Visiting Hours

by Tagan Shepard

  The rock-hard bud of her nipple pressed into Alison’s palm, who smirked in triumph. “Still going to pretend you want to go home?”

  Jess’s voice was strained, but she removed Alison’s hand from under her shirt. “I didn’t say I want to go home. I said I have to go home. You know what I want, but I have to work tomorrow. If I stay here neither of us is going to get any sleep.”

  Alison’s hand dropped to the wide buckle of Jess’s belt. She sat up and eased the end free of the frame. She leaned in and kissed Jess on the neck, right at the base of her throat. When she heard the sharp intake of breath, she started to work the leather away from the hasp of her belt. “I don’t need sleep.” She kissed higher up Jess’s neck. “I need you.” She kissed just below her ear. “I need your skin.” She had the prong out from the leather strap. “I need your hands.” She whipped the belt out of the buckle entirely and went to work on the button of her jeans. “I need your mouth.” Her lips rested right against the shell of Jess’s ear, and she whispered, “I need your…”

  Jess shot away from her as if she’d been electrocuted. Her shoulder banged into the dresser and a spindly-legged wooden giraffe figurine toppled over. Jess righted it, then fumbled with her belt, trying several times to re-buckle it and failing. She stopped, took a breath, and then managed to work the simple parts together again. She smoothed down her shirt.

  “And that’s exactly what I mean.” She was grinning a little sheepishly. “You cannot be controlled.”

  Alison lay back on the bed, stretching the length of her body in one slow, fluid movement. “I don’t remember hearing any complaints.”

  Jess watched for a moment, and then shook herself. “Thank you for proving my point.”

  “Fine. I’ll let you go, but only because I want you rested when you take Beth to the operating room. When can I see you again? Tomorrow?”

  “Not…um…not tomorrow.”

  “Tuesday?”

  Jess flicked her eyes to the glowing red numbers of the clock on the bedside table. “Tuesday…Yeah. Yeah, I’m free Tuesday. Dinner?”

  “We can start there.”

  “Okay.” She moved toward the end of the bed, heading for the door. She stopped suddenly and turned. Leaning down, she kissed Alison hard. Hard enough to make Alison’s head spin. She broke the kiss just as abruptly and walked to the door, dodging Alison’s reaching hands.

  “Bye!” Alison called from the bed, and received a wave in reply before Jess disappeared into the darkening living room.

  The front door closed with a loud click. Alison rolled over and buried her wide smile in the pillow that still smelled like Jess. She took long, deep breaths and let the smell envelop her. Her mind drifted back over the last day and a half, and her body temperature rose with each remembered sensation. Of denim on skin and the press of grout lines from shower tiles into her knees. She lost track of time, reveling in the emotions swirling through her.

  Her back and neck were stiff and aching by the time she rolled back over to stare at the popcorn ceiling. She was skipping, actually skipping, when she finally made her way to the bathroom for a long overdue shower.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  im going to have to cancel for tom night

  Oh, that’s okay. I did take up your whole weekend.

  something came up

  I’ll be at my office late tonight.

  You could bring coffee and we could pick up where we left off last time…

  busy tonight

  Too much to hope for, I suppose.

  When can I see you again?

  not sure

  i ll call

  have to go

  see you later

  Alison’s Monday had started so wonderfully. She replayed memories of the weekend like scenes from a favorite movie. Just single frames of a dashing smile. The sound of intimate laughter. A whispered endearment. Then she got a text while heading from her classroom to lunch and the short exchange felt so cold and foreign that her world tilted on its axis. She knew better than to try to glean any tone from texts, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was being put off. Sometimes Jess ran a little hot and cold, sure, but this felt different. It felt wrong. There was a sense of finality in her words. Maybe Jess had gotten everything she wanted and was done with her?

