by Elaine Fox
“Jack?”
“Yes,” he said finally.
She nodded, and her pen scratched something on the chart. He noted the delicate pearl ring she wore on her right hand. Hadn’t she said she couldn’t wear a ring? That was why she didn’t wear a wedding band. They got in the way when she worked. Supposedly.
“Now, I know you’re going to want to leave again but I have to ask you some personal questions. Please remember what I said about everything occurring in this office being completely confidential.”
Dread formed a cannonball in the pit of his stomach.
She kept her eyes on the chart. “How many sexual partners have you had in the last six months?”
Anger flashed through him like wildfire, and he sat straight up, wincing after the fact.
Delaney stood up, one hand outstretched as if to calm him down with her palm.
“I have to ask these questions, Jack—”
“You think I’ve got a venereal disease.” His voice was loud, much louder than he’d intended.
“I have to explore every possibility—”
“Are you sure you’re not just interested in my sexual activity?” he asked, sliding off the table and grabbing up his underwear. A tiny pain threatened as he punched one leg into the boxers. “Can’t you just get that information from your precious sources of gossip? You seemed to think they were reliable enough before.”
“Jack, there’s no need to make this personal—”
“That’s right,” he said, facing her in his boxers and paper gown. The fingers of one hand pressed against the area of pain in his abdomen.
“Whatever it is, it’s most likely curable—”
He laughed cynically. “Some antibiotics and everything’ll be fine, is that it? And you get justification for every bad thing you’ve ever thought about me.”
“I don’t think bad things about you.” But she didn’t take her eyes from his chart as she said it.
Silent, he clenched his teeth until her attention returned to him.
“You can’t even look at me when you say that, can you?” He laughed wryly, his gaze flipping to the ceiling. After a second he brought his eyes back to her face. She was looking at him now.
“All right, I’ll tell you,” he said, folding his arms across his chest with a paper crinkle, “since you’re so anxious to know. I’ve slept with two women in the last year and a half. Lisa, whom you met, one time; and I won’t get into what a drunken mistake that was.” He exhaled, his eyes not leaving hers. “And you.”
She glanced at the floor, then seemed to realize what she did and brought her gaze back to his face.
“Does that fit your profile for someone with VD?” he asked caustically. “Is that all you need to know? Do you even believe me?”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. “Of course I believe you,” she said softly.
But her eyes skittered away once she said it.
He laughed and pulled the paper gown off, reaching for his tee shirt. “I don’t think we have the proper doctor-patient relationship for this examination. I don’t think we’re likely to get any accurate results. If you don’t mind, Dr. Poole, I’ll just take myself off to the emergency room in Bangor.”
He pulled the tee shirt over his head, and she was standing by the time he pushed his head through the neck. He shoved his arms through the sleeves.
“What kind of drunken mistake was I?”
Her words were quiet but clear, and they froze him where he stood. Her eyes looked stricken, even paler in her ashen face.
What that what she thought? That he thought it was a mistake?
“Delaney—” Confusion swamped him.
“No. Never mind.” She turned away.
“But you have to know—”
“I don’t care,” she said, turning, with so much vehemence he stopped talking. “I’m sorry,” she added quietly. “Just…just let me help you. Let me take one X ray.”
A twinge in his groin voiced its opinion to stay. Still, he stood undecided and confused, jeans in one hand, Delaney standing just to one side of him.
“Have you been eating a lot of greens lately?” she asked. “Spinach? Rhubarb? Drinking a lot of coffee?”
He stared at her. What the hell was she thinking? He was caught between anger and confusion. Why did she have such a bad opinion of him? Why did her opinion make any sort of difference to him? What the hell did it matter what he ate?
“Kale,” he said, remembering. “I made a big batch of Portuguese kale soup. I’ve been eating it all week. Why?”
She nodded. “You may have a kidney stone.” Her voice was soft but sure. “They’re pretty common in men, particularly in the summer when we sweat more and pass a more concentrated urine. If you eat a lot of foods with a high oxalic acid content—like kale, or any leafy vegetable—that would also encourage formation of a stone. Coffee does too. The pain can be intermittent and would be sharp, moving toward the groin. You may even feel occasionally nauseous. Does this sound accurate?”
He gazed at her, at her pale blue eyes trained on him with what could only be described as concern. He nodded shortly.
“Then let me take one X ray, and if it is a stone, I’ll get you a painkiller right away. Then, depending on the size, we’ll decide what to do about it. Okay? It’s probably not too late to avoid surgery.”
He didn’t say anything, not trusting his voice. He was such a wad of anger, confusion, mortification, and pain he wasn’t sure which one to listen to.
“There’s no sense driving all the way to Bangor if you don’t need to, Jack,” she added gently. “You can try it to spite me if you want, but if you leave here in the kind of pain you came in with, you won’t get far.”
He dropped his jeans back on the chair. “All right.” His voice emerged gruffly.
She regarded him soberly. “Thank you.”
His eyes shot to hers, but her expression was sincere. “Why are you thanking me?”
“For trusting me.” Her eyes were steady. “It means a lot to me that you do, at least as a doctor.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But you’ll never trust me, will you, Delaney?”
