Every day is a beautiful day when you have piece of mind. The sun shines brighter, the birds sing louder, and every step is more assured. Well, theoretically, every step is supposed to be more assured. As luck would have it, Tim Mentira tripped on a patch of broken sidewalk and had to go to the hospital to get an x-ray for his wrist. They put one of those Plexiglas casts on it and gave him instructions to go to physical therapy to make an appointment when the cast was removed. As is the case in most hospitals, they make you sit and wait and wait and wait and after hours of endless waiting, they make you sit and wait some more. The Tim of old would have been frustrated and annoying, driving every doctor, nurse, orderly, and candy striper in the place crazy with incessant demands and infuriating rants of how his time was too precious to wait. The new and improved Tim, the calm and self-assured Tim, was content to read decade-old issues of Sports Illustrated about Jordan and an unstoppable new golf phenom named Tiger.
So engrossed was he in some obscure article, he barely looked up to see a young lady sitting across from him in the waiting room. Tim gave her the ubiquitous silent nod and a wave but it was returned with a blank stare. A twinge of insecurity crept up on him for a brief second and, taking a deep breath, he went back to minding his business reading his magazine, waiting for the physical therapy nurse to come with his release papers.
"Hello, is anyone there? Can someone help me please?" Tim looked up. "I'm sorry. Someone was supposed to come get me and take me back to my room but I think they forgot about me. Do you think it would be possible for you to find a nurse for me?"
Tim looked very closely again. She was a very lovely Black woman with a complexion the color of cocoa and her hair neatly done in goddess braids. Her thin legs hung limply down in her wheelchair. The woman seemed to be staring at one particular spot; there was no dance in her eyes, no eye contact. "Sure, let me check at the nurses station for you," Tim said, as he made his way to see if he could find some assistance for her. He returned only moments later with bad news that someone said that they would be there shortly which meant that they would be there at a quarter to never. "I've been sitting here over an hour waiting for my release papers myself, reading really old magazines. Would you care for one?"
She laughed. "I'm afraid a magazine wouldn't do me much good. I have a rare neurological disorder that renders me temporarily blind and at times paralyzed from the waist down and now happens to be one of those times when I'm blessed with both."
Tim stumbled all over himself apologizing. He had sort of figured that she might have been unable to see but he didn't want to assume. Now, he had wished he had erred on the side of safety and not said anything at all. He sat in silence again, embarrassed by his faux pas. He studied her more intently now, knowing she didn't know he was looking at her. He took in her delicate features, tried to put a story behind her façade.
There was a rather recent copy of Essence magazine in the piles, perhaps left behind by someone. Tim picked it up and commented on the cover. "Terry McMillan sure seems to be getting a lot of press from her situation. Couldn't have come at a better time with her new book out. I don't know, I think she knew he was gay all along. I mean . . . come on."
She grunted, "Terry McMillan needs any publicity stunt she can to cover up the fact that she's an addict. It shows in her public appearances and it shows in her already mediocre writing." The pair laughed and exchanged names. It seems Dr. Gloria Crowder was a professor of African American Literature at Xavier University in Louisiana and she was pretty unapologetic in her critique. Tim introduced himself and the two began discussing favorite passages from Black classics and metaphors for obscure poetry that most people hadn't heard of. The pair was really hitting it off when the nurse finally came to take Gloria back to her room.
"It was a pleasure to meet you, Tim, you really made the time fly." She held out her hand and Tim placed his hardened cast to her small hand. They laughed and said their goodbyes.
Tim couldn't get her out of his mind however. They had shared so much in common, the conversation was so effortless. It was no surprise that before 24 hours was over; Tim was back at the hospital, paying a visit to his new friend. He brought a portable CD player and a stack of audio books along with some of his own poetry he had written. He tapped tentatively on the door, afraid that he would be perceived as a stalker, and cleared his throat. Gloria was lying quietly in bed, her face turned towards the sun, looking rather angelic. Ramsey Lewis would have been inspired. "I thought maybe you could . . ."
He was cut off before he could finish. "Tim! It's so good to see you. I was hoping you would come." Her face seemed to light up, show expression. Tim beamed with joy. He showed her how to use her new presents and arranged them for her so she could get to them without any help in her top drawer. He felt rather heroic, saving the queen from the horrid fate of boredom. He also felt rather confident. To his new friend, he could be tall and handsome, even black. She couldn't see what he looked like so Tim was free to be who he thought she wanted him to be. He didn't lie to her; he just wasn't very truthful either. He reasoned that as long as he didn't really say he was black it wasn't really a lie. It was a sort of don't ask, don't tell policy, one he thought he needed to overcome his insecurities with approaching black women.
It was a sound policy that lasted the better part of six weeks. Tim became a regular fixture at the hospital. Every day he would bring more books and read to Gloria and they would debate until well after visiting hours about the dialect poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar and the writings of Ralph Ellison and about the absolutely horrific crop of new writers passing as authors. She would dictate notes to him from a novel she was working on and he would become her eyes. He would be waiting for her to return to her room when she got back from physical therapy, help her back to bed, and even take over for the regular nurses in her care.
Good news came for both of them at the same time. Tim's cast was going to be removed and Gloria was going to be released from the hospital at the same time. FEMA has made arrangements for her to have a furnished apartment locally while her apartment in New Orleans was being renovated. Of course, Tim was there to offer his assistance in whatever way he could and offered to get the place ready for her homecoming. The apartment was shabby, a little short on the chic. He went all out, cleaning and painting and buying furnishings to make it nice for his friend. As much as he wanted to call her his girlfriend, he couldn't. Not with the secret between them. He was pretty sure that she knew. He'd been honest with her about everything else. He'd shared secrets with her that he'd only told one other person. She was a very intelligent woman, she had to know. As long as it wasn't said, Tim felt like he had a security blanket. In his mind, Gloria was infatuated with a black man and if he told her the truth, she wouldn't like him any more. He wasn't sure how long he was going to live with the lie but he wasn't about to ruin the best relationship he'd ever had before.
The day she was released from the hospital, Tim helped her make it up the three little stairs to her temporary home. She went in first and he went back to the car to get her bags and finish parking the car. When he returned, her face was lit up. "Oh Tim, it's beautiful! I can't believe what you did with the place. It's lovely."
Tim was beaming with joy. He'd made her happy and that was a feeling like none other. It was almost a full minute before he realized what it meant. His heart dropped. "How . . . how long have you been able to see?"
