Bonkers

by Michelle Holman

  ‘Hi,’ she replied in a lukewarm voice as Dan took the seat beside her.

  ‘How have you been?’ Craig asked pointedly. Lisa had missed their last appointment.

  Disappointment and nerves made Lisa careless. ‘Oh the usual—a woman trapped in a stranger’s body.’

  Dan muttered something angrily under his breath.

  Craig’s brows rose but he refrained from comment. Instead, he introduced his date, Rebecca, who was staring at Lisa as if she had just sprouted another head.

  ‘I’m one of Craig’s patients,’ Lisa explained to her wearily.

  Rebecca looked faintly alarmed.

  Taking pity on her, Lisa leaned across the table and patted her hand. ‘It’s OK, I only need locking up when it’s a full moon.’

  Rebecca looked uncertainly at Craig, who smiled, shrugged and applied himself to his wine.

  Dan casually reached out to pick up Lisa’s hand from the table and clasp it between both of his.

  Lisa’s nerve endings leapt to attention.

  ‘It’s a full moon tonight,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Behave.’

  Enveloped in the light, clean scent of his cologne, Lisa’s fit of pique dissolved into thin air. She looked into the clear grey eyes only inches from her own and lower, to the crisp outline of his mouth.

  ‘Stop that,’ Dan muttered as he felt his groin stir to life. Damn. Lisa only had to look at him and his body responded with a mind of its own.

  Lisa felt thoroughly miserable. When she glanced up, she discovered Craig Fergusson watching them curiously from his side of the table and was tempted to stick her tongue out at him. She settled for scowling at him instead.

  Craig laughed. He looked at Dan. ‘When are you up?’

  Dan jumped. ‘Huh?’

  ‘I said, when are you up?’

  Dan reddened.

  Craig slapped the table and started to laugh again.

  ‘Third,’ Dan snapped.

  Craig’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses. ‘Then I’m after you. I think laparoscopic removal of gallstones is first, followed by the community skin lesions project.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be nice. Do we get the gallstones for the entrée or the main course?’ Lisa asked sarcastically.

  Rebecca’s face twisted with revulsion.

  A waiter appeared at the table with a silver dish of salted pistachio nuts. ‘Nuts, ladies?’

  There was a moment of silence.

  Lisa choked back laughter.

  Craig sniggered.

  Dan smiled reluctantly.

  Rebecca looked bewildered.

  ‘What’s going on down there?’ Janice Millar’s husband called. ‘I feel like we’re missing out.’ Lisa didn’t see the stony look Dan gave Jack Millar, but Craig did.

  ‘Hand ’em over,’ he cried cheerfully to the confused waiter, pointedly ignoring Jack. ‘Look, Becca, they’ve your favourite kind—green pistachios.’

  Becca was looking greener than the nuts.

  The man on Dan’s right, a fellow surgeon, asked him about the Ilizarov programme and he pounced on the diversion like a drowning man to a lifeboat. But the entire time he was deep in discussion about bone-grafting techniques and average rates of bone growth, he was trying to figure out if Lisa had recognized Jack Millar and if the desire he had seen in her eyes a few moments ago was inspired by him or the sight of her old lover. The thought made his blood boil. He wanted to rip the smug smile from Jack Millar’s face. It was only the panicked, nervous expression on Janice’s face that kept Dan from acting on the idea. Either way, he was skating on thin fucking ice.

  Over the next hour and a half, dinner was served and the projects were beamed to them in all their technicolour glory via a big screen at the back of the stage. Lisa couldn’t believe they were expected to eat at the same time a large colour picture of a gallstone being removed was beamed to them. When she looked at the crumbed potato balls on her plate, Lisa felt her stomach heave.

  Rebecca didn’t seem to be doing any better. It was easy to spot the non-medical people in the room, because they ate less and less as the night progressed, rolling their eyes like frightened horses at the more lurid shots while Dan, Craig and all the other health professionals worked their way through their dinners without blinking an eye.

  By unspoken agreement, Lisa and Rebecca decided to drink instead. The young waiter caught on quickly and brought a bottle of wine for them to share. Dan and Craig were so engrossed in the presentations that it was a while before they realized that their dates were getting drunk.

