Knoxville. In his vehicle, he remembered his mission to extract Jason from the Internet-publicized mess he’d gotten into unawares.

Close to 9:00, Kevin arrived at Amanda’s apartment on Melrose. He knocked on the door for about five minutes before a nearly unrecognizable male finally unlatched and opened it.

“Jase? Is that you? What’s with your arms? You look like a freakin’ mummy who can’t keep his britches up!”

“Thanks a bunch. That’s nice, coming from the friend who refused to rescue me over four days ago.”