And Then We Fall

by Bryce Taylor

  Thankfully they do, but before we go to bed Katie hugs me and tells me to remember that I deserve to be happy.

  Chapter 2

  My days quickly settle into routine, day shift at the hospital Tuesday to Saturday is the same old, same old. Coffee, toast, a walk on the beach, nine hours at the hospital, followed by dinner with Diarmuid and Katie and a few glasses of wine. Repeat.

  Sundays are the highlight. The first Sunday we laze on the beach, walk the cliff tops and join in the singing at our local Irish bar.

  The second Sunday we take the train to the mountains and go for a walk in the most beautiful place, all grey green trees and warm eucalyptus and it fills a hole in my heart that I'd never known I had.

  Monday's are quiet bliss. I read. I write. I wander the streets. I watch terrible day time television. I nap. I cook elaborate meals for Katie and Diarmuid.

  I slowly feel my self-confidence seeping back into me, the slow drip of the warmth of happiness heating my bones. The reassurance of physical distance from my wounds. I still find it hard to talk to people I don't know, the simple interactions at the supermarket or on the bus filling me with dread. That one morning with Leigh walking from the carpark to the nurse’s office the longest conversation with a stranger I've had so far outside of necessary conversations with colleagues and patients. I don't know why I was so readily able to talk to her or why I can't stop thinking about her.

  Gradually every hour I spend with Diarmuid and Katie reminds me that I am worth being around. That when I open my mouth and words come out that people do value them, that I am not being a nuisance.

  The third week comes around with sudden speed and I still haven't run into Leigh again. I barely think about her at all now, except for in the mornings when I walk through that car park, four blocks out of my way, and can't help but look to see if her unmistakable, only one in the country, deep red Maserati is parked there. I've seen it but twice and I can't work out if she doesn't work here at the times I do, drives another car or parks somewhere else. Both times a slight skip of excitement that I might see her, that if I walk the long way around to my ward via the surgical unit I may just run into her.

  I slowly make friends at work, people I lunch with but don't bring home. There is an easy camaraderie here that reminds me of Ireland but home is for Katie and Diarmuid and I don't yet want to share them with anyone.

  It doesn't take me long to become a connoisseur of coffee. It is good and plentiful here and I play the field until I find one shop that is just right. Just far enough from the hospital to be blessedly free of colleagues, great coffee, chairs that embrace a tired back and few chapters of a good book. Wednesday morning I'm engrossed in the comfort of the unknowable Finnegan's Wake for the fourth time, halfway through a flat white when I hear the unmistakably patrician voice of Leigh, ordering a peppermint tea of all things.

  Her back is to me, but I know that when she turns she will see me. My heart is hammering and I can't decide if I should hide behind my book and pretend I don't see her or make a run for it.

  Unfortunately, I still haven't made up my mind when she turns around and catches me staring at her, a startled rabbit in headlights. She is dressed much as she was on that first day, jeans that are slightly baggy on her slender legs, scuffed work boots and an immaculate white tee. Her aviators are hooked into her shirt, the weight of them pulling the crew neck down to expose an area of paler skin that I can't keep my eyes off.

  She looks at me for a moment, as if trying to place me before a look of recognition passes across her face.

  "Aednat," she says smiling ever so slightly. "Hi."

  She stands there in front of my table, holding the pot in one hand and cup in the other. When I don't say anything, because my brain has literally stopped working, she looks awkwardly around for an empty table.

  There are none.

  She looks down at my book.

  "Oh, James Joyce?" she says in a tone of appreciation.

  "Oh, uh, you like James Joyce?" I say relieved. I can talk about literature at least, there is a safe subject.

  She breaks into a smile and my heart leaps as if she has taken my hand and kissed it.

  Feck.

  "No," she laughs, "not at all, it was just the first thing I could think of to say, I don't really get to read much in the way of novels, you know?"

  She pauses again when I still don't say anything.

  "And you weren't saying anything, which kind of threw me, you know? I could get a word in last time. I, uh, I thought you might let me sit here?" she asks looking embarrassed now.

  "Oh, right, feck, yes, of course, you can sit here," I say my cheeks aflame, hurriedly trying to push my phone and coffee out of the way, sloshing some of the coffee into the saucer.

  She sits gracefully down, sliding into the chair opposite me, placing her pot and cup just so, adjusting the handle to be at exactly the right angle. I watch her pour the tea with a practised economy as if she doesn't want to waste any effort and yet still the tea must be poured to exacting specifications. Her long fingers wrap around the tea cup, resting it in her hand as if she just wants to draw the heat from the porcelain.

  I notice how tired she looks, dark rings under her eyes and she is blinking lazily as if she can't keep her eyes open. I wonder how many hours she has just worked.

