Dr. Stud

by Jess Bentley

  So after all these years keeping everyone at arm’s length, what kind of karma have I built up? I let Joanna drift away from me, stretched to the end of the tether, and when I saw her it was like she snapped back at me at full speed, threatening to knock me down.

  I don’t even know what I could say to her. I’m glad you’re back? What happened to Dusty? Would you like me to take care of some of that tension for you?

  Probably better if I let her make the first move.

  Yes. That is definitely for the best.

  Chapter 22

  Joe

  Again, I am covering for Didi.

  Luckily for her, I think Martha trusts me enough that she is willing to let me handle the Willowdale gallery. On the other hand, she might just be so frustrated with Didi that she’s not particularly interested in checking in with her.

  Every day, I make a little bit more progress on planning the Schindler show. Desi has been working in tandem with me to create marketing pieces and place press releases in the various art journals. The artist had a few more pieces in larger dimensions in her studio to ship to us, and she has been enthusiastic about the show. I mean, I don’t see how she could resist. She stands to make a whole lot of money if this goes well.

  I haven’t been able to hang any of the pieces yet, but I can picture it perfectly in my mind. The gallery is going to be transformed into a lush, sensory garden. Schindler’s paintings practically vibrate with intense color, all in blues and greens and violets with the occasional splash of pink or copper. It would be really nice to sell out the show. That is definitely something I haven’t done yet.

  And as the days drag by, I can feel summer settling in. I’ve almost mastered morning sickness. It hasn’t gone away—I’m just getting really good at it. I get up and shuffle to the bathroom before the nausea hits, then just go along with it. What else can I really do? It’s going to happen, whether I want it to or not. I might as well learn how to go with the flow.

  Standing in front of the mirror, I pivot to the side and check for signs. My boobs are kind of tremendous, not to mention tender and hot to the touch. That’s definitely the most obvious thing. Sometimes I feel like I can sort of see them out of the corner of my eye, which is a new experience. Like, they’re just in a place I normally don’t expect them.

  Am I showing? I doubt it. Probably not for quite a while. But everything is different. Maybe not outwardly, but everything seems different. Everything feels different.

  All of a sudden, I notice that there’s a horizon for my life, way out there. Not just a two-week plan, or two-year plan, or a five-year plan. This is a twenty-year plan I need to make.

  It’s scary as hell, but also sort of wonderful. My life was so much smaller before, I realize. Now I can gallop all the way to the horizon, and I get to bring a whole other person with me. Everything seems much more important than it was before. Much less disposable.

  Sunday morning, I drop by the general store to pick up one of every magazine before borrowing my dad’s truck to go out to Harbor Bay. The floor nurse gives me a friendly nod as I walk through the unlocked doors and stride down the hall toward Didi’s room.

  “Knock knock,” I call out before entering the room.

  Though it is before eleven, she is awake. That must be a good sign. She looks up at me and smiles, picking up a sheet of thick paper and turning it around to show me. On it are some smudges of watercolor in shades of red. A stripe of blue arches across the top.

  “Does this look like a barn to you?” she squints.

  I head toward it to make sure that my first impression was correct.

  “Yeah... no,” I answer, shaking my head. “That doesn’t look anything like a barn.”

  “That is what I was afraid of,” she sighs, laying the paper back on the small table by the window. “But sometimes, art, you know… it’s in the eye of the beholder.”

  “That’s nowhere near a barn, Didi,” I repeat. “I don’t care whose eyes you’re using. I don’t think that you’re going to be in for a career change.”

  She shrugs, poking the point of her paintbrush into a puddle of dark green paint and smearing it under the red shape. It’s sort of childish looking, but I doubt making great art in here is really the point. They want people just to do things, to occupy themselves. They need to walk through pain-free days, just to see what it’s like.

  “I brought you magazines,” I tell her, arranging them on the foot of the bed. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Good news there,” she says brightly. “They tell me I am most of the way through detox, so that’s good. I’ve been downgraded from feeling like hot garbage to feeling like rancid meat.”

  “That’s an improvement?”

  She nods avidly. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe it. Hot garbage was definitely the worst.”

  She’s making light of it, but this has really been terrible. The first three days, they wouldn’t even let me see her, but I could hear her voice echoing down the hall. I could hear her moaning. It broke my heart.

  She probably won’t ever tell me precisely what she went through, but she looks different now. Her freckles are back. The circles under her eyes are almost gone. And she has started to gain back some of the weight she lost.

  “Hey, can I have this pudding cup?” I ask her, poking the tinfoil top with my fingernail. “Suddenly, I’m starved.”

  “Yeah, sure, if you’re not gonna throw it up right away.”

  “I can’t make any promises,” I shrug and go ahead and open the container anyway.

  We’ve known each other for so long, there isn’t a whole lot that we need to say. I need her to know I’m here. She needs to know I’m here. I bring her things, and we don’t talk too much about work because that is a lot of stress, and it’s unclear so far if it’s going to get better or worse.

  So far, I think she’s in the clear. As long as she makes it back in time for the opening, she will be all right. Martha doesn’t even have to know.