  Dan watched Lisa as if she were an alien being freshly sprung from John Hurt’s android abdomen. Until he’d brought her home from the hospital, he’d never seen his wife touch alcohol and he’d never seen her drunk.

  ‘Gary?’ Lisa squinted at the name badge clipped to the front of their waiter’s black waistcoat the next time he approached the table. ‘It is Gary, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘My name’s Rory.’

  ‘Is it?’ Lisa blinked and smiled sweetly at him. ‘Did you know SpongeBob SquarePants has got a cat called Gary?’

  Lisa hadn’t given Jack Millar a second look, much to the man’s annoyance. He sat at the other end of the table, watching her and drinking steadily.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Rory agreed with a grin. ‘It’s my favourite cartoon.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Lisa beamed at him and peered at his name badge. ‘Why doesn’t it say Rory?’

  ‘It does,’ Rory replied patiently, as he replaced the empty bottle of Cloudy Bay with a newly opened bottle.

  ‘Does it?’ Lisa was so surprised by this information that she failed to notice the meaningful stare Dan gave the waiter as he moved the wine out of the reach of Lisa and Rebecca.

  ‘Mmm,’ Rory said nervously.

  ‘Sorry ’bout that,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m dyslexic.’

  Dan sucked in a breath. Linda struggled to talk to him about her dyslexia let alone announce it to a table full of strangers. He stared at the inebriated woman beside him in bewilderment, wishing she wouldn’t keep throwing these curve balls at him. He refused to give credence to her story that she wasn’t Linda, even if Lisa was far nicer than Linda had ever been—funnier, warmer, sweeter, kinder…and hornier, Dan reminded himself, as if he could forget that particular piece of information. The table was all that stood between him and social suicide. It concealed the rampant erection he was desperately trying to get under control. He was dreading getting to his feet when it was his turn to take the stage and make his presentation.

  When the Skin Lesions Project began, both Rebecca and Lisa groaned. For the first time they noticed they had lost their bottle of wine.

  ‘How did that happen?’ Rebecca asked wonderingly. Lisa turned an accusing gaze on Dan and Craig.

  ‘OK, ladies?’ Craig asked innocently.

  Lisa glared at him.

  Rebecca took a peep at the screen and gagged. ‘Oh. My. God.’

  Lisa looked up and recoiled. ‘Is this your first date?’ she asked.

  ‘No, second,’ Rebecca replied mulishly. ‘And the last, I think.’

  Dan laughed at Craig’s offended expression before returning his attention to the woman at the front of the room graphically describing the lurid photos of various skin diseases.

  Rebecca considered him. ‘At least being married to a surgeon you’re used to this sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Lisa agreed dryly. ‘I’m an old hand.’ She turned to Dan. ‘Can I have my wine back?’

  ‘No. You’re smashed.’ He applied himself to the coffee torte on his plate.

  Lisa risked a peep at the screen and shuddered. ‘How anybody can look at colour pictures of skin diseases and contemplate eating is beyond me.’

  Dan’s name was finally called to present the Ilizarov project. Lisa felt a thrill of pride watching him make his way to the stage. He instantly had the full attention of every woman in the audience, and Lisa was sure it wasn’t due to any deep intere
st in orthopaedic surgery.

  ‘Is this going to be gory?’ Rebecca asked.

  Recalling the kids she had seen at the hospital, Lisa looked at her apologetically. ‘Not as bad as the skin lesions and gallstones—think human shish kebabs and that should give you some idea.’

  Rebecca groaned and narrowed her eyes at Craig. ‘If you don’t want me to run screaming from the room, I suggest you get Rory over here with another bottle of wine—pronto.’

  Dan’s presentation was the best of the night. The pictures of the kids charmed and moved the audience, but the big American surgeon moved them even more with his self-deprecating wit and modest charm. The passion he felt for his subject and the way he talked about his personal involvement made his listeners feel they were a part of what they saw happening on the screen. When he finished, Lisa was certain the applause was louder than it had been for any of the other projects. And hers was the loudest of all.

