by Dianne Drake
“Dinner’s in ten, before your shower.”
“You look like you’ve just stepped out of the shower.”
“I did. Ten minutes ago.”
She grabbed a towel and some clean clothes from her stack, and brushed past him. “Like I said, twenty minutes. And next time...” She stopped, and mussed his still-wet curly hair. “Give me some warning.”
“When I warned you, it took you an hour. Just consider this as my way of saving some time.”
“And just consider this as my way of saying thirty minutes now, instead of twenty.”
He chuckled as she walked out the door, then threw himself down on the cot. “Don’t know about you, Chauncy, but I still can’t figure out what women are about.”
* * *
Kanya put on quite a spread, and Layla savored every bite she took. Unfortunately for her tummy, she took too many of those bites, drank way too much of the various fruit juices and by the end of the meal felt like she wouldn’t eat again for days. “Tell her this was amazing,” she said to Arlo, who was sitting on a mat across from her. “And that I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much at any one sitting in my life.”
“She’ll take that as a compliment. Oh, and there’s more. A papaya pudding. It’s served a while after the meal to help with digestion.”
“Well, I think I’m going to need more help than simple papaya can give me.” She watched the children take platters and bowls away from the tables. Dozens of them. “Why so much?” she asked Arlo. “Most of the other meals I’ve had here are simple. And this...”
“It’s a hero’s meal. Everyone in the village contributed. That’s why there was so much of it—you received what would probably be several days’ worth of it for several families. And Kanya was the one to prepare and serve it because Mongkut was her cousin.”
“But I’m not a hero. I didn’t...” She swallowed hard. “Why would they do this with the way it turned out?”
“It’s a traditional way to feed someone important, and what you did yesterday earned you that distinction, even though you probably think you didn’t earn it. It’s high praise, Layla. It means you’re one of them now.”
“Even though I couldn’t save him?” She waved to a group of women on the front porch who were simply standing there, looking in.
“You stayed with him, Layla. Held his hand. Talked to him. To the people here, that shows great bravery. And compassion. So, like it or not, you’re stuck with that reputation.”
“I’m...humbled. For all these people to embrace me this way...” Tears welled in her eyes. “Why didn’t you say something? Tell me what this was about?”
“Because when you live here, spontaneity is a good thing. I know you’ve always liked to keep to your rigid schedule, but that’s not the way everybody lives their life. And wasn’t it fun to just let go and have a good time without overthinking it all day?”
“I do overthink, don’t I?”
“Only when you’re not sleeping.” He smiled, took her hand and kissed the back of it. “You are strong, Layla, and you do fit in wherever you want to.”
She looked at all the people huddling in and outside the hut, talking, laughing, having a good time. “I want to fit in, Arlo. I really do.” Somewhere. Anywhere. Here?
It was well into the night when they finally left, after eating leftovers. And Layla was so stuffed and lethargic she was practically hanging onto Arlo, letting him drag her. She’d watched him tonight. Playing with the children. Strumming a guitar and singing. Listening patiently to incessant chatter. Mixing. Mingling. Laughing. Being part of everything. “Is there anything you don’t do?” she asked, her admiration overflowing as they entered the hut.
“Besides cooking? Let me think...” He was laughing as he led her to her side of the curtain then went back around to his own side.
Arlo was one of those men who was too good to be true. The kind a woman would fall for in a heartbeat, provided it was a woman who wanted to share his lifestyle. She could see why he didn’t want to change it. This was where he fit. Perfectly. “I’m waiting,” she called out, too tired to change into her night clothes.
“And I’m still thinking.”
“Maybe start with humility?”
“No. I’m good at being humble.”
“Is there such a thing as being too humble to be honestly humble?”
“And you’re implying, what?”
“That you’re a good man, Arlo. A very good man.” Words said as her eyes closed.
* * *
On the other side of the curtain, Arlo simply sat cross-legged on his mat, wondering what this was about. They’d had a good evening—maybe one of the best they’d ever had and, for now, that was enough. And what she’d said about him as she’d drifted off left him feeling curious. Good, but curious. Telling him he was a good man was nice. Telling him he was sexy would have been better. Telling him he was the man she’d always wanted would have been the best. But for now he’d settle for good.
“Doc Arlo,” someone outside whispered through the mosquito netting. “Dusit—” The woman out there started explaining something even Arlo couldn’t comprehend, she was talking so fast. But he knew what this was about. One of his problem patients. Another late-night call because Dusit always seemed to manifest his symptoms in the middle of the night.
As he grabbed up his medical bag and slid into his sandals, he thought about waking Layla to let her know where he’d be, because these calls to Dusit could run into a couple hours or more. But he hated to disturb her, especially since her sleep patterns were so sporadic to begin with. So he slipped out of the hut and headed off in the direction of the main part of the village, and veered to a side road, hesitating before he approached the house as he really wasn’t in the mood for this. Acute patients were one thing. So were chronic patients who worked to take care of themselves. But Dusit was neither. He was a chronic who relied on Arlo too much and did nothing to help himself. And there wasn’t much he could do about it.
