by Lexy Timms
Tom gave his dashing-pilot-Harrison-Ford grin and ducked out the hatch, walking away with her bag.
Mel paused before getting out, though. It was the smell. She took a deep breath from the doorway. The smell of the jungle, the fresh and stale, the life and death that permeated the jungle also served to permeate the air. Her lungs were desperate for each heady breath. She hadn’t realized that L.A. was so claustrophobic, that she hadn’t had a deep breath since she’d left.
She stepped out of the plane, feeling a dozen burdens falling away from her shoulders despite the noise and chaos of construction. They’d leave that behind soon enough. It was a wonder the resort had guests of any kind in all that noise.
Tom was waiting for her in the Jeep that belonged to the resort. She had no idea how he’d managed to finagle that, but was glad she wasn’t going to have to wait for someone from the clinic to come out and fetch her. It would have been an hour at least, and all she wanted was to get home.
Tom started chattering away before the Jeep was even in motion, but Mel was a million miles away, or a few thousand. However far away L.A. was from there. Whatever he said flowed over her the way the wind did, the occasional word catching at her the way the occasional branch reached out to snag at her clothing as they passed through the denser underbrush. Every mile brought a memory. The drop-off she’d run past a thousand times without a thought now seemed perilous in a way it had never been, only because she remembered how it had freaked out Brant the first time they’d driven over it. There was the place where the bus had crashed. The place she and Brant… She stepped firmly on that thought. Okay, she’d known there would be reminders of him everywhere. He’d made a difference in her life and it would hurt for a while.
It might even hurt for a long while.
I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it.
I’ve been through worse. Physical scars that never healed. But I moved forward. I managed fine. This is just my heart.
Give it time.
At least that was in plentiful supply here in the jungle.
The sudden slam of the Jeep and the rebounding flight out of her seat jarred her from her reverie.
“They haven’t fixed that yet?” Mel complained as the Jeep gamely traveled on. “I’ve been on Joseph to fill that in since…”
“You’ve only been gone four months, Doc!” Tom objected. “Give the man a chance, he’ll get to it.”
Four months. It was a lifetime ago. It was a moment ago. The jungle and the land were familiar and strange, welcoming and hostile. Somehow the thought of the staff, Carmen, Tina, Angelica and Joseph… like cousins. Sisters. Family.
When the Jeep stopped its merciless pounding, she grabbed her bag and mumbled in hasty gratitude to Tom and ran up to the bungalow that she knew well. But it was like running back into your old room after you’d been away at college. When there should been heart-throb posters and remnants of ancient ballerinas and furry unicorn posters. It was a bit of a shock to see it empty.
Not that it wasn’t clean. Someone had come through and swept out the spiders and even changed the sheets. But it was barren, stale. It wasn’t hers anymore, in a very profound way. It was as though, when she left, the room had left right along with her. It was all gone.
“At least they didn’t turn it into a sewing room,” she muttered, dropping her bag onto the floor.
“That’s ‘cause ain’t no one here sew for a lick,” a voice called from the door. Mel looked up to see the glowering figure of Carmen looming down from the doorway at her. “Was thinking about making it into a TV den, but reception is crap.”
Mel should have known that no one would just let her slink back unnoticed. She was so not prepared for dealing with people yet. Thank goodness it was only Carmen who’d shown up. “Go away, Carmen,” she muttered, and crawled into the hammock, pulling the blanket up over her head even though it was easily 90 degrees in there. With her knees drawn up to her chin, maybe no one else would notice she was there.
“You know you’re officially trespassing, right? You don’t actually have a right to be here, not technically.”
“So arrest me,” Mel said to her knees.
“Police are on their way,” Carmen said flatly. “You have a three-hour head start.”
“That’s not a nice way to tell someone welcome back.”
“Depends why you’re back. We thought you’d be Mrs. Plastic Surgeon by now.”
