Just A Friend: Small Town Stories Novella #3

by Merri Maywether

  Pam shrugged. It made sense. Just last week she ordered some Perfectly Posh body wash from one of the patient’s daughters. She took a better look at the bottle so she could remember to buy some for Jorgen as a thank you for his kindness. After committing the green paisley pattern to memory, she squirted a dollop of shampoo in her hand and massaged her scalp with it. With the recognition of a tingling sensation, she stopped working the lather. Pam smelled a hint of mint. “What’s in this…” The room turned dark and the water pressure decreased to a drip. “That is not funny Jorgen Backman.”

  He opened the bathroom door. “It isn’t me. We lost power. There must be too much snow on the electrical lines.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she snapped. She was standing naked in a dark shower with shampoo in her hair.

  “You don’t have to believe me for it to be true. Stay here, and I’ll get a flashlight.”

  She heard him move, and the uneasiness formed a knot in her stomach. “Can’t you just stay here with me until they come back on?”

  “That could be in ten minutes or ten hours.” She heard him shuffling around the cabinets. “I have something around here somewhere.” The sound of bottles falling and Jorgen talking to himself about knowing what he was looking for being in the back did little to comfort Pam. The suds grew heavier in her head. She knew it was her imagination, but the fear that the soap would make her hair fall out forced her to rethink the situation. The instructions on the bottle said lather then rinse.

  A catalog of videos they watched in college rushed to the front of her mind. She mentally searched for the doctor’s recordings of people who hurt themselves in situations that seemed harmless until the person had to visit the emergency room. Had anyone gone in for a shampoo related scalp burn?

  “Jorgen is there anything in your shampoo that would negatively affect my scalp. Like you don’t have Rogaine or anything like that in there?”

  “Do I look like the kind of man that uses Rogaine?”

  “Maybe you don’t look like it because it works for you,” she suggested. A flash of light pierced her eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “Not looking at a beautiful woman who is unclothed,” he answered. Her hand went from shielding her eyes to pulling the shower curtain in front of her to hide from him.

  Jorgen held out the flashlight, “Hold onto this.”

  Pam accepted it without question. Jorgen bent down and reached under the sink again. “Can you shine that a little further?”

  She obliged his request.

  “There’s what I was looking for.” He pulled his hand out from the cabinet and displayed a two-liter bottle of water. “We can use this to get the shampoo out of your hair.”

  In that instance, she forgave him for peeking at her.

  “It’s going to be cold, but it’s enough to rinse it clean.”

  “I swear to God you are my hero.” She reached for the water.

  She heard the pleased grin in his voice. “Let’s hold off on the judgment until the morning. You may think differently when we have to eat jerky and canned fruit for breakfast.”

  Perfect Gentleman

  With the last of the soap being rinsed out of Pam’s hair, Jorgen passed her a towel and handed her the flashlight. “I think I have some candles in the basement. I’ll be right back.” Quicker than a wisp of steam, he was gone leaving Pam chilled, half-naked, and alone in the darkened bathroom.

  Somewhere outside the bathroom, she heard Jorgen’s footsteps descend down what she imagined were some wooden stairs. What was she going to do in the meantime? Sit on the commode and wait for him to return? Make herself a dress out of the towels he had given her? She heard the footsteps mark his return, but Jorgen did not appear as Pam expected. Filling in the silence with a logical conclusion, Pam surmised that he most likely didn’t have them in the first place and was scrambling to figure out what he was going to do to save himself some embarrassment. She sighed, this is going to be awhile.

  Pam scanned the room with the flashlight to get her bearings and found the lotion on the far edge of the sink. Because it was a brand she hadn’t recognized, she assumed it was cheap and would pump out thin. Although it lacked any definable fragrance, the moisturizer proved her assumptions wrong. It was thick and creamy. When she applied it to her arms, they quickly absorbed the liquid and felt smooth. She was not sorry to be wrong. Just as she allowed herself to be impressed with his knowledge of beauty products, she heard the changes in the house.

