by Julie Wright
She chattered nonstop about Everett. She listed his qualities to me backwards and forwards as if she planned on giving an exam later and wanted me to get an A. But she was never around when Everett and I came anywhere near each other. She just vanished, as I’d come to find she had a way of doing. If she hadn’t been my superior, I would have asked her to haunt someone else for a while, but since she arrived at UMASS with the intention of surveying the staff and probably reporting back on her findings, I remained positive and helpful and resigned to the fact that she had made me her go-to girl.
When I brought her up to the other students, they raised their eyebrows at me in a way that made me feel stupid. They were right. Complaining about a superior ran a med student aground faster than anything else. Even a crummy student who remained positive was likely to get better placement for residency than a brilliant student with a craptastic attitude.
But I really wanted to complain, and not just about Miss Pearl, but about Everett’s girlfriend Liz, too. Liz hung out more and more at the hospital.
Couldn’t she wait in the car instead of in my territory?
Her continual loitering led me to feel great surprise to find Everett alone in the hall, leaning up against a wall and looking down at his phone.
A quick check around us proved that he really was alone . . . except for me.
“Everest without an S,” I said.
He looked up from his phone. “Andrea without an E.”
He looked so tired that all my sympathies pinged with understanding. I was so tired too. So I slumped against the wall next to him and looked down at his phone. “Candy Crush?”
He laughed. “Nope. More like soul crush.”
I straightened. “What happened?”
“My sister’s business is opening a new location this weekend. My mom demands that I be there.”
“Don’t you want to go support your sister?”
He laughed again; only this time the sound that came out dripped with acrimony. “I might if it was left up to me to make my own choice. But our mother shoving me feels . . .” he scratched at the back of his neck in agitation. “Feels like shoving.”
“I’m sorry. I know what family obligations are like.”
“You’re one of the few who do. Most people think I’m just being a jerk, but they don’t get it. You have to live with my family to really get it.” He sighed. “It would be better if I didn’t have to go alone.”
It shouldn’t have made me brighten. It really shouldn’t have. But it did. “No Liz?”
He shook his head and glanced down the hall at a couple of orderlies laughing about something we probably didn’t want to know about. “She has obligations this weekend.” He looked like he might have been about to say more when his eyes fell on me, and he stopped.
I glanced back to the orderlies who were already past and then back to where he stared at me as if he hadn’t ever seen me before. “What?”
“Will you do me a favor? A huge one? One for which I will owe you for the rest of my life?”
“Depends. I refuse to put a hit out on your sister, or your mother for that matter.” I didn’t promise not to put one on Liz.
“You won’t have to. I just need you to come with me this weekend.”
I did not see that one coming. I was pretty sure he meant out of town. “Isn’t your sister in Maine?”
“Yes. Which is why I need a buddy. I’ll have to stay at my parents’ place, and I am not going to that house alone.”
Everett was inviting me away for the weekend? It must have been because I was tired. Or maybe it was because Miss Pearl had followed me around for days telling me about all things Everett. Because I shrugged and the words, “Sure. Why not?” fell out of my mouth.
He pushed off from the wall and wrapped his arms around me, his relief a tangible thing. “Thank you, Andra. Thank you for not making me go this alone.”
I laughed. “You’ve held my hand through my family parties before. I can return the favor.”
He squeezed a little tighter and my eyes fluttered closed briefly, enjoying the nearness of him. How long had it been since I’d had human contact of this sort? Too long. Too long since I’d felt the comfort of someone’s touch. Such contact was pivotal in humans. I’d read the studies where babies died in an orphanage after their nurses were only allowed to cuddle half the children. They were told to leave the other half alone and care only for their basic needs of feeding and cleaning, instead. The half not given human contact died rather than soldier on to face a world alone.
Had I allowed myself to become one of those babies in some sort of self-exile from human touch?
Yes.
Now that someone’s arms held me securely in that exchange of energy that made being human worth it, I realized how much the contact meant to me, how absent it had been from my life, how desperate I was for Everett to never let go.
But he did let go.
We were in the hallway where anyone might come upon us and see. We were supposed to be working, not fraternizing.
When he released me, we shared an awkward smile and I took a shaky step away from him—just to prove I had the strength to move away. Proving it to him or proving it to myself, either way it was proof.
“I’ll pick you up Friday evening at six. Is that okay? We could probably stretch it a little later, but we really need to be on the road by six-thirty if we want to arrive at any decent kind of hour.”
“Sounds great. I’ll pack before leaving for the hospital in the morning just to make sure I’m ready.”
“Fabulous.” His eyes captured mine, almost reeling me in and pulling me back that step I’d used to distance us. “Seriously, thanks, Andra. You’ve always been a good friend to me.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to answer the strangeness of my feelings. He tapped my shoulder and returned to work, leaving me there in the hall and nearly toppling over from leaning into his energy that was no longer right in front of me.
“You still love him.”
I jumped at the voice that came from behind me and placed my hand over my heart to try to hold it from leaping out of my chest. “Miss Pearl! You scared me.”
