by Lauren Brown
I was about to pick up a book when my phone rang. It was Beau Hanson, my closest friend in medical school.
Beau could be quite distracting, and it wasn’t the brown, nest-like hair on his head, side-swept so perfectly, or his stocky wrestler-like figure, it was his deep Southern fraternity accent and his carefree attitude about everything in life. I was always envious of him in that regard. But looking back on it, though he was distracting, he was ultimately what brought me to Hope.
“You’re actually studying, Beau?”
“Have you seen the STD pictures on page forty-five?” I heard him flip a few pages of what I presumed to be our pathophysiology textbook.
“Of course you’re studying. You’re sick. What do you want?”
“Man, they’re scary.” I heard him close his book and stand from his chair. “I can’t study anymore. It’s Saturday night. Let’s go to the Keg.”
I groaned into the phone.
“Come on,” he persisted.
“You know, I just got back from helping my dad move.”
He cajoled me a little more. “All the more reason to go! No one likes moving.”
I took in a sharp breath. “Fine. Pick me up in ten.”
I slipped on a clean T-shirt and khaki shorts. I ran water through my black hair, glanced at my long legs in the mirror, and stepped outside into my apartment’s dank stairwell. I retrieved a cigarette and waited for Beau. I leaned against the metal railing that looked out over the parking lot and took a drag. I had studied for weeks and, like Beau said, I had moved boxes. Second year had become more than I could handle.
But for some reason, in the midst of the hard work and those sleepless nights of medical school, I had convinced myself that the passion to save lives was still somewhere deep within me. I had told myself I’d made the right choice that morning in the field. It was that day in 1993 that I realized Lookout Mountain was no longer my home, Johnson City was. I truly wanted to be a physician.
There was joy in seeing someone walk away healthy and able to live the life they were born to live free of pain, full of aspiration. I knew it would take some pain on my end to get to the point of helping someone in that way, I just didn’t know how much pain. Therefore, I pushed on with the help of my distracting friend Beau and a beer break; a break that would open my heart wide enough to find Hope and then wide enough to lose her.
Chapter 2
April 3, 1993
Music poured into the parking lot from the jukebox at the Keg, an Irish pub nestled into a strip of local shops in the downtown of Johnson City. It was musty and warm from the overcrowded bodies. I watched lips gossip and mumble the lyrics to the song playing as Beau and I took a seat at a wooden table in the corner.
He ordered us each a beer then leaned back in his chair and watched the game. I hadn’t kept up with sports during medical school for obvious reasons. There just wasn’t any time. Beau on the other hand managed to always find time. He held his beer to his lips in anticipation while I sipped mine, trying not to worry about leaving my textbooks. I looked around the pub that was filled with college students watching the replay. They displayed the same expression my father did every Cubs game. He had been an avid baseball fan and, as I would come to find out soon, he had also been gambling large amounts of money on the games.
Beau spoke at a commercial break. “How much have you actually been studyin’ for the boards?”
“More than you,” I teased.
“Well, that’s a given. I hate studying,” he admitted taking in a mouthful of beer to finish his glass. “I’m serious, how much?”
“A couple of hours a night.”
“Ugh.” He shook his head. “I’m so behind.”
“Yet, we are at a bar right now.” I took a long sip to finish my beer allowing the fizz to coat my throat.
“This board exam is gonna be awful. I feel like I haven’t seen anyone lately from all the studying…well, the studying that I’ve done.” The corners of his lips turned down a fraction. “The only date I’ve been on has been with the fifty-two-year-old woman who wrote our patho textbook, and let me tell ya’, those pictures. I’m just sayin’, she had to get them from somewhere.”
He cracked a smile, and I couldn’t help but smile too. Not at his joke but at how pathetic we were. I think Beau and I had hit it off for this very reason. He had been born to a shrimping family in Biloxi and graduated from Ole Miss. I’d sat next to him in our doctoring principles lecture on the second day of class and listened to him point out the girls he swore he was going to marry. Unfortunately, it turned out the girls in our class weren’t all that interesting. Together we formed an equilibrium. Beau was an entertainer and lax, while I was an overachiever and stiff. We clicked that first day and became inseparable.
“Yeah. I hear ya,” I said.
“John, you okay?”
I was touched that Beau noticed my mood.
“I’m fine. Just tired from moving is all.”
“Why was your dad moving?”
“Early retirement is what he says. But, he didn’t look so great. I think he’s really struggling with my mother’s death.”
“You’ve never told me how she died,” he said, flagging down a waiter for another round of drinks.
I shrugged and peered into my beer glass. “Well, it started with a little spot on her thigh. One she didn’t think much of until it was too late. She battled melanoma off and on for years. They removed it, but then she found another and another. She went into partial remission a few months after my fourteenth birthday. The second time, it spread rapidly to the lymph nodes in her groin and, before long, she was filled with those cancerous spots. She died just before my college graduation.” I remembered the pictures I had packed away the day before and sighed.
He could sense my anxiety and changed the subject. “Look, if I can get into medical school, let alone study, then you sure as hell can pass the exam.” He raised his fresh beer to toast mine. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, John. We both know you’re the smartest in our class.”
