by Jeff High
“Good night, Connie, drive carefully.”
I followed her back into the kitchen. She exited down the hallway and out the front door. Estelle’s departure was taking slightly longer. She would grab one or two items and then stop and stare ponderously, wanting to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. Finally, she seemed satisfied that she was ready to go.
I walked her to the door and onto the front porch, where she gave me a gushing hug before heading off to her car. Arms folded, I leaned against a column, in the glow of the porch light, and watched as the taillights of Estelle’s BMW turned off Fleming and vanished into the frozen, starlit night. Finally, I was alone and able to think.
I loved the cold. It sharpened the senses and centered me. I breathed in deeply, expectantly of the frozen air. Reaching for my phone, I dialed Christine’s number.
On the fifth ring, she answered.
Except it wasn’t Christine. The female voice on the other end was geriatric, raspy, blunt.
“Who is this?”
“This is Luke Bradford.”
“Are you the doctor?”
“Well, yes. I’m sorry, but I was calling for Christine Chambers. Is she there?”
“Yeah, yeah, hold your horses, lover boy.” What followed was something of a random mumbling, a running commentary spoken to the general air yet picked up by the phone. “You’d think they’d put a hold button on these fool devices.” There were several painful squelch tones as the keypad was pressed. “Oh, the heck with it. Smartphone, my foot. There’s nothing smart about these stupid things.”
Then came the foghorn blast. “CHRISTINE!” Whatever elderly ailments this woman possessed, her lungs were notably in prime condition.
“Telephone! It’s the doctor! What? Yeah, the doctor. He finally called.” There was a long pause. “Okay, I’ll tell him.”
Although her previous words had been completely audible, the marked decibel increase indicated that she was again speaking intentionally into the phone. “Christine says she’ll be right here.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Yeah, sure, sure.” For several painful moments, I heard the annoying sound of forced, heavy breathing pouring directly into the receiver. I eventually held the phone at arm’s length, looking at it in comic disbelief. Then I heard her speaking again.
“So, you went to Vanderbilt, huh? Did you like that place?”
“Um, yeah, sure. It was a good school.”
“Did you play football there?”
“No, I went there for med school.”
“Just as well. Their football team never seems to have much punkin’.”
I wasn’t sure what that term meant, but I politely went along. “They play in a pretty tough conference.”
“Yeah, whatever. Guess that’s as good an excuse as any. Oh, here’s Christine.” In a poorly muffled voice, she declared, “It’s him.”
Finally, Christine was on the phone.
“Hey. This is Luke. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, not at all. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Her voice was buoyant, sweet, accommodating. “I was in the shower and had to grab a towel to wrap around me.”
Just that quickly, that one statement evoked images that sent me drowning in a sea of delightful, shameless thoughts. There’s something undeniably sensuous about the idea of a pristine, freshly washed young woman, especially one wrapped only in a towel. That mental picture now coupled with Christine’s yielding, engaging voice was hitting the primal bull’s-eye. Fortunately, or come to think of it, perhaps unfortunately, this was immediately followed by the looming specter of Connie, and her stern comments on virtue delivered mere moments ago. I refocused and said, “That’s quite an answering service. She screen all your calls?”
There was a slight giggle. “Yeah, sorry about that. That’s Grandmother Chambers. She’s visiting my mom and me from Florida for the holidays. She can be a little direct.”
“I picked up on that.”
“She’d like to meet you,” Christine responded, although for a split second, I thought she said, “She’d like to beat you.” It was my guilty subconscious thinking that her grandmother had telepathically read my wanton thoughts. I was still struggling to keep a controlled, casual focus.
“Sure. Send her right over.” This brought an obliging laugh from Christine followed by an awkward pause. I searched for words.
“So, listen. I was calling about spending some time together Saturday. I looked in the paper and noticed that the Watervalley Line Dance and Bingo Club is throwing a blowout Saturday night. But I’m not sure if you’re up for that much excitement on a first date. So, I thought I would ask what you’d like to do.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “Are you by chance running in the fund-raiser this Saturday?”
“Fund-raiser?”
“Yeah. The Runs with Scissors 5K. They hold it every year on the Saturday before New Year’s. All proceeds go to the elementary school fund.”
A light came on. Nancy Orman, the clinic secretary, had asked me the previous week if I wanted to participate in the charity run, to which I had mumbled a distracted “Sure.” I had given her a check to sign me up.
“Oh my gosh, I am so glad you mentioned that. As a matter of fact I am.”
“Why don’t we start with that and figure out the rest of the day as we go along?”
I liked this idea, probably because it so easily reflected Christine’s unpretentious, confident nature, not to mention that there was the clear inference of possibly spending the entire day together.
“Sure. Sounds good. I’m glad you mentioned the 5K. I think I committed quite the social faux pas when I missed the annual ‘Hog Jog’ last September. Must be why Nancy signed me up this time. Anyway, what’s the deal with the scissors?”
“Every contestant has to carry a pair of blunt-nose kindergarten scissors. It’s kind of a conversation icebreaker when you’re trying to get sponsors.”
