Flowers from Iraq (The Storyteller and the Healer Book 1)

by Sunny Alexander

  Helen motioned her over to the nearby bench. “I’m ready for a cup of coffee. Let’s sit here for a while.” Helen spoke softly. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m really sad and I don’t know what to do. Claire is leaving.”

  “What happened?”

  Kathleen swallowed hard. “She told me it’s time for her to find a job. I don’t think she feels useful.”

  “It’s odd that this is coming up right now. Canfield has so many summer homes and cabins, and in a few weeks, they’ll start to fill up with families. They’re going to be thrilled to have a physician in the area. Since your practice seems to be growing rather quickly, it’s getting difficult for me to manage the front office by myself and still help in the lab.

  “Have you seen Claire when she comes downstairs when there are patients? She’s a natural—a friendly, likable chatterbox—and the folks really take to her. Why don’t you offer her a summer job? That would be a big help to me and it will help Claire to feel more useful. Also, I noticed that your books are still in boxes. Why not let Claire organize them and get them on the shelves? You’ll feel better just having things put away.”

  Kathleen sighed and gave Helen a hug, thanked her, and went inside to find Claire.

  Helen sat for a few minutes, sipping her coffee and feeling satisfied that her matchmaking plans had not been thwarted. Merrily humming “Hello, Dolly!” she returned to her gardening.

  PART FOUR

  Summer

  CHAPTER 25

  Spring turned into early summer. As Helen predicted, the small town of Canfield began to swell with tourists and summer residents. Narrow lanes, identified only by homemade road signs, led to small summer cottages built in the 1940s and’50s. SUVs and vans, loaded with children, toys, and provisions dotted the twists and turns of the hillside roads as families began to settle in for the summer.

  Claire was perfect for the front office, and not just for entertaining the parents and children. Kathleen began to see the many sides to Claire Hollander.

  Kathleen had a break between patients and the waiting room was empty. She saw Claire pulling and filing patient records.

  “Is this boring for you?”

  “No, but I’ve been thinking.”

  “Dare I ask?”

  Claire stopped filing. “I think you’re missing an opportunity.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens to Canfield from mid to late August?”

  Kathleen was reminded of Gayle’s trick questions: an obvious answer, followed by a mysterious interpretation. “The summer residents go home.”

  “Right. And guess what all the moms will be planning?”

  Kathleen had to think a moment. Her mom didn’t do much of anything to get ready for school. Then she remembered, Mrs. Adams would go to the thrift shop and buy her clothing. “School clothes, I guess.”

  “Yep, and doctor’s exams for their kids as well. Vaccinations, permission slips for school sports, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

  Kathleen knew where the “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera” came from. They had watched the movie The King and I three times in the past month.

  Claire shut the file drawer and leaned against the cabinet. “What if you made August the back to school examination month? I could make posters and flyers, and I’ll bet the moms would be thrilled.”

  Kathleen grinned mischievously. “Know what?”

  “What?”

  “’Tis a puzzlement I didn’t think of this myself!”

  Claire carried the large carton, marked Next-day Air, Perishable, into the kitchen. “I’m going to share this with you,” she said to Helen, Sam, and Kathleen, laughing as she opened the box and began to unpack layers upon layers of frozen gel packs. Claire couldn’t stop laughing. “We’ll get to the bottom of this; it’s just that my bubba overdoes everything, including the packing.”

  Kathleen and Helen shared a look and rolled their eyes as Claire pulled out the last of the gel packs and began to lay containers and butcher paper-wrapped packages on the table.

  “Corned beef, pastrami, potato salad, coleslaw, and my bubba’s homemade kosher pickles,” said Claire, her mouth watering. “Oops, and don’t forget the rye bread and hot mustard, too.”

  They sat on the porch, munching on their corned beef sandwiches. Kathleen said with her mouth full, “This is good… I’ll have to send your bubba a thank you note. Helen’s already got appointments for mid-August. How did you learn to do so many different things? Posters drawn, computer programs uploaded, stories for the kids?”