  "I don't think I introduced myself," she says eventually, sounding unaccustomed to making small talk, "I'm,"

  "Leigh," I interject.

  She looks pleased that I know her name. That she looks pleased makes my blushes come back, much to my abject horror.

  Damn my pale Irish skin.

  "Gloria," I tell her blandly in answer to her unspoken question about how I know her name.

  She groans and looks away, rubs her eyes with the tips of her fingers.

  "She has a bit of a crush on you, you know?" I tell her teasingly, "there isn't anything Dr Grenfell can't do according to Gloria. "

  "Oh, good god," she says laughing in embarrassment, "I can't even go there, I owe her far too much."

  She pauses for a moment, pressing her fingertips into her eyes before looking back to me.

  "You know when I started she was my surgical nurse and she got the nurses on my side when every last surgeon in this hospital thought I was a trouble-making bitch, she stopped me from making mistakes in the ER, called me in to operate when no one would take on the hopeless cases, brought me dinner when I didn't have time to eat and she'd even find me an empty bed to sleep in when I was too tired to make it home," she explains in a rambling monologue.

  She lets out a long breath.

  "I really miss her in surgery, it's not the same without her," she says ruefully, "although she does still bring me a casserole sometimes. "

  Oh, bless. I can see why the nurses love her.

  "Do I want to know what else Gloria told you about me?" she asks with a wince.

  "Oh, gosh, she told me practically everything about you, you know, your age," I tell her, smirking now and starting to tick things off on my fingers, "where you live, your dating history, career highlights, personality traits."

  She is looking half-sceptical, half-horrified.

  "So, the time you accused Dr Taxil of not been able to organise a fuck in a whorehouse? True?" I ask to prove my inside knowledge.

  She looks heavenward and groans.

  "Gloria would never have told that story," she tells me disbelievingly.

  "True," I say, "but the other nurses in admin weren't so discrete. So? Is it true?"

  Leigh looks out the window for a long moment before returning her gaze to me.

  "Ok, it's true," she says reluctantly, then she laughs and I’m smiling back at her because her laugh is contagious. "I was a lot less diplomatic in those days."

  She thinks about it for a second.

  "I was just really annoyed about everything in the place then," she says making a face.

  "And now you are all calm and diplomatic?" I ask dubiously, aft
er all some of those stories weren't so long ago.

  "Well," she drawls looking abashed, "I still have a bit of work to do on that front."

  She takes a tiny sip of her tea, stretches out her long-booted legs under the table.

  "Do you come here often?" I ask her.

  She shrugs noncommittally.

  "It's a good place to go to not run into other doctors," she says and her blue eyes are dancing with mirth.

  "Why do I get the feeling you are going to tease me about this forever?" I ask her, wanting to take her hands in mine, caress those long fingers that I can't stop staring at.

  "Forever is an awfully long time," she says smiling and just like that my heart throws in its lot with hers. I can feel it tugging in my chest, wanting me to make something happen.

  "Does this mean we are friends?" she asks endearingly when I don't say anything, struck mute by my feelings for her.

  "Yes," I say simply, our eyes connected with a physicality that is impossible to break.

  She smiles at me and we sit in silence for a long moment until I feel my cheeks starting to burn again and I look away out the window, trying to think of something to say.

  "So how are you finding Sydney?" she asks into the silence.

  "Oh, it's lovely, the beach, the weather, practically everything," I say and stop, realising I'm gushing. I take a cautious look up at her to see if she thinks I'm an idiot.

  "Yeah, it is nice here," she says, not seeming to notice my embarrassment, "there are some great beaches, have you been up to the northern beaches? Although you really need a car to get out there, the buses aren't great."

  "I don't have a car," I say smiling and then add in a needling voice, "but you know Gloria says that you lend out your car?"

  "Hey, you are totally welcome to borrow it," she says immediately with a grin.

  That definitely wasn't the answer I was expecting. My ex barely liked to have me sit in the passenger seat, the thought of me driving it would have made him have kittens, despite the fact we were living together and he was happy for me to cook his dinner and do his washing. The thought of me using his car when he wasn't around doesn't even bear thinking about.

  "You are kidding right?" I ask. "Don't you have some crazy imported Maserati?"

  As if I don't know exactly what car she drives.

  "You know what car I drive?" she asks looking incredulous.

  "I told you, Gloria," I explain.

  "Jesus, did you really just sit around talking about me all morning?" she asks, looking down, twisting her cup in her hands.

  "Pretty much, all the nurses were quite happy to give me all the details. So, seriously you would let me drive your car?" I ask, amused at the very idea of this ludicrous idea.

  "Sure." She seems serious.

  "Now?"

  "Sure, as long as you are happy to drive me home first?" she asks.

  "Bullshit," I tell her, still smiling at this implausibility.