“I’m a doctor, too!” Mel snapped, sitting up and shoving the blanket aside. It tumbled to the floor, where it would probably be a nest for wildlife by dinner.
Carmen sighed. “Yes, dear, you’re a very good doctor. We’re all proud of you.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
“Don’t act like a child.” Carmen shrugged.
Mel wanted to throw something at her and scream she wasn’t acting like a child. The irony started to sink in.
“So what happened?” Carmen asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorpost. “Remember, you only have three hours before the cops show up, so make it quick.”
“You didn’t call the cops,” Mel muttered, swinging her legs over the side of the hammock, making it swing dangerously.
“If I did, it would be three hours. What happened?”
It sounded stupid now when she said it out loud. “He… he got me a foundation.”
Carmen stood for a moment and considered that. Eventually, she shook her head. “Try that again.”
“You know, something to replace Doctors International. Something to fund all the clinics that DI left in the dust when…”
“When you exposed them for fraud and embezzlement,” Carmen finished, blithely ignoring her own role in the whole thing. In fact, if Mel remembered correctly, wasn’t it Carmen who had furnished the lion’s share of evidence of the corruption which had brought down the entire organization?
Mel opened her mouth then closed it. What was the point? She sighed. “Yep! That’s me!” she said finally and dropped to the floor. Why not take the full blame?
“How much is this foundation worth?” Carmen pressed.
“I don’t know… like $25 or $30 million a year. Something like that.”
Carmen stood and considered that for a moment. “What a bastard.”
Mel threw her hands up in frustration. “You don’t understand!”
“No, I get it, I do. You feel like he’s taking something from you that you fought hard to make. I get that. I’ve been running this place for the past four months, so I understand better than you think I do.”
“I’m not trying to take it back from you.” Mel stooped and picked up her bag, and stood there just holding it for a minute. She wasn’t, was she?
What the hell was she doing there?
“Take it. I don’t get paid any more than I did as a nurse, and I have to do double duty. I don’t want it.”
Mel closed her eyes and counted to twenty. “What do you want, Carmen?”
“I want a man who tries to insult me with $25 million a year. That’s what I want. You, you want this. You want pride and accomplishment and you don’t want anyone to take it from you.”
“Ouch.” Mel slumped against the wall, the bag dropping to the floor at her feet. Was she really so full of pride as all that?
She felt Carmen’s eyes on her. For an uncomfortable moment she had an idea of what that wall must feel like in the clinic, to be subjected to that stare day after day. It’s no wonder the clinic had withstood hurricanes that had flattened entire villages. No building would dare to collapse under a stare like that. After a long moment, Carmen shrugged and turned to go. “Well, if you’re gonna stay here, we’ve got a burn victim you can take a look at.”
Mel’s head snapped up, all doctor for the first time in weeks. “Why didn’t you evacuate him?”
“Not that serious, so far as we can tell. One of the construction people at the hotel got drunk and had a fight with a welder’s torch. Superficial mostly.”
> Not an emergency then. Mel bent and picked up her bag for the second time, this time actually carrying it to the bureau where she began to unpack with exaggerated movements. She had to exaggerate them. The stupid thing only held a t-shirt and a toothbrush. “Maybe later.”
“Maybe later,” Carmen mimicked her. “You have three hours, so get to work or get arrested. I’m not running no boarding house here.”
Carmen left, slamming the door behind her.
“IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK, THANKS!”
Mel threw the empty bag against the wall and sank to the floor, allowing herself the luxury of crying for the first time since she’d left L.A.
Brant, what the hell am I doing here?
Not running. She was not running.
Again.
* * *
The burn was, surprisingly, superficial. The looks that Tina and Angelica tried to hide behind her back were considerably more significant. They weren’t rude, but they were curious and had no idea how to approach her. The three of them settled silently on a business relationship, the nurses busying themselves not too far removed from the action. Joseph, bless his heart, acted as though Mel hadn’t been gone for four months, and it was just another day at work as he handed her gauze and bandages so that she might put a fresh dressing on the burn after careful examination.
