Just A Friend: Small Town Stories Novella #3

by Merri Maywether

  Pam refused to trust her eyes. They had tricked her into thinking she could walk across a parking lot with some sense of dignity. She was not about to make the same mistake twice in such a short amount of time. Her eyes scanned the quiet and empty waiting room suspiciously. The magazines and newspapers stacked neatly on the table beside the faux leather lounge chairs confirmed her prior assessment. The E.R. was empty.

  Nancy came out from around the nurses' station and stopped when she saw Pam leaning on Jorgen for support. With a voice full of accusation, Nancy launched into the tirade Pam fully expected. “You told me you were okay.”

  Slightly annoyed with what had just happened, Pam pointed toward the door with her head. “I was until I got to the parking lot.”

  Nancy’s attention shifted as she peeked out the window. “John’s getting ready to plow as we speak.”

  Rachel, the other nurse on duty, stepped around the counter and disappeared into the triage room across the hall. Pam figured that she was getting things ready for her visit. She returned to the conversation with Nancy. “I bet they caught the fall on the security cameras.”

  Nancy’s didn’t fall for Pam’s attempt at diversion. Her eyes searched Pam’s body for signs of injury.

  “What hurts?”

  “My ego,” Pam grinned shyly. She quickly added, “I better not see footage of that fall on Facebook.”

  Jorgen guffawed.

  Nancy rolled her eyes at the joke and motioned for Pam to walk in the direction of the triage room.

  The idea of the searing pain coming back to life momentarily paralyzed Pam. Nancy had nearly reached the entrance to the room when she turned to see Pam hadn’t followed. She issued a disapproving eye raise that begged to know what it was about Jorgen that kept her friend pinned to him. Pam exhaled slowly to control her nerves and stepped away from Jorgen who she had been using as an anchor.

  Nancy’s facial expression changed with the additional information. She held up her hand in a stop motion. “Let me get a wheelchair for you.” Before Pam had a chance to respond, Nancy disappeared through the door and returned with the rolling chair. “And, I don’t want an argument.” She tapped the arm of the chair. “This will make moving around much easier.”

  Pam held onto Jorgen’s arm and stepped away from him with her strong leg. She cringed inside. The last thing she wanted was for Jorgen to see her like this. She was the type of person who helped people through their pain. Receiving help did not feel as good as giving it.

  Nancy circled to help Pam into the seat. When she was directly behind her, she locked the chair in place. Pam had barely settled into the seat when Nancy stepped on the lever to loosen the lock. With Jorgen’s parting words, “I know you’ll take good care of her,” as a cue, Nancy wheeled Pam to the triage room for the initial examination.

  They barely crossed through the triage room door when the interrogation began. “What in the name of all that’s good have you gotten yourself into?” Nancy wagged her finger at Pam. “I told you he was nothing but bad news.”

  “Nothing happened.” To Nancy’s suspicious glare she replied, “Really.” Pam tried to step out of the chair to make her way to the scale. The look in Nancy’s eyes said, “don’t bother,” so Pam returned to sitting in the chair.

  Nancy wrapped the blue blood pressure cuff around the middle of Pam’s arm. She tested the Velcro to make sure it stuck. “I wouldn’t blame you if it did. There’s something about these Montana men that makes a woman lose her mind. I should know. I married one.” She pressed on the bulb to add pressure. “Nothing happened, my foot. I can tell by the way the man is looking at you something happened.” Nancy scowled, “Your blood pressure is a little high.”

  Pam rolled her eyes.

  “What?” Nancy pleaded for an explanation.

  “Is there anything else I need to know about my poor character?” Her clothes were soaked and muddy from the fall. She was cold, and the throbbing in her ankle and shoulder were getting the best of her. “You just assumed that something happened.”

  “Describe your symptoms.” It was a classic Nancy move. Whenever she was losing an argument, she changed the subject.

  “I think I broke my ankle when I stepped out of the pickup.”

  “So, you two didn’t meet up after the brewery for some adult time?”

