by Hawke, Jessa
“Excuse me, ma’am.” He interrupted, trying to maintain a friendly demeanor anyway. “It’s been a real pleasure to meet you. Like I said, I got a late start on Saturday and haven’t slept in a bed since West Virginia.”
“Oh, listen to me going on and on. Here’s your room key. And the only place open is DeMonte’s Pizza. Better call them right away.”
“That’d be perfect.” He tipped his ballcap with a smile, remembering to make eye contact so as not to seem too weird, grabbed up the electronic room key, and hustled back to his black Impala for the luggage.
Finding the room was no problem. The North Woods Motel was only had twelve ground floor rooms surrounded by the pine forest to the north and east and facing a corn field to the left. The fields and woods appeared to march right up the outskirts of Mitigoog, Michigan which was still another three miles west of the motel. He’d briefly driven through on arrival, just to see his new home. The shores of Lake Michigan lapped at the narrow public beach, nearly vacant save for a handful of bored teens drinking beer and chucking rocks into the calm waters. He’d seen the dark, shuttered clinic he’d eventually take over when Doc Baker retired, which might very well be in the next five years, if the man was to be believed. Wedged between a greasy spoon diner and one of the town’s three churches, it was an ugly little brown building on the main strip with only a tiny parking space shared with the church. He wondered how up-to-date the equipment was inside. Not too far off standards, he hoped.
Matt quickly hauled in his overnight bag, placed an order for a small pepperoni pie, and showered. By the time pizza arrived a half hour later, he was both exhausted and starving. Hunger won out, though. As he zoned out on cable TV and pizza, he thought of texting his parents back in Raleigh. It was pretty late for them, but they’d want to know he got in safe.
“In Michigan.” He texted. “The big day is tomorrow.”
“We’re proud of you, son.” Came the reply. Probably Dad. Mom usually still called him Matty, not son. He grinned and started to set the phone aside, then on impulse looked over his phone contacts.
It was a tiny list indeed. Hardly any girls. His only female encounters had been fleeting one-night or two week affairs, and they’d left him emptier and lonelier than when he’d set out looking for company. He knew he was a good-looking guy; he’d had no problem dating in high school when he felt so inclined. The problem wasn’t in drawing interest.
The problem was Matt’s fears. Fears of crowds, fears of feeling foolish in conversations, fears of heights, fears of drowning… the fears constantly overwhelmed him and kept him even more isolated than his normal shyness would have naturally done. It was hard to take a girl to the movies when you started to panic being surrounded by people. It was even hard to keep up a conversation when you were constantly in fear of saying something to offend.
Medicine was his one refuge. He’d worked out his bedside manner as an actor rehearsed their performance. He knew to make eye contact (Matt’s trick was to look at people’s foreheads- it was close enough you could fool people that way) and to focus on the script he’d prepared for himself; express concern, discover the symptoms, maintain a professional, warm demeanor, diagnose, suggest treatment, shake hands, say goodbye. He was able to fake it well enough that his classmates had even remarked on his impressive transformation from student to doctor. Frankly, he was believable.
But could he fake it with another doctor, an old man looking to hand over the keys to his practice in a few short years? They needed and wanted a young guy to take over for the rural, remote area of northern Michigan, but if Doc Baker didn’t like him, it didn’t matter. He’d be back in his parent’s home in North Carolina in no time.
Finishing the last of his pizza, he drifted off with those worries in mind. In doing so, he didn’t turn off the light, the TV, or even take off his jeans.
He also forgot something incredibly important.
---
It was a good thing it was a short drive into town, or Matt would have never made it to work even close to on time. After sleeping through his alarm, he’d had to shave faster than he’d ever done in his life, nicking his lip in the process. He was holding tissue to it as he tried to speed into town. A slow-moving truck was taking its sweet time on the small stretch of country road between the motel and town, so Matt gunned the engine and raced ahead of the vehicle. Without meaning to, he cut the truck off and then found he had to slow as he entered the village boundary.
The clinic, church, and diner sat at the gateway to town. Matt turned into the crowded lot and was relieved to see a small space near the clinic still open, the last space available. It wasn’t Sunday, so he figured it likely the church must have had something going on to merit all the vehicles.
As he stepped out of the car, the rusting old red pickup truck pulled up right behind his Impala and came to an abrupt halt. The older man behind the wheel was beet red in the face, with a semi-halo of white, wild hair ringing his dome. He was gripping and ungripping the wheel, clearly in the throes of some great rage.
“In a bit of a hurry, aren’t you, son?” The man spat the words out, locking eyes on Matt.
He wanted to reply, to apologize and explain the situation. Instead, he stammered and stared at the ground. “I’m, I’m, I’m, geeze, I’m sor-sor… I don’t…”
“Yeah, you’re the new doctor. I get it.” The man backed his truck up a little, then stuck his head out of the window. “If you don’t mind?” He pointed to the sign above the spot Matt had parked.
