Love On Call

by Radclyffe

  “Well,” Carrie said, slowing until Glenn had to stop. “That’s news.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re dating the new PA? Don’t you think that’s something that you should’ve told your very best friend who at one point contemplated seducing you?”

  “What?” Glenn’s mouth dropped open. “What are you talking about?”

  Carrie made a huffing sound. “You are so clueless sometimes. Presley and Abby actually might’ve taken bets about whether or not I was going to get you—”

  Glenn held up a hand. “Stop. I don’t want to know about that. I definitely do not want to know you and…jeez, Carrie!”

  Carrie jammed her free hand, the one not carrying her briefcase, onto her hip. “Excuse me? Would going to bed with me be such a terrible thing?”

  Glenn actually backed up a couple steps. “Whoa. No, of course not. Where’s this coming from?”

  “Well, I’m available, you are available, although apparently you’re not now, and—”

  “I’m not dating Mari.”

  Carrie tilted her head. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am…” Glenn hesitated. “If I gave you the impression that I wanted us to, you know, you and me to, well…”

  Carrie broke into a broad smile. “Have sex?”

  Glenn’s head felt like it was about to explode. “Carrie, I mean, you’re gorgeous, and funny, and smart and—”

  Carrie broke into peals of laughter and waved an arm in the air. “Stop, stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist. God, sometimes you’re so clueless.”

  Glenn glowered. “You said that already.”

  Carrie threw her arm around Glenn’s shoulder, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed her cheek. “I think you’re amazingly adorable and you’re exactly the kind of woman I would love to go to bed with if you weren’t my best friend already.”

  “You know, you don’t make any sense at all.”

  “We’re completely incompatible, so any sex between us would have to be casual and probably just a time or two.”

  “Carrie, I think I’m not making myself clear. I’m not—”

  “Theoretical, I’m talking theoretical.” Carrie started walking again. “But that ship has already sailed. If we were going to have casual sex, we should’ve done it right after we first met. Now it’s too late.”

  Glenn squeezed the bridge of her nose, trying to keep her brains inside her head. “I wish you’d told me all of this sooner.”

  “You mean you would’ve slept with me then? Don’t say anything, because I think Presley has money on—”

  “No. I wouldn’t have,” Glenn said. “I don’t do that sort of thing, just for, you know…casual.”

  Carrie bit her lip, seeming to be holding in more laughter. “You do do it, though, right?”

  “Jesus, how did we get onto this topic?”

  “You were telling me about your date with Mari.”

  “It’s not a date,” Glenn shouted. A passing employee paused and stared at them. She lowered her voice. “Not a date.”

  “Are you sure, because you might want to think about that before, you know, you miss another boat.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Carrie brushed a stray lock of hair off Glenn’s forehead. “Absolutely not. You are one of my favorite people in the whole world. And I am perfectly happy with things between us just exactly the way they are.” She held the door open and waited till Glenn drew next to her before whispering, “And if I’d wanted to get you into bed, I would have.”

  “I believe it,” Glenn muttered.

  “See you at the game.”

  Glenn stared after her as Carrie dashed off toward the east wing, wondering what the hell had just happened. And what any of it had to do with Mari. She hadn’t asked her out on a date. Had she?

  *

  Mari pulled the last chart from the stack in front of her, flipped to the discharge page, and double-checked that she’d filled out all the necessary sections before signing. The day had passed so quickly, she’d barely had time to think about anything beyond running down lab results, checking X-rays, reviewing treatment plans, and giving patients discharge instructions. She’d had a terrific day. Even Antonelli had been a pleasure, presenting patients to her in a thoughtful and thorough fashion. He seemed calmer than she’d ever seen him. She had no doubt in an emergency, he’d still be a take-charge, rapid decision maker, but that was a good thing too. There were times to take things slow and times to act. What was important was to know the difference.

  Glenn stuck her head into the staff lounge. “Hey. Almost done?”