  “You think I’m the type of person that adult times with a person she just met?” It was more of an accusation than a question.

  Nancy shrunk. “Give a woman a break. Half the women in the next three counties would have played adult time with him.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If I weren’t happily married, I’d be one of them.”

  “You would?” Pam's mouth fell open, and she quickly closed it. Nancy had been so vehement in her dissuasion, hearing that she thought Jorgen was attractive was the last thing Pam expected.

  “If my Clark wasn’t such a cutie, definitely.” A sly grin punctuated Nancy’s nod.

  “Oh,” Pam didn’t have a retort. Instead, she offered a grin to show she accepted the peace offering from her friend. “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Too bad for you.” Nancy giggled.

  Pam joined in the laugh. It was moments like these that reminded her why they were such good friends. They didn’t have to be perfect; they just needed to be real.

  The moment passed, and Nancy returned to the examination. She poked the Pam’s shoulder and asked, “On a scale of one to ten how much did that hurt?”

  “A two.” She’d been in worse pain before. So, it wasn’t like she was lying.

  Nancy took a deep breath. “Okay. With ten being the highest, and one being you could walk out of here without any medical attention, how would you score the pain?” She took on a stoical expression that said, “I will ask the question a different way until you tell the truth.”

  Sighing in resignation, Pam grumbled, “A seven. It hurts like a seven. Are you happy now?”

  “Yes,” Nancy gave her an I got you grin. She tapped Pam on the hand and added, “Noah should be here any second.”

  Pam knew Nancy was happy he was the doctor on call. Her friend had been trying to get Pam to talk to him ever since he agreed to work with the hospital. “You mean Doctor Flynn?” Pam corrected.

  “Yes, Doctor Flynn.” Nancy winked. "I heard he has a nice bedside manner too.”

  With the air cleared between the two friends, Nancy happily wheeled Pam to Jorgen, so she could say goodbye and thank him. The two friends were so enmeshed in their conversation they didn’t realize what they were walking into until it was too late.

  Jorgen had his arms folded and rested on the nurse’s station counter. He was talking about something with Rachel. His smile connoted a familiarity that struck a jealous nerve in Pam. The friends didn’t know what led up to this point in the conversation. And it didn’t matter to Pam. She heard the dismissive tone and saw the flirty smile when he said to Rachel, “No, we are just friends. I got involved when she obviously did not know how to handle the situation.”

  A buzzing sound in her head cut off the rest of the conversation. Not once in the time they were together had Pam felt like his kindness was mercy. Hospitality, yes. Like he felt sorry for her no.

  They slept in the same couch and talked for hours. He told her all about his childhood and asked her questions about hers. She didn’t know whether to be offended at his dismissal of their time together or hurt by his perception of her. The last time a man talked about her in that tone of voice, he left her. She didn’t expect an engagement ring, but she hoped Jorgen would have spoken about her with a minor degree of fondness. Like she was a friend he enjoyed passing the time with. Similar to Mark, Jorgen had deemed her unnecessary to his future. She had no words. They left her.

  At this point, Jorgen and Rachel pulled away from their conversation to acknowledge Pam and Nancy.

  Nancy maintained her neutral nurse demeanor when she said, “We need to take her for some x-rays. I’ll get her taken care of fr
om here.”

  Pam forced herself to smile. “Once again, thank you for helping me. I appreciate it.”

  She almost got motion sickness from how quickly Nancy rolled the chair to get away from Jorgen.

  When they were far enough away to be out of ear shot, Nancy leaned in and whispered, “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  The Perfect Gift

  A broken ankle, a dislocated shoulder, and a sprained wrist won Pam a “short stay” at the hospital. At least that was what she thought the doctor said between the objections like “I’m a nurse” and “I know how to take care of myself.”

  Nancy, on the other hand, was beside herself. Behind closed curtains, she whispered her elation. “This is better than the game night I was planning. You two can get to know each other without the distraction of other people.”

  “Sure. Me. No makeup. In this lovely teal blue hospital gown.” Pam flicked at the tie that held the gown pinned at her waist. “This is the perfect situation to get to know someone.”

