Pas de deux

by E. J. Noyes

  When she’d said she’d be spending the afternoon in clinic doing paperwork I’d laughed. “Yeah sure, until an emergency comes up.”

  Teresa was emphatic. “Nope, not at all. Two half days a week for paperwork, no exceptions. We’ve got enough vets on staff that the work is always covered.” She’d exhaled. “This place is like the fucking unicorn of vet practices. I’m never leaving. Even if the pay isn’t as good as other places, it’s so worth my mental health.”

  Unicorn of vet practices indeed. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have a few hours of genuinely uninterrupted time at work. Most days I did my paperwork during my lunch break, or once I was technically off work but still in the office, and sometimes even when I got home because Seth believed in cramming as much into his vets’ schedules as he could. His was one of the practices that paid in the top twenty percent of vet salaries nationwide and he probably thought that entitled him to wring as much out of us as he could.

  My first impression of LakeVets was comfort. My second impression was competency. When I stepped into the reception area—which smelled as all veterinary surgeries did of disinfectant layered over the top of animal scents—and asked for Dr. Warren, the receptionist flashed me a wide, genuine smile. “I’m sure she’s out back, I’ll just go check. And who should I say is here for her?”

  “Addie Gardner. She’s expecting me. I’m a friend.”

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the smile grew wider. “Wonderful! I’ll be right back.” It seemed that friends visiting you at work was a fun thing at LakeVets, unlike at my workplace.

  Teresa burst in less than a minute later, her arms spread wide and her face alight with her brilliant smile. She crashed into me, absorbing me in a tight hug. “Dang, girl, you look good. Tired, but good.”

  I held her at arm’s length. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? I’m pretty sure you only had two bags under each eye, not four, the last time I saw you.”

  “You’re hilarious. And you try incubating a human.” She rubbed her stomach. “Five more months. Feels like an eternity.”

  Squeezing her shoulders, I told her, “I’m pretty sure it’s only going to get worse.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve had plenty of practice with on-calls so I’m sure I’ll be fine with the waking up for feeding and crying. And that’s just for me. Who knows what the baby will want.” She winked, hugged me again, then dragged me off with a “Thanks, Kendall!” thrown over her shoulder at the receptionist.

  As we wandered through the building, Teresa gestured left and right, never slowing as she rattled off, “Offices and shared space for eating and hiding from clients, lab, small animal surgery, and then just through there is small animal accommodation.”

  The more I saw, the more impressed I became. Though not brand new, the practice was clean, large, and well laid out. All the equipment was modern, and I couldn’t see anything I’d have wished for that they didn’t have. Even a standing MRI machine which Seth refused to buy, deeming it an unnecessary waste of money, despite its diagnostic mastery. I lovingly touched the edge of the screen and murmured, “One day I’ll get to use one of you.”

  The more I saw the more I felt gratitude that Teresa had such a great workspace. And a childish kind of jealousy that I didn’t. Everyone was friendly and cheerful, despite obviously being in the middle of work and by the time we’d left the examination area I felt like I’d made ten friends. We paused in a huge treatment room with three crushes to restrain horses and I leaned against the wall. “What’s happening here while you’re off having a kid?”

  “I’ll be stepping back from hands-on equine stuff soon, then dusting off my small animal medicine until I can’t work anymore. A locum is going to step in and try to fill my shoes. Try.” She flashed a beatific smile.

  “Good thing your head’s so big, otherwise you’d have trouble balancing that baby belly.”

  “Need a big head for my big brain.” She pointed to the back of a tall, rake-thin man dressed in bright pink scrubs and studying digital X-rays on a laptop. “Come meet my boss.”

  I knew who her boss was. Emmett Lake, the proprietor of LakeVets, was something of a legend in my profession. He was on nearly every veterinary board imaginable, reviewed journal papers for fun and was rumored to actually be a nice guy into good medicine rather than just making money.

  Teresa dragged me over to Emmett who turned at the intrusion, eyes lighting up when he saw Teresa. His gaze fell to me, the look of excitement only dimming fractionally. Teresa gestured between me and her boss. “Emmett, meet Addie Gardner, my bestest of friends from college and, dare I say it, a veterinarian of greater skill than even I. Addie, this is my boss and an all-around scoundrel, Emmett Lake.”