  “You know, I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” she mumbles suddenly, hunched over her painting and not looking up at me.

  “It’s just a temporary setback, Didi. You’ll make it through this.”

  “No… I mean everything. Always.”

  She looks up at me, her eyes shiny.

  “When we were in school…yYou looking out for me, I mean. All the acting out that you chaperoned. All the lies you told to my mom, to the school counselor.”

  “Taking your keys when you were drunk,” I add sarcastically. “Making sure you enrolled in community college…”

  She smiles thinly. “Yeah, all that stuff too,” she admits. “And dragging me out of state when it looked like I was hopeless here. That too.”

  “Manhattan was always my dream,” I shrug. “I was happy to have the company.”

  She smiles slowly, sitting back in her chair. The morning light cuts through the window and illuminates her face so that I can really see how much color has returned to her cheeks.

  “You know, that’s what you always say, but that’s not really it. I don’t even think you remember the truth anymore, Joe.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I think you’ve been telling everybody that story for so long that you believe it now. You never would’ve left Willowdale if not for me. You love it here. You’re a country girl. This is where you belong.”

  I shake my head, squinting. This can’t be good for her. I’m not even sure it’s good for me.

  “You look good here, too,” she continues. “You’ve been telling that story about how you were born to be in the big city so long that I think you forgot. You only did that to save me, Joe. You did that for me.”

  Here it comes again, those feelings I don’t want to feel. All that liquid emotion, sloshing around inside me, threatening to spill over the dam.

  “I love Manhattan,” I shrug. “That’s where everything is happening.”<
br />
  Didi smiles and takes a deep breath. “That’s true, but lots of things are happening here too,” she suggests, jerking her chin toward my abdomen. “I’m glad we’re back here while you do this. It feels right, doesn’t it?”

  Does it? I ask myself. I have to admit, thinking about being pregnant in Manhattan didn’t sit right with me. But that wasn’t going to be an option, anyway. I probably could have made it work.

  “Being a single mother in Willowdale is not going to be a walk in the park,” I observe. “This gallery better turn out to be a huge success, or I'm going to find myself begging for Dusty’s old job at the general store.”

  “Maybe your dad will hire you to hang drywall or something,” she winks.

  “I know you think you’re joking, but I totally could!” I huff defensively.

  “Of course you could!” she laughs. “You can do anything, Joe. Anything you want.”

  “Okay, okay… Dial it down,” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Sounds like those group therapy affirmation sessions are starting to take hold. Just save your strength for yourself, Didi. I am okay.”

  She winks. “You are more than okay.”

  I stand up, raising my hands defensively. “Seriously. Lighten up on the Saint Didi act, okay? We still got a lot of road to cover here.”

  “Lunchtime!” the orderly sings out, rolling a cart into Didi’s room.

  “Excellent!” Didi sighs, clapping her fingers excitedly under her chin. “I just love the food here!”

  “Okay, well, I guess I better get back to work… I’m leaving you a list of things to do when you get out of here, just so you know.”

  The orderly slides the tray onto Didi’s table and she pokes at the covered containers on the tray, clearly enthralled.

  “Okay, Joe,” she answers distractedly. “Just let me know.”

  “I’m serious, Didi,” I say. “You’re going to get credit for this show, so you’re going to do the work. So hurry up and get rehabbed or whatever, so you can come do chores.”

  With a mouth full of ham sandwich, she wrinkles her nose at me affectionately and gives me a thumbs up. I’m glad to see her eating, to be honest, as I wave and back out of the room.

  Truthfully, it is a lot of work, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, if I do everything, I know it will be done right. No chance of Didi forgetting a shipment, screwing up a press release, or missing a deadline for one of the event contractors.

  On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that is what the drug and alcohol counselors call enabling. And I realize I have been doing it for our whole lives.

  As I walk down the hallway, I have to wonder, have I made her worse? I always told myself that I was saving her more heartache by cleaning up after her, giving her space to heal herself. Besides, who am I to tell her how to run her life?

  But on the other hand, sparing her the consequences of her own actions might have made it easier for her to let things slide.

  And how much of my identity has been formed around mothering my best friend? I chuckle to myself ironically. Seems pretty funny that I never considered having a child of my own, when I’ve been so involved in fostering Didi.

  Or maybe I’m being too hard to myself? Or maybe I am not being hard enough? Or maybe I am exaggerating my own self-importance by thinking that her addiction has anything to do with me at all?

  “Maude?”

  But something that she said made a lot of sense. The idea digs at me. Why did we go to New York? Wasn’t it my idea? Or was it just the escape plan that I formulated for her? And back then, was I telling the truth about it being my dream or not?

  “Maude, dear?”

  Because if I am honest with myself, I can’t remember it being a dream of mine before we were actually doing it. It’s almost like I thought it up on the spot.

  “Maude?”

  My attention snaps back into focus and I look around, realizing someone is calling my mother’s name. An old man is sitting in the overstuffed chairs by the front window, his arm raised over his head to wave in my direction. His expression brightens when our eyes meet and I change directions to head his way.

  “You didn’t hear me!” he smiles as I approach. “I was calling you!”