  “Just finished.” Mari smiled. When she’d had a minute’s break, she’d thought about the evening to come. She was looking forward to getting out of her apartment, to meeting new people, to spending time with Glenn. “Should I meet you somewhere?”

  “I drove today. I’ve got the team gear in the back of my Jeep. When you’re ready, I’m parked out back.”

  Mari lifted the stack of charts. “Let me drop these off out front and I’m almost ready. I just need five minutes to change.”

  “Me too.”

  Glenn walked with her while she handed her charts to the clerk, signed out, and went to the locker room to switch her scrubs for street clothes. Mari was used to dressing and undressing with other people around, but this afternoon she felt unexpectedly shy and kept her body angled away from Glenn, who changed at her locker a few feet away. When she’d shimmied into her jeans and scoop-neck T-shirt, she sat down on the narrow bench to pull on her sandals. Glenn, already in a baseball T-shirt with a team logo, leaned back against the bank of lockers, her thumbs hooked into the pockets of her button-fly jeans.

  “There’s something I wanted to mention to you,” Glenn said.

  Mari looked up, surprised by the serious look in Glenn’s eyes. “What?”

  “I ran into Carrie on the way into the hospital this morning, and I mentioned we were gonna grab something to eat before the game tonight.”

  Mari tensed but kept her voice light. “Oh. Is she going to join us?”

  Glenn’s brows drew down and she shook her head. “No, but she asked me if this was a date.”

  Mari couldn’t stop the hot flush from climbing up her throat. “I see. Is that a problem?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, is Carrie upset that we’re having dinner together? Do you want to cancel?”

  “No, why would I do that?”

  “Well, I thought—”

  “I’ve been thinking about it all day,” Glenn went on in a rush, as if she had rehearsed what she was going to say and didn’t want to get sidetracked. “It wasn’t a date, when I mentioned it to you before, but I think I’d like it if it was. So would you like to have dinner with me, tonight. The two of us, like a date.”

  Mari caught her breath. “Glenn…”

  Glenn pushed away from the lockers. “Sorry, I didn’t do that very well. I apologize. You can forget I said anything.”

  “No, that’s not it. It’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think?”

  Mari rose so quickly her head went light again. She rested her fingertips quickly against the locker to orient herself. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding incredibly clichéd. I don’t date, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  Glenn laughed shortly. “Boy, there really isn’t any good way to say that, is there.”

  “Damn it,” Mari said, knowing she was messing things up and not knowing how to make it right. “It isn’t about you, it’s about me. I can’t date.”

  “Why not? You have a girlfriend, wife?”

  “No.” Mari couldn’t even absorb the impossibility of either of those things. “Just the opposite. I’ve never—but that’s not what I mean.”

  “Hey,” Glenn said gently, cupping Mari’s elbow in the palm of her hand. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s okay. We don’t even have to h
ave dinner if you don’t want to. I can arrange for someone else to give you a ride to the game.”

  “No! Will you please stop trying to fix it?” Mari heard her confusion and uncertainty coming out like anger. She was angry, at so many things, but not Glenn.

  “Sorry. Bad habit.” A muscle along the edge of Glenn’s jaw jumped, but she didn’t move her hand away.

  Mari sighed. “I’m the one who should be sorry. Let me try to explain a little bit better.”

  “No, you don’t have to. You really don’t owe me an explanation or anything else.”

  “I do, I do. I need to. For me, not for you.”

  “All right,” Glenn said.

  “Can we not do this here?”

  Glenn picked up her gear bag and Mari’s in one hand. “Come on, there’s a little garden out back with some benches. No one will be out there now. We can talk.”

  Feeling almost surreal, Mari followed Glenn through the hospital, down a long corridor, and out through a staff exit that led into a small grove of trees with a little fountain and a ring of stone benches. The canopy of maples blocked out most of the sun, and it was cool in the shadows. She sat, and Glenn sat a few feet away. Folding her hands and sliding them between her knees, Mari stared into the fountain, only then realizing the flickering flashes of light beneath the surface were not reflections of sunlight but koi, dancing through the water.