  Claire shrugged. “Don’t shortchange your own talents. You’re like the Super Doc. All you need is a cape.”

  “And all you need is a Sherlock Holmes cap.”

  They laughed.

  “I have to admit, I am a mystery addict.” Claire was thinking and Kathleen could almost see steam coming out of her ears.

  “Okay, Dr. Watson,” said Claire coquettishly, “if you are really curious about me, come to my room tonight at eight.”

  Kathleen took a quick shower, changed into her jeans, changed back into sweats, put her jeans back on, tried them on with a belt, then without a belt. “Oh God, I have no clothes. A top, a top, I need a top!” She riffled through her closet and found an aqua sweater. She remembered her Christmas gift from Gayle and Robert— a turquoise necklace and earrings—and thought they matched her sweater. “Shoes, shoes!” Gayle had taken her shopping for her birthday and bought black loafers to go with her new clothes.

  It was ten minutes to eight. She thought, what’s wrong with me, I feel like a teenager on her first date! This is not a date. Oh, God, I’ve never even had a date! She watched the clock, as the second hand seemed to barely move.

  She walked across the hall, smoothed her hair, and knocked on Claire’s door. “Hi.”

  “Hi. That’s a beautiful necklace.”

  “Thanks, it was a Christmas gift from my friends, Robert and Gayle.”

  “Well, they have very good taste.”

  “You look sad, is everything all right?”

  “I wanted to tell you not to come over.”

  “Why?”

  “We were having fun today, kind of bantering back and forth, and I thought I would show you my keepsake box. When I opened it and took a good look at the contents, I realized I’m really a jack of all trades, and I’m feeling, well, not exactly proud of who I am.”

  “Have you done something illegal—uh, robbed a bank, murdered one of your boyfriends?”

  Claire shook her head. “No, but it’s a thought. What I’ve done is completely legal. Well, I guess I should show you.” Claire sat on the bed and handed Kathleen a stack of certificates. “Come see. I move from thing to thing, don’t put down roots and have no purpose.”

  Kathleen looked through the certificates. She smiled secretly at one of them, Certified Dog Groomer. For a minute, Kathleen had a picture of Claire grooming a large dog and being full of soapsuds. “These are amazing. I’m very impressed. Brooklyn College and Parsons School of Design.”

  “Yeah, I was going to be a teacher, but realized I couldn’t sit in a class, year after year. Then I thought about writing and sketching, so I hitched a ride to Parsons. In between was Massage Therapy School and Dog Groomer. Afterward, I traveled throughout Europe.”

  Kathleen peeked inside the box. “You’ve got a photo album. Show me?”

  “Sure,” said Claire. She patted the bed, indicating Kathleen should sit down next to her. With a shy smile, she did.

  Claire opened the photo album to the first page. A chubby, curly haired infant sat in an old-fashioned metal washtub with a big grin across her face. “That’s me, eight months old.”

  “It looks like you. Well, at least the smile does.”

  Claire flipped the pages, one by one. “This picture is when I learned to ride a bike. Skinned knees and all. And this is when I got a black belt in karate.”

  “Who’s this?” said Kathleen when they c
ame to the photo of a puffy looking, overweight preteen.

  “I should throw that one away.”

  “That’s you?”

  “The summer I went to fat camp.”

  “What happened?”

  “My dad had died and I couldn’t stop eating. It started right after my dad’s funeral. In the Jewish tradition everyone who visits the family brings cakes and sweets.”

  Claire looked down. “This is a little embarrassing. I began to sneak cookies and candy into my room and lie in bed, eating and eating until I fell into a drugged sleep. I did it every night. Bubba would come in the next morning and tell me to change my sheets; they were so full of crumbs. Then I began to blimp out, my clothes were getting tighter and I had these unsightly bulges. I don’t know why they call them love handles. There’s nothing to love about them. So, this one night I’m in bed eating the last of a Boston cream pie…”

  Kathleen looked at Claire in amazement. “A whole pie?”