“The wound’s healing well. Overall the burn is rather light, all things considered,” Mel said as she finished taping down the bandage across the burn. “So it was a piece of metal, not the arc welder that caught him? What did Dr.…”
“Ortega,” Tina added helpfully from the cupboard where she was doing careful inventory. Especially considering how sparse the contents of the cupboard were.
“What did Dr. Ortega do? I’m having trouble reading these notes…”
“I took care of the burn myself,” Joseph said rather stiffly. “This guy,” Joseph pointed his thumb in the general direction of the patient who, thankfully, spoke almost no English, “is better off not seeing him. He’s no more a doctor than I’m a celibate priest.”
Tina choked back a laugh, but there was a harsh edge to the sound that told Mel there was more of a story than anyone was telling. She drew Joseph away from the patient and over to the nurse’s station. “Okay, what gives? What’s going on around here?”
Joseph’s eyes grew dark, even dangerous as the story unfolded. In four months, three different doctors had taken over the clinic. The first two had come from Doctors International, but they had left soon after they discovered that DI no longer existed. As the scandal unfolded, they’d become more concerned about their paychecks than their patients. This was before Mel had found alternative financing, namely Brant. The last was sent here, volubly against his will, by the Belize government, mostly to placate the nearby resort. As it turned out Dr. Ortega preferred to stay at the resort, and consoled himself for his heinous posting with large amounts of wine and local women.
Mel stared at clipboard with the patient’s information until the words swam before her eyes. She rubbed her forehead and thought about what to do next. She wished Brant were there. “Is he the only patient we have?”
“Si, Doctor.” Tina said, setting her own clipboard down next to Mel’s on the counter. “It’s been very quiet this week.”
“We had a bad rush last week, though.” Joseph’s usual bright face paled at a memory that Mel could almost feel. “There was a bad accident…”
The others exchanged glances. Angelica made the sign of the cross then disappeared on the pretext of finding some misplaced fresh sheets when Mel gave her a look. “What happened?” Mel prompted when it seemed the story wasn’t forthcoming.
Tina and Joseph exchanged glances. “Jaguar,” Tina said, her eyes darting to the window propped open for fresh air, as though half expecting the beast to be there, trying to get in.
“You’re joking.” Mel looked at the girl’s face for some indication of a trick. There wasn’t any. “There hasn’t been a jaguar reported in this area, well, in… forever.”
“It was living in the jungle, near the waterfall on the far side of the resort. Jaguars don’t like people,” Joseph explained, “but they don’t mind our trash. This one stayed away from everyone and made the occasional raid on the dumpsters.”
It wasn’t exactly the most unusual story. It certainly wasn’t the first time the resort had attracted unsavory wildlife. There’d been a rather large problem with black howler monkeys a year or two back. “What happened?” Mel repeated, feeling like she was trying to dredge the story out of them forcibly.
Joseph looked over to Tina before continuing. Tina nodded once. Mel noted that for later. “The resort is under new management. The old manager, he let things be, he was lazy, it suited him. But the new guy… he saw the waterfall, thought his guests would like it, so he started clearing out the trees and underbrush. Drove the cat deeper into the jungle, but there was the village there to greet it.”
“It was pretty bad,” Tina whispered. “But Joseph took the Jeep and bandages and there are two people alive now because of him.”
“And two that are not,” Joseph muttered, half under his breath. “I’ve got work to do.” He turned away, busying himself with several file folders that Mel very much doubted contained anything at all.
“But they were alive when you got them here!” Tina protested hotly. “It’s not your fault! If they’d gotten…” Tina shot Mel an uneasy look and clamped her mouth shut on several words Mel would have given anything to hear.
“Where was the doctor?” Mel’s voice was liquid helium. She could feel herself begin to shake.