  “I can’t date, not for a couple of years,” Mari said.

  “Why the time limit?”

  With a sigh, Mari shifted on the bench and looked into Glenn’s eyes. “A year ago, right after I finished my PA training but before I started the job I had lined up at the medical center, I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia.”

  Glenn’s face blanked. The blue of her eyes swirled to indigo. “Leukemia.”

  “Yes,” Mari said. “It progressed quickly, and the remission I got from chemo only lasted a few weeks.”

  Glenn’s breathing picked up, but she said nothing, her gaze cemented to Mari’s. She didn’t say she was sorry, she didn’t act shocked, she didn’t offer sympathy or condolences. She waited, she listened. She was so very good at that. Her solid, unwavering calm gave Mari the courage to keep going.

  “My sister Selena, my twin, donated bone marrow. The transplant worked, so far. You know the statistics, or maybe you don’t, but three years is pretty much the uncertain period in terms of delayed rejection of the transplant and disease recurrence. Once past that, I can probably count on being a survivor.”

  “So far everything looks good?” Glenn asked.

  “Yes, as of my last checkup. There really isn’t anything to do at this point except wait.”

  “Does Abby know?”

  “I don’t think so. My medical record wasn’t part of the application process, and it’s private. I’m in good health right now.”

  “This job will take a lot out of anyone.”

  This was what Mari feared, why she kept her diagnosis secret. Already, Glenn was worrying about her, wondering if she could do her job. This was why she didn’t tell people. Oh, she hated the sympathy, and the fear that seemed to hide behind it, as if somehow whatever bad karma or ill luck had befallen her might be catching, but most of all she hated being viewed as less than capable. “I’m perfectly able to do my job.”

  “I know,” Glenn said abruptly. “I’ve seen that for myself.”

  “Then you understand why I don’t want to have any kind of serious personal relationship.”

  “I don’t think I’m making that connection.”

  “Really? Then you’re not looking at the long game, but I have to. How fair would it be for me to get close to someone, when I might not even be here in a year or two.”

  “Anyone can have an accident, come down with a fatal disease. There are no guarantees.”

  “Yes, that sounds great in the abstract, but this isn’t an abstraction. This is a fact.” Mari didn’t want to argue, especially not with Glenn. “You can’t win against me when it comes to these statistics. I’ve studied them for over a year. I could be living on borrowed time. You know that as well as I do.”

  Glenn let out a breath. “You know what you need to do, and you don’t need to justify that to anyone.”

  “Good,” Mari said, feeling deflated rather than happy. “Then we’re on the same page about no dating.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Will you do me a favor,” Mari said into the silence as Glenn drove them toward the softball field.

  Glenn glanced over at her, keeping her face a careful blank. Her feelings were not what mattered right now. Her anger at the random unfairness of life, something she was way too familiar with, didn’t matter. Her confusion at discovering a road she hadn’t thought she’d wanted to travel suddenly blocked to her didn’t matter. The disappointment she hadn’t expected to feel didn’t matter. Mari mattered. Mari had trusted her with a piece of herself, and that trust deserved to be honored. If she needed something and Glenn could give it to her, she would. “Yes.”

  “Don’t tell anyone what I told you just now.”

  Glenn stared back out to the road. Knowing someone, really knowing them, wasn’t always measured by a calendar or a clock—knowing was sometimes the recognition of shared pain or joy, the communion of spirit from struggling together, the connection born of similar experiences. She hadn’t been rejected by her family, but she knew what it was like to be without one. She had faced her own death countless times, not from disease but an enemy just as invisible and just as merciless. She had sealed away her pain and respected the walls Mari had built. “You don’t know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I think I do, really, or I wouldn’t have been in a position to need to tell you. I wanted to tell you.” Mari leaned closer, touched Glenn’s bare forearm. “I needed to ask because I’ve kept the secret so long I feel exposed somehow.”

