Geneva hesitated to consider her options. What she really wanted was a shower and a mirror. It was embarrassing to have all this sweat, grime, and blood all over her, and she knew she looked frightful. On the other hand, her elbow really did hurt enough to make her dread the prospect of driving the half mile back to Rachel’s house. If she could get John to drive her back, that would get her home and keep him away from his house, or more precisely, from the sight of the green linen fragment stuck to his house.
“This is my favorite shirt,” she lied. “I’d like to mend it if possible, but I don’t think I can get it off by myself. Would you mind driving me back to Rachel’s house?
“Of course. I should have thought of that. I could call Wayne to meet us, and he can look at your arm. Are you strong enough to walk?”
“Certainly,” she said brightly, giving him her hand and letting him guide her back out the door. She carefully diverted his attention as they passed the fateful nail.
Rachel gasped when she saw Geneva’s disheveled appearance. “Geneva! What happened?”
John answered for her. “She chased Dr. Zhivago through the field and fell on something. Looks like she’s hurt her elbow pretty badly.”
Noting her scratched face and legs, Rachel queried, “What did you land in, a blackberry thicket?” but Geneva stopped her with a grimace. There was an old family joke Geneva did not particularly want to hear at this moment. It concerned one Fourth of July family picnic when Geneva was learning to water-ski and had planned a dramatic landing by holding onto the tow rope until the last moment so she could glide right onto shore for a dry landing. Unfortunately, she forgot to let go of the rope until she had skied well inland and through a blackberry thicket. Ever since that day, everyone in the whole damn clan had joked about her being accident prone. Every time she showed up with a Band-Aid on her knee, they asked her how she liked her blackberries.
“Ow, this hurts, Rachel,” she said, trying to elicit enough sympathy so that Rachel would stop with the blackberry bit. “Would you help me into the house?”
Once in the bathroom, Geneva took one look into the mirror and wailed softly, “Oh, Rachel, I look like an ad for World Vision. Some impression I must be making on John!” Her golden hair was streaked with cobwebs and mud, and her face was pale, dirty, and covered with scratches. There was a network of dried blood on her once-beautiful legs.
“You’ll look better once you’re cleaned up and you get some makeup on. Besides, those welts will clear up by tomorrow. But what on earth happened?” Rachel asked as she peeled off Geneva’s shirt.
Geneva told the whole miserable story in whispered gasps, ending it with, “So you’ve got to get over there and get that piece of my shirt off that nail while John’s over here.”
“Geneva, I can’t do that,” hissed Rachel. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m seven months pregnant with twins! I’m not supposed to walk fast, let alone run over and climb behind some bushes to rescue a little bitty piece of your shirt. If you couldn’t get out of there without tearing yourself all to pieces, how do you expect me to get this through?” She slapped at her belly.
“Okay, okay. Maybe I can run back over there if you can keep him occupied.”
“Geneva, you’re crazy. If he catches you sneaking across the field, he’ll really think something’s up. You’ve led him to believe that your elbow is all busted up.”
“Well, what can I do?” whispered Geneva, turning on the bath water. “If he sees it, he’ll figure it out. Oh, Rachel, why didn’t I tell him I was chasing the cat off the porch?”
“Why didn’t you refrain from peeping into his house in the first place? Geneva, you’re awful.”
“No worse than you.” Irritated and humiliated, Geneva fought back. “You remember the time you stole the ‘Dear John’ letter of out of Jimmy Kramer’s mailbox when you changed your mind after you mailed it?”
“That was my letter. I was only getting it back,” flared Rachel.
“It was a federal offense,” retorted Geneva.
Rachel got prissy. “Well, you should talk. I remember the time you picked Carole Summerland’s locker so you could put a snake in there just because she wouldn’t admit to having fouled you in a basketball game, and you got a technical because you stomped on her foot.”
“I was fourteen years old, Rachel, and we lost the championship because of that technical, which you and I both know I didn’t deserve. Besides, you sure put your share of frogs and snakes in people’s beds,” hissed Geneva, remembering a few slithery reptiles between her own cool sheets on summer nights. She finished stripping and stepped into the tub.