“I guess I missed that part. I haven’t signed up a single supporter.”
“Oh, don’t let that bother you. The business sponsors give two hundred fifty dollars for first place in each category, and it’s customary for the winner to donate that money to the fund.”
“Sounds like I need to win to save face.”
Christine laughed lightly. “Well, not exactly. I meant that the run is mostly for fun. The kids really love it, and the money is pretty much already raised before the event. But I guess it’s possible you could win.”
I was six foot two, had played college basketball, and considered myself pretty athletic. Since my arrival it had been my daily practice to take a morning jog, something that had made me the target of more than a few teasing but good-natured comments from the locals. For the past couple of months my usual route had taken me out Summerfield Road, right past the iconic picket fence and tree-filled yard surrounding the white clapboard farmhouse where Christine lived.
I responded playfully, “It’s possible I could win? Gee, not a lot of conviction there.”
“Well, I guess I have a confession to make. I’ve seen you out running in the distance. Not too impressive, Buckhead boy.” Her voice carried a teasing, competitive tone. Even yet, it was combined with laughter, a sweet, subdued excitement.
“Oh, you think? Not impressive, huh? You know, it might just be that I slow my pace on Summerfield Road, hoping that a certain feisty but appealing schoolteacher might cross my path.”
“Oh, wow, aren’t you just the smooth one, Luke Bradford. How long have you been practicing that comeback?”
“About an hour or so. Why, did I rush it?”
“No, no. Timing was good. Then again, you might want to come up with a little stronger adjective. ‘Appealing’ just doesn’t carry a lot of conviction, now, does it?”
“So noted. Any sugges
tions?”
“Give me a second. ‘Gorgeous’ is always good. ‘Stunning,’ ‘dazzling,’ ‘sparkling,’ ‘radiant’—all those work too.”
“Are we describing you or the Milky Way?”
“You’re not helping yourself here.” There was a slight change of tone.
“And there it is. You know, seems like earlier I mentioned the word ‘feisty’?”
Delight was pouring through all of her words. “Okay, stop. You made your point.” She paused for a moment. “Bradford, you are too funny. You should have asked me out a long time ago.”
“All right, now you’re the one losing style points.” Over the past months, Christine had flatly turned down date offers on at least two occasions. But I sensed this was her way of telling me that now she regretted it, that my charm had finally won her over. Probably not, but I decided to go with that thought anyway.
When she spoke again, her voice was soft, deliberate, delightfully seductive. “Let’s just say I’m really glad you’re asking me out now. See you Saturday, down on the square. Bring your A game.”
We said good-bye. I returned inside and walked to the back of the house in a slightly euphoric daze, oblivious to the numbing chill of the previous minutes in the December cold. I was exhilarated, staring vacantly at the warm and orderly kitchen around me. The remnant smells of cooking, the echoes of laughter and conversation from earlier in the evening, and now the charming, lilting resonance of Christine’s voice filled the room. The air was electric. I was consumed, warmed with an enchanting, pure delight, and I knew that, at least for that moment, my small life in Watervalley was rich with magical possibilities. It now seemed that Saturday morning was all I could think about.
At least, that along with the towel.
CHAPTER 9
Sunflower Miller
I awoke early Friday morning, fed Rhett, showered, and decided to go over to the Depot Diner for a hot breakfast. I enjoyed being around the familiar faces down at the diner, but I usually sat at the counter reading the paper, content to eat alone. Yet when I arrived, the Depot was packed, a hubbub of clanging dishes, laughter, and animated conversations. Watervalley was slowly coming out of hibernation.
The counter was full, so I slid into one of the open booths that lined the front windows. I ordered coffee and breakfast and opened the Watervalley paper, blissfully enjoying what I considered a perfect world, privacy amidst a crowd of friendly faces. But my peace was short-lived. I soon had a visitor, one who brazenly decided to plop down across from me and invade my breakfast serenity.
It was Sunflower Miller.
John Harris had once told me that in this life some people need drama. As I recall, he was drinking Scotch at the time and I think he was generally referring to mothers-in-law. But for me, that person was Sunflower Miller. Sunflower was Watervalley’s self-appointed hall monitor.
She was also the town’s original and only remaining flower child, who still wore tie-dyed shirts and drove an old truck plastered with peace stickers. Although widely known and accepted, Sunflower had been relegated to the margins of mainstream Watervalley. Nevertheless, she was completely at home in her own skin, content to march through her days guided by some inner desire to change the present world order. And unfortunately for me, she had decided that my medical practice was the appropriate starting place. Sunflower had a disdain for the medical community and chided me because I was a doctor, although I suspect she would chide a nondoctor if I were not around, just to stay in practice.
Since my arrival the previous July, she had been to see me several times, trying to persuade me to integrate her brand of holistic and herbal medicine into the clinic’s practice. Typically, by the end of a conversation with Sunflower, I would be hoping someone would shoot me with a tranquilizer gun.