  “You’re not. You’re safe. I won’t say anything.” Glenn let out a slow breath and looked at Mari, who sat half turned in the front seat, facing her. “Harper and Flann would understand more than you realize.”

  Mari frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Their younger sister Kate died of fulminant leukemia. She was eleven or so, I think.”

  “Oh God, that’s horrible,” Mari whispered. “I hated seeing all the children when I was getting treated.”

  Glenn reached her hand. “Lots and lots make it.”

  “I know,” Mari murmured, her fingers unconsciously twining with Glenn’s. “I kept telling myself that every time I looked at them.”

  “And you made it,” Glenn said, gently disengaging her fingers. Mari’s hand was warm, soft. She would have been happy to keep holding it, but Mari probably wouldn’t be pleased when she realized what she’d done. She’d just asked for distance, after all. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Yes,” Mari said, not qualifying, instantly agreeing.

  “Will you tell me if there’s a problem, any kind of problem?”

  “Why?” Mari asked.

  “If I know that you’ll tell me if you need your shifts adjusted—more time off between cycles or whatever—or if there’s a medical problem, I’m not going to be constantly wondering.” Glenn smiled, felt the cold brittleness of her own lips stretched thin. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m always watching, waiting for something bad to happen.”

  “I like that you care,” Mari said, “but that’s exactly why I don’t want anything—anything beyond friendship—with anyone. I don’t want anyone to be watching and waiting. Something like that sucks all the joy out of life.”

  “I’ll do my best not to do that,” Glenn said.

  “I know you will, and I appreciate it.”

  “You haven’t actually answered my question. Will you tell me if there’s a problem?”

  “I promise I’ll let you know if I’m having a problem at work or if there’s a change in my condition that is going to affect my job.”

/>   “Thanks.” Glenn didn’t miss the careful wording and the neat way Mari had sidestepped saying she’d let her know if her transplant failed, but she couldn’t ask for more, couldn’t ask for any confidence that went beyond their professional relationship. Mari had made herself very clear on the limits of anything personal between them. Nothing would stop her from being on guard. She couldn’t change the way she was made any more than she could change Mari’s desire to be independent, to avoid ties. But she could honor Mari’s request, could keep the distance Mari wanted. She’d already put up the walls. She was only surprised at how much she had wanted to breach them for Mari.

  *

  Carrie jogged over to the Jeep when Glenn pulled into a place in the second row of a line of pickup trucks and SUVs. Usually she parked right behind the backstop to unload the gear, but she was later than usual after their quick stop for a burger. Dinner had been quick and mostly quiet—they hadn’t mentioned their previous conversation, but she kept thinking there was more she should have said, wanted to say. She just wasn’t sure what, or why.

  “I was wondering where you were,” Carrie called, opening the rear compartment as Glenn climbed out of the driver’s side. “Let me give you a hand with everything.”

  “Sure,” Glenn said abruptly and caught Carrie giving her a look.

  Carrie grinned as Mari joined them. “Hi. How’s it going?”

  “Great,” Mari said, wondering if it counted as a lie to keep one’s personal business private. She hated feeling as if she’d lied to Glenn, even though she had every right to keep her medical condition to herself unless there was some reason other people needed to know. All the same, she’d shared some pretty important personal things with Glenn while deliberately hiding the biggest one of all. Glenn must be angry or at least feel a little manipulated somehow, but Mari couldn’t read anything beneath her usual calm, cool exterior. They’d shared a meal and made casual conversation, but the distance across the table had seemed enormous. She hadn’t known how to close that distance, and maybe she didn’t deserve to. She’d put the walls there, and as hard as they were to accept, she needed them. She preferred anger to pity, reserve to suffocating kindness. And she would not be selfish enough to take more than she could give, and she might not have anything at all to offer. She jumped when fingers closed around her wrist.