“Things are okay, I guess. Pledging Tri Beta was definitely the right decision for me. Nursing school is challenging, but I’m pretty sure my studies will mean more to me after having spent the summer working in the ER.”
“Are you still planning to reapply to UNC?” she asked.
“I’m still thinking about it. Applications aren’t due until January, so I still have plenty of time to decide.”
“You know your father would be more than happy to use his connections.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “And this time, I promise not to interfere.”
I smiled at my mom. “I appreciate the offer, but if I decide to reapply and I get accepted, I want it to happen on my own merit.”
She cupped my chin in her hand. “I’m very proud of you, you know. I’ll be the first to admit I misunderstood you. I underestimated your abilities, Katherine. You’re a lovely, mature young woman and you will make a fine nurse. Or doctor, if you are so inclined.” She pulled her hand away. “Now tell me about Emma. It seems as though I might have misjudged her as well.”
I rolled my eyes. “Everyone misjudges her, Mom. It’s all in the way she operates.”
“How so?”
I sat up straighter in my chair. “Okay . . . well, here’s a hypothetical situation to use as an example. It would be so like Emma to walk out on this beach right now and invite us to do something really fun and cool, and we’d go along with her because we wouldn’t be able to resist her charm and coercion. Then, while we’re doing this really awesome thing, she’d flatter us into thinking we’re the only people on the planet, her best friends. And before we knew what had happened, we’d be tangled back up in her web.”
Mom put her manicured hand over her mouth as she laughed. “Looks like you’ve got her number.”
“Finally. But I fell under her spell many times before I was able to recognize the real Emma.”
“And you’re rooming with her again?”
“Yep. I’m stuck with her.” I dug a shell out of the sand and hurled it into the water. “There’s something I never told you about Emma.” As gently as I could, I explained how Emma had lied to the sorority during rush and how her father was serving time for distributing heroin.
She scrunched her brow together. “That’s unspeakable. So her father was never an English professor?”
“Nope. He was a janitor and his cleaning closet was his office.”
Mom clenched her jaw, her eyes full of anger. “Do you think word got out about this? You know, throughout the Chi Delta house?”
“Not if Honey Mabry had anything to do with it. She is all about keeping this a secret to avoid tarnishing the reputation of the sorority.”
“Honey Mabry knows about this?”
I thought back to my first night on campus when Emma and I met Honey in the women’s bathroom at the KO house. “Look, Mom, Honey is not an innocent party in all this. She shunned Emma from the very beginning. She used her sources to dig around until she found something she could use against her.”
My mother turned her head away from me and used the edge of her towel to blot away the tears. I reached over and gave her arm a squeezed. For the next few minutes, as she pulled herself together, we watched a father tow his young son and daughter tubing behind their boat. Their mother was riding in the passenger seat, holding on tight to her straw hat, while the father drove around in circles, doing donuts. Neither of us said as much, but we were both reminded of our family, once upon a time.
“I’ve been wrong about so many things. You must think I’m a fool,” she said, sniffling.
“In some ways, Mom, I’m as much to blame as anyone. I should’ve told you right after rush about Emma. Even before, when I knew she was using you to get sorority recommendation letters.”
“Only because you knew I wouldn’t listen to you.”
“Still, that’s no excuse.”
Mom pulled a tissue from her bag and blew her nose. “Since I’ve screwed everything else up in such a big way, I’m looking to you for guidance. We have to do something to help Ben get away from Emma. Maybe we can stage an intervention or something, with you and me and Daddy, maybe Spotty and Reed.”
“It won’t work. We’ve already tried.”
Mom and I caught sight of Dad and Ben coming toward us in the boat. When Ben held up a string of flounder, we gave him a thumb’s-up and cheered.
I turned back to my mother. “Anyway, Ben says it’s over between them. He realizes how controlling and manipulative Emma is. He was obsessed with her, not in love with her.”
“Do you think it would help if I had a talk with him?”
