Thursday Afternoons

by Tracey Richardson

  “Now, Fred,” says the mayor. “It’s not quite that drastic, although you make a good point.”

  “From the reports I’ve looked at,” Ellis says, directing her comment to the family physician, “births at the hospital had been decreasing annually, to the point where there were only thirty-two of them in the final year of obstetrics here.”

  “That’s true,” Glassman concedes. “In fact—”

  The patient advocate cuts her off. “So we say to hell with those thirty-two people? And what is it really costing the hospital to keep a birthing suite anyway? I mean, it sat empty when it wasn’t being used, but so what? An empty room isn’t costing anything.”

  “Ah, but it is,” Ellis says and watches him squirm a little. “Empty spaces in hospitals may not be costing much money, but they’re also not bringing in revenue. You have specially trained staff too who aren’t using their skills, so that’s costing money. The ministry today wants every corner of a hospital in use and it wants staff resources put to where they’re most needed. Centralizing services, as this hospital has done and many others have done, accomplishes all that.”

  Ellis feels Amy stiffen beside her.

  “A cookie-cutter approach,” Amy says with a slight edge to her voice, “can’t possibly work everywhere. Every hospital and every geographic area has its differences, its idiosyncrasies, which means they all require a unique approach.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Each hospital and each community needs its own unique methods of delivering health care services.” It’s why Ellis was hired, to specifically tailor a plan for Erie Shores Hospital and nowhere else. She digs into her boiled egg. She doesn’t need to look around the table to know that the others aren’t exactly jumping on her bandwagon. “Look,” she finally adds. “I know you all want what’s best for your community. But trust me when I say we all want hospitals to survive in this world of ever-increasing budgets and ever-increasing demands. Changes are a reality, and the trick is finding the right balance to keep patients happy and to keep the people who write the checks happy. And that’s what we all need to strive for if we want a sustainable future for our universal health care system.”

  The mayor mumbles, “Good luck with that, Ms. Hall.”

  * * *

  The water is like glass, leaving it an unblemished mirror for reflecting the setting sun. Conditions couldn’t be more perfect for a boat ride, and this boat is a luxurious ride. It’s a twenty-eight-foot wooden Chris-Craft cabin cruiser, a refurbished beauty from the late 1930s, Margaret White has been only too happy to explain to those on board. More like brag, Amy thinks, then reminds herself to quit holding it against the woman that she’s attracted to Ellis because, well, who wouldn’t be. It really is a beautiful boat, its wood polished to a fine gleam, and it slices through the water like a hot knife through butter. There’s seating at the bow and the stern, plus a cabin below. Besides Amy, Ellis, and Dr. White, there are six others on board, all of them staffers at the hospital. There’s a nice steel tub full of ice containing champagne (not the cheap stuff), wine coolers, and beer, and there are plates of cheese and fruit to nibble on.

  To laughter, somebody starts singing the theme song from Gilligan’s Island as Margaret unspools the anchor. The shore is about a kilometer away, and there’s no one else out here, save for gulls and the occasional loon with its tranquil trill. I could get used to this, Amy thinks. The peacefulness, the beauty of the rocky shore and the hills beyond it, which are so unlike the flat lake her house sits on. Lake Erie has none of the rough edges, the rustic beauty, of Georgian Bay.

  Amy has wandered to the stern, where she can be alone. The rest are at the bow or in the cabin below, where the food and beverages are. She can’t keep her eyes off the sun as it slowly sinks into the water, painting the sky above it various shades of pink and orange and purple. She deeply inhales the fresh air, made cooler out here by the water. Even in the height of summer, the bay remains chilly because of its deep, rocky bottom. The tranquility reminds her that she should do this sort of thing more often—take time to be alone with her thoughts, to commune with nature. She loves her work, it’s like the constant purring of a motor in her soul, but she knows it can’t be everything. There’s her family, but that’s not exactly smooth sailing these days. Her parents are fast declining, and her sister, well, she has a full plate and a complicated life so far removed from Amy’s.