  “You never know.” Through a sideways glance accompanied with an elbow nudge, Nancy added, “If you saw the conversation between Noah and Jorgen earlier.” She peeked out the door and hurried back to the side of Pam’s bed. “Jorgen tried coming to the room after visiting hours. Noah told him only family and close relations were allowed past the doors.”

  Pam gasped. Did Noah overhear what Jorgen said to the nurse at the station too? The last thing she needed was the kind doctor’s pity.

  Her voice lowered so Pam had to lean in to catch what she said. “Jorgen called Noah a control freak. Noah said it didn’t matter. Jorgen had to wait until morning.” Nancy slapped the air. “I’d never seen the man that flustered. We thought we were going to have to call security to get him to leave.”

  Horror. If there were one word to describe what Pam felt it would have to be horror. She lived a life that was dull in other people’s eyes. She spent her days working with people in their later years. Her evenings consisted of watching a cooking show on television or cute cat videos on Facebook. She had received more attention from Jorgen in the past twenty-four hours than she had from any man in the past six months. Even worse, it wasn’t the hearts and flowers attention. It was the damsel in distress message. Pam was a lot of things, but a damsel was not one of them.

  The pain medication Rachel had given her a while ago started taking effect, and Pam found it difficult to push away the sleepy feeling.

  “You know I think it is more than a coincidence that Noah showed up the same week that doofus of an ex-boyfriend of yours left.” Nancy rubbed Pam’s good arm. The last thing Pam heard before nodding off was, “Life has a funny way of making things work out better than we ever expected.”

  Pam poked at the pale toast in front of her. It lacked the warmth to soften the margarine square. She had been in the hospital a little under two days, and her home beckoned for her return. The home where her own toaster faithfully gave her slightly burned toast that she enjoyed in front of the news. Perhaps it was the Styrofoam bowl they used to serve the oatmeal, or maybe it was her all around attitude—Pam’s world was gray.

  “You need to eat to keep up your strength,” Nancy who had just come in for her shift was a little more than enthusiastic to suit Pam’s mood.

  “If you were a real friend, you would have slipped me one of those donuts I know you have hidden by the ice machine,” Pam grumped.

  “Ha,” Nancy pulled a napkin wrapped around something out of her pocket and placed it on the tray in front of Pam.

  Pam’s disposition brightened a little. She pinched off a piece of the donut and threw it in her mouth. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “Knock, knock, knock.” The masculine voice came through the door before the face appeared. “Is it safe for me to come in?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  Pam noticed the button-down shirt tucked in enough to accentuate the lean abs before assigning the name to the voice. The gray Percocet induced haze she had been in for almost two days lifted. Her world wasn’t brighter, but it certainly was clearer.

  “How did I not notice how healthy you looked before?” The pain medication got the better of her, and she spoke without knowing what she said until it was too late. Her impulsive behavior ruined her chance of creating some distance between Jorgen and herself.

  Taking her compliment as a welcome, Jorgen held out a bouquet of carnations in front of him and strode closer to her bedside. “I came bearing gifts.”

  Pam sat taller and straightened the blanket to hide as much of the hospital gown as possible. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Nancy scrunched her nose like she picked up a scent that aggravated it.

  Undeterred by her cool response, Jorgen offered Nancy a fake smile, “Is there someplace I can put these?”

  “Do you want my answer to that question?” Nancy sassed.

  “C’mon now. Bedside manners.” Jorgen stepped around Nancy and set the flowers on a shelf set beneath the window. He turned to talk to Pam, “This place is harder than Fort Knox to get into.” His eyes sparkled, “How are you doing, Sunshine?”

  Pam smoothed any stray hairs that may have escaped from her ponytail. While she was happy to see him, she was also completely unprepared. Her thought strayed from the course of cooling things between them to what to do to impress Jorgen. If she knew he was visiting, she would have put on some lip balm and mascara. Something. Anything to look fresher than she felt. “What are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Jorgen pushed the bag toward her. “I come bearing gifts that will make you feel better.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Pam gushed. Her curiosity pushed forward as she strained to see through the tissue paper.