Matt looked up and blushed. “Reserved for Reverend Frank Butler.”
---
The Sunshine Cafe opened at 9 each morning, the same time as the clinic. However, the clinic being open was apparently a semi-fiction. Doc Baker and the clinic’s receptionist, Mary, were already at the door as Matt opened it, ready to go next door. They flipped the sign on the door, “Back in 30 minutes.”
“Everyone in town knows I’m here.” Baker explained as he stirred a cup of coffee. “And no one comes in at 9.” The older man and the unsmiling receptionist sat across from him in the booth. He was getting an unfriendly vibe from the receptionist, so he tuned her out. As for Baker, all the old man wanted to do was talk, and that was fine with Matt.
Matt sipped his own coffee. “Seems very laid-back here.”
“Not much happens, really. Mostly retirees. The only young folks around here usually move out of state the first chance they get.” A look around the mostly empty cafe made it clear that was case. Three of the eight tables were occupied, and it looked like the folks who had taken up space in the diner were such regulars they may as well have their names on placards reserved for them like Reverend Butler.
You wanted quiet, Matt thought. You got it.
“Course, folks here like to get up early. They get to bed early, get up early, but they’re not so hot about getting to the clinic early. They’d rather have a cup of coffee, heat up their truck in winter. You should think about getting a truck.”
“The apartment is only two blocks from the clinic.” Matt reminded him.
“Yeah, but you may have to-” Before the Doctor could finish his thought, the front door to the diner opened, and as the crowd was so small, they all involuntarily glanced in that direction. A young brunette in a jean jacket stepped in tentatively, cast her eyes about, and settled on Doc Baker’s table.
“Doc!” She fairly yelled, alarm rising in her voice. She looked surprised to see Matt, and this seemed to put her off her task for a moment. Then she continued on. “Can you come down to the lake right away? John Polk hit his head on a rock.”
Mary and the old man quickly slid out of the booth. “Mitch’s boy?”
“Yes, that’s him.” She affirmed. “I’ve got my car out front.”
“Better come with me, Matt. You called EMTs?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Good.” The three piled into the young woman’s car and hurried down the main street to the beach.
Three teenagers- the same three Matt had spotted last night- were down on the rocky, pebble-strewn beach. Two of the boys were kneeling down beside the third teen, his head propped on a shirt one of them had donated. Doc Baker shooed them away and did a quick exam.
“Looks like he’ll be okay.” the older man affirmed after verifying that the boy could recall the date, his name, and the current president. “Nasty bump on the head, but that’s probably all.”
“So I don’t halfta go to the hospital?” The boy mumbled.
“I didn’t say that. You need a thorough exam, x-rays. Need to make sure there’s no brain swelling. You boys may want to think about cutting back on the beers. And the weed”
“I ain’t been drinking!” He tried to object. Doc Baker scoffed.
“Matt, you want to look out for these boys while I head back to the office?”
“No problem, sir.” He knelt beside the injured boy, checking his pupils as he did so.
“Need a ride, Doc?” the young woman offered. Matt still didn’t know her name, but the more often he looked at her, the more he wanted to. She was petite, tan despite the cold climate she lived in, and had a gentle way of speaking. He guessed she might be a few years younger than he was, but not by much.
“Naw, beautiful spring day. I’ll enjoy the outdoors while I can. We may get snow this weekend.”
Matt looked up from his charge. “Seriously? In May?”
“Nah. Pulling your chain.” The older man laughed and started back towards the office.
Once the ambulance came and took the boy away, Matt finally had a chance to introduce himself as they strolled back to her car. The pretty woman shook his hand. “I’m Emma Butler. Pleasure to meet you.”
The name seemed familiar. He struggled to think back to earlier in the morning and when it struck him, he blanched. “Butler. So- you’re related to the Reverend?”
“Oh! Yes. You met Dad?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes. I did.”
“Isn’t he a sweetie?” She chuckled, then tilted her head. “I’m teasing. I love my dad, but he can be a handful. I hope you didn’t catch him in a particularly sour mood?”
Though embarrassed, Matt recounted what had happened earlier. He emphasized that he didn’t want to make a bad impression on his first day. “Well, I can see why you’d be worried about that.” She replied slowly, as they sat in her car. “Still, I think he wasn’t entirely wrong to be a little upset.”
“No, totally.” He lowered his voice, not wanting to sound like a jerk. He hoped she didn’t think that of him. “I didn’t mean to cut him off or take his spot, but I can see why he’d be annoyed. I did try to apologize. He didn’t give me a chance to say anything though.”
“Sounds like Dad.” She shrugged.
All too soon, they were back in the clinic’s parking lot. He’d already checked her ring finger; nothing there. It was ridiculous, of course, to even ask after that story. Still, he didn’t want to miss out on his only opportunity. “Um… so, I was wondering… I don’t know if there’s a decent place to get dinner or not around here…”
“I know the perfect spot. I’m a hamburger and fries girl. Not nasty fast food, obviously, I mean a real, quality hamburger with steak sauce. Let me introduce you to good Midwestern food. You know about our love of cheese up here, from wherever you’re from, don’t you?”