  Emmett had a roguish, mad-scientist look about him as if he was about to tell you he’d just discovered the cure for colic and then crack a dad joke all in the same breath. His voice was a surprisingly high tenor and I detected a trace of East Coast when he dipped his head and said, “The pleasure is all mine.” He offered his hand and I took it.

  “Likewise. I’ve just been given the tour. Your practice is very impressive.”

  Emmett was obviously pleased by the compliment. “Why thank you.” He closed the laptop and leaned back against the stainless steel table. “Gardner…I read your paper on using bone marrow stem cells to treat superficial digital flexor tendon strains. Very impressive. You really think it’s worth the trouble to obtain marrow stem cells to treat an injury that’s usually managed traditionally with anti-inflammatories, rest, and physical therapy?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was baiting me or disagreed and wanted to have discourse on the matter. I would have liked to look at Teresa but sensed that it might be taken as discomfort or weakness. It was neither—I just wanted to see if my friend could give me any clues as to whether her boss always jumped right in like this less than a minute after meeting someone.

  Regardless, I’d spent years researching and doing trials and I stood behind my data. “Yessir, I do. And I agree with your assessment regarding traditional therapies. When appropriate,” I added with a smile. “But eighty percent of my work is performance horses—eventers, showjumpers, dressage horses, racehorses. Those animals are people’s livelihoods, their enjoyment, and leisure and they demand the best level of care and innovative options to keep their horses sound. As do my pleasure riding clients too, of course.”

  A bushy white eyebrow shot up. “Then this is about your ego, not providing a high level of care?”

  Laughing quietly I said, “Don’t we all have egos? This is good science, sir, and my therapy does provide a high level of care. The theory and practice behind it, as well as the number of people citing it and now using the method, back that up.”

  “You stand by your knowledge, even when an old bastard like me challenges it. I like that. And I absolutely agree.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and his expression turned manic, like he’d caught me in a practical joke. “We’ve been using the protocol with great success in some of our clients’ performance horses and we’ve even managed to find ways to bring the costs down a little without impacting our bottom line. Happy clients always come back, and they bring their wallets with them.” His chuckle was deep and genuinely amused.

  Anxiety I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding let go, leaving a wave of adrenaline in its wake. Apparently my brain thought Emmett Lake’s opinion was super important. I fought to stop myself from grinning like a fool. “Yessir, I agree.”

  His expression turned serious. “You’re taking care of our Dewey, and Caitlyn?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “I’m sure you know how special that horse is, as is his owner. We’re so proud to have one of our own out there on the world stage.”

  I caught Teresa’s smiling eye-roll and got the feeling that Emmett talked about Caitlyn and Dewey a lot. “Well, they’ve certainly earned their place.”

  “That they have. Right, I’ve got to head ou
t and castrate a bunch of unruly colts.” He offered his hand again, his face relaxing back into the slightly amused expression he’d been wearing at our introduction. “You take care now and take good care of our team in Rio.”

  I shook his hand firmly. “Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.” Oof, that was cringeworthy. Why not just fall to the floor to genuflect?

  He walked away whistling Darth Vader’s Theme from Star Wars, but he made it sound so jaunty that it was amusing rather than ominous. Teresa turned to me like someone had slowed her to half speed, her expression pure Well look at you, pal. “You sure impressed him.”

  “Really? Didn’t seem like it. Seemed more like him poking at me to find weak points in my armor. Or something.”

  “Trust me, he’s impressed. I’ve seen him talk to more equine vets than I can count on all my digits ten times over and I think that’s the first time he’s ever brought up any research papers with anyone.” She grinned. “And you calling him sir every three seconds didn’t hurt your cause.”

  I blew out a breath. “I can’t help it. He’s a legend, and in the face of legends I still revert to a scared little vet student. And what cause do I have that’s now not hurt?”

  “He’s an absolute teddy bear.” Her blue-gray eyes widened. “And the cause of having someone like Emmett Lake thinking you’re brilliant.”