“And the most attractive,” I said, forcing a wink.
He ordered several more beers and we sat in silence until the end of the game.
“So much for one beer,” I said, smiling at Beau who was attempting to get our waiter’s attention.
“Want another?” he asked as I pulled out my wallet.
“Nah. I’m tired.”
“All right. Fine.” He shrugged.
“I’ll be back,” I said. I went to the restroom and returned to find a brunette slapping Beau across the face.
“Just a second,” he garbled as he pulled me to the side.
“I really like this girl,” he attempted to whisper, but with the music, he was practically yelling.
“Beau. Please. You’ve had a lot to drink. You come here all the time and have”—I fought to hold his weight—“never mentioned her. Plus, she just hit you.” I looked at the brunette who was talking to the manager and pointing in our direction. She clearly had no interest in Beau.
He grabbed his cheek as if he had already forgotten. “Nooo,” he slurred, “I like her.”
I let out a groan and grabbed his arm. “Come on, Beau. We have to study tomorrow.”
“You kill all the fuuun,” he said as I pulled him away from the table. He yelled with a brazened and intrepid voice over his shoulder to her, “Call me!”
The girl rolled her eyes as we walked out of the bar. “I don’t think she likes you, Beau.”
“Oh, yes, she does,” he said as I strapped him into the passenger seat.
“Where’s the key, Beau?”
“Uhhh,” was all he could manage.
“Where. Is. The. Key?” I said emphasizing key.
“Up your—”
“Cut it out, Beau, where’s the key?”
“Prolly in the bar,” he said just as he fell asleep.
I was frustrated and tired and didn’t have time for his nonsense. I closed the driv
er door and walked back to the bar. As I was about to go in, a blonde, blue-eyed girl in an apron covered in dried paint came out of the store next door. She had turned on the light, and I could see into the art shop I had failed to notice when we’d first walked into the Keg.
“Oh, thank goodness.” She was out of breath. “I really need help hanging this piece of art.”
“Uh, I’m trying to get home. My friend is drunk and he left his key at the bar and—”
“Oh,” she said shaking her head, “never mind.”
“Sorry.” I walked into the bar, avoiding the brunette, grabbed Beau’s key from the table, and made my way back outside. I looked inside the art shop again and saw the girl standing on a swaying ladder with a hammer and nail, trying to hang a large painting. She looked like she was about to fall. I pinched the bridge of my nose, eyes closed, and let out a breath. I glanced at the car. Beau was snoring open-mouthed. I tapped on the glass.
She saw me and waved as if she had always known me. She ran over to the door to unlock it.
“I’m glad you changed your mind. It won’t take long,” she said, holding the door for me.
“It looked like a disaster waiting to happen with you on that ladder. I thought I would help.” I followed her inside. It smelled like acrylic and paper; a smell that would come to define her and one that I would come to love.
“It’s pretty late to be in here hanging this painting.”
I followed her to the checkout counter, took the hammer from her and climbed the ladder.
“I know,” she said as she put her hands on her hips, “I work best at night.”
“This your store?”
“No. I wish. I’m just working here until the end of the year.”
“Did you paint this?” I mumbled through the nail in between my lips, motioning for her to hand me the painting.
“Yeah. I did. Not totally finished, but better than nothing. That bland space was starting to make me fidgety.”
“Good?” I asked, holding the painting where I planned to hang it. I looked down at her.
“A little to the left.”
I handed her the piece and then placed the nail. She lifted it up to me again.
“It’s nice,” I said, leaning away from the ladder to get a better look.
“It’s the Tennessee River. My boss told me not to hang it, but I came in tonight after teaching my art class and hung it. Well, you hung it. And that’s what I’ll tell her. Someone else hung it.”
“Oh, I should have recognized it. I was born in Chattanooga.”
I had grown up within driving distance of the Tennessee River, boated with high school friends on it, fished on Sunday mornings out of it. But her painting of it was different than anything I had encountered. Her river looked more musical, flowing beautifully and effortlessly around Lookout Mountain. I preferred her magical rendition.
“I grew up there. On Lookout Mountain,” I said, pointing to the green strokes on the canvas.
“Nice. I drew that from my cousin’s apartment. It’s one of my favorites.”
She gave her painting an approving nod as I lowered myself down the ladder.
“Looks good above that ugly cash register. Don’t you agree?”
I looked up to her painting. It was quite large for the small space it occupied, but I agreed with her anyway. “Yeah. It does.” I handed her the hammer and started for the door.
“Thank you so much,” she said. She stopped me before I could open it. “You should come to my art class on Monday afternoon at four thirty.”
I shook my head. “I’m not much of an artist. I’m in medical school. Actually, I’m supposed to be taking that one”—I pointed to Beau in the car—“home. We have board exams in two months.”
“Oh, yeah. I get it.” Her pale blue eyes were shocking. She broke eye contact and blushed. For the first time, I really looked at her. She was beautiful.