  Just as I am about to explain that Maude is my mother, I realize I am talking to Boss Warner. The white fluff in his ears has grown to heroic proportions and he is much older than I remember him.

  He holds out a hand to me and I take it in mine, smiling as I sit next to him.

  “Good morning, Boss Warner,” I smile, remembering my Florida manners. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  He takes a deep breath and holds it, covering my hand with his other hand and patting my wrist fondly.

  “Just another day in paradise,” he sighs, grinning. “I was just sitting here, waiting for the sandpipers. They usually stroll by here around lunchtime.”

  Glancing out the window, I think I can see what he means. There’s a fountain not far away and gravel paths all around it that lead out to the beach. I imagine a lot of wildlife comes by this window over the course of a day.

  “How have you been?” I ask, watching his green eyes gain and then lose focus.

  I can still see the image of the man I used to know, with this older man superimposed over it. He was already quite mature when he was my doctor. I actually thought of him as being ancient. But that must have been ten years ago, perhaps. And now he is here, and I don’t think he is practicing medicine.

  “Oh, can’t complain, can’t complain,” he shrugs. “I mean, I could complain, but what good would it do me?”

  I laugh along at his joke, certain he has said it at least a dozen times, probably since this morning. I remember he was always the sort to recycle a good joke until everyone had heard it at least twice.

  “So,” he says, tugging me a little closer with his eyes twinkling, “how far along are you? Do you know what you are having?”

  My breath catches in my throat. “Boss? What are you talking about?”

  I try to pull back, but he holds my hand trapped between his.

  “Oh, I’ve been in the business too long to miss the signs,” he winks. “And don’t worry… I’m sure no one else will be able to tell for another couple of months. It will just be our secret.”

  “Oh!” I gasp, terrified but relieved that he’s not telling me I suddenly started showing since this morning. “I guess nothing gets past you, right?”

  “I’ve delivered every baby in Willowdale for twenty years!” he brags, though I figure he must be short at least a couple of decades. “Why, I practically have everyone’s cycle memorized. I should put out a calendar!”

  “Oh my gosh!” I laugh, delighted by his innuendo. “What a scandal! I bet that would really turn everybody’s heads.”

  We lean together, chuckling, and it is a bit of a relief to be able to share a laugh over this. I have to admit that I feel safe here. He was my pediatrician, after all. In fact, he even delivered me, right there in the cabin. My mother had a brief and sudden labor, and there was no time to get to the hospital. As a matter of fact, in her own charming way she claims that I shot out like a greased piglet.

  Actually, now that I think of it, that is pretty good to know. I can only hope I will be so lucky.

  “Now, I do need to scold you,” he announces. “I haven’t seen you in the office yet. You need to make an appointment right away, you know. We need to get all the testing done.”

  “Um, okay,” I smile uncertainly. I would like to pull my hand back, but he is still hanging onto it.

  “Prenatal care starts from the very beginning,” he continues.

  “Yes, I know,” I rush, starting to feel uncomfortable. “I will definitely do that. This week?”

  “That would be fine,” he smiles. “Just give my wife a call to set the appointment, or drop by if that’s more convenient, all right?”

  Blinking back tears, I force myself to smile back. His wife has been passed on for at
least a dozen years.

  “Okay, Boss,” I say gently, “I will definitely do that. It was wonderful to see you.”

  He pats my hand a few more times as I begin to rise, then casts his eyes over my shoulder, squinting in confusion.

  “Good morning, everyone,” comes a voice that stops my heart in my chest.

  “Wonderful news!” Boss Warner announces. “Maude here is pregnant!”

  Chapter 23

  Sturgill

  Joanna turns away, blushing fiercely. I feel bad about interrupting them, but I was here to see my dad anyway. I always come on the weekends to spend time with him in the morning. He likes to watch the birds on the beach.

  I could see them through the giant picture window as I walked up the path, and it filled me with… I don’t even know what. Sunshine? It might be ridiculous, but that is what it felt like.

  They made such a nice picture, just sitting here and chatting. I’m happy to see my father talking with my… friend?

  Does that word even make sense?

  But as soon as I arrived, she went instantly cold. Again, that arctic breeze. I understand that our arrangement was “professional,” but it’s beginning to feel less friendly than that. I wonder if I did something to upset her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt,” I mutter, meeting my father’s eyes. Some days he is more clear than others, and I wonder what the situation is today.

  “Oh, you’re not interrupting!” my father smiles. “I was just congratulating Maude. I guess I should congratulate you too, Chuck!”

  Pain lances through me. He doesn’t know me today. At least not right this moment. He thinks I am Chuck, Joanna’s father.

  “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry,” I smile apologetically at Joanna. “He doesn’t always remember…”

  “It’s okay!” she chirps, pulling her hand away from my father’s hand.

  “It just takes him a moment, sometimes,” I explain in a rush.

  I don’t want her to pull away from him, though I understand why she would. It’s painful for me to see him slip away, but it is confusing for strangers too. I understand that. Yet, he seems so pleased right now, I wish she could let him have that for a few more moments, even if he doesn’t remember who she is. After all, he doesn’t remember who I am right now, either.