She grinned, knowing perfectly well she’d nearly stopped my heart by sneaking up on me like that. As a heart doctor, she should have known better than to do such things. But then . . . maybe as a heart doctor, she knew she could get it running again if she accidentally stopped the thing.
Recovering from the shock of her presence nearly made me forget what she’d said. Before I could form any sort of response, she’d breezed off down the hall in the same direction Everett had gone.
My heart went from stopped to pounding wildly. Would she tell Everett that I still had feelings for him? I followed her before I even knew what I was doing. Everett had a girlfriend, a nice girlfriend. I couldn’t have Miss Pearl announcing my emotional status to him as though we were both in grade school.
When I turned the same corner, she’d disappeared again. Everett was there and flashed me a questioning look before turning back to the little girl in the wheelchair. After a thorough check of my surroundings, the only logical conclusion was that Miss Pearl had taken the stairs to a different floor. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen on this one.
Trying not to feel stupid—first for being so transparent to Everett and second for being so transparent to Miss Pearl, I returned to my work, thinking only one thing: that Pearl woman must have rocked hide and seek as a kid.
Chapter Thirteen
Several days later, Everett picked me up at my apartment right at six. He didn’t comment on my apartment at all, and part of me wondered if we were thinking the same thing about living arrangements and his living in the apartment I'd wanted.
Things worked out okay for me in spite of everything, so I no longer had reason to complain, but imagining his position in the apartment I'd wanted made me smile a little and shake my head.
Would we have come to a different place if I hadn�
�t been so mad about that situation?
Maybe.
My smile faded with the thoughts of what might have happened and the fact that they didn’t happen.
“You okay?” Everett asked.
I forced the smile back. “Great. Why?”
“You looked like someone kicked your puppy just now.”
I laughed. That was certainly one way to put it. “Really, I’m fine.”
He loaded my bags into the back of his black truck and we were off. Once on the freeway headed in the general direction of Maine, I ran my hands over the leather seat. “So, I don’t remember you being a truck guy. When did this happen?”
He ducked his head into a sorta shrug. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re comparing me to Greg right now, aren’t you? But it isn’t like that. The old car broke down and while I was out looking for options, Liz mentioned how much she loved trucks and one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I was driving this off the lot.”
It took me a moment to know what to say in response. Liz had made a suggestion that he followed up on. My skin numbed at the thought, forcing a shiver from me. Which made me feel incredibly disingenuous. I'd brushed him off all those years ago, and then brushed him off again more recently. Any kind of decent human would rejoice that he had found happiness. Instead, I wanted to hunker down with a movie and a box of raspberry filled donuts.
I shivered again.
“Are you cold?” He adjusted the temperature in the cab until warm air flowed. Since explaining that the climate had nothing to do with the current numb feeling I had was out of the question, I went on to other topics, safer topics, topics that could have nothing to do with Liz.
I talked about medicine. We discussed our preferences for residencies, our most complicated patients, nurses we loved, nurses we loathed, which doctors made us cringe with their incompetence, and which made us want to applaud for their brilliance.
We talked about treatments and internal medicine, diseases and symptoms. Never before had any conversation stimulated my intellect more. We were so compatible in our field, so like-minded, and so similar in our skill that I wondered how I had ever walked away from him. Where else would I find a man who provided riveting, thoughtful, sensitive conversation?
I shoved away all internal debate as to whether or not I only felt this way because Miss Pearl had been pressing the topic of Everett with such tenacity. Did it matter why I allowed myself to entertain thoughts that had been stifled for so long? Wasn’t it better to explore possibilities while they were still in front of me?
I snuggled down into the leather seat of the truck Liz picked out and allowed myself to consider.
The five hour ride to Maine flew by too quickly. It felt like we’d only begun conversing and then we were done. His headlights briefly flashing on an older but obviously expensive home before he cut his engine, and the headlights along with it. We opened doors, stepped into the dark, and unloaded our luggage.
The smell of the air reminded me a great deal of living in Boston, where the ocean bumped into the city and the smells of both battled for dominance. Clearly, wherever we were, the ocean wasn’t too far away.
Everett smiled at me. “Are you ready for this?”
“Bring it.”
We both squared our shoulders to approach the front door.
Everett often compared his family to mine, which was more than enough reason to make me feel apprehensive, but even more was the idea of meeting the parents. Meet-the-parents experiences in my past were few and far between. Most relationships never made enough headway to merit getting the family involved.
Not that Everett and I were in a relationship. But meeting Everett’s parents filled me with an anxiety to please that had never existed before. I wanted this impression to be an excellent one.
“Here goes nothing.” Everett pressed the doorbell button, sending a cascade of distant chimes through the rooms inside, and we waited.
I wanted to ask why he had to ring the bell instead of just walk in. These people were his parents, weren’t they? This was his family home, wasn’t it? Didn’t kids have some kind of natural right to gain entry to the home of their childhood without the formality of the doorbell? Maybe my family was more chill than I ever gave them credit for.
