Frozen Stiff by Annelise Ryan

even another whole solar system.
    The hell with him, I decide. Screw him, David, and all the other men in the world who possess the ability to manipulate my hormones and complicate my life. I mean really, why do I need a man in my life anyway? To fix things around the house? Clearly not, since David is about as inept at those things as a man could be and I can always hire a handyman. For sex? Well, that part is nice but there are plenty of other ways to find satisfaction, maybe even the aforesaid handyman. Children? Thanks to sperm banks and recent advances in modern reproductive science, I don’t need a man for that either.
    The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I’m on to something. The whole idea of giving up men is oddly liberating; it makes me feel giddy and determined. By the time I reach the hospital, I’ve made up my mind. It’s time to reevaluate my life, reexamine my goals, and focus on myself without any men in the picture. I am Mattie renewed, version two-point-oh, the latest and greatest release.
    After parking the hearse, I open my to-go container and chomp down on a slice of buttery garlic bread. The delicious mix of soft, yeasty, still-warm bread, tangy garlic, and fresh butter is enough to make my toes curl with delight.
    Damn, but Hurley can cook! Maybe it’s too soon to give up on him altogether. I mean we have shared a few kisses that were hot enough to be a threat to global warming, and it was me he kept asking for when he was drugged up in the hospital. Surely all that meant something, didn’t it?
    I realize how desperately I want to believe in Hurley—to believe in me and Hurley—and already I’m rethinking my antiman dogma.
    Way to go, Mattie, I mumble aloud . It took you, what, all of two minutes to fall off your fanatical feminist pedestal?
    But I can’t help myself. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that Hurley feels something for me. The question is what? I’m pretty certain he feels some level of attraction, but is it enough? Did I scare him away? Given his current situation, is it possible he’s just leading me on? Stringing me along to make me a happy follower so he can further his own agenda?
    It’s clear I’m not going to get any answers tonight so I shove the thoughts to the back of my mind and get out of the car, dragging my pedestal and the sad remnants of my membership card in the feminists’ club along with me. Fortunately I have a death to look into, something I find much easier to deal with than men.

Chapter 7
    A fter popping a couple of Tic-Tacs to mask my garlic breath, I make my way into the ER at a little after six. The waiting room is fairly crowded and as I scan the occupants with a habitual eye toward triage, I don’t see anyone who looks critically ill, just miserable. Most of the folks are coughing, sneezing, and snotting all over the furniture and one another, ensuring the sharing and survival of whatever nasty little virus is dominating this year’s flu season.
    The gal behind the registration desk recognizes me and buzzes me into the back patient care area, where things are hopping. Every bed is full. I hear some poor soul barfing up his toenails in one room, and the screams of a miserable child in another. The nurses are all running about in a carefully choreographed dance of controlled chaos. I know from my own years working here that the arrival of the PNB most likely turned what might have been a merely busy shift into one that is now a mad and desperate scramble to catch up.
    I make my way to the nurse’s desk, where I see Ricky “Rickets” Masterson standing in front of a full rack of charts. ER nurses have a habit of referring to patients not by their name, but by their bed number and diagnosis. So instead of John Doe, Bob Jones, and Susan Smith you get the Pancreatitis in Room Four, the Bowel Obstruction in Room Two, and the Bitch-On-Wheels Hypochondriac in Room Six. Several years ago when I worked in the