  It’s been a long time since she’s reflected seriously about her love life. Lisa ruined her dreams of finding a soul mate, a life mate. For a long time, anyway. Drained her heart and her energy dry, as only people with addictions and mental health issues can do. But Amy survived by throwing herself into her work, moving back home to be near family, having her friend Kate to distract her. And it worked until Ellis came along. Now there’s a new force inside her, a force that demands more, that wants a full life that includes love, and it grips her now, making her stagger a little as though she’s seasick.

  “Whoa, you okay?”

  She hadn’t noticed Ellis, a half-filled champagne glass in her hand, making her way to the stern.

  “Fine, yes.” Amy sneaks a hand onto the railing for support.

  Worry lines crease Ellis’s forehead. “Are you seasick?”

  “No, especially not when the water is like glass. Probably a little hypoglycemic, that’s all.”

  “Come downstairs and get some food.”

  “Ellis…”

  “Yes?”

  Food. And company, that’s what she needs. Ellis’s company, to be specific, and without Margaret White and her bedroom eyes and her love of beautiful things. “Would you like to have dinner with me once we dock?”

  Ellis’s expression is annoyingly blank, and right when Amy thinks she’ll say no, Ellis surprises her with a yes. “Did you know the restaurant at our hotel has daily fresh-caught fish on the menu? I wouldn’t mind the whitefish. Being on the water is making me hungry, and these hor d’oeuvres aren’t quite cutting it.”

  Amy plays along. “Good. I’m famished too.” Yes, that’s it, make it all about the food, then we can pretend I don’t want Ellis’s company. We can pretend I’m not missing the hell out of her. We can pretend this means nothing more than a couple of colleagues sharing a meal, and not about two women who can’t quite banish one another from their thoughts, from their hearts. “Are you sure you don’t have other plans?” An image of dumping Margaret over the side of the boat flashes through Amy’s mind.

  “I don’t, though I was already asked to dinner.” Ellis chuckles. “I turned it down.”

  Of course. Margaret White strikes again. And strikes out.

  At the dock, Amy thanks Margaret for the cruise, catches her eyes and says, “You have good taste.” She enjoys the mild look of confusion on the doctor’s face before she and Ellis head to their rental car for the drive back to the hotel.

  Chapter Twenty

  They agree not to talk about anything work-related over dinner. Initially, Ellis was worried Amy would clam up once that topic was off the table, but Amy has been surprisingly good company. The bottle of wine they’ve already gone through has certainly helped play the role of peacemaker, and Ellis orders a second one, something a little sweeter this time.

  “Hey, dessert!” Amy says with a new twinkle in her eye. “We can’t have wine without sharing a piece of cake.”

  Ellis raises her eyebrows but says nothing. Her hips don’t need cake, but the thought of watching Amy eat cake from a fork makes her mouth water. Amy does everything not only with precision, but with intense spirit and passion. Like the way she makes love, withholding nothing. Jesus, Ellis tells herself, stop thinking about sex! There’s nothing worse than thinking about what you can’t have, and last night’s kiss was a painful reminder of that. For Ellis, anyway. Amy hasn’t shown the least indication that she enjoyed it. Or that she has an opinion about it one way or another.

  A slice of cake is ordered—the chocolate, decadent kind with cherries and blue
berries nesting in butter cream frosting. And Amy, with Ellis’s blessing, has changed the wine order to a bottle of champagne. Not, she points out triumphantly, the same brand of champagne that Margaret White served on her boat.

  “So,” Amy says casually. “Siblings? Parents? Where’d you grow up?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Ellis before that she knows far more about Amy’s background than Amy knows about hers. “Only child. Grew up in Halifax. My parents were both professors at Dalhousie.”

  “Sounds pretty idyllic.”

  “It was in a lot of ways. Except I lost them both when I was in my early thirties. Cancer took them two years apart.” It wasn’t fair, losing them so close together. But it was how they would have preferred it, having rarely been apart in their years together. Ellis often felt like the third wheel, that more often than not they preferred each other’s company to hers. It’s a comfort to her now rather than an irritation.