  Once the idea wormed its way into Alison’s mind, she couldn’t dislodge it. She stared at the churning mass of students around her in the dining center, picking at her plate with no appetite. Eventually the smell of food made her gag, and she bolted from the building for the sanctity of her office. But the tiny room was less than inviting. She stared at the spot on the edge of her desk where she had sat with Jess standing between her legs, kissing her breath away. A sour taste filled her mouth. She turned around and nearly sprinted for an empty classroom. Her next class wouldn’t start for a half hour, and it was possibly the most torturous thirty minutes of her life.

  She could no longer deny that she was falling in love. She had thought Jess felt the same, but her brusque dismissal seemed to indicate otherwise. Alison went back over all of their interactions. She wanted to find evidence of attachment, but it was their colder interactions that floated to the surface. She found countless times when Jess had seemed standoffish, dismissive and aloof. She had thought at the time it was her manner. She was playing it cool. Each time she’d brushed it off with the excuse of a bad day, or the joke about being bad with women. The very line that had won Alison over now seemed to be proof against her. She wasn’t bad with women. Alison had ample proof of that.

  Maybe instead she was just cold? Maybe the awkwardness was because she couldn’t even pretend to be interested? Alison tried telling herself not to read too much into it, but the timing was so obvious. Hadn’t she seen this before? Hadn’t she lived it before? Why had she been so open with this woman she knew so little about? It had been less than an hour since the conversation, and already she was wavering between tears and rage.

  Class started poorly and somehow managed to get worse.

  “I’d like a show of hands. Who actually read this week’s assignment?”

  The students looked at each other, fear in their eyes. Every hand went up, but they were hesitant. Wary.

  “That surprises me because none of you seem to grasp any of the concepts we’re discussing.”

  As their hands melted back down to their desktops she paced the room, prowling like a lioness who’d scented blood.

  “Mr. Kim seems to think that Catherine of Siena was little more than a nun who wrote a few letters. Do you all agree with that assessment?”

  They squirmed in their seats, resolutely silent. No one would meet her eye, not even the feminist in the back. She ended class early and everyone bolted gratefully to the door. Jennifer was so upset with her behavior that she was the first out of the room, sparing Alison little more than a hard look that angered her even more.

  Her anger fizzled with no one left to vent it on and melted quickly into remorse. She wasn’t really angry anyway. It was frustration taking hold, and in the end it just left her despondent. She sighed at the empty classroom. This would be a terrible semester. Her students deserved better. She needed to get a handle on her emotional life and she needed to do it now.

  Her cell phone lay inert on the desk, cold and silent under the flap of her briefcase. Texting was a bad idea. She would never be able to get a straight answer. Worse, she would have to read their previous conversation to start a new one. It would only make everything worse. She couldn’t call. Jess said she was busy. Besides, it would make her look crazy and clingy. Email was a safer option. She had emailed Jess a couple of times to make plans and to give her directions to her apartment. She closed her eyes as her stomach squirmed again with thoughts of Saturday. She shook her head and opened a new email, typing as quickly as she could so that she wouldn’t think too much.

  Jess,

  I know you’re busy and probably won’t have time to respond—or even read this ma
ybe? It occurred to me that we are moving really fast, but we haven’t really defined what we’re doing. Are we in a relationship? Is this just two adults having fun? I really like spending time with you and I just want us to be on the same page. Next time we get a chance to see each other, let’s talk okay?

  Hope you’re okay.

  I miss you.

  Alison

  She scrolled back up and reread the message. “Sure, I can send this. If I want her to run away screaming from the psycho stalker!”

  She shook her head and deleted the message, trying again.

  Hey!

  Bummer about how busy you are. Drop me a line when you have a free hour so we can hook up. Know what I mean? ;)

  If you can’t find the time, that’s cool. It’s been fun!

  See you whenever!

  Ali

  “Who am I kidding? I can’t do this.”