So, sucking in a deep breath, he proceeded up the front walk until he reached the wooden porch where Dusit Chaichanatham was sitting, eating slices of mango.
“Doc Arlo,” the man said, grinning and offering a slice to Arlo.
Dusit was a diabetic with blood sugar so out of control that he was a constant worry for any number of side effects. He was a street vendor in the village who specialized in selling khanom—sweets—and he ate too many of his own sweets to be healthy. His weight had ballooned at an alarming rate shortly after he’d turned forty. Plus, he was suffering leg cramps and blurry vision.
“Good evening, Dusit,” he said, approaching the front porch. “Are you always hungry this late at night?”
His answer was to down another piece and grin. “Very good,” he said.
“How many do you eat before you go to bed?”
He held up fingers to indicate three. Not good. A mango contained considerably more sugar than most fruits. And while they were easy to come by out here, they weren’t always the best choice in eating, unless in moderation.
“Do you eat anything else before bed?” he asked, sitting down next to the rotund man on a wooden bench. It creaked under Arlo’s added weight, so he decided to stand back up before their combined weight broke it.
“Khanom chan,” he said, still grinning as mango juice dripped off his chin. A layered coconut dessert.
“Seriously? And is there anything else?” Arlo asked, pretty sure he really didn’t want to know.
“Kao tom mud,” he said. A sweet sticky rice made from black beans, tamarind, bananas and coconut milk. A very sweet dish indeed. “Itim kati.” An ice cream made entirely of coconut milk because many people in Thailand suffered from lactose intolerance. “Tuang muan sot.” He patted his belly with that one, which told Arlo the soft, sweet pancake made from coconut and sesame seeds was one of hi
s favorites. “Sang kaya fug tong.” Essentially, pumpkin custard filled with a sweet cream.
All of it sounded good, and for poor Dusit deadly. “Anything else?” Arlo asked, suddenly realizing that this man’s diet consisted mainly of the sweets he sold for a living.
“Tong yord.”
Arlo moaned with that one as it was an excessively sweet dessert made from egg yolk, sugar, rice flour and jasmine water. Did this man ever eat anything healthy?
“Well, I know you haven’t been feeling well, and it may have something to do with your eating habits, like I’ve told you before.” If it didn’t, he’d burn his medical credentials and spend the rest of his life washing elephants. “So, what’s your complaint tonight?”
“Blurry head. Tingly. Some dizzy.”
“Does your lower back hurt?” Arlo asked, indicating the area on both sides of his own back that contained the kidneys.
Dusit shook his head.
“And your feet?”
“Good feet,” Dusit said.
“Well, you know what I have to do.” He grabbed a blood sugar monitor from his bag. “I know you don’t like this, and that you usually refuse, but if you’re feeling poorly enough to have your wife come and get me in the middle of the night, I’ve got to test your sugar level.” It was always high, even with insulin shots, which Dusit normally refused as he was deathly afraid of needles. “Let me swab your finger and we’ll get this over quickly.”
“But no shots,” Dusit warned.
“No promises.”
“Then no finger.” He curled his fingers into a fist.
“No finger, then I have to close your vendor stall down since I am the health officer here, and I believe your sweets are harming you.” Over the course of time he’d tried all manners of persuasion, but threatening the man with taking away his livelihood, which he wouldn’t do, was the one that worked. And sure enough—one chubby finger popped out of his fist and he stuck it out for Arlo.
The draw was quick, and shortly the meter registered a whopping blood sugar count of five hundred and seventy-five. Normal ranged between eighty and one hundred and twenty.
“It’s a problem, Dusit. I can give you a shot to bring it down, but you’ve got to change the way you eat. And get some exercise.”
The man was always either sitting or reclining. He didn’t even have to walk to work since his stall was in his front yard. Truth was, Arlo was running out of patience here, as well as fresh out of ideas that might work for Dusit. Maybe Layla could try something different. Fresh eyes on a problem never hurt.
“So tonight it’s a pretty big shot. And I’d suggest you quit eating now for the insulin to work.”
Dusit huffed out an impatient sigh. “No good letting food waste.”
“And no good trying to eat it all because, eventually, that’s going to kill you. We’ve had that talk many times, Dusit. You know what’s ahead of you.” He filled a syringe with insulin, totally hating how much Dusit required, then indicated for the man to drop his trousers, and when he did so, Arlo jabbed him in the thigh. Dusit’s response was to scream so loud and long that the lights from homes all around the area came on. “You may have to have another one in a while,” Arlo said, dropping the used syringe into a disposable sharps container he carried in his bag. “I’ll be back in a while to check, or I’ll be sending my colleague.”
“No lady doc,” Dusit protested.
“It’s not your choice, Dusit. If you cooperate with me, it can become your choice. But until then it’s my choice.” And he hoped Layla did have something in her bag of medical tricks for Dusit as the man was an eating, breathing stroke waiting to happen.