“Maybe,” I managed to say, “I could try it. Might be nice to use the other side of my brain for once.”
She brightened. “You should. He can come to.” She pointed to Beau.
“Maybe,” I said. I waved goodbye and walked out. I heard her close and lock the door behind me. Music filled the parking lot from the Keg as I turned around and looked at her through the glass. She had let down her hair, removed her apron, and hung it on a hook. She must have felt me staring at her because she turned around and smiled. I wasn’t sure who she was, she hadn’t mentioned her name, but I did know she had sparked a light in the darkness that had consumed me. In that moment, it was as if I had never moved those boxes.
As I got in the car, Beau hunched over and cupped my shoulder. “Where were you?”
I started the engine. “On the Tennessee River,” I said looking one more time at the window.
“Huh?”
“I’ll tell you Monday,” I answered, reversing the car.
As I neared the end of my second year of medical school, I was desperately ready to start my rotations. The lecture hall had become redundant and boring, nagging like a gnat. I was ready to swat away the remaining days of monotonous lectures and jump into real-life clinical scenarios. I was particularly edgy and unfocused in those final days of my second year, my thoughts often wandering during lecture. The girl in the art store was the current distraction.
I had informed Beau before class began that there was a blonde girl in an art store next to the Keg that had invited me to a painting class that afternoon. He hadn’t believed me.
“What art store? There’s an art store next to the Keg?” He squinted his cheeks and reared back his neck while taking his place in the auditorium.
“Yeah, I’ve never noticed it either.”
“You’re lying. It was like, really late when we left, like after midnight.”
“Her classes must run late. I swear I’m not lying.”
“If you’re telling the truth”—he pulled out a notebook and pen—“then how did you manage to get a date and I didn’t? You didn’t even want to go out that night.”
I laughed. “Beau, it’s not a date. I don’t even know her name. She just asked that I try her art class this afternoon.”
“Is she pretty?” he asked.
“Actually, yeah. Really pretty.”
“Is it like weird Titanic shit, where you paint her naked or something?”
“What is with you? I think you have a disorder.”
“I guess so. I must have syphilis written across my forehead or something.”
“No,” I said, opening my book, “I just think you’d have better luck if you told a girl you had to study for once, then they might actually believe that you’re a medical student.”
“That would be lying, except for the part where I’m a medical student”—he grinned—“because that’s one hundred percent true.”
“I wouldn’t want you as my doctor,” I retorted as the professor began lecture.
“Good, ‘cause I have syphilis,” he whispered, rolling his eyes.
Lecture was slow like dripping molasses. Before the last professor could finish his lecture, I grabbed my belongings and started to my car. Beau was jogging to keep up with me.
“Are you really going?”
“Yeah,” I said as I tossed my satchel into the bed of my pickup truck.
“What happened to, ‘we have to study’ and you making a big deal Saturday night about the board exam? This isn’t like you. You’re usually the shy one.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure there are other shy people going. It starts in twenty minutes. It’ll probably last an hour at most and then I’ll come over and we can review. I’ll bring you my art and you can hang it in your apartment if you want,” I yelled out the window.
“Highly unlikely,” he shouted as I drove out of the lot.
There was no name for the art store, which explained why Beau and I had never noticed it before, just a faded patch where an old sign used to be. A piece of paper was taped to the door that said Anne’s
Art Supplies.
The store felt different than it had Saturday night. There wasn’t any music playing next door, and customers strolled the aisles. The only constant was the Tennessee River painting, which had managed to remain above the register.
“Can I help you?” a lady with short gray hair and glasses attached to her neck with a beaded chain asked from behind the counter.
“I’m here for the art class.”
“Oh yes, with Hope. Just go to the far end of the store and to the left.” She pointed to a display of easels.
I made my way into a room with several windows exposing a view of the trees behind the building. There were two long tables with assorted tubes of paint and pieces of paper. To my surprise, the class was full, and I was forced to take a seat farthest from the main display. I flushed as I squeezed by the others empty handed. I felt out of place in my pressed navy pants and white button-down.
“Good afternoon!” Hope cheered, entering the room with her colorful apron. “Today we’re going to learn to paint with an impressionistic style.” She noticed me and smiled.
“Newcomers, just follow the person next to you if you are unable to clearly see me. And”—she looked out the windows—“excuse the men cutting down trees behind the building. I’ll try not to yell, but it’s been loud all day.”
She proceeded to teach everyone how to paint minute strokes in a specific rhythm to make a larger, clearer picture from far away. The entire time I tried to follow her at the front of the room, the man beside me talked about his job problems and how Hope’s art classes had been a coping mechanism for him. Thankfully, Hope made rounds through the room and interrupted him. She wiped her hands on her apron as she approached me.
“Hi—”
“John,” I filled in for her.
“Hi, John. I’m Hope Owens.” She stuck out a small hand and shook mine then took a seat in the last empty chair next to me. “I’m thrilled you found time in your busy medical schedule to be here. Didn’t bring your friend?” She glanced around the room.
“Beau? Oh no. He’s studying,” I replied.
“The painting is still hanging above the register.”