The Favoured, The Fair and Ms. Vérité Claire

15 Amends

He walked away shaking his head. The wrong way at first, but at least he made it out of the gym.

Orson rested for a moment, bandaged his hands and had a bottle of water. He felt he should go home. But he couldn't just yet. One more round, he thought. Neither the bag nor he had been punished enough.

******

Another handful of days passed and Vérité was in the unusual position of having to fend for herself. It was getting ugly. Literally.

Lotte was away with family for still another week. Vérité just didn't have the heart to drag Julia out of her healing cocoon to help with her wardrobe. Vérité had not done laundry in roughly nineteen years. Her closet was not in disarray but rather on the empty side. With her most worn peices of the season being held hostage at the dry cleaners or waiting hopefully in a neglected hamper, she was left with only the most formal and informal attire. And now Bernard, banned from Vérité' s cleaner for life for the theft and flung return of a bronzer stained shirt and therefore no help to her in that department, had flat out refused to accompany her to the hospital to see Minx.

"But there are great themes here!" Vérité coaxed. "It will be cathartic for the reader."

"And deadly for me! I have a delicate constitution! Will Campagnini have your book dedicated to me after I'm ravaged by C-Difficile?"

"But Bernard!"

"No! I'm sorry but no."

"Well, I say it has to be in the book!"

"And I thought I was the self-serving one! I'm not going to get some overcrowded barn bred flu by visiting that mad cow just so you can get a photo op. Why are you really going?"

"I just told you."

"Yes, but are you going to draw a mustache on her while she's sleeping, or swap out all her hospital gowns for extra smalls or what?"

"I honestly hadn't thought of it. A heart attack is no laughing matter." She paused. "Should I bring her a pie? No, no, it's too soon. I'll behave."

"Then we can just make it up! Pretend you've gone. Minx has to be snoring sometime. We'll say we kept vigil by her bedside until her eyes fluttered."

Vérité was vexed to say the least.

"So now I know what to expect should some illness befall me. Who knows? If you leave me no choice I may have to turn to your sister to heal me."

Bernard then "HA!"-ed so hard his hair part changed. "Go right ahead! Nine times out of ten she stands facing the wrong way in an elevator!"

Vérité pouted pitifully.

"Vérité, I promise when it's your turn - and it never will be because the mega rich don't get sick like the rest of us - but if something should ever happen to you, I promise I'll be by your bedside with marabou slippers and martinis for both of us. You never have to worry. Unless you have something catching."

"You're sweet, Bernard," Vérité said, petting his hand, "but if you don't come with me you're fired."

Bernard only chuckled and kissed her cheek.

"Believe it or not, I've taken orders from someone in banana yellow sports shorts before. Lady, you're not pulling it off."

******

Vérité's low, disposible heels clicked down the hospital corridor as she looked for room 215. The rest of her outfit might have been a bit fancy for evening visitng hours but it was either the current gauze kaftan or a discarded pastel tennis skort. When things finally got back to normal, the local Goodwill would hit paydirt.