“At the resort,” Tina whispered.
Mel looked to Joseph. He was shuffling folders with a desperation that positively begged her to drop the subject.
Okay, point made. Whatever had happened, it couldn’t be allowed to happen again. “That man is never to set a foot in this place again, is that understood?” They both nodded. “Not even as a patient,” Mel added as an afterthought.
“Just so you know, Doctor,” Joseph said quietly. “Tina and Angelica worked like demons. They even did a bit of surgery… No,” he rejected Tina’s high sign, “No, she needs to know. You did what you had to and they would have both died if you hadn’t. There was too much stitching to be done for a single man to handle, and those patients would have bled to death if you hadn’t stepped in. Tina re-sectioned a bowel. She’s been studying medicine and was up to the task. I could only be in so many places at once…” Joseph threw down the folders on the desk which scattered in all directions. “Doctor—” He faced Mel, straight and tall, as if preparing for punishment. “They performed flawlessly and under trying circumstances.”
“Of course they did,” Mel snapped. “They’re the best, what did you expect?” Tina blushed at the compliment and Joseph’s grin came back, but Mel was still seething. “And Carmen?”
The two of them suddenly became children, looking in every other direction and trying to not tattle. “Spit it out: where was Carmen?”
“She took the shotgun from the office and went to go hunting,” Joseph said finally, shooting Tina a glance. Tina’s cough was an ill-disguised laugh.
Mel stared. “By the time she got out here, that cat would have been long gone!”
“Oh, they killed it at the village!” Joseph said with a rather voluble shrug.
“Then what was she planning to…”
The sparkle in Tina’s eye was beginning to tear up with the effort of keeping a straight face.
“Oh.”
“It took three orderlies to bring her back,” Joseph said, but even he couldn’t keep a straight face at this point, and a quick bark of a laugh escaped his tight control.
“She took a shot at one,” Tina said, rather gleefully, Mel thought.
“She did not.” Joseph said quickly. “The gun just went off, that’s all.”
Tina shrugged and glanced over at Mel. “I’ll convey the message to the resort, and let the d
octor know his services are no longer needed here. Though I’m sure it’s unnecessary. The doctor’s probably too afraid to come here now.”
Sometimes, when faced with endless problems, overwhelming stress, even lost loves, the best thing to do, her father had once told her, is to find the absurdity in it all and laugh. Here’s the key: it’s all absurd.
Three strong men bodily carrying Carmen through the jungle, trying to keep from getting shot.
Mel did the only thing she could, despite a heart that kept breaking no matter how much she tried to busy herself.
She laughed.
Chapter 13
“Uh… Doctor?” Joseph stood at the door of the little office which Carmen had willingly vacated in favor of Mel’s return. It had taken her several days to settle in again but she was finally feeling the rhythm of the place, despite the fact that she’d taken to wearing scrubs daily as she waited for her luggage to catch up with her. She supposed she could have gone in to the resort and bought something, but the very idea felt extravagant. While they had funding for the time being, the gift from Brant would last a while but it wasn’t infinite. There would have to be more coming from somewhere, which was the problem she’d been working on when Joseph had tapped on her door. Mel had been drafting a letter to Gloria Shaffer, expecting it to end up on some assistant’s dead fan letter desk. Still, Gloria had become a friend of sorts, and if there was anyone who could find the way into the pocketbooks of Hollywood, it was her.
And if maybe she was trying to prove to someone (Mr. I-Give-Out-Foundations) that she could do this on her own, that was her business.
“Yes, Joseph?” Mel set down her pencil and rubbed tired eyes.
“Tom is here with… he brought… your… uh…”
“My boxes?” Mel jumped to her feet. “Hallelujah! Clean clothes! Just stack them in my room, won’t you?”
“I…” Joseph hesitated.
Now what? Mel took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Joseph? Never mind. I’ll come take a look. I suppose Tom has some message for me…”
