“Doctor Cooper, I think that is a terrible waste of resources,” Doctor Burton censured her, making sure there were witnesses to make the impact of his message more humiliating.
Deanna had been prepared for this ever since she had made a point of giving gifts to the village elders and notables and incorporating western culture into the festivities. “Yes, I’d agree, if they were your resources,” she nodded sympathetically.
“These aren’t from our supplies?” he asked, confused.
“Nope, part of my private stock,” she assured him with a friendly smile. “But don’t worry, I’m almost out, so you can find something then.” With that she walked away, leaving him blushing and gasping at her audacity. She had no respect for his authority! He went to Alex to have him inventory their gloves and provide him with proof that she had used the clinic’s stores.
“God, that man!” she sputtered as she entered their tent that evening.
“Have a wee bit of problem with the good Doctor Burton?” Lenny asked astutely from her cot where she was playing solitaire with a deck of cards.
“How’d you guess?” she fumed as she walked over to her cot and sat down angrily.
“He’s been jonesing for you since you got here,” she commented astutely.
“Yeah, he hasn’t liked you since day one,” Magda added. She was already under her blanket, trying to doze off, unsuccessfully, but she wasn’t tired enough, not yet, and joined in the conversation.
“It’s not my fault he didn’t know who I was,” she answered as she unlaced her high boots and pulled her sweaty feet from one and then the other. Slowly she peeled the socks off, noting she couldn’t wear them a second day in this heat.
“It was pretty funny that he accepted you as a mechanic, but not as a doctor,” Magda laughed as she remembered his face that first day.
“Maybe he has a crush on you,” Leida put in. She was dressed in pajamas for bed, but lying on top of the blankets.
“Gawd,” Deanna shuddered at the thought.
“Yeah,” Lenny agreed, laughing, as she faked a dramatic shudder.
This got Deanna laughing as she smiled at her friends. Laughing at irritations was the best way to struggle through them. At least Doctor Wilson believed in her and liked her ideas. He allowed her to do her work without interference, but if Doctor Burton had had his way, she would have been packed off already. She had received a letter forwarded from France asking if she would stay longer at Mamadu. The next plane of Doctors Without Borders that could come in, would come in. She had taken her own Rover off for a ride to the next village and worked all day alone, much to the anger of Alex who kept track of such things for their clinic. It further angered Wilson when she couldn’t be found and he lectured her on going off by herself.
Deanna knew the work in Mamadu was enough for any one doctor, much less three. She shouldn’t go off in search of more—she didn’t need to as so many came through their clinic. The supplies that Doctor Wilson had brought in were rapidly depleted. The war-torn country was home to a lot of refugees trying to escape the conflicts. They were all grateful it was no longer an issue in this area; this was considered a ‘safe’ zone.
“Harlan found another unexploded land mine today. Fortunately, he saw it before he plowed it up,” Maddie put in to change the subject. No one liked working with Doctor Burton these days. He definitely had an attitude that was not conducive to harmony in the ranks.
“One of these days we are going to be bringing that guy in on a stretcher,” Leida contributed.
“At least he is teaching the locals how to use the equipment now,” Maddie answered. She averted her eyes as she saw Deanna changing for bed, but she noticed that Lenny didn’t bother looking away. She watched the physically fit doctor, who had a penchant for nice underwear, change into a t-shirt and shorts, taking her bra off under the t-shirt. Maddie wondered once again if the rumors were true that Lenny liked women.
“Yeah, but that was due to Wilson’s suggestion, not Deanna’s,” Lenny added. She turned away from the show of the fit doctor changing for bed.
“I kinda want to smack his head to get him to see sense sometimes,” Deanna put in.
“Which one, Harlan or Burton?” Lenny said with a smile.
They all started to laugh at that. Two hard-headed men in camp were two too many!
* * * * *
“Would you like to go for a walk?” Deanna asked Maddie a few nights later when the rush of their daily work was over.
“I’d like that,” Maddie said from where she was reading a book on her cot. She quickly smacked her boots together upside down and put them on, tying up the laces.
“Today wasn’t so bad was it?” Deanna asked as they walked along the path toward the river.
“No, not really. Not that much different than any other day,” the shorter redhead added.
“Getting bored with it all?”
“No, I find it fascinating. I wish I could learn the languages,” she lamented. Maddie held Deanna in awe. She was picking up words very quickly and could, in a way, speak with the locals. She wasn’t completely accurate, but she already knew enough that they were pleased to help her.
They chatted easily, as friends were apt to do. A little gossip, a little teasing, and a lot of fun as they walked along before the sun set completely and they had to be back in camp.
Maddie liked that Deanna challenged her way of thinking. They were of a similar age, but Deanna had done so much more, had a head start in life, and very definite ideas of where she was going. She loved working with these people, found it challenging, and was looking forward to her next assignment. “I got stuck in the Amazon four more months than they planned because of a typo on some paperwork; they lost me!” she explained in one of her stories, telling about how much she learned by having that extra time with the tribe she had been working with. “They were fascinating people!”
“Weren’t you scared that you would never get out?”
