Llona luxuriated in a hot bath after she sent the telegram. She supposed she’d have to find another job, but for the time being she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about anything. She just wanted to lie there and listen to her skin tingle in the frothy hot water. But reality—as it seemingly must --intruded on her.
The telephone rang. Naked, trailing hot suds, her body feeling very alive now, Llona went into the living room to answer it. The hospital was on the phone.
They were calling to inform her that her husband was well enough to be released the following day. The cast had been removed, and while he’d be on crutches for a while he was ready to come home. Would she come and sign him out?
Llona told them she would and hung up the phone. There was something ominous about the call. It took her a moment to place just what it was.
Then, dripping her way back to the tub, it fell into place. Why hadn't Archer called her himself? He had a phone right beside his bed. It surely would have been easier than having to arrange for the hospital to call her. Yes, there was definitely something ominous about it.
It wasn’t until she brought Archer home the next day that she found out what it was. Before then, there was all the rigmarole at the hospital to be gone through. It started in the Hospital Discharge Office where Llona had been told to stop in before going upstairs to pick up her husband.
“'I'here’s a bill here,” the lady in the office told Llona. She consulted her records and came up with a figure that made Llona blanch.
“But I thought my husband’s hospitalization took care of that,” Llona protested.
“It does. But the check from them hasn’t come through yet. And we can’t discharge the patient until the bill is settled. They can reimburse you directly.”
“But I don’t have that kind of money to lay out.”
“Then we can’t discharge your husband.” The lady was stern.
“What do you mean?” Llona was getting her dander up. “What are you going to do? Hold him here for ransom?”
“He can’t be officially discharged until the bill is set—“
“Then don’t discharge him officially,” Llona told her. “But he’s ready to leave and he’s leaving anyway.” She turned on her heel and strode out of the office.
She took the elevator up to Archer’s room. She found him sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed, ready to leave. The fat nurse was also there.
“Let’s go,” Llona told him abruptly.
Archer stood up and struggled with an unfamiliar set of crutches.
“We’ll have to be taken down in a wheelchair,” the fat nurse chirruped. “It’s hospital rules.”
“Then get a wheelchair,” Llona told her.
“There’s one just outside the door, waiting.”
“Okay.” Llona went outside and wheeled it back into the room. She helped Archer into it. “You carry the crutches, dear, and I’ll push,” she told him.
“Just a minute.” The fat nurse held up an authoritative hand. “First we have to have our discharge slip.”
“I didn’t get one,” Llona told her.
“But we can’t leave without being discharged officially.”
“Wanna bet?” Llona got behind the wheelchair and started pushing.
“This is highly irregular,” the fat nurse wailed.
“Sue me!” Llona was angry.
“Why don’t you have the discharge slip?” Archer interjected.
“Because they wouldn’t give me one.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t pay the bill.”
“But my hospitalization—”
“I know. I went all through that. They want cash. We haven’t got it. So, no discharge slip. But you’re leaving anyway.” Llona pushed the wheelchair out the doorway and started down the hall.
The fat nurse ran alongside. “No discharge slip! No discharge slip!” She kept repeating it loud and clear like a battleship p.a. system summoning the crew to battle stations. “No discharge slip!”
The result was that they picked up a wake of other nurses, attendants, orderlies, doctors and assorted administrative personnel. The group trailed onto the elevator behind them, echoing the nurse in hushed, shocked whispers. “No discharge slip!”
In the downstairs lobby the fat nurse stepped around in front of the wheelchair and blocked Llona’s way. But she didn’t speak to Llona. It was Archer that she addressed. “We shouldn’t leave without an official discharge,” she told him. “We should stay.”
“But the doctor said it was all right to go,” Archer protested .
“It’s not right!” The fat nurse insisted. “This woman—” She pointed a quivering finger at Llona. “—is removing us illegally. Are we going to listen to her? After what she’s done to us?”
“What have I—?” Llona tried to interrupt, but she was ignored.
“We know who our friends are, don’t we?” The fat nurse was wheedling now. “We know who looks alter us and brings us our stewed prunes and sees that we get our you-know-what three times a day. If we stay, we’ll go right on with that too. But if we leave without an official discharge, we may never again—”
“This is ridiculous!” Llona wasn’t as indignant at the fat nurse as she was at Archer himself. There was a light in his eyes that she didn’t like one bit. There was no doubt about it! He was being swayed by the fat nurse’s offer!
“Get out of the way!” Llona pushed the fat nurse aside and wheeled Archer out the front door of the hospital.
“We’ll be sorry!” the fat nurse called after them. “What will we have to look forward to now?”
“Maybe we should--” Archer started to weaken, but it was too late. Llona was already hustling him into a cab.
Then the fat nurse uttered one last call from the steps of the hospital, one last desperate reminder of that which had been theirs, of that which had been the basis of their relationship, the keystone of their rapport. “Up yours!” she called, dropping her pluralisms as a discarded lover drops all dignity in a final plea that the affair continue on the basis of yesterday’s love. “Up yours!” she bayed, sobbing.
“Up yours!” Archer called back, his voice cracking. He was almost sobbing himself as he called out the final testimonial to what, after all, had been their relationship. “Up yours!” Partings are not always sweet sorrow . . .
But by the time they arrived at the apartment, Archer had put it all behind him. In the past, that is, since “behind him” had been where it was at with the fat nurse, and where it was at no longer. Anyway, there was no time for regrets or fond memories because now Archer had come to the confrontation with Llona. .
“Why did you have the hospital call me yesterday?” Llona asked when they were at home alone. “Why didn’t you call me yourself?”
“I did.” Archer was exercising very careful control now. “I did call you. I called you at your office, at that number you gave me. You weren’t there.”
“Oh. That’s right. I’m sorry. But then why didn’t you call me at home?”
“Because I didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted to think about something first.”
“What?” Llona asked.
“Something Mortimer told me.”
“Oh.” Llona’s heart skipped a beat.
“Yes. He told me about this girl who worked in the nude and how the people in the office where she was the receptionist made up this pool to see who could make her first.”
“You told me about that,” Llona reminded “And so did Mortimer,” she added.
“Uh-huh.” Archer was still holding himself uptight. “But the other day he told me one more thing.”
“What was that?”
“He told me the name of the company where this girl worked.”
“Oh!” The pit of Llona’s stomach took off on its own.