He laughed. “Is my Southern accent that obvious?”
“Like lemonade on a cool front porch, sugar.” She drawled in a terrible likeness of Southern tones. “That’s my Scarlet O’Hara impression. Awful, I know. Anyway, burgers and I am a little girly and do prefer wine to beer. How about I meet you there?”
“You don’t want me to pick you up?”
She wrinkled her brow. “I live with my folks, silly and Dad… yeah, I don’t think that’s a great idea. I’ll tell them I’m going out to meet some girlfriends.” She gave him her number and the address of the steakhouse.
He undid his seatbelt and couldn’t stop what he was sure was a stupidly happy grin. “I’ll see you at eight, then.”
“See you, Doctor Matt.” She said, waving as she pulled back onto the street.
---
“Do you always drown your food in junk?” Emma teased after Matt dumped most his garlic butter on his baked potato. He looked up, gave her a sideways smile, and poured just a little more on.
“It’s the only way I know how to eat a potato.” Matt suggested. He tried to keep things light, despite the large number of customers in the Mitigoog Road House. He didn’t feel nearly as crowded as he might at a theater, but it wasn’t what he preferred. “As many toppings as you can stuff on them. Otherwise, it’s just a tasteless root, right?”
“You’ll fit in around here, that’s for sure.” She reflected. “Though if you eat like that, you’ll look like you fit in around here too.”
“Not a chance. I’ll confess I’m kind of a gym rat. It’s part of why I took the apartment; they have a gym. I don’t always eat as I should, but I tend to burn off the calories.”
“I see.” He noticed her checking him out. He was glad he did have some muscle, as he was fairly sure his nervousness about being surrounded by people was making him a little sweaty and fidgety. “Any other hobbies I should know about.”
“Cycling. Rowing. I’m outside whenever I can get out. How about you?”
She lifted and dropped her shoulders again, an action he took to be one of her favorites. “There’s not a lot to do up here. I read a lot and hike.”
“The hiking must be great up here. By the way- what does Mitigoog mean? Weird name, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“It’s Ojibwa for trees. Which,” she said motioning around her to the exposed pine floors and walls of the building, “is pretty much what we’re known for around here other than the lake. Do you like to swim?”
Although he could, he hated to do so. Another fear potentially exposed. He decided not to tell her that rowing was part of his therapy, in a bid to overcome the irrational terrors that had kept so much of his life in check. He must have paused for too long, because after a moment’s silence, she asked. “Hey, do you like to dance?”
In the other room, a live band was playing old time rock and roll. It wasn’t his favorite music and he wasn’t a great dancer. That didn’t matter. Any excuse to get closer to Emma was fine with him.
They went to dance floor as a slow song struck up. “Oh. Now I don’t get check out your moves.” Emma suggested as he put his arms around her.
“Slow dancing is more my thing anyway.” He assured her. Emma draped her arms over his neck and they moved in close to sway with the song.
She smelled amazing, he decided. As they moved to the music, his tension slowly ebbed. The crowd became less real as she became even more so in his arms. They didn’t speak. Their eyes met instead, an understanding of desire and attraction instantly passing between them. She rested her head against his chest and he moved a hand up to her shoulders. If they hadn’t known better, the other dancers would have thought the two had known one another since high school, rather than just going on their first date.
“I wish we could just go on dancing.” She murmured after a while. “This is nice.”
“I didn’t expect to meet a beautiful woman my first day here.” He whispered in her ear.
“I wasn’t expecting to meet a cute guy either. Oh, damn it.” She pulled away from him and he turned to see what she was worried about.
He’d half expected a jealous ex-boyfriend to be approaching, ready to start trouble with the new guy in town. They hadn’t discussed dating history yet, not on a first date over dinner, but he knew there was no way a women as pretty as Emma could have grown up in such a small town without having met at least one seriously interested fellow. Instead, he saw the rapidly approaching, flannel-shirted Reverend Frank Butler with both of his fists clenched.
For a man of God, he was awfully quick to get in someone’s face, Matt thought as
the man stepped right up to Matt. “Son, I don’t know how you do things wherever you come from,” the Reverend snarled, blowing warm air into the young doctor’s face. He’d just come from dinner, Matt registered. Was that spaghetti breath? “Around here, a man wants to court another man’s daughter he has the decency to ring a father’s doorbell first.”
“Sir, I didn’t mean-”
“I know what you meant. I know what you intended.” Butler try to reach out and grabbed his daughter by the hand, but she resisted and pulled away. The band stopped and the other dancers stopped what they were doing to watch events unfold.
“Daddy, stop it! I’m a grown woman.” Emma demanded.
He put a finger in her face. “You live under my roof, you live by my rules. You want to be hellbound, you go on and pack your things and get out! Now are you going to be a problem for me, or are you going to get home right now?”