  She grins at me and reaches into her back pocket and casually tosses me a set of keys, I fumble, drop them, hurriedly pick them up again as if they might become sullied by lying on the table.

  "You can't just go handing over your car keys to random strangers," I squeak.

  "I thought we were friends," she says smiling into my eyes.

  "We are," I say my stomach flip-flopping, "but that is a very expensive car."

  She shrugs.

  "It's just stuff," she says shrugging matter of factly, "and it's kind of expected. You weren't kidding about surgeons and their cars."

  "So, you don't even like it?" I ask incredulously.

  "Oh, fuck no, I didn't say that," she says emphatically with a grin. "I love that car, when you take it out for a spin you'll see, it goes like a bat out of hell, and the cornering, oh my god, you'll never want to drive another car again."

  I laugh, the keys resting heavy in my hand. They look fancy, all gold and matt black with the Maserati crest on the fob.

  "Maybe some other time," I say passing the keys back to her, my fingertips just brushing hers causing a tingle to spread through my fingers, across my palm, down my wrist and up my elbow.

  "Have you been over to Manly yet?" she asks, "there is a great walk out to the Spit that is definitely worth doing. Plus, you get there on the ferry which is fun."

  "Oh, Diarmuid said that was a beautiful walk," I say eagerly, "I love wandering around town, checking out the scenery."

  "Diarmuid?" she asks curiously.

  "He's my flatmate, I live with my friends from college, Katie and Diarmuid," I tell her.

  "Oh, I," she trails off.

  "You thought he was my boyfriend?" I ask smiling.

  She shrugs looking uncomfortable, but curious despite herself.

  "I'm not really interested right now," I tell her, "I'm still getting over the last one."

  I should tell her that it's just guys I'm not really interested in right now. That girls are a whole different story, that there is one girl I'd like to get to know and maybe even ask out on a date. Her expression has changed with my answer, her face clearing as if she is happy to hear it, as if she wants to know that I'm not available. I really do not want to get involved with another bloody workaholic doctor, despite what my heart is telling me.

  "How about you?" I ask, hoping that she really is single despite that thought.

  "I thought Gloria gave you the down low on my dating life?" she says mockingly.

  "Yeah, she said you don't really date?" I ask questioningly.

  "It's true," she says making a face, "I don't have time for dating, I don't think I could have a goldfish at the moment."

  "You want to date a goldfish?" I ask deadpan, "I think you could find time for that."

  She laughs and I hope that I can make her laugh all the time, that I can hear the sound over and over again.

  I realise suddenly that I only have a few minutes before my shift starts and if I don't get going I'm going to be even later that I already will be.

  "I've got to go," I tell her regretfully, "but I usually have a coffee here every day I work, so sometime around eight Tuesday to Saturday."

  Leigh regards me seriously as if she is aware that I'm gifting her my part of my freedom, that I'm telling her I'll wait here for her every day.

  "I don't have set hours, but when it ends up I'm still here by eight in the morning I will see you here," she promises, electric blue eyes on mine.

  "How often does that happen?" I ask, reassessing her tired eyes. No wonder she looks exhausted if she is regularly working eighteen hours straight.

  She shrugs.

  "It goes with the job," she says dismissively.

  Then she smiles, clearly despite my first impressions she is unable to keep a serious face for long.

  "Did I mention I have a very nice car?" she adds drolly.

  "In which case I'll stick to the bus," I tell her.

  "Good plan," she says.

  Chapter 3

  The next day I arrive at the coffee shop twenty minutes earlier than normal, nervous and excited. I can't help but feel stupid, knowing in my head that she isn't going to be there, knowing that it's just the same as Warren all over again. Where I am forever hopeful, forever waiting, wishing that he would think I was worth the time, dinners going cold, going to sleep alone, being stood up for dates, being the only one in the relationship that cared.

  Never again, I promise myself. Tomorrow I will go to a different coffee shop. I don't have to do this again. My time is worth equally as much as hers, regardless of how sexy she is and how perfect her smile is and that when she looks at me I melt a little inside.

  Jesus, Aednat.

  A bell above the door rings as I step inside the cafe and I'm still berating myself for being such a loser.

  Only Leigh is already sitting at the same table I was at yesterday, at the chair opposite mine and she is turning and smiling, looking delighted to see me. She half waves as if I might miss her sitting there, glowing in the m
orning light, beauty incarnate.

  I suddenly am not sure how to walk as she looks at me, my feet numbly scuffing the floor one in front of the other. She gets up and hugs me and I stand stiffly in her arms, drinking in the vanilla smell of her hair for a brief second, feeling her hands press on my back. The bump of cheeks, soft skin brushing and then nothing.

  "Hiya," I say inadequately, "you are here."