  “Mmm. Good to know. And how’d he know about that paper? He doesn’t review for that journal.”

  “He knew about it because I showed him and told him my super clever friend wrote it.”

  “Super clever?” I nudged her. “Aww, you really like me.”

  “Maybe a little. Come on, you can buy me a second lunch and we’ll go over Dewey’s case history. And then you can tell me all about how much you hate your workplace.”

  “I don’t hate my workplace,” I answered automatically and not entirely truthfully.

  Her cheek pat was level-ten condescending. “Sure thing, Addie. Sure thing.”

  Teresa brought her laptop to the small café across the street from LakeVets and we settled next to each other in a booth that looked back on the Kentucky bluegrass fields behind the surgery. I had coffee, Teresa decaf tea with a side of grumbling about limiting caffeine. While we waited for food she emailed me Dewey’s file and then brought up his history.

  After a sip of excellent coffee I asked, “Anything I should worry about?”

  “Nah. There’s nothing much here really, just routine stuff. We medicate his joints as a precaution but he’s never had a significant lameness. He’s on a daily gastro-health supplement but routine scoping never shows gastric or pyloric ulcers. It’s just to support him while he’s in high-stress environments. He’s a wonderful horse, so easy to work with, and Caitlyn and Wren take wonderful care of him.”

  “Yeah I got that impression. Did an exam and all he did was try to hug me.”

  “Sounds like him.” Teresa smiled up at the waitress delivering our lunch. She dove right in and after a huge forkful of pasta salad, said, “Caitlyn Lloyd is a dream client. Never argues, follows treatment plans to the letter, always wants to discuss and be involved, doesn’t bullshit when I ask her what’s going on. And always pays her bills in full and on time. If every client was like her, I’d be a happy woman.”

  I hmmed, and Teresa kept on rambling, “She always gives me a cold or hot drink depending on the weather, her horses are well-behaved and she’s always ready when I turn up, even if I’m late. Her facilities are immaculate. She’s an incredible equestrienne and also just a damned nice person.”

  “Damned nice?” I almost choked on my turkey sandwich. “Yeah, I didn’t really get that vibe from her. At all.”

  “What vibe did you get?”

  “Hostility mostly.”

  She swallowed her mouthful to snap a defensive, “What do you mean, hostility? Are you socially deficient? If you can’t get along with Caitlyn Lloyd, you can’t get along with anyone.”

  Time to come clean. “She and I have, um, history.”

  Teresa’s fork clattered to the plate. “Fuck, Addie. Did you sleep with her and break her sweet little heart?”

  “What? No! Of course not.” Though I’d loved to have done the former and then very much not break her heart. “How or when would I have done that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometime. What is it then?”

  “We were at Pony Club together when we were teenagers, way back when I used to ride the horses, not treat them. That’s all. We…weren’t friends.” But I hadn’t thought we were mortal enemies as she’d seemed to.

  “No? Interesting. Well, I’m glad you didn’t hurt her, she got enough of that from her ex-girlfriend.”

  It took me a moment to register what Teresa had said and when I did, my heart did a little stutter step that was a simultaneous oh fuuuck and oh yesss. “Wait, she’s queer?”

  “Uh, yeah.” She may as well have said Duh. “World’s oldest news. Don’t you follow equestrian sport news at all?”

  “Not really.” But clearly I should have been. “Dressage Divas are a small percentage of my client base and my spare readin’ time is either vet journals or smutty romances.”

  “You are the worst lesbian I know. Aren’t you all supposed to have some built-in sonar system to find all the other ladies who like ladies?”

  “Radar and it’s called gaydar and mine has always been faulty.” And apparently that fault was inbuilt from my teen years.

  “She was dating Elin Nygaard, the Danish Grand Prix rider, for almost two years until Elin broke up with her right before the World Equestrian Games in 2014. Huge deal, rumors everywhere that Elin had been cheating. Caitlyn said nothing about the whole thing, then went out there and wiped the floor with all the other riders. In the press conference afterward she very graciously thanked everyone who’d supported her and had the most incredible underhanded dig at Elin. No names mentioned of course.”

  “Of course,” I said dryly.