“You can try, but Ben is not a three-year-old boy. You can’t smack his hand and tell him to stay away from Emma because he might get burned. She’s a college kid in heat, not a hot burner on the stove.”
I watched the tension drain from her body. “So we do nothing?”
I nodded. “And let him figure this out himself. He seems to have grown up a lot this summer. All we can do is hope he stays away from Emma when we go back to school. But if he starts seeing her again, we will stay close to him, keep our finger on his pulse.”
“In other words, we sit and wait and hope disaster doesn’t strike?”
I shrugged. “Welcome to my world.”
Nineteen
I loved the idea of Archer and Spotty as a couple, Ben’s best friend and mine, two compassionate people who were always taking care of others—but he’d been monopolizing her time all summer. Archer and I agreed to a girls’ night out, one last hurrah before we committed ourselves to round-the-clock studying. Unfortunately, the only time we were both available was two days before classes started at UVA. I sent Ben to Charlottesville ahead of me, and because second-year students are allowed to keep their cars on campus, I drove up the next day on my own.
By the time I got there, Ben and Emma were already back together.
I must admit, I was happy to see them. It was a hundred and ten degrees outside, I had a hangover, and the two of them were eager to help me unload my car. Even so, it brought back unpleasant memories of move-in day a year ago. I couldn’t help but wonder if the situation were an omen of another bad year to come.
Emma and I had been assigned to an apartment-style suite we were to share with Phoebe and Carla in Bice House, a building designated for sophomores and juniors with all the modern conveniences the dorms for first-year students lacked. Our apartment had two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchenette, and a large living area. Like our old dorm, the bedrooms were small with cinderblock walls and a tiled floor, but Bice offered a fitness center and game room on the first floor, and playing fields and tennis courts on the grounds behind the building. Not to mention the most important feature of all—air conditioning.
It wasn’t until Emma went to the bathroom that I had an opportunity to be alone with Ben. “What in the hell are you doing with her? Are you insane?” I whispered.
“Relax, Kitty. I’m a changed man. I can handle it.”
“No man can handle that,” I said, gesturing toward the bathroom door. I started to walk away from him, but turned back around. “At least promise me you’ll stay in touch this time.”
“Deal,” he said, holding his hand out to shake on it. “And to prove I mean it, if you want, we can go back to having brunch on Sundays.”
I took his hand in mine and gave it a firm squeeze. “Fine, but I’m warning you, I have a bad feeling about this.”
During the frequent trips to my car, Emma told me all about her summer in Texas. Apparently, her seven-and nine-year old-cousins, Sally and Lena, were total brats. But she’d earned a fortune driving them around to their friends’ houses and to their country club for swim-team practice and tennis lessons. She’d even gone on a weeklong vacation with them to Hawaii and stayed at the Ritz Carlton on Maui.
Emma slammed the hatchback shut on my VW bug and waved to Ben as he drove off in my car, moving it from the unloading zone to a permanent parking spa
ce. “Life is sweet for my aunt and her family. Unlike my mother, she had the good sense to marry a smart man, a man who’s made a fortune from drilling for oil in the Gulf. See that white Lexus over there?” She pointed to a small SUV, the kind I always thought looked like an egg on wheels. “My aunt gave it to me.”
I glanced at the car and then did a double take. “Wait a minute. She gave it to you?”
“Yep. She decided to get a sedan, and knowing my parents can’t afford to buy me a car, she gave me her Lexus. Can you believe that?”
I shielded my eyes from the sun so I could see the SUV. “It looks brand-new.”
“It’s not. It’s five years old.” Emma picked up two of my duffle bags and headed for our building. I grabbed the last of my things and followed her.
“What about insurance?” I asked, catching up with her. “It must cost a fortune on a car like that.”
“Uncle Hollis is paying for it,” Emma said, holding the door open for me.
An image of Emma providing sexual favors for Uncle Hollis popped into my mind. If Emma’s aunt was her mother’s younger sister, then Hollis could still be in his early forties, which meant he might be hot. But if the sister was older, he was probably pushing fifty or maybe even fifty-five like my parents. Ancient. Gross. Either way, it was not quite incest because they weren’t biologically related. But still.