She shrugged philosophically. “I was willing to stay another year if I had to. I think I may go back someday. There was so much to learn from them. There is so much to learn in a tropical rain forest, and so much to learn from the locals. They know so much, but they have to trust you before they will impart it.” She smiled in remembrance of other times, pleasant, happy times that she had actually enjoyed.
“Someday you might get married and have to settle down,” Maddie teased, knowing her friend wasn’t there yet, might never be there. She was young and smart and adventurous. It was amazing to see the dynamo that was Doctor Cooper.
“I don’t think that will ever happen,” Deanna said sadly.
Maddie wondered at the sad note in her voice. “Did you have someone back home?”
“Once I thought I did, but it didn’t work out,” she explained without giving particulars.
“Well, we have all loved and lost,” she answered philosophically and then felt like an ass for saying it.
Deanna laughed instead. “Yeah, I guess we have to date a few before we find our one.”
“I’ll find my Prince Charming,” Maddie assured her.
“No thanks.”
“What! You don’t want a Prince Charming?” the teasing was back.
“Oh, hell no. He would probably leave you in that castle. Maybe up in one of those turrets, scrubbing the floor for his lazy ass,” she elaborated and they both started laughing at the image she created.
“But he could ride in on his noble steed and sweep me off my feet,” she countered.
“Or, as he is sweeping you up, his horse sidesteps and you end up in the mud.”
They both laughed harder at the imagery and the sarcasm that Deanna shared. It was silly and fun.
“Oh, gawd. My side is aching,” Maddie leaned over slightly as she tried to get her breath back.
“You okay?” Deanna gasped, also trying to get enough oxygen into her lungs from laughing so hard. She put her hand on Maddie’s lower back to comfort her.<
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“You are hilarious,” she added as she slowly straightened up and Deanna’s hand fell off her. “You don’t want to ever get married?”
“Oh, I’d like to, but it’s frowned on,” she confided and then thought perhaps she should have kept that to herself. She glanced at Maddie who was looking at her with questions in her eyes.
“Your family doesn’t want you to marry?”
“They’d love me to. I just don’t like their choices,” she answered, perhaps with a trace of bitterness in her voice.
“Are your parents alive?”
Nodding Deanna continued on this safer subject as they turned to head back to camp. The sun was setting and they wanted to be back before dark. “Yes, my father runs a firm and my mother spends the money it makes,” she laughed.
“Do you have any sisters or brothers, or are you an only child?”
“I’ve got an older sister. I was an accident. I think my parents ran out of TV to watch one night and oops, I was conceived. Since I was such a surprise and so late in their life, I think God made me a child prodigy in order to hurry up my development. When they realized what they had, they threw everything they had at me to challenge me. I rose to all of them.” She smiled in memory at her childhood, which had been very, very short. “I loved all the knowledge I could gain; I absorbed books. I finished high school in two years and only because they tried to hold me back. I was done with college by fourteen, medical school and my internship by the time I was twenty-one.”
This confirmed some of the other stories that Deanna had told them so Maddie knew that she wasn’t lying. It still amazed her. It almost made the rest of them feel so...inadequate. “You seem normal,” she muttered.
“Oh, yes, my parents made sure of that. I had regular sessions with therapists, psychologists, psychotherapists…anyone with a pysch in their degree examined, poked, and prodded my brain. I’m a freak. I know it, I relish it.”
“But you were in college when most of us were just getting pimples,” she stated, remembering her own awkward teenage years.
“Yes, but I was also in private schools and being challenged. I didn’t realize I was missing anything. To me, that was normal,” she explained.
“You make it sound so simple. I can’t imagine.”
“Well, it wasn’t like my hormones had kicked in then. Yeah, I had pimples, but they showed up when I was like nineteen. I already looked like a kid. Can you imagine your doctor having pimples?” she laughed and Maddie shared in the laughter at that thought. “Seriously, I’m grateful my parents had the money to send me to the schools that I was able to attend. I graduated debt-free and, while they didn’t approve of my specialties, they allowed me to indulge. There was a time they had tried to get me to go into business or law,” she shuddered for dramatic affect and they shared a chuckle as they walked along.
“I can’t imagine you in business or law,” she snickered a little at the thought. “What does your sister do?”
“She went into the family business with Dad. She had to do something. She’s ten years older than I am, but I caught up and surpassed her. She was pretty resentful until she found her groove.”
“That’s good. I guess it wasn’t easy having a super smart sister.”
“And a teenage one at that.” She chuckled again. “God, I was such a smart ass. We’re good now, but I had to mature, and fast. Dealing with adults who weren’t about to put up with a smart-aleck kid, I learned.”
Maddie could only imagine. This woman had such an amazing life, she really respected her. She was so...normal to talk to.
Their walk took them back to their tent. It wasn’t the first time they had gone off alone together and it wouldn’t be the last. The women often went off in twos and threes to get to know each other better. A couple of times the men went with them. Occasionally a man and a woman would pair off.
Everyone noted when Lenny began walking out with one of the elder’s daughters more and more. At first it was supposedly so the woman could learn English better, but as it became more frequent, rumors began.
“Do you think she is really...?” whispered Leida to Maddie.