  A loud humming, followed by a series of clicks, preceded the lights coming back on. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and Pam had to blink a couple of times before they adjusted to the new settings. In no time, Jorgen was outside the bathroom door. “Is everything okay in there?”

  “That was lucky,” Pam answered. “I thought it was going to take hours for the electricity to return.”

  “It might,” Jorgen replied. “I just turned on the backup generator.”

  He said he was going to get a candle. Offense fought with her sense of relief. Jorgen cracked open the door just wide enough to pass some of his clothes through the gap. Pam decided that life was too short to get upset over the little things and gladly accepted the t-shirt and sweats he handed through a small opening in the door.

  She limped to the hall. Jorgen, who was slanted against the wall, with his arms crossed in front of him, greeted her with a smile of appreciation. “My clothes look good on you.” He straightened, and his normal composure returned. He held out his hand to offer her support. The old Pam would have pushed away his kindness and told him that she could do it herself. Ever since she met him, he had been the kind of man her mother wanted her to bring home. There was no reason to close herself off from him. Pam placed her hand over his and said, “Thank you.”

  Jorgen grinned and remained close beside her. “Just to warn you the generator isn’t enough to run the main heater.” He guided her down the hall to what she guessed was the guest bedroom.

  When they turned into the room, a small LED illuminated fireplace blew warm air into the room. It contradicted what Jorgen had just said. Pam tilted her face toward him. “I thought you said there wasn’t enough electricity to heat the house.”

  “There isn’t. But there is enough to power this and the electric fireplace in the living room.” And it clicked. He most likely took the heater out of his room and placed it there for her. To verify her suspicions, she asked, “Do you have one of these in your room?”

  “I’ll be sleeping on the couch.” He pressed forward to get her to the side of the bed.

  “Alone?”

  “Unless there’s someone out there that I don’t know about—yes, alone.”

  His playful grin offered nothing in the way of remorse. Pam assessed the situation. His couch was a sectional that took up the entire wall. Her parents had the same couch when she was a teenager. Every once in a while, her family spent hours on the couch for movie marathons. Mid viewing her father and mother fell asleep on different sides of the couch. There was always still enough room for Pam and her brother to lounge comfortably.

  Convention was the only thing keeping her from joining Jorgen. Quickly, she weighed the pros and cons. Pros: they’d have more time to get better acquainted. Cons: her back looked forward to the mattress. Her heart told her back to shut up.

  “What if I joined you,” she suggested. “The couch is big enough for the both of us. I could take one end, and you would have the other.

  A devious sparkle in Jorgen’s eyes changed his facial expression. He rubbed his chin as though he were considering the situation. Through the sweetest crooked smile, she had ever seen, he asked, “What if your invitation is just a clever ploy to seduce me?”

  If Pam wasn’t so banged up, it might have been.

  Good Morning

  Jorgen and Pam nestled under the covers on opposite ends of the couch. She watched him sleep with his hand still tucked under his head and wondered who nodded off first. The last t
hing she remembered was him explaining how he blew it with Gina. “We were friends, and I took for granted that she’d always be there.” He seemed more remorseful about losing her friendship than seeing her with another man. His honesty with himself and her touched Pam.

  The quiet rhythm of Jorgen’s breathing ushered a flow of memories from home. What were her parents doing? They’d freak out when she told them she ruined her pickup. Her father pressed for her return in the last conversation they shared. He insisted that it was time for her to go back to Oklahoma where she belonged. Something in her gut argued otherwise. She needed to be in Ashbrook for something important. Until last night she had no idea why.

  Jorgen’s eyes flickered before fully opening. A slight curve on the edges of his lips formed a smile. He turned to see her watching him. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  His voice, rich with sleep, sent a jolt of electricity to Pam’s heart. She was in love with the small town bad boy. Except, he wasn’t the villain Nancy and Amanda warned her about. He was a man who tried and failed, who thought the best of people and missed his father who died when Jorgen was ten.