Before long, a shadow passed over the faceted crystal sidelight, and the door swung open. “I wondered what was taking you so long!” The tall, thin woman ushered us into the house with these words as if we’d been caught doing something wrong and she wanted us to now come in while she called the authorities. Everett made an after you motion with his hands, so I followed the woman into the front foyer. Everett came along behind me and closed the door, eliminating our one shot at escape.
The woman inspected us, or actually inspected me.
I inspected her right back. Her dark, not-quite-shoulder-length haircut that a lot of women wore in middle age, didn’t make her resemble a typical mom, like it did most of the women who wore it. Instead it gave a natural texture to her entire person. She smiled with lips that were as naked as they were on the day she’d been born, making me rub my own glossy lips together. I didn’t wear much makeup, but next to Everett’s mom, I felt like the painted lady. His mom was actually very pretty and didn’t need the enhancement of mascara and lip color, but still . . .
Even if I looked okay without mascara, which I didn’t, I never wanted to give up lip gloss. Dried out lips that stuck together when you tried to open your mouth were not only icky to look at for other people, but they felt gross. I smiled with my glossy lips and felt no shame in them. Everyone had their own path to take. I put out my hand to meet this woman who stared at me with eyes so blue, they looked like they’d been chipped from glacial ice. I briefly wondered where Everett’s brown, gold, green eyes came from as she took my hand and said, “You must be the girl Everett told his sister about. What is it you do?”
“I’m a medical student with Everett.” I sketched a glance at Everett. Did his mom think she was talking to Liz?
He shifted uncomfortably.
“Well, I think that’s just wonderful!” she said. “Medicine is a fabulous profession and perfect for women who can be compassionate and competent at the same time. I’ve always wondered how that particular career path became the stereotypical man’s job.”
“And it starts,” Everett muttered from behind me. “Hello, Grace,” he said, only this time loudly enough to be heard by both of us.
I shot a look over my shoulder and then back to his mom. My confusion seemed to amuse her.
“I taught my children to call me by my name a long time ago. I think titles like mom or mother pigeonhole women into roles they don’t always belong in.” She smiled wide through her naked lips.
Was I supposed to be amused at that also, or horrified?
I felt a little of both. He’d warned me she was unlike any kind of feminist I’d met before. How right he had been. I was absolutely for equal rights for everybody, but I also absolutely wanted to own the title of mom when I decided to have children. If my kids called me Andra, I would have felt like I’d deprived them, and me, of something kind of fabulous. Plus, it would’ve ticked me off, and I’d likely ground them for being disrespectful. Just like I expected people to call me doctor when I graduated med school, I expected a particular little person to call me mom when I graduated pregnancy. The title was earned.
But to each her own.
Grace began moving to the stairs at the right of the entryway. “Your rooms are ready. I was actually kind of surprised Everett didn’t book you both a hotel but then . . . well, it figures, doesn’t it?”
Everett huffed behind me, and I felt like my neck would break with all the looking behind me to him and in front of me to her. Was she insulting her son for real? And in front of me? Who did that? Even my father, who hated my going to medical school and hated that my brother was in culinary school, never talked either one of us down in front of other people. His sense of place and pr
opriety and staying in society’s good standing didn't allow him the freedom to say whatever he really thought of his disappointing children where anyone could hear. Doing so would reflect badly on him.
Not certain she meant the hotel comment as an insult, and trying to make sure her and I were clear on whose side I was on, I said, “Being that we’re both in medical school and working to be responsible with our finances so we don’t leave with a debt load we can’t recover from, booking a hotel would have been a really foolish move when your hospitality is obviously so open to us.”
I lied, of course. At that moment I really wish Everett had booked a hotel. I would have been willing to put it on my credit card. And it wasn’t that she’d said much wrong exactly, but more that she felt off enough to not be exactly hospitable. My parents had never greeted me in such a chairman-of-the-board way. It felt unnatural. And it wasn’t that she didn’t hug him. Lots of families weren’t touchy-feely like that, but she didn’t really acknowledge him either. She saw me, spoke to me. She spoke around him and about him, but not to him. When he’d said hello to her, she hadn’t even returned the greeting.
She stopped half way up the stairs and looked back at me. “Oh yes, of course!” she said finally as if she’d analyzed my words and decided they were pro her. “My home is always open to helping out young women while they’re in their formative educational years. I wouldn’t dream of having you stay anywhere else.”
Her prior comment made it sounded like she more than dreamed of us staying elsewhere, but oh well.
“Is Riley staying in a hotel?” Everett asked.
“Of course not.” She acted surprised he would ask such a thing. He made a soft snort.
Riley also lived out of state, though her Rhode Island was definitely closer than Massachusetts. I shifted my bag to my other shoulder as we made it to the top of the stairs so I didn’t bump it against the wall of pictures in the hall.
And there were a lot of pictures.
There was a family photo of everyone, the final high school picture from each of the three children, one professional more current photo from each of the children and each of the adults, and there were a couple dozen other photos of the two daughters in varying activities.