Visiting Hours

by Tagan Shepard

  “That’s the stereotype, and you must know by now I don’t buy stereotypes. Some games are violent and some are disrespectful to women, but no more than most of the summer blockbuster movies. A lot of games are very inclusive and not at all sexist. In Mass Effect you can choose to play with either a male or a female hero. Either character can date both male and female characters.”

  “What do you get out of it, though?”

  “I like games with a good story. When you find a great game and win, it’s an amazing feeling. Sort of like finishing a good book, only you have a part in telling the story. But now I’ll really blow your mind. Gaming makes me a better doctor.”

  The original argument intrigued Alison, but this last was too much. She scoffed.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No, sorry, I don’t buy it. How does playing video games make you a better doctor?”

  Jess grinned, her smile crooked, revealing just a few bright white teeth on one side. Alison’s stomach fluttered again. The playful light in Jess’s eyes was bewitching. The rest of the patio seemed miles away.

  “Puzzles. It’s all about puzzles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A really challenging role-playing game isn’t that different from a medical case. You have an objective in a game, say sneaking into a building. You try a first-floor window but it’s locked, so you climb to the second-floor balcony and try the door. Once you get inside you’re faced with a completely new set of problems. Bad guys patrolling the top floor. Figure out their sentry pattern so you can move from one room to the next unseen.”

  Jess talked with her hands, her fingers dancing along the surface of the table as though she were drawing a floorplan. The hairs on Alison’s arm stood up as she got another wave of the scent on Jess’s jacket.

  “It’s not that different from figuring out what’s wrong with a pregnancy. You have to keep your mind open. Consider all the different possibilities based on the symptoms and then rule them out, one by one. You try something. It doesn’t work, so you try something else. All the while the lives of a woman and her baby are on the line and you are the only one who can save them.” Her hands stopped moving and she looked into her half-full coffee cup. “Is it so shocking that I would want to have that feeling of accomplishment over a princess in a castle instead of a patient in pain? No one dies. The good guy always wins. Unlimited do-overs. I always get the girl. Happily ever after. And usually with a killer soundtrack.”

  Alison looked up, staring into those jade-green eyes until she realized Jess was waiting for her to say something. She hadn’t realized how long she had been quiet. While she’d been watching Jess, her feet had been swept out from underneath her. Then those eyes picked her up and swept her away.

  Her mind fluttered around, trying to find something to talk about. She should be good at this, with all the first dates she had been on, but her thoughts were moving too slowly tonight. She finally blurted out, “So…are you from Portland originally?”

  “Born and raised.”

  “I thought no one was really from Portland. Didn’t the whole population just move there to be cool?”

  “Almost everyone,” she replied with a laugh. “My parents bought a dirt-cheap little rancher near Cathedral Park right after they got married. They’re real Portland. Granola types. We were composting back before people did that for show. My dad rode a bicycle to work before they had bike lanes.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “Are you kidding? That was the eighties! Conspicuous consumption and processed foods. Eating organic peanut butter you had to stir the oil back into was not cool. I had to sneak into arcades for years before they would buy me a Nintendo, and it was right before the Super Nintendo came out so it wasn’t cool anymore. I wanted neon blue sunglasses and tie-dye shirts. I got shit made out of hemp. I hated it.”

  Alison snorted into her coffee then held her mouth closed with cold fingers to keep her giggles in. They laughed and talked until their table was full of empty mugs and the barista turned off the lights out front.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Three days after her coffee date, Alison walked toward Beth’s hospital room with more weight in her step than usual. She surveyed all the halls, but without any real hope of seeing Jess. It seemed she was doomed to disappointment where her new crush was involved. Despite assurances that they would meet again soon, Jess had not called since they left Lamplighter. Every day Alison came to visit Beth, every day she lingered in hopes of seeing her, and every day she left a little more deflated.

  Beth sat up in her nest of pillows, face creased in concentration. Files were stacked on the table in front of her, pushed out a little farther than normal because of her swollen belly.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be working while you’re on bed rest.”

  Beth flinched as her concentration broke. “Probably not, but I have cases pending and I’m going crazy sitting here doing nothing.”

  Alison pulled a chair over to the bed, peeking at the case files as she sat. “You haven’t been doing nothing. You had another transfusion today.”

  “I don’t do anything during those, just lay still and try not to freak out.” Beth snapped the file shut. A shudder ran through her and her dark complexion paled a shade. “And stop trying to look at my case files! You’re just as bad as Stephen. He’s always snooping when I work at home.”

  “You try all of the juicy cases. Of course we want to sneak a peek!”

  “No murderers or corrupt congressmen in this batch. Just some pro bono work to help out the public defender’s office.”

  “Doing your part to save the world?”

  Her voice hardened as she replied, “Always.”

  She adopted the expression Alison called her “crusader face.” Beth had grown up the daughter of hard-working, white-collar African-American parents who knew the uniqueness of their success. They struggled to earn a better life for themselves and their children amid the most unforgiving of circumstances.They lost their first child, a son, before they had Beth and never fully healed from the grief. It made them appreciate all the more what they had. They gave their only daughter every advantage in education and opportunity, but never allowed her to forget that they were the lucky ones.

