“I’m off today,” he says as if to illustrate my realization. “My only plan was to help young Aaron here with his homework.”
“No, you have to go to check on all the farm folks today. Doc Haim should have left a note for you.”
“Oh yes, there was something about that in the suggestion packet he left me. Quite an inefficient way to do business if you ask me.”
“It’s not business, it’s medicine,” I shoot back. “My dad always made sure to go out there on the last Saturday of the month. That’s why he was beloved. And that’s what you signed on for when you took over his practice from Dr. Haim.”
Rhys rises from the table. And A, who’s sitting in the middle of our stand-off, looks back and forth between us like he wishes he had a bowl of popcorn.
“Actually those off-the-book outer farm visits weren’t stipulated in the contract I signed with Dr. Haim,” Rhys answers, his voice tight. “That means they can come into the clinic when they need to see a doctor. Just like everyone else in Guadalajara.”
“But some of the people on the list live over two hours away! It doesn’t make any sense to force each of them to come all the way into town, when you can drive out there and hit all the farms on your way back.”
“It doesn’t make financial sense for me to spend the entirety of my Saturday checking on them.” Rhys punctuates his argument with a pointed look. Making it more than clear that he thinks I’m an idiot.
“No, it’s doesn’t make financial sense, but it makes emotional sense. You’re new here. Don’t you want the people of this town to like you?”
He answers with a cold shrug. “I’m the only family practitioner in town. If they don’t like me, they can’t go anywhere else but the very expensive hospital.”
Valid point. And technically that was the real reason my father won acceptance as a Black doctor in this majority White town, but ugh!
I can’t let him just crap out on my dad’s legacy. I try again. “Mavis over at the Coats farm has COPD. She’ll be needing a full check-up before she goes on her road trip to Mexico.”
“Mexico, Missouri or Mexico the country?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. But before I can answer, he holds up his hand to say, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Either way, she should make an appointment.”
“She’s not going to make an appointment. She’s too old and stubborn,” I answer. I’m getting seriously upset.
But then I make myself take a deep breath and reset.
It’s true he’s being a total asshole about this. But it’s also true that Mavis really does need that checkup.
“Please,” I say, my voice much calmer. “Like you said, you’re the only doctor in town. So please can you go see Mavis at least. For me?”
Rhys smiles at me the way he used to.
And my heart soars with hope.
But then he says, “No.”
Chapter Eight
Dammit.
So that’s how I end up back inside, calling everyone on the farms round list while A and E finish making the pancakes.
I tell them, they’ll have to make an appointment if they need anything instead of talking about it with the new doctor as they were probably expecting.
Everyone’s really gracious about it. And no one’s surprised.
“From what I was reading on all my online papers nobody does house calls anymore,” Joe Mueller, a soybean farmer who lived about fifty miles out of town told me. “Your father and Doc Haim was the last of their class. Not surprised this new one decided us farmers ain’t worth it.”
Joe lets me off the hook, but I still feel bad as I make the calls. Another farmer named Harold has a “toe thing” he was hoping to get looked at and I can’t even make him an appointment. Mavis doesn’t answer. On her cell or her landline. And Grady, the Black farmer who always greets us with a lunch made entirely from his crop yields, sounds so down that I’m not working in the office anymore.
“I’ll tell ya, havin’ lunch every month with a Princess Missouri made all the hard fieldwork worth it,” he joked in the harmless way only old Black men can still get away with.
He sighs after he says that, and I find myself sighing too. The plan would have been for me to move to Pittsburgh with the twins at the end of the summer whether I’d been fired or not. But calling up all my old farm patients leaves something hollow in my chest. I’d only come back to Guadalajara out of duty, but I guess I’ve grown attached to my hometown over the last three years.
Life was way slower here than in St. Louis, but I liked the consistency. And most of the people. I’m going to miss it. I really am. Maybe worse than I missed pork fried rice and gravy when I moved away from St. Louis….
THREE YEARS AGO
“Look in the fridge.”
I found the post-it note on my locker about two weeks after my seriously disappointing first visit to Rhys’s apartment.
And I knew exactly who it was from, even though I hadn’t talked to The Fine Prince since I threw up deuces as I was leaving him behind in his apartment with his ridiculously gorgeous fiancée. Especially attractive women made him nervous, my ass.
I didn’t want to look in the fridge. But curiosity can be an evil bitch, and she dogged me until I found myself opening up the refrigerator door as soon as I took lunch in the Emergency department’s break room.
Inside I found a carton of Chinese food with another post-it note attached. “PROPERTY OF NURSE AMERICA” it said.
I pulled the carton out and found another post-it on the back. “I’m sorry. I’ve much to explain. Could we talk?”
“No, we can’t talk,” I answered the note out loud. Only to have the moment ruined when my stomach grumbled.
As it turned out, waiting so long to look in the fridge had been a mistake. It was lunchtime, and if what I thought was inside was inside…
I opened the carton…dammit, this boy was going for my jugular. It was pork fried rice and gravy sure enough.