She had placed her elbows on the table and was resting her chin on her coupled fists. I looked over the top of my paper and studied her for a moment before saying with mild sarcasm, “Hello, Sunflower. By all means, have a seat and join me.”
“Your bedside manner needs some work.”
I was doing my best to offer her a glazed, uninterested expression when the waitress brought my breakfast, the country ham special.
“Hang around five more minutes and you’ll feel the same about my table manners,” I said.
“Oh, by all means, Dr. Bradford, you go right ahead and enjoy your dead animal carcass. Don’t let me interrupt.” I took her advice and swallowed a huge bite of ham.
She was a tall, lean, athletic woman of striking Norwegian features and looked almost two decades younger than her sixty-five years. She was a marvel, actually. In her unadorned, organic way she was markedly beautiful. Even still, time had left streaks of gray within her blond hair, now neatly pulled back into a long ponytail. Despite her penchant for no makeup and sloppy clothes, she retained a weathered prettiness.
A silent minute passed and clearly she wasn’t leaving. “Sunflower,” I began, “why are you here at the diner? I thought you lived off a diet of tofu and dandelion fuzz.”
“Even vegetarians like coffee, Doc. Besides, Lida buys all her eggs from me. So despite your misguided culinary ways, at least your scramble there comes from free-range chickens.”
“You know, Sunflower, I make house calls. That sort of makes me a free-range doctor. Think I can get a little credit for that?”
She ignored this comment. “I’ve got something I want you to agree to.”
I took a sip of coffee. “I’m open to agreement, Sunflower, provided agreement is all that’s required of me.”
“I understand the clinic is getting a new nurse. I want to team up with her and initiate some holistic health practices.”
I swallowed a bite of ham and egg and wiped my chin with my napkin. Then I spoke in a confidential whisper. “Sunflower, listen.” I paused for a moment, looked to the side, and then focused on her again. “Dear, I think your crazy is showing. You might want to go to the ladies’ room and tuck it back in.”
Sunflower rolled her eyes. “Come on, Doc, we’re on the same side here. I’m just trying to get you to use your powers for good rather than evil. You know, break the spell.”
I smiled and shook my head, continuing to eat. Despite her peculiarities, I liked Sunflower. She generated a kind of hypnotic fascination. She did macrobiotic gardening and lived alone on a small farm not far from Watervalley Lake. The flower child movement had long since died out, as had most of the flower children, but Sunflower seemed to be waiting for a comeback.
“I’m a little more comfortable using a stethoscope than a horoscope,” I said. “Patient assessments are a complex business. It’s not just a check sheet with the options of ‘will be okay, might get better, and circling the drain.’”
“Just hear me out, Doc.”
I exhaled a wearisome sigh. I might as well listen. Otherwise, she would keep up the verbal assault until only politeness prevented me from reaching across and smacking her. And probably more than she knew, I was actually in broad agreement with the concept of holistic care . . . that is, looking beyond just the sick or depleted body and equally considering the emotional, social, economic, and spiritual needs of the patient. The problem stemmed with the lack of boundaries with such an approach, a problem that quickly moved many holistic practices into the realm of quackery. I spoke with resignation.
“By all means, Sunflower, please do a tell-all of your sinister designs.”
“I know you won’t agree to any homeopathic medicines. That’s because the corrupt medical education machine has brainwashed you into believing in synthetic pharmaceuticals and Mercurochrome.”
“Not helping yourself here, Sunflower.”
“I want to begin a series of community classes and initiatives on proactive health management.”
“Such as?”
“Well, such as making lifestyle changes in diet, exe
rcise, good mental health, proper sleep, stress management, maybe even teaching a little tai chi.”
“Nothing wrong with any of that, except maybe the diet part. If you’re thinking about convincing everyone to be a vegetarian, that’s not going to fly in Watervalley. The people here think vegetarians are just lousy hunters.”
“Okay, I get that. But proactive health is a good thing. I want to meet with the new nurse to come up with a plan of action.”
I spent a moment considering her request. Watervalley could use more proactive thinking regarding healthy lifestyles, and rightfully, the clinic should be central to that effort. In my first six months I had focused on taking care of whatever came through the front door. But perhaps it was time to start thinking ahead.
“All right, Sunflower, here’s the deal. Let’s give the new nurse a couple of weeks to settle in. Then the three of us can put our heads together. As long as you don’t start recommending some mélange of rosemary, mustard seed, and tree bark as a cure for arthritis, I’m generally okay with what you are recommending. Proactive medicine is a good idea, but I think it’s going to be a tough sell here in the valley.”
“Good. And don’t be silly, Doc. Everybody knows that a garlic rub gets rid of arthritis.”
“As well as anyone with a nose.”
Sunflower placed her hand over mine, offering me a rich, engaging smile. “This is a good first step. I can already sense you moving away from the dark side.” There was a seasoned cleverness to her delivery. Sunflower had an odd, appealing charm, a gift of smiling in an admiring, powerful way that would make any man think he was strong, audacious, attractive. Admittedly, myself included. She was such an odd quilt of eccentricities.