By the time Arlo was halfway back to the hut, he ran into Layla, who was running in his direction, carrying her medical bag. “Several people reported hearing screaming, so I—”
He waved her off with his hand. “Just an uncooperative patient showing me how uncooperative he can really be.”
“Seriously? He woke half the village.”
“Man doesn’t like needles.”
“You had to give him a shot.”
“Either that or watch him mango himself to death right before my very eyes.” He looked up at the dark sky and blew out a frustrated breath. “He’s a serious diabetic. Has vision problems, early onset neuropathy and God only knows what else, since he refuses a physical. He’s on my insulin rounds in the morning, but he won’t take insulin. And to make matters worse, he’s the sweets vendor, and he eats all the leftovers. So—any suggestions?”
“What have you tried?”
“Everything. Talking, educating, reasoning, threatening. Showing him pictures of what his complications can turn into if he’s not careful.” He reached out and took hold of Layla’s hand as they headed back home. “He doesn’t respond to anything.”
“Some patients won’t be helped, Arlo. We both know that.”
“He’s forty, Layla. Just a few years older than me. And he has young children. They don’t deserve to have their daddy die by the time he’s forty-five. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“Would he listen to me?”
“Probably not.”
“Could I try?”
“Absolutely. But don’t expect much. Dusit’s the very definition of stubborn pride.”
“And you sound exhausted,” she said as they trudged up the wooden steps to their hut.
“I am. Sometimes I wish—”
She laid a finger to his lips to silence him. “Sometimes we all wish we’d made other choices. But you were meant to be here, Arlo, and Dusit’s not going to defeat you.”
“How did you know that’s where I was going?”
“Because I know you, and I know had badly you take it when one of your patients doesn’t respond. So...” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him gently on the lips. “Go to sleep and we’ll deal with your problem patient in the morning. Oh, and take the cot. Tonight I think you need it more than I do.” She brushed his cheek with her thumb, then crossed the room to his mat and lay down there.
For the life of him, there were times when he couldn’t figure out why he’d walked away from her. Tonight was one of them.
* * *
“He actually came here for his shot,” Arlo said, a towel wrapped around his middle and another around his head. “Before I was awake.”
He was so distracting, almost naked that way, but she couldn’t force her gaze anywhere else. “That’s because we had a little talk and I told him if he didn’t work harder and make it easier for you to take care of him, we might have to take him to hospital and leave him there for a while until they got his diabetes under control. Mind you, he was eating some pastry when we talked, but he did promise to come for his shot, and I’m glad to hear he did.”
“So, where have you been?” He turned his back to her, dropped his towel and pulled on his underpants, then his cargos. No care in the world that he was flashing his bare bum at her. A bare bum she’d always admired.
“Doing your early rounds. You were so exhausted I decided to let you sleep.”
He tossed the towel from his head into a hamper with the rest of the towels, then finger-combed his curls. She used to love doing that. Running her fingers through his hair. Massaging around his eyes. Kissing his neck—his neck, maybe the sexiest part of him. She’d loved to nibble his neck.
“I appreciate that. I can’t remember the last time I got to sleep in. It was nice. Thank you.”
She smiled. “That’s what partners are for.”
But partners in what sense? Could she mean what he was thinking about? Nah. While she was committed to doing a good job here, she wasn’t focused on anything other than her promotion. So many things had changed about Layla, but so many hadn’t. That’s something he’d have to come to terms with or else this time, when she walked away, it would be far worse tha
n last time. Because last time his feelings had been practice feelings. He recognized that now. But this time...his feelings were deeper. Much, much deeper. And there was no practice to them as they were the real thing. Last time he’d had wounds. This time, if he let it get away from him, he would have permanent scars.
* * *
After a busy morning, Arlo was ready to take a break by midday. Normally he worked straight through, but he’d been thinking about his mother all morning. The work she’d done here. The happiness her life had brought her, and how it had shone on her face. The low moments when she’d thought about Eric. She had been the embodiment of civilized when so much around her hadn’t been. Like Layla. Strong, determined and yet gentle in ways she hadn’t often shown.
He liked what was coming out in Layla. Nothing was overt. Everything was subtle. But she now carried candy for the children. And she smiled. Maybe that was the best part—her beautiful smile that simply seemed to come more naturally now.
“Care to go get something to eat with me?” he asked as she strolled into their hut only moments after he did. He was seated on the floor, reclining in a pile of pillows. She kept her distance, standing across the dim room. But her arms weren’t folded across her chest, the way they were so much of the time. In fact, she looked casual. At ease with herself and her surroundings—something he’d never seen very often in her. It was nice. Dangerous since it gave him crazy ideas that simply had no place between them. But nice all the same.
“I’d sit with you for tea, but half the food vendors in the village were offering me samples today.” She patted her belly. “Apparently, I have no will power.”
Arlo laughed. “The village does have its charms.”
“And calories. Lot and lots of calories.”
“Like you have to worry about that.” Her body was perfect, and she was one of the lucky ones who could eat everything in sight and not gain an ounce. Back when they’d been together, he had been the one who’d had to watch himself. Now it didn’t matter so much as he was so physically active most of the time.
