She answered the door in a colorful flowing skirt and loose white blouse. “I hope it is okay that I changed. I have to get out of my work clothes immediately after I get home.”
I had no words. To me, she looked incredible, and I told her so.
“You are too kind.” She kissed my cheek as she took the wine and beckoned me into her house.
It was like stepping into another world. Outside the doorway was a balcony like any other apartment complex. Inside the doorway, though in square feet smaller than my condo, her place felt huge. It didn’t make sense because her furniture was ornate and big, starting with an end table that had legs more shapely than mine. An intricate colorful rug covered most of the standard beige carpet, and an ornate crystal chandelier made the place feel like a ballroom.
Remi sounded apologetic when she said, “It is not mine. I am renting for the time being.”
“It is absolutely yours, though. Everything about it is you.”
“The things, yes, but I long for a place with more light, with higher ceilings. For now, I needed something close to Neil.” She held up the bottle of wine. “Shall we get started on this while I get dinner together?
“Sure,” I said, following her into the kitchen. “How is Neil?”
“He is well. He has finished the Batman Lego you left with him. He is anxious to show you and see if it meets with your approval.”
“He doesn’t want to keep it? I got it as a gift for him.”
“He is very literal. You said that you heard he could help you fix your set. He has fixed it for you and will be very happy for you to take it back.” She set stemless wineglasses on the table. They looked like they had been blown from different colored glass collected at a beach. With a tool I’d never seen the likes of before, she effortlessly extracted the cork. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, graceful in her every move. She caught me staring and tipped her chin. “What?”
I stepped forward and swept her thick hair back from her neck. I kissed it and checked her countenance before I kissed her lips. “You are a very beautiful woman.”
“I think you forget how beautiful you are, Dr. Hernandez.” She swept her hand down my bare arm, making my skin come alive. She must have seen the fire in my eyes because she tick-tocked her pointer finger and said, “but we will revisit that later. First dinner and Ghost Hunters. You owe me one whole episode, with an open mind.”
“You never said I had to keep an open mind!”
She lifted one of her sculpted eyebrows. “I do not want to watch with you if you are going to be mean.”
“I won’t be mean. I promise. It’s part of your unwinding, so I’m interested in checking it out.”
She accepted my words and served dinner—spicy chicken and vegetables on rice—that she’d picked up on her way home. Her steady chatter abruptly came to a halt.
“What?” It was my turn to ask.
“Eat and then watch or eat while we watch?”
“Eat and watch is good with me.”
We gathered food and drink, and I followed her to the living room. “What would we be watching if we were at your home?”
“That depends on whether a game my brother wants to watch is more important than the show my nieces and nephew want to watch.”
“What about you? What do you watch when you are not with your family?”
“I don’t watch TV.” I thought of all the times Ann wanted me to join her to watch the hospital dramas and sitcoms she loved. “I don’t have the attention span for it. My mind stays too busy on what I should be doing.”
“Is it true what your mother said, that it is very difficult to get you to leave your work?”
“It was worse when I was a postdoc. I spent a lot of years not watching TV. If I have any time to kill, I’m more likely to poke around on YouTube and watch whatever’s trending.”
“Well thank you for giving this a try.”
She began an episode, and I asked if she had ever watched the show with her brother. She pressed pause, and I made a mental note: no talking during a show.
“No. He watches only Lego. We have a movie night once a month and it’s almost always one of the Lego movies. I have persuaded him to watch anime on occasion.”
“Does anyone ever bring a date?” I asked, keeping my voice light.
“Not so far, but we have one coming up. I can see if he would permit you to join us. You were asking to join us, were you not?”
“I was. It sounds like fun.”
She held my gaze, a small smile on her lips. “If you are serious, I’ll let you know.”
“I am. If Neil’s up for it, I’m all in.”
She nodded and started the show again, but I caught her glancing at me a few times while we ate our dinner like she was waiting for me to take it back. I could get used to her looking over at me while we shared a meal. Was she thinking the same thing? I really liked where I was, where we were, not just physically, though being invited to her apartment felt like another step forward for us. But emotionally too. I could tell how much it meant to Remi that I wanted to see Neil again. Learning what brought her joy felt like discovering a small treasure.
I hadn’t spoken during the interview with the property owner and setup for catching ghosts, but once they got to the actual running around whispering in the dark, it got more difficult for me pay attention to the show and keep my thoughts to myself. Watching Remi’s reaction was better entertainment, anyway. She was so transfixed that her food stalled halfway to her mouth. Sometimes half of the fork’s contents fell back to her plate before she got there.
“Your dinner must be cold by now,” I observed when her fork stalled on the plate for several minutes.
She wrinkled her nose at me. “They are so quiet that it is difficult for me to eat and listen at the same time.”
“Do they think that when they whisper like that, the ghosts can’t hear them?”
Remi smacked me lightly. “They are listening for signs that the ghost is with them. How would they hear a board creak if they do not whisper?”