  ‘You were brilliant!’ she cried when he returned to his seat. ‘I bet you win!’

  Her unbridled enthusiasm made him thaw some more. ‘Well, I wouldn’t be too sure about that. The competition is pretty stiff.’

  Lisa was thrilled when Dan’s presentation won the award for innovation at the end of the night, and she leapt to her feet to applaud and hug him before he had even made it out of his chair. He grinned and went on stage to accept a glass trophy and give a short speech of thanks that gave the impression everybody else was responsible for the project’s success but him.

  As Lisa watched him walk back from the stage she acknowledged the emotion filling her heart and soul.

  She loved Dan.

  She had fallen in love with him.

  25

  The following morning, Lisa felt sick from too much wine and stayed in bed feeling sorry for herself. ‘Remind me never to drink again,’ she moaned.

  Dan lay on his side facing her, a hand tucked beneath his ear. He watched her pensively, telling himself it was too early for her to be suffering the effects of morning sickness. ‘Any sign of your period yet?’ he asked.

  Lisa lifted her lids to look at him, her eyes clouding when she saw his tense expression. She kept telling herself his concern about her being pregnant was sensible, but it still hurt. ‘No, it’s too soon. I don’t get much warning any more.’ She paused before deliberately adding, ‘Not like before.’

  As usual he didn’t reply. The only indication he had heard her was the tightening of his mouth. For once Lisa refused to take the hint. She stared at the wall beside the bed. ‘Sometimes I used to spend all month in bed.’

  Silence.

  ‘Janice Millar put in an IUD but that didn’t work, and when she did a laparoscopy it showed my pelvis was riddled.’ Lisa wondered if Dan realized he was gripping her shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. ‘She thought the IUD would work but—’

  ‘—it didn’t help,’ Dan said in a clipped voice. He abruptly dragged himself up against the headboard of the bed and punched the pillows into shape behind his back.

  Lisa tilted her head and stared up at him. ‘How do you know that?’ she asked in a hushed voice.

  ‘I read Lisa Jackson’s case notes.’

  Lisa thought she must have misheard him. ‘You read my case notes? When? When did you read them?’

  ‘Weeks ago,’ he admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Weeks ago?’ she repeated, searching his face for some clue as to what he was thinking. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t see the point.’

  Lisa felt her temper begin a slow boil that matched the roiling of her stomach. ‘You didn’t see the point,’ she repeated. ‘Tell me, if it was such a pointless exercise why did you go to the trouble of reading the notes of a dead woman who you’d never met? What prompted you to do that, Dan?’

  He wouldn’t answer her.

  ‘You arrogant prick!’ She struggled into a sitting position, clutching the bedcovers to her breasts. ‘How dare you! All this time I’ve been telling you things about myself like having a club foot when I was little and my endometriosis and you already knew! You’d read all about me and you knew only Lisa Jackson—or somebody close to her—could know all those intimate details.’

  ‘I read the notes of Lisa Louise Jackson,’ he said stubbornly. ‘You are not Lisa Louise Jackson.’

  Lisa’s temper boiled over. Drawing back her arm she took a wild, clumsy swing at him, but Dan was faster, bigger and a whole lot stronger. He caught her wrist before her palm could connect with his face.

  Dan was shaken. Suddenly he saw flashes of the old Linda. ‘Stop it! Calm down!’

  When she threw herself at him again, Dan caught her and rolled her beneath him, trapping her against the mattress with his body.

  Lisa tried to buck him off, but it was hopeless. She could see all her foolish dreams for the future dissolving into thin air. ‘Why can’t you believe me?’

  His gaze held a mixture of sorrow and frustration. ‘I can’t! Christ! Nobody could, Lisa! Nobody goes to heaven and gets sent back to earth in another person’s body by some rookie angel. Not unless they’re from the cast of Charmed.’

  Lisa paled. She shuddered. Dan was alarmed to see her skin turn to gooseflesh. She looked as if she were going into shock.

  ‘Get off me,’ she said tonelessly.

  He hesitated. ‘Lisa…’

  ‘Don’t you mean Linda?’ she asked flatly, pressing the heels of her hands against his chest. ‘Get off me.’