“I’m taking some pancakes out to Dr. Prince as a thank you for helping me with my homework,” A says, when we’re done eating breakfast, pulling me away from the memory.
I open my mouth to say that’s not a good idea, but A’s out the door before I can stop him. So I end up watching him carry pancakes to the man I loathe through the kitchen window.
Apparently by “take him some pancakes,” A meant straight-up have breakfast with him. He sets two plates of flapjacks down on either side of the picnic table and knocks on the door.
Rhys appears almost immediately, still dressed in what I remember him calling “leisurewear” in a particularly adorable English way.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Rhys looks at the pancakes then straight at me.
Zap!
Three years. It’s been three years. When will it stop feeling like I’m being hit with a bolt of electricity every time our eyes connect?
Anyway, I flip him off. It’s important for him to know that these pancakes mean nothing and that I still hate him for firing me, even after I begged for my job in the street.
“Did you just flip off Dr. Prince?”
I turn around to find E standing behind me. Her mouth is hanging open in shock.
“No!” I immediately lie. “I was flipping off a mosquito. I hate those things.”
E squints. “It’s April.”
“I know, right? It’s like they come out earlier and earlier every year. And now we’ve got to worry about murder hornets too?”
E squints at me even harder for a few seconds. But then she breaks and says, “Whatever. I don’t care. How about if I promise to wear a mask and gloves?”
It takes me a moment to realize we’re back on the subject of whether she can go over to Janine’s house. Seriously, if she applies this persistence to her career, she might make it as an actress after all.
“I mean you can promise,” I answer. “But you know and I know that would be a lie. Hard as you’re fighting, I’m assuming you won’t be the only o
ne going to ‘study’ at Janine’s house.”
I know I’m on the right track when E’s eyes widen at my guess.
“Girl, bye.” I pointedly push past her to go wash the dishes in the kitchen. I check my phone before I turn on the water though.
Still no return call from Mavis. And I’ve got a bad feeling in my stomach.
I try calling again. Straight to voicemail. And the machine picks up at the house again. Yeah, she said she was planning to go on that Guadalajara-to-Guadalajara trip of hers. And her promise to stick around until the next set of Saturday rounds hadn’t exactly been a solemn vow. In fact, the governor’s stay-at-home order announcement yesterday might have inspired her to scoot on out ASAP. That’s most likely why she isn’t picking up.
But why would she have left for a months’ long trip without changing her outgoing voicemail?
“A mask and gloves,” I say out loud. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“So I can go?” E asks.
She’s still lurking around in that aggravating way of a teenager who’s been told no. I’ve found out the hard way over the last three years that teens are perfectly okay with badgering you until you give them the answer they want to hear.
“Nope, you’re still not going,” I answer her, heading toward the front closet to pull down my Dad’s old medical bag.
I used it for the Saturday rounds all the way up until Rhys canned me. And I stowed it away, figuring I wouldn’t need it again since I planned to return to hospital work in Pittsburgh.
But job or no job, I’m still a registered nurse. Getting fired doesn’t change that. And thank goodness, there’s a couple of dad’s old surgical masks at the bottom of the bag, along with a small box of vinyl gloves.
“Where are you going?” E demands when I walk out the kitchen door toward my Honda Civic, which I keep parked around back.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I call over my shoulder to E as I walk past A and Rhys. They’re both eating pancakes, but Rhys pauses, his fork hanging in mid-air when he sees me with my father’s medical bag.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
“One of your farm round patients isn’t answering my calls,” I reply without looking back. “So I’m going to do your job and go see about her.”
“What?” I hear the rustle of him standing and running to catch up with me.
“You’re not a doctor,” he reminds me, falling into step beside me. I guess he’s not scared of getting the coronavirus from me since he knows I haven’t been anywhere but the grocery store in the weeks since I found myself unexpectedly without a job.
“Nope,” I answer. “But I am a decent person, so…”
I punctuate my point by yanking open the door and getting into the car.
Not going to lie, after weeks of stewing over him firing me, it feels pretty dang triumphant to slam my car door closed on any further arguments.
But then, just as I’m starting up the car, the passenger door opens and he slides in beside me. “Fine, I’ll go with you.”
I look at him. I’m enclosed in the same space as Rhys again. We’re breathing the same air. Which is technically inadvisable, since he’s been seeing patients every day, but it’s too late now.
I’m already compromised.
I mentally wade through all the data I’ve been reading about COVID over the last few weeks, much of it conflicting. Then I reach into my father’s bag and pull out two masks, offering him one.
He silently takes it and puts it on. I do too. And then we reverse out the driveway for the hour-long trip to see Mavis.
I guess he’s putting his crazy revenge aside and working with me again. At least as long as it takes to make sure Mavis is okay.
Chapter Nine
Three Years Ago
I ate the Chinese food but threw away the post-it notes along with the empty carton.
I also asked Edie, our chief nurse to schedule me for opposite shifts whenever possible.
No more dating where I shit, I decided after that. And I thought about dusting off my Tinder account, but somehow just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s like Rhys had sucked all the fun out of casual dating. But whatever. There were better things to do with my time than men anyway, I figured.