She looked away and he saw her cheeks go red again. “What do you mean? What do I need to trust you with?” She turned and moved to the counter, picking up the pen to write something else on his chart.
His brows descended, and he shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
She moved to the wall and pushed a button on the intercom. Nurse Knecht’s nasal tone invaded the room a moment later.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“We’re going to need a urinalysis and an abdominal X ray on Mr. Shepard right away,” Delaney said, then turned back to him. “I’ve got another patient, but I’ll get back with you as soon as I’m done, all right?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” he said, feeling like an actor in the wrong play. His lines didn’t seem to be getting an appropriate response. “You don’t have to hold my hand or anything, I’ll be fine.”
She moved toward the door, then stopped to look back at him. “I know you will, Jack.”
Delaney sat in the back of the diner with a newspaper propped in front of her face and a cup of coffee on the table beside her. She couldn’t sleep last night and so had gotten up early, dropped Emily off at Aunt Linda’s, and come to Sadie’s to try to relax. She was the first patron here, a fact that surprised both Delaney and Lois, the waitress who seated her.
She was wound up because of the events of the previous day, which had been harrowing. It had been busy from start to finish, but beginning the day unexpectedly with Jack had set the tone for the rest of the day.
As it turned out, Jack did indeed have a kidney stone, which fortunately was small enough to pass with a lot of water and painkillers. But something about having to talk him into letting her treat him, having to offend him with the requisite questions, and then feeling the shock that he might consider her to have been a mistake, ha
d started her day off with a lot of doubt. About her abilities, his character, her feelings, but mostly about her course of action—to which she was inextricably committed.
The one bright spot had been the exhilarating discovery that not only had he slept with Lisa Jacobson only once, but he’d never slept with Kim—a destructive fantasy she’d spent nights obsessing over since her lunch with Kim. Furthermore, if he were to be believed, he had barely slept with anyone since he’d been with her. Just one drunken evening with Lisa.
But even that bright spot was tempered by the fact that it shouldn’t matter to her how many people Jack Shepard slept with. The revelation had made her feel too good. Why was she so relieved? What difference did it make that he was perhaps not as promiscuous as the gossips would have her believe? It actually would have made things easier on her if he’d turned out to be a self-professed Lothario.
But no, it was better for Emily that he was not, she told herself. How, she wasn’t exactly sure. Maybe because it was good Emily’s father wasn’t off siring dozens of other babies.
Still, she told herself, he could easily have been lying. She could see where he would be more than reluctant to tell her that he slept around. Besides, what was all that “meet me at the boat” stuff with Kim on the phone the other day if not some sort of romantic tryst? Though it was possible he was just going slowly with Kim. Maybe that’s how he did things with women he cared about, instead of just jumping them on the beach. Hadn’t Kim said something about him finally finding the right woman?
Delaney frowned and took a sip of her coffee. Not for the first time, she wondered what they’d talked about after she left.
Delaney set her mug back on the table and slumped farther down behind her paper as the bells on the front door jangled. She didn’t want to be bothered by anyone.
Several male voices entered at once, one raspy voice—Sam’s—giving the newcomers away as part of the diners club.
“Set us up, Lois,” Sam called. “The wife ran out of coffee this morning, and I’m grumpy as a coon in a brand-new trash can.”
“You know I got it brewing, Sam,” the waitress called back. “Seat yourselves. I got a plate of doughnuts for you too.”
“Ooh, doughnuts,” Norman’s voice said.
Delaney nearly smiled at the delighted tone.
The bells on the door rang again, and another man entered, speaking as if he’d started the sentence down the street.
“And I got something good for you boys today. Guess who went into the pretty new doctor’s office yesterday?”
Delaney froze, afraid to make a sound. Had they not noticed her sitting here?
“Well go on, Joe, it ain’t as if we got all day,” Sam said, then burst out laughing. The others joined him.
“Our own Jack. Went in yesterday morning before the place even opened. Carla was on her way to the laundry-mat when she saw him skulking around front. Same time Janet Knecht arrived and let him in.” Chairs scraped across the floor, and Delaney peered silently around the edge of her paper. Four men sat at the square table in the middle of the room. Lois was crossing the room with a tray full of mugs and a full pot of coffee.
“Here you go, guys. Go to it.”
“How ’bout them doughnuts you promised?” Sam asked.
“They’re coming, they’re coming.” Lois waved a hand as she moved back to the kitchen.
“Think he had a reason for going in, or might it just be he wanted to flirt with the new doc?” Norman asked. “Seems strange for Jack to go to the doctor’s twice in one summer, ’cause didn’t he go just a short while back?”
“Strange indeed,” Joe said. “But his going in there crack a dawn like that seems to me he mighta had something to say to her, more’n a medical problem.”
“I’m telling you, boys, he’s making his move,” Sam said. “He knows that husband’s never gonna show.”
“Oh, hell no,” Joe agreed. “And them living right next to each other like that. I’m ’bout ready to wager they been keeping company already.”
Sam laughed, a wheezy, raspy laugh. “Keeping company? That what you think, Joe?” He laughed some more.