  He reluctantly complied, sitting back on his heels.

  Lisa slowly climbed off the bed, her movements like those of a woman twice her age. Winding the sheet about her she stepped backwards, tugging it from where it was anchored beneath the mattress.

  Dan swallowed and rubbed the centre of his chest. The fact she needed to cover her nudity made his heart hurt, which was stupid—how could his heart hurt? Or was the pain of watching a relationship disintegrate right in front of your eyes similar to having a heart attack?

  Lisa backed away, pulling the sheet with her and leaving Dan sitting naked on the bed, his big, hard body so beautiful she had to swallow the lump in her throat. She wished she could tell him she hated him, but she’d be lying if she did.

  ‘Where are you going, Lisa?’ Dan asked in a low, tense voice.

  ‘Back to my old room.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Lisa,’ he pleaded. ‘Please. We can work this out.’

  ‘No. I don’t think we can,’ she whispered and walked from the room, trailing the sheet behind her. ‘I can’t pretend to be somebody I’m not—not even for you, Dan.’

  Later that night, Lisa walked in her sleep. She was amazed she slept at all, but at some point her mind and body simply shut down.

  Dan wasn’t so lucky. He lay in his big, empty bed, recalling the anguish in Lisa’s eyes and the way she had looked as if the stuffing had been knocked out of her. He wasn’t surprised when he heard the bang of something hitting the floor and the rattle of what he guessed were the things on top of the chest of drawers in Lisa’s room when she bumped into them. He’d been expecting her to sleepwalk—she always did when she was emotionally overwrought.

  But when he went to her room to check on her Dan discovered she’d locked the door.

  Lisa stayed in her room all day Sunday and was in bed on Monday morning when Dan left for work. He knocked softly on her door before he left, but she didn’t answer him. The less she saw of him, the less it would hurt when she left, and she knew she had to leave. Lisa knew Dan lingered in the hallway before she finally heard his car pull out of the garage. And unbelievably the tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes again—she honestly wondered where her body stored them all.

  The phone rang several times, but Lisa didn’t answer it. She finally roused herself from bed and into the shower towards lunchtime and then cried all over again as she washed the smell of Dan and their lovemaking on Saturday night from her skin. Watching the soapsuds slide down the drain seemed symbolic
of their fragile relationship. But Lisa reminded herself that Dan had never really been hers in the first place; she had only had him by default.

  Just before three o’clock, there was a knock on the front door. Lisa answered it looking and feeling like death warmed up. She was wearing her well-washed denim skirt, an olive polo-neck sweater that had lost its shape, with a black long-sleeved shirt of Dan’s over the top. The sleeves were rolled over and over to fit her arms, and the hem hung to the back of her knees. There was no reason for her to wear it apart from the fact that it smelt of him. Lisa was certainly not looking like a showstopper. Misery had made her eyes swollen and bloodshot, and the end of her nose was red enough to have given Rudolph the reindeer a run for his money.

  A man stood on the doorstep dressed in an expensive charcoal suit and polished loafers, the teal-blue silk handkerchief spilling elegantly from the breast pocket of his jacket perfectly matching his teal-blue-and-grey-striped tie. His blonde hair was carefully styled and brushed behind his ears. He watched her with eyes a surprising shade of nutmeg brown. Lisa peered at him and finally recognized him as Janice Millar’s husband. She assumed he must be looking for Dan.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said listlessly. ‘Dan isn’t here. He’s at the hospital.’

  Jack Millar looked appalled. ‘Linda! What has that bastard been doing to you?’

  Lisa frowned as the suspicion Jack might not be here to see Dan began to form in her mind. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You look terrible, darling. Are you sick?’ He reached out a hand and tried to touch her cheek.

  Lisa pulled away before he could touch her.

  The darling was the first indication that perhaps Jack and Linda Brogan had been more than passing acquaintances. Lisa looked more closely at Jack’s features and was suddenly reminded of the baby boy in the waiting room. Her stomach heaved.

  Linda must have been having an affair with Janice Millar’s husband; he was the father of her baby.

  ‘I think you’d better go.’