“All right, Geneva,” sighed Rachel. “You finish your bath, and I’ll drive over there while you keep John busy. You can manage that, can’t you? And if I miscarry right there in the holly bushes, it’ll be all your fault.”
“Oh, never mind,” grumbled Geneva, trying to lather her hair with one hand. “Maybe I can sneak over there tonight when no one can see me, that is, if he doesn’t notice it before then. I couldn’t stand the guilt of premature twins.”
Rachel put her hands into the suds, scouring Geneva’s head with her nails. “How bad is your elbow anyway? Can’t you lift your arm?”
There was a knock on the door. “Is everything all right? Do you think I should call Wayne?” came John’s voice.
“Oh, gosh, hurry, up,” said Rachel. “Here you are, supposed to have a broken elbow, and you’re taking a beauty bath, having your hair done.”
“Rachel, tell him not to call Wayne,” whispered Geneva through gritted teeth.
“How’s the arm?” John asked, the anxiety evident in his voice.
“Just a minute, John,” called Rachel sweetly. “We’re checking it out now.” She turned to Geneva and lowered her voice. “Let me see your elbow,” she whispered, grabbing Geneva’s arm and twisting it around to look at it. Geneva shrieked with pain.
Just outside the door, John responded, “I’m going to call him.”
“No!” came Rachel’s quick reply. “I don’t think he needs to come. Just a minute, and we’ll let you look at it.” She prodded gently at the injured elbow. Geneva winced.
“Geneva, it does look pretty bad. It’s still bleeding, too. You’ll probably have to get stitches. Do you think it might be broken?”
“I don’t think so, but I hope it’s sprained at least. The way I carried on, I hope it’s everything short of broken, or John will think I’m an awful wimp.”
John’s anxious voice came through the door again, “Rachel? Geneva? How is it?”
“We’ll be right out, John,” called Rachel. “Geneva’s getting cleaned up. I think we might ought to get some stitches, though.”
Geneva finished her bath quickly, but insisted on putting on some makeup before she faced John again. The scratches and welts on her face refused to be concealed, however, so she gave up and came out for Rachel and the animal doctor to prod at her arm and murmur together over it. John thought it might be chipped, but Rachel believed it was only sprained. They agreed, however, that it needed stitches, so they bandaged the area, then John insisted on driving her to the hospital.
As they made their way down the front steps, she gave one last, appealing glance at Rachel, who, suddenly experiencing a change of heart, sidled up to her sister to whisper, “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of everything while you’re gone.”
“I love you, Rachel,” sighed Geneva.
John behaved very nicely while Geneva was admitted to the hospital, opening doors for her, looking concerned and appropriately ruffled. He insisted on staying with her as they wheeled her into the emergency room, pretending to be an important person in her life, and then he sat by her bed and stroked her head, told her jokes, compared injuries, and made up funny stories she could tell people about how she hurt her arm.
“Of course you don’t want to tell anyone you tripped while chasing a cat,” he insisted. “You won’t get any fun out of that
. You could tell them you were tangling with a mountain lion, or how about you got in a fight with a guy in a pool hall who wouldn’t pay up his bet with you.”
Geneva giggled, feeling a little cocky. “I’m going to say I fell off your front porch, and then I’ll sue the pants off you,” she said recklessly. “Where’s a lawyer when you need one?”
John brightened, then laughed suddenly and leaned toward her, his eyes dancing as if he was about to tell her a secret. Geneva bit her lip, wondering if he had caught on to her deception. But before he could speak, Wayne walked in with his best friend, Joe Fuller, the plastic surgeon Geneva knew well. He and his beautiful wife had been to the house for dinner a couple of weeks earlier. Joe was amusing, but overbearing, with something of a God complex. Geneva thought she liked him, provided he really was kidding, as he seemed to be every time he opened his mouth. He had a licentious tongue, which she found both funny and obnoxious.
“Hi, Geneva. What have you done to yourself?” asked Wayne. “Rachel says you busted up your elbow pretty badly and will need stitches. I brought Joe just in case.”