So instead of dating, I volunteered even more hours at the Fountain Park Free Clinic. However, that distraction turned to be only temporary too.
“Sorry, but it looks like this is the last shift we’re going to need you for,” Dr. Grady said after we sent the mother of a little boy out the door with antibiotics for an advanced ear infection. “I’ve decided to sell the clinic.”
“What?” I said, more than a little surprised.
Dr. Grady with his good heart and willingness to make half of what he would working at a hospital had always struck me as the kind of man who would stick with the clinic until he went into the ground. He reminded me of my father actually, and that was why I’d been happy to volunteer at the Fountain Park free clinic.
“I’m getting old, Nurse Cynda. And I got a decent offer on this place from DBCare.”
Ugh! Not DBCare again. I knew this story all too well. That European medical conglomerate had a reputation for swallowing up both city and rural clinics and replacing them with DB Urgent Cares—most of which didn’t have any kind of free options, and a few of them didn’t even offer scaled pricing. My father had been complaining about that company since the late 90s and had sworn to never sell out to them.
But I could see why old Dr. Grady couldn’t make such promises. Running a free clinic in a poverty-stricken neighborhood might be the noble thing to do but it wasn’t well-paying. Most of the money that came was from grants, he and a few other generous volunteers applied for during their few off-hours. And I didn’t have to look at the clinic’s balance sheet to know he didn’t pay himself much of a salary.
The truth was, at age 70, Dr. Grady should have already been retired. And I was happy for him, even if I was worried about the future of the clinic.
“But the good news is they’re looking for paid RNs. You want me to put in a good word for you?” Dr. Grady asked.
The offer tempted me. Switching jobs would really mean I’d never have to see Rhys again. But my father would never forgive me if I went to work for the enemy. Also, I didn’t want The Fine Prince to suspect that I was so upset about him having a fiancée, that I changed jobs. No, I was way too proud for that.
Besides his fellowship had less than a year left. I could pretend it didn’t torture me to see other nurses flirting with him that long.
“No, thanks. I’m good at Raines-Jewish,” I answered Dr. Grady. “But I’m going to miss you.”
We said our goodbyes and hugged and then that was that. I guess I’ll have to find somewhere else to volunteer, I thought as I walked out to my car. Somewhere DBCare hadn’t gotten to yet.
A small bit of solace came just as I was about to turn left out of the clinic’s parking lot. A text from my roommate.
“Just got off my shift. Teen GSW. Coded. Want to meet me and Amber for a drink?”
Even though I was an ER nurse and my roommate was up in surgical, I easily translated the message. Her young patient had died while undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound. And even though her girlfriend, who was a medical researcher at Wash U. was coming out tonight, she wanted me there, too. Sometimes nurses needed other nurses to commiserate.
Alcohol sounded like a great idea actually. And after I pulled into my space at the back building, I started to text, “Yes. Absolutely. Where you two at?”
But I stopped short before I could push send.
Rhys was sitting on the back steps, leading up to my apartment building. He must have just gotten off his shift too. He was wearing his scrubs which made finding him here even worse. There was no reason for anyone to look as fine as The Fine Prince did in dark blue sanitary clothing.
I slowed and shook my head at him. “No, that devil corporation DBCare just took over my fav
orite free clinic. I do not need you here on top of that.”
Rhys frowned. “What is this about DBCare being the devil?”
Instead of answering, I sighed and asked him, “What are you doing here?”
He rose to his feet with a chagrined look. “Well, you weren’t returning any of my calls, texts, or post-it notes, so I decided stalking you was the next reasonable step.”
Technically his answer should have been off-putting, not funny. But damn that English accent….
I found myself smothering a smile, even as I asked, “Where’s Ingrid?”
“Returned to Sweden.” He walked down the stairs to stand right in front of me. So close, we were nearly chest to chest. “She left the same day she arrived.”
Sweden. So that was where her accent was from. Made sense that she’d hail from the land of ridiculously beautiful bikini models.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I answered, keeping my tone unbothered. “I know she was looking real forward to seeing St. Louis.”
That insincere thing said, I started to push past him, but he grabbed my arm.
“Ingrid and I…yes, we were informally engaged. But we were taking a gap year. It was meant as a time for each of us to get others out of our systems before settling down.”
“So I was just a Black diversion for you until you could get married to your Swedish supermodel,” I translated. “Got it.”
“No, you weren’t just a diversion….” He let out a frustrated sigh. “Obviously, I wouldn’t have let things go as far as they had if I hadn’t truly liked you.”
“How is that obvious?” I ask him.
“Well, there were many other women vying to become my next diversion, as you put it, during the time I was dating you. If I’d wanted a simple distraction from my upcoming nuptials, I would’ve taken them up on their many offers. But I didn’t desire them. I desired you specifically.”
“You desired me specifically while you were taking a gap year off from your fiancée,” I repeated, wanting him to hear exactly how that sounds.
Cynda and the City Doctor: 50 Loving States, Missouri (QUARANTALES Book 1) Page 7
