Good Woman Blues

All names, characters, stories, and incidents
featured in this novel are imaginary. They are not inspired by any
individual person, incidents or events known or unknown to the
author. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is
coincidental. GOOD WOMAN BLUES was originally published in 2005.
This is a reprint.

Copyright 2005 Margaret Emery Hubbard

Smashwords Edition

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~~~

Prologue

So, Erikka, how are you today?"

“Fine, terrific, ready to go home,” Erikka
said, in a rush. She even managed a smile for her jailers.

Dr. Morrow studied her for several seconds,
and then picked up her ink pen. “Good.”

Erikka tapped her long fingernails on the
cool surface of the conference table. At the other end Dr. Morrow
sat scribbling notes. A social worker named Ellen Crane and a nurse
supervisor waited respectfully. Along with the day shift nurse
LaKeisha Duncan, they made up the clinical treatment team. The
click-clack of Erikka’s acrylic nails sounded too loud because no
one was talking. The only other noise was the whisper of pages
turning as the nurse read through what Erikka assumed was another
set of reports on her behavior. The psychiatrist kept writing,
presumably adding to what they knew of one distasteful chapter of
Erikka’s life story. Erikka had visions of feeding those pages into
a large fire. Dr. Morrow put a period on the end of a sentence and
glanced up.“Let’s talk a little about what’s been going on since
you were admitted.” Dr. Morrow tilted her head, hair freshly
styled, to one side. Her chocolate brown skin looked as though it
had been buffed.

“Sure thing,” Erikka said, forcing her smile
wider.

Bitch. Flaunting the fact that she’d been to
the beauty salon. Erikka smoothed down her own tangled hair, badly
in need some serious time with her beautician. Then she touched her
face. The raised scars felt like the markings on a road map. She
wondered for the hundredth time if people were staring at them.
When she realized the social worker was indeed watching her, Erikka
lowered her hand.

Okay, she’d gotten herself into this mess,
but she was damn sure ready to talk her way out of it. Or at least
to try one more time. It had taken Erikka one week to figure out
getting pissed didn’t impress them. The only reaction she got from
threatening to call her lawyer was smart-assed LaKeisha’s bored
“Keep that phone call to ten minutes. Rules.” The second week she’d
learned the ropes. Terri, one of her roomies, had helped.

Learned she had. The women’s psychiatric unit
wasn’t that different from the corporate world. You had your share
of paranoid conspiracy theorists always watching their backs. Then
there were a few patients with delusions of grandeur. Tossed in was
a helping of backstabbing lying sociopaths with drug problems.
Except for the frankly psychotic shouting back at the voices in
their heads, it was another day at the office. Come to think of it,
Erikka mused, the screamers weren’t too different from Nadine, one
of her former bosses.

‘Tell us how you’re feeling now.” Dr. Morrow
folded her hands.

“Much better. This experience has really been
a wake- up call for me. I’ve had a chance to think about how I got
here. I wasn’t too happy about being locked up, but it gave me a
chance to reflect.” Erikka rolled out the answer that she’d
rehearsed with coaching from Terri. Part of it was true. With
nothing but time on her hands she had been thinking.

“Good. We’re not expecting miracles. As
terrible as it is to wake up in a psych unit, a crisis is an
opportunity to implement change.” Dr. Morrow nodded in
approval.

Bingo. Erikka’s smile relaxed into a more
genuine curve of her lips. Erikka congratulated herself on hitting
a home run. ‘True, true. And I want to apologize again for yelling
and being such a witch the first few days.”

“We understand. We’re all trained to deal
with people not at their best,” the flat-faced nurse supervisor put
in.

“Thanks,” Erikka replied.

“Erikka has done well in the last ten days.
She’s participated in the therapeutic groups. We’re pleased with
her progress.” The woman droned on, dripping sweetness and
light.

Erikka could have tossed the runny scrambled
eggs she’d had for breakfast right then. This nurse put on a sweet
act in front of the doctors. The woman turned into Godzilla in
cheery pink scrubs in sixty seconds flat if you violated her rules.
Still, Erikka included her in the beaming grin she showed. Both
knew they’d come to a draw in their battle of wills. Despite her
expectations, Erikka and the aides had come to have a warm
relationship after muttering, “Screw you” at each other every hour
that first day. In fact, most of the staff was cool. Brown-nose
Browning strummed on Erikka’s last nerve like she was playing a
violin. Still, Erikka would keep her tell-it-like-it-is temper in
check. She could do it just one more day.

After all, hadn’t she talked her way into one
of the top accounting firms in New Orleans three years out of
school? Hell yes. The management of a former client, a
multinational company no less, owed Erikka for pulling their rear
ends out of a crack. Their shareholders had been impressed with the
cost-cutting measures and increase in profits in her report.
Accounting was as much a creative art as oil on canvas. She
couldn’t wait to get back and defend her turf. At least three of
her colleagues were probably circling her office like buzzards. Dr.
Morrow’s voice broke into Erikka’s thoughts on getting back to
work.

“So what will you do differently now?” Dr.
Morrow pushed her designer-frame eyeglasses up on her nose.

Erikka decided to go for a little humor.
“Make friends with the local ER docs so I don’t get sent here
again.” Only LaKeisha and Erikka laughed.

Dr. Morrow put down her pen and waited.
“Seriously.”