“Yes, only the best will do when it comes to your delectable elbow, you gorgeous piece of work. If it has to be violated with stitches, best to let me be the one.”
Geneva groaned. “Oh, Lord, will somebody shut this guy up? The last thing I need is for you to be coming on to me when I’m in pain.”
“Don’t look at me,” replied Wayne. “I can’t do a thing with him, and he keeps trying to seduce Rachel right in front of me. You wouldn’t know the guy was married to the most gorgeous woman in the universe.”
“You leave my gorgeous wife out of this, Wayne,” said Joe mildly. “This is just my bedside manner.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” replied Wayne.
“Oh, tsk tsk tsk,” murmured Joe as he peered at Geneva’s elbow with a magnifying glass. “But it looks clean.” He let the magnifying glass rove over Geneva’s upper arm, then across her shoulder and toward her breasts. Geneva slapped his hand away.
“Cut that out! Are you going to stitch me up or leer at me?”
“Can’t I do both? I do my best work leering.”
Geneva looked at John with mock pleading. “Can’t you do something? You’re bigger than he is.”
Joe snatched a scalpel off a tray and brandished it. “Don’t even think about it. I’m so quick with this scalpel that you won’t know what’s been altered until it’s too late. Now stand back and watch me ply my most excellent trade. Geneva, too bad stitches in this elbow are all you need. I’m wasted here.”
John crossed his arms. “Sorry, Geneva. Last time I tangled with him, he threatened to turn me into Miss America,” he said, shuddering and putting his hand to his forehead in mock horror. “It was horrible. I spent six months in therapy over it.”
As it turned out, Geneva’s arm was very badly sprained, thank goodness, and Joe put in eight tiny, neat stitches. She also had to get a tetanus shot. Joe offered to do the deed, claiming that his offer had nothing to do with getting a glimpse of her “beautiful peach of a behind.” She bore it all bravely, with a pale smile and an occasional witticism. John never left her side, praising her stoicism and her cheerfulness, and when they were left alone again, Geneva caught him looking at her strangely, as if he wanted to say something but felt too shy. She felt her confidence building, and before the morning was out and they were returning to the mountain, she felt that she had evened the score between them. If he had won the first round at their initial meeting, she certainly had won this one. She sat back and smiled up at the white, sudsy clouds floating in the perfectly blue sky. It was going to be in interesting game.
When they returned that afternoon, Geneva’s car sat quietly in the driveway, and Rachel was relaxing serenely on the front porch, sipping iced tea, surrounded by all of Geneva’s cats. She and Wayne were waiting for them and had already prepared a lunch of fresh gazpacho and turkey sandwiches. Geneva sat down ravenously, happy in the knowledge that John surely liked her, and after lunch her smile brightened considerably when Rachel pulled her into the kitchen conspiratorially, to flourish a small, green fragment of fabric. Geneva hugged her sister, her eyes sparkling with mirth, then she returned to the dining room to flirt with John.
After a delightful hour, Wayne went back to work and John prepared to leave as well, explaining that he should get back to his clinic. He asked Geneva to walk with him to his car, and as she matched her stride to his, she hoped he would take the opportunity to ask her out. After all, she felt that after what she had been through today, she deserved a romantic evening. Unfortunately, John’s mind suddenly seemed to be turned to his patients.
“I know your arm is hurting,” he said, “so I need to get out of here. But I intend to come over tomorrow and check on your cats.”
Geneva started to protest that her elbow did not hurt nearly as much as he imagined, but she bit her tongue. Better to let him see how bravely she bore her suffering. So she cradled her arm and smiled wanly. “Would you do that? That’s awfully sweet of you.”
“It’s the least I can do, considering you hurt yourself in my field.”
“You mean wrestling with your mountain lion, in your pool hall.”
“Which happens to be on my front porch.”
“OK. You come check my cats and I won’t sue you. But watch it from now on, buddy. I don’t cotton to mountain lions running loose in the pool halls I frequent. Runs down the reputation of the joint.”