  She deleted the second message and pushed her phone away. Her head hit the desk with a quiet thunk and she whimpered. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jess. Her hands, her face, the sound of her voice. It was making her insane. It was as if her brain was waiting for her eyes to close so it could start projecting images of them together on the back of her eyelids. She wrapped her arms around her head and seriously considered letting herself cry.

  “You okay, miss?”

  Her head shot up off the desk. A middle-aged man with a cart full of cleaning supplies stood in the doorway. His eyes shifted to the scattered desks and then back to her. He wanted to clean the room, but he was clearly ready to run for cover at the first sign of tears.

  She stood and snatched her things off the desk, not bothering to stuff them into her briefcase, but clutching them haphazardly to her chest instead. She rushed for the door and he all but barrel-rolled out of her way.

  “I’m fine! Thank you! Sorry!”

  She bypassed her office and headed home with her arms loaded down and her cheeks burning.

  When she woke up the next morning, she immediately reached for her phone.

  No calls, no emails, no texts. The silence had continued. She took several deep breaths and tried not to feel like she’d been used. She checked her phone again. The blank screen forced her to her feet. She repeated the same series of events after her shower, checking her phone in case the pounding of water on tile obscured the sound of the ring. It hadn’t. There was nothing. She checked again after she dressed. And after she choked down breakfast. And after walking to campus. And before her first class.

  She notched a minor victory by leaving the phone in her office when she went to teach, but her mood refused to improve and the people around her again afforded her a wide berth. Jennifer started toward her with a look of angry determination, but she didn’t wait for the reprimand she knew was coming. She rushed back to her office the moment her students filed out. Nothing. She sat perfectly still, staring at the cold, dead shell of her phone for the entire fifteen-minute break.

  She checked it again during her lunch break. Still nothing. She had to lock her office for the rest of the day and she actually managed to have a pair of meaningful discussions in her last classes. Her nerves were still on a razor’s edge, and she practically ran back to her office after seeing her students off. She thought she heard a muffled electronic beep from inside, but was fully aware it might be wishful thinking. She dropped her keys twice trying to unlock the door.

  She had a missed call.

  And a voice mail.

  She was too excited to check the caller before dialing in to her messages. The voice that she heard wasn’t Jess.

  Stephen was crying so hard she could barely understand him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Miller & Rhodes building held a special place in Alison’s heart. It had been, bar none, the best, coolest and most popular department store in the city when she was a kid. The polished brass and the immaculate displays dazzled her. At Christmastime, they had had the best Santa in town and a wonderfully cheesy animatronic Christmas tree that talked and danced. The tree’s name was Bruce the Spruce and he was the best part of every Christmas for little Ali Reynolds. She would stand there while her parents shopped and watch Bruce sing his songs and do his dances and, for that moment at least, the world was a perfect and magical place.

  Malls had grown in popularity as the nineties loomed, and suddenly an old-fashioned department store in the heart of the city was the last place people wanted to go. It shut its doors, unplugged Bruce, and Christmastime for Alison got that much dimmer. The shell of the building became a hulking corpse in another decaying urban mecca. Eventually the wonderland of her youth was converted to a block of pricey condos.

  Jess lived in one of those condos.

  Alison stood outside the building and wrestled to control herself. The bittersweet memories that this building held kept her rooted to the sidewalk despite the chill that had finally settled over her hometown. Rain fell in icy sheets, dripping loudly from the awning where she sheltered. The rainclouds made a dark night even darker and drove the cold bone deep. Alison didn’t feel the cold and didn’t see the dark. Her anger warmed her from within. She stormed into the lobby and jammed her finger so hard on the elevator call button that she hissed with pain. The trip was a blur. In no time at all, she found herself rapping hard on a metal door with an artfully tarnished plaque displaying Jess’s apartment number.