I smiled because Remi had lowered her own voice. “You’re listening for the ghost too?” I scooted closer to her on the couch. “I’ll hold your hand if you’re scared.”
She leaned close to me. “Doesn’t the hair on the back of your neck stand up when they say that they can feel a presence?”
“A house that old, it’s got to be drafty.”
“A draft is not going to make the EMF detector light up the way it does.”
“EM-What?”
“Electromagnetic force detector.”
“Is that the evidence you were talking about when you said they use scientific method?”
“Absolutely! They also use a seismograph, thermal-imaging cameras, infrared night-vision…”
For every piece of equipment she listed, I placed a kiss on her neck, moving toward her ear. “Yes, this is sounding very scientific. I’d be more impressed if they had a spectrophotometer or a thermocycler.”
“This is about entertainment,” she said, squirming.
“Are you entertained?” I whispered. I had my eyes closed, breathing in her spiciness.
“At the moment, I am distracted.”
“Should we investigate the cause of that?”
She turned her face to me and leaned forward to capture my lips with her own. All the stresses of my life slipped away when first her lips, and then her tongue, pushed against my own. Unhurried, I savored her, happy to let the signals I was picking up with my lips ripple through my body. I kept my hands to myself, content to follow wherever she led things.
The pressure of her lips lessened, and I leaned, trying to coax them back to me. Quickly, she set her plate on the coffee table and paused the show. Then her lips were back on mine, more forcefully now and followed by her upper body. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her to me as I reclined. She nestled between my legs, and I slid my hands down to her hips, pulling her closer. The fabric of her sk
irt moved with my hands, so I kept gathering it until I could get my hands on her bare skin.
She broke the kiss with a very satisfying moan, and I pushed myself against her, wanting her to feel how hot she made me. Her hands slid under my shirt, sliding along my belly and up to my breasts. I lifted off the couch enough to pull off my shirt, and she reached behind me to unclasp my bra. Both fell to the floor as she pushed me back against the couch. Her mouth latched onto one nipple as her hands explored my exposed skin.
I didn’t want her to stop, but I wanted so much more. “I want your hands everywhere. I need you inside.”
She answered with such a hard pull on my nipple that a shock of electricity shot straight to my clit. “Don’t you want to finish the show?” Her face hovered over the other breast, and her fingers kept the electricity pulsing between the nipple she had wet and where I so desperately wanted her hand.
“Remi,” I pleaded. “Take me to bed.”
A string of melodious words left her mouth sending shivers up my spine.
“I hope you said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’”
More words I didn’t understand but more familiar. “Was that the same language? Or did you say the same thing but switch to French? That sounded like French.”
“I said, but you hardly know me. You do not even know all the languages I speak.”
“I thought I knew you pretty well.” I ran my hand up her bare leg again, dipping my hand under her panties. She moaned with me when I discovered how wet she was.
“You know some,” she whispered, shuddering as I continued to tease her. “But you have not guessed the last language I speak.”
“I think it is a love language, and if I try hard enough, you will divulge it in bed.”
“Ah, an interesting experiment.”
“Remi,” I pleaded. “I need to feel your skin on mine.” I tried to get my hands under her shirt. “But my access is severely limited here.”
She turned her attention to the television again. “We have not learned if the ghost is upset about the owners selling the house.”
Was she serious? I opened my mouth, snapped it back shut and scrambled for something to say. “We could come back to it?”
Her thick hair tickled my face as she lowered herself to kiss me. She hovered there and said, “Later?”
Had I miscalculated how turned on she was, or was she going to torture me by making me wait until the show was over? “That depends,” I said.
“On?” she asked.
“Whether you can get out of bed after I do all the things I want to do to you.”
Her eyes sparkled as she studied me.
“This is your theory? That your lovemaking will make me unable to leave the bed?”
“Hypothesis,” I corrected. “A hypothesis requires proof to validate the claim.”
“Let us test this hypothesis of yours.”
She switched off the TV and led me to her bedroom, stripping her clothes as she went. By the time we hit her sumptuous sheets, both of us stripped naked, I was confident that we would not be leaving for the rest of the night.
Chapter Twenty
As predicted, we did not make it back to finish the episode of Ghost Hunters. I’d slept soundly next to Remi in her luxurious bed—more data for my sleep study. I did not argue when she insisted that I still owed her a whole episode of Ghost Hunters without judgment, even when she had rested a single finger on my chest and said there would be no kissing until the show ended.
The following nights alone in my bed, I returned to tossing and turning. I missed the blissful sleep I logged when I was with Remi. In grad school, papers I was reading or experiments that weren’t going as planned kept me up. Until I met Remi, troubleshooting my work filled restless dreams, often pushing me out of bed to jot down ideas. I was used to my work keeping me up. I was not used to a woman keeping me up even when she was not present in my bed.