Deanna overheard, and remembering the conversation in the Rover, she stiffened up. This time, Maddie noticed and just shook her head at Leida to quiet her and the gossip. It was inevitable in a community as small as theirs that this type of behavior was noted. She thought perhaps that Deanna just didn’t approve of the gossip. She asked her about it the next time they took a walk.
“You don’t like gossip do you?”
Deanna already sensed this was about Lenny. She thought the two of them made a fine couple, but it was no one’s business but the women involved. “I don’t encourage it, if that’s what you mean,” she answered carefully.
“So, what do you think about Lenny?”
“I think what she does is her concern,” she answered in a no-argument tone.
“You don’t approve?”
“Actually, I do.”
“You do?”
“Yes, if what they are saying is true. Love is hard enough to find. It shouldn’t matter who it’s with.”
“But they are...” she trailed off, not able to say the word.
“Lesbians?” Deanna finished for her and looked down at her judgmental friend. They had stopped walking and hadn’t noticed the clouds moving in from the west. The sun was fading faster than normal. They were due for some storms and the dry season would officially be over. The villagers had feared grass fires and Harlan had fretted that the crops he was planting would shrivel and die.
“Y..ye..yes,” she stuttered at the word.
“What’s wrong with that?” she challenged.
“It’s immoral, it’s....”
“Different?” she finished for her again. She was getting angry. She knew why, but it didn’t stop her. “Why is it that anyone who is different than what people consider their norm is wrong or not allowed?” she asked, her voice becoming stern.
It was then that Maddie realized where Deanna was coming from, or thought she did. She’d always been different, the outsider, too young to fit in with her contemporaries, too smart for her own age group. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised that it would be allowed.”
“Are you aware that some cultures readily accept homosexuality? Even some species? It’s only humans that don’t. Hell, the American Natives accepted it hundreds of years before the Europeans even landed in the Americas! They called it Twin-Spirits. They understood that a male essence can live in a female’s body or vice versa.” She realized she was lecturing and stopped herself. Glancing around, she became aware that the birds had stopped chirping. She looked up and saw the oncoming clouds. “Come on, we better be getting back.”
Maddie looked up too, realizing the danger of being caught out. While it hadn’t rained the entire time they had been here so far, they had heard stories of flash floods and worse. They hurried back. They were the first in their tent, and none too soon as the rain that had waited months to come back, came down in droves. “Hey, I’m sorry back there. I didn’t mean anything by it...” she began as they both watched through the open doorway at how quickly it got dark and the rain began pouring down.
“Think nothing of it,” Deanna said back. Her sunny disposition was apparent as she quickly forgave the words between them.
Maddie wondered at how tolerant Deanna was. Was it because of her higher education or perhaps because she more intelligent than the rest of them? The woman was fascinating on so many levels and could converse on almost any subject.
Suddenly Magda ran in. She had a towel over her head, but she was soaked to the skin. They both saw her at the last instant before she collided with them and stepped back to let her into the tent. “Is Lenny here?” she asked breathlessly in French.
“No, we just got back before the rain started. No one is here,” Deanna answered. She reached for the wet towel, but Magda pulled back. “Is something wrong?”
“The villagers are looking for Emmanulla and she was last seen with Lenny. I was hoping she was here so that they wouldn’t find...” she stopped when she realized what she was saying aloud.
Deanna understood her concern immediately. She bit her lip, thinking. There was nothing they could do at the moment but wait until they were found, or until they returned.
Magda dripped there a moment before heading to her bunk to open her footlocker and get some dry clothes. The other two turned to look outside as Maddie asked Deanna to clarify what Magda had said…her French wasn’t as good as the others.
“What happens if they are discovered together?” she asked in English once Deanna explained.
“I don’t know. The elders know they walk out together,” she answered worriedly.
“But what if they are, you know, together?” she wondered aloud.
Deanna wanted to snap at her friend, but she had wondered that too and just hadn’t verbalized it. She knew it was dangerous what Lenny might be doing. It depended on the culture and what they would accept. Lenny was white, Emmanulla was black, and they were both women. She was pretty certain, but she didn’t know, if that was acceptable among any of these African cultures or tribes. She hoped if they were found, it was in an acceptable situation and not what was being implied here. She shrugged in answer to Maddie’s statement. Turning, she went to her cot and began to change for bed. It wasn’t quite bedtime, but she couldn’t imagine going out in the deluge outside the tent.
Maddie looked at Deanna and then gazed outside for a moment, wondering what it would be like to kiss a woman instead of a man. Deanna had given her food for thought. She wondered if she was just intolerant because of how she was raised. Just because others believed it, didn’t make it right or wrong. As Deanna had said, it was accepted in some cultures, and it was certainly accepted in some species—she knew that from biology. She had a lot to think about as she got herself ready for bed.
It was still raining the next morning when they all got up. It was decidedly cooler and no one was wearing shorts as they pulled on jeans, pants, and then slickers to keep the rain off. After a mad dash to the latrines and then the food tent, they were soaked through. The rain seemed to leap up off the ground. The dirt didn’t absorb the water and the splashes from the rain drops came back up off the ground to get them wet a second time.
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