“Seriously?” I asked as I started up the stairs. “He’s paying for your insurance?”
“Yep, but only if I promised to go back to Houston next summer to nanny for the girls. I mean, twist my arm. They’re taking Sally and Lena to Australia and they asked me to go with them.”
“Sounds like a sweet deal.” I dumped my bags on my bed. “But back to the car thing. You know you’ve got to have it serviced, get the oil changed and all, and with gas prices as high as they are—”
“I can afford it, if that’s what you’re getting at. Hollis had the sixty-thousand-mile service done on the car before I left Texas, and I have plenty of money in the bank to pay for gas, even the premium kind I’m supposed to burn.”
Plenty of money in the bank? Bingo. Sounded to me like someone had found herself a genie. All Emma had to do was rub her uncle’s member and, magically, he granted her wishes. But wait a minute. Where did Ben fit in the picture?
Emma grabbed my hand and dragged me across the room to her closet. “Look at these clothes.” She opened the door and ran her hand along a row of what appeared, even to my untrained eye, to be haute couture dresses.
“Did you buy all these?” I pulled out a tailored halter dress that crisscrossed in the back. It was made of fine white linen with beautiful lines, a dress that was way too sophisticated for a college student.
“No, silly.” She took the dress from me, hung it back in the closet, and closed the door. “My aunt is ADD. She gets tired of everything after wearing it only once. I’m not too proud to accept hand-me-downs like those. Would you be?”
“I guess not,” I said, turning my attention to my unpacking.
I once saw a movie where some poor guy was stuck in a nightmare—every day was Groundhog Day for him. With Ben and Emma back together, it appeared as though my second year at UVA would be a repeat of my first. That is, until the next day when I entered my anatomy lab to find Thompson McCray as the assistant.
“You’ve been assigned to the table over here,” he said, greeting me at the door and guiding me to a setup across the room. “I saw your name on the list this morning, and I rearranged things so you’d be in my group. I hope you don’t mind.”
Mind? I wanted to dive into his deep-blue eyes and never come up for air. “How’s your mother?” I asked instead.
True to his word, because he understood I needed time to recover from my Fourth of July ordeal, Thompson had waited at least a week before contacting me again. We’d limited our communications to texts, mostly guarded messages about nothing important. We were working out our plans for a date when he was called to Atlanta to be with his mother, who’d been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“On the mend. Or so it seems.” He held both hands up for me to see his crossed fingers. “They were able to do a lumpectomy, followed by rounds of chemo and radiation. All the early reports are promising.”
“I’m so glad, Thompson. When I didn’t hear from you . . .”
“I meant to call,” he said, lowering his voice when several students entered the lab. “I just got so wrapped up in her treatment.”
“It must have been so hard for your family.”
He nodded. “A lot of good came out of it, though. My sisters and I are closer because of all the time we spent together, either while Mom was in the hospital or during her daylong sessions at the infusion center.” Thompson had two older sisters, one twenty-eight and the other thirty, both of them married and living in Atlanta. “I learned so much about cancer and chemotherapy and the patient side of doctoring.”
“I can think of easier ways to gain experience, Dr. McCray.”
A smile crept across his face, causing his dimple to appear and his eyes to twinkle. For the rest of the lab, I was acutely aware of his presence, even when he was down at the other end of the table. Anxious to see him again, I showed up ten minutes early for the next lab, two days later, on Wednesday.
I was making adjustments to my microscope when Thompson snuck up behind me and set two concert tickets down on the counter. “Care to analyze these under your scope?”
I glanced down at the fine writing on the tickets. “Dave Matthews?” I turned around to face him. “Are you kidding me?”
“Look at the date before you say yes.” He pointed to the logistical information on the ticket. “The concert is on Labor Day Monday. You may already have plans to go out of town for the holiday weekend.”
