Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 78 (November 2016) by John Joseph Adams

Author:John Joseph Adams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: John Joseph Adams
Published: 2016-11-01T00:17:44+00:00

7.

“What’s Wrong With You?”

Alert, almost vibrating, Thurman watched the regal and youthfully glamorous Shenda Moore stride swiftly across the Karuna’s polished floorboards and pass behind the counter. She set her courier’s case down with visible relief.

Verity eagerly started up a conversation with the Karuna’s owner, of which Thurman caught only the opening.

“That sleazy new distributor came to the delivery door again, Shenda. This time he had a couple of greaseballs with him. Heavy muscle. Thought I’d be scared or something. Huh! I told them to go fuck themselves—”

Shenda’s face darkened into a scowl. Thurman thought her intense and concentrated protective wrath was nearly as attractive as her general wide-focus warmth. She opened her mouth to speak, but her reply (beyond a prefatory “Those bastards—”) was lost to Thurman in a sudden swell of noise: kitchen clatter, door laughter, street traffic, patron hooting. By the time things had quieted somewhat, Shenda had disappeared into the rear of the shop.

Thurman slumped down in his seat, cut off from the source of his momentary invigoration. For a moment, he had actually forgot his illness, succeeded in imagining himself whole again.

What he wouldn’t give to get a little closer to this intriguing woman! He envisioned the way their conversation would swiftly flow, from easy early friendliness to gradual whispered intimacy. And then, in some quiet, private setting—

At that moment Thurman began to cough. Not a polite, out-in-public cough either, but one of his regularly occurring TB-victim-in-the-isolation-ward, lung-ripping, throat-searing gaspers. Clutching a sheaf of napkins for the expected expectoration, he tried to turn his body toward the window, away from the other customers. His knee jerked involuntarily, bumping the small table and sending his pill vials tumbling to the floor.

In the midst of his agony, Thurman felt waves of searing humiliation.

Nothing could make his embarrassment any worse.

Nothing?

A soft yet strong hand descended on his shoulder, followed by a familiar voice.

“Are you all right? What can we do?”

Oh, Sweet Mary!

It was her!

Thurman struggled to get his body under control. He finished gagging into the napkin wad, then instinctively stuck the filthy mass of tissue (paper) and tissue (cellular) into the pocket of his sweatpants. Trying to compose his mottled features into a semblance of normality, Thurman turned to face a standing Shenda Moore.

A sweet floral scent wafted off her. She clutched half a bite-rimmed sandwich unselfconsciously in one hand. Her exquisitely planed Afro-Caribbean face, framed in lax layered Fibonacci curves of thick hair, was a blend of alarm and curiosity, her taut body poised for whatever action might prove necessary.

Weakly, Thurman found a joke. “I—there was a fly in my coffee.”

Shenda laughed. The sound was like temple bells. In a bold tone she completed the old joke: “Well, don’t spread the word around, or everyone will want one!”

Then, just when Thurman expected the Karuna’s proprietor to turn and walk off, she pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. Now she spoke in more confidential tones, and the watchers attracted by Thurman’s discomfort turned back to their own business.

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