Karine

Getting a new job

 

I sat in my car staring at the house and contemplating what my next step would be.  The house was larger than I had expected. In fact, it wasn’t a house at all; it was a mansion with a security guard, gates, landscaping and everything. Once cleared for entry, I drove up the long winding drive before parking my old car in the driveway. My poor car looks so out of place parked there, I thought, as I walked up to the front door to knock.

This interview would be unlike any other that I had attended.  This was big money.  I was shown in by a maid named Lucy. She had informed me that someone would be along shortly, offered me a drink and left the room.

I had been called for an interview after I emailed my application a week ago and it was accepted. The firm which handled the application process had invited me for an interview and I just could not wait to see who the client would be. The firm sent me to this address, and now I was sitting in the large living room area, awaiting the arrival of my new boss. I hear the click-clack of footsteps entering the room. A perfectly healthy man and woman approached me.  Who, then, would be in need of nurse care? 

“Thank you for coming. I’m Frank and this is my wife Martha Sampson,” he said with an outstretched hand. Sampson, my mind struggled to remember where I had heard the name. 

The interview was a quick one: They asked me questions and I answered them as truthfully as I could. I really wanted this job; the pay was fantastic, and I could not wait for the day I would start. They informed me that I was going to be taking care of their son and that he had leukemia. I felt bad for the person already, even without having met him. It must be awful for him, he had so much money, yet his health was failing him. And just then, I heard footsteps. They were slow and steady, and I knew that it was probably the footsteps of the person I would be nursing. Just as the person came into the large room, my heart froze, and my jaw dropped. It was Jiraiya Sampson!

 

Two Months Later

Two months had passed since I began working in this house. It felt like a dream come true but not in the way I had wanted. Jiraiya was not a happy person because of the recent events in his life. Leukemia couldn’t take away the spark his face created or the sweet sound that his voice made whenever it floated into my eardrums. I was very much attracted to him. I made my way to his room to administer his early morning medication.

“Good morning Jiraiya, how are you feeling today?”

“How does it look like I feel Karine?” he replied in an agitated voice.

“Oh, look at that,” I made my voice sound light and pleasant. “There are only two pills more and then you’re done for the day.” 

Jiraiya’s words ran deeper inside me than I let on, causing me more agony than the horrible disease that was gently crippling this once virile tycoon’s body. Now, he’s considered ‘Terminal’ and likely to die at any time. Hospice Care was assigned to him before I came along to help take care of him. All Jiraiya wanted was to be made comfortable but, little by little, he had allowed me in to reveal the real man he really is and will always be in my eyes.

“Karine, this shit is fucked up,” Jiraiya slammed his hand down on the tray where I had placed his breakfast earlier.

Fixing Jiraiya’s meals wasn’t an official duty, but as the months went by, our relationship had changed and stretched beyond the boundaries of mere patient and boss. More and more, he keeps revealing the bitterness that eats away at his soul. With each revelation, my heart is torn asunder and I fall more in love with this man whom I have come to cherish. 

“I can’t go hiking or fucking jogging anymore without getting winded.”

“Don’t worry Jiraiya; there will be many more runs in the park that your company built. And there will be many more visits to the recreation center you designed for underprivileged children. Not just that but there will be more occasions for you to celebrate,” I encouraged him because it tore me apart when he broke down like this. I’m that he allows me to see the real Jiraiya—with others he pretends that he is the same big-time business man who could take on the world without a moment pause to his illness.

“All of that sounds like wishful thinking to me. Five months ago, I was engaged to be married to the most beautiful woman and now I am alone. Illness swooped in last year, ambushing my generally remarkable life, freezing my existence like a statue in a solid cocoon.” Jiraiya reached over to his bedside table to pick up the beautifully framed picture of his supermodel ex-fiancée Gracen Lafleur, a top French model who had stolen his heart and ruined it for all other women. Women like me didn’t stand a chance. I expelled a long breath at the thought.

Instead of dwelling on my sad thoughts, I noticed a sad, haunted look enter Jiraiya’s gold-colored eyes flecked with bits of green. Jiraiya’s eyes are the color of sweet sugar when it is melted at high temperature; the way Mom likes them when making pancakes. He had the kind of eyes that pushed their way through heaps of women’s hearts and made them feel like they were the most blessed women to be in his sight. The sort of eyes that will warm you up on a cold winter night.  Whenever Jiraiya sets his potent stare on me, it makes me forget that I am just his private nurse.  Damn I hate Gracen Lafleur.

Regardless of his illness, if it were me in her shoes, I would have gladly married him and spent eternity bestowing love and passion into his life. What’s more, I longed for Jiraiya to gaze at me...just once.  Me, Karine Banks, a black woman who would love him like no one else could.  Me, Karine Banks, not a caretaker who makes him take his medications so that she could get paid.

“I loved her so much, you know,” Jiraiya’s voice brought me back from my thoughts.

It sounded thick with emotion; as if he was trying hard not to cry, the many tears that I was sure he sometimes cried when no one was around. I reached over and took the picture from his hand and stared into the oceanic eyes of the woman he still loved whether he admitted it to himself or not. Her blondish brown hair framed like a halo around her angelic face.

I could see why he loved Gracen—she was gorgeous. Gracen is everything that I am not: She is five feet, nine inches tall, graceful even in pictures. She has the look of one who eats like a bird and indulges in high impact exercises, skiing, swimming, and running. Those were all the things that Jiraiya liked to do, no wonder the couple made every glamour magazine on the newsstands in New York City, and beyond.

I was simply no match for Gracen; I am just an average, girl who grew up in Brooklyn, NY. I enjoy the simple things in life like; surfing the Internet, drinking espresso, watching romantic movies preferably with friends, going on trips to Disney World, walking in the rain, eating pizza with chocolate and writing in my journal. I also enjoy spending the holidays with my mom as well as my sister, Amber, whenever she can visit. I have surrendered myself to loving Jiraiya quietly and secretly, even if it makes me miserable.

“Karine, why don’t you take my black card from my wallet, go out and buy yourself an expensive dress at one of those boutiques? I think I feel like going out tonight and I would love you to join me,” Jiraiya said, as he snatched the picture from my hand. He opened his bedside drawer and placed the image face down before closing the dresser drawer. I really wish he could purge thoughts of Gracen from his heart as easily as he hid the picture from his view.

“We can’t go out.”

His intense gaze met my brown eyes in surprise.

“Huh? What do you mean? Why can’t we go out?”

“I mean—"

“I am your boss and I say we are going out,” Jiraiya’s voice grew stronger by the second and I could see a flame burning in his eyes. “Don’t say ‘we can’t’ to me.” I could tell he really meant what he had said.

Taken aback I noticed that his longish golden hair was still thick and untamed; a golden wavy lock lay rakishly against the base of his forehead. His eyes are still vibrant even though his once tanned skin is pallid; there is a tiny scar on his upper cheek from a childhood accident, the scar only added to his magnetism. What was I supposed to do? I simply could do nothing but fulfill his request.

Later on, while closing the door to Jiraiya’s bedroom, my heart and mind were pounding.  Why am I enjoying the thought of going out with him, when his eyes can see only Gracen?

You are just a nursemaid Karine; you are just a nursemaid…Deal with it!