  “I told you this was embarrassing. Well, I could hear my bubba and mother arguing about my weight gain and it got pretty hot and heavy. My mother’s screaming, ‘It’s a phase, it’s a phase,’ and my bubba’s saying, ‘Adele, she’s grieving and it’s becoming an addiction.’

  “Finally, I hear this glass shattering against the wall and my mother walks out, slamming the front door. I’m not sure we had much to do with each other after that.

  “So, off I went to fat camp. You know, my bubba was right and I learned some really important things. One, I will lose weight if I move a lot. Two, I will lose weight if I eat more vegetables and fruit and less fries. Three, there’s a boys’ camp on the other side of the lake and kissing can be lots of fun.”

  Claire smiled briefly and picked up her certificates. Thumbing through them, her face grew sad and pensive. “Bottom line, they’re just pieces of paper that don’t amount to much of anything.”

  “You have so much talent,” Kathleen tried to reassure her. “Maybe you just haven’t found the right thing.”

  “Did you always want to be a doctor?”

  “I never thought of being anything else. Hmm, come to think of it, when I was much younger, I thought how much fun it would be to solve mysteries. I still like to do that, only they’re medical mysteries.”

  “So, we have that in common. I’m a major Sherlock Holmes fan and a snoop extraordinaire. Kathleen, I’ve been thinking. I’d really like to explore this area. The hiking trails look like fun and maybe try river rafting. Would you want to hang out with me?”

  Claire became the “event planner,” with unusual and exciting adventures waiting around every corner.

  Wednesday became movie night. After the last patient was seen, Kathleen and Claire would drive into town, stop at the video store for a movie, and make a final stop for take-out food.

  “What’s your favorite movie, Kathleen?” Claire had asked that first Wednesday night.

  “I guess the original Star Wars.”

  “Okay, let’s do a double feature, Star Wars and a musical. We’ll need extra popcorn if we’re doing a double.”

  Claire had a passion for the old romantic musicals from the 1930s and ’40s. At first, Kathleen rolled her eyes, but finally gave in to watching Fred and Ginger dance and sing their hearts out for the twelfth time. Claire was a sucker for dapper Fred in his tuxedo, top hat and snazzy boutonniere, and elegant Ginger in her long, flowing gown.

  “Have you ever seen anything as romantic as that?” Claire would habitually sigh, sometimes turning a sofa pillow into a makeshift dance partner.

  As Kathleen watched Claire, and saw her so in love with love, she began to think that perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing to be.

  For Kathleen, the happiness she felt from her friendship with Claire was accompanied by confusion. A nonsexual relationship with another woman was something new to her, and she wasn’t sure of where the boundaries were. If Claire cried during a romantic but sad movie, was it appropriate for Kathleen to comfort her by touching her hand? Or would Kathleen’s longings get out of control and spoil the friendship that was becoming so important? She handled it the only way she could. She kept her distance.

  One Saturday evening after Kathleen returned from the ER, Claire suggested that they spend Sunday in Santa Barbara. Kathleen moaned a little to herself, thinking Sunday was her only catch-up day, but she couldn’t resist Claire’s excitement.

  “I’ll drive,” said Claire. “All you have to do is relax.”

  True to his word, Linc had found the ideal car for Claire. While it wasn’t a VW bus, it was a 1960s VW Beetle convertible, and it fit Claire’s free spirit style perfectly.

  They drove to Santa Barbara in the mellow-yellow Bug with the top down and, appropriately enough, Beatles music—Claire’s idea—blaring from the CD player Linc had graciously installed. Kathleen wasn’t sure if relax was the right word to use with devil-may-care Claire driving, but she could see that Claire was as happy as happy could be.

  By the time they got to Santa Barbara the morning gloom had lifted and the sun was beginning to warm the beach air. The tide lapped at their feet as they walked along the shore. They watched children playing in the water and digging holes in the sand. Kathleen had a moment of sadness when she remembered the before time, at the beach with her brother Devon, when they almost reached the other side of the world by trying to dig their way to China, as all kids will do. She wondered if Devon was all right and if he ever thought about her.