  Beth was an excellent, and thus expensive, criminal defense attorney; but she spent a good deal of her time defending the poor and marginalized of the Richmond community. Her firm allowed her the time because they knew she had her pick of jobs elsewhere if they pushed her too far. Some people, both white and black, resented her for her success and her charity, but she was stubborn enough to ignore her critics. The people she helped needed her more than she needed universal popularity.

  Alison cleared her throat. “Speaking of Stephen, what’s with the ponytail?”

  Beth’s whole aspect changed, as it often did when she spoke about her husband. She smiled wickedly and leaned toward Alison. “It’s hot, right? I just wanna grab him by that ponytail and ride him like a cowboy.”

  “Um…eww.”

  Beth laughed, falling back into her pillows. “Sorry Ali. You know how I get when I’m pregnant.”

  “Beth, you’re horny as a teenager all the time!”

  “True, but only with him.” She paused, raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Speaking of…”

  “What?”

  “You and my doctor.”

  The heat on Alison’s face was like a furnace. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know that I’ve met you, right? You show up here every day like an excited puppy, and when she’s not around you pout. A week ago you were ready to run her out of town, and now you’re practically drooling all over her!”

  “That’s not…I…” She looked away. “So she won me over with how well she’s cared for you. I do have an open mind you know.”

  Beth pursed her lips and crossed her arms, tapping one long fingernail against her forearm.

&nb
sp; The battle was lost and all she could do was try to salvage a fraction of dignity. “Okay. We bumped into each other at Babe’s.”

  Beth’s voice was a suggestive purr. “I knew it! Bumped into her? How many times? Was there screaming? I want details!”

  “Stop it! We had one beer. Well, we also had coffee the other day. That’s all.”

  “That’s not all.”

  “Yes, it is. She hasn’t called since.” She slumped back in her chair. “She’s not that into me. Gay girls never are. Besides, she’s not my type.”

  “You’re a terrible liar. She’s totally your type. That sort of confident swagger and the baby face. Not too butch, not too femme. What do your people call that?”

  “My people? You’re so annoying.” She smiled, though, and answered, “Androgynous. Just andro really, or genderqueer, but I’m too old to use that term. Anyway, that’s not the point. Did you miss the part about how gay girls aren’t into me? How she hasn’t called me since?”

  Beth waved the denials away, flipping her wrist so dismissively that Alison’s temper flared. “She’s spent the last two days on ER duty. I didn’t even see her. More importantly, Ali, you need to get over this conviction that all lesbians hate bisexuals.”

  “They do!” Alison heard how loud she was and tempered her tone before continuing, “They do. You know what I’ve been through.”

  “You have one girlfriend, one asshole girlfriend, blame leaving you on the fact that you’re bisexual, and now you think the whole community is full of bigots.” She pointed an accusatory finger at Alison. “I told you from the start she wasn’t good enough for you, but you ignored me. One jerk doesn’t make a rule. You’re just looking for a reason and you know it.”

  “I don’t need a reason. I haven’t had a single lesbian go on more than a few dates with me since. They just aren’t into me.”

  Beth’s eyebrow arched again and she said, “Well, she’s into you. Or she wants to be in…”

  “Stop it!” Alison looked around even though she knew they were alone. She hissed, “Stop right there! You are riddled with hormones. What if someone hears you?”

  “You’re no fun!”

  They looked at each other for a long moment, and then fell into laughter. It was just like the old days when they shared an apartment and stayed up all night watching chick movies and drinking endless bottles of cheap wine. Lost in the happiness, neither noticed the sound of a cane clicking behind them on the tile floor.

  “Surprise, surprise. The partners in crime.”

  Beth lit up. “Momma! Daddy!”

  At the sight of Beth’s parents Alison smiled almost as broadly as Beth. They were the picture of graceful aging. Now closing in on their mid-seventies, lines carved their faces like old tree trunks. But there were more laugh lines than worry lines, and the healthy silver of their hair was proof of a life well lived. Beth’s father walked with a cane since having his knees replaced a few years earlier, and her mother’s hand wrapped around his free arm. Both had skin much darker than Beth’s, with her mother’s a shade darker than her dad.

  “The two terrors are at it again, I see.” Her mother’s voice was low and rolling like thunder across a Midwestern plain, and carried a musical quality Beth had inherited. “Good evening, Alison dear. How are you?”

  Alison moved to the pair, kissing both lightly on the cheek. “I’m well Mama J. How are you?”

  Beth’s father answered, “She’s surly and unmanageable. Same as she’s been for fifty-one years.”

  The joke was an old one, and his wife rolled her eyes in response. Still, her hand gripped ever so lightly on his arm. It was an affectionate gesture, born of the kind of love and respect that only two people who have spent their entire lives in each other’s company could share. She watched as those bent hands and swollen knuckles flexed around the only arm Beth’s mom had ever held, and her heart ached.

  “How’s our daughter?”

  “Just as surly and unmanageable.” She looked over at Beth, who stuck out her tongue.

