“Sag Harbor.”
His face broke into an amused grin, and I could see he was extremely proud of himself. He brushed off his shoulder like he still had it before he spoke. “The hamlet of the Hamptons for the wealthy Black folks. I can see it. Thankfully, you’re not at all pretentious.”
My head tilted to one side and I couldn’t tell if he was being nice or nasty. “Thank you, I think.”
“It’s a compliment. But let me let you get back to work. I’ve got to check on a few things.”
“Yes sir. Besides, there’s about three from your harem that have been waiting patiently to accidentally bump into you when we got done talking. Can’t leave them waiting.” I didn’t dare look in their direction but I wagged my eyebrows suggestively.
Dr. Davis’ face fell and he sighed like he was over his own attractiveness. “This shit is getting out of hand.”
I giggled since he truly seemed aggravated. “Being pretty becoming too much for you?”
He cut his eyes at me like I’d given him some sort of insult. “I’m not pretty. That Scottish cousin? That’s the pretty nigga in the family. Blonde locs and green eyes to boot. This shit is just infatuation. The last thing I would ever do is lose my license dealing with someone in the hospital where I work. That’s grounds for a harassment case and somebody being able to hold on to me longer than they need to. I’ll pass.”
“Experience?”
“Being smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others so I don’t have to live it. But let me brave this shit. If I don’t cross paths with you again before you head home, be safe. Morning traffic is always a bitch.” He gave me a friendly wink and I felt like he was saying my secrets were safe with him.
“I will, thank you.”
Dr. Davis walked away and was almost immediately waylaid by a nurse with a question. I could tell by the way he wasspeaking to her like she was five that she’d asked him some inane question she should’ve been more than able to handle without him. How they thought someone like him would be attracted to incompetence since it only made his job harder was beyond me. I went back through making my rounds and checking on patients before I scanned my badge to sign out the med cart. I knew some states allowed a range of nursing licensures to dispense medication but on this level, it was required that the highest-ranking nurse on the floor at the time dispensed any medications. Most of what I did was double-check behind the other nurses and they hated it. I could understand their irritation but I was just following orders. Of course, they weren’t going to say anything to him so I just let it roll off my back. It was already March and my time here was ending. I’d have a few quiet weeks by the sea before I got dropped into the pit of cobras known as my family. The women here and their silent treatment were child’s play compared to what I had waiting for me.
I dropped my bag inside the door of my short-term rental and I knew that I wouldn’t get much sleep soon. The time I’d been working this assignment had been lucrative but it was time for me to start packing up. That was the hardest part about travel nursing: moving from assignment to assignment and ensuring that you left nothing behind. I had a hard and fast deadline that meant I wouldn’t be able to take a new assignment. In my mind, it would better to skip taking a short turn around assignment and prepare myself for what I was getting ready to do.
It was almost time for our family’s annual gathering, which would take all summer. I didn’t want to be bothered with it buttraditions were what they were for a reason. My family was from New York, Sag Harbor specifically, and that came with a massive amount of responsibility. Our family was one that had made generations of history and was proud to be descendants of free Black landowners all the way back to the Revolutionary War. One of my mother’s favorite bragging points was that our family was in America before it was even a country.
Which wasn’t a flex because at some point that ancestor had to buy himself out of bondage. But to let her tell it, he had just materialized all on his own from the shores of the motherland with freedom, wealth and influence. Everyone lauded his accomplishments but rarely wanted to remember how he arrived where he did. Like they were almost ashamed of the fact that he’d been enslaved.
As if I’d thought her up, my phone was buzzing and I knew it was her. My body, which had once been winding down from my long night at work was instantly keyed up again as all the stress hormones flooded my system. It was crazy how I had to brace myself to deal with this woman, which is why I did it so sparingly.
If I didn’t answer she would only call me until I did and then berate me when she got me on the phone. It wasn’t something I was interested in dealing with so I sucked it up and answered the phone. The apartment I was in wasn’t one that would be up to her standards so I was glad to see that she wasn’t using a video call. The idea of sitting through another of her lectures about the standards we had to uphold in our family wasn’t high on my to-do list today.
“Hello, mother.” I plopped down on the couch like a petulant teenager because it was something that she hated. She couldn’t see me, but the defiant act made speaking to her slightly more tolerable.
“Is that how you greet me? I have been emailing you for days and I haven’t gotten a call back. Since you’ve worked with the indigent for a living I guess I have to do things on your time.” Her voice was filled with derision, her tone was haughty and I prayed that wasn’t what Dr. Davis heard when I spoke to him or the patients.
This was just the warm-up for how she was going to start up with me so I propped my feet up on the coffee table to prepare myself for her rant. “I’m sorry about that, Mother. I’m just walking in from pulling a double.”
“Am I supposed to have sympathy for you? This is a choice that you made to wipe asses for a living when you could be doing something much more beneficial to the world. You have a home up here and although it’s not the most respectable place it sits empty for months at a time. You might as well sell it.”
“I’m not selling my house, Mother.” Her issue with my house was that it was small, and something I’d purchased without her help or her money. Which meant she couldn’t lord it over my head or use it to control me and that pissed her off more than anything. My cottage was one that had been used for vacation rentals and it sat near enough to the water to make it a popular place. The couple that owned it no longer wanted the hassle and their family only wanted the access without the work. I made them an offer after agreeing to be their last rental customer and started renovations on the place right after I closed.
“Waste of money. Anyway, I was emailing you to get your measurements so that I could find pieces for you.”
I sat forward on the gray landlord special sofa, my mind back on high alert. “Pieces of what?”
I could perfectly envision her look of disdain at my questioning her. “Clothing, Sterling. You’ll need to have clothing that’s appropriate for when you come up for the gathering. I’msure they’ll put you in one of the attic rooms since you don’t have a partner or a family still.”
Another barb that I was so used to it didn’t bother me to hear.
“The attic rooms have the best views so I don’t have an issue with them. You can see the water at its best vantage point from up there.” Our family’s estate was beyond what one would call multi-generational. It was a vast complex that had been expanded over the years since our family purchased the land at the beginning of the twentieth century.
“You should care because you’re not being treated fairly. I wish you would say something to them.”
It was funny because as my mother she’d never stood up for me. Whatever was doled out she didn’t stand in the way of it and often tried to make herself look better by making my punishments harder. Whatever pleased them was her aim.
“I understand that I don’t have a family and don’t need as much room. It doesn’t bother me to be in the attic rooms. Like I said, the views are beautiful.” And they were. She wouldn’t know that because she would never go up to the rooms that had been the old servants’ quarters. The water views were breathtaking from the attic because the family home was taller than most in the area.
