"Girl what happened in here?" She asked Jes as she retrieved her
early morning messages from her inbox.
"Oh," Jes said still thinking,
"Mr. Edgewater, he must have passed out
or something 'cause the paramedics took him to the hospital."
"They took Marvin to the hospital?" Tanya said surprisingly.
"Yeah, and Mr. Maguire asked me to clean out his office because he
requested a permanent leave of absence."
"I guess it all finally caught up with him," Tanya said sympathetically.
"What finally caught up with him?"
"His lifestyle, my former lifestyle, all Bi-sexual or homosexual people's
lifestyles."
"What are you talking about Tanya?" Jes asked with curiosity.
"Jes, do you always see only the surface of things?"
"What are you talking about? Just talk english to me please."
"Are you telling me that you didn't know about Marvin?"
"Know what about Marvin?"
"Girl, Marvin is one of the most successful Bi-sexual attorneys in
California. Where have you been?"
"Bi-sexual?" Jes said in a soft tone as she gazed into space.
"Yes, Bi-sexual. Rumor has it that a few years ago he contracted HIV
from a client that he tried a case for in San Francisco. They say that it
takes a little time before it begins to take over you body. I guess it was
just time for it to take over Marvin's body."
"Does anyone know for sure if he had it or not?"
"I think Mr. Maguire and a few of Marvin's colleagues knew. He
wasn't like a lot of Bi-sexual men who kept it in the closet. He was up
front with it; he let you know what his situation was. You had to respect
him for that."
"That's just what you heard right? How do you know that he was up
front with his illness?"
Jes said defending her violation.
"Yeah, that's just what I heard. Why are you getting up tight, you act
like you were in love with him or something?"
"Later for you, I have work to do," Jes said as she returned to her
work.
Jes sat for a moment thinking of all that she had just taken in. The
blinking light on her phone reminded her that she hadn't checked her
messages for the day. Still thinking, she picked up the phone and
punched in her secret password.
She listened to the machine tell her
that she had one new message that was sent internally over the
weekend. Jes listened to a mysterious voice tell her to open her file
cabinet and look for a file marked San Francisco, then the call ended.
Jes looked as instructed and found a red folder with a sealed envelope as
the only contents. She looked at the envelope for a minute before
opening it.