“It was an accident, ma’am. From now on, I’ll make sure Wild Joe and the other critters don’t try to hustle you. They didn’t know you was quality folk.”
“You do that,” she laughed, then thanked him again for rescuing her and walked slowly into the house. She had him figured out, she thought triumphantly. He likes smart, spunky women, and she had already impressed him. From now on, she would play this role to the hilt, and consequently, play this good looking rube like a fiddle. She bet herself that tomorrow he would ask her for a date.
Three
The next day, John returned before lunchtime to round the cats onto the porch and examine them. Evangeline’s pregnancy was progressing nicely, he declared, and he added that the Three Stooges were fit and happy in their new home. They had already been neutered, too, so Geneva could stop worrying.
Geneva was not worried about the cats. At this moment, she was more concerned about figuring out a way to entice John to stay a little longer. He picked up Dr. Zhivago to listen to his chest, and suddenly, his face sobered and darkened. Pressing his fingers along the side of Dr. Zhivago’s neck, he cocked his head as if listening or thinking hard.
Geneva’s heart plunged. “What is it?” she demanded.
“I’m not sure,” said John slowly, his forehead furrowed with concentration as he withdrew a blood pressure cuff from his medical bag. Solemnly and deliberately, he wrapped the cuff, which seemed absurdly large for the cat, around and around Dr. Zhivago’s foreleg and pumped it up. Geneva watched anxiously as he placed his stethoscope against the cat’s paw and listened intently.
“What is it?” queried Geneva again, her voice a little unsteady.
“Oh, nothing really… uuhm. Dr. Zhivago seems to have a little blood pressure problem.”
“Blood pressure?”
“Not bad, just a little high. What have you been feeding him?”
“Regular cat food. And I bet he catches things around the barn.” She wondered guiltily if mice and frogs were bad for cats.
“Hmm.” Pause. “Hmm,” again. “Well, that shouldn’t cause it. May be a fluke. Tell you what, I’ll come back tomorrow evening and check again. His bronchitis seems to be gone, though.”
“Oh, will you? Thank you! What do you think it is? Will he be all right?”
“I’m certain he’ll be fine. Really, nothing to worry about,” John said briskly. “I just want to give him a chance to calm down. He’s pretty excited right now.”
Geneva peered closely at th
e cat who was at the moment flopped over on his side, one leg in the air, industriously licking his bottom. He didn’t look too excited to her, but then again, she didn’t know much about cats; she had never bothered to learn much about them since she disliked them so much.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No. Just make sure he gets plenty of exercise.” He produced a catnip mouse and dangled it in front of Dr. Zhivago. The cat leapt at it, snatching it from John’s fingers, and tore out across the yard, frisking his tail and flinging the toy high into the air. Geneva stared after him. He might seem just a little more nervous than usual. It was hard to be sure. Dr. Zhivago had always been pretty rambunctious. He disappeared around the barn with one last shake and toss.
John stayed a little longer to inquire after her arm, and when he noticed Geneva’s anxious glances toward the barn, he reassured her again. “Please don’t worry about Dr. Zhivago. I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with him. I bet tomorrow I’ll find everything perfectly normal.”
Nevertheless, Geneva worried all that night and all the next day, and felt insulted when she expressed her concerns to Wayne and Rachel. Rachel pretended to ignore her. A funny look passed over her face, then she walked out of the room. And Wayne! Well! Wayne actually snickered! Geneva knew her brother-in-law didn’t care for cats, but his cavalier attitude made her temper flare. Obviously, they did not recognize the significance of the problem, so she finally chose to ignore their callousness and turned her energies into thanking her lucky stars that John had come along and noticed Dr. Zhivago’s condition. What other vet would take such meticulous care?
When John arrived at the door shortly before twilight the next day, Geneva was waiting for him with Dr. Zhivago on her lap. Getting him and keeping him there had proved to be more difficult than she had anticipated when she was calculating the best pose for effect. She had hoped the sick cat would lie languidly in her arms, but he kept wanting to play with the runners on the rocking chair. Geneva finally had to stop rocking and sit perfectly still to get him quiet.
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