  “I’m sorry. So…was Mia’s mom your last serious relationship?”

  The sudden veer in the conversation takes Ellis by surprise, but it’s a fair question, especially now that Amy is getting to know Mia better. “My last and my only serious relationship, to be exact. Nancy was an accountant. We met through work.”

  “Was it love at first sight?”

  “Not really. I was attracted to her. She was smart and had a great sense of humor.” Ellis remembers how Nancy would drizzle hot sauce on their eggs to make funny faces. She bought Ellis fuzzy moose slippers one Christmas, after they’d almost hit a moose while driving through Northern Ontario on a camping trip. “She was fun and I needed that in my life. The fact that she had a young child complicated things a bit. I never really aspired to become a parent.”

  “I get that. I never did either. Which doesn’t mean I don’t like kids. I just didn’t want the pressure of raising them.”

  “Makes sense, what with your career and all. I always felt the same. My career came first. And that’s ultimately what destroyed my relationship with Nancy. That and…” Her hesitation draws the hard inquiry of Amy’s eyes, but Ellis clams up. She doesn’t owe Amy the explanation of how she literally woke up one day and simply couldn’t do it anymore—couldn’t play the role of partner and stepmom, not when those roles had become a burden against which she began to rebel and rebel hard. She started staying later and later at work, began volunteering to attend more conferences, to go on more business trips. A few times she snuck out on her own to catch a movie or to have a solitary dinner at a nice restaurant. She lost herself in that relationship or more like got buried beneath the avalanche of responsibilities and expectations. She’s no longer the same person who walked out on Nancy and Mia with barely a look back, but how can she explain all that to Amy in sixty seconds or less? “Well, it’s enough to say that it didn’t fit who I was at the time.”

  “Any regrets?”

  “Only in the way it ended. I never really apologized, you see. Never made up for what was definitely not my finest moment. And now it’s…too late.”

  “But it’s not too late with Mia, right?”

  “I hope not, but…we’ll see, I guess.” Mia is a complicated kid. And one who, with her little digs at Ellis and her rebellious attitude, still hasn’t forgiven her for walking out all those years ago.

  “No.” Amy shakes her head but says nothing more as the champagne arrives, their server pouring for them while announcing their slice of cake is coming right up.

  Ellis sips the frothy perfection. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “I mean, there’s no guessing involved. You’re fighting for Mia, I can see that. You’re all in, and Mia knows it. I think that’s why her tough exterior is starting to chip away.”

  Ellis lets Amy’s kind words sink in. She’d underestimated her powers of observation. “You really think so?”

  “Absolutely. You two are going in the right direction, and that’s what matters now. Last I heard, you can’t change the past.”

  Ellis smiles, clinks her glass against Amy’s. “Thank you for that. Your turn now. What’s your big regret in the love department?”

  * * *

  Oh, God, Amy thinks, why did I open this can of worms? As if she’s an expert on relationships and making amends. And now she’s supposed to spill her guts about Lisa? No. No way. Because confessing all of that means confessing her own flaws, not to mention dredging up a painful period in her life that still has the power to hurt her. Like when you think an injury has healed until you suddenly move a certain way, and there it is again. Not as sharp as it once was, but there in the form of a dull ache.

  She’d intended to make small talk during dinner, mostly succeeding until the wine began loosening her up. She has no one to blame for straying into personal territory, and now Ellis is looking at her expectantly. Because fair is fair. But now, luckily, she’s saved by the cake’s arrival. It’s placed between them on a plate that nearly disappears beneath the mound of chocolate goodness, two forks perched on the side.

  Amy downs half her glass of champagne and thanks the universe for sending the cake at this exact moment. “I think eating this cake takes precedence over discussing ancient relationships, don’t you?”

  “Well, since you put it that way.”

  Ellis’s gaze—sexy, interested, engaged—nearly undoes her, and she dives into the cake to avoid looking into those viridescent eyes. How had she honestly thought she could avoid succumbing to her attraction for Ellis? Worse, how had she managed to convince herself she was the boss of her own feelings? Because in spite of the mountain-sized obstacles between them, the familiar tingle between her legs and the heat radiating inside her is enough to make her forget why she ever decided in the first place to try to keep Ellis at arm’s length. She feels not a speck of the strength she felt last night when she’d ended their kiss. And it scares her.