  “I didn’t say anything to embarrass myself?” He pushed the covers aside and set his feet on the floor. His eyes wandered toward the window.

  They couldn’t see through the blinds. If the absence of wind was any indication, the storm had passed. Pam watched him shuffle toward the window. He whistled. “That’s quite a bit of snow.”

  She shoved the covers aside and hurried to get off the couch to join him. When she stood, sharpness radiated through her ankle. Pam’s breath hitched.

  Jorgen turned around to face her. “You okay?”

  “Yes, it’s just a little sore.” She wasn’t looking forward to the day after aches that were sure to come from being jostled in the pickup. The spot on her shoulder where the seat belt held her down was tender too.

  Satisfied by her answer, Jorgen returned to the window. “I need to get out there to plow the road.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Pam asked.

  “With my tractor of course.”

  A white carpet of snow covered everything for as far as the eye could see. Pam wished she had her cell phone to capture the image. The landscape was a winter wonderland.

  “As soon as we get the road plowed, we can check on your house,” Jorgen promised. “Glenn called and said it was safer if you use the back door.”

  “Glenn talked to you? How did he know to call you?” She had slept so hard she didn’t hear the phone ring or Jorgen’s conversation with Glenn.

  “Claire called Glenn and told him that you were here with me. He and I have done some projects together, so he had my number. I meant to tell you, but I fell back to sleep.”

  A call interrupted their conversation. Pam tried to not listen. Sam’s voice was so loud on the other end; it was like he was in the room with them. Jorgen and Sam planned out which roads to plow. After that, another call came through, and he was talking with someone else about pretty much the same thing. Somewhere between the calls, she used his phone to call Nancy at the hospital to let her know that she was okay.

  “I drove by your house on the way to work.” Nancy didn’t sound pleased, “Claire told me where you were.” Through the phone lines, Pam heard her friend’s disapproval. “Why didn’t you stop by the hospital to get yourself checked out.”

  “So, I could pull Noah out of bed to tell me to take some ibuprofen and ice.” Nancy tried every trick in the book to convince Pam there was a love connection in the works for Pam and Noah. More than once her well-intentioned friend mentioned, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mark broke up with you the same day Noah arrived in town.”

  “That’s exactly why you should have come here,” Nancy replied. “I bet after a little TLC you two would get along fine.”

  Pam rolled her eyes. Her friend was among the list of nurses who were terrible patients. Nancy shouldn’t have been surprised by Pam’s hesitance to visit. “How about this, I’ll have Jorgen bring me by later this afternoon, and you’ll see that I’m okay.”

  “Where are you staying tonight?” Nancy pressed for information.

  “Glenn called Jorgen and said the house was okay. So, I’ll be home tonight.”

  “Alone?”

  “Can we talk about this when I get there?” Up until now, Pam appreciated Nancy’s protective tone. She smiled awkwardly at Jorgen who feigned ignorance of the conversation by acting like she pulled him out of a thought. Pam handed him his phone.

  Jorgen placed the phone in his shirt pocket. “I suspected Nancy was one of my biggest fans. She and I go back a long way too. I remember her before she was married to Clark.”

  “Was she different?” Pam was intrigued.

  “Sadly, no,” Jorgen chuckled. “She’s always been a little uptight.”

  Agreeing with Jorgen’s assessment, Pam joined in the chuckle. Her friend meant well. But sometimes, she took things a little too far. Pam was forty-two years old for Pete’s sake. If she spent the night doing adult things, which she hadn’t, that was her business. She had half a mind to not visit the hospital. However, the other half thought of how Nancy’s feelings would be more hurt than angry if Pam didn’t stop by. She wanted to be independent, not spiteful. So, it was off to the hospital when they were done plowing.