  Claire dug into her beach bag, laid towels on the sand, and took out the sunscreen. “Let me get your back.”

  Kathleen sat quietly as Claire rubbed her back with the lotion. Claire’s touch was an out of control electric current, rushing, finding its way throughout her body. Kathleen hugged her knees and thought about how much she wanted Claire. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to contain her stirrings.

  Claire handed Kathleen the bottle. “After you get your arms and legs, would you get my back?”

  Kathleen prayed, as she put the sunscreen on Claire’s back, please God, take these feelings away. She could feel the velvety texture of Claire’s skin as her hand moved slowly over her shoulders. She longed to lean over, put her face next to Claire’s hair, and breathe in her fragrance. Instead, she put the top back on the tube of sunscreen and returned it to Claire.

  Claire leaned back on her elbows. “This is where I was heading when the accident happened. I’m finally getting to see Santa Barbara. Life is strange, isn’t it? We wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for that accident.” Claire looked at Kathleen. “I know so little about you. I don’t even know what kind of music you like.”

  “Music? I haven’t had much time for music or other things, I guess. I was studying all the time. I like opera, and there are a few pop songs I like.”

  Claire absentmindedly dug her toes in the sand. “Which opera?”

  Kathleen had to think for a minute. “Probably Madame Butterfly.”

  “And what pop songs?”

  “Hmm, let’s see. Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You.’ And k.d. lang, I really like her version of ‘Hallelujah,’ and just about anything by Melissa Etheridge.

  Claire thought, k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge? Two gay icons? Regaining her composure she said, “Yeah, you like music that tears at your heartstrings. ‘One Fine Day’ from Madame Butterfly really does it for me, too. Have you ever been to the opera?”

  Kathleen shook her head and smiled. “Studying and long hours in hospital settings and the Army, that’s been my life. I must seem boring to you.”

  “Not boring at all. I’ll bet you could tell all kinds of stories about your adventures. It’s all in the way you see it.” Claire stood up and offered her hand to Kathleen. “There’s an art show at the park. Let’s spend some time there and then have lunch.”

  Kathleen and Claire walked toward a large grassy area. The art show was in full swing and they strolled through aisle after aisle of crafts and paintings. Kat
hleen enjoyed watching Claire as she stopped to talk to the vendors and artists and seemed to know something about each craft or painting technique.

  One of the artists recommended a secluded restaurant specializing in California cuisine. They strolled down the walkway to a small restaurant on one of the side streets. It was the down time between lunch and dinner and the restaurant was fairly deserted. The headwaiter suggested the outdoor dining area. They were escorted through a narrow, dimly lit passageway that opened to a patio reminiscent of those found in Spain. Moorish style tiles decorated the floor, while pots, filled with every variety of geraniums, hung from the white stucco walls. A fountain in the center of the patio danced rhythmically in the shade of the surrounding Indian Hawthorne trees. The tables, covered in cloths in bright primary covers, held various patterns of antique silverware, creating a cosmopolitan atmosphere.

  Claire ordered a bottle of Merlot. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me and Oscar. I was so worried about him. You not only took care of Oscar, but loved him as well. If you don’t mind, I want this to be my treat, and will it be okay if I order for both of us?”

  Kathleen wanted to say more than thank you, but her words and desires were twisted around each other and she couldn’t trust herself to release one without the other. She wanted to say what she was feeling: “This is the best day I’ve ever had, and I want us to go home and make love.” But all she could safely say was, “Thank you.”

  Claire told the server they preferred to graze rather than eat a large meal. He suggested they begin with the roasted pumpkin soup and follow with several items from the starter menu. It would give them the experience of the cuisine while not overwhelming them with large portions. It was perfect for both of them.

  When they returned to the car, Claire dug into her box of CDs. “I don’t have Madame Butterfly but I do have La Bohème. I should warn you that I always shed a few tears at, ‘They Call Me Mimi.’”

  It was the end to a wonderful day, and Kathleen thought about how her world had opened up since Claire came into her life.