“Ahem, seriously. I’m not going to use
alcohol as a way to cope with stress for one thing. I’ve learned
healthy ways to deal with nervous tension. My aunt Darlene over in
Loreauville is going to let me stay with her a few days. We decided
I shouldn’t jump right back into work.” Erikka gazed at Dr. Morrow
for some sign.

“Your boss suggested you take time off,” Dr.
Morrow said mildly.

Erikka tapped on the table again. Damn if
they weren’t good at reading between the lines. Obviously they knew
her explanation was a high-gloss version of the real deal. They
could at least let her keep a sliver of dignity. Lord knows she had
precious little left to work with. Still, Erikka would pull and
stretch what she had until it covered her battered ego.

“Nadine and I talked it over and both agreed
it was best for me to be out of the office for a while.” Erikka
pressed her foot down to keep her left leg from jumping.

“Right.” Dr. Morrow continued to wait.

“I want to get back to my life. Maybe it’s in
pieces right now, but more time in here isn’t going to glue it back
together.” Erikka sat straight.

“And rushing back out there to make the same
mistakes will?” the social worker asked.

“Okay, I got a little down, drank too much,
and crashed my car. All right, all right. I’d been depressed for a
few weeks,” Erikka added, when Dr. Morrow started to dispute her
description. “It was stupid, and I don’t usually do stupid things.
I was at the top of my class in college. I’m one of the best
accountants in New Orleans. Believe me, I can figure this one
out.”

“What about the charges?” Head Nurse from
Hell pursed her lips.

First offense driving while intoxicated and
reckless operation of a vehicle. The words clanged in Erikka’s
head. They’d dropped the battery on a police officer and criminal
mischief charges.

“I’ll probably get probation and suspension
of my driver’s license for six months,” Erikka replied with only a
little less pepper in her tone. She had to make more than a few
cosmetic changes in her life, their silence implied. Might as well
start with her attitude.

“I’m asking again, what are you going to do
differently?” Dr. Morrow said. The other members of the team caught
the shift in her voice. Pages stopped turning, and they all looked
at Erikka.

Good question. The psychiatrist’s composed
tone drove home a needle-sharp point that wasn’t lost on Erikka.
She’d twisted and turned some form of that question around in her
head during those early-morning hours when she couldn’t sleep. Her
latest plan had come to her with blinding clarity at three in the
morning two days ago. Under the fluorescent lighting and with four
pairs of seasoned professional eyes gazing at her, the plan was
exposed as skimpy. Erikka knew none of the coaching from Terri
would work. In fact, laying down a load of bull was not the way to
go. The troubling tickle down her back told Erikka the answer
wasn’t for them anyway. It was for her.

“I’m not sure. I mean, I could rattle off the
‘right’ answers like that.” Erikka snapped her fingers. “I had
enough tips from my roomies. Drinking is what got my ass in this
mess, excuse the language,” she added, when Beth Browning winced in
disapproval.

“We’re being for real in here,” Dr. Morrow
said. A little bit of home girl slipped out in her knowing
smile.

“I won’t be back in this or any other
hospital. I’m going to handle my problems before they handle me.”
Erikka stopped.

“Good for you,” Dr. Morrow said. “We’re going
to schedule a follow-up appointment for you. Keep it.”

“Definitely,” Erikka replied.

Dr. Morrow started writing again. Ellen and
Beth took turns giving her instructions. That was it. A few minutes
of conversation, and she was going home. Tension grabbed at her
temples. She didn’t want to end up like Terri, a veteran at talking
to psychiatrists in psycho wards around the city. Erikka went down
her mental list of changes she’d promised God she would make if he
just got her out of here. No drinking, no club crawls on school
nights, etc. Geez, she’d set the bar high. How was she going to
fill the hours? More work? Vaughn? Not Vaughn. He hadn’t called in
over a week. That queasy hollow pit in her stomach took hold
again.

“Erikka?” Dr. Morrow stared at her, head
tilted in the pose she assumed when analyzing.

Erikka blinked and stood. “Yeah, I’m fine.
Really. I’ll keep my appointment, join a depression support group,
got it.”

Terri appeared around a comer as Erikka came
down the hall from the conference room. Her shoulder-length
strawberry blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, making her look
younger than thirty-four.

“Hey, girl. How did it go?”

“Great. I’m out.” Erikka grinned at her.

‘Told you so,” Terri grinned back and hung an
arm around Erikka’s shoulder. ‘Tell ’em what they want to hear.
Works every time.”

“I told them the truth,” Erikka said.

Terri gasped in horror. “Girlfriend, never,
ever tell these people the truth. It’s one sure ticket to a long
stay.”

“I actually plan to change. Speaking of
which, you might try staying on your meds this time.”

“You’re going to change. Well, la-dee-da.”
Terri sidestepped the reference to her own behavior.

“Yes.”

“You’re going to stop getting drunk every
weekend and no more clawing your way up the career food chain.
Please.” Terri rolled her eyes.

Erikka shrugged free of Terri’s arm and
walked away. “That’s you, Terri.”

Terri’s eyebrows pulled together. “Oh,
yeah.”

“Yeah,” Erikka tossed back over her
shoulder.

“Wait just a minute, St. Erikka. You’ve got
issues, too.” Terri caught up to her.

“Thank you for that oh-so-perceptive
observation. Excuse me while I go pack.” Erikka turned left. Three
doors down was the room she shared with Terri and one other
patient.