  “We kissed and you fell for me.” He grinned playfully at his joke. “I should be doing a lot more than this.”

  A friendly voice came from the doorway. “I heard your kisses were deadly. This is the first time someone is here to prove it true.” Pam was so engrossed in Jorgen's presence she hadn’t noticed Rachel had stepped into the room with a manila folder in her hand.

  Rachel waved away Jorgen’s response of laughter. “Don’t let him fool you.” She gestured toward Jorgen with the file. “This one’s a heart breaker.”

  The conversation in front of her made no sense to Pam. The last time she saw Jorgen and Rachel together, he was flirting with her.

  Jorgen wagged his finger in warning at Rachel. “Family is supposed to keep secrets. Wait until Easter. I have a couple of stories to tell on you.”

  Rachel and Jorgen were not siblings? At the mention of it, she noticed the resemblances between them. Their hair had the same auburn streaks mixed in with the brown, and their eyes had flecks of silver that caught the light.

  Nancy cleared her throat. “I have to check on a couple of other patients.”

  “That’s why I came in here,” Rachel explained. She held out the file. “I had a question.”

  Pam and Jorgen watched both women walk out of the room. When they were out of sight, he pushed the present closer to Pam, “Open it.”

  She ran her fingers along the top of the bag with letters written in faux glitter. “I’m afraid to.”

  “It’s nothing racy,” Jorgen encouraged. “Rachel helped me. She’s my closest cousin.”

  His voice took on a softer tone. “I explained to her how you wanted to be just friends and I was having a hard time with it.” His eyes softened with unsure wanting. “I still want to be more than friends.”

  Pam hoped beyond hope that she wasn’t in the middle of a prescription drug induced hallucination.

  He continued, “You see, I’m good at catching a woman’s attention. Keeping it is where I struggle.” His eyes glanced back to the spot where Rachel had been standing. “I hope you like what we chose.”

  Knowing that Rachel was his cousin was a gift in itself. Here she thought Jorgen had cast her aside when he was talking to his cousin for advice. She was never so happ
y to be wrong. Pam teased the paper out of the bag. Beneath the layers of tissue, something pink and textured caught her eye. Pam reached into the bag and pulled out the garment.

  Jorgen’s eyes brightened in anticipation.

  Pam unfolded the fabric. He had brought her fleece pajamas! Soft pajamas that covered her in all the right places. “How did you know?”

  “Rachel said warm pajamas say cozy.”

  Pam thought to herself, How did Nancy not know they were cousins? She said, “Rachel was right. This is exactly what I wanted.” Pam caressed the fabric. She wanted to be comfortable.

  “About the pajamas?”

  Was that uncertainty in his voice? “Yes, they are the perfect size, and they send the perfect message.”

  He sat a little taller, and his shoulders lowered. Until she saw him relax, Pam had no idea he was on edge. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you very much. This means more to me than you can ever understand.” And it did. Instead of unicorns, rainbows, and broken promises, he offered her his heart, warmth, and a message of stability.

  Nancy whisked into the room. “It’s time to get you to your physical therapy appointment. Up and at em, my gimpy friend.” When Pam didn’t reply she said, “Do you need me to get a wheelchair or do you want to practice with your new walker?”

  “Neither.” Pam’s heart raced, and her eyes widened in horror. The last thing she needed was for Jorgen to see her looking like she belonged in a nursing home. He’d change his mind about her.

  Jorgen covered his mouth with his hand in a poor attempt to veil his chuckle.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Pam grumbled.

  “It is so funny I may never kiss another woman ever again.” He winked. “I mean look at what happens when I do.”

  Home Where She Belongs

  When she returned from therapy, there was a cell phone on the tray beside her bed. A notification of a text message from Jorgen was on the home screen. It read, “Had to go take care of some business. Be back soon.” Her heart soared. He was coming back.