My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Nurse of the year
Dialing the number for Lily's home, HPD solo bike officer Quinn Ah Sun's heart was filled with happiness and excitement. Just this morning Lily had been here to visit him, and kissed him as he'd never been kissed. He wanted to go through life being kissed that way. And right now, he wanted to hear her voice and tell her about the dream from which he'd just awoken.
"Rosalita," he said, recognizing Lily's maid's voice. "It's Quinn, Lily's cousin. Is she there?"
Quinn heard Rosalita telling Lily he was on the line. And then he heard Lily say, "Tell him he can go straight to hell."
But he must have heard wrong. It must have been, "Tell him I asked if he's doing well."
Quinn heard a scruffling sound, the phone being pressed against fabric. And then, "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Quinn, she's not here right now. But I'll tell her you called."
Quinn hung up, stunned. Maybe he was dreaming about everything that happened yesterday with Lily too. He'd dreamed up driving her home after she'd had too much to drink. He'd dreamed up their kiss at Maunalua Bay in the moonlight. He dreamed up the kiss in her garden too.
But no, that wasn't right. He was here at Queen's because he'd stopped an intruder in Lily's house from raping Rosalita, and the mutt shot Quinn in the right thigh, and Quinn had shot him twice. And he wasn't dreaming that this morning Lily was here sharing his bed.
What happened to make Lily change so fast?
Quinn heard a knock on the door, and in walked a nurse he recognized from before. At that moment the nurse, Nina Ramones, qualified for the Florence Nightingale Award when she touched Quinn's forehead, checking his temperature the old-fashioned way, and gently adjusted the sheets.
"I'm glad to see you're doing much better," she said. There was something about the way she said it, so warm and sincere, that touched Quinn's heart.
"And as long as you're doing so well, you have some visitors waiting outside." She went to the door, opened it. "Come in, gentlemen."
Nina Ramones opened the door wider and in walked HPD Chief Lee Donohue, followed by two guys from Internal Affairs, Lt. Dennis Yamasato and Detective Lopaka LaCroix. It was SOP for IA to get involved any time an officer used a gun. They had to determine if the shooting was "justifiable."
"If you need anything, just buzz me," Nina said. Quinn couldn't believe how grateful he was. She touched his arm in a way that warmed the cold spot in his heart. "Anything at all."
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com