Though I meditated and wrote down the things I was supposed to stop spinning on, Remi continued to fill my thoughts. First, whether Neil would say yes to my joining them for the movie gnawed at me. Once he agreed to our plan, I stayed awake ruminating about how to make the second meeting go as well as the first one. I talked to Remi nightly, and she told me not to worry about the movie. She argued that the distraction of the film was likely to make it easier than our first introduction as long as I didn’t talk during the show. That, of course, got me to thinking about Remi’s scolding expression during Ghost Hunters and how I would have to keep my hands and lips to myself the next time we watched the show together.
By Thursday, lack of sleep had me dragging so badly that only the thought of how pissed Judy would be about my tardiness got me out of bed. I usually tried to be in the lab before eight. Unless Judy was at a conference, she was always in her office well before that, and I imagined her standing by my empty chair glaring at her watch if I wasn’t in early as well. It was ten after eight by the time I pushed through the heavy glass doors to my building and bounded up the stairs, grateful for all the days exercising with Valerie. I swiped my badge and had just gotten the green light to enter when I heard my name.
“Dr. Hernandez?”
It felt like a bucket of ice dumped over my head. I turned but didn’t recognize the woman standing in the doorway to my left.
“Judy asked me to keep an eye out for you?” Hair so black it had to be dyed fell in her face as she consulted a piece of paper. She was so pale she looked unwell. I crossed the foyer and peeked at what she held which turned out to be pictures of the dozen scientists who worked for Judy.
“I’m the new administrative assistant? Ashleigh?” She held out her hand, letting the automatic-locking door close behind her.
I gave her hand a perfunctory squeeze. When I’d learned how quickly Judy went through office administrators, I gave up getting to know them. This one was not going to last long if she didn’t change the uptick that made all her statements sound like questions.
Ashleigh turned back to the door and stopped. I watched as the realization that she’d locked herself out sank in. Instead of offering my own badge, I watched Ashleigh pat her pockets, front and back, in hopes of finding the key card that probably sat on her desk. Ashleigh’s gaze drifted to Judy’s office door, and though I would not have thought it possible, she paled even more. At least Ashleigh had the sense to look panicked. Seeing that, I extended my badge from my hip on its zip string.
“You’ve got to wear it somehow.” I let Ashleigh through first. “A lanyard works too.”
“Thanks for the advice. Dr. Vogelsang said…”
“Karla!” Judy interrupted, gesturing me into her office. She held up a finger before focusing her attention back to her phone call. She sat at a desk set up like a fort with three working surfaces surrounding her. Multiple monitors sat on one desk, and stacks of folders covered the others. The longer I stood there studiously not listening to Judy’s side of the conversation, the more I thought about her life. Here she had this gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean, but did she ever take the time to admire it? If I were talking on the phone, I would have been staring at the horizon. I wondered how often Judy allowed herself time to appreciate it or took the time to talk to her spouse in the middle of the day. The familiar urge to call Remi hit me again.
“I’m scheduled to give the luncheon address at the International Diabetes Association Conference in Seattle,” she said without preamble.
I tried to hide that she’d startled me. I hadn’t heard her end the phone call. “Is there something you need me to do in the lab over the weekend?”
“I need you this weekend, but in Seattle, not in the lab.”
“You want me to go to the conference?” I tried to keep my voice from squeaking in surprise.
“You are equally qualified to present our material, yes?”
I gulped. I had thought she was inviting me to attend, not to present! The yearly event gave scientists a chance to discuss research and graduates a chan
ce to network and feel out possible postdoc positions. “Me?”
“The FDA have contacted us about securing fast-track status, and I must be here to meet with them. Can you do the presentation on behalf of the lab?”
A zing of adrenaline shot through me. “Absolutely.”
“Good.” Judy rose and easily squeezed through the small gap she left between two of her desks. She sat next to me. “It’s time for you to start taking on more responsibility. When we move into phase one of the clinical trial, it will demand more of my time, and I will need to count on you to keep things running smoothly here. I want you to resume the initial studies of our drug on kidney disease and head up that program.”
“That would be…” I had no words. Taking the lead on the kidney research would be a huge step up for me, and the way she was watching me said that unless I fucked up, it was mine. I thought about my insomnia and could easily imagine the effect the new research would have.
The thought must have registered on my face because Judy said, “Is something the matter?”
I chased the worry about sleep from my mind and arranged my professional expression. “I’m sorry. I was distracted. A friend of mine just found out that she’s pregnant.”
“Oh! That’s a distraction, indeed! A child will certainly complicate her career. She’s here at The Miracle Center?”
“She’s in cancer research,” I said, not wanting to expose Valerie.
“Well I am fortunate that it is not you. You’ve invested thousands of hours on this project and deserve the chance to see it to fruition. A pregnancy would certainly sideline your career.” A stillness fell over the room, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to agree with her. She nodded as if my silence had satisfied her that she’d made her point.
“I’ll email you my slides. We can run through them after you’ve had a chance to take notes. I’ll have Ashleigh work on your itinerary.”
“Absolutely. I’m so honored.”
“Of course you are!” She smiled as she walked back behind her fortress, her back to the picture window.
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