  The Jess who opened the door bore little resemblance to the woman Alison had spent so much time with. The change was startling, and it kept Alison silent. There were dark purple circles under Jess’s eyes, and the green of her irises was dull, like laundry left carelessly out in the sun to fade. Her shoulders hung lower. Her body seemed to fill less space inside the doorframe than before. Her hair hung limp. She wore a wrinkled T-shirt. Her tattered jeans hung low on her hips.

  Alison’s teeth clenched hard at the sight of her. Jess’s dull eyes scanned her face as she leaned against the door. Her voice was just as defeated as her posture. “So you know.”

  Anger flashed in her white-hot. “Yes, I do. No thanks to you.”

  Jess blinked slowly. She was quiet again for a long time, and the tension inside of Alison ratcheted up another few notches. Finally, she pushed the door wider open and stood back. “Why don’t you come in so we can talk?”

  Alison looked past her into the room. The space would have been bright and airy during the day. All white walls, polished hardwood floors in a honey-blond tone and small cutout windows covering the far wall from floor to ceiling. Now the windows were black as pitch; a few low lamps fought and failed to dispel the gloom. There was a tumbler on the counter of the open kitchen half-full of a rich, amber liquid. Next to it was a tall, square bottle three-quarters full of the same. The metal seal and cap had been peeled off and it sat, coiled like a snake, on the far edge of the counter. Past the kitchen a plush, blue couch looked so soft and inviting, even from behind, that Alison knew it could lure her in if she let it.

  “I don’t want to come in.” She turned her gaze away from the interior and felt disgust when the weak smile melted from Jess’s lips. “What I want is an explanation. I want to know why you couldn’t bother to pick up the phone and tell me what was going on. I want to know why you let me sit at home, oblivious to my best friend’s suffering for two whole fucking days.”

  Jess’s hand dropped from the door and she stuffed it into her pocket. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but there are rules…”

  “Fuck the rules!”

  “That’s not the way I live my life.” Jess’s eyes hardened, tiny lines appearing at the corners. “I have an obligation to my patients.”

  “But you have no obligation to me?”

  “Of course I do. You mean a lot to me, Alison, but I’m a doctor. My job is highly regulated. There are ethical standards I have to live up to no matter what happens. A whole set of rules that govern who I can give information to and who I can’t.”

  “Stop trying to hide behind your
bullshit excuses!”

  “HIPAA is not an excuse. It’s a law and, incidentally, it’s one I believe in. I have to protect the privacy of my patients.” Alison opened her mouth to shout, but Jess stood straighter and spoke more quickly. “I don’t have the right to tell anyone the private health information I have access to, no matter how much I want to. It’s not mine to hand out.”

  Alison crossed her arms. “You told me about her private health information the day we met!”

  “Beth asked me to tell you. To explain her condition. You aren’t in the medical community, you can’t understand…”

  “I can’t understand? I can’t understand? My best friend is lying in the hospital fighting for her life! Her baby is dead! Her husband is a wreck! They needed me! She needed me!”

  Jess squinted at the door opposite her own, her brow furrowing. Her voice was calm when she answered, “That’s not a decision I can make. That’s a decision that Beth and Stephen needed to make.”

  The truth of the statement cut through her like a knife. She hadn’t known because they hadn’t told her. They had waited until long after the worst was over to tell Alison anything.

  “They just lost their baby. They weren’t in a place to make any decisions.”

  “I know. I agree with you, but that doesn’t change the rules.”

  “Well, that’s great. That’s just perfect. You follow your stupid rules. Meanwhile, people I love are hurting. But you don’t care at all do you?”

  She shouted so loudly that her last words echoed down the narrow hall. The lines at the corners of Jess’s eyes deepened but her voice was still flat as a calm sea. “You’re upset, and I understand that. Whatever you may think of me right now, I care about both Beth and Stephen very much.”

  “Of course you do.” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “It’s just me that you don’t give a shit about.”

  Alison couldn’t look at Jess anymore. Couldn’t let herself see the pain and exhaustion, but they were unmistakable in her voice. “If you can think that after what we’ve shared…”