  “Ellis, I really think…” She looks up right as Ellis is licking frosting from her fork. Not just licking it, but luxuriating in it. Melting from the ecstasy of it. And it’s so not fair. For the life of her, Amy can’t remember what she was about to say, because every thought except for one has been sucked from her brain. Jesus, I want to be the one to give her that kind of pleasure.

  After another bite, Ellis says, “Yes? You were about to ask me something?”

  Amy mentally scrambles, finally remembers there is a question to which she’s dying to know the answer. “Why did you turn Margaret White down tonight?”

  “That’s easy. I don’t want Margaret White.”

  “You don’t?”

  Ellis’s smile is playful if a bit sadistic. So is the way she’s absently stroking the stem of her wineglass with a long, elegant finger. And then there’s the heat ascending in her eyes, and Amy has no more defenses.

  “Nope. She’s not the one I want.”

  Amy swallows hard. She wants to hear the answer, needs to hear the answer, because she can’t possibly be out on this limb all by herself. “Who, then?”

  They look at each other, the truth catching up to Amy at the speed of her galloping heart.

  “I want,” Ellis whispers, leaning closer, “you. Only you, Amy, don’t you know that by now?”

  Ellis, with her sexy fork licking and flashing eyes and honey-thick voice is driving Amy crazy. So is the copious amount of wine she’s drunk tonight, and yet, she’s the most sober she’s ever felt when she says, “Come up to my room with me.”

  They barely make it inside Amy’s room. As soon as she closes and locks the door, she’s pressing Ellis against it, kissing her as though she’s trying to make up for the weeks of, well, not kissing her. Even in the elevator, they couldn’t stop kissing, couldn’t keep their hands from roaming. Desire cuts through Ellis, building to an explosive force. They’re instantly transported back to that hotel in Windsor, it’s Thursday afternoon all over again. They know so much more about each other now, but none if it has lessened Ellis’s desire for Amy.

  “You,” Amy says, her voice thic
k and scratchy. “I want you so much, Ellis Hall. I can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop wanting you no matter how hard I try not to.” Her words are exclamation points to the things her hands are doing…caressing Ellis’s breasts through her blouse, gliding down to her ass and squeezing lightly, tenderly, then back up her hip to her abdomen, where her fingertips skitter lightly over the silk material, trailing up to the buttons of her blouse. Ellis moans as Amy gently licks her neck, her throat. She’s so hot for this woman, she’s already soaking her panties, the muscles in her legs like guitar strings about to snap. She throws her head back when Amy relieves the final button on her shirt and unclasps her bra.

  “Bed,” Ellis grinds out from behind clenched teeth.

  Amy has other ideas. “Not yet.”

  Her hand is under Ellis’s skirt, while her other hand fondles Ellis’s breast. It’s torture of the sweetest kind, the kind Ellis has been dreaming about and fantasizing about for the last six weeks. She’s never stopped wanting Amy, but she’s not naïve enough to believe that sex is all she wants from this woman. For right now, though, it’s enough. God, is it enough!

  “I want to touch you,” Amy says, her voice so hoarse that Ellis barely recognizes it.

  “Please.”

  Her hand finds Ellis’s panties, skims an abstract pattern over them, driving her wild. She’s hard and throbbing and wants Amy with an urgency that’s more powerful than anything she’s ever known.

  “What do you want me to do to you?” Amy says. “Tell me.”

  Her brain has gone to mush, but Ellis pushes out the words. “I want your mouth on me. And…I want you inside me.”

  They manage to part long enough to strip down and fall onto the bed, Amy on top of Ellis, sliding slowly down the length of her body. She’s kissing her way down, until she reaches her destination. Then she stares at her prize, licks her lips, and Ellis silently urges her on. She knows she’ll come quickly; Amy does that to her.