I shook my head. “Today is only the third day of classes and I already have a ton of work. I’m not going anywhere this weekend but the library—and the Dave Matthews concert, of course. I can totally take time out for him.”
“Well then, I hope you’ll also consider making time for dinner Friday night, because there’s no way I can wait five whole days to see you again.”
Thompson surprised me by preparing a picnic dinner, which we spread out on an old quilt on the lawn. It had been a hot, humid day, but once the sun dropped below the mountains, a gentle breeze stirred and caused the temperature to immediately drop ten degrees. We drank Chardonnay from red plastic Solo cups and nibbled on cold pasta and fried chicken. I felt the same connection with Thompson that I’d experienced at Lizzie’s party, a bond deepened all the more by our passion for medicine.
We arranged our study sessions in the library so that we still had time for several weekend outings, which included the football game Saturday night and a long bike ride on Sunday morning—in addition to the Dave Matthews concert on Monday night. During the weeks that followed, Thompson and I spent as much time together as we could possibly manage. He’d already completed his undergraduate degree, and his fraternity days were in the past. He was sorely focused on his studies, and in no way resented the demands the sorority placed on my time. He was neither controlling nor clingy but patient and supportive of my other commitments. His gentle side would guarantee him success as a doctor; to be the recipient of such kindness touched me at my core. He grew to know me better than I knew myself. When I was grumpy, he insisted I go back to my dorm and get some sleep. He prepared healthy snacks of grapes and raisins and nuts when I got the hunger shakes, and he suggested we go down to the Corner for ice cream or watch a club football game when I grew tired of studying and needed a diversion. And just as his intuition was spot-on about my other needs, he sensed when I was ready to take our relationship to the next level.
Because I was committed to Thompson emotionally, the physical part came naturally. Not that I’d been consciously saving my virginity for marriage, I’d just never met anyone I wanted to have sex with. Unlike the girls I knew who hooked up with random guys for one-night stand
s, sex was personal to me. I needed someone who respected me enough to show me the way.
Thompson rented a one-bedroom garage apartment, two blocks from campus, from a chemistry professor, Dirk Campbell. Or Dirktor Doolittle as Thompson liked to call him. He wasn’t married, but he had at least a dozen different types of animals—two miniature schnauzers, a Siamese cat, a turtle, a ferret, several different kinds of lizards, three hamsters, a snake, and an aquarium full of colorful saltwater fish. When Doolittle modernized his cottage several years ago, he’d added a kidney-shaped pool, complete with tropical plants, an outdoor bar, and a hot tub. In exchange for the use of his pool, Thompson minded the farm while Doolittle was gone, which he was most weekends to visit his lover up in DC.
On an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon in late September, Thompson sent me a text: Bring your bikini and meet me at the oasis in half an hour. When I arrived forty-five minutes later, around six thirty, I found Thompson floating on a raft with a Styrofoam cooler bobbing up and down beside him. He reached inside the cooler and produced a bottle of champagne, the good kind with the orange label my parents bought every year to toast their anniversary. The big grin on Thompson’s face and the twinkle in his eyes told me we would wait no longer.
Dangling our feet in the water, we sipped champagne and ate slices of cheese with french bread until the sun was gone and the lights had come on in the pool. The tropical foliage provided protection from the rest of the world. We were alone on our island. Leaning down to kiss my neck, Thompson untied my bikini top and tossed it into the pool. When I slipped into the water away from him, he stepped out of his swimsuit and came in after me. I swam breaststroke laps around the pool until he caught me. As he brought me to him and kissed me hard I could feel his muscles firm against my body. The only thing separating me from his arousal was the thin fabric of my bikini bottoms. He yanked my bottoms off, lifted me out of the pool, and made love to me on the hard slate surface of the deck. The burning pain gave way to bliss as we moved together as one. Thompson made love to me with tender passion; during those moments, nothing mattered to me more than the man I loved. When it was over, we lay spent, side by side on the deck, holding hands while we stared at the stars.
Saving Ben Page 17