  “And your parents?”

  “On another cruise.”

  “The benefits of living in Tampa. Where are they going this time?”

  “I’m not sure.” Alison pulled the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder. “When I called they were heading for port. It was a last-minute deal. Mom forgot to email me their itinerary.”

  Lines cut deeper into her face as Beth’s mother pursed her lips. “And your sisters?”

  Alison hadn’t spoken to either of them in several weeks. “They’re fine. Busy.”

  “Send our love to all when you speak to them next.”

  “Of course. I’ll leave this one to you.” She jerked her thumb at Beth, who was packing away her files. “Try to get her to rest.”

  “Not much chance of that.” Beth’s father smiled at her. “Take care, dear.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  She gave Beth a little wave and stepped out into the hall. She scanned the nurses station and the hall with a sigh. The sigh cut off abruptly when she saw Jess standing in the little alcove where they had talked the day they met. She was wearing scrubs today, light blue and a little baggy with a cap tied around her hair. Alison’s stomach flipped the same way it had on their date. She squared her shoulders and started toward the alcove.

  Jess’s face was fixated on the screen of her phone as though her life depended on it. She tapped the screen hard with her thumb and put the phone to her ear, shaking tension from her shoulders and blowing out a deep breath. She stood, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, waiting for her call to connect. Alison was just a few steps away when her purse began to ring. Jess turned to the noise and nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Alison! I was just…”

  She snatched the ringing phone from the depths of her purse.

  “I was just calling you.”

  Alison smiled, turning her phone to show Jess her own name on the display. “I noticed.”

  Jess kept the phone to her ear as she spoke. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. I wanted to, but the ER here has been crazy busy. I don’t know what happened in this town nine months ago, but there were an awful lot of busy couples out there and they all showed up fully dilated this weekend.” She looked around the hall. “I was on ER rotation this weekend, did I mention that? All the docs in the hospital have to rotate to the ER once a month.”

  Alison smiled and said in a soft voice, “You can hang up the phone, you know.”

  Jess looked at the phone in her hand as though she had never seen it before. Then she tapped the screen with her thumb and dropped it into the pocket of her scrubs. “Right. Like I was saying…What was I saying?”

  “You weren’t lying. You are definitely not good at talking to women.”

  Jess rubbed at the fabric of the cap tied around her hair. It was decorated with little pixelated white and green mushrooms with smiling cartoon faces. “No. I wasn’t lying at all.”

  Alison reached out, touching Jess’s arm. Just the slightest brush of her fingertips along her forearm, but Alison could feel the tight bands of muscle under the warmth of her skin. She pushed back the desire to run her fingers down to Jess’s hand, grab it tight and hold on. “You were saying that you meant to call me.”

  Jess stared at the spot where her fingers touched. “Right. Yes!” She grinned, getting a firmer grip on the situation. “I meant to call you, but I didn’t and I’m really sorry. I was hoping I could make it up to you.”

  “And how did you plan to do that?”

  Jess could tell she was going to say yes and it made her bolder. She took a step forward, closing the gap between them from friendly to something more intimate. “I’d like to take you to dinner. There’s a French place in Shockoe Bottom I hear good things about. Are you free tomorrow night?”

  “It just so happens that I am.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Tell me about your family.”

  Alison spu
n her fork between her fingers. “My parents live in Florida. I have two older sisters. Both of them live out West.”

  “What do they do?”

  “As little as possible.”

  Jess laughed into her napkin and Alison took a bite of her excellent boeuf bourguignon. Bistro Bobette rode the line between fine dining and bistro perfectly, helped by an extremely talented chef who had mastered that uniquely French ability to make food both simple and wonderfully complex in the same bite. It was evident in the rich base of her stew and also in the light and acidic lemon butter sauce on Jess’s fish.

  Their table sat in a corner formed by an exposed brick wall and the wide glass windows fronting the street. Café curtains gave them privacy, but also allowed them to snoop on the thick crowds on the sidewalk. Shockoe Bottom was a popular nightspot, boasting the best restaurants in the city and the loudest bars. Bistro Bobette was at the top of the district, just a block from the spot where high-rise office buildings gave way to restaurants but still several blocks from the beginning of the nightclubs. It was crowded, but it was a calm sort of crowded.

  They spent the first few awkward moments looking out through the windows. It didn’t take long for them to focus in on each other, and soon the world buzzed around them without any notice. The other tables filled, emptied and filled again as they chatted and ate.

  Jess asked, “So you got all of the ambition in the family?”

  “I don’t know if you’d call it ambition. I just like what I do.” The waiter cleared away their empty plates and Alison leaned her elbows on the white tablecloth. “My sisters take after my parents. Mom and Dad both came from old money and spent their working lives doing just enough to keep from losing their status. These days we don’t talk much.”

  The waiter placed cups of coffee in front of them along with a towering slice of chocolate mille crepe cake and two forks.

  “Did something happen between you?”

  “No. We just aren’t the sort.” Alison’s fork slid through the cake, dark chocolate oozing luxuriously from between the layers. “They retired to Florida the minute my dad could start drawing a pension.”