  “It was wonderful, and also hilarious because she’s so shy but just got this steely kind of fuck-you vibe about her when she basically told the world Elin Nygaard could go screw herself.”

  “Shy? Really?” Frowning I considered that. “I don’t remember her being shy at all.”

  “You went to Pony Club with her and you don’t remember her being shy? Addie, excuse my cliché, but do you live under a rock? On a scale of introversion being zero and extroversion being ten, I think she’d barely make a three.”

  “It was over twenty years ago. Some days I don’t even recall the demeanor of someone I spoke to yesterday.” I ran desperately through my memories, trying to find this shy that Teresa was talking about. I remembered confident, cool, and aloof but not shy.

  “Mm, I know that feeling. Look, Caitlyn Lloyd is amazing and that’s all there is to it. Elin’s horse died of massive impaction colic about six months after the WEG. It was bad, like fuck being the surgeon on that case kind of bad. And Caitlyn made the sweetest tribute post about it. I have no idea how she just rises above all the shit that happens on the dressage circuit. She’s like cream floating to the top.”

  Cream. Interesting visual. “Does this Caitlyn Lloyd Fan Club that you’re clearly the president of have membership badges or is it just a secret handshake kind of deal?”

  Teresa snorted out a laugh. “Very funny. Seriously though, you really should pay attention to the dressage-circuit gossip. It’s amazing what you can find out, even if half of it isn’t true,” she said cheerfully. “And now that you’re going to be immersed in that world, don’t you think you should keep up with all of the trash talk?” There was undisguised teasing in her voice.

  “I’ll take that under advisement.” We both knew I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. I was allergic to backstabbing and gossip.

  “Come on. What’s this really about? I honestly don’t know anyone who Caitlyn Lloyd isn’t friendly with. She doesn’t even say bad things about that bitch trying to make the te
am, what’s her name…” Her nose wrinkled.

  “Dakota Turner?”

  “Yeah! That’s her. Never met her but the grapevine gossip is enough to say I don’t want to. But I’ve never heard Caitlyn say anything nasty about anyone on the circuit.”

  I glanced around to make sure nobody was nearby, but still kept my voice low. “Yeah, Dakota is a bitch. And I’ve only spent a tiny amount of time with her. Entitlement doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

  “Right. So tell me, if Caitlyn is friendly with even nasty people then why are you so special as to earn her ire? Ire that I really can’t even imagine.”

  “I actually don’t really know.” I backtracked. “Welllll, I do because she basically told me why she thinks I’m a shit, but I don’t get it.” I blew out a long breath. “She said—” I paused and rethought what I was about to say. The difference in the way we viewed how we’d acted toward one another during that time didn’t change the fact events had occurred. I had teased her when we were kids at Pony Club, but not in a way I’d thought cruel. “Look, I was a workin’ class nobody trying to not be the bottom of the trash heap in a place where money was king. And the things I did and said weren’t taken how I’d thought they were. She thinks I’m a bullying bitch.”

  Teresa laughed so long and loud I wondered if she was about to pass out. “You? A bully? Now that’s something else I really can’t imagine.”

  “What can I say? I was an awkward little queer kid who didn’t know how to talk to girls, especially one who I…admired. You know, like that stupid saying? He pulls your hair because he likes you.” Shit. I really hadn’t meant to admit that. I bit my lower lip to stop myself from making any more admissions.

  Teresa was silent for an eternity and I braced myself for a teasing barrage. Instead, she quietly asked, “And do you still admire her?” I could almost hear the air quotes on the word admire.

  “I thought I did. Mostly I’m just confused because it’s clear we are on separate pages about Pony Club. Separate pages in different books.” I sighed. “I was really looking forward to seeing her again, seeing if we could maybe be friends. But that’s total pipe-dream territory now. She seems to think I’m still some mean, idiotic fourteen-year-old who’s about to hide her saddle or something. Nothing I do is going to make her see I’m an adult and have almost grown past my socially awkward phase and that I behaved like that idiot back then because I had a huge moony teen crush on her.” Have a huge crush on her, I corrected in my head. Despite Caitlyn’s coolness, I was still attracted to her. Old ideals were damned hard to shake.