  For the remainder of the ride, Jorgen mentioned things she’d never remember. He’d point at something on the dashboard of the tractor and say, “This keeps track of the miles on the GPS system. If I wanted a record of what I plowed today, it would send the map with details like how much fuel I used and how long it took me to cover the distance.”

  After that, Pam vaguely understood that he used it to track his progress during the farming season. Jorgen was so proud of his equipment she didn’t bother asking him to explain what he meant. She just smiled and hoped her appreciation for what he said came through.

  If anyone were to ask, she would have complained that the time it took to plow the roads passed faster than she preferred. The ride to the hospital was even quicker. She watched Jorgen walk around the front of the pickup. Pam feared that this was going to be the last time she saw him for a while. She didn’t have a phone to be able to exchange numbers. And, if Nancy had her way, Pam’s free time would be taken up on miscellaneous projects and community activities.

  Jorgen opened the door and held it securely for Pam to step out into the snow-crusted parking lot. He held out another hand for her to keep her balance. “It’s slippery out here.” She looked down at her running shoes. They had some tread, but not enough to catch her balance if she slipped in the snow.

  Pam took hold of his hand and tested each step before committing to the next. When she was five steps away from the pickup, she stopped to face Jorgen. “Thank you so much for your help. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there to help me.”

  People said the same thing to her several times. Pam gracefully received the appreciation. Until now, she didn’t understand the depth of the statement. While she knew there were other alternatives to resolving the issues from the night prior, none came to mind.

  Before Pam lost her confidence, she stood on her tiptoes and quickly kissed Jorgen on the lips. Feeling proud for doing something out of her comfort zone, she released his hand and motioned to go to the hospital entrance.

  Jorgen gripped her hand and gently pulled on her arm. Pam’s body seemed to work on pure instinct. She rotated and pressed her body against his. Jorgen cupped her cheeks with his hand and kissed her.

  A surge of energy traveled through Pam’s body. If she weren’t in the snow-covered parking lot, she would have sworn she had been struck by lightning.

  At the same time, he softened the kiss, Jorgen caressed Pam’s cheek with the back of his hand. The gentle touch removed some of the harshness of being separated. “You’re going to go in there to Nancy. And, she’s going to try to talk you out of seeing me again.”

  Pam swall
owed and nodded. She had to hand it to him; he knew what he was up against.

  “I hope I’ve changed your opinion on the matter.” He offered her a gentle grin.

  Her heart threw out a little high five with her head that pictured a future with them walking hand in hand through the fields of wheat. She said, “It does.”

  “Good answer.”

  Pam straightened and braced herself for the discussion she was about to have with Nancy. In her mind, she was going to walk toward the hospital with a little pep in her step. When she reached the door, she’d turn around and wave her goodbye.

  However, Pam’s vision hadn’t taken the snowy conditions into consideration. On the first step away from Jorgen, her foot slid. It wasn’t one of those safe slides either. Her foot traveled in a forward direction. Even worse, it didn’t care that her body wasn’t in agreement. Before she had the time to recover, Pam’s legs split apart, and her trajectory shifted in a downward direction that exceeded the law of gravity. Her body tried to recover. Arms flailed, her back contorted, and her knees buckled. In a feeble attempt to save herself she reached out for Jorgen’s extended hand. But it was too late. She was too far into the fall. The next thing that came into her field of vision was the gray sky above them.

  Jorgen’s concerned face appeared. “Are you alright?”

  “Other than my dignity being smashed somewhere in that fall, I’m fine.” Pam rolled over to stand, and her body set out to prove her a liar. Her wrist couldn’t hold the weight of her body. A throbbing sensation began in her shoulder, and she could only imagine the words her ankle would use if it could talk. She groaned and offered a feeble smile. “One day this will be funny.”

  You Look Different

  Except for the humming from all the equipment, the emergency room was quiet. It was as if the residents of Larkspur County had a gauge that determined when it would be a good time to have a traumatic injury.