“Now, you know what I mean, Sam.”
“I’ll wager they been doing a sight more than keeping company, if I know Jack.”
“Now—now—I don’t know,” Norman said tentatively. “It’s not Jack’s way to sniff around after a married woman like that, is it?”
“Oh, she ain’t married,” Joe said, laughing.
A cold sweat broke across Delaney’s brow.
“I got to agree with you, Joe. Got to agree,” Sam said.
“I heard her husband works for the White House,” Norman said. “For the president of the United States.”
“Now where’d you hear that?” Joe asked skeptically.
“I heard it,” Norman said. “He’s some big wig in the White House, and that’s why he didn’t come with her.”
“Well, I heard her daddy’s in the Secret Service,” Joe said. “One of those men who guards the president. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of, Norman. Her daddy, not her husband.”
“No.” Norman’s voice was unusually assured. “It was her husband. And that’s why he’s not here with her.”
“Old Jack oughta watch out, then, if either of them things are true,” Sam said. “Which I doubt.”
“Jack isn’t watching out for anything. You all saw him and her and that McQuade girl over there in the corner the other day. Seems every time she’s in here he shows up,” Joe said. “God knows where else he shows up when she’s there.”
“It’s only been twice,” Norman said.
“And he’s been in to see her twice,” Joe said, “at the clinic. Yesterday and that time a few weeks ago.”
“That was after Lisa hit him,” a fourth voice said. “He didn’t have much choice that time.”
“Here you go,” Lois said. “So who are you guys talking about today, hm? Anybody I know?” She cackled.
“Lois, have you noticed every time that pretty doctor comes in here, Jack Shepard shows up?” Joe asked.
Delaney heard a plate slide across the table and Lois’s voice dropped so low she couldn’t hear it. A blush burned her face, threatening to torch her hair, as Delaney realized Lois was most likely telling them of her presence in the corner.
Embarrassment scalded her as she realized they’d know exactly why she hadn’t spoken up: because she’d wanted to hear what they had to say about her. There was no way she could leave the diner now without walking right past them, humiliated to the core.
She heard Sam clear his throat. “Well now, how’s that wife of yours, Martin? I hear she’s making baby clothes for a whole ’nother grandchild.”
Maybe she could pretend she’d fallen asleep. After all, she’d barely moved since they arrived. But with the paper up in front of her face she could be stuck here for hours before anyone would think to check on her. And God knew the diners club could afford to stay long after Delaney was due at work.
“Hey,” Norman said, “did I ever tell you guys about my wife’s dead brother?”
“The one hit by the boat?” Joe asked.
“Yeah. So I told you?”
“You didn’t tell me,” the fourth voice, presumably Martin’s, said.
“Well.” Norman cleared his throat importantly. “My wife’s dead brother went to see one of them palm readers—”
“A psychic,” Sam supplied.
“Yeah,” Norman continued, “and she told him he was going to be killed by a boat. So he refused to go out on the water for years. Gave up his job fishing, took a desk job with the Aroostook County police department, wouldn’t even walk on a beach.”
“But he was killed by a boat anyway?” Martin asked.
“Yep. Driving the Maine Turnpike. He was right there near the Saco exit, matter of fact. Down Portland way. Boat slid right off the back of a trailer and ran him over. Got him right through the windshield of his car.”<
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“Well, I’ll be damned,” Martin said.
“He sure was,” Sam muttered. A spoon clucked in a mug, then clattered against the tabletop. “So now we heard that story for the last time, right, Norman? Everyone’s heard it now.”
“That palm reader was right,” Norman said. “That’s the point.”
There was nothing to do but tough it out, Delaney decided, wishing a boat would come through the window of the diner and take her out of her misery.
But, dammit, it wasn’t her fault they were talking about her. All she was doing was having an innocent cup of coffee. They’re the ones who should be mortified, she decided.
She contemplated stopping at the table and telling them all that she was the one in the Secret Service and had been sent here to arrest old men spreading false rumors, but she knew she’d never do it. If she did, they’d only have that much more to say about her.
No, she simply had to get up and leave and let them be the embarrassed ones.
She folded her newspaper and the sound seemed to reverberate around the room. She picked up her coffee, drank down the last tepid bit, and grabbed her purse.
With her head high, her back straight, and her face red, she marched past the diners club with a bright and cheerful, “Good morning, gentlemen,” and then she was out.
Sunlight broke over her like a bottle in an old Western movie. She shielded her eyes against it and crossed the street to the town green, holding her breath until she was under the trees. She was tempted to sit on one of the green’s garden benches and collect herself, but she was still within view of the diner so she kept going.
“Delaney!”
She turned at the sound of her name, only to see Jack pulling up in his truck in front of Sadie’s. And there, just behind the plate-glass window, the old men sat and watched, she was sure. It was all she could do not to put her head in her hands.
They’d be crowing about this, she was sure. And now that they knew she’d just sat there, silently, while they said whatever the hell they pleased about her, they’d be even more eager to make wild assumptions about her life. Why hadn’t she said more? Pointed out that everything they’d said was false, for example.